Happy 4th...

Useless but hysterical...

I just noticed that YouTube has added a new control to their viewer. There's now a little soccer ball on the control panel. Click it and you get droning vuvulzelas added to the video's soundtrack.

Copycats!

Per existing California law...

834b. (a) Every law enforcement agency in California shall fully cooperate with the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service regarding any person who is arrested if he or she is suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws.
(b) With respect to any such person who is arrested, and suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws, every law enforcement agency shall do the following:
(1) Attempt to verify the legal status of such person as a citizen of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted as a permanent resident, an alien lawfully admitted for a temporary period of time or as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of immigration laws. The verification process may include, but shall not be limited to, questioning the person regarding his or her date and place of birth, and entry into the United States, and demanding documentation to indicate his or her legal status.
(2) Notify the person of his or her apparent status as an alien who is present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws and inform him or her that, apart from any criminal justice proceedings, he or she must either obtain legal status or leave the United States.
(3) Notify the Attorney General of California and the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service of the apparent illegal status and provide any additional information that may be requested by any other public entity.
(c) Any legislative, administrative, or other action by a city, county, or other legally authorized local governmental entity with jurisdictional boundaries, or by a law enforcement agency, to prevent or limit the cooperation required by subdivision (a) is expressly prohibited.

So it looks like Arizona was merely copying their trend-setting neighbor to the west. What's next Gov. Brewer? A bill to change the Suns' colors to purple and gold?

Is it asking too much?

Could Mr. Holder do just a little reading before he shoots his mouth off?

It's a quick read.

It's official... I quit

...quit the GOP that is.

I'm looking at this sorry crop of candidates we get to choose from here in California and I decided that I don't want to be part of the aforementioned "we". They're a bunch of RINOs all claiming to be the most conservative candidate in the room. Whitman is Aaaahnold in drag. Poizner? I didn't even know that he was a Republican until a few weeks ago. I kid you not: I thought that he was a Democrat! Would a "conservative" give money to John Kerry and Algore?!? Fiorina? Didn't she support Barbara Boxer last time around?

In Sacramento, the biggest tax increase in US history passed because a Republican governor and a few GOP turncoats in the legislature wanted it. Now that governor wants one of these tax hiking stooges as the new lt. governor.

So that's it... No more.

I've been a Republican since I turned 18. Back then, the word "Republican" had a face...



Where did that party go? Where is that GOP now?! Reagan was once a Democrat. He said that he didn't quit the party, the party quit him.

So, perhaps I didn't quit after all...

Brother, can you spare a dime...

Perhaps Obama can part with a little BP Bling to help clean up his mess in the Gulf of Mexico.

Algore's new digs

HotAirPundit reports on Algore's new digs. It seems that St. Al the Warm has entered the California real estate market in a big way... a $9,000,000 way. Nearby Santa Barbara has a very nice airport that should be more than adequate for Al's private jet.

That strong ale...

...got stronger!

The latest batch of my strong ale tips the scales at 8.5% ABV. It's still hoppy and sweet; a good balance.

Upgrading to Lucid Lynx

I've been using Kubuntu for quite a while now. The latest long term support release is 10.04, Lucid Lynx. I just let the automagical update do its thing and updated my box. It went without a hitch, for the most part. I did have one small problem with Thunderbird, however.

When I tried to start Thunderbird, I got an error saying that "Thunderbird is already running...". Of course, it wasn't. The problem seems to be when the update process tries to set up a new profile rather than using an old one. The old profile gets stored as /.thunderbird.upstream. A new /thunderbird sub-directory is made, but the profile.ini file in mine referred to the old profile that now resides in /.thunderbird.upstream. The problem was fixed by copying the old profile directory into the new /.thunderbird directory.

This is the only glitch I've had thus far.

By the way, I really like what I'm seeing in the latest T-bird.

You know...

...this used to be a political blog.

Perhaps the beer is a manifestation of my libertarian streak!

Taste test

OK... The Pooh's Blustery Ale has been kegged and under CO2 for 4 days. It's pretty good! I'm trying it out a little too warm, but the flavor's very good. More malt-forward than my previous beers; ~45 IBUs. It still has a lot of residual sweetness despite fermenting out to 1.005 (O.G. was 1.056.) Some honey bite to it as well and the color is where I wanted it; Pooh-bear colored.

Two beers in secondary

I've never had this before: Two beers in secondary fermentation...



On the left is the Pooh's Blustery Ale and on the right is the Strong American Ale



There's just under 5 gallons here...



...and roughly 6 here!

I'm gonna need another keg!

I like this...

I pitched that AB clone onto the yeast cake from the Blustery Ale and it's taking off like a rocket! I pitched it about 45 minutes ago and the airlock's already bubbling. Another plus, I only end up cleaning the primary fermentor half as often this way. Ditto for the secondary.

Another brew night!

Pooh's Blustery Ale has been racked off to the secondary and now a second batch of that AB clone, in this case "A Modest Strong Ale", is bubbling away on the stove. The Blustery Ale does smell like honey, so that little twist seems to have worked.





The dogs really love it when I brew beer. My wife takes the spent grain and make dog biscuits with it.

Aaarrrggggh!

The keg's empty!

Pooh's Blustery Ale

Odd how the mind wanders about some days...

"If there's a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you're a bee."

Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."
And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the tree.

OK... So I really like that strong American ale I made about a month ago. I want to make another batch, but part of the "secret sauce" is the ginormous starter I pitched the beer onto. Last time, I used an unhopped wort from DME to make a big starter. I racked off the resulting unhopped beer and I set aside about a gallon in a vented jar. I poured a little vinegar with live acetobacter in it and now it's turning into malt vinegar. I don't need another gallon of the stuff, so why not make an actual beer instead?!

So today's recipe started out as an excuse to grow some more Wyeast 1272 American Ale II yeast. However, I also got a hanckering to make a pale ale. Thus far I've been making darker beers; nothing really appropriate for summer. So I decided to make an American Pale Ale with a twist. I decided to add some honey for a bit of spice and aroma. This is a recipe that's come straight outta my own oddyknocky. If it doesn't pan out, I have no one to blame but myself!

So today's brew day and I wake up to the sound of the wind blowing. What goes thought my mind? The phrase "Blustery day"; an occupational hazard of being a parent I suppose. So what comes next? Well, it's a blustery day and I'm making a golden bear colored yellow ale with honey in it. This must be "Pooh's Blustery Ale".

From Beersmith...

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal      
Boil Size: 6.00 gal
Estimated OG: 1.057 SG
Estimated Color: 5.9 SRM
Estimated IBU: 44.5 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount        Item                                      Type         % or IBU      
8.00 lb       Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM)            Grain        78.05 %       
0.75 lb       Honey Malt (25.0 SRM)                     Grain        7.32 %        
0.50 lb       Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM)              Grain        4.88 %        
0.75 oz       Chinook [13.00 %]  (60 min)               Hops         35.4 IBU      
0.25 oz       Chinook [13.00 %]  (30 min)               Hops         9.1 IBU       
0.25 oz       Willamette [5.50 %]  (0 min)              Hops          -            
0.25 tsp      Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min)                Misc             
1.00 lb       Honey (1.0 SRM)                           Sugar        9.76 %
(Added at the end of the boil)                     

1 Pkgs        American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272)       Yeast-Ale                  


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body
Total Grain Weight: 9.25 lb
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body
Step Time     Name               Description                         Step Temp     
75 min        Mash In            Add 11.56 qt of water at 164.9 F    150.0 F       
10 min        Mash Out           Add 7.40 qt of water at 201.6 F     168.0 F  

I've been writing this as I go. The software predicted the mash temperatures very closely. I like this program. I've been trying out Promash, but I think that I like Beersmith better. For those of you using Linux, Beersmith, like Promash, runs well under Wine.

An addendum: Beersmith also nailed the estimated starting gravity. The estimate was 1.057; I measured 1.056. I can't be sure with all of the foam kicked up in the fermentor, but it also looks like the program nailed the post-boil volume as well.

Wow... That keg's almost empty!

I didn't think that I could go through that much beer so quickly!

I just bottled some of that AB clone using a homemade beer gun; about 2½ 6-packs worth. I picked up the keg and it almost flew out of my hands. I guess it's time to make more!

The beer was well received at last Sunday's meeting of the Maltose Falcons. I used Wyeast 1272 American Ale II which doesn't attenuate as much as the dry English ale yeasts that most people seem to use for a beer like this. I ended up with a beer with more residual sweetness that played well with the hoppiness of all that Chinook.

Have I mentioned how cool this is having beer on tap? OK... I may have.

Beer on tap...

OK... It's only been 24 20 hours, but I really like the way that beer turned out. And did I mention how cool this is having beer on tap?

Kegging time

And by that title, you ought to be able to guess that I took the plunge and bought kegging gear.

I took that AB(-ish) clone and racked it off into the keg. There's roughly 4.5 gallons. I'm playing a trick that I read about to speed things up a bit. I've got the keg on its side and I'm shacking it until it stops loudly taking gas. This exposes more of the beer's surface area to the gas and speeds up absorption. The ideal keg, from a carbonation standpoint, would be one that's very broad and shallow such that a thin film of beer would cover the bottom. In that case, all of the beer would be exposed to the gas. In a real keg, however, the beer at the bottom of the keg is, in essence, protected from the gas by what's on top.

Have I ever mentioned that I'm an engineer?

If I do this right, the beer should be ready to go by Sunday.

Mmmmm... Beer.

That AB clone is turning out nice. I just transfered it to the secondary. The ABV is ~7%, the color is good, and the balance of hops and sweetness is good...



I know... AB isn't really an all-Chinook recipe. But I had a freezer full of the little lovelies from my over achieving plant.