I like this time at night on HBT

I can imagine. Once the brain gets to working, and talking, and thinking and literally speaking out-loud; the damn thing just doesn't want to sleep. Cheers my friend. Hope you can get some snoozing in soon.

 

This song should put you to sleep. I like it a lot, late a night.

 

Here's another. I love this song. Goodnight moon.

 

Good night nighters

 

I do like that song, Pappy. Never heard it before tonight. Took me a few times to get YouTube to show the words. To be honest, takes my brain a while to absorb stuff but I like where it's wandering now with this song. Cheers Pappy!

 

27 days until D-day for Snap child #4. We went and did the smartest thing we could think of:






We're on night 3 and my wife texted and said it's not going well. I've never had a new puppy inside. They've always been outside with other dogs since they were brought home. It's been 8 years since I've had a puppy at all.

Trying to find some pigeons locally is getting me nowhere. I found a guy with quail and pheasant locally for good prices, quail are so stinking fast, and pheasant so big for such a small pup. Maybe I can take a trap down to the mall and catch a few. Think they'd mind?

I feel like I've forgotten all together how to train a bird dog. This will be my third trained from a puppy and my fifth all together, but it's been so long that it's like starting over.

I hate to be the selfish jerk, but I have to admit, I'm kind of glad to be working graveyard shift for the next month or so. Mwahahaha

 

How nice of you to get that puppy a baby for a snack.

What kind of pup is that?

 

She's a Chesapeake Bay Retriever. Smart as can be for only 7 weeks. Should be decent sized, probably about 80lbs considering her parents' size.

 

Anyone else had to battle FrontLine resistant fleas this year? Not fun! Between Capstar for the dog and a lot of vacuuming and foggers for the house, I think I'm winning, but it has been a total PITA!

 

Snaps, I don't think you have anything to feel guilty about. Four children, great wife and making great memories and nice life for your family. Yore a good dude. Midnight shifts come and go. Family is for life.

Cheers to you brother!

 

Are you putting flea powder on the carpet and in the vacuum bag before vacuuming? I remember when we were kids my parents owned a janitorial business. They brought home fleas from a house they cleaned in the vacuum cleaner. My mom out flea powder down on the carpet, and for a while in the vacuum bag every time she emptied it.

 

I appreciate that Dan. Puppy should be sleeping through the night and in the yard by the time the baby comes home, so I just look at it as practice. Though after 3 kids the fourth should be a breeze.

 

Baking soda to dehydrate the eggs.

 

My dog brought in fleas once. It was a while back. What a nightmare! We finally found a spray that got em.

I don't think I mentioned it here yet but I am upgrading our 10gal system to 1bbl. I did not want to start over with a new HLT so I am planning on a two vessel setup. I think it will work but if any of you smart folks want to have a look and offer advice check out the plan: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f11/two-vessel-hlt-434734/

edit: Post #4 is the plan. I will be using a 25gal kettle instead of a sanke. Should give me close to 40gal HLT...

 

Another educator. What do you teach?

I teach during the day and have a Monday evening class from 7 - 10PM. Physically dead beat tired, but brain is spinning down like a dynamo. Beer slows it down really quick

 

I teach law to paralegals. Currently, two nights 6:30 - 9:30. What do you teach?

 

Mechanical engineering. I'm a full-time professor.

 

I've got amylase, DME, lactose, and wine tannin shipping. For a new approach to my banana wine, was supposed to be for focaccia, creme soda, and another attempt at a Dr. Pepper clone, respectively. I'm not going to put the DME in the focaccia, but I'm sure I'll find a use for it. Probably in the new version of the banana wine instead of table sugar.

 

Just take her out with other trained bird dogs for hunts every chance you get! I had a game dog at one time, many years ago, and just asked around, my puppy ended up learning from 2 different packs when we were allowed to tag along.

 

Can't take her out this year though. It's far too cold and she's too young to be in a duck blind until next season. So I'll be training her with live bird and decoys. It'll all come back to me, just may take a bit.

 

I just kegged 5 gallons of BB's vanilla soda. I can't wait until it's ready to drink, because it smells fantastic!

 

Gawd..today was one of those days that makes beer taste extra good. 12 hr day teaching and running make-up labs, boss asking me to help with the accreditation process (joy :|). Take-out Chinese and a sixer of SNPA - I'm friggin' done for the day.

 

MUSIC! My (small) kingdom for music!



EDIT: Wait a minute, no...what the hell...

 

I liked both of those, chicken. The second one was a bit gimicky though, like one of those Lindsay sterling videos. The first one was great and reminded me of a place and time, but I'm having trouble remembering exactly when and where that was.

 

I love that one too! Very much. You guys are helping me relax this evening. Thanks.

 

I like music that makes me think of tropical beaches when I want to relax.

 

Guantanamera. It's a cuban song I hear a lot down here.

 

So I got my score sheets back from the recent homebrew comp. I scored fairly average on most of my brews. As it turns out Dust Devil missed 1st place by only one point. I got some pretty good feedback, too. Some of the criticism I got actually reflected the same as the thoughts I was having about my personal flaws. Only one beer got criticism I wasn't expecting which was my Pale (Cactus Nectar). The judges all made the comment that it had a "barnyard" character, which is strange. I never noticed that myself. I used US05 at 65F, so I'm surprised they all detected barnyard at all. Not a big deal, because I really didn't think very highly of that beer anyway. I'm fairly happy with the results.

The scores were as follows;

- American Stout (Elephant Mountain) = 33.66 points, Judges comments; "Balanced", "Flavorful", "Roasty Goodness"

- Baltic Porter (Spiced Pumpkin Porter) = 36 points, Judges comments; "Very well made Baltic that is smooth and offers a complexity that is worthy of the style"

- American Pale (Cactus Nectar) = 23 points, Judges comments; "Wild Barnyard Aroma", "Despite aroma it's refreshing", "Sour lemon barnyard character"

- American Brown (Cloudy London Day) = 30.7 points, "Nice retention and lacing", "Could use more roast and bittering", "Easy to drink", "Could use more malt complexity and bitterness" (I totally agree with these comments)

- American IPA (Dust Devil) = 35.33 points, "Beautiful blend of West Coast citrus hops and some herbal/dank as well", "Good balance of hops and malt", "GREAT IPA! But move some of the bittering hops to the middle of the boil and dial back the crystal malt!" (I agree with that last comment, as well)

It was a great learning experience. It's nice to have the feedback, so I can tweak my process and recipes. The best feedback came from the judges that were actually BJCP certified. The ones that weren't just said stuff like "tasty", "Nice head", etc.. Next year they plan to go full out BJCP certified with requirements and judging, so I gotta step up my game!

 

I won't ruin Stauff's buzz with my BJCP thoughts.

This has been in my head all day.

 

Hmm, I back sweetened and carbonated a two liter of cider. Yeah, that's dangerous. It didn't register as particularly alcoholic on my nose, throat, or stomach. I'm tipsy after 2 six oz glasses though. The carbonic acid from the carbing is perfect for cider. It gives you a tanginess that is great with the cider flavor.

 

Nice. I've been working through some milk stout that I made last spring. I really am not a fan of the style, but this brew is mighty tasty after 6 months. I have another case that I am going to reserve for when I get snowed in with a nor'easter this winter.

I've got Merlot waiting to be bottled, as soon as I collect (i.e. drink through) about 6 more bottles. Got apfelwein waiting for secondary, and I have the ingredients for some English IPAs that I can brew as soon as we get some legit fall weather and my equipment room gets down into the low 60s. Almost there.

And, oh yeah, I've got my Brett/lacto berliner weisse-ish brew and a gallon of straight Brett fermenting away. Scary-ass ferments...I am almost afraid that something is going to grab my ankle and drag me into the primary if I walk too close to it.

 

Haha! If you suddenly stop posting we will know why.

I've got a gallon and a half of something that should be apple cider vinegar by now. The maybe infected mead fermented in a pumkin. Two fermentors with that something awful in it. The black cherry wine with the ginormous starter and the DME. And finally, some straight up hard apple cider only slightly spiked with sugar.

I'll probably put the something awful and the cider on tap in a couple more weeks.

It might sound bad, but I don't see the point in fermenting something with less then a 10% intended ABV. If I want soda, I'll have soda. If I want juice, I'll have juice. If I'm going to have wine, cider, etc... I want it to have enough kick that I know I had something to drink...

 

I got that LB of wine tannin I was waiting for. Now, how much to add to a 2 liter to get the astringency I want for the Dr. Pepper experiment...

 

It does indeed sound bad. But you don't like beer, so what the hell do you know? I like beer and I like to drink a bunch of it. So low abv is good by me. I haven't drank a soda in at least a couple years. That stuff will kill you.

 

That attitude would make for a very short evening for me. I like my inebriation to embrace me slowly and tenderly like a gentle octopus as the evening progresses. I like watching the progression of the slow loss of my faculties. Watch 'Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas' and you'll get what I mean.

EDIT: The above was written while downing a few glasses of commercial Merlot ~ 10% ABV, so I guess I am less than consistent in this regard.

 

Right. I avoid high alcohol beers. I do like my red wine though. Cab or Rioja preferred.

 

I enjoy a lot of kinds of drinks. Most of then non-alcoholic actually.

That's an awesome movie.

I usually have a glass or two of something alcoholic then switch to something chemically inoffensive. If I want to get hammered, pretty rare these days, I'll have a strong mix drink. I find that I really dislike shots these days. Even of something that's really nice. They are just to strong.

That terms and conditions may apply thing has me kinda cautious about what I post online these days. There is something I'd like to tell somebody, but I think I'll drunk text a friend of mine instead.

 

~ 5.5% seems to be my cutoff for beers. I really can't drink wine fast enough to get into trouble, and I tend to have it with meals which softens the blow.

SNPA ~5.6% ABV makes for a nice tasty evening that I will remember the next day.

9.5% Russian Imperial Stout at the Trinity Brew Pub in Providence - still not sure how I got back to the hotel that night. The lady at the front desk smiled knowingly at me the next day for some reason.

30%+ Tequila (not since my college days) - not sure how I evaded the police, and where did these panties come from?

 

The scene with the ether kills me, absolutely hysterical. It's a crazy movie and an even crazier book.