Pursuing Calefaction

I used to look at new year goals as a quick fix to my broken self. “These goals enumerated here,” I would say to myself, “will make me a better person, and I am going to do them right now.” Well, that’s obviously unrealistic, but that’s what young people do, I guess. I have a [...]

This food writing thing is starting to look like a pattern. It occurred to me today that by not writing frequently, I’m engaging in a pattern of thought-hoarding, which fits in with my tendency to ’save’ other things (computer hardware and paperwork are the most pernicious of these). So I guess I’ll try to ride [...]

Not everything I do is about beer, though it has become somewhat an obsession of mine. But I suspect it is an extension of a much broader field of interest: cooking. I have been learning how to cook since I was 18, out of the house and in my own place (well, with roommates). I [...]

My main brewing efforts have been with my friend, the Unknown Lamer, since last October. We use a mega-burner (basically a turkey fryer), and since January it’s been an all-grain setup with the construction of a 5-gallon mash tun. Since June I’ve been doing this little stovetop side project, in part because I don’t always [...]

Time to let the beast out again.
It’s been an unproductive weekend after my final class of the first semester of my time in the MAT program, but I guess that’s to be expected. I feel wrung out. I gave so much of myself this year to becoming someone else that I forgot to remind the [...]

I have a comet bearing down on my chest. The pressure is incredible. Worst of all? I set the body in orbit to begin with, so it’s my own doing that I’m screaming inside my head. The pressure will dissipate tonight, but that is only the end of this particular cycle. It’ll slowly build [...]

So, I had mentioned a couple of variables I was fiddling with in this last stovetop batch. I wanted to try priming with maple syrup instead of corn sugar, and I also didn’t use Irish moss, unlike every other brew to date. I can report my findings now.
I primed it with maple syrup against my [...]

I have a little story for you–a trivial yarn about meaningless things. But it is 100% true. I am writing it because it serves as much to be something to write about as anything else, and with all the craziness happening here in the US (much less abroad) I thought it’d be an interesting indulgence [...]

The Sidhe (my partner of ten [10!] years) has been harping on me for ages to get into Fringe. I pick my TV carefully, because unlike her, I find myself engrossed in whatever is on–even if it’s drek. So if I’m going to sit down in front of the TV (or laptop) for passive entertainment, [...]

I was going to bottle tonight because Thanksgiving is next week. I even picked up the last element of my brewing kit today at the 5th Season gardening store–the Thief. But I didn’t get my bottles into the oxyclean bath yesterday, and looking at them today they were sufficiently funky that caution is advisable. (It’ll [...]