Holiday Jerk

For the $$ of ingredients and 4 ace air filters, I have created jerry-rigged jerky. The method:

1. Mostly freeze a flank steak. This will make slicing easier. Slice on the grain.

2. Marinade for 3-6 hours in a plastic bag.
2/3 cup soy sauce
2/3 cup worchestshire sauce
1 Tbs. Honey
2 teaspoon black pepper
2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp red pepper
1 tsp liquid smoke

3. Pat dry, line into cellulose filters, 16X20 worked well for this fan size
(remove white paper I have learned)

4. Attach to fan with bungees, turn on low for 12 hours.

5. Enjoy indefinitely!

Beer Names

I found an old scratch list that EARWAX and I created probably a year ago. The notes on it are:

ArborOak Brewing
Watershed Brewing Co. (later nixed due to the definition of a watershed)

Haddon Hill Hefeweizen
Grand Lake Lager
He Hurt Me Pilsner (long live the XFL!)
Reeperbahn Red
Sodomy Santa (WTF)
Krystal Weizz - Cristal Champagne - I have no idea what that was about, maybe something to do with marketing that angle of brand recognition.

This is mostly useless, but I wanted to post it to remind myself that I can post an entry even if there is no brew EVENT per se that is going on; just having some malt musings is enough.

I'm planning my next batch for SUPERMOM while she is pregnant, and have been bragging about my brillance of naming this non-alcoholic concoction. The regular beer will be "Supermom IPA." The near-beer will be "Supermom's Foe IPA." Get it? Like foe=faux!! I'm fucking brilliant. The artist rendering of Supermom's nemesis on the label will make it all come together and I will be the talk of tipsey town. Whatever the hell that is.

Party Anchor

Unihorn invited me to Anchor's holiday party. Whee! All of their beer offerings, plus food and people, and I didn't have to walk through their tour one more time! I did get a nice shpiel from Hendricks, a brewer there, who spelled out the three-part process that squirrel and I had JUST gone through ghetto-style. I also had an opportunity to taste York Creek wines across the street when Unihorn's wine dork entourage scored a personal invite from the brewer. I was definitely more impressed with Anchor's beers than wines. The barrel taste of port was good, however.

BFF: Beer Friends Forever

Me and Fritz. Fritz and me.

Hoppy Holiday Hefeweizen

Brewing in Squirrel's red-neck backyard an all-grain hefe beer based on a Paulaner recipe. The all-grain ghetto setup is totally rad; no $1000 brew-tree required. With a turkey-fryer and a small gas stove he is able to rig a totally functional system. The process is long and fun; he started early this morning and now, at 2 in the afternoon the wort is happily boiling away. One of the slickest work-arounds is the wort chiller. A flexible hose comes from the valve UNDER the sink and attaches to an on/off valve on the end of the copper tubing. This bypasses the awkward connection between copper tube and sink faucet. This is real brewing, no fuckin' around (in reference to the NFA stout I am totally enjoying).

The basics: Mash 14 lbs grains -
7.25 wheat grains,
6.75 Belgian 2-row pale malt,
6 oz German Munich Malt
Hold at 152 degrees for two hours
transfer and let settle to insulated lauter tun for a half-hour
sparge approximately 5 gallons H20 at 175 degrees
- transfer small batches to brew kettle
Begin boil!
Upon boil - hop bill 1.5 oz Columbus (14% alpha acid!) 1.5 oz Hallertau
90 minute boil, enter the wort chiller and 1 teaspoon Irish Moss 5 minutes
Everything is sanitized form this point on!
Activate the wort chiller, bring to 80 degrees (about 30 minutes).
Strain into the fermenter (bucket), yielding 5 gallons.
Yeast is hefe tube yeast made into a starter with wheat DME.
(3 tbs Wheat DME + 1 cup water, fermented 2 weeks ago then refridgerated)

O.G. 1.060 (8% potential)
F.G. _____