DragonSlayer (super easy mini mash) recipe:

Slightly modified version of Greydragon’s recipe.

Ingredients

(for approximately 12 gallons)

• 6 lbs - Wheat Malt (grain - we used 5.5lb white +1/2lb “special-b” for flavor)
• 6 lbs - Amber Unhopped Malt Extract (liquid)
• 6 lbs - Light Dry Malt Extract (dry)
• 3 oz - Boiling hops (Hallertau)
• 1 oz - Finishing hops (Willamette)
• 2 tbs - Gypsum powder (for clarity)
• 2 pkg - Yeast ( Wyeast 2206:Bavarian Lager and 1214:Belgain Ale - for separate carboys)

Steps to success

Get a big pot for mash. Add cracked grain and gypsum to about 7 quarts of water @ 160 degrees. Maintain for 1 hour @ 155 degrees. Strain out grains and rinse (sparge?) with 5quarts of water @ 170 degrees. Bring to a boil. Add all the extract (liquid and dry) and the boiling hops. Boil for 30 minutes. Add finishing hops during last 2 minutes of the boil.

Fill clean carboys with cold water. You need enough so that water + condensed malt = 12 gallons. After evaporation, we had about 3 gallons of malt - so each of our 5 gallon carboys got 3 gallons of cold water. Add hot malt mixture. When temps get reasonable add the yeast.

For yeast we experimented a bit. I used a traditional ale yeast, but Jamie insisted on a bavarian lager. The 3rd carboy received a mixture of the two… What will happen?

Some of those last pictures are from bottling a previous brew “Hop-Scotch Ale”. It was a long night.

My talented friend Jamie has started building Bakfiets (dutch style cargo bikes). The cycles feature  a large box for hauling groceries, kids, concrete, whatever and are popular in Europe and South America, but hard to come by in the US.

The bike you see here is one of his working prototypes and was recently featured at the Oregon Manifest bike show. It has also received a fair amount of press online:

• Bike Portland article (This is the 3rd time Jamie’s been featured here)
• Tree Hugger feature
• Even a Wired Blog Article
• EcoVelo blog mention
• Metrofiets website

He brought the bike by on Friday and I got a chance to take it for a spin. Even with a full load, the bike is smooth and easy to pedal in city traffic - thanks to internal gears, disk brakes and other modern features. The beautiful lines and whimsical color are also a real head-turner.

I am usually not much of a football fan, but we got free tickets to last nights Ducks vs. Bruins homecoming game in Eugene. The seats turned out to be fantastic (box seats) and the game had the requisite amount of excitement (bad calls, major injuries, ect…)

Sam is looking over my sholder and bugging me to write more.

So here are the vital stats:

• People we went with: Sam and I, Porch, Sue Bomber, Jessica and Brandon
• Oh, an I had fun :)

Ripe tomatillos = salsa verde time!

(more…)

As the days get shorter, I find myself riding in the dark more and more.

Wanting to improve my visibility, I tracked down the components listed in the Daylight Visible Bike Light instructable. However, I gave the project a twist by embedding the light (plus circuit + batteries) in my helmet. The thing is really slick.

I also made a super bright headlamp. I will post about that later.

It was BK’s birtyhday. I decided to try my hand at fondant (the stuff that makes wedding cakes look so perfect).

The berries ae ripe.

Blueberries are good, as are raspberries - but they both cost big $ (even in season). Blackberries on the other hand, only cost the time and effort to pick. We went out to the 1000 acre park where the berries were plump and plentiful.

Here is Samantha drying out part of the haul. 0) pick 1) wash 2) dry 3) freeze

My friend Jamie had all the equipment (plus hops growing in his yard). Each night a differsnt batch was made:

• Pale Ale
• Imperial Red
• Hopscotch Ale (double batch)
• Luke’s Holiday beer

When we added the hops the air became so fragrant that the neighbors started coming by to see what we were brewing. Did I mention that it was 2am?

Mark Frauenfelder of boingboing posted the following moments ago:

Loren Coleman of Cryptomundo writes about the Bigfoot body purported to be discovered in the woods in Northern Georgia. The guys who claim to have discovered it are holding a press conference in Palo Alto on Friday.

Well, it looks like the Cryptomundo servers have asploaded. Luckily, reader freshyill grabbed the image and asked that someone repost it. So, here it is in all it’s morbid glory.

Kinda looks like a dead wookie to me. Poor Chewbacca…

On second thought

does anyone remember the CSI where they found the gorilla that poachers had dumped from a plane?

This post was created using the new iPhone Wordpress application. A few days ago, I posted about my excitement. Now that I have had a chance to use it - I can say that I am not disappointed.

It is available now in the app store and cost the same as wordpress.org - absolutly nothing!

The interface is refreshingly simple and easy to use. There does not seem to be a WYSIWYG editor, but basic HTML should still work.

You can even include images stored on your phone. The final image below shows the interface. The others are just random images that were on the phone.