The Caffeinated Penguin

Posted By matt on August 1, 2009

I realize entries have been sparse, but that’s because I’m trying to get a pile of things done before the oppressive summer heat settles in, which it kind of started to do last weekend, but I’ve been dealing. On thing that helps is these hydro neckbands. They seem silly, but are a definite improvement on the traditional wet bandanna around the neck.

Trees: Last weekend, I took down a bunch of tree limbs which were attempting to induce cranial injury when I mow the lawn. I’m still not done, but this gets me most of the way there. We also had two big bonfires (12′ wide circle, basically constantly fed, for a total of about 8 hours over two nights) to get rid of all the stuff that had accumulated in the previous year to make room for all this. Today, I dragged everything I cut down over to the stone burning circle. I still need to cut it into small enough sections to be able to be able to throw it on to the fire. Of course, this is mostly pine – the apple wood is going to be used for the fire departments chicken BBQ (August 23rd for anyone who is interested).

Garden: The peas are all done, and I’ve pulled them away from the fencing, which we’ll take down when we have a chance. I thinned the third planting of corn today, and the first planting (which, incidentally, goes in at the same time as the second planting, but is a super-early variety, so it only takes about 70 days, as opposed to 90). I weeded the onions, garlic, horseradish, and various other bits. On the good side, we have green tomatoes, the carrots are ready, we’re getting squash, the broccoli is basically done, and the pumpkins, onions and watermelon are progressing nicely. On the downside, the peppers are a little stunted, and the eggplant is completely dead. Next year, they won’t be going in before mid-june, especially since we have light racks to give them plenty of light.

Front walkway: Lizzy has been working on this more than me, but I’ve been helping when I had a chance, but we’re pulling up the walk from the drive to the house (about 30′ by 3′ of gravel walk) which we’re digging down about 6 inches, tamping it flat, putting down sand, and laying bricks (of which there were a pile which came with the house). This will allow us to shovel and salt better to hopefully mitigate the slip and fall issues which we encountered last year. The last thing we want is for the mother in law to fall and bust a hip.

Beer: Liz got me basic beer stuff for my birthday (starter kit (2 carboys, bottling bucket, capper, various other bits and bobs), immersion chiller and some extract kits, and a 155,000 BTU propane burner), and for our anniversary she got me a 15 gallon stainless steel pot with valve. For the curious, it’s probably about $600 worth of stuff, which is about the same as my annual beer bill. I estimate that making my own beer will pay for itself in about 3 years (assuming time is free).

Our first batch was a Bavarian Hefeweizen, which we did a condensed one as we only had a 6 gallon pot. We also got some littlenecks and made some salmon dip and sat on the front porch drinking beer and letting the boil do it’s thing. 2 week primary fermentation, and we bottled it… and then I realized that I grabbed the wrong yeast. I used a Lager yeast.. so, we have a “steam” hefeweizen. It’s actually not bad – somewhat estery and complex, a little malty-sweet. It also could use a little more fizz. The instructions said to bottle with 2/3ds of a cup of dextrose, but I need to do the actual calculations for dissolved CO2 based on fermentation temperature… I expect I need it to be more like 3/4 of a cup or so. But then again, it’s a hefe, so it should be fizzier. This amount of carbonation would be fine for a general dark ale, for example.

The second batch is an Oktoberfest but, as I said before, I had the wrong yeast (I got the two confused). So, I’m going to ferment it in the same way (1 week primary, 5 week secondary, 2 week bottle conditioning) but at ale temperatures, because I don’t want the yeast to go to sleep.

For the curious, we have a spare fridge in the garage, which is currently only used during hunting season (and I need to wash out the deer blood), so we can use it for lagering the rest of the year. However, our cold cellar ranges from about 65 degrees in the summer (good ale temperatures) to about 50 degrees in the winter. We need to insulate it a little better, and finish pouring the concrete (part of it is just dirt) and then maybe put down an epoxy floor, but with appropriate shelving we can easily cellar 1000 bottles of beer, 500 bottles of wine, plus various provisions (garlic, potatoes, onions, canned goods, etc.).

We’ve also gotten kits for an oatmeal stout, a brown ale, and a spiced winter ale. This should keep us good until into the new year, as doing boils from about December until about March becomes problematic – there being about 3 feet of snow on the ground and all, and the freezing temperatures causing problems with the hosing for the immersion chiller and the vaporization of LP. As it is, I need to stick the cylinder in a tub of water to stop it from freezing up.

Come spring, we’ll likely start using other recipes rather than working from kits. I have a book with recipes for beers from around the world and there are a few which we would like to try. That, and I had a Chocolate Coffee Imperial Stout called Mokah and it has me interested in variations on that. See, they put the ingredients on the side, so that gives me a starting point. However, Lizzy doesn’t particularly like stouts, but she likes porters (a very, very subtle difference, I know), specifically Yeungling’s porter, which happens to be in the aforementioned book. So, take that porter, adjust it a little bit, and poof, chocolate coffee porter.

Oh, and any type of variant original recipe is being named after cats (presuming we like it). So, the “pleasant surprise” steam hefeweizen is Sunkist hefeweizen (as Sunkist was one of the triplets with the least personality, but has grown into the family and become a very lovable little rascal – a pleasant surprise).

I think that’s about it for now.

Category: Beer, Gardening, Home Improvement
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