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.

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.

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.

Big Boss Brewery

Last evening, the SWMBO and I made a trip to Big Boss Brewery, and their adjacent pub to sample a few of their brews. Their beers, while more malt-oriented for my tastes, were very good.

Of the seven (I believe) beers on tap, we sampled five of them: The Helle's Belle Belgian Pale Ale, Bad Penny Brown Ale, Angry Angel Kolsch, their Porter, and an Altbier (German Brown Ale).

All of their beers were as they were supposed to be, The Belgian Pale was sweet, fruity and peppery; The Brown Ale was caramelly, nutty and chocolaty, the Porter was nice and roasty and chocolaty, the Altbier was a bit nutty, clovey, and peppery, and the Kolsch was forgettable, just like Kolsch's should be. Seriously, not knocking on their Kolsch, they're a super light-style Ale that is basically not supposed to have hardly any flavor.

Big Boss Brewery was one of the local guys I was calling out earlier to make a "house" (non-seasonal) IPA. I actually got to get some answers while there on why they don't. I was able to ask their head Bartender, Jesse, about this. He explained that the brewery has a three-year contract with their hop supplier and that they are bound to those prices. From the sounds of it, they entered the contract at the time of the hop shortage, so their prices to buy hops are very high still. Jesse said that they have an IPA recipe ready to go once their prices come back down and it makes financial sense. They've already got the labels and art for it as well, they're just waiting on the price.

Big Boss shows off their brewery on the second Saturday of every month. Be sure to check them out.

Where's the Hops?

As I 've stated before, I'm a hop-head. For some reason, the most common definition of hop-head is a drug-addict. Not in this case! I love hops. I love a good IPA, or Imperial IPA, or if neither are available, just a good American Pale Ale. I also like to enjoy locally brewed beer (the most local being my house!). However, this causes me to have a problem.

For some reason, Triangle area Breweries don't seem to want to brew strongly hopped beers! Now, part of this is unfair to say. The one area Brewery that does offer an IPA that sells in stores, Carolina Brewing Company's IPA, I haven't tried. Their Pale Ale is excellent though. It's definitely got some hoppiness to it.

Here's my beef. Out of the nine breweries or brewpubs located in the Triangle region, only three offer IPA's, the aforementioned Carolina Brewing Company, and two brewpubs located in Chapel Hill, Top of the Hill Restaurant and Carolina Brewery.

Yes, I realize that there was a hop shortage a while ago, and hop prices haven't come back down to cheaper prices. I know, I buy hops too. So sell your IPA for an extra $.50 or $1 a glass.

If you guys hadn't noticed there's a trend forming, or has already formed, in craft brewing. More and more people are enjoying heavily hopped beers. New terms like hop-bombs(where enormous amounts of late-addition hops are thrown in to make for an explosive hop flavor and aroma) are being thrown around because more and more people are starting to enjoy the flavor profiles that American-style IPA's offer.

Where's our version of Stone's Ruination, Bell's Two Hearted Ale (my desert isle beer), Dogfish Head 90 Minute, or even Sierra Nevada Torpedo? There is already a big market for selling highly hopped beers, and it's growing.

Don't shy away from the IBU's, crank em up!!

My Predictions So Far...

Well boys and girls, it appears that I am not clairvoyant after all. From my original pics here, I no longer have a single horse in the race. In my final four, I had Boston, Philly, San Jose, and Vancouver. Welp, not a single one of those teams is playing hockey right now. Instead they're playing golf. Good thing I'm a scientist and not a psychic.

So, let's start from Round 1 and see how I did.

Eastern Conference:

1 Boston 8 Montreal

I picked Boston to win it in 5 games, and they dominated the Habs in 4.

2 Washington 7 New York

I picked the Caps to win in 6, and they came back from being down 3-1 to win in 7. I said earlier that the only way they can win is to score more goals than Theodore let in. Well, the Caps didn't give themselves that opportunity and replaced Theodore with Simeon Varlamov in Game 2. This move helped push the Caps to the second round.

3 New Jersey 6 Carolina

Here, I picked a very tight race with the Canes prevailing in 7 Games. Maybe I am psychic?

4 Philadelphia 5 Pittsburgh

I got this series all wrong. I picked the Flyers in 7, but the Pens pretty much dominated them and won in 6.

Western Conference

1 San Jose 8 Anaheim

I think this series surprised everyone. I picked the Sharks to win it in 5, but they completely choked. Anaheim won the round in 6.

2 Detroit 7 Columbus

I figured Detroit would make short work of Columbus. I predicted it would take 5 games, it only took 4.

3 Vancouver 6 St. Louis

I really thought that St. Louis would put up a bit of a fight for this series. I picked the Canucks to win in 6, but they closed it out with a sweep.

4 Chicago 5 Calgary

I figured the Hawks to be slightly more powerful than they were. I predicted it would only take 5 games to dispatch the Flames, but it took 6.


Final Grade for Round 1. I gotta say, I'm not to disappointed in my first round picks. I picked all the correct teams except for San Jose and Philly to move on. That's 75%. So I'll give myself a B- for that one. We're not on a 10 point scale here :)

Round 2

Eastern conference

1 Boston 6 Carolina

I did predict the matchup to occur, but the actual outcome was very different (thankfully so) than what I predicted. I predicted the Bruins to just outmatch the Canes and win in six, but the Canes pulled through in 7 games, in overtime.

2 Caps 4 Pittsburgh (I predicted Philly)

So I thought that Philly would've won the first round, and this round as well. Either way I predicted the Caps to lose. I thought they would lose in 6, but it took 7 games for the Pens to win.

Western Conference

2 Detroit 8 Anaheim (Vancouver)

I figured that Detroit would be playing Vancouver in this matchup and that Vancouver would have won in 5. Well, Detroit beat Anaheim in a thrilling 7 game series.

3 Vancouver 4 Chicago

Here, I thought Chicago was going to be playing San Jose. I thought this was the year that the Sharks wouldn't choke, but they choked more than most years. Chicago proved me even more wrong and knocked out my predicted Stanley Cup winner in Vancouver in 6 games.

Grades for the 2nd round. F! I picked no one correctly. However, I did make my picks before the 1st round even started. So, F+! Oh yeah.

So, since there is no team that I predicted in the 3rd or final round, there will be no reason for me to post how I did for those either. I'll just go ahead and give me a preemptive F, minus. Minus.

Whirlwind Trips

So I had to make and emergency stop in Las Vegas this week. Yeah, what? Well, my SWMBO has family out there, so we had some stuff that needed to be taken care of.

Hockey update: The Canes win Games 7 of the Devils' series in Hollywood fashion. I missed the game completely (Traveste'!) but to score twice in the last 1:30 is pretty damn awesome. We're now on to playing the top team in the NHL, the Boston Bruins.

This was the matchup that I dreaded. I wanted New York to beat Washington, just so we didn't have to face the Bruins. I don't get warm fuzzies about this series. We lost last night by a margin of 4-1. We didn't look flat like we did against New Jersey in the first game when we lost 4-1, it's just that the 4 mistakes we made in the game, Boston capitalized on. You have to play perfect to beat Boston right now. They're that good.

Currently, I'm down at the beach trying to catch up on sleep and get a little bit of relaxing done after being out in the desert for all of the past week. Expect plenty of pictures of sunsets and waves coming later.

Brew update! I only spent about 8 hours at home in between trips but here's what's happened since my last post. The IPA started fermenting, and I believe I was able to keep it at a fairly good temperature. That being said, I couldn't do much while out in Vegas. However, for some reason, 4 days after it started fermenting, when I came back to it, it had stopped showing activity in the airlock; but had a massive krausen on it. What? So maybe there's a leak in my fermenter that's allowing the CO2 to escape somewhere other than the airlock. Plus, the krausen should have fallen by now. Not that I'm on any needed schedule for it right now. It's going to be in the primary for a while, but it still seemed strange that there was a big krausen on there 6 days after pitching. It can happen, I just figured it'd be with a heavier brew.

Welp, on to more relaxin down here at the beach!

Change in Plans

So I decided not to brew Jennifer's Cherry Wheat yesterday. Instead I went ahead and brewed up my American IPA. MMMM, hoppy goodness!

Here's the rundown on the ingredients:

• 8 oz. of Crystal 120L


• 4 oz. of Crystal 40L


• 2 oz. Flaked Wheat


• 5.5 lbs of Extra Pale DME


• 3.3 lbs of Pale LME


• 1 oz of Summit at 60 min


• .5 oz. of Cascade at 20 min


• .5 oz. of Centennial at 20 min


• .25 oz. of Centennial at 10 min
  
• .5 oz of Cascade at 7 min


• .25 oz of Centennial at 5 min


• The zest of 2 oranges at 5 min
  
• 1 package of Wyeast American Ale II

What a smell from those oranges when I was zesting them. It was absolutely awesome. One glitch in the process. It's been about 24 hours now, and I hadn't seen any activity in the primary fermenter. It's not that big of a deal yet, but if it goes a couple more days, I'm gonna have to run out and get some more yeast. Here's the process of anything I could think of that may have caused this.

1. I smacked the "Smack Pack" the day before brewing, but for some reason decided to put it back in the fridge after reading the pack and seeing to do that 3 hours before using. I let the pack re-warm up for at least 3 hours before pitching.
   
2. I just used my new wort chiller for the first time. It's awesome! It cooled my entire brew in about 10 minutes. Once I got the temp to around 90 degrees F, I dumped the wort into the fermenter and topped off with cool water. I assumed there was no way the temp of the brew could possibly still be above 90 after topping off, so I pitched the yeast pack.
   
3. Wanting to maintain proper fermentation temperatures, I placed the fermenter in a chest cooler and filled the cooler with some frozen water bottles and cool water. When I checked the temperature of the water in the cooler, it was slightly less than 60 degrees. Not too cold for the yeast, but maybe a bit cool?

So all three of those things may have contributed to a slow start, or maybe even a non-start. I don't know yet. I promise not to worry too much.

For some eye candy, here's a shot of my Irish Red while out camping.