Jammie, Wolfgang and I went to Joshua Tree. Here is the photo evidence.

Ocatillo!

Jammie and Wolfgang at the top of Mt. Ryan.

Don't tell anyone that wolfgang was there, as apparently he's not supposed to go on the hiking trails.  He sure did have a lot of fun hiking with us though, and I think we managed to wear him out a bit too.  After the first day we were hanging out by the campfire and all he wanted to do was sleep in the camper. 

Our campsite at Jumbo Rocks.  Awesome setting.

Campsite from ground level...

For dinner we made our favorite camping food, poorboys, we used some small cuts of steak instead of ground beef in them and boy were they good. 

Wolfgang and I towards the end of our 6.5 mile hike the second day.

vw and beer.

Beer Updates:

A week and a half ago I remade the roasted roggenbier.  I used half a pound more rye malt in #2, which should bring more rye character in addition to bumping the starting gravity from 1.050 to 1.054.  I really enjoyed the first rendition, so I am eagerly anticipating the second.  The majority of the keg might end up at the Sublime Ale House holiday party though as a part of my continued effort to build some street cred...We'll see how it turns out before I get ahead of myself.

Mashing and about to remove the oil filter. 

During the mash and mash-out I multi-tasked like crazy and changed the oil in the camper.  Its had 5000 miles put on the new engine already, adds up a lot faster than you think.  Of all the cars I've owned so far, the camper is by far the easiest to change the oil.  It has plenty of clearance off the ground, and the drain plug and filter are within easy reach from the back.

The porter is done and needs to be moved to a keg.  It has a lot of roasted chocolate flavor, I am excited to see how carbonation changes and mellows out the roasted malt bitterness. 

Uncarbonated sample of saison #1(name tbd)

Racking Saison to a keg to mix with bottling sugar.

I haven't naturally carbonated a beer in a long time, and the last time I didn't own a beer gun.  I have however bottled a lot of carbonated beer, especially recently, and the beer gun is essential.  It only made sense to use a keg as a bottling bucket and bottle out of it with the beer gun.  I can still purge bottles with CO2 and push it out of the keg.  I suppose people who use a bottling bucket would call this a waste of CO2, but it really isn't very expensive, and my 20lb tank lasts a long time. 

$60 Colana Capper/Corker

My new corker along with all the necessary supplies for bottling.  I thought about doing a step by step writeup of our corking experience, but I would just be copying all the information I found here: Brew Your Own - Corking Belgians.  It is a very well written article, and is one of the reasons I bought the corker I did. 

Watch out! She has a beer gun.

For our first belgian bottling attempt, I think it went very well.  Jammie filled the bottles, I corked them, and we both went back and put wire cages on them.  I had done quite a few practice runs with the corker to get the cork in the right amount, but we hadn't tried putting cages on them, luckily you can just take it off and try again with a new one.  I ordered 100 of both belgian corks and wire cages, so we had a few to mess up.

Jammie twisting a wire cage on to hold that cork in.

Although I haven't had any of the saison in carbonated form, I am very happy with how the bottling process went.  Bottling uncarbonated beer is substantially easier, enjoyable, and way less messy than carbonated beer.  I might just do this for a lot more beers in the future. 

More beer related news:

Here is a sweet write-up from a beer blog about a beer vending machine.  Pretty awesome concept and I am impressed with the execution.  


Moped update:  The Peugeot still needs to be re-timed,  which requires a flywheel puller which I haven't ordered yet.   The pinto is running the best it has since I've owned it.  It is pulling great off the line and accelerates steadily to 40 mph.  It is very exciting to have finally tuned it to a good point and makes it a lot of fun to ride.  The idle is still a little rough, but I took it for a 4 or 5 mile ride the other day and it ran great and although the idle will go down really low it never dies.

Cheers!

Beer updates:

- Hoppy Amber - My renamed brown ale mistake.  The hop flavor, aroma, and bitterness is nice for a mellow IPA.  I am not really happy with how the malt flavor backs up the hops though.  The pale chocolate and richer malts are a little muddled behind the hops.  The hop aroma is what makes me really happy.  I was struggling with hoppy beers in Denver, and I don't know if it was water related or hops related.  I have changed both for my recent batches, and whichever it was I am very happy with the result.  My first dry-hopped beer that actually smells like hops, very exciting. 

Its a good drinkable beer, and works perfectly as a tap filler for a couple weeks.

Nice foamy head!

 
- Northern German Alt - My 2011 Temecula Valley Homebrewers Contest entry.  It is a very mellow smooth drinkable beer.  I lagered it for just over 3 weeks, so I has a very smooth lager character in its mouthfeel and malt flavor.  I remember my first version of this having a bit more malt flavor, but overall the beer is very good.  Alaskan Amber is a well known example of this style, but I don't think their version is lagered.  Jammie and I just got back from Temecula dropping off my submission, so we will see what happens.

- Saison #1 - I went to hydrobrew the other day to get a few yeast vials and I also made sure to get a champagne yeast packet for the saison.  After testing it I didn't need to get a champagne yeast.   The beer has finished out to 1.010 which puts it right around 90% apparent attenuation.  Attenuation is a measure of the amount of sugar the yeast actually consumed compared to how much was available for it to eat.  Apparent attenuation is a technical word for I can't measure the actual attenuation because the alcohol now present in the beer has an affect on the accuracy of the measuring device.  Either way 90% attenuation is remarkable, and I certainly didn't expect the saison yeast to go that far.  I am calling this beer done and moved it to the kegerator to cold crash.  I have been using my heater blanket to keep this beer warm as the saison yeast performs the best and produces the best flavors at warmer temperatures.

I have ordered some more equipment for an exciting project involving the saison and the champagne yeast I bought for it.  Check back in a week or so for an update on that.  

- Porter - The porter has been progressing a little slowly.  I am having a good problem in 'winter' carlsbad, its too cold in my garage, or maybe its just right.  I started the fermentation of this beer in a water bath, which is a large tub that I put the carboy in and fill with water.  The water acts as a big heat sink and keeps the beer at a relatively constant temperature.  A stable temperature is very important to yeast health and the resulting beer flavor.  The problem I'm having is the temperature that it is stabilizing to is around 64F - 65F, which is a little low for some ale yeasts.  After a week in the water bath the beer was only halfway done.   Now that the heater blanket is available from the saison primary I moved the porter out of the water bath and attached the heater to it.  I have started to slowly raise the temperature on it and will do so about 1 degree per day for the next week to finish it out.  My initial taste test, although a little sweet still, was spectacular with a delicious chocolate roasty finish.

Porter with heater blanket...

- Kegerator - I have expanded my beer tap capacity by 30%!!!  Well almost.  I added the tap to the kegerator although there isn't a 3rd beer ready for it yet.  ALSO in my search for some cheap small tap handles I came across a very clean/simple solution.  It is called a threaded coupler and is basically a really long threaded nut.  The best part is they cost $1.17 at True Value, which is good with me.  They also provide the perfect amount of leverage on the taps, making them easy to operate without being big.  The big handles I have are extremely bulky, often in the way, get bumped (which wastes beer), as well as providing the operator with way too much leverage on the little tap assemblies.

Third tap and new handles.

I only have one of the middle tap, which is also the nicest of the taps I have.  I have 3 that match, I just didn't want to go through the work of changing it out.  Expect to see a better picture of 3 matching taps/handles in the near future. 


VW update:  It is running. Though the idle bouncing drives me crazy...

Moped update: They aren't running.  More on this soon.

Bike update: I put a pair of BMX pedals that I've had for a while on my fixed gear.  It required some new small fasteners to attach my feetbelts to them, but they are nice and big and very comfortable to ride with.  They are also plastic and lighter than my metal ones; I saved at least 10 grams.  haha.  I have no idea, but I'm sure they're lighter.  next is some front brakes for the fixie. Although I've been riding it a lot more and I am pretty sure my legs are getting in better shape.

Other:

I got glasses again.  I haven't had a proper prescription for my eyeglasses for quite a while(say 4 years?), and I lost my most recent pair of glasses a year or two ago, so I have been blissfully floating though life with much less than perfect vision.  My parents came to Carlsbad last week, where our long time optometrist has an office, my mom has been having some weird problems with one of her eyes..not good. I decided to piggy back their appointment and get my eyes checked out.  Dr. Fitzpatrick seemed a bit put off by the fact that I didn't have any glasses at all, and after an eye exam his frustration seemed justified.  My eyes are pretty bad.  SO long story short I have a new pair of glasses.  I let Jammie have input on the style of frames I got and although I was skeptical at first, if glasses have to be a full time part of my life, then they might as well be visible and stylish.

Sorry for the poor quality picture.

Not the best picture, but you get the idea.  I like them, and although it is very different, being able to see really well is also pretty different.  I drove at night for the first time tonight and I felt like there was a significant improvement in my night vision.

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. 

Its a Van again.

There is always lots of things to do with the van, but I'm happy that I got it up and going again.  The replacement part went in very easily and it looks good too. (pictured below)

Sweet new bleeder valve/hose thing.

Its always nice to have some shiny silver stuff in the engine bay to contrast the black hoses and 25 year old dirt.  The small hose is what snapped off the old plastic piece.  I don't know exactly what it does, but I imagine it is some sort of system pressure balancing crossover.  Either way it's important that its attached so coolant doesn't leak out. 

I've been meaning to clean up the inside and outside of the van.  Although I didn't get to the outside yesterday, I managed to vacuum it out and clean up the dashboard and rear deck area over the engine bay.

I bought some long handled pruners and a trash can for yard waste yesterday, so today I spent some time on the oleanders in the front and it didn't take long to fill up the trash can.  The trash (and hopefully yard waste) gets picked up tomorrow, so tomorrow afternoon I will work on the fruit trees in the back.  The fruit trees have a bunch of white fly and aphids and such, so they need to be cleaned up and maybe sprayed with some Neem Oil. 

On friday I applied for a cable assembly position at a place in San Marcos. I might call them tomorrow and see if they will give me a chance.  I also have to drop of my application at Pizza Port, I have been hesitating because..I don't know why.  I will do that tomorrow too, I swear.

The beers are almost crashed, I had the freezer set at 65 F to finish out the primary fermentation of the rye beer, so it has taken it a little while to get 10 gallons of beer down to 35 F.  The beer acts as a big heat sink, and especially without any airflow it takes a long time for the convection heat transfer to take place.  I'd be willing to bet that the conduction heat transfer between the bottom of the freezer and the carboy provides a large portion of the cooling process.  I really need to install a small computer fan in the freezer to keep the air moving and it should really help even out the temperature inside.  Once they are settled out pretty good I am going to rack the N.G. Alt bier into the secondary carboy.  Prior to doing this I am going to prepare a couple yeast starters (starter = base beer for propagating yeast) in order to harvest some of the German Ale yeast off the bottom of the carboy.  I plan on trying out the WLP029 German Ale yeast in the Janet's Brown Ale that I'm going to brew this week.  This is an effort to save money on yeast as well as play around with different yeasts and try to find a few really versatile strains.  This particular strain is said to be very clean fermenting and suitable for quite a few styles, so why not try it out.

2 updates in one day, but only because I should have posted the first one a day or two ago.
Cheers.