Found Dreaming

Rasper wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 10, 2023 4:56 am

The beer fridge was already full of beer. No more room.

Poor excuse, make room

I agree Mike, and we all know how to make room in the beer fridge

How did the exhibition go Richard? She is a beautiful piece and I can imagine garnered a lot of interest.

Why not? Stella is a good name for her. The name of the piece is "Caught in the Act."

Stella is my regular beer nowadays. I remember when American beer had some real flavor, back in the 1950's when I first started drinking beer, but now it's watered down and almost tasteless. Mexican beer is not much better. I like the Dutch beers best, but they don't sell them here in Mexico. They sell Heineken, and I used to drink that when it was still made in Holland. But then Heineken bought the Dos Equis brewery company here, and they began making Heineken here in Mexico. It's nowhere near as good as the Dutch made Heineken.

Heineken, The ole skunky beer in the green bottle, lol.

I started brewing several years ago and found that none of them make as good a beer as you can make on your own. It has also been a lot of fun once past the expense of setting things up.

I like a variety of types of beers from heavy, dark stouts and porters to IPAs to brown and red ales.

The crazy gamut of of flavors covered by hops amazes me. I had no idea a single plant through different varietals could produce so many different notes. I have planted Centennial and Cascade for the citrus to make IPAs and Fuggle and Golding for the earthy, chocolate/coffee sorts of flavors for making Brown beers.

I used to brew beer when I was in high school back in the 1950's in one gallon glass Coke jugs. I sold it to my friends. It wasn't very good, but it was strong. I used canned Blue Ribbon brand malt. Coke jugs were free for the asking. Every drug store had a soda fountain back then and always had a ton of empty jugs to get rid of.

I prefer lagers and pilsners, but it is too hot here all year round to brew them. 70 F. is the ideal temperature for fermenting lager.

Richard

I used to brew some beer, it wasn't very good. I did make some pretty good wine and Honey Meade. Haven't made anything for years, actually I haven't drank anything stronger than coffee for almost 20 years.

Have used some liquid malts early one but went to whole grain for the flexibility and it does seem to make a better beer.

I have two small chest freezers with InkBird controllers on them. You can plug in both hot and cold on these so I have one of those tiny personal ceramic under desk heaters in one. Have to drill a rather large hole in the side to get temp and heater cords inside them. One I hit the evaporator coils and got a big hiss that sounded just like "There goes three hundred bucks" lol. I use that one now for storing my shade cloths in now. Went back to Home Depot and got another and brought it home and took the drill too it with better results.

When I am fermenting or growing yeast I will set at 68F and it will stay within 2 degrees of that regardless of room temperature. The other one I set at 45F for keg aging, it will hold 4 or 5 of the 5 gallon ball lock kegs that are retrofitted soda syrup kegs.

I went all out when I set up for brewing, still a ton of shiny things I could buy but I got the essentials so as not to have to duct tape crap together making beer Probably spent more than I will ever spend on buying beer but its fun and like I said better beer than I have ever bought.

No wine here yet Jerry but looking forward to it as our fruit trees and grapes mature a bit. I have made Mead and it came out at 18%, took a year before it began to mellow a bit and not taste like moonshine. Its 4 years out now and just keeps getting better. I need to make some more now that we have our own bees.

The other benefit of wines is in the making of low wines. These are the undistilled precursors of spirits. This seems like it will be a lot of fun to explore.

Okay guys. It's time to get back to work. I know you're getting old, but I am probably out in front on that front. I turn eighty in August. Let's have some casting going on.

Regarding beer. Harry wrote about Heineken: "The ole skunky beer in the green bottle." It always had a bit of a skunk smell to me too. Just enough to be good. We have Heinekin here in Mexico, but about seven or eight years ago they started making it here. Not as good. Maybe it's the water. I wish I could still buy Heineken made in Holland. So I drink mostly Stella Artois now. Still made in Belgium. They did the same thing to Lowenbrau in the USA when I was young. Lowenbrau made in Germany was a fantastic beer. They sold the rights to some company in the US. The Lowenbrau made in the US was pretty bad. They finally quit making it. American beer is bad. Mexican been is almost as bad. The Canadians and Aussies make some decent stuff.

Richard

I've been sorting things out and digging out some of the gear. Hope to cast something soon. I made a wooden flask for a project so now I have to see it through.