Brewer's Log - 3/28/2014

Primary
     None
Secondary
     Neapolitan Ice Cream Stout
          A chocolate milk stout extract kit steeped with chocolate malt grains and cocoa nibs. My plan is to also add strawberries tomorrow after letting the cocoa nibs sit for a week. At bottling I'll add vanilla extract. The idea is to replicate Saugatuck Brewery's Neapolitan Milk Stout.
     Orange Belgian
          A simple Belgian extract kit. I added orange zest and coriander at flameout.
Bottle/Keg Conditioning
     None
Drinkable
     Pumpkin Ale
          This is from Christmas time, and I personally didn't find it all that great. Others did. It's at the end of its life and should be finished off soon.
In Planning
     Cream Ale
          Just a simple all-grain recipe used as an into to all-grain via BIAB. Perhaps an IPA would be a better choice to get my feet wet due to the hops hiding the defects. I think I'd rather notice the defects so I know where I went wrong. I also like adding adjuncts, and cream ales are nice for additions like fruit.
     Raspberry Hefeweizen
          Probably from extract. This is the beer everyone seems to get excited about. Perhaps I should make a double batch? 5 gallons in keg, 5 gallons in bottles?

Rebirth!

I've decided to give life once more to this blog. I went through and deleted anything that wasn't really worth anything, which was most of it. Overall the whole thing felt more like a collection of uninteresting Facebook statuses or Tweets. I'm hoping the years that have passed have matured me a bit and that my writing, both content and style, reflect that.

Less stupid crap, more of the interesting! Tech stuff! Gaming stuff! Brewing stuff! I'll keep away from the political crap!

Creepy Doll

Just uploaded my music video for my English class onto YouTube. I feel like I could have done a little better of a job if I wasn't so pressed for time. Only had 3 days at home to do the filming, and for the last few scenes I was working with a low battery on my camera since, of course, I forgot to bring the charger home with me. But all-in-all, I'm actually pretty proud of it.

What's a Libram?

It occurred to me after talking with my English professor that most people probably don't know what a libram is. It has no real definition being an imaginary item. One might assume it is Latin, coming from liber 'book', but it is not a valid declination. Some digging around the internet has revealed that the word traces back to 1950 in Jack Vance's collection of stories, The Dying Earth. The word 'libram' occurs several times in the fantasy novel, The Eyes of the Overworld (1966) by Vance. From then on I assume Dungeons and Dragons made the word more mainstream, and has since appeared in many video games (mostly MMO's of the fantasy genre).

Thank You

I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to David Williams (waxinggibbous on flickr) for allowing me to use his photos to create my banner. I would also like to encourage anyone who reads this to check out his work, he has a LOT of amazing photos that I recommend taking a look at.


Again, thank you Mr. Williams.