Monthly Archive for March, 2009

Batch #3: Brainstorming

Published on March 31, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 2 Comments

I’m not actually preparing to brew my third batch, but I have been brainstorming (as has Susan). Being one of my favorite styles, I kind of want to brew an IPA next. Susan wants me to wait until it’s closer to summer (and for other reasons, again, can’t publicly disclose them). Instead, she wants me to make a dark wheat ale, similar to Schlafly No. 15, which is an excellent beer, by the way.

I’ve been playing around with Beer Calculus at hopville.com to come up with recipes. It’s my first time tooling around to make up my own recipe, not knowing much about the different types of malts and grains out there, but knowing enough about hops (lots of info about the different varieties) and about yeast (good info from White Labs). The good thing about that site is it helps guide you with the target OG and IBU for the beer. It also gives you an idea of the color and how bitter or sweet it will be.

Anyway, I made up a recipe for an English IPA and for a dark wheat ale. Here’s what I got for the recipes. I’d link to them, but I haven’t made them public as I’m likely going to be messing around with them and won’t actually be brewing what I put together on there. Feel free to critique, so long as you have explanations (since I know little to nothing about recipe creation).

English IPA

3.3# Amber LME
3# Pale DME
0.5# British Pale Two-row
0.25# Crystal 10L
0.25# Caramel 30L

Steep grains until water boils. Add extract, return to boil.

60 min 2 oz Fuggles and 2 oz East Kent Goldings (both pellets)

Pitch White Labs California Ale Yeast

1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary, dry hopping with 3 oz whole leaf Willamette for final 7 days.

Dark Wheat Ale

3.3# Dark LME
3# Light DME
0.5# American Crystal 120L
0.25# Caramel Wheat Malt
0.25# German Dark Wheat Malt

Steep grains until water boils. Add extract, return to boil.

60 min 1 oz Cascade pellets
30 min 1 oz Cascade pellets

Pitch White Labs California Ale Yeast

1 week in primary, 2 weeks in secondary.

Batch #1: Bottling Day

Published on March 29, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 6 Comments

I just finished bottling my Alt Things Reconsidered. It took us about an hour to bottle (not including the time it took to prep everything). I ended up with 44 12 oz. bottles and 2 22 oz. bombers of beer. I can’t, at this time, say why I filled 2 bombers. I came to some conclusions.

Bottling is a pain in the ass. I’ll definitely be looking into a kegging system at some point (probably after a year once I get the hang of things). I’ll keg the “normal” beers and bottle the experimental ones.
Cleanup is even more a pain in the ass, but PBW is some serious stuff. Talk about easy removal of dried hard crusty crud.
Capping Anchor bottles is easiest, followed by Sierra Nevada, followed by normal 12 oz., with the bombers being the toughest (at least according to Susan).
I need a second hose for bottling. The 6 foot one I use for the siphon is too long for bottling. I should get one that’s like 3 feet.
I need to get the bottling bucket up higher. Counter height with me sitting on the floor sucks.
Writing a number 1 on the caps signifying your first batch is bottled is very satisfying and gives you a great sense of accomplishment.

Now I need to make some labels (I’m a dork, but I’ll label some of the bottles that I plan on giving out to people).

Phish Ticket Sales End

Published on March 28, 2009 in Music and Phish. 2 Comments

Today marked the final major on-sale date for the Phish summer tour until April 4. I got 2 tickets for Hartford and the show sold out in 3 minutes. Meadows holds 30,000 people. It’s getting old having to deal with the scalpers and the crappy sites of Ticketmaster and Live Nation.

Most people with whom I have been in contact had a hard time getting tickets, many getting shut out completely. I would like to see Phish step up and start working the sales a bit better. They can do like Radiohead has done and put names on the tickets. It makes for non-transferable tickets, but it prevents scalpers from buying them up. If they do this, they can have a policy where you can cancel your order. They can require everyone pick up their tickets at will call showing the card used to purchase them along with a photo ID. Any tickets that have been returned or not picked up by a certain time (say half an hour before showtime), can be sold to the general public at the door. You’re not likely going to see scalpers lining up at the door to buy tickets just to turn around and sell them.

The Phish organization, or what’s left of it, will have to do something. They came back in full force. The fans who had followed them loyally throughout their 20+ year career are being shut out of tickets or forced to buy from scalpers on Craigslist or eBay or forced to go the ticket broker route, paying well above face value.

The only way to really lower the cost is to increase supply and play stadiums. Many people don’t want to see Phish going that route. They want the smaller venues. However, tickets are going to be hard to come by for a while. I imagine we won’t see the magic wear off until Phish has been touring for a year or so. Once that time comes, we’ll see who is just in it for the experience and who is in it for the music.

I’ll be at Great Woods on June 6. I think there’s going to be some sort of Tweetup for all you people on Twitter (I’m @RunawayJimPVD if you wanna follow me). Leave a comment if you wanna meet up. I don’t know how we’ll arrange it, but it will likely be through Twitter. I’m also expecting a Tweetup at Hartford on August 14.

Update: I forgot about Shoreline going on sale today at noon local time. Good luck to everyone trying to get tickets. You’ll probably need it.

Batch #2: Brew Day

Published on March 28, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 1 Comment

I brewed my second batch today. It’s the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. It was an interesting one. I did a mini-mash of 2 pounds of grain. I don’t think I did it right, but this is a learning experience. It wasn’t quite as easy as I would have thought to keep the temperature steady. I have a feeling it was too hot (not sure what effect that will have). Regardless of anything that went wrong, I came out with an original gravity of 1.060. I was shooting for 1.064, but anywhere between 1.057 and 1.066 would have been good. Looks like it turned out just fine. It smelled pretty sweet for a while, but after tasting it, it might not be too bad. It was a relatively easy process because everything got dumped into the boil right at the beginning. I just had to make sure it didn’t boil over.

All in all, it was pretty successful. I need a better airlock. I have 2, but one of them is the snake-like type and I just don’t like it (not to mention it’s a little loose in the bucket). I have to bottle the first batch tomorrow. I’ll swap airlocks then (assuming this is safe to do as long as I sanitze the one I pull out of the first batch). I’m also considering a wort chiller. It took forever to chill the wort today (probably about half an hour in a constant ice bath).

I will have to taste this one when I rack to secondary. It may need some more cocoa. It didn’t taste a whole lot like it when I tried it, but none of the sugars had fermented out. It’s also not very dark. It’s a dark brown, but by no means black. It looks like a dark brown ale. I doubt the color’s going to change at all (will it?). I wonder if I should have used all dark extract rather than 3 pounds of pale DME and 3.3 pounds of dark LME (it’s what the guy at the homebrew shop gave me).

As usual, I’ll report back in a week. And tomorrow, I’ll report on the bottling of the first batch.

Batch #2: Preparation

Published on March 23, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 9 Comments

As stated before, my second batch is going to be a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Being a beginner, I went with the recommendation of the employees at my local homebrew shop (George, I’ll try your recipe sometime, I just wanted a little more personal guidance). This is basically what we came up with for a recipe. The only thing that was recommended, but not on that recipe is the mash. I’ll be mashing the 2+ pounds of grain.

Now, I don’t have the exact instructions in front of me right now, but here’s what I was instructed to do for the mash. bring water to 165°F and steep grains for 30-45 minutes. Bring additional water to 170°F (it might’ve been more, I don’t remember off the top of my head) and rinse grains into brew kettle. Add extra water to bring to my regular boil amount (usually 2.5-3 gallons) and start my boil. What do I do with the original water? It seems like it’d be a waste to just dump that water. I’ll likely be on the phone with the homebrew shop during this batch, but that’s my only question.

I’m putting about a cup of Ghiradelli cocoa powder in the boil for the chocolate flavor and will try it before racking to secondary to see if I need to add some more. This batch is going to be quite the experience. Brewday is Saturday. Bottling the first batch on Sunday.

Entitlement in Phish Community

Published on March 19, 2009 in Music and Phish. 7 Comments

This is something that has bothered me for quite some time now. The Phish community has many bad apples who feel like the band owes them something. I have been a fan since the mid-90′s. No, I wasn’t there in the beginning, but that means nothing. I have only seen 9 shows, both pre- and post-hiatus. I don’t feel like the band owes me anything.

When Phish announced that the festival in Coventry was going to be their last concert ever, the reaction was odd. Those who had been around long enough understood, and accepted the demise of their longtime favorite band. Others, however, were upset, and I don’t mean saddened, though many of us were, myself included. They were pissed that this band, the one time greatest band on earth would just call it quits on them like this. How could they, after all we’ve been through together (or not been through in many of their cases)? I didn’t understand how anyone could feel that way. At the time, I was a regular on the People for a Clearer Phish (PCP) email list. The list had received many new members leading up to the 2004 Summer Tour. Many of these new members were younger. They hadn’t seen or even known of Phish before they went on hiatus in October of 2000. Regardless of what it was, those of us who were lucky, or even just old enough, to have seen them prior to the hiatus understood it was necessary. Post-hiatus Phish was a new being. Sure, they played some great shows during those couple years, but the great shows were few and far between. They came back playing a bunch of below average performances at MSG and Hampton and then a winter tour that had a few good ones, but many just average shows. The band was not the same. They were not ready to have returned. Many of us knew this. I had already purchased my tickets for the two shows at Great Woods during the 2004 Summer Tour. On the announcement that Coventry was going to be their last, I bought my ticket for that, as well. The two Great Woods shows were fun, and the second one was pretty damn good (the unfinished Antelope that opened the second set of the second of those shows was just awesome, along with the double drum solo). I made my way up to Coventry and got stuck in traffic around 1:00am on Friday morning. We barely moved all day Friday and eventually on Saturday morning, the day of the first show, Mike came on the radio and announced they were turning people away, at least those still stuck on the highway. We were all pissed. Many parked in the breakdown lanes and in the divider and hiked the 15-20 miles to the festival. Having lives we needed to get back to and being under the threat of having my car towed, we gracefully turned around and headed home after spending 2 nights on the side of I-91 (pictures of my trip can be seen here). It was a fun trip, and, in retrospect, I’m glad I didn’t get in. The shows were completely botched, the site was covered with mud, and the overall vibe was pretty poor. To top it off, I not only got a refund, but I got a consolation prize – a picture book signed by all 4 members of the band. Myself and the people around us when the announcement came on the radio were upset, but didn’t mind turning around. Those were the band’s wishes. We did as they asked.

Fast forward about 5 years and we’re at today. Phish has already played their three shows at Hampton. They have already announced a 2 leg summer tour, with the second leg starting with 4 nights at Red Rocks in Colorado. Yesterday evening, Ticketmaster had a slight screw-up. They posted 4 night packages for Red Rocks on sale. Some fans noticed and word quickly spread online that Red Rocks was already on sale. About 2,000 people bought up tickets a week before the official on sale date. Some time later, Ticketmaster noticed the glitch and shut down the sales. People began to wonder if their purchases will be honored. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for the fairness of ticket sales and those fans who did not know about this, all those orders were cancelled the same night. This caused a huge uproar with many fans blaming the band, saying they’re just in it for the money. Many blamed Ticketmaster. Some blamed the promoter, AEG Live. The fault ultimately fell on Ticketmaster, who has a policy stating that in the event of a glitch, orders will be cancelled. The fans were livid at this point saying that it’s just a way for Ticketmaster to put tickets in the hands of scalpers instead of fans. Ticketmaster has announced that, while they cannot honor the purchases, they will give everyone who placed an order a $50 gift certificate. Many were still not happy with this, saying they’ll never get tickets.

The sense of entitlement in the Phish community is outrageous. Phish has been known to have trust fund babies as one of their groups of followers. These trust fund babies care about nothing but themselves. They’ve got their parents giving them money. They’ve got no responsibilities in life. They have no regard for other people. These are the people who go to Phish shows and don’t add to the community. These are likely the people whining about not getting the tickets. They think it’s more fair for a limited number of fans who were “in the know” to get tickets while the rest of us who didn’t happen to be online at the time get stuck fighting for less than half the tickets available on the on sale date.

The biggest reason people wanted it to be true was because they assumed the tickets wouldn’t have been scalped. Now, there was a 2 ticket limit for Red Rocks. One of the people I follow on Twitter landed 6 tickets for each show. He paid with 3 credit cards, 2 names, and 2 addresses. Talk about sleazy. He was planning on using them for ticket trades. While I admit that I requested 3 nights of Red Rocks through the Phish ticketing system and will only go to 2 shows, I plan on selling the third night for face value to someone who didn’t get it. I also only got 2 tickets for each night, the maximum allowed. It’s one thing to take advantage of a glitch. It’s another to do that and cheat the system. You know who cheats the system? Scalpers do. And a little word on scalpers. The biggest argument was that the tickets ended up in the hands of fans that would go to the show. While I loathe scalpers and think they’re scumbags, they’re not just sitting on tickets. Fans are buying those tickets. It’s called the law of supply and demand. There’s a huge demand for these shows and a small supply. Scalpers can easily get a ton of money for them, and the fans pay it. If you want to stop scalpers, don’t buy tickets from them for more than face value. It’s that simple. Eventually, they’ll give up if people did this. However, people won’t stop buying from them and they won’t stop scalping.

So to all of you who thought you hit the jackpot last night, shut the hell up and stop your whining. Ticketmaster had every right to cancel your order. You should have expected it. You have just as much a chance as everyone else to get tickets when they go on sale next week, and there is still time to submit a request through the Phish ticketing system.

Summer 2009 is Gonna Rock!

Published on March 18, 2009 in Music and Phish. Closed

Now that Phish has returned and not only announced an early “summer” tour (it’s really in early June, making it a late spring tour) and a late summer tour, this summer is fixing to be a good one. I already have tickets for their June 6 show at Great Woods. Last night, I put in a request for tickets for the first 3 Red Rocks shows and the August 14 show at the Meadows in Hartford. While I can’t afford all 3 shows at the Red Rocks, someone will get lucky with my third pair (assuming I get all 3) for face value. I’m not looking to make money off some phan. I want the music just as much as the next guy and, while I can use the $300 I’d be able to get for each ticket, I’m not a douchebag scalper (like the student I have mentioned before). Susan agreed to go with me to Colorado, making it a small vacation to the Denver area. She’s reluctantly agreed to go to 2 shows there (the first because Red Rocks is such a unique and beautiful venue, the second because I won’t go out there without seeing 2 shows, unless I only get tickets to one of the four). While we’re out there, we can visit some of our favorite breweries and some new ones. The Denver/Boulder/Golden areas are all loaded with great breweries.

I’m really hoping I get tickets for the first 2 nights of Red Rocks. It will be the first time Phish has played there since 1996. I had originally thought that the issues were just the crowds, but apparently, there were some problems. Here’s a news report about what went down in Morrison on the nights of the Phish shows in 1996.

blah

It’s really sad that this happened, and I fully understand why the town would not want them back there. It reminds me of the riots that occurred several years in a row during Dave Matthews’ 3 night runs at the Meadows in Hartford, only it was different. The Phishheads were just trying to have fun, though most of them should not have been there to begin with as they did not have tickets. The band always asks that people without tickets stay home. So to any of you reading this who are thinking of going on summer tour, but do not have tickets, STAY HOME. It just causes more problems than it solves. Sure, it’s fun to hang out in the lots, but you risk the band not being invited back to a venue/town/state. That would ruin it for everyone. The riots at the Dave shows were simply because the Dave scene was (I haven’t been part of it in a long time for this reason) like a giant drunken frat party with 20,000 people.

I’m looking forward to the summer Phish shows. At the very least, I hope to get tickets for the Meadows. I have yet to see Phish there (have only seen them at the Hartford Civic Center in CT). I’m hoping they do a small tour at some point and stop in Providence. I would love to have a hometown show. I imagine they wouldn’t do this until the fall or next spring. They generally don’t play indoor venues in the summer.

To top it all off, there are rumors of a Phish festival in Texas that started because of the video announcement of the second leg of the tour (as seen below).

PHISH LATE SUMMER 2009 from Phish on Vimeo.

I have also read that there is a possibility of a festival in the northeast because of the location of the last show of the tour in Saratoga, NY.

Finally, there’s the rumor that Phish is going to start their tour at Fenway park in Boston. Dave Matthews is playing a couple nights there, and Phish is rumored to be playing the night following their shows on May 31. There are no games that day and being under the same management, there would be less cost in setup as the stage could remain assembled for another day. I would have expected that if they were doing that, they would have announced it with the late summer shows. However, with the question up in the air about a festival, perhaps they’ll announce both at the same time. Maybe they’ll do a 100% sold at the door show at Fenway (though the Boston Police would probably frown upon that after the craziness in Somerville with the “secret” U2 show).

Only the band knows what their planning, but it is safe to say, the summer is going to be an exciting one.

Why Weigh on a Sunny Day?

Published on March 16, 2009 in Weight Loss. 1 Comment

I know this isn’t like me, but I’m going to start a series of posts about my weight loss journey. I recently began reading a blog called 344 Pounds that has given me some inspiration to try my hardest at dropping the 40-50 pounds I want to lose. I have had a gym membership for over a year now (I’m on my second gym, the first one cost too much, though you get what you pay for). I use it fairly infrequently. Now that the weather is getting nicer and I’m living just under a mile from work, I have started walking on nice days. It gives me a nice connection with the neighborhood, gets me moving a bit more, and helps save the planet all at the same time.

Today, I decided, after realizing my weight had crept back up to where it was pre-wedding and pre-gym membership, that I needed to do something about it. The guy who writes the 344 Pounds blog uses the elliptical machine, something I had never been able to use because I couldn’t get used to it. I decided that I was going to spend half an hour on it today no matter how tough it was. Sure enough, I made it through that half hour. I did it on level 1, but I did it, and burned 375 calories while doing so. It previously took me a lot of walking or biking on the treadmill or stationary bike to burn that much. I came home sore, but it was worth it.

So today, I am taking a pledge to get to the gym at least 3 times per week, preferably 4 or 5 (unless it’s warm enough for me to go for a long bike ride). I am also pledging to be a bit more cautious as to what I’m eating. Though I am by no means going on a diet (I enjoy beer and sweets a bit too much), I will moderate a bit more. If I can lose about 2 pounds per week from now until summer, I will have lost 25-30 pounds. Now I know I’ll have some weeks where I won’t lose that much and maybe even some where I lose more or gain a little, but if I can keep myself motivated (which is what I’m hoping writing about it will do), I should be well on my way towards real weight loss.

Now for the personal part… I weigh myself each morning, and I track it using the Google 15 widget for the personalized Google homepage. The nice thing about the widget is it keeps a moving average for a two week period. This morning, I weighed in at 238.2 pounds. My ultimate goal is to get down to 190. I shouldn’t have a problem getting down to 210, which is my goal for the end of June. Once I reach that, I will re-evaluate and see what I think I can do while staying healthy. A lot of my weight is from fat, but I have also gained quite a bit more muscle mass since I last weighed 190 while I was healthy (I last weighed 190 after having mono and lost 30 pounds in about 2 months), which was sometime in college. My purpose for losing the weight is mainly to feel better about myself – look better, be/feel healthier, etc. I also know it’ll help me improve in the only sport I have ever been good at… skiing. It’s much easier to stop 200 pounds than it is to stop 240 pounds.

I look forward to sharing my journey with you. I know it’s not a huge amount of weight to lose, but it’s been a tough one for me, having tried different diets and exercising. I’m not following any special routine except for what I choose for myself.

Batch #1: Transferred to Secondary

Published on March 15, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 2 Comments

After a week of fermenting in the primary fermenter, I transferred the Alt Things Reconsidered to the secondary. It’s an interesting process, but once I got a rhythm with the auto-siphon, it went pretty smoothly. My hands got a little cramped from holding it of the bottom to avoid moving the sludge over, but other than that, I think it went well.

I took another gravity reading. It’s now at 1.017. The instructions say it should be 1.014. Perhaps 2 weeks in secondary will bring it down a little more. I also had a little taste. It’s coming along quite well. It’s a little estery, but the 2 weeks in secondary should balance it out a bit.

Bottling day is in 2 weeks. I now have to figure out when I want to brew my second batch, the Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. Anyone have a good Oatmeal Stout extract recipe they want to share? Link to it in the comments. Next report on Alt Things Reconsidered in 2 weeks. How long should I let it sit in the bottles before it’s ready to be enjoyed? I was thinking giving it another 2 weeks of conditioning and carbonating in the bottles before I put some in the fridge.

Batch #1: In the Fermenter

Published on March 9, 2009 in Beer and Homebrewing. 5 Comments

I brewed my first batch of beer yesterday. It’s an Altbier, or at least I hope it will be. Anyway, here’s a brief overview of the procedure and the recipe if anyone cares. The recipe is not my own, but came from Steve at Blackstone Valley Brewing Supplies.

3.3 pounds Light Malt Extract – Liquid
3 pounds Light Malt Extract – Dry
4 oz each of Vienna, Munich, Wheat, and Crystal Malts
1 oz Spaltz hops for bittering 5% AA
1 oz Tettnang hops for armoa 3% AA
1 tsp Irish Moss

Steep grains until water boils, add extract and return to boil.

Add bittering hops at start.
Add half aroma hops 20 min from start.
Add Irish Moss 40 min from start.
Add remaining aroma hops 45 min from start.
Remove from heat at 60 min.

I used White Labs Dusseldorf Alt Yeast (WLP036).

It made a 5 gallon batch. Original Gravity was 1.054, a little high as I was shooting for 1.045-1.050 according to the recipe I was given. After entering everything into my newly created hopville.com account (I’m RunawayJim on there), it said the OG would be about 1.056.

I had a little snafu. After adding the extra water to bring it to 5 gallons, I covered it and went to plug the hole in the lid to aerate (shake furiously). I inserted the stopper, and the stopper and gasket fell right into the bucket. I managed to fish both out. Hopefully, this didn’t cause an infection (everything had been sanitized). I woke up this morning and the fermentation was already going. I guess I did something right at least. Lessons have been learned and next batch will be a little better.

Speaking of the next batch, Susan wants me to make a Chocolate Oatmeal Stout. It’ll be an interesting choice for my second batch, but as with everything I do, I like to jump right in full force. Should be fun. I think I’ll be doing that in about 2-3 weeks. I’ll report back when the beer is complete (or maybe after I transfer to secondary).