Spectre’s Sayings

Story here.

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I was on vacation last week. I didn’t go anywhere, but spent my time alternating between doing work around the house and relaxing. Blog posting took a position WAY down on my list of priorities

I bottled the yeast experiment hefeweizens on April 15th. I used corn sugar as priming sugar for the first time. Previously, I’ve used Cooper’s Carbonation Drops. I hope that the sugar dissolved in the beer evenly, so that I get even carbonation and not some over-carbed and some under-carbed bottles. I’m really looking forward to tasting time.

Schlafly beer crafts plan to keep up with surging demand

I hope everyone had a wonderful Easter!

What’s the difference between a nerd, geek, dweeb, and dork? This Venn Diagram shows you.

Joe Biden: Real Man of Genius (mp3 audio file)

Tiny Tyrannosaur Came from the Land Down Under via LiveScience.

Today is the Feast of the Annunciation of the Lord. An Angel of the Lord came to a virgin betrothed to a man name Joseph. The Virgin’s name was Mary. The Angel asked her if she would consent to be God’s own mother, and Mary said YES. Through Mary’s assent, humanity participated in its own redemption, agreeing to the Lord’s coming among us as a man…. Nine months from today, we celebrate the birth of our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Yahoo! News: US Mint unveils new quarters with national parks

Monday, I felt awful, but I muddled through the day at work. Tuesday morning, I still felt bad, so I decided to take the day off work. I sort of just rested throughout the morning, but by midday, I felt much better. So I started to do some household chores, and got things going. Then, feeling ambitious, I decided to brew a simple extract batch of beer, using ingredients I had on hand. This meant I was brewing a hefeweizen.

I brought 2.5 gallons of water to a boil. I took it off the heat, added 6.6 lbs (2 cans) of Cooper’s Wheat Liquid Malt Extract (50% Two-Row, 50% Wheat Malt), and returned to a boil. After boiling for 15 minutes, I added 1 ounce of (7.5% AA) Amarillo hops, and boiled for 45 minutes. Then I cooled the wort down to about 80° F, ran it through a strainer, and topped off with cold water to bring the volume up to 5 gallons, and the temperature down to 68°. I aerated the wort by pouring it from bucket to bucket, and split the batch into two smaller batches of approximately 2.5 gallons. One batch was slightly larger than the other.

Now, for the experiment. In one fermenter (the one with slightly more wort), I added a packet of Safale WB-06 yeast (meant for Bavarian-style wheat beers), and in the other I added a packet of Safbrew T-58 Ale yeast (a belgian yeast – which I assume, based on its ester profile, is meant for Belgian Witbiers).

I then put the lid and airlocks on the fermenters and took them downstairs to the basement, which is an ambient temperature of 61° F.

The point of the experiment is to see how much influence different strains of yeast have on the appearance, aroma, body, and flavor of a beer. I expect it to have minimal influence on the appearance, somewhat more influence on the aroma and body, and a great deal of influence on the flavor. We’ll see if I’m right.

As of this morning, the T-58 is already actively fermenting. The airlock was bubbling approximately once every 10 seconds. The airlock in the WB-06 fermenter had not yet begun to bubble.