Truckma

It appears without warning. No change in performance. No signs of mechanical trauma. Same six-cylinder sounds. My poor old truck suddenly, quietly, pleads for help. Costly, mystery help.

My normal tact, as this happens quite often, is to wait for a secondary indicator. A misfiring spark plug, a change in gas mileage, a metallic grinding sound accompanied by shrapnel... any of these, really. Then to take it to a mechanic, perform whatever financial maneuver is required to make it go away, and wonder what the hell happened.

Automotive issues confound me. Sure, I teach physics. I can do the math showing what happens in the engine. But that is really different from being able to use the tools and make the fix.

I was brewing beer with my buddy Matt recently. The topic of our dreamed brewpub opened up, and I said that we could do it because between the two of us, I had a degree in chemistry and Matt had practical skills. My audience took this as a dig against Matt. I was confused and didn't understand why. I thought I was complimenting him. You see, here is the truth: I KNOW NOTHING USEFUL!!!! I have no practical knowledge or skills. I can talk for hours about education theory, atomic radii influencing electronegativity, or the influences of Bruce Lee on popular comics. But at the end of the day, I have no job and am getting ready to hand money to someone with practical knowledge so that I can drive my happy ass to the grocery store.

Next time, given the chance, here is what I will say: We can get there, because Matt knows how to do everything, and I can prove it on paper.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to stare at the orange check engine light. If I stare long enough, I may hear the sound of one hand clapping.

Perchance

Those of you who keep track of my random world, probably know that I have a silly little dream. I want to own my own bar. I also have a great friend who loves brewing beer, and has been teaching me. He wants to own his own microbrewery. Together, we will own a brewpub. Now that I am in the great soon-to-be-frozen North, close to Matt, this has moved from dream to goal.
What's the difference, you might ask? Well, some good folks once told me that a dream is something that you would love to see, but you aren't proactively doing anything about. A goal is then a dream with wheels.
I suppose that moving here is enough to begin the wheelificiation process of that dream, but I need to work towards it more. It can be done. But how? What will be the next big step towards making it happen?
I suppose financial stability is part of it. Which means I need a job. And I need to learn a lot about big brewing. And running a business. And building a business model.
Can I really do this? Really? Don't just bullshit me here. To go from high school teacher seriously in debt to successful business owner is a big leap for me. I'm not used to financial risk. But if we do it right, we could help cure cancer. For the good of humanity, beer must be brewed...

Beer, kilts and pipes

The brothers Colin, Ben, and Matt

About a month ago, I had an amazing event occur. I brewed, with the guidance of my brothers, my first batch of beer. It all began with a spanking, as new life is wont to do.
I slapped a yeast pack, breaking a nutrient pouch and starting the reproductive process of a California lager yeast. As the gases built, and the population increased, the babies had to feed. So they were given a light malt, designed to feed the yeast without flavoring the future beer. In this malt they fed, our little yeastlings, multiplying like small-town Missouri teenagers...

The next day was truly the brewing day. Cold beers were consumed in the gorgeous Indiana spring sun. The burners were ignited, and our water was heated to 168°F in preparation for the mash.
The boiling kettle

2.25 gallons of this clear hot water (I still am coping with the non-metric units) were added to the mash tun, a large orange cooler with a false-bottom filter and spigot. To this we added 8-lbs Rahr 2-row pale grain and 1 lb. Simpsons Caramalt grain. This was allowed to stew for 1 hour, as the heat released sugars and enzymes from grains.
Hot water on the move

The grains taking a bath

Three-tiers of fun

Our next tool; gravity. I'm amazed at how simple this can be, in the absence of pumps and valves and gear. A three-tier system was created. The top tier was sparge water at 170°F. Its purpose is to help wash the sugars from the grain and husks. This flowed into the mash tun, our second tier, from a large sports cooler like the other, but without the filter. The mash tun then released our sugary soon-beer wort into the third tier, a boiling tank set on the ground. The sparge water kept the grains out of the nozzles and rinsed them, gravity pulled the wart into the bottom tank. The first few liters that came out were cloudy, filled with grain residue and husk fragments. They were sent back through the spent husks, which acted as a filter. After we began to get clear wort, it was on.
Sweet hot wort; yeast food!

When this was done, we topped off with more of the heated water, and set a very full kettle full of rich, sugary, syrupy wort to boil. During this time, we added 1 oz. Cluster hops, 1 tsp of Irish moss (to improve clarity). At the end of our hour, the beer was ready to be cooled by steam-punk-esque copper coils and prepped for the yeast.
Cold water immersion cooling coils

We drained the boiled wort into a sterilized fermentation tank, a giant clear carboy, and hauled it to the cool basement. The yeast was pitched, and the hungry little buggers began devouring the sugars we had prepared for them. And they shit alcohol my friends. They shit alcohol.
Wind-up and the pitch

I have dragged enough detail into this, my friends, so I will spare you the anxious, father-in-the-waiting-room specific gravity measurements. I will also spare you the delight with which the flavor moved from soggy friendship bread to hoppy alcohol and grain. Two days later, the beer was removed from the protein sediment (more yeast poop) and placed into a second sterilized carboy. The fermentation had gone from an active bubble-dance to a subtle fizz at this point.
So now I wait. Brother Matt will bottle this soon (keg date had been scheduled for August 1st, but I doubt he will wait). And then, I get to meet my baby beer.
Anxious Daddy.