ben.parmeter

One might think that over the last month or so, nothing has happened of note in my life.  But alas, that is not the case.  For some reason, after sitting down in front of the keyboard, I’ve been struck with a terrible case of the writers block.  I just haven’t been motivated to write about things lately.  So instead of writing a well thought out post, chronicling the goings-on, I’m going to make a list of random things I’ve been up to with photos.  Ben’s month in lists…

Things I’ve been doing lately:

• Celebrated Suzy’s Birthday, Twice (Once at Ruby Tuesday – Shameful, Once at The Melting Pot – Delicious)
• Brewed an Oatmeal Stout for annual competition with one of my co-workers
• Purchased a PlayStation 3 (Mostly for Blu-Ray support, but also for games and media center)
• Got the Santa Fe fixed
• Read “Happiest baby on the Block”
• Visited like-minded friends on the Central Coast of California, made friends with their dog Parker

• Saw this drooling bird on the pier at the beach

• Went to a good old fashioned Melodrama (my first time… and a great experience)
• Visited Taipei, Taiwan for work

• Read “Baby Wise”
• Ate great Asian food in Taipei, Taiwan
• Worked in Taipei, Taiwan
• Took pictures in bathrooms in Taipei, Taiwan (“Keeping a Clean and Pleasant Environment Makes Everyone Delighted Thank You”)

• Played Beatles RockBand (Thanks Chris!)
• Traveled to Oregon for work, visited my parents
• Met Nico Edan Ferguson for the very first time.

• Said goodbye to my long time friends Pat & Cynthia – Have a great time in Taiwan my friends… see you in two years!
• Baby Shower plus BBQ with the family in Stockton
• Obtained a flash for my fancy camera – subsequently super impressed with results
• Took second place at the Oktoberfest for our Oatmeal Stout (See Above)

• Brewed Scottish Ale from a kit (I know… I was too lazy to do my own all-grain recipe)
• Toyed with the idea of brewing a blueberry wheat beer for my second keg
• Spent time with the fellas at one of my best buds houses while Suzy had another baby shower in Sacramento – More Rock Band
• Worked A Bunch

And that folks, is just a tiny portion, of the things that I’ve been up to lately.  More to come…

I thought some of you might be interested in the progress that I’m making with my little backyard hop farm.  Check out the latest here:

 

I didn’t know until recently, what a rhizome was.  The rhizome is a root or stem, clipped from an existing plant.  It apparently allows you got grow an entirely new plant from what appears to be a dried up old twig.  To cut to the chase here, I actually purchased a couple of hop rhizomes from the local brew shop this weekend.  Suzy’s brother and his friend came up specifically to get the equipment for their first batch of beer and I tagged along to give some semi-experienced advice.  While at the brew shop, I noticed a box full of these dried up little twigs in plastic bags.  The shop was cleaning out their inventory from the large number of pre-orders they filled earlier in the season.  I decided to utilize my gift certificate (Thanks Laura and Roger!) to purchase a couple of these twigs.  All along, in my mind, playing out a grand fantasy of being a hop farmer, tending to my hops in the spring sunshine – sipping a cold brew of course.

I sifted through the left-over hop rhizomes and chose two different varieties.  Not really much of a hop-head, I was at a loss to what I should really choose.  So I just randomly guessed and purchased the Nugget and Centennial varieties.  There was tons of Hallertaur hop rhizomes, a more traditional German lager hop, but I skipped over those in favor of the more “interesting” varieties.

Sunday morning, I woke up a bit early (well for a Sunday morning at least) and decided that it was a perfect time to plant my new hop garden.  After some fervent Internet research, I decided to plant the hops along the back fence (southern facing) which has a trellis already built into it.  I began to soak the rhizomes in water, prepping them for their final destination in the ground.

After removing a copious amount of weeds from the two spots I had chosen, I dug a nice deep hole removing the clay/dirt that was previously occupying this space.  I filled the holes in with a bit of potting soil, placed the rhizome horizontally on this new bed of dirt, then covered it up with about 1-2 inches more of potting soil.  I then gave it a good soak to get things nice and moist (Don’t you just love that word?).

And that’s it.  I expect to see some sprouts in a week or so, as long as I am able to keep it watered.  It still boggles my mind that I simply put this little innocuous looking twig in the ground and have it potentially grow into a 25 foot long 20lb vine (sometimes growing up to a foot in length a day!).  I’ll keep you updated on it’s progress.  For now, enjoy the pics below…

 

I’m slowly checking off those items on my to-do list.  Last night I seized a chunk of “free” time (so rare these days) to setup my garage brewing operation and take a crack at my first real organic brew.  As described before, all ingredients of this Robust Porter recipe are Organically grown (Hops, Grains, Malt, etc.) with exception to the Irish Moss which is in such a tiny amount that it barely matters.

Since the beer is organic, it will contain magical healing properties that will cure all of my many ailments.  I will set about drinking several pints of the healthy elixir every day, lest my body be ravaged by the pesticides and toxins in my other foods.  This effervesant tonic will flush the bad chemicals from my body, stop the aging process, and make my teeth whiter.  Yes.  It’s the Dr. Brommers of beer.  18-in-1.  Glorius.

I introduced a couple of new pieces of technology to my brewing process.  Firstly, I am now using the “Turkey Fryer” kit which comes with an aluminum brew pot, nice long thermometer, and a propane burner with stand.  This is truly a learning process, as I learned very quickly that it needs to be watched very closely to manage the boil.  I was the victim of two (2) boil-overs.  Ugh.  My second, and more exciting piece of new brewing technology is the Wort Chiller.  That’s that big coil of copper that you can see in the pictures below.  At the end of the boil, you place this into the brewpot.  After connecting a hose, you can then run cool water throughout the boiling wort, which rapidly breaks the boil and brings the beer down to a nice cool 75 degrees.  I was impressed with the speed at which it cooled the beer from 212 degrees down to 75 in about 10-15 minutes.  My previous ice bath method took over an hour before!  I also used a liquid yeast this time, which is new to me, so I’m hoping that everything ferments OK.  I was walking around the house with a vial of yeast in my pocket just to get it nice and warm prior to pitching.  I’ll let you know if it works.

In two-three weeks I should have delicious organic beer on tap at the house.

 

Well, it seems to work for Ingrid, so I’m going to take some pictures of my recent projects, post them here, and hope that I can get to them soon.

Here is my latest gadget. This is no ordinary record player, this is the Ion. It’s connected to my computer via a USB cable and is made specifically for backing up those old analog albums to digital files. It’s a beautiful mixture of old and new technology. I can’t wait to start converting those old tracks. But the work is time consuming. Lining up the needle, capturing the audio at just the right second, and all of the digital clean-up to remove the major scratches and pops takes a serious amount of time. Right now we just have a few albums to transfer. Suzy has a collection of Beatles albums at her parents house that I can’t wait to give a spin.

And recently for my birthday, I also received a turkey fryer kit! Before you get too excited, I’m not going to be using this to fry up any animal flesh. Suzy and I are basically vegetarians now anyway.  Instead, I’ll be using this to brew up some delicious batches of beer.  It’s the perfect setup, with a big aluminum brew-pot, propane stove, and long thermometer.  Pat also hooked me up with some copper tubing, which he had pre-fashioned into a spiral.  I’ll use this to make a wort chiller, to do a rapid cold-break.

This is all in preparation for brewing my first Organic Beer.  We recently visited an Organic Brew Shop in Santa Cruz.  I’m excited to get started on the brewing process for this one, but I’ve been putting it off until I got the propane burner and pot setup.  Organic beer may be taking the whole organic thing a bit too far, but hey, it’s beer.  Do you think it will taste any better, or worse or the same?  Time will tell.

Not only did I want to wait for the burner setup, but also the completed Wort Chiller.  While I had the copper tubing, I still needed hose to connect to a water source, to supply the cold water for the cold-break process.  Suzy and I recently went to the hardware store and I picked up a nice thin marine hose that hooks up nicely to spigots outside our house.  Here’s a picture of the cleaning process to remove the thin layer of laminate from the copper, boiling in a solution of water and vinegar.  Also a nice test of the burner.

And also on the docket is a full remodel of our guest room.  The previous owners must have taken it upon themselves to install some seriously bad crown molding, which is basically mounted flat on the wall.  I just want to look at them and say, really?!  And the baseboards themselves look like molding that would normally be used for a door.  The ceiling is still a pinkish purple, the blinds are purple, the carpet is dingy, stained and old and the ceiling fan is electrically dubious.  All this must go.  So I will be taking it upon myself to go to town on this room and turn it into something that we don’t have to be ashamed of anymore.  I’m not sure how long this project is going to take me, but it will probably some time before we get it going.  Here are some before shots…

And here is a closer shot of the horrid crown… and pink ceiling…

Well, I could go on for days about all the unfinished projects around here, but I need to get myself up off the couch.  Until next time…

Just yesterday, I took an intermediate brewing class which covers everything from partial mash brewing to creating your own recipes and coincidentally, kegging.  You see, my good friend Anthony out of the goodness of his heart has given to me, free of charge, his old kegerator with the CO2 system and tap.  And I have spent the last few weeks converting it for home-brew use.  I picked up a couple of corny kegs from the cheapest brewing store on the internet, also tubing and the necessary connectors.  And I even picked up a full sized “John Courage English Ale” tap handle from Ebay for $5 (new it costs over $40!!).

I’ve got a beer fermenting right now, queued up to be kegged.  And thankfully, now I know roughly how to keg to get the right carbonation and all.  I’m pretty excited to put it all to use.  Just another week and I’ll get the new beer all kegged up.  It should be drinkable in just a few days after that.

A big thanks to Anthony for starting my holiday season on a bright note.  Here’s some pictures of my new toy:

 

Update: I should note that it was through the thoughtfulness of my impossibly awesome wife that informed Anthony of my desire to get a kegerator.  She deserves her share of the credit for this holiday miracle.  I love you tons!