I kegged my beer over the weekend.
Final gravity: 1.010
This gives me an approximate ABV of 9.7%. Up a full percentage point from where I was before secondary. This surprised me a bit. I expected SOME fermentation to continue, and I never saw any real evidence of strong fermentation, but clearly there was quite a bit.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Monday, April 21, 2008
wanna buy a bottle?
I racked my beer over to the glass carboy this weekend. It's still pretty sharp and probably needs another two weeks in the carboy at least before it's close enough to complete to bottle/keg it.
However, I did steal about 2 liters of it whilst transferring it, both to do a gravity reading and also to taste.
I have one of these things, so I put the beer in the freezer for a half hour, cranked my regulator up to 30psi, attached it to the 2 liter bottle, shook the hell out of the bottle and then put it in the fridge for about an hour. What I ended up with was a perfectly carbonated, but still slightly sharp (from the suspended yeast) beer. I think this is going to be a mighty fine beer indeed once it's done.
The gritty details:
All measurements done at 68 degrees Fahrenheit with a 60 degree hydrometer.
Original specific gravity: 1.083
Final (so far) specific gravity: 1.018
I'm not going to correct the readings for the temperature difference since both readings were taken at the same temp, and this is only an approximation anyway (and not the final gravity anyway).
So, taking the formula to convert to the Plato scale:
°P[initial] = °Pi = (-463.37) + (668.72 × 1.083) - (205.35 × 1.0832) = 20.001
°P[final] = °Pf = (-463.37) + (668.72 × 1.018) - (205.35 × 1.0182) = 4.578
Then, using the Plato data:
My Apparent Attenuation is: 1 - (4.578 / 20.001) = .771 => about 77%
Given that I expect a full attenuation of .8, I'm pretty close even before hitting the secondary fermenter. It may be that I get no more fermentation in secondary. That's not uncommon.
This gives me an approximate ABV of (1.083 - 1.018) / .75 = 8.7% alcohol by volume.
That's about right for a Dubbel. I was expecting a little more, to tell you the truth, maybe I didn't get enough starches out of my mash.
Anyway. This is a pretty fine beer.
My wife and I recently had a nice dinner out at The Refuge, where they feature many Belgian and Belgian style ales. We sampled quite a few, and I'll put my neck out there and say that my beer compares favorably with any of these. She suggests that I sell a couple bottles to the restaurant, but being a home-brewer, I'm not legally allowed to sell beer.
However, I can sell glass.
So - if you'd like to buy an extremely overpriced decorative piece of glass that happens to contain some beer that I forgot to remove, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
However, I did steal about 2 liters of it whilst transferring it, both to do a gravity reading and also to taste.
I have one of these things, so I put the beer in the freezer for a half hour, cranked my regulator up to 30psi, attached it to the 2 liter bottle, shook the hell out of the bottle and then put it in the fridge for about an hour. What I ended up with was a perfectly carbonated, but still slightly sharp (from the suspended yeast) beer. I think this is going to be a mighty fine beer indeed once it's done.
The gritty details:
All measurements done at 68 degrees Fahrenheit with a 60 degree hydrometer.
Original specific gravity: 1.083
Final (so far) specific gravity: 1.018
I'm not going to correct the readings for the temperature difference since both readings were taken at the same temp, and this is only an approximation anyway (and not the final gravity anyway).
So, taking the formula to convert to the Plato scale:
°P[initial] = °Pi = (-463.37) + (668.72 × 1.083) - (205.35 × 1.0832) = 20.001
°P[final] = °Pf = (-463.37) + (668.72 × 1.018) - (205.35 × 1.0182) = 4.578
Then, using the Plato data:
My Apparent Attenuation is: 1 - (4.578 / 20.001) = .771 => about 77%
Given that I expect a full attenuation of .8, I'm pretty close even before hitting the secondary fermenter. It may be that I get no more fermentation in secondary. That's not uncommon.
This gives me an approximate ABV of (1.083 - 1.018) / .75 = 8.7% alcohol by volume.
That's about right for a Dubbel. I was expecting a little more, to tell you the truth, maybe I didn't get enough starches out of my mash.
Anyway. This is a pretty fine beer.
My wife and I recently had a nice dinner out at The Refuge, where they feature many Belgian and Belgian style ales. We sampled quite a few, and I'll put my neck out there and say that my beer compares favorably with any of these. She suggests that I sell a couple bottles to the restaurant, but being a home-brewer, I'm not legally allowed to sell beer.
However, I can sell glass.
So - if you'd like to buy an extremely overpriced decorative piece of glass that happens to contain some beer that I forgot to remove, let me know and I'll see what I can do.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
it was only a matter of time
This is some scary stuff. Internet criminals are now targeting individuals with some rather cunning attacks rather than the normal casting of the net wide in hopes to reeling in some lucrative targets.
I work for a network security company, I'm not really allowed to say which one in my blog here, but it's not really a secret.
We deal with SPAM - and some researchers and 'experts' are mis-labeling this as SPAM. It's not. This is a targeted attack on a high profile individual who is being counted upon to be moderately tech-savvy but not a techie, and that's what makes it a little bit scary.
It's the level of knowledge required to do this that is scary. The person who did this was sloppy in a lot of ways. He used an off-the-shelf package to create his deployable malware and then he hardcoded the command and control address. Both of these things are indicators of either someone lazy, or someone who knows 'just enough' to be dangerous. It's the latter that bothers me.
I'm assuming that this person, who if not located in Taiwan at least has a shell account there somewhere, was operating at the limit of his knowledge when he created this attack. This would mean that he's clever enough to research and find the email address of a potential target, custom craft an email that is at least plausible using the target's real name, and then invade that person's machine, stealing, amongst other things, SSL certificates that are installed on that machine, to escalate privileges on other machines. This is not your normal kewl d00d skript kiddie we're talking about here.
I work for a network security company, I'm not really allowed to say which one in my blog here, but it's not really a secret.
We deal with SPAM - and some researchers and 'experts' are mis-labeling this as SPAM. It's not. This is a targeted attack on a high profile individual who is being counted upon to be moderately tech-savvy but not a techie, and that's what makes it a little bit scary.
It's the level of knowledge required to do this that is scary. The person who did this was sloppy in a lot of ways. He used an off-the-shelf package to create his deployable malware and then he hardcoded the command and control address. Both of these things are indicators of either someone lazy, or someone who knows 'just enough' to be dangerous. It's the latter that bothers me.
I'm assuming that this person, who if not located in Taiwan at least has a shell account there somewhere, was operating at the limit of his knowledge when he created this attack. This would mean that he's clever enough to research and find the email address of a potential target, custom craft an email that is at least plausible using the target's real name, and then invade that person's machine, stealing, amongst other things, SSL certificates that are installed on that machine, to escalate privileges on other machines. This is not your normal kewl d00d skript kiddie we're talking about here.
Monday, April 14, 2008
it keeps going.. and going...
It seems that I've found the energizer bunny of yeast strains. My beer is still strongly fermenting (cycling the airlock about once every two seconds) after 8 days of fermenting.
In some completely unrelated news, it was brought to my attention that I wasn't letting people write comments in my blog. That wasn't my intent, and it's now been fixed. Comment away.
In some completely unrelated news, it was brought to my attention that I wasn't letting people write comments in my blog. That wasn't my intent, and it's now been fixed. Comment away.
Friday, April 11, 2008
belgian double dubbel
I started a brew again last weekend. I am brewing a Belgian Dubbel recipe, but I hopped it a little more than normal, for a little longer than normal, and I added 50% more sugar in the form of Belgian Dark Candy and after 6 days, fermentation is still going very strong.
It did slow down considerably on day 4, but following the advice of some folks that post to various message boards, I re-pitched with some new yeast that I'd been culturing for a couple of days just as it seemed that fermentation was coming down off the peak and it seemed to regather strength quickly.
My original gravity was a staggering 1.083 - the highest I've ever tried to brew. My yeast strain should get an attenuation ratio around 80%, which would give me a final gravity of 1.016 and a 9.1% ABV in my final product. That's not a HUGE amount of alcohol for a Belgian, but it's more than I've been able to get before.
I'm even flirting with the idea of pitching some champagne yeast in another day or two to try to get more attenuation.
I don't want an overdry beer, but I don't want a sickly sweet one either.
This will be an interesting experiment, and I plan to culture the yeast for both bread and beer when I'm done as well.
It did slow down considerably on day 4, but following the advice of some folks that post to various message boards, I re-pitched with some new yeast that I'd been culturing for a couple of days just as it seemed that fermentation was coming down off the peak and it seemed to regather strength quickly.
My original gravity was a staggering 1.083 - the highest I've ever tried to brew. My yeast strain should get an attenuation ratio around 80%, which would give me a final gravity of 1.016 and a 9.1% ABV in my final product. That's not a HUGE amount of alcohol for a Belgian, but it's more than I've been able to get before.
I'm even flirting with the idea of pitching some champagne yeast in another day or two to try to get more attenuation.
I don't want an overdry beer, but I don't want a sickly sweet one either.
This will be an interesting experiment, and I plan to culture the yeast for both bread and beer when I'm done as well.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
sleep
I don't much write about my 'personal life' here or anywhere else. I do have a paper journal that I occasionally will write in, and the stuff in there is intensely personal, but nobody reads that but me.
This is much more public. Even if there is a slight veil when I don't use my name frequently, and I have a common enough name that google can't find me, but it's still much, much more public.
For those of you who do know me, you'll know that I have children. Two daughters, in fact: one infant (4 months) and one toddler (2 years).
Right now, sleep is a problem in my house. No one is sleeping enough, but my wife and the infant are especially hard hit. I think I've got the genes that allow me to operate better on little to no sleep, but I may be deluding myself. I surely have been gaining weight despite not changing my eating patterns, which would lead me to believe that my body is effective at producing cortisol, which would explain the ability to stay awake, etc. But -- I'm overanalyzing again.
The gist is this: if you have the ability to sleep as much as you want - and I don't mean you fail to because you're out partying too much, or you stay up and work, or watch too many Battlestar Gallactica movies, or have to finish that 8 hour WoW raid - I mean that no one is forcing you to stay awake buy yourself - if you're in that enviable position.. cherish it.
I keep myself up more than I need to, even now. And I'm managing. I won't complain about lack of sleep because I could probably be sleeping at least an hour more than I do, but it's a precarious balance. I've always had problems sleeping. If I go to bed too early, I end up thinking about the day too much. I could be doing literally anything, even something stimulating, and if I go to bed late enough, I'll knock out quickly.
This is hell for my wife though. She's got no choice in the matter. She HAS to be up when she's up, and she goes to bed as early as she can most nights. It's wearing her down, and that's hard for me to see. I wish I could help more.
I love my family.
I would forsake everything in this world for them.
Now is a hard time for us. And I'm beginning to think that it's better to stay here than to move, whether it be to Atlanta or Reykjavik.
This is much more public. Even if there is a slight veil when I don't use my name frequently, and I have a common enough name that google can't find me, but it's still much, much more public.
For those of you who do know me, you'll know that I have children. Two daughters, in fact: one infant (4 months) and one toddler (2 years).
Right now, sleep is a problem in my house. No one is sleeping enough, but my wife and the infant are especially hard hit. I think I've got the genes that allow me to operate better on little to no sleep, but I may be deluding myself. I surely have been gaining weight despite not changing my eating patterns, which would lead me to believe that my body is effective at producing cortisol, which would explain the ability to stay awake, etc. But -- I'm overanalyzing again.
The gist is this: if you have the ability to sleep as much as you want - and I don't mean you fail to because you're out partying too much, or you stay up and work, or watch too many Battlestar Gallactica movies, or have to finish that 8 hour WoW raid - I mean that no one is forcing you to stay awake buy yourself - if you're in that enviable position.. cherish it.
I keep myself up more than I need to, even now. And I'm managing. I won't complain about lack of sleep because I could probably be sleeping at least an hour more than I do, but it's a precarious balance. I've always had problems sleeping. If I go to bed too early, I end up thinking about the day too much. I could be doing literally anything, even something stimulating, and if I go to bed late enough, I'll knock out quickly.
This is hell for my wife though. She's got no choice in the matter. She HAS to be up when she's up, and she goes to bed as early as she can most nights. It's wearing her down, and that's hard for me to see. I wish I could help more.
I love my family.
I would forsake everything in this world for them.
Now is a hard time for us. And I'm beginning to think that it's better to stay here than to move, whether it be to Atlanta or Reykjavik.
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