Boy Scouts of America

In a press release issued yesterday the Boy Scouts of America made an announcement regarding the discriminatory nature of their membership guidelines:

"Today, following this review, the most comprehensive listening exercise in Scouting's history the approximate 1,400 voting members of the Boy Scouts of America's National Council approved a resolution to remove the restriction denying membership to youth on the basis of sexual orientation alone. The resolution also reinforces that Scouting is a youth program, and any sexual conduct, whether heterosexual or homosexual, by youth of Scouting age is contrary to the virtues of Scouting. A change to the current membership policy for adult leaders was not under consideration; thus, the policy for adults remains in place. The BSA thanks all the national voting members who participated in this process and vote."

As an Eagle Scout and current Assistant Scoutmaster I have long taken serious issue with the national council's policy on this topic.  Over the years I've justified my involvement in an organization I so ardently oppose on certain views by rationalizing the good that is done for the community and the personal relationship I have within my troop out weigh the overlying principles some of us simply choose to reject.  It isn't an easy distinction to make and I respect that some people likely disagree with my implicit acceptance of the practice.  I am proud today to be part of an organization which has embraced this change and is moving forward socially.  The group has a ways to go but it's a step in the right direction. 

Triple Brew Day -- Live Blog

9:20 AM -- Well, we are under way folks.  We mashed in the stout around 8:45 AM, shot for 153 deg F and came in just shy of 152 deg F.  This stout is based on the Can You Brew It clone recipe for the Obsidian Stout fro Deschuttes Brewing Company that we brewed back in December.  This time we are using 1 oz additions of cascade and centennial late in the boil to increase the hop flavor a bit to balance the roastiness of the black patent and roasted barley malts.

Morale is high in the brewery.  We are tending to a few menial tasks to make sure everything is running smoothly and keeping ourselves entertained while throwing the official brew dog his tennis ball across the garage floor. 

10:19 AM Lautering first runnings from mash tun to boil kettle.  Collected 3 gallons of sweet sweet wort.  Preparing to sparge and get the boil started.

11:02 AM Ready to boil 8 gallons of 1.049 s.g. wort while we are heating mash water for batch #2, our hopbursted IPA.  Stout will get 1 oz Magnum at 90 min, and 1 oz each of Cascade and Centennial at 10 min.

11:19 AM Mash in for hopbursted IPA, targeted 149 deg F and hit our numbers with strike water at 169 deg F.  We cracked the first bottle of Kolsch of the day and are contemplating grilling, though the thunderstorm seems to have different ideas.  Got some new high temp tubing as we discovered the tubing we had wasn't quite up to running hot wort or liquor through our pump.  Also working on the whirlpool chiller.  Erik even got to break out the torch and solder a fitting.

11:53 AM Things are pretty mellow in the brewery.  IPA is mashing, stout boiling away nicely.  Switched over to Soundgarden on Pandora, great music for a brew day.  Thinking about lunch soon.

12:40 AM Finn is down for the count.  He'll learn to pace himself eventually.

1:49 AM Stout just about chilled and ready to pitch our starter.  IPA coming up to a boil.  Drew made lunch.  We got the whirlpool chiller installed just in time and are really happy with the performance of the pump and the ability to circulate the wort around the chiller.  Going to get the IPA rolling then take a little chow break before getting the wit mashed in.

2:30 PM Stout chilled whirlpooled (quite nicely) and pitched.  Extended our boil time for the IPA from 30 to 60 min due to a greater mash/sparge collection than anticipated.  Getting ready for the sugar and hop additions.  Stout ended up at FG 1060 (a bit lower than the 1066 we were shooting for) with 5.5 gallons in the fermenter.  BeerSmith tells me I'm a bit under 60% overall efficiency.  We'll gather data from these three batches today and make some tweaks for next time.

4:00 PM Finish the IPA boil, chilled and whirlpooled, got it into a fermenter and pitched a healthy starter.  Came in pretty low on OG, at 1050.  Experiencing some not-so-great efficiency on the new system but learning where we need to be more precise in our future batches.  All part of the learning process we expected to undergo brewing on a new system.  Whirlpool chiller worked really well on the stout but with so much hop material it was a bit rough going with the IPA.  The IPA didn't clog at all, which is great news, but most of the hop material settled on the top rather than whirlpooling into a nice cone in the center of the keggle.  We'll keep getting better.  The wit is up next, should be a much easier whirlpool and easier to really see what is going on.

4:15 PM Heating our mash water for the belgian wit.  This beer is brewed with mostly belgian pilsner and wheat malt, very small amounts of hops, some crush coriander seed, and fresh citrus zest.  It will be fermented with Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier strain.  We brewed a similar version a few months ago and have made a few changes to refine/develop the flavor, most significantly adding spice and fruit additions.  We'll see how it goes.

6:53 PM The final boil of the day is underway.  Soundgarden is going strong on Pandora and the Red Sox are up 3-0 on the twins.  All good things.  

6:55 PM Oh yeah, and Drew made damn awesome sandwiches for lunch.  Hand pattied burgers are in the chill chest waiting for us to grill 'em off sooner than later.  We are starting this boil with 8 gal of 1031 SG wort. We've been paying much more careful attention to first and second running volumes and gravities so we can keep characterizing our brewery and get things dialed in for future brew sessions.

8:44 PM Nice relaxing brew schedule with the wit.  Some bittering hops near the beginning of the boil, some orange and grapefruit zest and a half ounce of crushed coriander seeds just a few minutes before flameout.  Chilling right now and getting things cleaned up and organized from a great great day.  Burgers were delicious to boot.

9:25 PM Triple Brew Day in the books folks.  Wit in primary at 1042 OG ready to start a fermentation for a few days.  All in all we produced ~15 gallons of wort, mashed about 40 pounds of grain, used about 3/4 pound of hops, and spent got it all done in under 13 hours.  Pretty successful day.

And for an appropriate send off...

Homebrew Journal -- Kolsch

The latest batch of beer was created as an easy drinking yet complex and flavorful beer that would serve mass appeal all summer long.  Kolsch is a specialty beer originating from Cologne, Germany with a brilliant clear straw color, distinct noble hop flavor, and can only truly be brewed with its unique namesake yeast strain.  This batch of beer was brewed with non-traditional American pilsner malt (due to an oversight at the brew store) and Hallertau hops from the Bavarian region of Germany.

This beer was the first we fermented with anything other than normal mid 60's temperature, keeping fermentation temp in the 56-60 deg f range for a couple of weeks and then letting the temperature rise to room temp as fermentation slowed down.  After cold crashing and bottle carbonating we cold conditioned the beer in our new brew fridge at about 40 deg F.  It was incredible the change the beer undertook during the cold conditioning process.  What was originally a quite hazy beer with pleasant but somewhat muddy flavor became brilliantly clear with complexity I didn't imagine we would achieve.  Now that we have a dedicated brewing fridge we will be cold conditioning nearly all of the beers we make.

The photography is obviously lacking...you'll have to join me on the patio of the Hammel House for the real thing.

Grain Bill
10 lb American Pilsner
0.5 Vienna Malt

Mash at 149 deg F for 90 minutes.

Hop Schedule
2 oz Hallertau at 60 min of 90 min boil

Fermented with Wyeast Kolsch 2565 at 56-60 deg F.

At the end of brew day we ended up at 1049 OG and a theoretical 28 IBU tinseth.  After our fermentation schedule we finished at 1004 for 6.0% ABV.  As I mentioned before once we had it cold conditioning for 2-3 weeks I was very very excited about this batch.  It drank very easy, poured beautifully, and everyone I shared it with really enjoyed it.  I'm really excited to brew another batch of Kolsch soon (this time with European pilsner malt) and get it kegged.

This weekend the brewing boys and I will attempt a triple brew day in preparation for my wedding rehearsal dinner in about six weeks.  We are hoping for our first few successful  batches on the electric system and keg carbed beer.  Very excited.

I'll keep brewing and sharing beer with all you guys.  Any thoughts on what we should make next?

Groundhog Day

Stuck in a hotel room 40 miles south of Atlanta waiting to given our plant trial a second go tomorrow after things fell apart this morning.  Groundhog Day happens to be on TV.  Seems appropriate.

By the way, I forgot how amazing this movie is.  Bill Murray is brilliant.  Share your favorite Murray moment below in the comments.

Heiruspecs -- Add 'em to the rotation

Welp, might as well go ahead and add Heiruspecs to the starting rotation.  Kind of embarrassing how long that took.

Workbench Redux -- Handy Man Rock 'N Roll

Quick update on the workbench.

Got everything finished up and moved the bench into position.  Installed pegboard and got some sweet bins for tool/hardware storage.  Put the thing to good use this evening on the beginning stages of a desk I'm building for the office.  Bought some pre-made table legs and painted them white, bought some lumber, sanded it down, and stained it "Dark Walnut".  More on that soon.

Oh yeah, gotta have a radio on the bench for some handy-man rock 'n roll.

Scones

If I was running late and didn't have time for my ritualistic morning bowl of cereal I sometimes stopped at the student union and grabbed a "scone" on my way to class during college.  I use quotations because the dried out, often cloyingly sweet, brick of pastry hardly resembled what a true scone really should be.  I don't mean to pick on whomever was responsible for baking those wedges of flour and sugar but the point remains that more often than not the scone is relegated to an entirely different fate than it deserves.  I've only made scones a couple of times in my kitchen but I'm pleased to have found a recipe I plan on using as the base of future scone adventure.  Shocking as it may be I found said recipe on the Smitten Kitchen, my go to food blog of the recent past.

With a careful measure of sugar and generous servings of cream and butter these scones are just sweet enough to remind you it's a breakfast pastry but light and fluffy enough to make you consider their relationship with a muffin or even a biscuit.  They would be fine plain with some whipped cream and good jam but I'd recommend digging through the pantry to find any sort of fresh or dried fruit you have on hand.  For the batch I made for Easter brunch I went with dried cherries and lemon zest, a great combinaton!

Here is the recipe from the Smitten Kitchen, originally adapted from America's Test Kitchen Cookbook:

"Dreamy Cream Scones
America’s Test Kitchen Cookbook

2 cups (10 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, preferably a low-protein brand such as Gold Medal or Pillsbury
1 tablespoon baking powder
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1/2 cup currants (I used dried cranberries, and chopped them into smaller bits)
1 cup heavy cream

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 425°F.

2. Place flour, baking powder, sugar and salt in large bowl or work bowl of food processor fitted with steel blade. Whisk together or pulse six times.

3. If making by hand, use two knives, a pastry blender or your fingertips and quickly cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse meal, with a few slightly larger butter lumps. Stir in currants. If using food processor, remove cover and distribute butter evenly over dry ingredients. Cover and pulse 12 times, each pulse lasting 1 second. Add currants and pulse one more time. Transfer dough to large bowl.

4. Stir in heavy cream with a rubber spatula or fork until dough begins to form, about 30 seconds.

5. Transfer dough and all dry, floury bits to countertop and knead dough by hand just until it comes together into a rough, sticky ball, 5 to 10 seconds. Form scones by either a) pressing the dough into an 8-inch cake pan, then turning the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface, cutting the dough into 8 wedges with either a knife or bench scraper (the book’s suggestion) or b) patting the dough onto a lightly floured work surface into a 3/4-inch thick circle, cutting pieces with a biscuit cutter, and pressing remaining scraps back into another piece (what I did) and cutting until dough has been used up. (Be warned if you use this latter method, the scones that are made from the remaining scraps will be much lumpier and less pretty, but taste fine. As in, I understand why they suggested the first method.)

6. Place rounds or wedges on ungreased baking sheet and bake until scone tops are light brown, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature."