Batch Number 30

Brew Date: 3/22/2014

Today I had to go over to Roanoke on a mission and I happened to be in the neighborhood of the brew store. So I stopped in and picked up some supplies. Based on the last batch and some new equipment, I am starting to brew in six gallon batches. If I could find larger Better Bottles I would adjust accordingly.

So this is an early birthday present to myself.

6 Gal Better Bottle

This recipe was made up on the spot. I am thinking Breakfast Stout.

12lb Two Row
1lb Carafa 1000L
1lb Choc Wheat 1000L
3/4lb Caramel 20L

1oz Kent Golding
1oz Amarillo
1oz Tettnag

US05 dry yeast

My impromptu brewing schedule is causing us to share the kitchen. She gets to occupy a small corner of the counter while I hog the stove.

Thai Coconut Chicken

  
#29 is shaping up well. Still a bit early to start drinking but early indications are positive.

3/30/2014

Update: The 6 gal Better Bottle provides the head room for the allowing the full 5 gallon transferal to the secondary.

Brew #29

Brew date: 2/27/2014

IPA similar to brew #4 minus the Gelena. I wanted to try an IPA with a little less bite. I recall #4 to have an extra edge to it so this one is toned down just a bit.

12 lbs 2-row
1 lb Crystal #60
1 oz Sterling
1 oz Kent
1 oz Cascade
US-05 dry yeast

IPA #29

It's a biological reaction going on inside that glass vessel.

Porter #28

 Here is a pic of #28. Will see if the guys have any recollection to the #17 that I modeled this one after.

Nice Foamy Head

There She Blows

This morning she said 'I heard the soap dish fall off the wall in the shower'. It turned out to be the air lock bubbler smashing into the basement ceiling. This batch had a serious blow off because I overfilled the primary.

I had an extra half gallon in a second fermenter and after three days of active fermentation I poured the extra beer into the glass primary and put it down stairs. Because the swirling had settled down I was tricked into thinking I could top of the primary.

This afternoon as I cleaned up the mess I could see the yeast was culturing on the foamy cap. The concoction blew out of the top and then oozed down the side of the glass leaving a slimy trail. On the table top was a culture with the consistency of yogurt that I used  spatula to scoop up.

I hope I didn't lose too many hops to affect the flavor and aroma. Will know when i transfer to the secondary fermenter.

Update:

3/30/2014

Note to self: Cut the crystal to 1/2 lb to 3/4 lb and use Galena or Northern Brewer hops instead of Cascade next go-round.

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.