Back and This Time I’m Serial

Yes, it’s Just No Pleasing Me.  Has been for years.  Let’s move on.

WordPress iPad App

So I just barely posted the last entry from the WordPress iPad app. Why, you ask? Because I couldn’t exactly figure out how to post it after I wrote it. This is a nota bene for future bloggers. Oh, sure, I eventually found it on the FAQs section of WordPress, but posting from within the app is _not_ intuitive.

Basically, writing a blog post in the app looks like composing an e-mail message. There are a few lines up at the top for Title, Tags, Categories, and Status, plus a big blue Save button in the upper right-hand corner. Once you hit Save, you get a “Local Draft.” And then . . . . well the teeth gnashing begins.

The solution is to go back into Edit mode for your post, and touch the “Local Draft” entry on the Status line. Then a menu will unintuitively pop up with a “Published” entry. To post your entry, select Published and again hit Save.

Really, WordPress?! You couldn’t manage a big green Post or Publish button next to the Save button? Figuring how to post one’s blog entry, which is the whole stinking point of your app, is very analogous to touching the subject line of an e-mail message to send it. I know we’re supposed to be all touchy with this new device, but how exactly do you expect us to find this particular easter egg? Spend an hour or two randomly touching all possible points on all possible screens like some sort of handsy idiot savant?

Bad show. You win a big user interface ppphbbbbbfffht! Please consider this a request for some user interface — any user interface — that improves posing within your app.

Blogging On My iPad

So yeah, I got an iPad. Even though I bought an Apple Bluetooth keyboard in anticipation of my iPad purchase, this is the first time I have broken it out. This is so totally the future of computing. My iPad has not left my hands much since I got it, and finding/loading new games and apps has been great fun. But the as-needed, on-demand addition of a real keyboard somehow changes the device. Or my perception of it.

My wife wants me to point out to the Internet that I just wrote an e-mail on the iPad about 5 feet from our perfectly usable iMac. Noted. But I _wanted_ to write it on this device, and I guess that’s the point. If a device makes it somehow funner to do what you need to do, that’s a fair definition of a “good tool.” The iPad has not only gotten out of my way, it has drawn me in while doing so.

I’ll probably blog more now, too. You have been warned.

Fresh Bowl Pale Ale

I made a Pale Ale yesterday.  This had malt extract & hops from The Bruery (which is getting out of the homebrew supply biz;  I think I bought their last two cans of extract), other hops from Puterbaugh Farms (1 lb Columbus pellets.  Yo.), and yeast plus the secret ingredient from More Beer.  Truly, a lot of packages had to arrive to make this ale.  Here is the recipe:

6.6 lbs Briess Pilsen liquid malt extract

8 oz Cara-Hell malt

5 oz Dark Crystal malt

8 oz Aromatic malt

1 lb Biscuit malt

4 oz Malto-Dextrin

1 oz Northern Brewer hops – 60 min

1 oz Cascade hops – 10 min

1 oz Columbus hops – 1 min

Safale US-05 dry yeast

Can you guess the secret ingredient?  Yup, it’s the Biscuit malt, which I believe all American ales should have some of.  Really increases the malt complexity.  Which brings me to the name of the brew:  Fresh Bowl Pale Ale.  In the long-since cancelled sitcom “Ally McBeal,” John Cage was known to remark frequently that he liked a fresh bowl.  To wit:

Sometimes people leave in haste, forget to flush. Other times, there are residual remnants. I like a fresh bowl.

John Cage’s nickname is “The Biscuit.”  The name of the beer practically wrote itself.

Because this is the best Pale Ale I know how to make, I may have to enter this one in the Great Arizona Homebrew Competition.

Two Meads Checking In

I racked these meads into secondary fermeters today.  That’s 22 days in the primary for those of you keeping score at home.  After racking I added to each secondary:

1 oz medium toast Hungarian oak cubes

2 1/2 vanilla beans, quartered

The White Cran Peach mead is already clearing up nicely.  The Pineapple Coconut is cloudy as can be, but at least the foam ceased and desisted.  I am not sure whether this mead will ever turn clear, or whether something like pectic enzyme would help.  Who knows?  Ken Schramm or Jay Russ might.  Maybe I will send an e-mail or two and try to find out.

Milk Stout is a Better Name than Sweet Stout

And you can tell the BJCP that I said so.  On January 17, I made up an extract Milk Stout, mostly to use up an aging can of John Bull Dark syrup.  Here is what my previous recipes of this style looked like (full disclosure, one of Jay Russ’s many excellent recipes):

Jay’s “Lactating Mandy” Milk Stout (Extract)
5 lbs Briess Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
0.5 lb Munton’s Dark Crystal Malt
8 oz Malto-Dextrin powder
0.5 lb Weyermann De-Husked Carafa III Malt
0.5 lb Munton’s Roasted Barley
1 lb Lactose
1 oz Perle hops (8% alpha) – 60 min
White Labs WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast
Crack grains and steep for 30 minutes at 150 degrees.  Remove grains, add extract, lactose, and malto-dextrin and bring to a boil.  Add 1 oz Perle hop addition at beginning of boil.  Boil for 60 minutes.  Cool wort, aerate, and pitch yeast.  Starting gravity should be around 1.060.

But I didn’t (for various ingredient-related reasons) make that.  Here is what I made.

JNPY’s “Ad-hoc” Milk Stout (Extract)
3.5 lbs John Bull Dark
3 lbs Briess Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
0.5 lb Munton’s Dark Crystal Malt
8 oz Malto-Dextrin powder
7 oz Weyermann De-Husked Carafa II Malt
0.5 lb Munton’s Roasted Barley  (borrowed, cup-o-flour style, from Peaches;  thx dude)
1 lb Lactose
1 oz Palisades hops (8.3% alpha) – 60 min
Safale S-04 English Ale dry yeast

Starting gravity was 15.0 Brix, or 1.061 specific gravity.  This is supposed to finish, due to lactose, high: 1.020 to 1.025.  We’ll see.  This is the first time I’ve used a Safale yeast.  I’ve heard good things about it, so thought I’d try.  The directions on the packet said to sprinkle on wort, so I did before aerating.  Quick start — good fermentation within 12 hours.  One other process note:  this was the first time I used Fermcap in a boil.  Awesome;  I’m a convert.  Four drops knocked down all the foam.

Next up when I rack to the secondary (two meads in other two primaries right now):  two more extract batches, both of which I won in a raffle:  Brewcraft Southern Hemisphere IPA and Brewer’s Best Imperial Nut Brown.  Yummity, yum, yum.

Mead Made Easy

This post is inspired by my friend Tom who got this look on his face when I showed up at Steve-o’s and said I had made a couple of batches of mead earlier that day.  Something about how he wanted to observe the process.  For Tom, with my abject apologies, here is how I make mead.

I started as an extract homebrewer, so I make mead in 5 gallon batches in my kitchen.  5 gallons is the typical homebrew unit, I think due to carboy sizes more than anything else.  That said, if you want to start small, say with a gallon or so at a time, just divide everything I say by five, and go from there.  Nothing magical about it, really, mead scales nicely.

Before I start, there are two issues on which reasonable minds can, and do, disagree.  I have had superior meads made completely the opposite from how I do things, so chart your own course.  First, whether or not to heat the honey.  Opinions range from no heating at all (to preserve the delicate/subtle flavors) to boiling it.  I tend to split the difference on this one, because I make fruit meads and do not really care about the subtle flavors.  Plus it mirrors my beer process more closely.  Second, how quickly to start fermentation.  I know a great mazer who likes to start slow;  he has his reasons.  Me, I prefer in all my brewing to have a quick and vigorous fermentation on the theory that it reduces off flavors.

Step by agonizing step, here is my process.  First, acquire a gallon of honey (I typically use two half gallon (6 lb.) jugs from Costco, but I have purchased whole gallons from beekeepers in the past) and yeast, yeast energizer, yeast nutrient, and Irish moss.  True fact: one gallon of honey weighs 12 lbs., and many mead recipes will refer to “10 lbs” or the like.  You can convert to liquid measures by scaling:  10 lbs/12 lbs per gallon equals 5/6 of a gallon.  I always use a gallon for my meads.  Not at all sure why.  (FWIW, one gallon of honey makes a mead in the 10% ABV range)  To complete the preparations, have a 3-4 gallon pot, spoon, and brewing thermometer ready.

I pour 1-1.5 gallons of water into the pot and set it covered on the stove at the highest heat setting.  Then, I put the honey containers into a warm water bath to heat the honey some and make it easier to pour.  One at a time, I pour the honey into the heating water, stirring rapidly to mix.  My goal is to get it all to 150 F and then hold there.  Finally, because I am miserly, I run some hot water into the mostly empty jugs, and swish around to get the rest of the honey suspended, and into the pot with it.  Never leave fermentables in the container, I say!

Once at 150 F, I keep it there for 20 minutes before cooling.  Mead, in addition to being easy and relatively cheap (ingredients run something like $2 per wine bottle), is quick.  At 5 minutes in, I add about 1/2 tsp of Irish moss.  Don’t blame me;  I add it to everything.  I doubt there is all that much protein in the honey to bind to, but then again, what are you saving the moss for, some kind of weird moss party?  Next is the crucial (OK, not so much crucial, but time-passing) step:  skimming the scum.  When stirring, you will notice a white, foamy, waxy mass in the center.  Gently remove this with your spoon.  Repeat until it is all gone.  What is it?  I dunno — wax, bee parts, other impurities.  I get it out of there, and at the end of 20 minutes am left with clear, uniform honey-water at 150 F.  Wow, I re-read what I just typed;  maybe tomorrow I’ll tackle how I screw in light bulbs.

Pressing on, I throw my pot into the sink in a bath of cold tap water (ice, sometimes) to lower its temp to 90-100 F.  From there, add what you want to bring the total volume to 5 gallons at 70-75 F.  If you want to start with a straight mead, just add water. You can add vanilla beans, cinnamon, or other flavorings later in the secondary.  I will say this:  you need something with a straight mead.  A lot of recipes will call for some amount of black tea, largely for the tannins.  Others call for lemon juice.  I prefer oak cubes to get my tannins instead of tea, but I think you need some tartness to balance out the sweet from the honey.  Otherwise, your mead will taste one dimensional.

Alternately, if you want to make a melomel, add 2 – 2.5 gallons of good fruit juice.  Or Oregon fruit puree also works nicely — I use two 64 oz cans typically.  Or frozen fruit, partially thawed and pureed in your blender — somewhere between 7-10 lbs of fruit works well.  I use (sanitation freaks will shudder at this) my original 6.5 gallon fermenting bucket to do all the mixing, aerating, and yeast pitching.  Then I pour the whole mess into my primary carboy.

Backing up a bit, the yeast:  it should be a wine yeast, and some recipes call for champagne yeast.  I use three (count ‘em!) packets of Lalvin 71B-1122 dry yeast.  In full disclosure, if you use that much yeast, the yeast energizer (1/2 tsp) and yeast nutrient (1 tsp) are probably not necessary.  But I like a quick, vigorous fermentation, and they don’t hurt.  After pitching, aerate in your usual way (I use the brew spoon to whip in some air), put in your fermenter, and insert the air lock.

I guess that’s about it.  One more thing:  I once debated with a better mazer than me where to add the fruit:  in the primary or in the secondary fermenter.  For what it’s worth, I have done it both ways, and I do not think it makes much difference in the final product.  The yeast does its number on the sugars eventually.  That said, I add it all in the primary, because I use a simple racking cane, and not some fancy-schmancy pump and filter arrangement.  So, particularly when working with real fruit, I think it best to start leaving the skins, seeds, and other floaties behind earlier rather than later.  That way, by the third or fourth racking, your mead will be clearer.

Finally, if you want to read a bit more on the subject, I highly recommend Ken Schramm’s The Compleat Meadmaker.  The man has forgotten more about making mead than I will ever know.  Wassail!

Pineapple Coconut Mead

This is the second of two mead batches I did on the same day.  And I brewed after I bottled a batch of metheglin, officially making the day “meady.”  Below is what I used for mead batch #18, brewed on 1/2/10.  I have wanted to make a pineapple coconut mead for a while now.  One of the best meads I have ever tasted was a pineapple mead, which won the mead/wine competition at a Wort Hogs meeting a few years ago.  There was something magical about the tartness of the pineapple and the sweetness of the honey.

12 lbs honey (Mrs. Crockett’s from Costco)
2 gallons L&A Pineapple Coconut juice (8! 1 qt jugs)
1/2 tsp Irish moss
1.5 packets Lalvin 71B-1122 dry yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer

Heat honey plus 1 gallon of water at 150 F for 20 minutes.  Skim the scum & add Irish moss at 15 minutes.  Cool down and add to juice to make 5 gallons.  Aerate and then pitch yeast plus nutrient and energizer.

This had an OG of 25.7 Brix, with help from the juice’s sugars.  The Brix OG converted into 1.109 specific gravity via this calculator.  This mead, unlike most other meads I’ve made, foamed up.  As in, “filled the head space and blew out the airlock” foamed up.  I guess it is/was the coconut milk.  But really, fair warning:  if you make this one, be prepared with a blowoff tube, fermcap, or both.

White Cran Peach Mead

I have decided to blog my recipes when I brew, being notoriously bad about writing them down.  Below is what I used for mead batch #17, brewed on 1/2/10.  I “only” had three packets of yeast, the usual amount for one batch, but I made two batches that day so I had to use half for each.  I really like the taste of this juice, and wanted to see what type of mead it would make.  My prediction:  yummy.  The peach really comes out in the juice, and is balanced by the cranberry.  As with juice blends like this one, grape juice is the first-listed ingredient, so this mead will be pyment+melomel = pymomel.

12 lbs honey (Mrs. Crockett’s from Costco)
2.5 gallons Ocean Spray White Cran*Peach juice (6 64 oz jugs)
1/2 tsp Irish moss
1.5 packets Lalvin 71B-1122 dry yeast
1 tsp yeast nutrient
1/2 tsp yeast energizer

Heat honey plus 1 gallon of water at 150 F for 20 minutes.  Skim the scum & add Irish moss at 15 minutes.  Cool down and add to juice to make 5 gallons.  Aerate and then pitch yeast plus nutrient and energizer.

This had an OG of 24.4 Brix, possibly due to an over-use of water.  It made up around 5.5 gallons.  The Brix OG converted into 1.103 specific gravity via this calculator.  Despite using less yeast than usual, this mead started quickly and is happily bubbling along.

Trinity! Help!

I can’t accept that it has been over 10 years since The Matrix was released.  Bullet time flies when . . . oh never mind.  There have been numerous Matrix-inspired creations, one of my favorites being “The Red Pill” by The Crystal Method.  “Take the red pill.  Take the blue pill.  Take the red pill.  Take the blue pill.”

But this post is about a scene (the rooftop where Trinity and Neo confront an agent, and Neo dodges bullets) filmed in stop motion entirely with Lego pieces.  This article in Gadget Lab gives the details, as well as a YouTube link to the scene.  Brilliant.  According to the article, these guys took 440 hours to film 900 frames for just 44 seconds of animation.  10 hours for each second.  Now that is dedication.

The faithfulness of their reproduction is shown in another YouTube video which places both the stop motion and movie scenes side-by-side.  Un-be-liev-able.

“Dodge this.” <BLAM>