SB Nation User Blog: chrisisasavage

Routine Flyball

chrisisasavage — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 04:25:50 -0000

Routine Flyball

Brains

chrisisasavage — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 02:54:31 -0000

Brains

Webb's shoulder still all bollocksed up, might need surgery

chrisisasavage — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:30:32 -0000

Webb's shoulder still all bollocksed up, might need surgery

If Webb's 2010 option is declined he might make a good buy-low type guy if he was signed to an incentive heavy contract.

It sucks seeing someone so awesome go down.

On Topic - Gruit Like Beer Edition

chrisisasavage — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 04:29:59 -0000

It's been a while, so here's a new beer post.

My root beer is going in the secondary right now. I doctored it up w/ a glop of root beer extract I found in the spices, and added some vanilla, licorice root, and roasted dandelion root, as well as some honey to get it up to 4.5%. it's a medium brown now, and tastes like a less gingery version of my last one.

I got all of the ingredients for a gruit-like beer (unhopped, flavored w/ herbs and spices). I have a little over half an ounce of Mugwort, and have Spruce and Lavender growing in my yard, and Dandelion growing all around it. I'd probably still get some Heather tips, Sweet Gale, and licorice root.

Scotland, who has long been known for excelent malt beverages was also one of the last converts to hops. All of the above herbs and spices are historically used in Scottish Beers. So the beer I want to make is "Scottish" inspired. I have a beer cooler made out of a 32 gallon garbage can I bought. I have a large number of ice packs to keep it cold, and recently got a peltier which I want to install. I still need a thermostat.

I'm not actually properly setup for all grain, I'll spare burnin myself this time by using some extract.

I picked up the following:

7 lbs Light Malt Extract Syrup

2 lbs British Maris Otter 2-Row Pale Malt

1.5 lbs Cara-Pils makt

12 oz Caramunich Malt

12 oz Victory Malt

WYeast Irish Ale Yeast.

I still may get Sweet Gale, Heather, Ginger, and MMAAYYBBEE some honey. This should be a decent "Ancient Scottish Inspired" beer.

The gruit ingredients need to be figured out. I was going to soak each ingredient in some Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey, which I picked up and drank a little, and is OK, not a good of whiskey as Dead Guy Ale is beer, and mix until I get a good flavor, and add in some of the bittering herbs in the boil (Heather). I also may pick up a small bag of dried juniper berry to dry hop with.

My plan is to try and ferment at 60 and "lager" at 45ish which is normal for scottish ales. I'm renting a uhaul to get some dresser drawers tommorow, if I can find a fridge on craigslist I'm all over it. If not, the 45 degree lagering may not happen.

If anyone wants to give input, please do. The actual herb additions are up in the air, and still being researched.

It'll be a 7.5% beer or so, some honey could boost it a hair more. I normally wouldn't add honey to a beer, but "ancient inspired style" beers like gruit or my "early american small beers" (root beer), it makes alot of historical sense.

I have Aha Toro Reposado Tequila and Rogue Dead Guy Whiskey, which are both recommended. Aha is primo tequila, and Rogue's attempt at whiskey isn't half bad, it's no Wild Turkey Rare Breed, but it's at least smooth, has good flavor, and doesnt manage to taste too boozey. I've been meaning to try it, and recently got around to it. I've heard they make a spruce gin I want to try.

Another project I'm working on is a crock pot still. If I can make some whiskey I may add it a small portion to the scotch ale to boost it a percent or so. .

Poll

If added only one of these, which one would you take.

Cherries

6 votes

Licorice Root

4 votes

Ginger

1 votes

Corriander

1 votes

Oak Chips

3 votes

Cloves

1 votes

Lavander

0 votes

Blueberry

4 votes

20 votes | Poll has closed

Piniella Admits he Smoked Pot

chrisisasavage — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 06:15:48 -0000

Piniella Admits he Smoked Pot

His argument is spot on. Why the WBC tests for a performance inhibitor is beyond me.

Off Topic Fanpost - Beer, BBQ, and Bike Camping

chrisisasavage — Fri, 15 May 2009 21:37:16 -0000

So, my rootbeer experiment could have turned out better, it went bad faster than any beer I've made. I'll have to use hops next time. I scrapped it and made an IPA-Like beer with the rest of what I had. We'll see how that turns out :)

I'm looking at making a lager of some kind. I built a box out of styrofoam and a thermoelectric cooler, so hopefully I can keep the temps down during fermentation.

Anyone have any suggestions for craft lagers (Shmaltz Coney Island Lager is pretty good).

I'm thinking about doing a european style beer with American ingredients, or maybe a mix. I would like to try and find some good lagers (no, not coors), and do some comparisons, then try to formulate a beer based on that. I've had a few, but thought I'd get some suggestions.

Anyone have good BBQ Joint suggestions (or food in general). Stans BBQ in Issaquah, and Pecos Pit in Seattle are the only two I've tried that I liked in the Seattle area.

Here's a question, I know good places to camp, and to backpack, but does anyone know of any good areas to mountain bike in and camp out?

OTFPOTD - Help me figure out my vacation edition

chrisisasavage — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:51:57 -0000

I have May 8 - 17 scheduled off of work. I was going to drive to Boise to visit inlaws, but my Wife is going back next weekend instead. Due to a scheduled product release and recent work insanity, I'm planning on keeping the week+ off for a solo adventure.

I like to Bike pack, but I like to road trip. I can do and sometime can handle cold rain, but bike packing in it be a pain, but can also be rewarding. I could sleep in the back of my Forester, and take my dog on a road trip, do a tour of some car camping places. I could do the Peninsula, hitting the national forest and park, but it's more a summer time trip, and Earl (my dog) couldn't go to the National Park. I could do Eastern washington. Maybe do some prospecting near Liberty (I LOVE that area). I want to camp. If I go off my bike Earl may not be able to go. If it's off a trail or Forest service/logging road I could probably take him. I'd like that. I'm geared up to camp with him.

I could probably do $500 or so max, and I'm a campaholic (rain, wind, snow, or forest fires, I've done them all), so something camping related is probably in order. I'm geared for anything short of camping on glaciers. Snow is not an obsticle.

Anyway, help me. Even crazy things like run to vegas (I'd nix that idea immediately, since the wifey would have visions of hookers dancing in her head) or hunting bigfoot all week are welcome since I like differing opinions like the new FO do. BTW, as an Avid NW roadtripper, Corco's highway blog rocks.

***

The root beer turned out not the greatest, but not the worst. I'm drowning the last one I have (my dad has some). It's OK. Too gingery, kind of funky. My next two beers are a Blueberry Honey ale, and another root beer, except it'll be done with hops. I did a blueberry honey ale about 3 months ago. It went fast. It was my best beer. I'll post what I do when I do them. In a Beer making fan post. I also plan to do a quick and dirty beer making for dummies post.

Poll

Joe Satriani?

The best ever

0 votes

Cool

7 votes

Guitar solos suck (#*&! you in advance)

4 votes

Awesome

1 votes

Totally awesome

4 votes

Malmsteen is superior (#*&! you in advance too)

0 votes

16 votes | Poll has closed

OTFPOTD 02/21/2009 - Looking for Food and Beer in Leavenworth Edition

chrisisasavage — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:23:41 -0000

Every two or three months I run the Leavenworth to eat German food and drink German Beers and Micros. Well, I'm here. I love stopping at the cheese monger to get beer, cheese, and landjager. I take the dogs to the Munchen Haus to eat hot dogs and drink beer with me. We'll be doing that today. I just realized Der Man Shoppe has homebrew supplies! I gave up my weekend trip to the beer supply, so hopefully they have a few things I need, and it's not SOOOOO expensive I can't bring myself to buy anything.

Any suggestions for food and drink? I know the town too well, but still, I honor other peoples opinions.

I'll probably not be posting anything tommorow, here's my homebrew tidbit. I racked the rootbeer to secondary yesterday. The taste was underwhelming, so I'm getting some Anise Extract, Vanilla Extract, Wintergreen, and Sarsparillia to spice it up at bottling. I'm thinking an Imperial Rootbeer next time I decide to do a root beer. 8-12 percent, hopped to hell and back, lots of dark malts and/or chocolate malts.

My next beer is going to be a casked mild ale. Now I have to find a decent cask for 1-2 people :p

OTFPOTD 02/15/09 - Repurposing Mr. Beer as a Cask edition

chrisisasavage — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:14:58 -0000

Well, I'm going to be racking my root beer to the secondary fermenter next weekend. I could probably do it now, but I haven't taken any hydrometer readings, and I'm sure it'll be OK to rack in a week. The problem with racking beer too early from the primary is risk of making bombs.

If you're not sure Racking is the process transferring the beer from the primary to the secondary or to bottle. You want to make sure fermentation is done, either by doing successive hydrometer readings, or just waiting long enough (2 weeks for normal beers).

The Root beer has a wonderful rootbeer like flavor. It also looks like root beer one my last poll, so when I finally bring some beer around, it'll be a root beer. Probably just use a decent extract syrup, a few spices, malt extract and molasses.

I'll be bottling my heather ale tonight. My next project might be a session style ale or a cask ale, like real ale or a casked mild ale. I realized that 2 Mr. Beer fermenters hold 2.5 gallons of beer. They're only useful as a 2 gallon primary fermenter, so I've considered them for test batches, but now I an thinking of making a 5 gallon batch and splitting it in half, one in each fermenter. I'd make a small beer (I SWEAR I'm not obsessed with small beers), since I'd be forced to drink 2.5 gallons of beer as soon as I started drinking it. You don't use additional sugars to carbonate, so it'd taste flat compared to what you're probably used to. I could get one of those expanders, like they use in a party pig, they expand as the beer empties to keep it from spoiling. Then I could make a higher alcohol beer and not be forced to drink it ASAP. If the Mr. Beer works as a cask, I'll let you know.

Did you know George Washington had a beer recipe. It's a molasses small beer.

http://www.beerhistory.com/library/holdings/washingtonrecipe.shtml

Poll

Vote for an spice you'd like most in a beer. I may formulate something based on the choices.

Sarsaparillia

4 votes

Birch Root

1 votes

Spruce Essence

1 votes

Ginger

1 votes

Vanilla Bean

3 votes

Wintergreen leaves

2 votes

Dandelion root

2 votes

Anise

2 votes

Licorice root

0 votes

Lemongrass

4 votes

20 votes | Poll has closed

OFTPOTD 02/08/2009 - Hard Root Beer Brewing Pics

chrisisasavage — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 07:50:48 -0000

I finally did it. I made my root beer. Its sitting in the primary right now.

Here’s what I ended up doing:

2.5 Lbs Liquid Pale Malt Extract
1.5 Lbs Molasses
4 oz Dry Pale Malt Extract
12 oz Maltodextrin
14 oz Honey Malt
14 oz Crystal Malt
5 oz Chocolate Malt
8 oz Flaked Barley
2 oz Sarsaparilla
.5 oz Spruce Essence
2 Vanilla Beans
2 oz Star Anise
1 Brewers Licorice Stick
.8 oz Toasted Dandelion Root
2 oz Chopped Ginger Medallions
One smack pack of Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast
2 oz Yeast Nutrient

First, I sanitized everything and kept the equipment that would touch the wort in water with Iodine in it, I rinsed thoroughly before using anything.

I did a mash on the malt, ramping the temps from 120-170 over an hour and 30 minutes. The long boil wouldn't necessary, as the only malt I used that has any diastatic power is the Honey malt. It doesn't have the power to convert other starches. No I did it because I realized I forgot to smack my yeast pack and had to kill time. It turned into a nice brown wort. I only used 1 gallon of water or so, but I don't have a proper brew pot, and was mostly using stuff I already had, like molasses and malt extract.

Here's before I put it in the bag:

After I an hour and a half, I poured the wort through a strainer into another pot, then back to the brew pot. I added the spices, except the ginger, dandelion, and spruce. I did 2 separate boils for the ginger and dandelion root. I cut the ginger into medallions and covered them in water and boiled them. I did close to the same thing with the dandelion.

Boiling Dandelion Root

After 30 minutes I reevaluated the spice flavor and let it go 15 minutes more.

I slowly poured in the dandelion and tasted as a I went. I ended up using the whole thing. I did the same with the ginger, and used the whole thing. I added the spruce essense, and it doing the same thing, but stopped after .5 oz, I started to taste spruce, but nothing more.

Spruce Essence from local home brew supply:

Once the wort was done, I ran the Molasses and Liquid Malt Syrup under hot water to get them to pour easier. I poured them in and stirred the wort.

I stirred the maltodextrin powder in and the dry malt extract. I used the dry extract and the liquid, because that is how much I had of each. The dry extract hardened, so I had to stir until it disolved, about 15 minutes.

While it dissolved I sanitized the fermenter. I added 2 gallons of cold water, then poured the hot wort into it, then topped to the fill line using more cold water.

I added the yeast and yeast nutrient to the fermenter and put the lid and airlock on and shook it.

Yeast and Nutrient:

Fermenter with root beer wort, yeas, and yeast nutrient.

Fermenter w/ Lid on

I'll let it sit in the primary for a week, then siphon to the secondary for 2 weeks, then bottle for a month, then sit the bottles in the fridge and enjoy.

Secondary Fermenter (aka high tech Beer Making device)

I did things a little differently then I would for beer. I usually do a partial mash for my beers. I'll do a post on that sometime, since making beer is fun.

If you want to experiment, but have limited space, look at a Mr. Beer. They're 40 bucks and make 2 gallons at a time. I have 2 of them, and they're fun for experimental beer batches, so you can always use them later. The 6 gallon bucket and 5 gallon carboy set up is not expensive either, but the higher volume creates logistics issues for all grain and partial mash. You more or less need a super kitchen, or to do it outdoors over propane. I do partials on the stove, using a coleman coolor as a lautering tun.

I have some pics of doing an all grain brew w/ a mr. beer. that I'll post those if I can find them.

Misc Pics:

Vanilla

Anise:

Some of my pics wont show for some reason. Oh well.

Poll

What kind of beer might you be interested in if I formulated a beer for an LL event. I could make 50-100 bottles depending on a few things, but wouldn't matter. I'll make it to an event eventually, if anything to share beer.

Stout

0 votes

Brown Ale

1 votes

Mild Ale (these can be very yummy)

5 votes

Pale Ale / Bitters

4 votes

Amber Ale

2 votes

Blond Ale

0 votes

Weizen (Berliner Weisse????)

1 votes

Fruit Beer (Kriek, Framboise, Blueberry, etc)

0 votes

Gruit and Herb beer (you have to be open minded here, but it can be good)

0 votes

Spruce Ale (Ginger and Spruce, likely hops)

2 votes

Hard Root Beer

6 votes

21 votes | Poll has closed