Kitchen Sink Ambrr

Over the course of the past few brews I’ve been building up a stock of unused ingredients. Sometimes I either buy too much of one ingredient or the wrong type, or I just don’t follow through with a planned recipe. I decided to use up all of my unused hops and yeast in one brew in which I would thrown in everything except – the “Kitchen Sink”.

In gathering my malted grains for the brew, I decided to make this an Amber with some pretty strong flavors, mostly to make up for the fact that the yeasts and hops were old; hence the Chocolate and Carred malts.  To add even more flavor, I decided to throw in the molasses and Juniper berries.  The honey adds a little bit more kick at the end.

Surprisingly, this turned out to be quite a flavored concoction, with a crisp, malty finish that is accentuated both by pine-like notes from the Juniper berries and a bit of sweetness from the molasses. I’d like to say that this is the second-best beer that I’ve made after the Plum Lambic.

Here’s the recipe:

Steep (30 min)
1 TB Gypsum
1 Lb Amber Malt
.5 Lb Chocolate Malt
.5 Lb Carred

 Boil

1 oz Nugget – 60 mins
2 lb Dark DME - 60 mins
1 lb Honey – 60 mins
1 cup molassas – 60 mins
1/4 cup crushed juniper berries – 30 mins
.5 tsp. Irish Moss – 15 mins
1 oz Brewers Gold – 10 mins
1 oz Cascade – 10 mins
1/4 cup grade B Maple syrup – 10 mins

Yeast
1 pack Wyeast Leuven Pale (out of date)
1 vial White Labs Champange Yeast (out of date)

Annoyance

Today, I had the opportunity to revisit the narrative of my novella for the first time since – well, forever. I had to take the car down to get the headlights re-replaced, got a waffle from Empire Espresso in Columbia City (always a treat), bought some ingredients for my first-ever all-grain brew from Sound Homebrewing Supplies, and stopped off at All City in Georgetown to get some writing in. I had the misfortune to be sitting at the same table as a trio of rather self-aggrandizing individuals who Loved. To. Talk. Loudly. Examples:

“Have you ever seen Das Boot?”

“Yeah, I saw it a couple of times.”

“Wow. No one’s seen Das Boot!”

“Well, only smart people have.”

- : -

“Yeah, it’s just another Holocaust movie. Yeah, the Holocaust happened and was pretty bad. I wish people would just get over it.”

- : -

“You know, I wish that people would start referring to the Civil War as being the War of Northern Aggression. Stop trying to simplify it and all, you know?”

 

Needless to say, my teeth were firmly gritted though out these – and many other – boneheaded exchanges. Luckily, I was too busy attempting to construct decent prose that fit within the framework of my narrative to remind these idiots that no, you will not find the names “Abraham” and “Jesus” in the Koran, but you will find “Ibrahim” and “Isa,” which – believe it or not – are the Arabic equivalents. Don’t ask me what point  these people were trying to prove at the time…

I guess what gets me most about people who seem to revel in making statements like the above is the fact that (at least in my perception), they seem to relish in both the barely disguised annoyance of us mere denziens of the hoi poli and the exuberant nodding approval of their self-recognized equals.  But then again, maybe my own annoyance is a reflection of my own habit of keeping my own more controversial views on things to myself or sharing them with people who I’ve invested the time and effort in vetting as being either sympatico or at least tolerant of views different from their own.

All that having been said, I was able to finally put the lid onto chapter three of my novella, only a mere six months behind schedule

Busy!

The past few weeks have been busy ones. In a good way, though. I’ve been getting more involved with the Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool, where we send Gabe and Ollie twice a week. I helped to organize and participated in their Spring fundraiser, which netted (I believe) over $6,000 for the organization. Carrie and I have also been spending more time with some of the families that we’ve met at the preschool – one of the families happens to be homebrewers just like me

 

Then, there is the food – for Cinco de Mayo, we made tacos with marinaded flank steak, and for Mother’s Day Carrie and I indulged ourselves with homemade Bimbimbap with a tweaked Beef Bulgogi recipe, carrots pickled in a bit of sugar and coconut vinegar, bean sprouts, spinach, mushrooms and other goodness. Very nice!

Oh  - and I submitted a story for round 13 of Three Minute Fiction. I’m hoping to at least get a snippet of my story read on the air and for it to be published as one of the committee’s faves.

Next weekend for Memorial Day we’ll be camping with the kids. Wish us luck

A message of thanks

Carrie and I would like to thank everyone who donated to and supported us during the recent 2013 MS Walk in Seattle. It was good to get out and enjoy the sunshine during that day, and it was doubly satisfying that we were doing it for a good cause. Thanks to your gracious support, Carrie and I were able to raise over $700, and the Greater Northwest chapter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society was able to raise over $750,000 to support MS research and provide assistance to those suffering from MS and their families.

As many of you may know, I have been dealing with Multiple Sclerosis ever since 1994, very shortly after my 25th birthday. My own variety of the disease is quite mild when put against others, but I still have to deal with fatigue, depression and random bouts of sharp pain on an almost daily basis. I can still walk unaided, run, and enjoy what is considered to be a normal life, and the biggest price that I have to pay for that is a daily injection of Copaxone. Many other sufferers of MS aren’t quite so fortunate.

So, again – we, Carrie and Charlie, the walkers of Company B, thank you very much from the bottom of our hearts!

Food traditions

One of the things that I wish would have been instilled in me while growing up is an appreciation for food, particularly certain dishes whose recipes and techniques would have been passed down from generation to generation. My mother was a good cook, don’t get me wrong, but I never got the sense that there was any culinary tradition behind the food that she made.

I’m hoping that I’m able to give that to my kids. The Christmas before they were born I made Beef Burgundy for Carrie and brought it to her while she was in the hospital.  The very first New Years that the kids were home with us I made Borscht and Carrie made Cinnamon Rolls. Summers have always been a time to make Berbere-rubbed pulled pork and pork short ribs on the grill. This year I sucessfully made Corned Beef and Carrie made Irish Soda Bread with currants. Lastly, most Saturdays at our house are “Pancake Saturdays,” something the kids look forward  to.

So – who knows? Maybe we are on our way to developing some food traditions of our own. I’m hoping to at some point take the leap and make the recipes that I make on a regular basis my own, and pass them down to the kids.

In sickness and health

I had mentioned that there had been several rounds of sickness going through our house since the beginning of the year. It really started just after New Years with Carrie and I getting a rather severe flu-like illness, and it spreading to the kids after that. Then there was the Norovirus incidents. Since that point, it seems like there hasn’t been a month in which someone wasn’t sick with something. I blame it all on the germ incubation units around here that go by the more popularly known moniker of “Preschool” .  In any case, in between rounds of sickness, illness, and just general feeling like blah, I got the chance to complete my first run of 2013, the Fire and Ice Run, which is a 5K obstacle course:

 

That picture was taken pretty early in the race. I can tell because I’m still pretty dry; I took a fall into about three feet of water due to an incident that involved lack of judgement and monkey bars  :)

 

Wherein I ponder whether I whince whilst whithering in the weather

Ok, nonsensical alliteration aside, the weather around here has been a mixed bag. For Easter (and a  couple of weekends leading up to it), we here in Seattle were treated to spring-like warmth and sunniness. Yet, just the very next week we were back to grey skies, chilly temps and on-again,off-again rain. As I’m looking forward to getting more running days, cooking outdoors days, brewing beer days and great-I-have-to-mow-this-darn-lawn-AGAIN days, the scarcity of consistently decent days is a bit frustrating. Then again, it’s Seattle. Why am I so surprised?

On a better note, today, my sister-in-law Carla is coming by to pick up the kids so that they can spend the night at her place, giving Carrie and I some much-needed ‘Us’ time. What is a couple of parents off twin 3 year old boys to do given the chance to experience a child-free evening by themselves?Well, I think that there is a good home-cooked dinner in the works. Maybe desert and drinks afterwards. And Dr. Who, of course