Home again, home again… Breakfast nachos and pineapple.
Family Vacation, Part III
While camping was the priority for our little excursion to Minnesota, we knew we’d be close to Minneapolis and wanted to spend a night in a hotel. You know, a place with warm showers and a swimming pool. Brooke found a nice one near the Mall of America that had two rooms, so Meg could go to bed at a reasonable time (and we wouldn’t have to go with her at 8:00ish…).
Of course, we couldn’t actually check into the hotel until 3:00 pm, so we hit up Northern Brewer, where I’ve been buying my beer-making materials for the past few years, to pick up a few supplies. It was a little surreal going to their completely normal looking storefront, when I’m used to viewing them exclusively as a website. Needless to say, they were very knowledgeable and friendly and I wish they had a store here in St. Louis, but alas.
Afterwards, we went to Ikea, where Brooke had a few things on her list, but mostly, we wanted to look at a new bed for Meg. She’s still in her crib and has very little interest in moving out of said crib, but while we were up there, we wanted to see what they had in the ways of child-sized beds, or adult beds that would work well for someone under 3 ft tall. The one pictured above is the one we’re leaning toward right now. Cheap and short, and has “slats” you can use instead of a box spring (which won’t fit up our house stairs, unfortunately, so slats is the way we’d go).
Ikea is located next to the Mall of America, so that was the next stop. This is the second time we’d visited the MoA, but it’s still a sight to behold. Probably the kind of place I’d avoid at all costs if I actually lived in Minneapolis, but still…seeing a full-featured amusement park in the middle of a 3-story mall is pretty impressive no matter how many times you see it.
We weren’t there for anything in particular. If I recall, we made it out of there spending under $40, and that was including Dippin’ Dots and a set of Legos for Meg.
This is actually where most of our time was spent at the Mall. We went through the Lego Store and grabbed a “Duplo Farm Set” that Meg greatly enjoy(ed/s). Outside the store, however, they set up multiple circular tables with large bowls in the middle filled with Legos. Some tables had the smaller blocks, but others had the large Duplo blocks. We spent at least an hour outside the store with Meg watching other kids, and building her own “bit, bit, bit, bit towah” on the table. I think we made a believer out of her. 🙂
We went back to the hotel after awhile, grabbed some showers (and Meg even requested a nap, which was a welcome change…), and then ended up going back to the MoA for dinner. Unfortunately, there’s just about nothing in the way of “local restaurants” around that area, and we didn’t want to drive all that far into the city to find a restaurant, potentially dealing with a cranky toddler as the evening drew to a close. We found a place in the Mall that was “okay” (really, better than expected…but still…), and then returned to the hotel so Meg could do some swimming.
While Brooke and Meg swam, I went on a mission to find beer. Specifically, Surly beer. It’s a brewery I’d heard of, but had never been able to get because they only sell it in Minnesota and, apparently, only at certain places. I say “apparently” because I tried multiple stores. I went to a gas station first and found an extremely limited beer selection. Then, I went to a Wal-Mart that had such a limited beer selection, they actually had no beer. Finally, I found a liquor store that was kind enough to point out that Minnesota actually only sells ~3% alcohol beers at gas stations and grocery stores if at all.
Seriously, Minnesota. You’re filled with Lutherans. How is this even possible.
Regardless, the liquor store I went to had Summit Brewing beers, but no Surly, and as it was the third place I’d tried that night, I just stuck with Summit Oktoberfest (which was very good). The next day, I heeded the advice of the Surly website, which had a list of liquor stores that carry their beer (apparently for good reason…) and found a place on our way out of town where I could get their wares (which were very good, by the way).
For the last leg of the trip, we stayed the night back in Swisher. It hasn’t quite been a year since we moved, but it still felt like we’d been away for awhile. We stayed with Jimmy Ann, whom we know from our old church. It was a great visit and we had a very nice time seeing her, and she’s always happy to get to spend some time with Meg. We went to church on Sunday morning, said “hi” to the folks there, and then made our way back down to St. Louis, getting home late-afternoon.
All in all, it was a pretty nice trip! It was a new experience, taking an extended vacation (and camping trip) with a toddler, but I think we came out of it mostly unscathed. I think 5 days was just about long enough for us to be on the road, moving from place to place, and I don’t think I’d change much about the way we did things.
Until next year! Any suggestions on where to go?!
08.23.12 Dinner
Camping dinner #2. Beef stew and leftover biscuits. This is the meal I was most looking forward to making in the dutch oven. It lived up to my expectations!
Family Vacation, Part II
On our second day of vacation at Interstate State Park, we opted to give hiking a try. Again, this is one of those things where it’s difficult to know how well, exactly, Meg will do on an extended hiking trip, but we figured it was something to do besides playing with rocks. As a baby shower gift, we received this huge child backpack doohickey that fits much like a frame backpack and can carry children up to 50 lbs (supposedly…though how you carry that much, I dunno…). Regardless, we tested the rig out a few weeks prior to see how Meg would take to it and she seemed pretty cool with the idea of riding in a saddle on Mama and Daddy’s respective backs.
In the end, she did remarkably well! She asked to get down a few times, but not all that often. She liked removing my hat and putting it on her head, but for the most part, she was entertained just sitting in the pack and looking at our surroundings. She sang a bit to pass the time, too, which is always amusing (except at 4:30 am).
One of the songs Meg particularly enjoyed singing was “Rain, Rain, Go Away,” as we ended up getting caught in a reasonably heavy bout of rain. Most of the hike, it was just a drizzle, but right around the point we were to be out in the open, about halfway through the ~4 mi trek, the heavens opened up a bit more. Thankfully, the trail ended at an empty community center in Taylor Falls, MN, so we took a brief respite while the rain clouds passed overhead. It was a good time to introduce Meg to trail mix (which she loves now…) and let her walk around a bit before continuing on.
The trail passed by an area with some interesting geological formations known as glacial potholes. The Minnesota DNR has a video up describing them if you’re interested. While you’d be right to think of potholes on the road when you think of these things, in reality, they refer to formations in volcanic rock (basalt) where rivers fed by glacial runoff slowly drilled down in a vortex fashion, making deep holes in the river bed. As the glaciers receded, the potholes were exposed, leaving us with formations like those pictured here.
The potholes truly came in all shapes and sizes. There were deep craters, some filled with water, and other areas that were more open after sections had collapsed over the millenia. Because some had collapsed in on themselves, visitors are able to safely get down into the area and look up from the bottoms of some without needing a ladder to gain access. The sides of the potholes were very smooth, indicative of water slowly scraping away the rough edges of the rock as it bored down.
The area reminded us of Elephant Rocks, a state park here in Missouri that neither of us have visited in years. We’ll probably try to get down there in the next year or so, now.
The rest of the hike back to camp was uneventful. Really, the rest of the day was uneventful, with us laying in the tent trying to get Meg to take a nap (she didn’t…but Brooke did…grrrr…). The rain held off for the rest of the day, which was very nice for ensuring the tent would be packed up dry the next morning.
But before I get to that, I thought I should briefly describe what was going on in the picture above. Recently, we found out that Meg has an imaginary friend named “Mimimi.” When we were visiting the potholes, Meg took it upon herself to walk back and forth on this walkway to her kitchen to make Mimimi her breakfast. She’d tell Brooke and me to stay back while she walked toward the rock-formed archway, where she made some hand gestures, and then came back and delivered the imaginary cereal to her imaginary friend.
Things like this occurred for most of the trip to Minnesota. I just thought I’d mention it here for posterity, so we can remind her of it when we meet her first boyfriend. 😉
Regardless, Day Two was fun. A 4 mi hike was definitely lengthy, especially with a 25 lb child on your back, but we had a good time, got some exercise, and got to see some cool stuff. Well worth it!
08.23.12 Breakfast
Camping biscuits and gravy in the dutch oven! I made the dry part of the biscuit dough at home, then just added milk into the ziplock it was packed in, mushed it together and scooped it out. No dishes! (I would balk at the waste if we were eating at home, but somehow, it’s ok if we’re camping….)
08.22.12 Dinner
First night of vacation: foil packets with Italian sausage, peppers, onions, and mushrooms. Served with egg noodles. It was raining all evening, so I was glad we didn’t really have to tend this meal too closely!
Family Vacation, Part I
Brooke and I went with the rest of the Baumann clan to the Dominican Republic earlier in the summer, but we wanted to take a few days to go somewhere as a family with Meg. As both of us grew up enjoying camping with our respective families, it seemed right that we’d make an attempt to do this with our two-year-old. Thus, Brooke looked around for options up north, where the weather would be a bit cooler, but also a place near some urban center just in case Meg didn’t take to tent camping as well as we’d hope. The general Minneapolis area was a logical selection, and Interstate State Park fit the bill for a place “close enough yet far enough,” just in case some of our plans would have to be scrapped.
So we left Edie, Sam and the chickens in St. Louis under the care of Rachel (thanks!) and headed up to Hannibal on Tuesday night to stay with Brooke’s parents. We got up at 5:00 am (ew…) and started heading north the following day. Meg did not go back to sleep, so I sat in the back of the Sportage to entertain her. She was a bit grouchy until we stopped in Cedar Rapids for breakfast a few hours later. After that, she was in a much better mood…and so was her Dad. 🙂
We kept going, having lunch at a rest stop after crossing into Minnesota, then finally made it to our destination around 3:30 pm. By the time we’d unloaded the car, got the tent set up, and started a fire to make some dinner, the rain was starting to move in. While there was a 30% chance of rain that night, I don’t think we were anticipating it really starting (or continuing…) that early.
Thankfully, however, we got a pretty large tent with a screened section.
We actually already had a tent (or two), but wanted to get one with two rooms so Meg could go to sleep before the two of us did. We ended up with a Coleman Weathermaster Screened 6 tent. I think “6 person” is a bit generous, but it will easily fit us and a few extra kids comfortably. This particular tent came with the screened portion that was nice to have in a “light rain” situation. You wouldn’t want to store gear in there, though, as it will definitely get wet. The tent also came with a “hinged door,” making entry and exit from the tent easy and quiet.
The rain let up for the evening hours, but picked up again overnight. It actually stormed to a degree, but the wind never got too bad. We stayed dry, and that’s what was important!
Meg went to sleep around 8:00, which was shockingly easy to accomplish. We bought a battery powered night light for her room and put out some blankets and a sleeping bag for her and that worked pretty well. However, Meg woke up around 4:30 am and wouldn’t go back to sleep. Brooke was able to get a bit more shut-eye, but Meg’s “singing” kept me up. Yay…
The next day, we went on a lengthy hike…but I’ll talk about that in another post. I wanted to mention the dutch oven first. 🙂
When I was in scouts, we had a full stable of cast iron dutch ovens of all sizes. We used them to make just about everything, so I got a decent amount of experience using them. Brooke will talk about each meal in separate posts as usual, but I wanted to briefly mention how it worked. We picked this one up from Amazon for $25, which was pretty reasonable compared with what we saw at Cabela’s and other camping stores. It holds 4 quarts, which is also a pretty good size for making most things ranging from soups to cobblers to biscuits and gravy. While you can put the oven directly on wood coals, we brought along some charcoal to help manage things a bit. I got some charcoal going first, then put the dutch oven directly on the coals, and finally moved some of the charcoal onto the lid of the dutch oven, allowing for heat on the bottom and the top. It worked about as well as expected, effectively heating the different meals. I kinda wish we’d taken Brooke’s infrared thermometer along so we could get a better idea of just how hot it got in that oven, but believe you me, it got everything toasty warm!
The last thing I wanted to mention here was Meg and her rocks. We brought some toys and books along for her, but we needed something to keep her entertained while we did cooking, cleaning, setting up the site, and so on. Thankfully, our campsite was next to a gravel pad for parking the car. First, we gave her a red 16 oz cup and asked her to fill it with rocks. This entertained her for most of that first night. The next day, she returned to this activity, but now did it with her sandbox bucket and shovel…and a blue bottle cap from a Pepsi. She’d transfer rocks from the ground to the shovel to the blue cap to her bucket.
I can’t count all the hours this took up.
Generally speaking, we were able to keep Meg entertained better than we expected. From books to puzzles to rocks to the aforementioned hiking trip, she actually held up remarkably well, only asking to “go home” on the first day, and only once. Besides that time, she seemed to take to the “camping experience” quite well! Her napping was non-existent, but we kinda expected that. Thursday afternoon, we hung out in the tent for awhile to help her quiet down some and that was the best we could do. While she didn’t sleep well that first night, she slept very well the second night.
There are a few more posts coming about our camping trip. The hiking trip will be next, followed by our excursion to Minneapolis for a day!
08.14.12 Dinner
The first of our city farm’s eggs! Notice the difference between the color of the store bought eggs on the left and the homegrown ones on the right. Amazing!!!
08.11.12 Dinner
Spaghetti with a quick meat sauce made with tomatoes from our garden. I never know what to do when I don’t really have enough to can, so this used up some odds and ends that were hanging out on the counter. Also, Meg ate three servings, so that’s a win!
Brewing Necessities
In the last few years of brewing beer, I’ve accumulated a few additional “toys” beyond the standard brewing kit you can get from just about any retailer. Thus, I thought it could be helpful to outline some of the other accessories that I think are “worth it,” as funds become available. I’m going to go in order of what I’d recommend acquiring first, and then go down to other “nice things to have,” plus a few things I don’t have yet, but are definitely on my list of upgrades.
Please note that I’m linking to equipment through Northern Brewer, but in many cases, these aren’t the items I’ve got. I just wanted to link to examples and am too lazy to track down the exact stuff I’ve got. Do some research to get the best deals, but these are probably solid examples of what to expect and how much they tend to cost.
- Propane Burner – To some degree, this depends on how good your oven range is, but even if it’s a good one, I’d still recommend getting one of these. Firstly, they’re capable of getting your wort up to boiling in about 20 min. Secondly, it’s really, really easy to kill the heat, thus stopping spill-over without having to pick up 3-5 gal of wort. Thirdly, you can do everything outside, so even if you do let it spill over, you don’t have to clean up your kitchen. Finally, these things are useful for more than just brewing, as you can host a shrimp boil, fry a turkey, etc. So even though this kind of equipment can be somewhat expensive, I think it’s the first thing to shoot for getting after you get started brewing.
- Gasket Bottles – These things are great, so long as you plan on drinking these volumes of beer in a given time. They’re nice because you can re-use the bottles and re-use the caps and gaskets. You may need to replace the gasket eventually, but I’ve never had to do it. Also, depending on where you get your beer, you can sometimes buy beer in this kind of bottle, meaning you are effectively buying a bottle that happens to also come with beer (win-win!). The 1 L bottle size is probably easiest to come by and most useful for an evening, but the 2 L bottles are nice to have, too. If you like Grolsch beer, you can get 16 oz bottles from them, or buy the bottles empty. Regardless, you don’t go through bottle caps this way, and you don’t need to employ a capper. Definitely worth considering!
- Bottle Washer – If you bottle beer, you know that cleaning said bottles can be a huge pain. Homebrew frequently leaves a film on the bottom of the bottles that’s difficult to remove without a bottle brush, and while those brushes work, they really slow down the cleaning process. Thus, if you’ve got a sink that can fit one of these bottle washers, I highly recommend it. They’re only about $12 and are worth every penny. The nice thing is that mine also fits 5 gal glass carboys, too, which are equally ridiculous to clean, so again, multi-purpose. They’re probably awesome at cleaning baby bottles, too, but I haven’t tried… Highly recommended!
- Wort Chiller – The need for a wort chiller really depends on your situation, I guess. Essentially, when you’re brewing your beer, you need to cool your wort down quickly from boiling to around 70 F before you add yeast. If you’ve just been boiling 3-5 gal of liquid, this can take…a…really…long… …time… Thus, you can speed it up with ice, with snow (in the winter…or in Alaska…), or you can get a wort chiller. Mine works pretty well for cooling down 3+ gal of wort within about 20 min, so it really saves time over what I used to do (putting the pot in the sink and adding ice water to it), which easily lasted an hour or more. If I had an ice maker in my fridge, maybe I’d have stuck with ice, but in our situation, I don’t have enough ice trays to keep the water cold. Thus, for me, a wort chiller is pretty awesome. Not the first thing I’d get, but still pretty useful. But, if you live next to a 7-Eleven and can pick up a few bags of ice, that works, too.
- Glass Carboy – Starter beer kits don’t usually come with these, but having one or two of these on-hand isn’t a bad idea. The small opening at the top isn’t ideal, and the glass is breakable, but at the same time, it gives you a chance to keep an eye on your beer during the fermentation process. Also, if you’re concerned about flavors of your beer “leeching” into (or out of) the plastic bucket that usually comes with kits, then glass is definitely your friend. You can also get these in a 3 gal size, which is nice for small batches (or for hard apple cider).
- Bottle Drying Rack – There are ways around this, of course. We used to clean bottles and put them upside down in a laundry basket with a towel, and that worked just fine. It took up tons of space, but it worked. So, I’m saying that there are alternative ways of drying your bottles. However, for $20, these things aren’t bad to have. Probably not the first upgrade I’d head for, but definitely a nice thing to have.
Next Steps (as in, stuff I don’t have yet, but am considering for the future):
- Temperature control system – If you want to make lagers or pilsners year-round, there are a few options, but the best way is to use something like a freezer with an external temperature control system. Basically, you put your wort in the freezer, modified with a control box that controls the freezer’s compressor to cycle on and off depending on what temperature the probe inside is reading. If you want to keep your beer at 55 F, this will make it happen, and temperatures like that are required if you want to make certain beer styles. If you’ve got a cellar, it may not be required, but if you want to make that style of beer all year, it’s a necessity to have this kind of temperature control. Otherwise, like me, you can probably only make lagers in February.
- Fermentation Heater – Depending on your situation, one of these could be useful. Yeast like to be active at certain temperatures, and if you brew in the winter, you may need to keep your wort at a reasonable temperature for a few weeks. For example, this past winter, my basement held around 55 F, which is too low for many ale yeasts. Thus, I used an electric oil heater, sat it right next to the wort, and that kept the temperature closer to 70 F. However, you can use something like this heating pad to achieve the same goal, perhaps a bit more elegantly.
- Bottle Capper – The cheap capper that comes with a typical beer kit is “functional,” but it doesn’t cap bottles “cleanly.” As in, sometimes, the bottle cap will slip to the side as you push down on the handles. Thus, something more like this one, that you can mount on a table, can be better as you gain additional stability while you cap the bottle, and moreover, you get additional leverage (i.e. strength). Not the kind of thing, you necessarily need, but wouldn’t be a bad investment for later down the road.
- Kegging System – There are any number of ways to make this happen. The cheapest way is to get a used keg and the additional hardware to allow you to carbonate your beer and keep it sealed. Used kegs can be purchased from a variety of locations, but it’s key to make sure the seals have been replaced. Still, the used one from Northern Brewer is $161, while the version with a new keg is $224. Additionally, you can always spring for a fridge conversion kit to allow you to make a keg-o-rator, but for my money, I think a “keezer” is the best plan. It involves taking a regular horizontal freezer, raising the lid with some 2″x4″ boards, and drilling some holes for the tappers. It doesn’t involve making holes in the freezer itself: just moving the lid up about 4″. Of course, a kegging system is a whole other ballgame and it depends on whether you like having your beer in bottles, or whether you want to be “over and done” after you transfer your brew to a keg. Or whether you want to be able to take a 6-pack to your friend’s house, or if you can live with always taking growlers. Personally, I like bottles, but having a keg wouldn’t be a terrible thing, either.