Here’s what happens to me when I finish up school and make a point of not doing any work: I web surf and I come across all kinds of wacky stuff. For example, check out web zen on bbq. I especially enjoyed the ground meat cookbook.
Free Movies and Such
This might be the sort of thing that would be better posted on my Official Blog, but since I have “signed off” there until we get back from our upcoming trip, I’ll post it here. Besides, it is kind of “fun” stuff.
“Free Movies” is a list of/links to movies that have either fallen out of copyright and into the public domain or are otherwise available online. You’re not going to find the latest here, but (for example) you could watch very famous (and silent and hard to find) films like Battleship Potemkin (which I haven’t seen yet) and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. In fact, I might watch one of these while Annette and Will watch a different movie in the other room….. Oh, and there’s some totally crazy movies too, like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Failed Ice Cream
I’m not sure what happened. It seems to me to be a conspiracy of some sort.
Actually, in my attempt to make ice cream for the first time in a long time, I had a failure that I really can’t explain. I followed the recipe to the letter, one from the very reliable How To Cook Everything, but I think what happened was I used too much fat– six egg yolks, half-n-half, and then cream. I haven’t used that many eggs in the past, and I have also usually made ice cream with just half-n-half.
In any event, this “failure” has inspired me to try again (stay tuned for more details), and it has also at least resulted in a rich and chocolatey drink.
I’m thinking of four-letter word that begins with “F”
Okay, perhaps I just need to go to bed, but I thought this was pretty, uh, f-ing funny:
“The Big Lebowski – F_cking Short Version,” via YouTube:
At the Movies: Monster House (in “Real D”)
I should be getting ready for bed, but I’m “keyed up” after finishing some school work and I wanted to posta little something about the movie Monster House, which I saw with Will on Monday. Annette had seen this with Will last Friday or Saturday or so and she spoke highly of it, but I was a little bit dubious. For one thing, I just sorta figured another kid movie; for another, Will (okay, and me too) wanted to see the 3-D version– or, as it is apparently called, “Real D.” For another, I was kind of tired and, I dunno, looking more forward to nap or maybe a beer than a movie.
Well, I gotta tell ya: go see this thing if you get a chance, and for God’s sake, go see it in the “Real D” if you can. I’m not interested in writing a summary of the flick, especially when there’s one right here. But a couple of thoughts:
- Without a doubt, this is a movie filled with surprises pretty much from beginning to end. When I saw the trailer, I thought that this would be a pretty predictable and simple flick. Not so, not so at all.
- This is not a movie for little (less than about 7 or so) kids. There’s some scary shit in this flick– not King Kong scary, but people getting eaten and stuff scary.
- I was amazed at how cool the 3-D stuff was. This isn’t the whole red/green über-cheesy technology of old. It’s some kind of digital thing (though it does require glasses) that, in this movie at least, was mostly subtle but also employed during some exciting chase kinds of scenes quite effectively. So, unlike the segments on SCTV that featured a 3-D House of Beef or the last 3-D movie I saw– one of the Spy Kids movies, I think– this one was part of the story, looked great, and didn’t give me a headache.
- And again, this is a reason to see a movie in the theater. I think they should all be 3-D. Oh, right, Real D.
Beer Watcher II: Bottling (sideways)
It was bottling day yesterday at Bill HD’s for our latest batch of “hefeweizen” beer. This picture shows Bill (seated) and Steve B running sanitizer through all of the bottles– remember, clean is your friend when bottling beer– but the process for getting the beer in there is the same. Beer comes out of the bucket, which the beer has been transfered into from the carboy (see video below), it’s put into bottles, it’s capped, and we wait.
I think it’s fair to say that we’re all a bit more nervous about this batch than the last one we made. On first taste, this beer tastes… well… okay, but we hope that it benefits from a bit of bottle aging. At least two weeks. Since we’ll be out of the country in two weeks (and I don’t think it’s worthwhile to take a homebrew with me to Germany), my share of the loot will be even more aged. On the up-side though, there doesn’t appear to be any problems from the previously mentioned “blow-off,” which we thought might contaminate the batch. Our assumption is that if there was some sort of problem, the beer would taste like poo. And while it isn’t a great beer, it isn’t a poo-flavor, either.
I took some video with my camera, but I also learned a valuable lesson I will apply on our upcoming vacation: if I turn the camera sideways, I end up with sideways video. So, to properly view this footage, please turn your computer and/or monitor 90 degrees counter-clockwise before viewing.
It’s not particularly exciting footage, either; it’s beer being siphoned through a tube from the carboy to the fermenting bucket (aka “ale pail”), from which we will later bottle. Twenty-two seconds worth, and it’s 6.6 MB. I would have included the other movie I took, but Steve B. and Bill kept making rude gestures. Bastards….
Just in case the home beer brewing doesn’t work out…
… there’s always this advice for making cheap wine. As the writer emphasizes, this is “hobo wine.” No doubt.
The Beer Watcher II: Racking
Direct from Bill HD (aka (“The Beer Master”) himself:
The beer racked into the carboy:
What brewing is really all about:
(Which, btw, is why I am more or less a beer watcher rather than a beer master– ed.)
What’s a “hefeweizen?” you ask?
According to the German Beer Guide, it’s
“Hefe” means yeast, “Weizen” means wheat. Hefeweizen is a top fermented, unfiltered, bottle conditioned wheat beer with a noticeable yeast sediment and a cloudy appearance. Wheat beers are also referred to as /Weissbiers/ (white beers) because before the invention of pale lagers and pale ales, most beers were dark. Wheat beers were the exception as the wheat content lightened the colour of the beer.
Hefeweizens are usually quite sweet and fruity, with a full body. The typical hefeweizen taste, which distinguishes it from its Belgian wheat beer cousins is produced by the types of yeast used in Bavaria. There are often medicinal or clove flavours, produced by chemicals called phenols engendered by the yeast. Other chemicals produced by the yeast, called esters, produce bubble gum, banana and vanilla flavours. Esters are also used in sweets like pear drops or fruit gums. Hefeweizens are very lightly hopped so have little bitterness and harshness. The ratio of wheat to barley malt used is commonly around 50:50 but the wheat portion may rise to as much as 70%. With the exception of Gose, German wheat beer brewers don’t add coriander or other botanicals and spices to their beer as Belgian brewers do.
Bill also expressed some concern about potential contamination because of the blow-off, but I’m guessing we’ll be okay. We’ll get Bennie to taste it first just to be sure, though.
The Beer Watcher II: Blow-off!
From “the beer master” Bill HD comes news:
Well, some drama happened regarding our wort. I went down to check it last night and the airlock was blown off the top – it had clogged with hops and foamy beer stuff and there was some on the wall nearby too. So I guess we had a very vigorous yeast colony going. When I opened the lid it was quite foamy in there too. Not sure what that means for the whole process – I cleaned up the airlock and put it back on and it was hopping and popping normally.
This could be bad, I guess, if there was any contamination. Also, the beer guy says that if the yeast is too active for too long, they basically eat everything and the beer doesn’t have any flavors at all. I don’t think this is going to be the case since it was some sort of airlock clog that caused the mishap. But we’ll see come racking time, I guess, whether it is worth continuing or whether we have our first failed batch.
Bill further consulted his guru/master, “The Beer Guy” (aka the book he has), and discovered that this event is common enough in home brewing to have a name: a “blow-off.” Apparently, it isn’t as serious as we had originally feared:
If the fermentation is so vigorous that the foam pops the airlock out of the lid, just rinse it out with sanitizer solution and wipe off the lid before replacing it. Contamination is not a big problem during the primary phase. With so much coming out of the fermenter, not much gets in. If the fermentation keeps filling the airlock with crud and popping it out, there is an alternative, a blowoff hose.
Bill went on to add:
I cleaned out the airlock, sterilized it again, stuck it back on and it seems to be going along fine. It also smells very much like a normal batch, for what that’s worth. As for why, the books I have consulted say that it just happens sometimes when you get a vigorous ferment. They recommend having a blowoff tube for such occasions, or going to a 7 gallon primary fermenter. But it seems to be a minor issue by all accounts.
So, we’ll see what happens. I guess the beer master will be getting the first taste and the beer watchers will be watching not the beer but the master for the results.
The Beer Watcher II: Wheat Beer
We (meaning me, Bill H-D, and Steve B) started another batch of beer yesterday morning, a wheat beer recipe from “All Things Beer” called “Williamston Wheat.” Compared to the first season of the beer watcher, a recipe that involved moss, grain bags, multiple applications of hops, etc., etc., this recipe was ridiculously easy:
7 lbs Wheat/Barley malt extract
1 oz Saaz hops
Wyeast 3056 or Munton’s Ale dry yeast
3/4 cup priming sugar and capsDirections:
Add the wheat/barley malt extract and 1 ounce of hops to 1 1/2 gallons of water and boil for 1 hour.
Cool down the wort, put it in the fermenter with 3 1/2 gallons water, pitch the yeast.
That’s it. Compared to last time, this beer practically makes itself.
I was late, and Steve B and Bill H-D already did the most active steps of this beer, which was boiling the water and adding the malt and the hops. So my roll here really was watching, especially since Steve and Bill spent a fair amount of time moving some furniture out to the driveway since there was a yard sale in progress. And actually, I only half-watched; I spent more time trying to figure out a new WordPress set-up.
Two amusing things happened in all of this that are photo-worthy, but unfortunately, the batteries in my camera died. One of the great fears of home-brewing (perhaps the only fear) is that of the dreaded boil-over, which is a danger when you add the syrupy malt extract. But Bill was really not worried about it because he had a new pot for cooking up the wort this time, a five gallon rig. The water wasn’t quite up to temprature, so he put on the lid, and, worry free with the largeness of the pot, we sat around at the kitchen table and chatted.
We heard the boil-over first. Bill and Steve B sprang into action, removed the lid, turned down the burner (we had some debate as to whether or not the electric element of a stove could properly be called a “burner”), and stirred. Tragedy was probably averted, but a lot of the hops boiled up and onto the sides of the pot. So I guess the test will be in the tasting, about a month or so from now (I think about a month).
The other photo-worthy moment involved Bill spilling enough of the ice water we were using for chilling the wort on himself to require a change of clothes before lunch.