Back from the LHBS...trip wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The dude working was one of the few normal ones remaining and as such he didn't try to talk to me at all. Here's the recipe for the Go Heffe Yourself which will be brewed this coming week (possibly Wednesday):
6# White Wheat
5# German Pilsener Malt
1/2 oz Tettnang hops (5.1% AA)
Wyeast 3068 Weihenstephaner Weizen Yeast
It'll be the most traditionally "German" heffe I have made so far and I am interested to see how it comes out.
Oh...also...bbq'ing tomorrow. Doing a full rack of baby backs slow cooked with a dry rub. I am looking forward to eating the shit out of them. More on that as it progresses. Carry on.
&Ry
Friday, June 12, 2009
Heffe the Third
So, I will be brewing a Heffe for the third consecutive year in the days ahead. I have had pretty solid success with the style my previous two times and I hope that today is no different.
Angie has a friend in town (we'll call her Sharon for the sake of anonymity) who is to be attending the Fletcher School at Tufts in the fall...so she is checking out apartments today in the Davis Square area affording me the perfect opportunity to run into the LHBS and see what kind of trouble I can cause/nerds I can run into. I have to choose very non-descript clothing for days like this because if I somehow wear something that can serve as a conversation starter I may immediately find myself in the middle of a very awkward and unwelcome conversation. For instance, the guy whose back hair connects straight up to his head-hair seems to like to talk about sports with me oddly enough...which means I should probably leave all Mets paraphernalia at home. The guy who wears the leather biker's vest, on the other hand, seemed enamoured with my assless chaps last time I was in there...so I think those are a no-go as well. I am sure I will be able to settle on something that will allow me to go in, crush the unclesniffingbullhonkey out of some barley and wheat and get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
Oh...the name for this bad boy will be Go Heffe Yourself. Surprised I didn't think of that one last year.
Bon Tidings.
&Ry
Angie has a friend in town (we'll call her Sharon for the sake of anonymity) who is to be attending the Fletcher School at Tufts in the fall...so she is checking out apartments today in the Davis Square area affording me the perfect opportunity to run into the LHBS and see what kind of trouble I can cause/nerds I can run into. I have to choose very non-descript clothing for days like this because if I somehow wear something that can serve as a conversation starter I may immediately find myself in the middle of a very awkward and unwelcome conversation. For instance, the guy whose back hair connects straight up to his head-hair seems to like to talk about sports with me oddly enough...which means I should probably leave all Mets paraphernalia at home. The guy who wears the leather biker's vest, on the other hand, seemed enamoured with my assless chaps last time I was in there...so I think those are a no-go as well. I am sure I will be able to settle on something that will allow me to go in, crush the unclesniffingbullhonkey out of some barley and wheat and get the fuck out of there as soon as possible.
Oh...the name for this bad boy will be Go Heffe Yourself. Surprised I didn't think of that one last year.
Bon Tidings.
&Ry
Monday, June 8, 2009
Manayunk Bike Races & Sunburn
Another weekend of strong summer weather; another trip to the State Forest in the Jerz where this time I accumulated 2 TICKS. One was found on my wrist during the drive home, another found much later and in a much more disconcerting place. I'll leave it at that, suffice it to say that I have since thoroughly examined and showered my person & clothing from the day. Thrice. Saturday was also the 2nd annual Roots Picnic, to which I could not afford a ticket, but was staged close enough to my house that I meandered over and was surprised to be able to hear and SEE the last 4 songs of the Black Keys' set. Bonus.
_____________
Yesterday was the Manayunk Bike Race, which was a much bigger deal than I had guessed it to be. One of the legs of the Triple Crown, the race comprises "10 laps of a 14.4-mile circuit that links the majestic Benjamin Franklin Parkway with the hillside community of Manayunk, site of the legendary Manayunk Wall, named by Pro Cycling Tour’s David Chauner and Jerry Casale, a steep half-mile cruncher that has become a Philadelphia icon and favorite spot for race watchers."
The Wall is where most of the partying goes down. The police turn a blind eye to public drinking for the event, so the whole Manayunk area pretty much turns into Bourbon Street for the day. We started drinking around 11am. I got out of there by 3 or so, once I started to feel my skin crispening up. The crowd had thinned out considerably, but those who remained seemed steadfast in their determination to get totally bombed on a Sunday. Anyway, be it from the beers, jello-shots, or sunstroke, I seemed to accomplish my modest goals.
-Wrence
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
A Long Day
So part of being a student involves me simultaneously gaining experience working in an office on campus. I have been working for the past year with the office that facilitates a variety of programs for freshmen, including the summer orientation that all freshmen must go through. The experience has been really positive. Integral to the orientation program are the orientation leaders...43 upperclassmen who have distinguished themselves in a lot of ways and want to devote their summer to helping ease the transition into college that freshmen face.
Anyway, a lot of my time is spent with these orientation leaders during the summer...especially during an intense three week period of team building and training. We're right in the middle of that now. In an effort to build a supportive team atmosphere, we do an exercise that is modeled on the "This I Believe" series introduced by Edward R. Murrow in the 60s. The gist of this thing is: in 600 or so words, talk about a belief you hold or something that you have come to find to be true. Each of these 43 leaders is asked to share their beliefs and their stories with the whole group. The result is a series of long long nights that help foster a real awesome feeling of community and honesty...but they are also a series of extremely emotional nights. Lots of intensely personal experiences get shared and there are lots of tears shed. As a staff member, I am not immune to this myself. I sit through each talk and empathize with the student leaders as if they were my own friends telling me their stories.
Tonight was a rough night...a lot came out and there were a few very raw emotional reactions as a result of some of what was talked about. It was a long day full of a lot of training and the subsequent talks and such after dinner. I didn't get home until 11 after leaving home this morning at 7:45. Despite the fact that it was long and that it was an emotionally difficult day for me to get through with its own tragedies and dramas requiring my attention, I found myself coming home tonight to the realization that there is nothing else I would want to be doing. A year ago I was finishing up at Fidelity and now I have a year of this work under my belt and am really building up towards a point where I feel confident to handle whatever comes to me through the course of this job and the ability to be for these kids what they need when they need it. It's a great feeling...and one that I felt I needed to put into words. Thanks for listening.
&Ry
Anyway, a lot of my time is spent with these orientation leaders during the summer...especially during an intense three week period of team building and training. We're right in the middle of that now. In an effort to build a supportive team atmosphere, we do an exercise that is modeled on the "This I Believe" series introduced by Edward R. Murrow in the 60s. The gist of this thing is: in 600 or so words, talk about a belief you hold or something that you have come to find to be true. Each of these 43 leaders is asked to share their beliefs and their stories with the whole group. The result is a series of long long nights that help foster a real awesome feeling of community and honesty...but they are also a series of extremely emotional nights. Lots of intensely personal experiences get shared and there are lots of tears shed. As a staff member, I am not immune to this myself. I sit through each talk and empathize with the student leaders as if they were my own friends telling me their stories.
Tonight was a rough night...a lot came out and there were a few very raw emotional reactions as a result of some of what was talked about. It was a long day full of a lot of training and the subsequent talks and such after dinner. I didn't get home until 11 after leaving home this morning at 7:45. Despite the fact that it was long and that it was an emotionally difficult day for me to get through with its own tragedies and dramas requiring my attention, I found myself coming home tonight to the realization that there is nothing else I would want to be doing. A year ago I was finishing up at Fidelity and now I have a year of this work under my belt and am really building up towards a point where I feel confident to handle whatever comes to me through the course of this job and the ability to be for these kids what they need when they need it. It's a great feeling...and one that I felt I needed to put into words. Thanks for listening.
&Ry
Sunday, May 31, 2009
A place in Jersey I actually like
Today was so nice, and my hangover just within range of being manageable, I decided to take the new wheels and get out of the city for a bit.
Yesterday, right after finishing up tours at the brewery, I met up with another Hartwick alum Scott (Snotty) at Justin (Little Monkey Boy)'s restaurant, the Kite and Key. The place is still sort of new I think, and pretty nice. They have a great beer selection, heavily leaning on local stuff just as most of the bars around here tend to. Justin is a french-trained chef who's used to working in fine dining environments, so he's sort of a fish out of water running a pub kitchen, but he's definitely dropping of bit of the haute into this joint. I mean, I've never had oysters with fresh roe; or escargot; or this crazy french thing wherein meat is braised, then pureed in a blender with duck fat added, then molded into little rounds which are then browned in a saute pan (I can't remember the actual term J used when describing this), in a beer bar before. This stuff was off the hook, and I don't even use that phrase. For reals. It also helped that Snottty & I didn't have to pay for any of this stuff. Score.
Then today I headed east into the Jerz and found this nice state park, which turned out to be quite beautiful. It is about halfway to the coast, and the turf there starts to look almost like Cape Cod. They even had white cedar swamps and a cranberry bog like out on the Cape...well done, Jersey. It turns out that this whole part of the State is actually some kind of National Reserve, so there is not much in the way of houses, shopping centers, or other typical crap like that which seems to be everywhere you look in the state. There are some nice hiking/biking trails which I hit up, and a few ponds for submerging yourself. I'll definitely be back here often this summer. Oh, and since I was all the way out there I continued east after this until I hit ocean.
So now I am feeling the effects of all this activity and sinking deeper and deeper into a comatose haze which I am certain will envelope me completely for the next 12 hours or so. Work tomorrow doesn't start for me until 1 so I plan on chillaxing like you read about until then.
Peace
-Wrence
Yesterday, right after finishing up tours at the brewery, I met up with another Hartwick alum Scott (Snotty) at Justin (Little Monkey Boy)'s restaurant, the Kite and Key. The place is still sort of new I think, and pretty nice. They have a great beer selection, heavily leaning on local stuff just as most of the bars around here tend to. Justin is a french-trained chef who's used to working in fine dining environments, so he's sort of a fish out of water running a pub kitchen, but he's definitely dropping of bit of the haute into this joint. I mean, I've never had oysters with fresh roe; or escargot; or this crazy french thing wherein meat is braised, then pureed in a blender with duck fat added, then molded into little rounds which are then browned in a saute pan (I can't remember the actual term J used when describing this), in a beer bar before. This stuff was off the hook, and I don't even use that phrase. For reals. It also helped that Snottty & I didn't have to pay for any of this stuff. Score.
Then today I headed east into the Jerz and found this nice state park, which turned out to be quite beautiful. It is about halfway to the coast, and the turf there starts to look almost like Cape Cod. They even had white cedar swamps and a cranberry bog like out on the Cape...well done, Jersey. It turns out that this whole part of the State is actually some kind of National Reserve, so there is not much in the way of houses, shopping centers, or other typical crap like that which seems to be everywhere you look in the state. There are some nice hiking/biking trails which I hit up, and a few ponds for submerging yourself. I'll definitely be back here often this summer. Oh, and since I was all the way out there I continued east after this until I hit ocean.
So now I am feeling the effects of all this activity and sinking deeper and deeper into a comatose haze which I am certain will envelope me completely for the next 12 hours or so. Work tomorrow doesn't start for me until 1 so I plan on chillaxing like you read about until then.
Peace
-Wrence
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Turbid Blonde Ale
So I racked my "blonde" ale to secondary this morning before work. I brewed it a couple of Sundays ago I think...so it has been in primary for just over two weeks. A little long I guess, but I have done it before.
Now, I had commented to 'wrence that i was worried about the turbidity of the wort/beer but we both agreed that it would probably be ok after some time to settle down and think about what it had done. Well, I am here to tell you that two weeks in primary has done nothing to lessen the cloudiness. I guess I should have done a protein rest or some shit like that, but hey man...I have a life to live here don't I?
The thing is, the color on this bad boy is beautiful, it's just too bad it is as cloudy as it is because it almost looks like dijon mustard...or shitty-pisswater...or potentially I guess pissy-shitwater. As tempted as I may be to bottle it even if it is still cloudy after a week or two in secondary, I will probably throw some gelatin or isinglass down the hatch to clear it up. So I harvested the yeast cake just in case I needed to repitch to condition it. Who knows...maybe I will actually get the kegerator thing done and then I can force carbonate it after clearing it out. That would be some incentive huh? Fuckin' eh.
&Ry
Now, I had commented to 'wrence that i was worried about the turbidity of the wort/beer but we both agreed that it would probably be ok after some time to settle down and think about what it had done. Well, I am here to tell you that two weeks in primary has done nothing to lessen the cloudiness. I guess I should have done a protein rest or some shit like that, but hey man...I have a life to live here don't I?
The thing is, the color on this bad boy is beautiful, it's just too bad it is as cloudy as it is because it almost looks like dijon mustard...or shitty-pisswater...or potentially I guess pissy-shitwater. As tempted as I may be to bottle it even if it is still cloudy after a week or two in secondary, I will probably throw some gelatin or isinglass down the hatch to clear it up. So I harvested the yeast cake just in case I needed to repitch to condition it. Who knows...maybe I will actually get the kegerator thing done and then I can force carbonate it after clearing it out. That would be some incentive huh? Fuckin' eh.
&Ry
Monday, May 18, 2009
What did we learn?
So remember how I said that I had those two papers to do a few weeks ago? I arrived at work today to find two interoffice envelopes with my exams being returned to me. Now, I didn't know this was possible, but I actually got an A+ on one of them. I mean, I don't even remember getting an A+ as an undergrad...I don't even think they gave that grade out at all...let alone grad school. Quite funny, in my opinion.
What lessons have been learned? None actually. In fact, this experience has done nothing but reinforce my bad habits of procrastination, last-minute action, and a propensity to go drinking when there is clearly work to be done. But what's a bad habit unless it actually causes a bad result I guess right?
What lessons have been learned? None actually. In fact, this experience has done nothing but reinforce my bad habits of procrastination, last-minute action, and a propensity to go drinking when there is clearly work to be done. But what's a bad habit unless it actually causes a bad result I guess right?
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