Pursuing Calefaction

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 new me who I was. So I’m still sorting through the detritus of this mysterious person’s life, coming to a new understanding of the world through the same old eyes. Reflecting on the last stage of my life, I am now in the position of a doctor healing a patient. My patient–me–broke his leg, and failed to set the bone. So it healed wrong. And for the last four years, I’ve been hobbling around on a wrongly-set leg, wondering why I can’t run like I used to be able to.

Note to self: the fact that I learned how to run with a hobbled leg should not be taken as proof that my leg is healed.

So, this semester has been one wherein I had to re-break my leg. Yes, it was painful. Incredibly so. And now, while I am still hurting from the break, I must make sure to set it correctly. This stuff must be obvious to some people. But I’m one of those who learn the hard way. Maybe that’s everyone, and most others are just fantastically good at hiding it. There’s even room to extend the metaphor, but that would just be gratuitous. And nobody likes gratuitousness. (Star Wars references excepted. Those are always ok.)

I am only now coming around to remembering what it is like to be motivated to do things again. The apathy is draining from my mind; I see a path where none was before. I should have taken a lesson from my brewing: nothing can hurry beer along. Some things can only improve with time and rest. I am possessed again of hope.

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 again, stronger next time.

Still not giving up.

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 better judgment. Looking into it, I read about how variable the sugar content is from batch to batch and how it doesn’t really impart any flavor, but I was curious, so I went ahead. Best average I could find was about 5 oz per 5 gallons, but because I used grade B I fudged it a bit toward the upper bound. Bad scientist, I know. I suppose I could take a gravity sample of the priming solution if I were doing it again to nail down a better sense of how much sugar I’d be adding. Anyway, total priming sugar (for the 3 gallon batch) was 4.25 oz in 2 cups distilled water, boiled for 15 mins per usual.

We cracked open the test bottle over Thanksgiving, approximately 5 days after bottling. Usually that would be insufficient time for a proper carbonation. But it fizzed up nicely! On the other hand, I worry that in the next couple weeks it’ll be a little too bright. The Sidhe won’t mind, though–she loves super-carbonated beer. The taste was nice. The Cascade hops have already begun settling down to normal levels, unlike the tart gravity sample I took at bottling. As expected the molasses is quite evident, but alas, no maple flavor comes through. So I can consider maple syrup officially Too Much Work to use for priming. (Sadly, it’s too expensive to use in the main body, either.)

The Irish moss, it’s safe to say, was visibly lacking. The beer was as obscure as pond water–almost no clarity whatsoever. A couple more weeks in the fermenter might have improved it a tad, and that may be the direction I take next, but I think I’ll stick to using Irish moss from now on. It’s vegan, adds no flavors, and makes the beer super-pretty. Otherwise this is a fine red ale. It has a nicely hoppy palate with only a hint of aromatics. The finish is a bit smoky thanks to the molasses. At 3.9% ABV, it’s great table beer. I’m calling this one a win.

Update: I made a label with Labeley!

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 in the banality of our existence. Feel free to read below the cut.

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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, it had better be quality. She watches considerably more television because she can actually multi-task. Really I think she just doesn’t absorb much of it, which suits her just fine. Most of the shows out there are terrible anyhow.

So my last proper TV kick was back in 2008, and I have Ted and Jake Gellar-Goad to thank for it. Those two are political junkies of the upper tier, so their drug of choice, natch, was The West Wing. I ate that stuff up. They conveniently had all seven seasons on DVD, and we were very nearly literally a stone’s throw away at the time, so it was trivial to acquire and return. Fascinating stuff, it was, and spookily prescient of the 2008 presidential elections.

But since then I’ve been wary, mostly just filling in gaps in my experience with Netflix. Going back through Star Trek: The Next Generation has been awful in some respects, but my 13-year-old self who never had cable and read more is thanking me all the same We are also retreading the X-Files, which I only caught sporadically after mid-season 2. I am checking out a new anime, FullMetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, so I suppose that’s “new,” but the writing is delightfully cerebral for the genre. (Don’t bother with the original FMA series–it’s crap.) I also picked up Eureka, which started out rough and soapy. It improves, and is somehow watchable for being essentially soap. But what I really wanted to write about here tonight is a true successor to the X Files’ throne: Fringe.

Now, I’m rather diffident concerning JJ Abrams. LOST was a soap with SF trappings (even the parts Abrams was involved in), and Star Trek was Dawson’s Creek in spaaaace. I admit he goes for and pulls off spectacle very well, but I was completely surprised when I started catching up on Fringe this fall. Specifically at its depth. Watching Fringe unfold, showing you the complexity of each of the characters and the consequences of their very human decision-making, is like stepping into a hot tub, and when you’re all the way in, you find yourself in the 12 foot section and it’s ice cold. The horror elements in it reflect the best and worst of ourselves, and the science is startlingly plausible, but the gripping part is the plot. And because of its nature, I cannot comment except to say this: if you haven’t watched past the first season, you haven’t seen Fringe.

Tonight alone the Sidhe & I have watched 6 episodes, all in season 2. It’s dreamy. I’m hoping to catch up before the hiatus is over. Won’t you join me?

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 help with getting those pesky labels off, too.) So they’re soaking in my spare storage container overnight, and tomorrow I’ll steal my gravity sample and get these puppies carbonating. The beer looks good, clearer than I had expected given the lack of Irish moss. Obviously only bottling it will prove anything, but I’m excited to find out!

I picked up a mesh bag today as well. I’m thinking toward using specialty grains with my next couple batches now that I have the extract process sufficiently down on my stovetop setup. It will add complexity to the body, and, I hope, a few points of gravity. My next step beyond that is using a 2-quart enameled cast-iron pot to try a mini-mash, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Update 11/18/11: Bottled a case plus three singletons, and a bomber for the table. I hit my final gravity, and I’m looking forward to the result after the maple carbonates it. The clarity is abysmal, so that’s that. Tasting the sample, the molasses comes through strong as expected. But it should quiet down after a month or so in the closet.

But it’s what I’m doing right now anyway. It’s the end of the semester, and everything is due. And I feel like a completely incompetent failure. The only way I got through my final semester in undergrad was by essentially crashing and burning; I had run out of meds that spring, and rode out the fall semester on guts and my flagging inertia. I went into this semester without meds (much, anyway), and it’s telling. I should not have done this without a larger base of support. Meds, one class at a time, a job so I’m not freaking out about money in addition to everything else…

Sorry, folks. I may be failing. But I’m not quitting.

On the plus side, I don’t bite my nails anymore. So there’s that.

Since leaving the clinic in mid-October, I have been left without a regular schedule. My classes are in the evenings, and with the wedding I had no shortage of things to pester me at all hours. But as the semester comes to a close, I find myself languishing in the apartment. This is a bad combination with a tendency to be interrupt-driven. Without forward momentum, the inertia builds and I will increasingly sabotage my chances to move into professional education. I need a routine–I need a job.

Time to shake off the funk, get my shit together, and get busy living again. Today is the day to not give in to the monster in my head.

The krausen on my stovetop amber fell while I was out and about in northern New Jersey. There is still a ring of foam, but the center of the beer’s surface is more or less free of yeast. (I did some reading, and apparently US-05 can be quite bubbly for quite some time, so the long-lasting krausen is less of a concern now.) The temperature seems to have held pretty steady at 67F, and the airlock smells pretty good. So I’d say we’re still on the right track. I don’t see any ropey strands or huge film-covered bubbles on top of the beer that might indicate infection. The only way to know whether a beer has completed fermentation is to take a gravity sample. But because I’ve only got about 3 gallons in the fermenter, I’m going to let it ride and check the gravity when I bottle it. The extra week will give it time to clarify (hopefully) and taste better (definitely), and I won’t be wasting 100mL of beer on science. I suppose I could get a refractometer, in which case I would just need a drop or two, but the cost is not supported by the calibration issues I would face. (Apparently alcohol messes with refractometry, and while there are formulas to correct for that, I prefer the more scientifically rigorous hydrometer at that stage of production.)

So things are looking on track to bottle in a week. With luck, the beer will be carbonated by Thanksgiving day, though it may still be a bit “green.” I doubt we’ll complain. When I’m bottling, I shall also make my first attempt at washing yeast. Each packet is about $3, and while that’s not a great sum, I am also currently jobless, and it will allow me to reuse the little guys instead of consigning them to hell after one cycle. The main trick is to make the next batch a bit stronger and darker, basically continuing in a given direction along the style spectrum. So I’m planning an American Molasses Brown Ale with it. Will post the recipe when I finish formulating it!

Further on down the line, I have a friend coming into town in March who has issues with gluten, so I’m planning a gluten-free batch for January. I got some BriesSweet White Sorghum syrup, and I’m reading up on how to best balance the sorghum’s pungency. Looks like I can go one of two ways. I could accentuate the citrus/”sour” character by picking a suitable style, like an American Pale Ale or a Belgian, or I could try to drown it out with other flavors. I’m thinking a bit of brown rice syrup and molasses, and using earthier hops like Chinook and Tettnanger. I shall probably try both ways, of course, and document my efforts. I will take a few notes from the Gluten Free brewing blog (linked in my blogroll), and heck, I might even have something to offer in return!

This weekend has been an exultant blur. Everything about the wedding lined up right–the well-planned schedule, the things that actually coincided with it, and everything else that was off-course but still managed to be right. I am proud to be an official participant in generating documents of historical record as signatory witness to Rob Carlson’s marriage. I helped make it legal. And 200 years from now, barring societal collapse or natural catastrophe, my name will still be in there along with the excellent Jenn Haltmann (Maid of Honor), blushing bride Caitlin Mahoney, the worthy Rob Carlson, and his father, William Carlson. OK, it’s small potatoes. But as a historian, it means something to me

Some observations and a hairy story follow below the cut!

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