Kitchen Sink Post

Since I have been slipping on my blogging there is lots to catch up on. This is going to be the most random collection of thoughts ever so prepare yourself!

Nico
The little guy is growing at an alarming rate. Though he does just eat and sleep... The flight over was a breeze. Infants are amazing to fly with! He is full of smiles and has started touching stuff that he is aiming for. His eyes have been becoming more grey and less blue and there were hints of brown the other day.

Lola
She was so excited to get back to her room and seems to be happy with being back in Dhaka. She was not excited about starting school with a new teacher and class. It seems to be that she complains but then is happy while there. She has already talked to her new teacher so that must mean Lola likes her! Lola starts ballet classes soon but has already been busy with play dates and swimming at the club. She is a great big sister and would probably smother Nico with kisses if we did not intervene!

Jessica
I am amazed at how quickly my wife bounces back to her old self after having a baby. You would never even know she had a baby two months ago. She seems content with life and happy to back in Dhaka as well. She has committed herself to taking pictures of Dhaka this year which is inspiring for me too. She has also been redecorating our house since we have bought the new couch. She is still on maternity leave and does not start teaching until the second week of September. Lucky!

                            The before and after of one of Jessica's latest projects

Me
I cannot believe how good it felt to be back in Dhaka. There was a huge sigh of relief when we walked into our apartment, our home. Even the drive from the airport to our house was fun. There is just so much happening here; it is an energy that you cannot deny. School has started and I am teaching a new class. Design Technology teaches the kids about the design cycle and we have a pretty decent wood shop for them to make things in. The kids are full of energy and ready to start working. I will keep you updated with pictures of their projects. Feels so great to have a creative outlet and a shop to build things! I have started using Pinterest to save all the wonderful ideas that I find out there in the world. Can't believe it took me so long to see the value in it.

Brewing
I have 5 gallons of a hoppy, high alcohol summer beer that just got moved to the secondary fermenter. I also made a 3 gallon batch of meed that is shaping up to be an amazing thing. I bought The Complete Meadmaker by Ken Schramm and it has proven to be a wealth of knowledge and I am excited by the collection of recipes. This will be the next book of the week so stay tuned.

Blog
I plan on restarting my Car of the Week and Book of the Week Posts and get back into the swing of posting more regularly. Summer Break is over and life is busy again.

Russian Imperial Stout

Yesterday I brewed my second batch of beer. This is Russian Imperial Stout kit from The Beverage People. The people at the Beverage People were very helpful. I told them I would be traveling to Bangladesh and that the kit would set in a container for three months so they traded out the liquid yeast (it would go bad) for a dried yeast. The dried yeast was designed for wine but they recommended it because of the high alcohol content of the beer. This is going to make a beer similar to an Old Rasputan from North Coast brewing. Dark, complex and a big punch. The brewing went without a hitch this time. The foam of this beer is lush and has a great color. Check out this pic:

I was able to cool the wort down quicker this time after trying some new techniques. This time I set the wort in a chilled bath and ran water through the wort chiller. I also periodically stirred the wort as gently as possible so as not to introduce any oxygen while it was still hot. It took about 30 minutes to get 25 quarts of wort from boiling to 75 degrees. Not too bad.

Then I transferred the wort to the primary fermenter, pulling a little bit out to test the specific gravity (and taste it...hehe). It was at 1.095! To explain what this means, the specific gravity is comparing the specific gravity of the wort to that of water. The higher the number, the more sugar in the wort. The 1.095 converts to a final alcohol content of about 13%. This happens as the yeast converts the sugars into alcohol over the next few weeks. Yeast is so cool!

There is already a good deal of action in the carboy as you can see from the pics I took today. I am super excited about this batch and I hope I am not building it up too much. Luckily I still have some of the first batch to sip on while I watch the yeast work its magic.

Drinking Beer!

So I am finally enjoying my first batch of Bangladesh Beer. The recipe is a Dark Lager kit from The Beverage People in Santa Rosa. If you know your beers, a lager goes through a period of refrigerated fermenting (or Lagering) before its second fermentation and then bottling. As you can imagine i have no way of lagering five gallons of beer for weeks at a time so I did not lager my beer. So I am not really sure what to call it... For those familiar with the Ukiah Brewing Company it is remarkably similar to a 10 Guilder. For all you others out there the closest thing I can come up with is a bit darker and more flavorful version of a Negro Modelo. There are some issue that have taken me a few days to figure out. When I added my priming sugar to the beer apparently I did not mix it very well because all the early bottles are carbonated well and all the later bottles have no carbonation at all. So now I need to go back and re-prime the uncabonated ones... At least I will have some to drink while I do it!

Finally Brewing!

Finally got my act together and brewed some beer! It is a Dark Lager Kit from The Beverage People in Santa Rosa. Everything went pretty well and now it is just a waiting game. There is something so satisfying about making things like beer and bread and mayonnaise from scratch. Things that we usually just buy at the store. Things that we take for granted. We go to the store to buy bread or beer like it is a singular item. But when you make these things you realize that they are a collection of ingredients and time and meticulous actions and stress and mistakes. It means so much more and tastes so much better. The next time you go to the store and buy a loaf of bread you appreciate everything about it. "My, what lovely crust. The airy quality of the bread" or "Oh, this beer has a great fresh hop flavor!" and you read the bottle and it talks of the variety and region of the hops used in the beer. Appreciation is back. Brewing your own beer makes other people's beer more interesting. Alright, I'll stop! Here are some pics of the process.

Steeping the brewers barley

Boiling the malt extract and barley tea. I am also sanitizing the copper wort chiller.

 The spent grains

 My wort chiller chillin. Tap water to ice bath to wort and to the drain. Worked ok, was not as fast as I was hoping... need larger coils I guess. It took about 40 minutes to get it from boiling to 80 degrees...

 Siphoning from the pot to the primary fermenter.

Overall the process is surprisingly easy and only took about 3 hours. It seemed so daunting and I have been putting it off because I was a bit intimidated... but of course there was no need! Should have started brewing sooner!

Beer!

I got an invite from one of the long time teachers at AISD to come over to help brew beer. I have tasted a couple of different batches of Leon's beer. They are interesting, full of flavor and rather un-homebrew like which is so refreshing after drinking mostly Hieneken since our arrival. He has a proven setup and brews 20 gallons at a time! When I arrived he already had the malt and hops boiling. Our job was to transfer from stove top pan to a pan on the floor and cool it as quickly as possible. The key is a heat exchanger. Boiling beer goes in one side and ice water in the other. What comes out is 21 degree C beer and warm water. Leon was a Chemistry major in college so he has a very ordered and clean way about his brewing: think efficient production line. He also has a distillery!!!!!! Fun Fun Fun. Here is a pic of the man in action.

Can't wait for our container to arrive so I can brew too!