So I cleaned the bottles in preparation for the Honey Oatmeal Stout (HOS) yesterday.
I know, overly exciting. The HOS isn’t going to be bottled until the 24th when Dave is going to come down and help me, but I figured I’d get the “dirty” work out of the way so when he does come down it will move quicker and be more enjoyable. Originally he was going to come down on the 23rd, but that is the date of this years War of the Worts. So most likely I will be busy judging at the competition. I tried to give a heads up to the First State Brewers group about the competition as early as possible since the excuse often is ‘if I had only know’ to see how much we could all represent DE, but I guess I was being “snarky” and have thus decided to keep my mouth shut instead. Also there is the Cure For What Ales You homebrew showcase / competition coming up in April which had it’s deadline for entry today. I signed up for that too, but with an open-ended I-don’t-know-what-beer-I’m-bringing type clause. Nothing special, but with a sour taste left in my mouth.
So today a got a small shipment in from Northern Brewer of mostly small things I needed / wanted.
One of the things I received were the pieces to attach a Bazooka screen to the inside of my kettle. The theory being that adding the screen will be a safe way to filter my wort from the kettle to the carboy thus producing brighter beer. I know these thing work well for mash tuns because that is what I use, and I’ve heard they work well with whole hops which is cool that I can now use them more easily, but I’ve heard mixed reviews about them working with pellet hops which is what I use. I know it is asking for a big stuck mess, but I am hoping instead it is one of those ‘why didn’t I do this sooner’ moments. We’ll have to wait until the next batch.
One thought I had if it does begin to clog is the next time to wrap the screen with a stainless steel scrubby and double filter the wort. I think the scrubby has a lot less chance to get clog, especially now after using it twice (held in place with a spoon) to try and help filter my wort. I guess we’ll see.
It was Sunday February 3, 2008 this year and Robert and I went down once again. This was our third consecutive year and probably the best year weather and donations wise. We raised over $300 between the two of us without really going out of our way much. The weather was 52F at plunge time with a water temperature of 42F. Once again there was a record number of plungers this year and people in attendance. I haven’t seen the totals for total contributions this year, but I but it set a new record too.
In the picture above you can see my lovely “swimming cap”. The only thing I dislike about the plunge is the fact that I’m underwater less than five seconds and I have to deal with a cold wet head for the rest of the day. I briefly (and mostly jokingly) wore this lovely homemade swim cap as a thought on how to stay dry. And yes, that is a plastic bag with a drum stick holding it together. Yes, Robert had a set of drum sticks in his bag, actually it was more like purse with all the random crap he had in there.
After the plunge we hit up Dogfish Head once again where we both enjoyed a couple beers including a Fort, now that’ll warm you up! DFH also gave us a pint glass each, and assumingly to any other plungers that came after the plunge and spent at least $10 on food. Since they did not advertise this it was a nice treat. I also walked away from DFH with a new dope hoodie sweatshirt. It is brown with an off-centered DFH logo embroidered on the left chest with green hops silk screened over that, it’s fresh. Thanks Dave & Jody for the gift card for my birthday, that was a great treat.
Last night I saw moe. at the Electric Factory in Philadelphia, PA to a very sold out (over-sold) crowd.
moe. had this great idea, they released a new album of all “previously not played” songs on an album right before their tour. To some people this may be a “duh” kind of statement, but this is the jam-band community we’re talking about. In the jam-band community most artists appear to tour for touring sake regardless of when their albums are released. And since most artist are on the road so much new songs are constantly being tested, to the point of when you typically buy a new album you’ll already know the majority of the songs you’ll just want to hear the studio version. So for them to release a 10 song CD with of all new material and tour behind it becomes a new approach to things. This album is called “Sticks and Stones” and was produced by John Siket ala Phish’s “The Siket Disc”.
One of the promotions moe. had with this disc/tour was if you pre-ordered the CD in a certain two week span from their website they would include a pass (see above) to come up on stage during the encore as a guest singer to help sing the chorus of one of their new song “Raise a Glass”. What a great idea! Of course I ordered two CDs to get two passes so that whoever came to the show with me could come up on stage too. I gave the other CD and pass to Craig for his birthday since I new he was going up to the show too. The promotion was a great idea, period. Now the execution, well, let’s just say it was disappointing.
I arrived at the show and checked in at the merchandise table per the instructions that came with the pass. The guy tells me ‘sorry, but they don’t have anymore slots to fill, only the first 25 people get to go up.’ What!? They never said anything anywhere about only the first 25 people thing. Shit, if I would have known that I would have stood in line to get in when the doors opened instead of sitting out in my car drinking homebrew, beat. And just to rub salt in the wound, at the merch table they were selling the CD of course, well the CD was the same price as the pre-order CD and was autographed by the entire band. What!? So not only did I pay more for my CD (with shipping), not only did I get pissed on about going up on stage (think about it, how awesome would that have been to do that with one of your favorite bands), but I also got denied have my CD autographed … whatever.
After I got the yucky taste out of my mouth I thoroughly enjoyed the music. Even though Craig was there I went up by myself, so since I was solo I decided to stay on the floor and see how close I could get since it was a GA show. I got about three rows from the front between Rob and Al. It was jam packed in there and hot as hell, they don’t call it the Sweat Factory for nothing. By the time the band had reached maybe there third song and the audience shifted I wound up staying put more like at the eighth row back which was a little better actually. The music sounded great to me, but the idiotic people around me were driving me nuts; under-age, drunk, talking, and all up in your business – not cool. The encore thing with people up on stage went over like a freakin’ stone balloon, I’m glad it was suck a short song. I still would have liked to have done it, but it looked awkward for the band and the fans on stage.
Setlist: Set 1: head. > Darkness > St. Augustine > Good Trip > Spaz Medicine, The Pit > head.
Set 2: Jazzwank > Timmy Tucker > Can’t Seem To Find, Deep This Time > Gone, September > Buster, E: Raise A Glass, Faker > Timmy Tucker
