All That Work For This?

Daughter #4 has a new used car and it came with radio / 6 CD changer. But, a disc was jammed in it so the CD changer is of no use to her. She took the radio out the other day after I told her how to do it, however, she wasn't up to disassembling the radio to find the real problem. Today was a somewhat lazy afternoon so I figured I would try my hand at it.

6 CD Changer

Except for losing a couple of screws, no parts were broken while taking this unit apart. Somewhere there is a village in Mexico where there is a person who knows how to put this thing back together. Without the encyclopedic sized assembly procedure, I don't think it's possible.

So I found two CD's in the changer and I retrieved them relatively unmolested. Then I put them in my computer to give them a listen. After a couple of seconds per track I couldn't find anything that was listen-able. In fact, after the brief assault on my senses, I felt dirty, like I need a shower to wash the filth off.

Two Hip Hop CD's

Some people thrive on this kind of noise but I can't understand it. Will probably use these two as coasters.

On a positive note, D4 will be getting a new car radio at some time in the near future. She wants one she can plug an ipod into. I like the kind with the usb port. To me the usb port is more versatile. Will keep you posted.

Porter #28

And on a further high note, No 28 is turned out spectacular. A very distinct roasted malt flavor, not too bitter, perfect balance of hops and a nice molasses finish. I gave this recipe to a friend and need to tell him to make it.

VW 2.0T Fuel Injector Teflon Seal Hack

Around New Years, Uncle Jim and I set out to clean his intake valves on his VW Passat. When we pulled the intake manifold two fuel injectors came out with the manifold. Now we were committed to rebuilding the injector seals.

Coked Up Intake Valves

Because the gas in injected directly into the cylinder the intake valves don't get cleaned by the gas the way it does in a typical engine. This means that every 50K miles or so the intake manifold needs to be removed and all the oily deposits need to be scraped off. After the engine is reassembled and the car is taken out for a test drive, all the missing horses are found.

Improvised Tools

Here is the pencil tip and the refrigeration fitting that we used to push the white
telfon seal onto the injector.

Close-up View

You can see the raised edge that we are talking
about in the video.

This is a little video we put together to show our work around not having the $250 special tools used to work on fuel injectors.

Brew #28, #17 Revisited

Brew date: January 26th, 2014


Brewing is so much easier using Uncle Jim mash tun and the new 9 Gallon boiling pot. Even though I stuck with a 5 gallon batch, I didn't have to worry about boiling over because I had 6 inches of free space in the pot.

Mashing

I started with around 4 gallons of water at 170 deg F. After mixing in the grain I added about one quart of tap water to bring the mash temp down to 150 deg. Then I boiled around 3 gallons for sparging. By the time 90 minutes rolled around the wort was down to about 4 gallons. I could have used a little more rinse water or watered up during the boil but I prefer to leave free space so that I don't have run a blow off system. I will make up the extra gallon during the trub rinse.

  

Draff

 Draff is what you call the spent grain. I need to see if it's OK to feed to horses, and if so, does it need to be dried.

Hoppy Clouds

Happy Yeast

Batch number 28 is Porter #17 revisited. The plan was to follow the recipe fairly accurately, however, this is easier said than done. When we were weighing out the barley we found several ounces of some mystery grain in the weigh bucket. I told Chris to just leave it in there. If it's 2-row then there will be little influence. If it is 6-row then this beer could end up with some more caramel notes. But, being a porter with a fair amount of roasted malts, it's likely to go unnoticed.

10 lbs 2-row
3/4 lb crystal 80L
1/2 lb roasted barley 300L
1/4 lb chocolate wheat 500L

1 oz saaz @ 4.9%
1 oz tettnang @ 4.8%
1 oz kent golding @ 4.5%

Safale US#05 dry yeast


Hop schedule
1/2 oz saaz t=0
1/2 oz saaz t=20
1/3 oz tett t=40
1/3 oz tett t=60
1/3 oz tett t=80
1/3 oz Kent t=90
dry hop 2/3 kent after active fermentation settles down 

 Trub rinse:

Added ~1.5 Gallons of Water

 When Jesus added water to the vessels, it turned to wine in a moment. When I added water to the trub, it took about a day and a halt to turn to beer.

Presto Magic! Beer Appears

Even so, I am still amazed at the miracle! Now the secondary fermenter has 5 gallons of beer in it. 

It is amazing how much volume 3 onces of hops and on packet of yeast expands to. The bottom of the fermenter is a giant sponge holding about a half gallon of wort captive. I have previously posted my theories on how this  works but I state it again. I am thinking the fresh oxygenated water revitalizes the yeast to give it a second wind, allowing it to chew through the sugar stuck in and between the blanket of hops resting on the bottom. Even if my theory isn't correct, that's the story and I'm sticking to it.

Audi A4 B7 2.0T

So I spent the weekend helping a coworker to change his timing belt and clean the intake valves on an Audi 2.0T Quatro.

According to some on-line sources the front of the car has to be unbolted and moved forward a few inches to gain working clearances. This means pulling the front bumper and moving the radiator and AC condenser. As you can see from the pic below, the Quatro engine sets in-line whereas the typical front wheel drive engines set transverse, or parallel to the front wheels. On the two VW's I worked on, the passenger side engine mount had to be pulled and the engine had to be jacked from the oil pan in order to gain access to certain bolts.

This reminds me of a certain comedy skit.

We managed to strip the first two hex head cap screws so we had to dive even deeper by pulling the front even further off. We expected to need to drill out the stripped screws but after tapping the Allen wrench into the screw heads to get full wrench engagement,  we were able to get all the crank pulley screws out.

Pull the Front Off The Car

The timing belt work preparation includes marking the belt. My preference is to use white finger nail polish. I'm sure his wife thought something kinky was going on but there wasn't. After the water pump gets pulled, anti freeze runs down the engine. Solvents used to wash the antifreeze off the crank pulley will leave nail polish intact where permanent maker washes away.

Mark The Cam

Mark The Crank

Once again we spend hours scrapping and vacuuming coked up oil residue off the intake valves. And, once again we forget to take after pictures.

Clean The Intake Valves

We got the engine back together and filled the engine up with coolant and sure enough, we had a leak. When the 'front falls off', this is the time to change the thermostat, according to the expert parts salesidiotperson. The o-ring on the metal coolant line didn't seal so we had to dissemble the alternator again to gain access to the thermostat housing. It's a good thing we didn't assemble the entire front because having access through the head light area made the job much easier.

If you ever change the thermostat on a 2.0T engine, be sure to change the o-ring in the metal pipe, which happened to be 26mm od by 20mm id by 3mm thick for this model.

Update: Took it out for a spin last night and it is a beast. Just like it was when it rolled off the factory floor. The hardest part of reassembly, or getting the front to fall back on, is getting the headlights positioned. And, there was some guess work about where all the bolts go. Next time I will probably take more notes and pics.

Asylum 13

This is a test post to see if blogspot is working again.

Uncle Jim needed to do some car repairs so we conditioned the atmosphere in order to work at peak efficiency.

Got A Light

Asylum 13 80x6 Cigar

That and:

The next seven days (weeks) are called The Week(s) of Eating Celery.
So declares my wife (me, she hates celery).
All the leftover cookies, cake, and candy has disappeared (need to be disappeared).
Seriously disappeared – as in gone with the garbage or out to feed birds.
A careful mid-night search of hiding places made (will make) this clear to me (her).
No sense asking my wife (me) what’s going on or why.
The irrational exuberance of holiday feasting is over.
Celery it is (or carrots for her). 

(And beer).

I stole this here.

3/30/2014

Update: I managed smoke another Asylum #13 at Aficionado's last Wednesday and also picked one up for the road. When I returned to the hotel late that night I was lying there in bed, dead tired, and yet I couldn't go to sleep. Then I remembered, you fool, you smoked the equivalent of three cigars in about three hours. So I  laid there resting, reflecting on all things peaceful and calm. Needless to say, I will be doing it again.

Merry Christmas

 Merry Christmas.

This is my gift from daughter #3 and her new husband of 5 days. They just returned from Vegas after getting married by Elvis. While they may deny it, I know the truth. O.K. focus... In addition to boiling mash, this pot can also double as a lobster and clam pot as is comes complete with strainer. I can see a lobster bake in our future.

36 Quart Boiling Pot

Running two pots will not be happening in future brews with the new gear. There will be no overflow until we get to 15 gal batches. The sensible thing to do is to brew in 8 to 9 gallon batches and to run two carboys. I prefer to leave a little room in the carboy so I don't have to run a blow off tube. Somebody once told me not to stress the yeast because they don't like pressure, and to use a blow-off tube. I'm calling BS because I have yet to have flat beer pour out of a bottle.

Overflow Capacity

Here are a couple pics of the trub rinse. Because there is oatmeal in this batch, it didn't seem to be getting fermented and the yeast looked to be running out of steam. By siphoning off the beer after the active fermentation, then adding fresh water to the primary, the yeast perked up and started bubbling at a good rate. This hack put me back on schedule because I want to be back on track for a 3 week program.

Rinse T+10 min

Without scientific instruments I can't tell if the cloudy white is just yeast or yeast and oats. I suspect the latter. Rye gives a more dramatic definition during the rinse.

Rinse T+2 Days

Sediments

This batch yielded 23 bottles and one pint glass last Sunday. As you can see, someone has been drinking a bunch of Sierra Nevada.

Bottling Day #27

A new Christmas tradition is to have Bloody Mary's with breakfast but I didn't want to start in that early. So I waited till around 11AM and started by sampling the gift six pack from daughter #1 and her husband. Founder's Porter is top shelf. Also having a Founders Scotch Ale which isn't too shabby either.

Christmas Morning Refreshments

Quaker IPA #27

Brew date: 12/7/2013

Today's recipe #18 Quaker IPA with a small tweak

10 lbs two row
1 lb flaked oats
1/4 lb crystal malt
1/8 lb chocolate malt

1 oz Gelena Amarillo
1 oz Cascade Sterling
1 oz U.S. Kent Golding

safale US-05 dry yeast

It's always good to be sipping on one from the last batch.

We are having an aroma therapy competition. Piny pine Christmas tree vs the brew house. In the beginning the pine tree had the lead. When the hop addition scents kick though, the Christmas tree will fall back to a distant second
 

.
Gotta love Uncle Jimmy's mash tun. I think we're gonna need a bigger pot.

And we had a visitor today. She is lucky I'm not a deer hunter.