ben.parmeter

A few months back I finally kicked off a new diet plan.  I hit that moment of clarity where I just said to myself, damn, I’m too fat.  This really has to stop.  It’s like the scales finally tipped (pun intended), as if my sloth-like apathy for any kind of food management had finally reached its apogee.  I had recently gone into my new doctor for an introductory appointment and was going through the list of things that were wrong with me.  That’s when the doctor oh-so-slyly added, “…and you know you are overweight, right?”  Crackle, crackle – Ding!  That’s the sound of the small dim light bulb in my head flickering on.  Yeah, it was well and truly time.

Because I can’t do anything too boring, I decided to try out something new.  One might even call it a fad.   Ok, it’s definitely a fad.  One might even call it daft.  I’m trying out the Slow-Carb diet (yeah, just google it).  Unless you’ve been living in a cave, under a rock, on another planet, etc., then you’ve probably heard of a low-Carb diet.  Well, this is similar, but instead of eating deliciously carby things like bread, sugar, fruits, beer, etc., you replace those things with lots and lots of beans.  Legumes.  Pinto, Black, Lentil, Refried, and so on.

Let me tell you, it’s easy to get tired of beans.  I mean, I love beans as much as the next guy, but try eating them all the time for a couple of months.  It gets pretty boring.  But it seems to be slowly but steadily working.  Though I haven’t seen the incredible results that some claim to get, I have seen much progress.  I’m down over 16 pounds since I’ve started this thing and I feel pretty darn great.

Now here is the shocker.  I have not exercised one tiny… little… bit.  I have maintained my sedentary existence, parked in front of a computer all day, barely lifting a mouse.  I even have a fancy gadget to lift the handset from my desk phone so that I can use my headset. Yes.  Shameful indeed.

With that said, I can accelerate my weight loss, and actually gain energy (so they say) if I just started exercising… even a tiny little bit every other day.  But I don’t.  Why?  I’m really not sure.  I think I need… just a bit of motivation.

I know I should get out of bed just a little early, throw on those running shoes and bag a mile tomorrow morning.  One measly mile.  But I consistently hit the snooze.  Sleep is too awesome to be squandered on some sweaty, heart-pounding, lung-stinging, morning run.

As you can see – I need some help here folks.  Motivate me.

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 grabbed a bottle of my first homebrew tonight, and tossed it into the freezer to get it nice and cool. After about 30-45 minutes of cooling, I grabbed two pint glasses from the cupboard. The first test, opening the bottle. Using the fridge mounted bottle opener, I leveraged off the bottle cap which released a satisfying hiss as the carbonation rushed out. A misty fog briefly wafted from the top of the bottle. Also a good sign. I gingerly tilted the bottle to pour the liquid into the pint glasses, taking care not to stir up too much sediment. Bringing the pint glass to my nose, I sniffed to see if I could detect any off odors. Nope – nothing detectably bad. In fact, it smelled delightful. And then, the taste. Now, I won’t sugar coat this and tell you that it’s the best beer I’ve ever tasted… that would be over stating things just a bit. No, I’ll be honest, it’s not the best beer I’ve tasted. It’s a bit on the light side, not a very strong flavor. Not to say it doesn’t have good mouthfeel and body. It was fizzy and satisfying indeed. However, it lacked any real strong flavor of hops or malts – just smooth. Suzy says she detected a hint of lemon and seemed a little displeased with the flavor in general when paired with food. However, I couldn’t really complain. This is my first brew after all and the beginning of a great love affair with home brewing. I give it a B+. Next up, Hefe!

UPDATE 10-15: Tasted another bottle tonight and wow what a difference a day makes. The beer tasted brilliant today. Maybe that last bottle was a slightly off sample – or maybe it just needed more time. Either way, this is getting more exciting by the day!

Yesterday, Suzy and I bottled the beer. Yes, after two weeks of waiting anxiously, we opened fermenter and siphoned off the delicious liquid into a another large bucket which we used to finally bottle the beer. This part of the process has had me very nervous for the past two weeks. With so many variables, there are lots of opportunities for something to go wrong with the process.

After carefully extracting the fermenter from the bathtub, in an effort not to stir up any of the yeast residue clinging to the sides of the bucket, I slowly transferred it into the kitchen where the bottling was to take place. I lifted the heavy bucket up onto the counter, accidentally slammed the base against the counter-top, I cursed myself for not being careful enough. Probably not a big deal, I told myself. I stood for a moment mentally preparing myself for potential catastrophic beer failure. Then I began to crack the lid open. As I did this, a wonderful smell arose from the container. A sweet aroma, a bouquet of distinctly fresh… beer. There was no mistaking it – the process had worked. The smell and appearance of the liquid proved this a success.

I quickly hooked up the siphon and began transferring the beer into the second bucket with the priming sugar. After siphoning the beer into the second bucket, I was able to attach the bottling wand to the hose and spigot and begin the bottling process. At this point, I decided to actually taste the beer. Understand that at this point, it has just been mixed with the priming sugar, is still warm and of course, flat. However, I needed to know if the flavor was right. And thus, I poured out a shot glass worth of the liquid and lifted it to my lips. I emptied the container into my mouth, let is slosh around a bit, testing the flavor and finally swallowed. Success. Sweet success. Literally – definitely could taste the priming sugar. But at this point, it was definitely, beer. And quite tasty I might add.

And so we spent about an hour bottling the stuff up and transferred it to the bathtub again (mostly in case any bottles decide to explode). The fermentation is still in process and that priming sugar should generate some great carbonation to give it just the right mouth-feel. In two weeks, I’ll have a very drinkable beer – I hope. Wish me luck.

The fermentation process has slowed to what seems like inactivity. However, this may actually be part of the conditioning phase of the brewing process. My concern is that, it has only really been active (active = visible gases bubbling the airlock) for about 6 days or less which perhaps could mean that the entire fermenting process may have been at too high a temperature (over 75F), and possibly caused the yeast to ferment too quickly. If this is the case, my beer could attain I higher alcohol content and thus a strong alcohol taste. However, leaving the beer in a conditioning phase for another week may help to even that flavor out.

And if I’m wrong about the conditioning phase, Suzy and I moved the whole bucket to the bathtub which we filled with cold water to bring the temperature down a bit. Perhaps this will help move things along at the proper pace. Probably should have done this in the first place, since it’s really hard to control temperatures in warm house in the summertime.

Until next time…

UPDATE: After submersing the bucket in the cool water of the bathtub, the fermentation seems to have resumed to normal. Now the challenge is keeping the water level up in the bathtub so we can keep the temperature within good fermentation levels. I think despite this, I’m going to bottle this weekend. I’m really looking forward to bottling actually – should be quite fun.

Just as I had mentioned in previous post, I have stepped up and made good on my plans to brew beer. Today, I peeled myself off of the couch and went down to the local home-brew shop. There I was confronted with a vast array of confusing choices of equipment and brewing materials. I quickly made friends with the guy running the place, who himself had just started brewing beer a couple of months ago. I told him what I had wanted to do – and we started off trying to keep it simple and cheap and then escalated from there.

First, I chose a beer kit which consists of all the delicious ingredients to make the actual beer. I chose the “Strong Nut Brown Ale” which comes with all the grains (Pale Liquid Malt Extract LME, Victory Malt, Chocalate Malt), Hops (Northern Hops from the UK, and Willamette Hops from Oregon), Irish Moss for flavor, Turbonado sugar for brewing, yeast for brewing also and bottling sugar.

Next, I chose to purchase the actual fermenter (5-Gallon Bucket) and gear from the same shop. This is how things started to escalate in price. As we chatted over the course of 45 minutes, we slowly began piling on item after item. It started with just the fermenter, the airlock, then the rack and bottling bucket, the siphon, the tubing, the bottling tube, and the list goes on. Not really all that terrible when you consider after purchasing all of this it was still around $80 with about $35 going to the actual beer kit contents.

The brewing process is relatively simple, but very precise. In a way, I feel a bit like a cop-out by not actually doing the process from scratch – actually selecting the ingredients one by one and preparing the malts, etc. However for a first timer, I think that going with a kit is a wise choice. Maybe if I really enjoy this, I’ll start to experiment with more complicated brews.

Thankfully, HopTech has some great instructional videos online which helped me immensely. I learned some new stuff that wasn’t in the instructions from these videos. They really helped me visualize what I needed to do during the entire process.

In two-three weeks, I’m hoping to have 5-gallons of delicious, delicious beer. Wish me luck.

The day is finally here! Suzy and I are not-so-frantically cooking and cleaning. We’re getting the place ready for family to arrive. The house already smells of baked thanksgiving goodness. It’s going to be a good day. I hope all you internet peoples are having a great Thanksgiving too. Even those that are in different countries… yup, everyone. Here’s to a full belly and a warm house. Love ya’ll – Happy Thanksgiving!

I ran across Pat Cassleman’s Stuffing recipe today, as if by divine intervention, just in time to start getting prepped for our Thanksgiving feast. This stuffing recipe is really outstanding and could be a meal all by itself. A delicious, artery clogging meal. And because I’m in the giving spirit, I’m going to share this recipe with the world. (Sorry Pat, hope this one wasn’t a secret family recipe)

Ingredients:

• 14 Slices of Bread (Preferably Wheat) cut into cubes
• 2 Big Yellow Onions Chopped (I like to make these big coarse pieces – not too big)
• 4 Chopped Apples (also cut into cubes)
• 1 lb Bulk Sage Flavored Ground Pork Sausage
• 1 Stick of Margarine or Butter
• Rubbed Sage (may be difficult to find, but sometimes can be found in the bulk section of your local warehouse grocery store)

Step 1: Brown / Crumble the sausage in a frying pan. While doing this, the recipe also calls for melting an entire stick of butter into the mix. Really. No joke. Absolutely no fat is wasted in this stuffing. This dish is going to help us bulk up for the winter and possibly give us a nice cardiac episode for the holidays.

Step 2: In a 13″x9″ baking pan, mix the bread cubes, apples cubes, and chopped onion. Then add the sausage and melted butter to the mix. Mix it all up so the bread absorbs the melted butter and pork fat.

Step 3: Add the rubbed sage and mix in. There is no real set amount of sage that you should add, instead just add this until you feel that it’s fragrant enough to be tasty in your mouth, but not overpowering.

Step 4: Put the entire baking pan in the fridge and let marinate for two (2) hours. Not sure why this is necessary, but hey, I won’t argue with perfection.

Step 5: Bake in the oven at 350F degrees for 1.5 hours or until crusty and brown on top.

Step 6: Shovel into mouth. Nap. Shovel into mouth. Submit to butter induced coma. Repeat.

I dare you not to enjoy this…