Sunset/Sunrise

Is this a sunrise on a new start or a sunset on the season? In a way it's both for me.

This will more than likely be a lost season with the Canes. No one can possibly come up with all the right reasons for how and why the Carolina Hurricanes have performed so poorly since the start of the season. Nothing can go right for this team, when the sky was the limit at the end of last season and the beginning of this season. Records have been broken this season, but none of them good. The only bright side to this season, will be the 1st round (possibly the 1st overall!) pick in the upcoming entry draft this summer. If only this season had been last...

And here's my beautiful sunrise! My assistant brewer in the making is a Girl! The mini-Caniac gear has already been looked at and appropriated for. The only problem is that she's not due until the middle of April. Well after the Canes' season will be done. So she won't be able to really fit into the really small stuff. We'll have to wait to get some bigger stuff once next season begins.

No matter how this season ends, at least I know that I'll have the prettiest mini-Caniac in the stands next season!

Habs Slight Preview!

This past Sunday, the 'Canes actually won a game. Granted, it took them to the shootout, blew a 4-1 lead, and basically gave the Wild the game after the 2nd period. But they won. It's 2 points. I guess.

But they really, really tried to lose. They really did. They were this close! We almost could've had a record losing streak. But no. Minnesota just had to suck just slightly less. Just slightly.

Tonight, we roll into Montreal to take on a slightly better Habs team than last year. That's still miles ahead of us. Check out Four Habs Fans for the complete breakdown on how the Canes will be raped by the Habs, and the strippers in Montreal.

The Birth of the Pint-o-Lantern and Dobleve Te Effe Canes?

Not all Jack-o-Lanterns are born at the same level of awesome-ness.

This was my attempt at creating the world's first (I'm assuming so, because I never found any on google) Pint-o-Lantern. Through hours of hard work, I tried to recreate the illusion of a pint glass on a lit up pumpkin. Not the easiest of accomplishments. I did have lots of fun with it. Here's the work in progress:

I started out with a fairly tall pumpkin, and drew (to the best of my limited ability) a pint glass with a heavy head upon it.

Next, I "chipped" out the beer colored part by cutting out about .5-1 inch of the pumpkin shell. This was to ensure that the beer was lit up, but not super bright like an open hole.

Then, I put a full hole in where the head of the beer would be to make sure it was as bright, or as white as possible. I also dug the outline of the glass a bit deeper than the beer, so that it would shine a bit brighter than the beer. So I ended with this.

Now for the big downer. What is up with the Canes? No seriously, what is up with the Canes? They've lost 10 games in a row. They have not won a single game in a month. A MONTH! Plus, it looks like there's no end in sight, at least if they keep up with the way they are playing.

Yeah, they're playing the Maple Leafs on Friday, but honestly, the Canes are the absolute worst team in Hockey right now. And who would have thought that after last season?

So the question of everyone's mind is: Who's to blame? Well, that can pretty much be placed on everyone.

1. Jim Rutherford. He's now the manager of the oldest team in the NHL. He decided he wanted his younger stars to stay in the AHL one more year, even after a very good training camp, and instead signed older more obscure "veterans." He's still paying Peter Laviolette to not coach this team. He signed Mo to a three year deal after catching lightning in a bottle last "half-season." So of course there is no way Mo is going anywhere. JR is not going to pay 2 coaches not to coach, and then have to pay a 3rd coach to do a job. And therein lies the problem with JR being a "co-owner" of the Canes. He pretty much can never be fired or held accountable for his decisions.
2. Mo. You can shuffle lines all day long but it doesn't mean you can force chemistry. Plus, how about you play the younger guys that are called up. They're actually giving an effort and trying to win games. Stop playing your little favorites to the people who are under-achieving. Let the players earn their top spots.
3. Eric Staal. You needed to recover from your pseudo-injury you've had all season, instead of playing at 75%. You're no good to anyone if you aren't up to your normal level. You're taking up a roster spot that someone useful can take. Don't try to be an ironman just to hold that record, if you are hurt, take the game off.
4. The Carolina Hurricanes. Step up and play hockey. Get your crap together, and give a 60 minute effort. You're better than last place in the NHL. You're better than the Leafs. Much better.

Now show it.

Sorry for the Delay

It's been a while since I've been able to write up a new post on the ol blog. Part of that has been due to the fact that my computer at home has crashed and I have to share SWMBO's laptop. It also hasn't happened just due to being very busy at work, home and everything in between.

But the main reason for the lapse in posting is due to the fact that I've got a new assistant brewer growing inside SWMBO's belly! In just six short months I'll have the great responsibility of showing the next generation how to take pictures, how to properly berate the 'Canes (and they've deserved it lately), and how to brew awesome beer (but not partake until legally of age!). Just getting prepared for it's arrival has kept me from posting on here as regularly.

Without SWMBO's help drinking my beer, my pipeline is a lot longer, therefor, I can't brew as often either.

Thankfully, she can still go with me to the Canes games and do some hefty cheering. Although, lately, there hasn't been much to really cheer for. As of right now, the Canes are 2-4-2 and the only wins have come in the Shootout against Tampa, and against a Florida team who had just gotten back from playing in Europe. We even gave the Islanders their first win of the season just last night.

If there is a picture that can sum up how the Canes are taking this season, it's this one right here:

On the beer front, the IPA has finished fermenting and gone through the secondary, been dry hopped with and ounce of Cascade and Centennial each. It's even already been bottled; last weekend! I did get a chance to sample a bit that wouldn't fit into the last bottle, and it was pure hoppy goodness. I'm excited for two weeks from now.

C-Ward-O Defies the Economy and Other News

Today, Cam Ward signed a six-year contract extension worth an average of 6.3 million a year. And then he promptly laughed in the economy's face.

"Who says it's hard to get a good paying job these days?" he asks. Certainly it's not for the now 3rd highest paid goalie in the league. Personally, I believe that's about half a mil too much per year, but in terms of superstars, not too big of a deal.

What this really says, as Bubba over on Canes Country puts it, is that the Canes are here to stay and here to be competitive. It's a message to other players that may not want to play so close to the Tropic of Cancer, that this team is willing to pay for its superstars, and it's not planning on putting its fans through limbo, a la Phoenix Coyotes.

In other, only slightly related news: HOCKEY SEASON STARTS TOMORROW! It's aboot time eh! Although the Canes don't start play until Friday (in which there will be loads of tailgaiting. 70F weather here we come!) I still can't wait to be able to watch some hockey tomorrow night. It's been a long off-season, although not nearly as long as most, but it's very exciting to see how the '09-'10 Canes will stack up against the rest of the NHL.

In terms of brews, I was able to get a bit done this weekend. I ended up making a new IPA that I believe will kick the crap out of my last attempt.

First, a bit of some background. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to make my hop purchasing a lot cheaper. Previously, I had been buying hops in the price range of 2-4 dollars per ounce. That can get pretty expensive when your favorite beer styles are IPA's that require several ounces of hops.

So I decided to buy in bulk. Hops Direct has a good reputation for fresh hops and very competitive prices. So I took the plunge and bought 1 pound of Centennial Leaf (it's the main hop for Bell's Two Hearted, so obviously my favorite hop), 1 pound of Cascade Lead, 1 pound of Czech Saaz, and 1 pound of Magnum pellets. For a whopping total of 50 bucks (including shipping), I've got enough hops to last for quite a bit. Now, I have hops that only cost roughly 80 cents an ounce. So, obviously it was time to throw some serious hops into this IPA.

Here's the recipe. So a total of 8 oz. of hops. I honestly can't wait to see how this one turns out. I did find out that leaf hops are pretty hard to mess with. They don't like to sink down to the bottom of the kettle and tend to hang out on the top, and need to be stirred in quite a bit.

You may notice that I'm trying something new out with the recipe. It's a bit of a gamble on my part. I tried some First-Wort Hopping for this brew. It's a technique that is usually only used when Mashing is done, but I've somewhat forced it upon my brew. It's a process where you steep some of your late hop additions in your kettle after collecting your first runnings. For some reason that appears to be unknown, the flavor and aroma of these hops are retained during the boil, and not driven off. In blind taste tests, 11 of 12 people apparently prefer the first-wort hopped beer over the other.

Since my brewing does not use any mashing, I added the first-wort hops while the brew was at about 150F after I had steeped the grains, and after I added my extract. Then with the hops in the wort, I slowly brought the brew to a boil. This technique may, or may not work, because when mashing is performed with grain, it lowers the pH of the wort and is able to use the hops better. I haven't really read anywhere that said that adding extract does or doesn't do this, but everywhere I've read about first-wort hopping doesn't know about using it with extract. If nothing else, I will have just increased the bitterness of the beer. Not a horrible thing to happen to an IPA.

As I'm writing this, I'm testing out the Milk Chocolate Porter (formerly Stout). The flavor of the beer actually came out pretty balanced and smooth. Very surprising. It's got a nice light malty and roasty smell to it, and a pretty sweet and lightly chocolatey flavor. It's very easy to drink. So I'm disappointed that it's not a Stout like I had aimed for, but I'm pleasantly surprised on how the beer came out itself. Easily one of my better tasting beers, even if I missed the mark on the style.

It's Almost Here!

Well, lookie there! It's no longer the Offseason. It is now officially the PRE-Season. And it couldn't have come fast enough.

Canes fans have very good reason to be excited about the upcoming season. In the '08-'09 season, we sat through half of a mediocre season and watched as a coaching change mid-way through the season turned the team into a dominant force that carried into the Eastern Conference Finals.

With the summer came a few changes, mainly filling the glaring hole exposed in the playoffs of team toughness. The Canes were pushed around quite a bit in the playoffs by bigger teams, but still managed to find a way to win the series.

Tomorrow night the Canes take on the Nashville Predators in a Pre-Season exhibition game. Finally, hockey is back, just as the weather starts to cool back down from scorching to warm. Unfortunately, I'll be away up to the Cape Cod area of Massachusetts for a conference this weekend and will miss the first chance to see the Canes in action. The jitters will be unbearable.

This past weekend, I bottled the Milk Chocolate Stout (Porter). It shall be known from henceforth as the Milk Chocolate Porter. It is simply to light to be called a Stout, and will more than likely have a roasted character that is closer to a Brown Porter style, rather than a Stout(which means less roasty). Overall, I'm pretty disappointed in how this has turned out. I haven't tasted it yet, but the coloring of the beer makes me wonder if there is a way I can improve my technique.

Since the coloring and most of the flavors come from my steeping grains, this is the area I will focus on. I am beginning to think that my grain bags may be too big to allow proper "steeping." I normally put about a pound in each bag, and they get pretty big and round. This may prevent the grains deep on the inside of the bag from getting their sugars rinsed by the water. So they may not be contributing to the wort at all. The next beer that I brew that requires a large amount of steeping grains, I will probably put less grains in each bag. If it means I use 10 bags, so be it.

I want my beers to come out the way I expect them to.

The Beauty of the Beach and HDR

For the past week and change I've been vacationing down at the beach again. For the most part, we had cloudy weather, so the fantabulous pictures didn't flow as freely as they would have if it were sunny.

But, I do have a few to share.
Since the weather wasn't great we decided to go down to the Fort Fisher Aquarium and check out the fishies as well as the old Civil War Fort.


We did have one night where we were able to get some good sunset shots. Here's some regular shots along with some HDR sunset shots.

For the brews update, the Milk Chocolate Stout (Porter) is currently being cold-crashed for the next week to try to clear it up as much as possible and get as much sediment out.

Update

This past weekend I bottled the apfelwine and also transferred the Milk Chocolate Stout into the Secondary.

Observations:

1. Apfelwine tastes exactly like white wine, just with apple flavor. It's really dry and pretty smooth, you barely even notice that it's 9% alcohol. This will do nicely to give out and have on hand when someone doesn't want a beer. Since it's being carbed, it'll be more like a champagne almost, rather than a flat wine. But it's pretty good, especially for not even being aged at all.
2. I might experiment with putting cocoa in more beers in the future, depending on how this one comes out. It smells good, and is really easy to mix with water and pour the beer on top of.
3. The Milk Chocolate Stout is looking like it's going to be more of a Milk Chocolate Porter. I can already tell that it's just not going to be dark enough, and quite possibly roasted enough for it to be a Stout. I think it may have something to do with my grain bags that hold my steeping grains. I think they may be too big to allow for all the sugars to be properly extracted from the grains they hold. I'll have to experiment around with smaller bags.
4. I've found out that my pipeline is built up a bit too much. I need to clear out some bottles for the stout in a few weeks. I need about 48 bottles in 3 weeks and I don't want to get extras from outside. I want the beer I have drunk. So come on over and help me make some empties.

The Milk Chocolate Stout

This past Saturday was a big one in terms of brewing for me.

First, a week before I got a new toy.




A brand new Turkey Fryer! This thing will be great. No longer will SWMBO's nose curl from boiling wort in the kitchen. Boiling outside will cut that out. Plus, with a 30 quart pot, I can do full boils now.

With full boils, I will get better hop utilization, which means I need less hops for more bitterness and flavor. Plus, there will be less off-flavors from the extract I use.


Win/Win/Win.


So, this past Saturday, I kicked the outdoor brewing off by starting up my Milk Chocolate Stout.


Here's the recipe.

• 4.5 lbs of Extra Pale Dry Malt Extract.
• 1 lb of Chocolate Malt
• 12 oz. of Crystal 60L Malt
• 4 oz of Roasted Barley
• 1 oz of Black Patent Malt
• 1 lb of Dextrose
• 1 lb of Lactose (Milk Sugar, which is unfermentable, and will leave the beer sweeter)
• 1 oz of Cluster hops at 60 min.
• I used a starter of Wyeast 1028 London Ale Yeast.
  

The whole process started with making the starter a few days before:

Then steep the grains for 30 minutes at 150 degrees. Here's how we looked after steeping.

Here's the hot break after the boil started. Fortunately, I use Fermcaps so I won't be having any boilovers.

The one and only hop addition at 60 minutes:

My starting gravity was actually a bit high at 1.061. I, along with Beersmith, had expected it to be closer to 1.055, but we shall see where the final gravity ends up. Hopefully, somewhere in the 1.014-1.019 range. It wouldn't be bad for this beer to have a bit of body to it.

In another week or so I'll transfer the Stout to the secondary and add in some baker's cocoa. Probably about 3 or 4 ounces. Hopefully, this should be a pretty sweet, chocolaty and roasted tasting beer.

Cheers!

Ruuuu!'s Gonna be Hangin Around a Bit Longer

Our core nucleus of Finns won't be getting any smaller anytime soon.

Tuomo Ruutu inked a 3-year deal today that will pay him handsomely.

I for one am very glad, and look forward to more of this:

Boone Goons!

The SWMBO and I recently took a trip up to the North Carolina mountains this past weekend for a bit of camping in Julian Price Park. Since both of us went to Appalachian State University, we both know the area around Boone fairly well, and know quite a bit about the Northern NC Mountains.

The weather was absolutely amazing, cool days, chilly nights, and big puffy clouds that made for dramatic views! We visited Linville Falls and Howard's Knob, the mountain overlooking Boone.

Here's some pics from the weekend.

Apfelwine!

This past weekend I "brewed" up some apfelwine, or German hard apple cider. This is Edwort's recipe from homebrewtalk.com fame.


It's an extreeeeemly easy recipe and has quite a following over on the home brew forums.

• 5 gallons of apple juice
  
• 2 lbs of Dextrose
  
• 1 packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

That's it. There's no boil. You just mix and wait.

Here's a few pics from day 4 after pitching.

Pics and Pucks

The past week has seen quite a bit of hockey news, with the Free-Agent signing day of July 1.

Marion Hossa signed with the Chicago Blackhawks for more money per year than I will make in 105 years. Does he enjoy signing with his previous teams' rivals, or is it just me?

The Canes re-signed both Erik Cole and Chad LaRose (the Chuck Norris of Hockey) to two-year contracts. Both players tested the open market, if only for a little while, before deciding to stay in Raleigh.

The more recent news is that Restricted Free Agent Tuomo Ruutu has filed for arbitration. I guess the Canes offered him his qualifying offer to retain his rights, but it must not have been up to what Ruutu wanted. Ruutu has definitely earned a raise over what he made last season. I would imagine he may only want a 1-year deal, arbitrators normally give 1-year deals, so that he can become an Unrestricted Free Agent next summer and cash in a bit more. I'd bet that the Canes have probably offered him a multi-year deal for a bit of a hometown discount.


And recently, we went down to the beach for the July 4th weekend for a nice little vacation. Here's some pics from the trip.