Plain ol’ Porter
Monday, December 31, 2007 - 05:59 PM
It’s been a while since I posted any brewing stuff, and since I brewed last night, I thought this would be a good opportunity.
First, I may as well mention the couple of batches that I did over the past couple of months but didn’t talk about at the time. The first was the Holiday Ale - which we called “Crooked Cat Tail Holiday Ale”. It was actually just the Brewer’s Best Holiday Ale kit. It turned out really good, and we gave some away to friends and family for the holidays.
Second was a coffee stout. This was my first attempt at a coffee stout. I used a recipe from the Brew Your Own “150 Classic Clone Recipes” special issue. I started with the Lagunitas Brewing Company Cappuccino Stout clone, but altered the malt extract quantities a little bit to suit my needs. The recipe called for quite a bit of specialty grains, and I ran into an issue because of this - all of the grains barely fit into my steeping bag, and some of the malts in the center of the bag didn’t get wet at all during the steeping. Also, I skipped the dry hopping that the recipe called for. These two things, I think, adversely affected the final outcome. I tried some the other day, and the coffee flavor is way to strong. I think if the grains had properly steeped, and I had done the dry hopping, the flavor would be better balanced.
Oh, well. Live and learn - it’s all part of the process. I’m going to let it age a few more weeks and try it again, to see if it mellows out at all.
On to the Porter!
I had some specialty grains and hops left over from the stout batch, so I threw together a porter recipe based on that. Since the Mystery Ale turned out to be one of my best batches, and that was just thrown together around left over ingredients, I figured “What the heck? Let’s go for it!”
So, this is the recipe I came up with:
Plain ol’ Porter
3 lbs. Amber DME
3 lbs. Amber LME - late addition
1 lb. Crystal 20L
1 lb. Black Patent
1/2 lb. Chocolate
1/2 oz Nugget 12.8% @ 60 min.
1/2 oz Cascade 6.9% @ 60 min.
1 oz Cascade 5.1 % @ 30 min.
.75 oz Willamette 3.8% @ 5 min.
1/4 tsp. yeast nutrient @ 15 min.
1084 Irish Ale yeast
I’m going to wait until after I taste it, but the name may change if it turns out to be really good. Maybe “Perfect Porter”!
Netiquette by Force
Thursday, December 20, 2007 - 08:25 AM
If you’ve ever spent any time reading comments on any websites/blogs (particularly anything dealing with “Politics”, “Religion” or “Mac vs. PC"), you’ve got to think that this is a good idea:
I love this, from the FAQ:
Isn’t filtering stupidity elitist?
Yes. Yes, it is. That’s sort of the whole point.
Now, if only someone could come up with a real-life stupid filter.
Thom Yorke interviewed by David Byrne
Wednesday, December 19, 2007 - 10:05 AM
That’s right, the lead singer from Radiohead interviewed by the man who wrote the song Radio Head.
It’s an interesting conversation, and definitely worth listening to; especially if you’re either a David Byrne or Radiohead fan.
The text article is an edited version of the interview - listen to the sound clips for the full thing. Oh, and as one of the comments mentions, Thom Yorke sounds just like Nigel Tufnel from Spinal Tap!
Also, make sure you check out David’s essay on the state of the music industry - Survival Strategies for Emerging Artists.
Zeppelin Doesn’t Disappoint
Tuesday, December 11, 2007 - 09:17 AM
If you’re like me, you were worried that Led Zeppelin’s highly anticipated tribute concert for Ahmet Ertegun would turn out to be a disaster. As much as I love Led Zeppelin, I could see the possibility of these guys getting together after not playing together for so long and putting up slipshod renditions of their old songs. They could’ve gotten on stage and pretended that they were the same band they were 30 years ago, like some other bands do. Or, they could have just sounded terrible.
Luckily, that was not the case, according to (at least) this review:
Led Zeppelin Finds Its Old Power
I just hope they decide to release the performance on CD or DVD (or both), even though there’s no current plans on doing so. (Of course there are no plans for it, yet - what if it had been a disappointment?)
And, I’ll join the chorus of people asking for it, even though it’s highly unlikely: I do hope that they decide to go on tour. I’ve seen Robert Plant live; I’ve seen Jimmy Page live; I’ve seen Robert and Jimmy together live; and I’ve seen John Paul Jones live. I’d absolutely love to see “Led Zeppelin” live.
UPDATE
The Telegraph has a “round up” of reviews, and they all appear to agree that the boys were at the top of their form:
Telegraph.co.uk: Reviewing the Reviews
Why NOT to by a Dell
Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:50 AM
No, it’s not just because Dells are crappy computers, there are deeper reasons not to buy from Dell:
(I thought the article was going to be about their poor quality or bad service. It turned out to be something else altogether.)