I overheard a conversation between my wife and one of her best girlfriends. In this conversation, my wife said, "You could put an ad in the paper that says, 'Free to good home: greasy old cat. Has ringworm.'"
That made me laugh.
The bitter I brewed for Estrella was okay. It wasn't spectacular, and it wasn't horrible. There was nothing wrong with it, as in there were no infections or off flavors. It was just underwhelming.
What should I do then? The answer is simple: I should brew it again, and change it up a bit.
I've been mulling over what I should change and a couple of things come to mind. First and foremost, I'm going to up the hops a bit. It simply did not have the bitterness that I wanted. Second, I might switch out the yeast. I'm thinking about maybe using White Lab's Burton Ale Yeast (WLP023), which is supposed to add some fruity esters. Finally, I think that I'll not add the lactic acid to the mash. I revisited the water profile here, and I think that I'm using enough dark malts to leave that out.
I don't want to change it too much, or I will not be able to tell what worked and what did not. So, that is all I'll change for now.
When I finalize the recipe, I'll post it here. As a result, expect more on the subject.
Looking a little further ahead, I'm not sure, I could be wrong, but I'm seeing a lager coming up in the distant future -- a dark yummy one at that.
Today, Mental Floss posted something on lost Guinness Book Of World Records, ones that they have removed from the books for fear of litigation. All the ones they listed had to do with beer and included Speed Beer Drinking, Fastest Beer Drinking Relay, Highest Documented Blood Alcohol Level, Strongest Beer, and Weakest Beer. I won't steal their thunder by publishing the details, but if you are interested check out the post right here.
It was hot on Sunday, 90 plus degrees. Despite this, Julie and I decided to go for a bike ride. In doing so, we filled our water bottles to the brim, and set out on our normal route along the Rillito River Park. We stopped at Trader Joe's for lunch where I bought another big bottle of water and slammed it. Afterwards, we rode back.
After we got home, I felt pretty tired, so I thought, "I must be dehydrated." As a result, I drank more water, a lot more water. As I slumped down in my seat sipping on my water bottle, I sat outside, with my wife sitting next to me.
She turned to me and asked, "Are you doing the pool today?" gesturing toward the pool.
"Yeah, I will, in a minute. I'm just real tired after our ride."
After sitting there for more like 20 minutes, she then got up and started cleaning the pool sweep herself.
"Okay, okay," I said as I got up.
While working on the pool, cleaning various filters and pool sweeps, I felt really light headed. In fact, I kept getting head rushes and almost falling over.
"What is wrong with me; that bike ride did a real number on me," I thought, so, I got some more water.
After my chores, I felt so awful that I laid in bed for four hours, knowing that guests were coming over that night, getting up only to pee all the water I drank. I figured that I'd feel better after a nap.
Unfortunately, when our guests came over, I still felt bad. In fact, I could barely hold a conversation. I just kept apologizing for being so tired and out of it, blaming it on the fact I just woke up from a nap. As we talked, I sucked down a home brewed beer.
After dinner, I felt even worse. In fact, as I was doing the dishes, I had this terrible tunnel vision, and felt dizzy and wobbly. I poured out the beer I was drinking.
Afterwards, we sat outside, on the back porch, to socialize over beer and wine, and I just sat there, unable to follow the conversations going on. At some point, someone asked me a question, and waited for me to respond. After a pause, I finally said something like, "I'm sorry; what did you say? I don't feel very good. I've just been so out of it since that bike ride today."
Fran, one of our guests, and a medical social worker said, "Maybe you are dehydrated."
"I drank tons of water."
"How much water?"
"I must of filled that water bottle four times since I got back from the ride", I said, pointing to the water bottle that fits in the cage on my bike, sitting on the table we were sitting at.
"Maybe it's your electrolytes."
"What do you mean?"
"I bet you washed out your electrolytes with all that water."
Julie, my wife, said, "I've got some powdered stuff that is like Gatorade. Let me mix you up some."
A couple of minutes later she came back from the kitchen with a water bottle filled with yellowish liquid.
As I sat there and drank it, like magic, within minutes the conversations became much clearer. I became a lot more alert, and started cracking jokes, feeling a little more like myself. The difference was between night and day.
The lesson: I was on the verge of Water Intoxication, drinking myself to death with all that water, literally.
A number of years ago, I was in the market for a grain mill, so that I could mill my own grain for all-grain brewing. I looked at many different mills and eventually settled on a JSP Malt Mill. However, a close second for me was the Valley Mill; my local homebrew shop used the Valley Mill in house, and many of my first all-grain batches were put through one.
It saddened me to learn that the Valley Mill is no longer. I first heard about it in a post in Tech Talk, the daily homebrewing digest from the American Homebrewer's Association (AHA), where a poster was looking for parts to repair his mill, and the the company was defunct.
Thanks to Valley Brewing Equipment for their years of service. You gave me my start in all-grain brewing.
Afterthought: I'm not sure actually how long they have been out of business. It may have been for some time. In fact, I found a discussion post from a year ago mentioning that they may have been out of business at that time. It was news to me, however, so I posted this anyway.
I heard something about the history of beer mugs in England and how they used to have whistles on them on The Brewing Network's Sunday Session for February 25. I looked it up to get more information and I found this quote on Ezine @rticles, Beer Trivia #1:
Centuries ago in England, pub visitors used a novel innovation that enabled them to get their beer served quickly. They used mugs with a whistle baked into the rim, the whistle being used to summon the barmaid. It has been suggested this practice gave birth to the phrase "wet your whistle."
Estrella has been done and gone for a couple of weeks now. However, now that all the "joy" of my daytime job is full swing, I keep thinking back to it, wishing I was there. As a result, I'm posting a couple more pictures.
1. Musicians on Merchant's Row:
2. A battlefield picture that is not from the raised viewing area:
3. Another battlefield picture showing siege weapons:
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I found a little secret that solves the problem, though. You see, the idea of running long hoses, linked together, from outside, over wooden floors, sounded pretty bad. However, the wash room to our house is connected to the kitchen. And, what does a washer hook up to? Hose bibs! Problem solved.