HomeBrew Update

 Just a quick update. It's been a while since I updated my blog so I thought it was time to do one.

 I've got several more batches of Homebrew under my belt now and I'm so glad I decided to get into this hobby, it's great fun and what other hobby do you get to drink the fruits of your labor.

 I've add some new equipment, I bought (2) 6-Gallon Glass Carboys and a 6 gallon bottling bucket. this has allowed to have up to 3 different batches going at once.

 I've also allowed more time for certain styles to ferment and that has help boost the ABV and improve the flavor, mouth feel and taste of the beers.

 I've also started Dry Hopping some of my beers. They aren't done yet so I'll update you on how that turns out.

 Right now I've got my 2nd Bavarian Hefe Weizen Style Ale in a Carboy Dry Hopping and an Oaked India Pale Ale I've Dry Hopped a lot to make it more of a California Style IPA, or an Extra IPA.

 I also done a Fruit Beer for the first time, I called it Orchard Ale, it's a mildly Hopped Amber Ale.

 It just finished bottle conditioning today, or reached enough time in the bottle to carbonate enough to drink.

 It's very tasty Indeed.

 Amy asked me to do something Beer without a lot of Hops and with Peaches...lol. I said OK, did some reading and come up a recipe for what I wind up call an Orchard Ale.

 I used a Peck (1/2 a Bushel) of Fresh, Really Ripe Peaches, some Canned (in their own juice) Pears and 2 cans of Apricot Nector as the Fruit Base. Along with some Liquid and Dry Malt Extract.

 One of the things I found out when researching this type of fruit beer is that Peaches lose their flavor really fast after you bottle the beer unless you add other fruits to the mix. The Flavor of the Peaches is in the Sugars and the Yeast winds up eating those Sugars as time passes after you bottle. So I added the Apricot Nector and Canned Pears, which aren't suppose to fade out like the Peaces do.

 Today was day 14 in the bottles for the Orchard Ale and the Peach/Fruit Flavor is really there and tastes Awesome. Time will tell how long these wonderful fruit flavors stick around.

 I think Amy will be pleased to have a Style of Beer she can drink and enjoy, I already like it so hopefully both of us will be Happy.

 Well that's about it for now, I'll have more to post after I get these other 2 batches bottled and sampled. Cya again in about 3 weeks to a month.

Homebrew Express

I've been off this thing for a while because I really haven't had a lot to post about, the weather here in NC has been shit, so no riding. We got more snow last year, but it warmed up enough between powders to get in some mid 40 degree all day rides. This year, it snows and stay's in the 20's and 30's for weeks at a time. Then we get a random 50 or 60 degree day and I have to friggin work all day missing it.

 I've been going a bit stir crazy so I had to find a new outlet to keep myself busy. My 40th birthday rolled around on Jan 8th, me and Elvis baby...lol. My g/f asked me what I wanted and I sat and thought long and hard, something new, something different besides just a new CD or DVD. I had most the new music I wanted anyway from Christmas so I thought and then I remember a Alton Brown Good Eats episode where he made Homebrew, Hmmmm, make my own beer, that's something I've never tried, but always wanted to.

 So I hit Youtube and started watching videos, I started off watching the Good Eats Home brew Video again and then followed a couple other links over in the Suggestions box and found Craig Farraway's Craigtube Channel.

 Craig is a cool dude up in Canada, he's been Homebrewing for 20 something years and had a shitload of beginner videos, as well as more advance videos once you get the hang of brewing to try out.

 I watch his Learning to Brew Series, 4 videos and also a few others, in particular the one that got my interest the most was the one he did using the Cooper's Micro Brewery. It's a turn-key kit, bottles, beer, fermentor, yeast, big long plastic spoon, airlock, everything you need to get a batch of Cooper's Lager going in about an hour.

 I figured I give that a try before I invested a bunch of money in something I might find to just be a pain in the ass. The kit is $110 to your door on Amazon.com, cheaper than the Coopers.com site by $10.

 We ordered the kit and it showed up late on my birthday, Sweet! We had my birthday dinner, eat some cake and then cleaned the kitchen up and I brewed my 1st batch of beer ever afterword.

 By 11pm I had pitched the yeast and closed the fermentor up to begin the wait. It takes between 5 to 10 days for the yeast to eat all the sugar and convert the sugar to alcohol and co2. You take a Gravity reading with a Hydrometer, which is included in the kit to determine if your beer is ready to bottle or not.

 I checked it at 6 days and it wasn't quite ready, close but it needed a few more days. I checked on day 8 and it was within the range but I waited one more day to see if the reading changed or not, it didn't so I bottled the Home brew.

 This is the most fun I've had in a very long time doing something new hobby-wise,  I bottled all the beer and then began the 2 week wait for it to carbonate, long 2 weeks I'll tell ya.

 Earlier this week was the 2 week mark and I've been drinking my own Beer every afternoon this week.

 All I can say is Awesome! I should have done this much sooner. My Home brew is better than any Macro Beer (Big Commercial Brewery Beer) and better than most Micro Brew Beers I've tried too. A lot cheaper too.

 I figured it up and I've got about $.50 a beer in cost. You reuse the kit equipment and the refill beer kits range in price from $20 to $50, depends on how much you soup them up.

 I've got a Irish Stout kit that's souped up into an Russian Imperial Stout brewing right now. It's more expensive than the last batch but it's a more expensive beer. I added a bunch of extras to it and that raised the price, it's still just about $1 a bottle though.

 Hell you get 6 gallons at a time in these kits or around 62 beers give or take a few. 3 cases if Awesome beer at a time, Oh Yeah!

 I'll take some pics of the next batch I brew and post them, I'm going to do a Wheat Beer or a Sparkling Ale, I also plan on doing a Cerveza Style soon too.

 I've got some Habanero Peppers in the freezer and I'm going to put some pepper slices in a few of them to see how that turns out, HOT....lol.

 Well until next time, Take Care and if you like beer get yourself a Cooper's Micro Brew Kit and get to Homebrewing, you'll be glad you did.

Happy Holidays to Everyone!

All of my Holiday visiting is now over, I went and did the family thing with my Mom on last Sat. On Sunday Amy and I went to Wytheville, VA to visit her Sister and her family at Bob Evan's for lunch (good place to meet up and have a bite to eat.)

 The food was great and the visit went very well. Later that afternoon my dad and step mom Deb had their family thing for the 1st time at a place we could all meet up without any cats, so that was nice and we had a pretty good time. (Amy is deathly allergic to cats) and Dad and Deb have 4 of them, so we don't go visit them at there house except in summer when we can stay outside.

 Here it is Christmas Eve of 2010 and I can't believe this year is almost over with. Damn the older you get the faster the years fly by. When I was a teen and early 20's it seemed like time just drug along, then in my 30's it started going faster and faster as each year passed. Now this coming Jan I'll turn the big 40.

 I really don't even give a shit, I was bothered when I turned 30, less hair, more gray, a bit fatter...lol. Now as I've went through all the years of being 30 I've come to realize you're only as old as you think you are.

 It's like the story of the old bull and his young son standing on the hill overlooking a field of cows. The young bull tells his dad, Let's run down the hill and fuck us a cow, The old bull laughs and says NO Son! Let's Walk down the Hill and Fuck Them All!....lmao!

 I love that story, its not really a joke but instead one of life's lessons. A lesson a lot of people never learn.

 Take time to smell the roses and enjoy the simple and finer things in life. There is no bonus amount of time when you reach the end for a speedy rush through finish, you just die having missed most of what life is worth living for.

 Anyway everyone have a Happy Holiday and enjoy the time you spend this season while you Eat, Drink and make Merry!

Lazy Daze of the Big Belly Beer Burping Brad

So I've tried the Black and Blue and while I'm a huge fan of all thing Black and Blue Berry I only like the beer, not a total disappointment, but not the wonderful liquid orgasm I was hoping for., Oh Well that's life.

 On a happy note I tried the Raison D'Etre Belgian Style Brown Ale and it blew my socks off. Raisin and Beet Sugars in a beer, What the Fuck kind of shit is that you ask, Damn Good is my Answer.

 You really don't even taste Raisin's or Beets you just get all these wonderful flavors that just keep coming sip after sip. I think I found a new favorite Craft Beer, at least for now. I see now why it won Beer of the Year Award a few years ago, its goodness in a bottle.

 http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/year-round-brews/raison-detre.htm

1st Snowfall of 2010

Well they finally got a forecast right for a change. Snow was on the list for
today and it even arrived about 12 hours early.

Glad I'm just staying home today, I alway enjoy this weather better looking at it through the window as opposed to being out in it.

 I picked up a couple bottles of Dogfish Head Black and Blue so I think I'll get into one of those here in a bit and check out some of that wonderful Black and Blue Berry Beer.

Heres the link to the Dogfish Head Website if you're into Craft Beer.

http://www.dogfish.com/brews-spirits/the-brews/occassional-rarities/black-blue.htm

Cold and Nasty Day in the Carolinas

Today totally sucked ass if you wanted to do anything outside the house. Wind blowing 20 to 30 mph, raining sideways and not a speck of blue in the sky. I've resided to just forget trying to take a ride for the next few days and instead drink some cold beer, play some fetch with Smokey and goof off online, could be worse I could be at work....haha.

Here's my entertainment for the next few days. My crazy little Pekingese Smokey and his favorite toy the Sphere of Joy, as we call it, because it brings him so much Joy..lol.

Holidays are here again.

Well here I am trying to think of something I'd like to share on this newly created blog.

 By nature I'm a private person and not inclined to open up and share my personal thoughts with many people. I've had to many people in the past use information I've shared with them about myself as a weapon against me later.

 So why the hell am I blogging you ask? Who the fuck knows for sure, I don't...lol.

 I suppose its because I'm not really talking to anybody personally doing it this way and it's a way to put down my personal thoughts to reflect upon later.

 Anyway I titled this entry Holidays are here again. So I guess I'll talk about Holidays.

 I get bummed out this time of the year. It just reminds me of the fact that my Grandparent's are gone and aren't coming back. I use to love the holidays, it was a time for everyone to get together and see each other and share story's, take pictures and have a great time.

 After my Grandparents passed the family kind of spread to the wind, my mom and her brother stopped having anything to do with each other and my cousins do shit with their dad, me and my brother with our mom.

 I have step siblings, but we aren't really close, so the family gatherings went from something I really looked foward to, to something I loathed.

 Now I have a Love, Hate relationship with the Holidays. I love stuffing my face with Turkey and sides on Thanksgiving and I love getting presents on Christmas, but I absolutely hate traveling to my family's to do the function.

 I live about an hour and a half from the function location so that means 3 fucking hours on the road every time we go over there. If I were on my bike that would be a short day trip and no big deal, but since we hold these functions in the cold weather months and usually have more shit to take than will fit on the bikes we take the cage.

 I guess it's a small price to pay for having my privacy though. I sure as fuck don't want my family all up in my shit at my house. How fucked up is that, a little, not at all, a lot? I guess its a matter of your point of view.

 Considering I didn't speak to any of my family for almost 10 years straight (directly after my Grandmother passed) I suppose its a small miracle I even bother with the family functions anymore.

 Hell I got tried of being angry with them and figured out it wasn't hurting anybody but me, so I put my anger aside and extended the olive branch, it was accepted and now we've been doing the family functions again now for the past few years.

 I have my G/F Amy to thank for my eyes being opened and putting down that bag of bricks named hate, her mom was alive when I met her 9 years ago and since she passed about 5 years ago Amy doesn't have any close family at all to speak of.

 Here I am with 2 family's and I wasn't doing shit with either of them, it made me feel like an asshole.

 She told me she'd do whatever I wanted and be cool with it, stay home or go visit. The first few years of us being together we did things with her Mom and I just called my family to say hello.

 But after her mom passed we had a void in our life on the Holidays. Humans are social animals whether we want to admit it or not.

 I made my peace with my family and now than Thanksgiving's over with I just have to endure Christmas and the travel over there...lol.

 If you come from a broken family maybe you can relate, if not, consider yourself lucky and don't take your Mom and Day for granted.

 If you're pissed at them get over it. They're the only parents you'll ever have and once they're gone they won't be coming back. You won't get the chance to make amends and have another chance to make some good memories.