Monday, December 26, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

Ben Franklin Post 2

General virtual is more probable to be expected and obtained from the education of youth then the exhortation of adult persons. 
Bad habits and virtues of the mind being like diseases of the body, are more easily prevented (in youth) than cured in adults. 

Saturday, November 12, 2011

Double Tap Undead Ale

This is the premier of my latest creation. The Double Tap Undead Ale is based on a Strong Ale with German and American hops.
I used a "fruitier " yeast for this and it turned out great! 9.1% and very smooth.
Cheers!

Sunday, September 25, 2011

The Pumpkin Ale

Tastes fantastic. Very happy with the flavors and balance. Definitely one of my best!

The Eric Stout

Transferred the Eric Stout for conditioning. Tastes fantastic. Baking the oats really added some great flavors.

Saturday, September 3, 2011

Smells like pumpkin pie.

Just added 5lbs of pumpkin and 4oz o molasses after baking it for an hour. Smells great!!

Friday, August 12, 2011

You're Drinking Your Beer Wrong!

See this glass? It's better for most beers than those shaker pints we're forced to drink our craft ale from.
Why? Aroma for one and trust me when you're drinking an ale with aroma like this you'll thank me.

Saturday, July 23, 2011

Today in History: The Sub That Sank a Train

66 years ago today Commander Eugene "Lucky" Fluckey and the crew from the USS Barb did two things no sub had ever done. One, successfully land an attack party on Japanese soil, and two, "sink" a train. The team members used scuttle charges from the Barb and wired them to a homemade microswitch. Around 1:45AM a train engine carrying supplies triggered the switch and blew 200 feet into the air.
Paul Saunders, William Hatfield, Francis Sever, Lawrence Newland, Edward Klinglesmith, James Richard, John Markuson, and William Walker. 
These 8 guys were the only US troops to ever launch a ground combat operation on Japanese soil.  Leave it to those Submariners! 

So today in honor of that ingenious and heroic attack I'll be opening a Fluckey's Ghost at 1:45PM. Way to go guys. 

Friday, July 22, 2011

Sam Adam's Lattitude 48 (deconstructed) - East Kent Goldings

Earthy yet fruity. I like this but like the Zeus edition better.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Cheers!! Grayson's Kiwit

Grayson's Kiwit. A kiwifruit infused Belgian Wit made with a hefewiezen yeast strain that provides a hint of banana. Prost!!
-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Christmas in July!

Thirsty Dog - 12 Dogs of Christmas Ale
I found this in the beer frig tonight and thought why not?
Very good but a little heavy for 90 degree weather. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Grayson's Key Whit

Lighting the brewing lamp early this morning. What am I brewing? It's a wit style ale using a lot of kiwi and a hint of coriander.
Brew on!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Paw Paw Wheat and Three Frogs IPA

The 1st is from Weasel Boy brewing. The 2nd is from Elevator Brewing. Both Columbus breweries. Both awesome. More to come.....

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Beer Review - Kentucky Bourbon Ale

Aroma - Heavy vanilla and whiskey. Very interesting. Slight honey and peat.
Appearance - Brilliant amber and very clear. The white head dissappeared quickly. Looks like bourbon.
Taste - Bold whiskey, sweet malt, and orange peel(?). It leaves a bit of honey sweetness behind.
Overall a very tastey beverage. Not a session brew since the whiskey is very strong. I would have loved to try a nice stogie with it.


Thanks Maureen!






-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Kitchen Sink Rye - Done

I threw together this IPA about 4 weeks ago. I had some spare belgian caramel, crystal, and 8oz of rye. Threw in some columbus and centennial hops. Racked it onto the yeast from Fluckey's Ghost, ending up with a final gravity of 1.012. It's very good. 
Care for a pint? Freshly tapped today! I'm going to offer it up for a trade with a neighbor who's rented a BBQ smoker for the afternoon. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Epic Beer Commercial

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Day One - The Yeast Are Happy

I just checked on the Dreadnaught and it's fermenting like crazy. Too high in fact. The temp is 76 degrees so I'm going start chilling it down to 68 over the next several hours.
It actually blew through the blow off at the top! 

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Saturday, June 4, 2011

The Rye Is Dead Long Live The Rya

We have to make this again! One of my best.
Brew On Brothers!

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Friday, June 3, 2011

Hey Kids Watch Me Make This Bag Disappear!

Big brew day tomorrow! The brewing lamp will be lit around 1:00pm.
The list of brews goes like this:
Chris - Imperial Cascadian Dark Ale OG 1.089
Ogi - Yuengling Lager Clone
Fred - Big Bad Imperial IPA OG 1.090
Then a partigyle after with the best of both mine and Chris' mixed! 
I'm just hopin my hops get here in time. Long story.



-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Friends Who Drink But Don't Brew

Tap tip #46 : Friends who want beer from friends who brew should always offer bottles. 

Time to fill these with some good beer. 

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Saturday, April 30, 2011

A Summer Ale

The 'Brewing Lamp' will be lit this afternoon for what looks to be an all day brew session. Three of us will be brewing a summer ale that will resemble Sam Adams Summer Ale. I'd be willing to bet it'll turn out better because that's the way it is around the Seger Brewhaus! With the help of Brett and Chris this should be a fun day to brew 20 gallons (twenty, yes!) of this brew. We'll be doing a partigyle again so lets hope my numbers are correct.
Brew on!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Fred's Beer - Pearls Before Swine -

From Stephan Pastis.
I love this strip. I didn't know I was a croc let alone a dead one.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Tsunami Engulfs Kesennuma, Miyagi Prefecture

I think this will be the last post on the tsunami for a while. I've been glued to too many media outlets. It's been very hard on my psyche but I can't stop looking. I can't wrap my head around this enormous catastrophe and the more I try the harder it gets. So with that being said, the below video is a home video shot from a roof top in the  fishing town of Kesennuma.

View Larger Map
Its been there for 58 years but in a matter of 5 minutes 45 seconds, it's gone. I'm praying for the families affected by this and other towns like it. Even my 7 year old son has been very concerned and even asked his Sunday school teacher to pray for everyone affected.



It's so eerie the way the water just crept in and took everything.

Kasich's Ohio Budget Disaster

Matt Mayer via Reason.TV explains what's going on with Kasich's new budget. Spending our way out of debt is not responsible, it's stupid. At least Kasich can bring D's and R's together in this issue right?


Saturday, March 26, 2011

Libya 'Conflict' or Whatever You Want to Call it

Seems like this operation is getting better guidance than Operation Iraqi Freedom. Of course I say this in jest.
Chief of Naval Operations - Even though we're supposedly handing over control soon they have no idea who and the US will still be doing most of the work. Foreign Policy
US Defense Secretary - No timeline when we'll be done. Yahoo
German Forces Are Separating from NATO coalition - Daily Mail

Where are all the war protesters and reports of quagmires?

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Go Navy! Operation Tomodachi

This reminds me of helping victims of Hurricane Hugo. I remember helping in a lot of clean up efforts around Mt. Pleasant, power restores, and even the cute college ladies below my apartment that needed some light. We shared some of our emergency supplies and even partied, I mean parted with some of our whiskey.


Go Navy!

Saturday, March 19, 2011

UPDATE: 18 Rad Rye IPA

The 1st runnings were boiled for 90 minutes and OG turned out to be 1.072. I was shooting for 1.090 so my efficiency was around 60%. I have to get some iodine. (If a little iodine is poured on a sample it will turn black when the sugars have been converted - don't put the sample back though :) ).
It's been a week and the fermentations been slowed down enough to test. I came up with 1.018 which is almost finished. I'd like to give it another couple days to try to get it down to around 1.010. The other "second runnings" have an OG of 1.020. Not so hot but we're mixing the two together to get closer to a session beer than an Imperial Rye Pale.
After tasting the sample of the 1st runnings I'm starting to have second thoughts about combining the two. It's going to be a very good beer. Adding the second runnings into it may stretch the taste too far. I'd like to call a meeting of the High Order of Peculiar Zymurgists to see what they think. The 1st partigyle may be a failure. If it is I'll learn from it and move on.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Some incredible sights and sounds from the tsunami. Its so hard to even grasp the terror and helplessness these people experienced.


This is some more but thankfully a happier ending. An awesome display of teamwork and heroism by strangers.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Best Friends

This is hilarious!

Gilbert Gottfried Fired from AFLAC | "Fitty Cen" a MONUMENTAL Ass Hat

Not that being the voice of a duck is a huge gig (how is this talent?) but good old Gilbert Gottfried has been fired from AFLAC for the following tweets:

"Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The Beach comes to them."
and
"I just split up with my girlfriend, but like the Japanese say, They'll be another one floating by any minute now."


I also read that 50 Cent tweeted “Look this is very serious people I had to evacuate all my hoe’s from LA, Hawaii and Japan. I had to do it. Lol,”

But beyond the utter stupidity of the these two (and even some idiot UCLA student named Alexandra Wallace) There has been some good news.

A four month old has been reunited with her parents after 3 days under the rubble. I can't imagine what those parents had been imagining. Miracles happen.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Surreal Tsunami Moment

But wait...there's more!

The following are actual posts from FaceBook and Twitter.
"thesulk" is a writer for Family Guy.

Peace, Love, and Save the Whales

 Just when you think the world pulls together in times of tragedy, the internet provides a medium for the mentally disabled. 
Wow, just wow.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

18 Rad Rye IPA - The Creation

Grab your paddles and pints it's brew day! Chris and I are doing a partigyle, a first for me (and Chris) but with any luck this'll create a double batch of rye ipa. I was trying to base this off Cromwell's IPA but the hops I needed just aren't available. I'm using Citra and Magnum in place of the Horizon and Centennial. Citra's a fairly new hop with lots of fruity flavors so this should be pretty cool to do. There's a lot of 1st's in this brew but with any luck it'll be a kick ass ale. As always I try to share my recipes for everyone to look at and tweak. I can't wait to make some bread out of this grain bed. I love rye bread. What's in the name? 18 is from the percentage of rye. Rad is a unit of radiation measurement. I always try to input something "submarine-like" into my names. After all it's Fairwater Brewing. We'll be outside most of the afternoon so come on by and grab a seat. I have plenty on tap and if the weathers nice I'll grill up some doggies.


Grain Bill
15lbs Pale
3.75lbs Rye Malt
18oz Crystal 80
4oz Roasted Malt


Hops
Magnum - 1.5oz @60
Citra - 1oz @60
Simcoe - 1.5oz @5
Amarillo - 1.5oz @0
Citra - .5oz @0

Yeast
For the yeast I'm using the Wyeast 1056 American Ale I harvested from the last Eric Stout I made. I have to admit I'm a little nervous about adding a harvested yeast from a stout but I'll throw caution to the wind today. It seemed to work well with my HoneyBell Hefe (to be blogged later).

According to Beer Smith I should have an OG of 1.089 which should be plenty for second runnings.

Now what am I doing and what's a partigyle? I'm running hot water (approximately 167 degrees) over the grains a second time to collect more wort. I'll collect 7.25 gallons of wort off the grain bed for my 1st batch. After I get that I'll continue to collect  6.5 gallons of wort for a second batch of weaker wort. Basically it's like running water over a tea bag a second time for another cup of tea. It'll be weaker but it'll still be tea.
After the initial fermentation of both batches I'll mix both together to create more even keeled ale. I'll have no idea of what the alcohol will be but I'll take an average measurement from both batches. Should be fun!

Dogfish Head Brewing is Leaving!

It's unfortunate but it seems the residents of Tennessee, Indiana, Wisconsin and Rhode Island will no longer be able to grab a pint of Dogfish Head at their local pub or even store. According to the Dogfish blog it seems as though the expansion has gotten ahead of production. Canada and the UK will also be suffering. Why those specific states? I don't know but I'm wondering if Ohio will be next. 

Friday, March 4, 2011

High Order of the Peculiar Zymurgists Calendar

I need a New Template

I'll be changing things around here soon. New layout, logo, background, etc..I need to do a lot more work here so over the next couple weeks you'll notice some changes. Some may be ugly some may be cool and from time to time it may look like an elephant came over and stomped this place in the jewels. Just be patient and know that in good time this place will be a lot better.

Friday, February 25, 2011

Van Halen - Dreams

Great inspirational video. Looks like the majority of my postings have been videos. I normally don't like playing "Fred Seger VJ!" but this is all I've had time for lately. I've got beer stuff, security stuff, and life stuff to come, so much more but it has to be a little later folks.

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Story Reads - Missile Secrets Given to Russia

Information about every Trident missile the US supplies to Britain will be given to Russia as part of an arms control deal signed by President Barack Obama next week.

I haven't seen the actual "wikileak" so you may want to look it up. If it's true what's worse? The fact it's true or the fact that I'm not surprised?

Friday, February 4, 2011

China's a weird place. How can it be capitalist and communist at the same time? Well anyway I spotted this nifty little bit and thought I'd share. What do you think? Should Mark Pi return the favor with a commercial of Hu getting drenched in Soy Sauce?
Thanks go to Fred for my invite!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Let's Follow Up with Some Shots!

After the Thomas Sowell excerpt I felt it necessary to laugh a little too.

Thomas Sowell - The Blame Game

It's Sunday and I should be posting the latest news about my latest brew, Fluckey's Ghost. Right now I think this is more important information that should be heard (AND read) by all who pay attention to our illustrious leaders in Washington. Whether you roll DemoLiberal or RepubConservative this is good to hear. It'd be nice if The People could agree and make this country great again.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Barley in Space

This beer from out of this world (literally)! Isn't it amazing how beer can help serve man in so many ways?

Friday, January 7, 2011

Blood Sweat and Tears - Spinning Wheel

Well I was in a mood for most of the day then I had a pint and jammed this. Troubles gone. Enjoy some Blood Sweat and Tears on me.

Bread Made from Spent Grains

After I started brewing using an all grain method called single infusion I had no idea what to do with the grains I used. I would have 12 to even 20 pounds of "spent" grains that would just get thrown away. They smelled so good I didn't want to just toss them into the garbage. After a few batches I decided to make bread with them. There are conflicting discussions on whether or not bread made from spent barley used for making beers is nutritionally worth anything. Maybe it isn't but I sure love the taste of the recipe I discovered below. The template isn't mine (if I find the website I printed this from I will definitely give them props) but I have tweaked it a little to my taste. If I'm using lighter grains I tend to go with honey as the sweetener, darker grains get molasses. The amount of flour varies batch to batch as well. If the grains are still a little wet I'll add more flour  in 1/2 cup increments switching between the wheat and bread flour. The result is a hearty slightly sweet bread that is hella-licious as a grilled cheese sandwich or with fresh thick cut German bologna. It's even better when you match the cheese to the bread and have a pint of the beer you made along side. Now that I've blown a few minutes of your time I've posted the recipe I use and the resulting bread below. If you try this recipe feel free to tweak and or comment about it here.

I made some changes with my latest batch. They're shown in red. To help relieve the grain of some of the unused wort I put it in a strainer and used the bottom of a coffee cup to pressed as hard as I could. (Jan 20th, 2011) 

3.5 (3 1/3) cups all purpose flour - Remember this varies from batch to batch depending on the wetness of the grain you're using.
2 cup wheat flour (could handle higher ratio of wheat)
2 tsp. salt
3 cups spent grain
¼ cup of sugar, honey or molasses (depending on the grains used when brewing)
¼ cup of slightly melted butter
1 egg (Beaten)
1 (1/2) cup of milk (usually use less, depending on how wet the grain is)

Yeast Starter
1 package of dry bread yeast (Quick rise)
1/2 cup warm water
1 tablespoon sugar (didn't need sugar this time)
Add sugar to water in a bowl and completely dissolve. Add yeast and cover with aluminum foil. Set aside for about 20 minutes. After 20 minutes you should see some activity in the bowl. When you're dough is ready roll the yeast to the bowl and knead it into the dough mixture.
Using the quick rise yeast I was able to skip the waiting period. I just added the yeast to warm water, waited about 5 minutes then added the batch to the dough. It rose great with no problems.


Mix the dry, then the wet ingredients until the dough is easily pulled away from sides of bowl and all the ingredients are mixed in well. It's a great idea to use a mixer with a dough hook.

Knead for 10 min by hand or 5 min by mixer. Slowly add yeast starter and mix well.

Shape into ball and let rise in oiled bowl until doubled (about 90 min) Punch down and divide. I usually get 3 average sized loaves out of this. Let it rise again in greased loaf pans or cookie sheet until doubled, (or slightly more as this is dense bread, takes about 1 hr.). Score top of loaves with a knife.

Preheat oven. Bake at 350F for 50 min, until deep golden brown. Spray loaves with water just before going into the oven and again 2 min into baking to make a crunchier crust. Rotate pans halfway through. Let cool for 30 min on baking rack before slicing,

See my results below:

elCheapo at Amazon