Brewing Necessities

The bulk of my brewing equipment, though I’ve got a bottle drying rack on that table now, too.

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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!
  3. 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!
  4. 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.
  5. 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).
  6. 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.

Alternatives to the BSA

There are countless examples of this all over social networking.

In elementary school, I wanted to join Cub Scouts.  I think Mom and Dad just wanted me to be sure it’s something I wanted to do, as I had to press them on this for a few years before they relented in 4th grade.  I started in Cub Scouts, transitioned into Boy Scouts, and ultimately completed my Eagle Scout Award in high school, the Boy Scouts’ top rank.

To say “I learned a lot” from Scouting would be an understatement.  Aside from merit badges and outdoor survival skills, I learned team work, social skills and leadership skills from my experience in Scouting that was indispensable as I continued through life.  I have held multiple leadership roles in church, in concert/marching band, and in academic organizations since that time, but the roots of these experiences are drawn directly to Boy Scouts.  I continue to enjoy the outdoors, though I don’t spend as much time there as I used to.  It’s something I hope I can foster in Meg and in our future children as our society moves increasingly forward in this “Digital Age.”

About a month ago, the Boy Scouts of America reaffirmed their position against openly homosexual boys and leaders within their ranks.  It’s a position they’ve held for over a decade, openly, and one where I fully believe they’re on the wrong side of history.  It’s telling when both our Presidential candidates support the organization’s right to hold this view, yet still disagree with it.  As shown in the image above, more than a few Eagle Scouts agree with Obama and Romney and have returned their awards to the Boy Scouts of America to express their disappointment with the organization.

When this news was in the media more prominently, Brooke asked what I thought about the decision.  To be honest, I haven’t completely made up my mind.  I guess I’d like to think that the Scout Leaders I had in Troop 701 wouldn’t have turned anyone away that wanted to be there.  They were quick to provide support to those who wanted to participate, but couldn’t afford the dues or equipment to go on weekend camping trips.  They were supportive of Scouts that needed to focus on their school work rather than meeting obligations for the Troop.  In ways I imagine some pastors disagree with their denomination’s stance on this particular issue, I expect that the Leaders of my troop would have tried to simply “ignore” the issue, rather than actively seek out the homosexuals within their ranks.  Perhaps I’m wrong, but that’s what I’d like to think.

At the same time, I disagree with Chick-Fil-A’s stance on this issue as well, contributing their corporate funds in favor of “traditional marriage.”  To me, it’s bad enough when a corporate CEO makes comments I disagree with, but when the profits of an organization as a whole are used as a tool in a larger fight, it’s a bridge too far.

This all comes back to Meg (plus her sister(s)/brother(s)), though.  Brooke and I both want her to have access to experiences like we had:  Brooke had 4-H, I had the BSA.  Depending on where we live (e.g. the City of St. Louis), 4-H may not be a viable option.  We aren’t aware of many clubs in this area, so we’d possibly have to drive to another county to attend one.  There are Boy Scout troops all over, but their numbers have been in decline in recent years, possibly because of their silly political stances, but mostly, I’d argue, because our world has changed quite a bit since it was founded.

St. Louis On The Air had a show in late-July looking at an organization I’d never even heard of called the Baden-Powell Service Association.  Any of you that are familiar with Scouting will likely recognize the name, as Lord Baden-Powell is responsible for starting the Scouting movement in 1907.  It came to the United States in 1910 after William D. Boyce encountered “The Unknown Scout” while visiting London.

The BPSA is similar to the BSA, but has a few key differences.  One of these is that it accepts all people into its ranks.  Thus, it is a co-ed organization, open to the whole family, straight or gay, etc.  They also focus heavily on skills (in the form of “proficiency badges”), the outdoors, and service, similar to the BSA.  They even have a similar “Scout Promise” and “Scout Law” to the BSA equivalent.  It appears to place more of an emphasis on “service” than I remember from BSA.  We definitely participated in service outings, but I think the overall “family approach” to BPSA sounds like it may lend itself to family-oriented service opportunities than BSA did (when I was there, at least).

While the BPSA is part of a larger international organization, it’s decidedly smaller than the BSA.  So far as I can tell, the only “Group” in our area is in Washington, MO, which isn’t particularly close.  According to the NPR story, there’s interest in expanding to other locations here in St. Louis, but it doesn’t appear that there are many of these groups around the USA just yet.

Still, it’s nice to know there’s still interest in groups like this, and there are groups that are accepting of all people, regardless of their color or creed.  Hopefully, by the time Meg’s old enough, there will be more groups like this around the City (BPSA/BSA, 4-H, or otherwise) that can expose her and her friends to the same kinds of things Brooke and I got to experience growing up.

On Negotiations and Stalling

Be honest: does this look like the face of a devious individual to you?

I haven’t posted about Meg in awhile, at least, not directly.  She’s not quite two-and-a-half yet, but we’re already dealing with the wheels inside her head turning.

You know, the wheels trying to streamroll you…

Maybe a month ago, give or take, we noticed Meg starting to stall quite a bit.  Stalling before bedtime, stalling to get her clothes on to go to school, stalling to come inside, and so on.  This isn’t just a “ooooo, something shiny!” kind of distraction: this is an intentional, and deliberate attempt to slow down the inevitable.  She knows what’s coming and uses her cuteness to delay just about anything we need to do.  She’s gotten quite good at this as well, working it in so you hardly notice you’re allowing her to stall you into another song, or another story, or another cracker, or another drink of milk.

Furthermore, and more recently, she’s begun “negotiating.”  This one is a bit more rudimentary, I think, where she doesn’t really get the finer points of haggling, but you can tell she’s thinking it through.  Especially before bed, when she asks for “3 books,” specifically, knowing that “3” is more than “2,” let alone “1,” so if she asks for more, she’s more likely to get what she asks, or at least an extra book beyond the one we usually read her.  The same thing goes for songs, as we sometimes sing to (or with) her before bed.  We’ll say “one more song,” we’ll sing it, and then she’ll ask for another, specific, song.

She’s also been known to ask for “moneys for ma ewefan-t” [elephant], a mechanical bank that makes an elephant noise when you add a coin to it.  “Three moneys!,” she’ll say.  So yes, I’m already having to bribe my child.  Thankfully, at this point, she doesn’t really know the difference between a penny and a quarter…

When any of these things don’t work, however, she’s begun throwing fits, though now, it’s a little easier to stop them (to a degree…it’s never “easy”…).  Meg doesn’t cry, per se, but she definitely yells.  Loudly.  Now, I end up having to count to five and threaten a time out…and right around “four,” she stops.

So yeah, my nearly 2.5-year-old is “gaming the system.”  I guess I wasn’t expecting such things until she was at least three, if not four.

In some ways, of course, it’s nice to see this in a kid her age.  She’s learning to challenge authority, to question things, to problem solve, to “get around The System.”  At its core, it’s simple adaptation: where you learn you don’t have to simply accept what’s happening in front of you and you can attempt to change it, or at least influence it.

I guess I just didn’t expect it in a nearly 2.5-year-old.

She could teach some adults out there a thing or two about adaptation. 🙂

07.28.12 Dinner

I love having company! Homemade tortillas, cilantro-lime rice, beans, fresh salsa with stuff from our garden, grilled round steak, avocado-yogurt sauce. The most exciting part? The only non-pantry staples in this meal: steak, avocado, and cilantro!

07.22.12 Dinner

Ok, so this looks kind of gross, but the picture doesn’t do it justice. Broccoli fritters with lemon yogurt sauce, poached eggs, and french bread. I told Meg that the fritters were pancakes. She wasn’t fooled.

07.15.12 Pie

The epitome of summer – homemade peach pie and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. A friend had a baby, so pie was called for. How could I not make one for us, too?

07.14.12 Dinner

Finally a break in the heat so we could eat outside again! Grilled chicken leg quarters, mashed potato casserole, cucumber and tomato salad(from our garden!), and a growler of beer from The Civil Life.

Review: The Dark Knight Rises

Seven years ago, Batman Begins shook up the “comic book movie” industry by reinventing the character of Batman, based largely on Frank Miller‘s interpretation from Batman: Year One.  The movie marked a dramatic shift between the mostly despised Batman and Robin (that’s the George Clooney one…), and a much darker, grittier, “realistic” version of Batman (one that doesn’t include the “Batcard“).  2008 marked the release of The Dark Knight, what many critics considered “not just a good super hero movie, but also a really good crime movie.”  This movie continued in its comic inspiration, following the story line that continued from Year One with Batman: The Long Halloween.

As you might imagine, I loved Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.  They both were far closer to the Tim Burton vision of Batman of my youth, one that wasn’t as colorful and campy as the movies had become.  These movies looked at Bruce Wayne and the Batman hero has a flawed hero, one that didn’t have super powers, yet still used knowledge and cunning to protect Gotham City.

Thankfully, unlike the earlier movies in the Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan was kept on as director for all three movies, allowing him to build a trilogy with (mostly) the same actors, the same “feel,” and increasing budget to really bring things together at the end.  And, for the most part, I think he succeeded: The Dark Knight Rises is an excellent movie.  Watching the film, you can tell that certain beats were crafted from the beginning, tying characters and scenes from the first movie back to the third one, and so on.  It shows that the same team has been making all three movies, making this franchise feel more like the Lord of the Rings Trilogy than the Star Wars or Indiana Jones trilogies (anything after those first three movies never really happened, so far as I’m concerned…).  LotR was filmed at the same time, giving it the benefit of saving money, but the added benefit of continuity throughout the three movies.  The same feel as you sit and watch.  Star Wars had different teams involved in the three movies, making each movie feel pretty different.

The Dark Knight Rises is comprised mostly of two key books from the comics: Batman: Knightfall, and The Dark Knight Returns (also by Frank Miller).  The movie opens 8 years after the events of The Dark Knight, with Bruce Wayne now a recluse, Wayne Enterprises hemorrhaging money, and cops taking charge of crime in the city, without the help of Batman.  You can tell that Bruce has had a difficult time of “letting go” of his love, Rachel Dawes, but also of being Batman: a persona he had to give up in order for the (manufactured) legacy of Harvey Dent to survive.  However, when Bane, a mercenary trained by Ra’s al Ghul (from Batman Begins) as a member of the League of Shadows, appears in Gotham City, Bruce knows he’s the only person able to defeat him.  The story navigates a roller coaster, of sorts, with Batman returning to Gotham, his exit from Gotham after Bane “breaks him” (a key moment from Knightfall), and then his “rise” again at the end.  All throughout, we see how the people of Gotham, and the police force specifically, have learned to live without Batman, while still needing his return.

Generally speaking, all the usual suspects were in the movie, and they all did well.  Christian Bale has proven he can do both Bruce Wayne and Batman (no easy task), and Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Michael Caine continue to serve in their respective roles masterfully.  This time, Freeman and Caine seem to take something of a “back seat” in the movie, while Oldman steps up, being given quite a bit more to do as Commissioner Gordon.

The rest of the supporting cast, I’ve got a few gripes with, but was mostly pleased.  Firstly, Anne Hathaway did a remarkable job as Catwoman.  She evoked the same sultry “cat like” character from the 60s TV show, as portrayed by Julie Newmar, while also putting her own spin on the character.  That and she was very convincing during the action scenes.  Marion Cotillard and Joseph Gordon-Levitt also do a good job, but I questioned their overall purpose in the film up until the end of the movie.  With them, we’re also starting to add quite a few new characters onto an already large movie.  Matthew Modine‘s character was mostly superfluous, in my opinion.  He served a purpose, but in some ways, it seems like he was in the movie more than Alfred was (which should be a crime…).

Which brings us to Tom Hardy, who plays Bane.  Personally, I think he did a good job in the role, and definitely made it seem like he was a big, big guy.  Very intimidating, very dangerous.  However, we never see his face: it’s always behind the mask.  It’s very difficult to portray emotion when you’re in a situation like that, as you really only have your eyes and arms to try and evoke feeling from the audience.  It’s made even more difficult by the fact that his voice is distorted by the mask (and other effects), which makes it pretty difficult to understand him.  Brooke and I saw the movie at the Moolah, which doesn’t have the greatest sound in all of cinema, but I’m not sure how much of a difference it’ll be in other theaters.  I just think it was a poor choice to distort his voice to that degree, though I understand why they went that route.

As this is long enough, I’ll cut to the chase: the ending was good.  It was appropriate, it was what I wanted without knowing that’s what I wanted.  Everything got tied together in a satisfactory way while leaving enough threads open to give hope to fans that the franchise continues in some manner.

But it’s a clear end to an excellent trilogy.  There are few trilogies that come out like this, where you can safely say that all three movies are good ones, and this is definitely one of them.  I think The Dark Knight is still the best movie of the three, but this one’s still really good.