155 Gallons in 2011.

I brewed Jammie's Saison the other day.  It turned into an epic beer with a 9.5% alcohol potential.  We also put quite a few flowers/spices/seeds into the beer.

All of this went in the beer.  CRAZY!

The list: Crushed Coriander Seed, Orange zest, Part Wild Blossom Honey/Part David Darling Vintage 2010 Honey, aroma hops, Chamomile, Rosebuds, Juniper Berries. 

This is me trying something different and siphoning out of the boil kettle.  The idea is to whirlpool the wort after the boil in order to pull all of the sediment to the center of the kettle.

 

 Proof that my whirlpool actually did something.  The sediment is showing through in the center I ended up netting a half gallon less than I wanted but the proof is in the sediment.  The biggest problem I was having was the chamomile flowers clogging my racking cane.

My first time committing to the whirlpool/siphon method.

 The other day I was on my way home from La Quinta, and when passing through Temecula I decided to stop by Black Market Brewing to have a beer.  It's always tempting, but I'm usually deterred by Temecula traffic, but I figured Saturday was probably one of the better days of the week to venture into town.  I had a delicous Schwartzbier, and hung out for a little while.  While there I learned about a homebrew competition that they were having.  After looking at their website I not only found out they were indeed having a competition, but also hiring.  I have been wanting to enter a competition and took this opportunity to register for the AHA (American Homebrewers Association) as it is an AHA sanctioned competition it is required.  I feel like this is a little step forward, and I hope this experience positively influences my confidence.  The best of show gets to brew a commercial batch with Black Market and it will be submitted to the Great American Beer Festival Pro-Am.  I also sent them my resume.  I will plan a trip up there to try to talk to someone in person.   I have previously applied here and was in contact with the head brewer who subsequently blew me off.  Apparently he no longer works there, so I feel like I'm starting with a clean slate.  I plan on submitting my Northern German Altbier into the competition which I kegged on Saturday when I got home.  It is tasting pretty darn good and I think it is right up the ally of the Black Market guys who brew a lot of traditional German beers.  I really wish I had some of the roggenbier to submit.  I ordered ingredients yesterday for a couple batches of it.

I made a porter today.  I would submit it as well, but I don't know how it will turn out and I don't think I can get it ready in time.  I started early which was really nice and provided my with almost half the day afterward to do other things.  Jammie's friend from work who is also a home brewer stopped by for a beer, it was fun to talk to someone else about home brewing.  It would seem I need to branch out and maybe join a club and meet some other people in the hobby.

Here is an amazing video of wolfgang I found on Jammie's camera.  He ate the whole piece, but the video is only of the end of it.  

Sorry I couldn't figure out how to rotate it.  He loves watermelon and eats it just like we do.  Wolfgang is the man.  Okay one more picture, from our month of August van camping.

Los Angeles

I will start off by saying that I've been having the worst technology interaction so far today.  My iPhone won't talk to my computer, so I can't easily get the photos off my phone anymore (the reason the last post was my first non-picture post).  After getting frustrated with that and going to the work to email all the photos to myself, I went to download them to my laptop and now the mousepad on the laptop isn't working.  I tried restarting and everything.  Frustrating to say the least.  Now I really need a job so I can replace the two of these. 

Saturday was a blast.  I had to get up relatively early to head up for a 12:00 load in.  I ended up getting there a bit early as I made sure to allow for traffic delays through LA.  The Nokia Club is right in the entertainment complex that is the Staples Center, and there was quite a bit going on around there.  Something with Breaking Dawn had a whole area filled with people camped in tents. Crazy!

Staples Center home of the worst team in basketball...

Monitor World - Soundcraft Vi6 console, Crown amps, 12AM wedges

The whole day was good, setup and sound check was a bit drawn out due to various reasons, but everything was good to go with plenty of time to walk around to find some food.  The situation was a little weird, as the guy that has mixed monitors for them a few times showed up late, took over and mixed the sound check, then left halfway through the first song to go work somewhere else.  It was nice of him to do the majority of the work, but it made it even more awkward for me to step in after the first song and take on a mix someone else set up on a console I hadn't used before.  I paid careful attention to what he was doing throughout the day so I wasn't walking in blind.  I felt pretty useless throughout the day as I was just learning how to set all their gear, but both chris and chad recognized that was really all I could do and were very appreciative of my help.  Chad, the tour manager, was a very nice guy and I really hope I will get offered a job on their tour, even if its not strictly in monitors. 

View of show.  Crazy Lighting rig

The show itself was the craziest most intense show I've worked in a long time.  The whole band brings a lot of energy to the stage, combined with an awesome light show and a sold out crowd, it was a lot of fun.  I was sweating my ass off and really stressed out, but I think I did okay.  It was a pretty ridiculous situation to be put in, but the only thing I think I could have done better was to help the drummer fix his pedal when it came apart during the set.  In my defense he didn't really communicate with me and I couldn't see the pedal due to the amount of lights and equipment between us.  In the photo above shows about how much of the drummer I could see.  I was able to see his face through the lighting truss for any monitor changes, and I walked out in front of my console regularly to try to make sure he was good.  All in all a lot of fun and I definitely enjoyed it.

I almost forgot.  Being that Donald is also a writer/actor/comedian he is heavily involved in the entertainment biz out in LA.  There were quite a few minor celebrities there which was fun.  Blake Griffin, white redhead who plays for the LA clippers, jumped out on stage at one point, and I saw at least a couple actresses there.  Most of what I have worked hasn't been on this side of the music scene, so its a little weird to go to work and have it be that.  

I have a couple more pictures to compensate for the lack of pictures in the last post.

From one jetty to another.

Overlooking the Lagoon in Carlsbad.

At the time of the second picture I could see this wall of fog just hitting the beach and then within 5 minutes it has crept across the coast hwy and filled the lagoon.  Really cool/weird to watch.

I am off to brew a saison.  Check back soon.

Work!

So the good news is I have some work for this weekend.  I'll be working with my good friend Chris Petillo, who is the Front-of-house engineer for Donald Glover's band aka Childish Gambino.  Its just one date up in LA for now, but I am trying to be optimistic about doing a great job and them inviting me on tour.   The tour manager also manages a few other bands, so there is also potential there.  All boils down to doing a great job mixing monitors(on a digital console I've never used of course...) and doing a job I've had a few months off of.  Either way I'm very excited, worse case I will make a little money and get to spend a day hangin with chris p.  I will take lots of pictures and do a post event update.  It just might be the perfect place to get in on a gig that would be a lot of fun and potentially a good job for a little while...This is the second time they will be playing they new album, so I imagine there will be a full tour very soon supporting the release of the album.

I have also been doing some brewing stuff.  Planning on making a saison tomorrow.  Saisons are one of my favorite styles and I haven't made one yet.  I kegged the roggenbier (german rye beer) on 11/3, which was also a brew day.  The roggenbier is now carbonated and I am pretty happy with how the beer came out.  It is very smooth with a nice chocolate roasty finish.  The rye didn't show through as far as I can tell.  Next time I will use a larger percentage of rye.  The newest brew was supposed to be Janets Brown, which I have brewed before(was delicious), it wasn't until I recently revisited the recipe I realized it wasn't a correct reproduction at all.  So I rebuilt the recipe, but then it wasn't until I was mashing in that I realized that I completely botched this recipe too and didn't use the appropriate portion of chocolate malt.  In my bulk ingredient buying I have a surplus of a few specialty grains that go very slowly, one is pale chocolate, so I try to use it whenever possible.  Pale chocolate malt is less roasted than the chocolate malt the recipe called for.  I should have used more of it to compensate for the color and flavor difference but didn't, so the result is an amber ale instead of a brown ale.  I plan to brew Janets Brown for real in the next month to see if I can actually do it.

That's all I got for today.  I am planning on trying to make the blog a little more educational and include some specifics and step by step instructional things, not just for beer, but also bike/moped repair, random projects and cooking with beer.  Jammie and I made beer battered Jalapeno poppers with pepperjack cheese and bacon on the inside.  It was a lot of work, but a lot of fun, resulting in some good poppers.

P.S. I couldn't help but smile to myself that the only work I've been able to get since leaving CO is sound work.  This is only funny because it perfectly aligns with my ranting about no one willing to give you a job unless you have 5 years experience doing something and I happen to have about 5 - 6 years of experience mixing sound. ridiculous.