Brew Update, Immersion Chiller

Brew post.

On my brew days, a critical step involves cooling several gallons of boiling liquid down to 70ish degrees Fahrenheit as fast as possible. A large mass of hotness, however, doesn't exactly go anywhere in a hurry. To move the process along, I slapped together an immersion chiller. It's basically copper tubing that I immerse in the liquid while cold water runs through it; a pretty common cooling method for homebrewers.


Yeah, I know, my workmanship is fucking hideous. Initially, I lazily used compression fittings for the input/output, but I'm never relying on those again since the input sprung a leak after the second use. I ended up sweating new fittings on (although I left the compression on the output for now). Ugly as hell, but works like a dream.

Drinking: Nothing of mine, but "researching" store-bought micros
Bottling conditioning: American pale ale, American amber
Fermenting: Robust porter, American brown ale
Planning: American wheat, India pale ale

TV...Dessert?

1. Cathy makes cupcakes
2. Cathy fashions them to look like a TV dinner
3. Albert laughs like a little school boy


Devil's food cupcakes disguised as chicken drumsticks, peas and carrots, mashed potatoes, and dessert. I think the side dishes look dead on.

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Snow, transmission

Brew Brew Brew

It's been a busy 2011. Among all the noise is me getting my brew pipeline going. I've got a pale ale bottled, an amber ready to bottle, a porter fermenting, and the grains for a brown ale (to brew after I bottle the amber). It'll still be a while before I drink anything since even when bottled, the guys need some alone time to finish up - 2 to 3 weeks at least. Thankfully, there's a light at the end of the tunnel...

...it's when I finally get to drink the stuff. I imagine it to be quite cathartic, perhaps like finally eating a sandwich that took two months to make.

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Shingles

Naga Jolokia

Nick and Emily visited last weekend for New Year's and needless to say, it was a blastasaurus. While it mostly involved consuming more bourbon and food than necessary, at one point we found ourselves at the local brew and garden store and were gifted some freshly picked "ghost chili" peppers, aka Naga Jolokia. These things are insane. You may or may not have heard of them, but up until just a couple weeks ago, the ghost chili was recognized as the hottest chili pepper in the world (its throne was relinquished to some sort of hybrid of itself).


A large specimen. I had another one about the size of a raspberry which I experimented with. I chewed on a slice from the middle of it, roughly the size/thickness of a penny, and in about 30 seconds my mouth went from: tastes good > tingly > numb > hot > magma > gone.


I decided to make a batch of chili with the rest of the one I cut into. A ghost chili chili? The tiny pepper was thrown into a gallon or so of stuff, but it still gave the batch a kick. A kind of a pleasant and smooth kick, whatever that means. Anyway, good winter food.