Cancer is the devil.

Steve – thanks!  You’ll be missed:(

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New Mac Mini Server!

It’s me!

After closing my web hosting business last year, I moved all my web domains to a large web hosting company, in hopes of speeding up page loads and increasing reliability. Little did I realize that reliability would actually be significantly worse after the move. My web host, as of yesterday (still un-named, but rhymes with Mo’Baddy:), was causing at least a third of my page views to report web server errors, along with occasionally simply going belly-up for periods of an hour or longer. About four months ago, they notified me that they had moved all my sites to a different shared server to increase reliability. With the move, it got worse.

I’ve been missing the geekiness of hosting my own sites, so I invested in a Mac mini Server and I’m now again hosting the Lazy Brewer completely on my own Internet circuit and personal hardware.  Additionally, I’l be hosting my own file, calendar, image upload and mail services.  Being a control freak, this makes me happy:)

This little server is also serving as a media server for my family room, using the newly released Plex 9 media server software.  It works with the new Plex for iOS iPhone/iPad app that has a remote control for the system, as well as remote viewing of your media.  Very, very cool stuff!

Life is good!

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The Brew Sculpture in Action

As several of the Lazy Brewer’s readers have pointed out, it been a while since my last post. It’s been a mix of general real life busyness, and sheer laziness. I’m brewing a German Hefeweizen as I type this (on a new toy – but more on that later:) and enjoying the aromas only those of you who brew can understand.  I’ve brewed several times since last posting in January, including an IPA, an American Brown Ale, and a Russian Imperial Stout. Friday I brewed a Belgian Wit and then today a German Hefeweizen.  I’m trying to get several of the crowd-pleasing summer ales ready to go before the summer drinking season starts.

Today’s brew is the last of an era.  The next brew I do will be my 100th batch!  I’ll be working on an original recipe for my centennial ale over the next week, and I’m 99% sure it will be an IPA (big surprise, huh?).  I want to brew an easy drinking, high flavor/aroma IPA that kind of goes back to the roots of my brewing – bittering with Columbus, flavoring with Centennials and then finishing with either Cascades or Amarillo (or both:).

So where am I in my brewing after 100 batches?  Well, I’m making consistently good ale, sometimes great ale.  I’ve tried brewing a lot of different styles.  Some of them have become favorite ales that weren’t on my beer radar five years ago.  I’ve really come to love the darker ales; browns, porters and particularly stouts.  Some wheat beers are now a part of my regular brewing routine, like wits and German hefeweizens – though I still have very little love for American hefeweizens.  I also really like the big beers; barley wines, imperial reds and old ales.  I’ve also learned what I really don’t care to drink – some of  the Belgians are just too much for me.  A Belgian Golden Strong Ale is the only keg I’ve poured out.  It was brewed to style, and came out nicely, I just didn’t like beer.  More than anything, I’ve learned that when it comes to brewing, time is your friend.  Letting beers finish out in the fermentor, and then giving them time to mellow, clear and generally become stellar ales is what conditioning is all about.  Finally, I’ve also learned that brewing is all about people.  Many of the best friends in my life are, or have been, brewers.  Brewing with them, and enjoying ales in their company, is what life is all about.  Also, seeing a non-brewer’s face light up when they are sipping one of your hand-crafted brews is priceless:)

Other recent events, in no particular order, that have kept me away from here are more than a bit of wine tasting, shuttering the doors on my ten year web hosting business (no tears here:), planning a trip to Italy in October, installing a commercial WordPress theme for this blog, and an impulse purchase of an iPad.  I may create individual posts about some of these things in the future:)

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You may notice (even more) flakiness (than usual:) with the Lazy Brewer site over the next few days.  The Lazy Brewer is transitioning to a new hosting service and I’m currently backing up/restoring databases and moving content to the new host.  If things go well, the site should be far more responsive than it has in the past.

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The 2009 National Homebrewers Conference was without a doubt one of the best organized conferences, on any topic, I’ve ever attended – and working in the education field, I’ve attended my share of conferences.  I was really pleased with the variety of the breakout sessions, as well as the fact that everything started and ended on time.  Timeliness sounds like a given, but when it comes to conferences it is an often overlooked aspect.    The Oakland Marriott was a gracious host for NHC and they seemed to roll well with 1100 people wandering around with ale, armfulls of brewing stuff, crazy costumes and generally eccentric people.  Finally, considering that alcohol was a key component of the conference, I was very pleased to not see a single incident of stupidness or assholiness by conference attendees.  Amazing:)

Jay and Shannon from Utah

I had the opportunity to meet some really nice folks, like Jay and Shannon from Utah.  Rights like homebrewing are something that I take for granted, living in California, but I found out that Jay and Shannon were just recently legally allowed to homebrew in Utah.  They can now let the aromas of wort and boiling hops flow liberally from their brew house without fear of a visit from the local police department.  It amazes me there there are still antiquated laws on the books like prohibiting homebrewing in several states.  It’s really sad.  Jay and Shannon sat next to me at the Grand Banquet last night and I really enjoyed their company (and they put up with my jabs at Utah very graciously for most of the evening:)

Brett Glenna - my Twitter buddy!

I also got to meet up with someone I’ve been Tweeting with for a while, @BrettGlenna, and we got to visit a couple of times.  We talked about setting up a future beer exchange.  Brett has access to many east coast ales I’ll never be able to buy in California, and I found out he’s a bit of a hophead.  Boy, is he in for a treat with some of the aggressive west coast IPAs I have access to!

Stephen and I are already kicking around the idea of attending the 2010 NHC in Minneapolis.  I should be ready for a beer by then:)

Even though I previously facetiously blogged about coming home today to lovingly open arms on Fathers Day, I’m happy to report that it was indeed the case.  I had a shower of Fathers Day gifts from Brenda and DawBoy, and a nice “Happy Fathers Day” phone call from Meagan ( I drove past her apartment building, within 100 yards, leaving Oakland this morning)  this afternoon.  Brenda made a wonderful rigatoni dinner and we shared a lovely bottle of Merlot (yea, I said I was going to give my liver a break today, but Italian food screams for a glass or two of nice red wine!)

I also picked up my new iPhone 3GS, and I’m pleased to report that the migration went smoothly.  I simply backed up my previous iPhone and then restored the backup image on the new iPhone 3GS via iTunes and everything was there – even all my apps were in their same locations on the various screens.  Bravo, Apple for making things as simple as they should be!

The upgraded camera, with spot auto-focusing and metering, and 30 fps video are incredible.  The voice dialing (that should have been included in the iPhone Day 1) works perfectly and I was able to dial 3 out of 3 contacts perfectly each time, with no training.  Amazing!

Anyway, it’s good to be home:)

Here are the last couple of pictures from NHC:

Stephen, with his second wind - after a rough bout with Club Night

Sean Paxton - the Homebrew Chef

View of Oakland from my hotel room on departure day

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Stephen and I are off to the National Homebrewers Conference, in Oakland, tomorrow.  The conference is being held at the Oakland Marriott City Center, and there is a BART station right across the street, so the family is joining me to take in the sights of the city.  Stephen and I are staying one night longer than the family so that we can take in the Grand Banquet and National Homebrew Competition Awards Ceremony.  We’ll be heading home on Sunday (Father’s Day) where we’ll be showered with the love of our children and partner parenting units.  I will need to stop on the way home, at my local AT&T retail store, to pick up my new 32 GB iPhone 3GS (happy Father’s Day from me to me:)

The conference schedule looks interesting and comprehensive.  I can’t wait to hit the conference floor.  I just hope my liver holds out for three serious days of all things beer and homebrewing!

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Static electricity handprints on my milled grain tubs!

I’ve been a terrible blogging slacker lately.  I’ve brewed twice – 10 gallons of Two Hearted Ale and another 10 gallons of my house German Hefeweizen.  Unfortunately, work has been very busy as we prepare hundreds of new computers for a brand new middle school that is opening in early August.  I’m off until mid-July, but then it’s back to work earlier than usual to make sure we are ready for all the teaching staff and students as they make their way to a new campus.  I’ll be taking some time off next fall or winter to make up for the additional days I’ll be working this summer.  I hope to do something special with the time off that I normally couldn’t do because I’m working:)

Stephen and I are heading off to the National Homebrewers Conference in Oakland on the 18-20 of this month, so hopefully I’ll have plenty to report here to make up for my month long blogging absence.  I’ll try and catch up on the activities of the last month sometime next week.  Lots of exciting things have been happening with our new brew club, the Central Valley Brewers Guild.

Eddy, the Boston Terrorist, is also keeping us busy.  Thankfully, he’s been sleeping through the night for the last three weeks.  I’m much more attentive in the daylight hours when I haven’t been up watering/pooing a puppy two or three times a night!  All in all, though, we do love us some Eddy in the Lazy Brewer household!

Finally, one of the most exciting thing to hit the Lazy Brewer’s household recently is an AT&T U-verse installation scheduled for this morning.  We’ve been TiVo fans for over six years, but one of our Series 2 TiVos gave up the ghost a couple weeks ago.  With U-verse hitting our neighborhood in the last couple months, the timing was right.  I’m really looking forward to HD programming for my Pioneer Plasma (Series 2 TiVos have never supported HD programming) and even more excited about getting an 18 MB Internet pipe.  I just hope the install goes well.  I hear the TV/Internet part usually goes well but the phone part (VoIP) can be sketchy.  Kind of ironic that the phone company has trouble with the phone part!

Again – sorry for the downtime.  More info to follow next week.

Cheers!

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Red Flare Ale Tap Handle

I really enjoyed the Evil Twin Red Ale I brewed this last summer.  It was supposed to be way hoppy, but came out like a more traditionally balanced red ale.  Tomorrow, I’m taking that recipe, bumping up the malt bill a bit, and then using the hopping schedule for my Columbus IPA and hoping for an imperial red ale.  I’m naming this red ale after my first World of Warcraft toon to hit 80 after the recent expansion, Mordicai – a hunter (yea, it’s nerdy – but the general public thinks that making homebrew is nerdy, too – so get over it!), with the ale’s name referencing a hunter skill.  If you play a WoW hunter, you’ll get it:)

This will be my 74th batch of ale, and the last I brew in 2008, so I’m hoping for an ale to remember.  I just finished prepping the brewing water, and milling the malted barley, for tomorrow’s brew day, so it should be an easy, uneventful brew day.  Here’s the recipe:

Mordicai’s Red Flare Ale
10-B American Amber Ale
Author: Mark Ranes
Date: 12/30/08

Size: 10.04 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 339.51 kcal per 16.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.076 (1.045 – 1.060)
Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (1.010 – 1.015)
Color: 16.65 (10.0 – 17.0)
Alcohol: 7.53% (4.5% – 6.0%)
Bitterness: 51.5 (25.0 – 40.0)

Ingredients:
2.0 tbsp 5.2 pH Stabilizer – added during mash
26.5 lb Pale Ale Malt
1.25 lb Munich Malt
.75 lb American Victory
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 40°L
0.5 lb Crystal Malt 120°L
1.0 lb 2-Row Carapils Malt
0.5 lb Pale Chocolate
0.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
0.75 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 45.0 min
0.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 20.0 min
1.0 lb Corn Sugar
1.0 tsp Wyeast Nutrient  – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
2.0 ea Whirlfloc Tablets (Irish moss) – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2000.0 mL White Labs WLP001 California Ale
2.0 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added dry to primary fermenter
2.0 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added dry to secondary fermenter

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I try not to be an Apple apologist, and working in the tech field, I know that sometimes shit happens with computer hardware, particularly portables.  My MacBook Pro is 17 months old and has served me well.  It is my primary workstation and has seen many, many hours of web browsing, e-mail, web development and high-end gaming (I’m a World of Warcraft addict:).  I am hoping that it will be repaired under the warranty extension, but I won’t get too pissy if it isn’t.  My Apple products over the years (many, many years and many, many products:) have always performed well and in most cases have outlived their usefulness as web and general computing technologies have progressed.  I’ve never had a hardware failure this early in the life of any of my computers, so maybe I was due.  But still, I’d like to have my MBP repaired so that it can continue to serve my family.  Time will tell and I’ll report on how this goes in the future.

Shiny new MacBook Pro!

In the meantime, out of necessity I ordered one of the new 15″ MacBook Pros released on Tuesday.  It is currently on a FedEx plane somewhere over China.  It should arrive Monday or Tuesday.  I bumped up the processor to 2.8 GHz and the hard drive to 320GB at 7200 rpm.  I am always excited to get a new computer, and this one is no exception.  The new dual video card option is a real bonus, particularly for gaming.  Hopefully, I can get my curent MBP into target disk mode one more time (I have been able to get all of my data off the drive) to move everything seamlessly on to the new laptop.  I’ve been a good boy lately, so I’m sure the Computer Gods will look down favorably on me:)

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Columbus IPA Tap Handle

One of the things I like to experiment with in my brewing is making single hop ales.  It really allows you to see what a particular hop variety brings to an ale.  To take this one step further (and feed my background as a former science teacher:), I like to take a recipe for a single hop ale, and brew it again, changing only one thing – the variety of hop.  Basically, this means keeping the hopping schedule, individual hop charge IBU percentages and overall brew IBUs identical to the original ale.  Tomorrow, I’ll be taking my Two Hearted IPA recipe, and changing only the hop variety – from Centennial hops (my hands-down favorite, only one hop to brew with on a desert island:) to Columbus hops.

Additionally, I’ll be bottling up a few bombers of the Two Hearted IPA, since I know the second keg will be gone before the Columbus IPA is ready, to allow for side by side comparisons of the two ales.  I just finished filtering my water and milling the grain for tomorrow’s brew day.  As always, the milled grain smells wonderful:)

Here’s the recipe for tomorrow’s brew day:

Columbus IPA
14-B American IPA

Size: 10.08 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 317.28 kcal per 16.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.071 (1.056 – 1.075)
Terminal Gravity: 1.018 (1.010 – 1.018)
Color: 7.27 (6.0 – 15.0)
Alcohol: 7.03% (5.5% – 7.5%)
Bitterness: 61.1 (40.0 – 60.0)

Ingredients:
20.0 lb Pale Malt(2-row)
4.0 lb Vienna Malt
10.0 oz Crystal Malt 10°L
6.0 oz Crystal Malt 40°L
1.0 lb Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt
.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60.0 min
.75 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 45.0 min
.80 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 20.0 min
1.0 lb Corn Sugar
1.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.5 oz Columbus (15.0%) – added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
2 ea Whirlfloc – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
1.0 tsp Yeast Nutrient – added during boil, boiled 10.0 min
2000 mL White Labs WLP001 California Ale

Milling grain for Columbus IPA

One other difference in this brew from the Two Hearted IPA is the yeast.  Unfortunately, I’m out of Pacific Ale yeast, but I’ll be restocking soon since a trip to B3 is in my near future.  This ale should dry out just a bit more than Two Hearted IPA, but I can adjust for that with a slightly higher mash temperature.

Brenda is off to San Franciso in the morning to take up another load of stuff to Meagan at AAU, so I’m on my own for the brew day.  Unfortunately, Meagan is using my older PowerBook G4 at school, until the new MacBooks are released in a couple weeks, so my iTunes server is MIA. I’ll have to rely on Sirius for brew day tunes:)

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I’ve noticed some quirks (c’mon Apple – where is cut and paste?), but overall, the iPhone is an awesome device!  It is so much more than a cell phone.  It is more of a pocket-sized computing platform.  I’ve turned off 3G to conserve the iPhone’s battery, but I’ll be anxious to try out the speed boost the next time I’m in Modesto, and look forward to 3G coverage coming to Turlock.

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Camping and Computing

I’m camping at New Brighton State Beach in Capitola until Friday, so I’ll have to pick it up when I return on Friday.  The weather here is beautiful and the family had a nice beach adventure yesterday afternoon when we arrived.  I like hanging out at the campsite with a book, an ale and some clam dip.  I figure I’ll have more of the same this afternoon when family and friends head to the beach:)

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I went down to our local AT&T store when it opened this morning, but was disappointed to find out that all of their original stock of iPhone 3Gs were sold out yesterday (big surprise, huh?).  I went ahead and ordered a 16GB black iPhone 3G.  When I asked how long it would take to arrive, they told me “up to 30 days”, but most of the chatter I’ve seen on the Mac web this morning said that the second wave of iPhone 3G stock is supposed to show up in 3-5 days.  My fingers are crossed.

In anticipation of the iPhone’s arrival, I entered all of my contacts from my current cell phone into Mac OS X’s Address Book, to facilitate the population of my contacts once the iPhone arrives.  There is also a WordPress for iPhone app coming that will allow me to post to this blog from the iPhone.  How cool is that?  

While I was really disappointed that I couldn’t walk out with a new iPhone 3G this morning, I do like the anticipation of waiting for a new tech toy – as long as it doesn’t take 30 days!

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BevMo has one of my favorite IPA’s on sale right now. That’s a sure thing. $25 of music – that’s a sure thing. $25 at the movie theater – that could go either way:)

These on the other had could be worth $10 or $100 or $1000s – or nothing!

On a side note, I never seem to be able to give lottery or lotto tickets as gifts. I’m always afraid that because of the good karma thing, the tickets will be big winners and I’d miss out on the winnings:) I guess I could do like my boss does and say, “We split anything over $50!”

Given a choice, what would you go for? The sure thing or the unknown?

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