Author: David

Well, sorta George Washinton’s molasses small beer. Adapted from Making Homemade Wine and Beer’s recipe.

Make a mini-microbrewery and brew George Washington’s Molasses “Small Beer”

I have a Mr Beer mini-brewery keg that I like. It works pretty well with or without the ingredient kits. If not using a kit sized for it, simple arithmetic allows conversion of recipes for larger batch mini-brew setups (typically sized for 5 gallon carboys or plastic buckets).

But, when I had a brew started in my commercially made rig and wanted to try making a molasses “small beer” recipe (mostly based on one George Washington used), I just didn’t want to wait another week to get it started, so…

I made another “keg” of about the same size using:

1 plastic “kitty litter” bucket. (three cats; you do the math on how many of these things I have laying around…)
1 plastic water spigot–the kind you would avoid putting in outside for your water hoses/sprinklers, whatever (because it’s cheezy and easily broken) but which is better than brass for a brew setup.
1-male/female threaded coupler to fit the spigot–and a rubber “hose washer”
1-male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler
1-male threaded/female Unthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler
2-1.5″ sections of 1/2″ PVC pipe
1-1/2″ PVC “trap”

(The last four pieces are used in constructing the airlock for the keg/bucket fernemnter.)

I cleaned the kitty litter bucket very, very well with dish soap and water, then rinsed it and filled it with clean water with 1/2 cup chlorine bleach (yes, I soaked the lid in the bleach water for a few minutes before putting it on the bucket). I let that soak over night.

Traced the size of the water spigot end and the male/female threaded couplers in their respective places—the spigot about 1″ above the bottom edge of the bucket and the male end of the coupler (to the airlock) traced in the center of the snap-on lid to the
bucket.

Placed all the plumbing parts in the bleach water to soak.

When the bucket and parts had soaked overnight, I discarded most of the bleach water (reserving about a gallon for cleanup after finishing construction), rinsed them and laid everything out on clean paper towels.

Next, using a razor knife, I cut the holed on the inside of the traced lines and threaded the male threaded/female UNthreaded 1/2″ PVC pipe coupler coupler for the airlock into the hole on the lid and secured it with the male/female threaded 1/2″ PVC coupler on the inside of the lid.

Then, I threaded the hose washer onto the water spigot and the water spigot into the hole 1″ above the bottom of the bucket. I then secured that with the pipe coupler that fit its threaded piece.

Next, I rinsed the rest of the plumbing pieces yet again in bleach water, then clean water and assembled the airlock as per the graphic.

I then filled the bucket with the remaining bleach water, topped it off, shook the water around and then drained all that would drain through the spigot, dumping the rest from the top. Followed that with a thorough rinsing with plain water. Placed the top back on.

Here’s a pic of the final product:

It’s easier to just show it than to describe the process. *heh*

(Since the pic above–and a batch of the brew below–I have made the airlock more airtight by the addition of some white Gorilla Glueâ„¢ between the top on top) and the exterior fitting, as well as a rubber washer inside.)

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Now, George Washington’s Molasses “Small Beer” as adapted for this setup:

Makes about 3 gallons

• – 20 ounces of molasses (that’s 2.5 cups)
• – two ounces of mild hops (or make it like George did, without the hops!)
• – one ounce cream of tartar
• – zest from one lemon
• – 1/2 teaspoon ale yeast (you can make a “starter” from some yeast saved from the dregs of some bottle carbonated beers, or saved from the trub of a previous brew OR even use bakers’ yeast in a pinch. Won’t taste quite right, but it will work… sorta. I’m told. :-))
• – 1/2 teaspoon ginger (presumably ground)
• – 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

SANITIZE all utensils and equipment using a dilute bleach solution. Rinse well with clean water (bleach kills yeast, so do rinse well!).

Bring about a 1-1.5 gallons of water to a boil, add the molasses, hops and lemon peel and boil the mix for an hour.

Add the cream of tartar, ginger and ground cloves for the last 15 minutes of the boil.

Meanwhile, start your yeast in a cup or so of warm (NOT HOT!! UP TO 100F) water and maybe a teaspoon of molasses or cane sugar. Just about body temperature or a little less will be a good temp.

Strain the boiled mix (the wort) into the brew bucket (fermenter). Well, actually, those are copied from the recipe I adapted this from. I let all the fixin’s go into the fermenter. We’ll see how that goes. Strained it when bottling, but just the last little bit to avoid too much trub entering the bottles.

Add clean water (good, not too heavily chlorinated tap water or bottled “spring water”–NOT distilled!) to cool the wort to about 70 F and bring the water level up to about 3 gallons. Then check your yeast starter for signs of life and then GENTLY stir in the yeast, using a sanitized plastic spoon.

Place just enough clean water in the airlock to form… an airlock, of course. 🙂

Let the brew “cook” away in a location that stays about 70 F for at least a week or until the airlock doesn’t bubble at all. (You probably should check the airlock for water level daily. Mine stopped showing signs of fermentation after THREE DAYS!)

When bottling, prime by saving some of the wort (about a quart) and re-mixing with the fermented brew when it is bottled OR add about a teaspoon of cane sugar for each 16 ounce bottle (about 3/4 teaspoonful for a 12-ounce bottle). Add the sugar to the bottle, then gently pour the fermented brew into the bottle–down the blttles’ necks to avoid any unecessary aeration–to about an inch below the top of the bottle andcap it. Gently swirl the sugar/brew mix until the sugar’s dissolved. DO NOT SHAKE VIGOROUSLY. You do not want to aerate the beer at this point. Trust me.

Bottle condition the beer for at least one week in a dark place with a constant temperature of about 70F. (Well, after writing this, I

For a more traditional “beer” flavor, you can try varying this recipe a bit. Here’s one variation that doesn’t even require a trip to a brew shop for most folks–just a trip to your pantry.

• 1C Malt-o-Meal cereal (I separated the cup into four batches and placed the 1/4C portions in coffee filters tied off with zip ties)
• 1C pearled barley

Boil the Malt-o-Meal and pearled barley in the 1.5 gallons of water for an hour and then strain them out (you can combine the stuff and eat it for a hot ceral right away, if you want *heh*), then add the other ingredients and boil for another hour. Sure, it adds an hour to the
prep and Malt-o-Meal and pearled barley aren’t the same as malted barley/wheat you can mash for “real” beer, but it does add back in some of the flavor/texture of those traditional beer ingredients. Or at least I think so. 🙂

[Update: gave the molasses beer in the Grolsch swingtop bottles more time to bottle condition. Much better head and flavor; the additional carbonation and time for flavor conditioning was a Very Good Thing. Taste much improved. Note to self: drink more Grolsch (for the bottles, of course *heh*). Definitely will give a bit more bottle conditioning to the next batch. ]

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Just saw a commercial for a Honda fuel cell-powered electric car. Big selling point? Supposedly its only exhaust is water vapor.

Of course, that ellides over the production of the hydrogen for the fuel cell (what are the power needs to accomplish that) or the rest of the process.

And, of course, water vapor is the most prevalent greenhouse gas already and currently accounts for around 66% of the greenhouse gas warming effect…

*heh*

(But then, without the greenhouse effect, we’d all be living on a ball of ice.)

Catch phrases and cute invocations of global alarmist memes: Madison Avenue “science” for the mass man.

This week will feature even lighter blogging at twc than most in recent times. Family, scurrying about doing “holiday” stuff, etc., on top of a normal schedule. So, if you will, please provide me (and those who drop by) with a reading list of your posts. Thanks.

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It’s not just American politicians *spit*, Academia Nut Fruitcakes, Sub-moral Religionist “Leaders” and their ilk who are destroying the concept of charity with handouts. I confess to participating in the less-than-charitable “feed to poor/end world hunger” scam, myself.

Go ahead. While I stopped at “donating” 700 grains of rice “through the United Nations to end world hunger” via the freerice.com page (because the method was so dreadfully boring as much as any other reason), I know that in good conscience I ought to have stopped sooner.

1. “United Nations”–that alone should assure that any donated rice is diverted to line the pockets of bureaucrats and petty dictators and politicians, oh my!
2. Feed a man for a day, starve a society for a lifetime.

Think that second is too harsh? Well, perhaps. But feeding people consistently (consistently subsistence food, that is) and insuring that they are dependant upon the providers of that food (primarily, it seems, to insure the continuance of the “charity”) while specifically NOT providing them with the means as well as motivation to provide for themselves can be the cruelest tyranny of all.

For a contrarian commentary on Western “charity” read Kim du Toit’s Let Africa Sink. Read it again. And again.

End world hunger? By donating food through the U.N.?!?!? Not going to happen.

Little sidebar: I once proposed a mentoring program for a homeless shelter/food bank to mentor steady “customers” of that “charity business” that provided food and shelter to perpetual indigents and folks already on welfare and food stamps, etc, and employment primarily to people who… were steady customers of the homeless shelter/food bank and to some libtards who had no other marketable skills. Not a welcome proposal. What?!? Actually give the few who really wanted genuine help a leg up on finding and keeping jobs that would remove them as “customers” of the “charity” and–potentially–deprive the “charity” of its reason for existing?!?!? A completely mad idea!

But, if you want to play a vocabulary game for a while and finess yourself into believing–for a short while at least–that you actually are helping to “end world hunger” then go ahead and play the “Guess this word, donate 10 grains of rice” game. I played long enough to feed a third world family for a day or so. Provided they actually got the rice. And had the means to cook it. And clean water to cook it in. And…

But they’ll still not have the (physical or more importantly cultural means to grow their own. And that is the point of the whole “end world hunger by giving a man a fish for a day” scam.

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Trackposted to Leaning Straight Up, Cao’s Blog, The Bullwinkle Blog, The Populist, Adeline and Hazel, Right Voices, and Gone Hollywood, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

Here’s a slightly redacted re-run from a third world county post from August ’05 that I was reminded of as the result of a recent email exchange. From simply remarking on my then non-existant comment policy, I rabbit trailed off into the ether… or did I?

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[When commenting] …try to either make sense or be completely (and humorously) nonsensical when you do. I don’t have a formal comment policy. [Well, I do now–see the left sidebar.] I don’t care one single solitary bit what “kind” of language you use. But anything that presents itself as a serious comment but is riddled with fallacies (_1_, _2_, _3_) will be subject to mocking deconstruction (if I have time and feel like expending the effort), deleted as too assinine for public exposure or left as the commenter’s own self-parody—the deciding factor: my personal whim.

Many people exercise common sense when formulating their comments. I can appreciate that. Some exercise their sense of humor, and I can appreciate that, usually no matter how weird their sense of humor* may be. Others, and they are few indeed, actually learned in school or elsewhere how to make clear, reasoned arguments. Rare, and greatly appreciated. People I stand to learn much from.

But some just have no business even having an opinion, because they are both too ill-informed and are idiots (usually, as I have said elsewhere, self-made idiots), unable to recognize the value (or even the existence) of arguments from facts or reason, taking their preconceptual biases as fact and building a “reality-based” fantasyland of idiotarian unreason on that shaky foundation.

Here’s a scary thought: Exposure to such could almost move one to accept Margaret Sanger’s arguments for eugenics. As Oliver Wendell Holmes once said, “Three generations of imbeciles is enough.” In light of the current trend among liberalists [and most so-called “conservative” presidential candidates *sigh*], Holmes’ comment begins to have a certain appeal…

But, no. Better to remove much of the shielding preventing a Darwinist microevolution of the race… Get the “gummint” outa the cradle-to-grave protection racket. Starve the academicians. Feed the (NON-POLITICAL) scientists. Make artists—all of ‘em—either live or die in the marketplace (no more NEA subsidies). Castrate lawyers making their living off liability suits. No, really: castrate. A lower testosterone level will help. Let folks take responsibility for their own stupidities. Remove the heads of politicians who come up with “great society” ideas that ruin families, destroy communities and enhance their own political power. Yes, their heads. They’ve not been using them for any good anyway.

It’s a big job, but these small steps toward re-introducing the idea of personal responsibility [would be a good start]. And that would put paid to the Frank Roaches, Dan Blathers, Nancy Pelosis, Teddy Kennedys, Jean Fraud sKerrys and all their ilk.

That it would eliminate many on the quasi-faux-conservative side of the coin as well would be a nice lil side benefit.

*Do note: humor is not always funny. Some of the most humorous of pieces can be dark, broody, macabre.

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Killing two birds and alla that…

Nancy, who blogs at Soliloquy, tagged me in this meme. And in accordance with The Rules, here are…The Rules:

• When tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you.
• Then post the rules before your list, and list eight random things about yourself.
• At the end of the post, you must tag and link to eight other people.

Oh, and it’s not in the rules but I think dropping by the tagees’ sites to leave a drive-by comment letting ’em know they’ve been tagged (as Nancy did here) would be more than halfway smart, eh?

So, recognizing that truly random thoughts or circumstances are beyond my power to generate, I’ll play along anyway.

Rule#1: done. (I ought to link to Nancy more often anyway. She does good blog. ;-))

Here’s #2:

1.) Hot n cold, cold n hot: when will Fall make up its mind, eh? I have plants going crazy outside, and I’m not far from the mark myself some days… (OK, some of y’all probably thought, “Not far from the mark?!? He’s already jumped the gun!” *heh*)

2.) Is there something special about digital cameras and rechargeable batteies or is it just me? Freshly recharged batteries are juuuust fine, until that “Can’t miss this one!” shot comes around…

3.) I never thought I’d burn more CDs/DVDs than the boxes and boxes (and boxes and boxes… ) of floppies (and vidtapes) I have laying around. That ship sailed a loooong time ago, though. Now I need a dedicated system just to keep track of the things, I think.

4.) Why is it that the bolt placement of that ONE troublesome hidden fastener isn’t covered in any of the manuals on the ONE car that needs service the most, any more than the “proper tool” (as in “remove [obscure widget] with the proper tool”) is identified in those same manuals?

5.) There are days when The World’s Largest Cup of Coffee just isn’t big enough…

6.) There is no day that cannot be made measureably better by either coffee or beer. Or ice cream. Or maybe coffee beer ice cream. (I really need to make me some-a that stuff!)

7.) I have now officially started too many “spare time projects”. Something has to give. I think I’ll just take a nap.

8.) After my nap, maybe I could just relax and build another computer, ya think?

[See below my list of taggees for five bonus pseudo-random things]

#3: Tagees:

1. Kat, of Cathouse Chat
2. Angel of Woman Honor Thyself
3. Perri Nelson of, urm, Perri Nelson’s Website
4. The Random Yak
5. Diane at The Trouble With Angels (provided the chiropracty goes well–pulling for you Diane!)
6. Richard at Random Rambling (assuming your schedule will allow you more time for blogging, bub. :-))
7. Rosemary, of the eponymous Rosemary’s Thoughts
8. Layla of The Hill Chronicles

With a group like this, the “random” responses could be all over the map–everything from political views to punny posts to MUD*-slinging and things even further out.

Surprise me.

*No, not that. “Multi-User-Domain gunslinging gaming”

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And now to add five more semi-pseudo-random things to the eight for Thursday Thirteen (because I already have eight things and I’m too lazy to round up thirteen computers or thirteen different beers or whatever and take a picture or make another entirely different list for a post that’ll come out the same day :-)):

9.) I love to drive. It’s just the idiots on the highways that I don’t much care for.
10.) Have I mentioned my batch of “kitty litter beer” I have brewing? Well, that’s cos I’m the only one I’ll allow to call it that, and I don’t want to encourage y’all to start in on it. Oops. Guess the kitty’s outa the bag, now, though.
11.) If it’s not one thing it’s another. I’ve had the starting system on my Wonder Woman’s car torn down, tested and now reassembled. Wasn’t until I moved a whole buncha junk in reassembling (rationalizing the layout a bit) that I finally found a (semi-sorta-mostly) hidden fusable link that I’ll replace tomorrow. Isn’t that the way it goes? Not only was it not in ANY of the places the manuals (yes, plural) said it was, but it definitely doesn’t even look OEM… but it’s definitely keeping the car from starting. Cars. Gotta love have ’em.
12.) I need to move my network closet so I can put a mini beer fridge right next to my office. It’s definitely do-able.
13.) I keep reaching for the phone, but it’s just my ears ringing. Tells me it’s past time I headed for bed.

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TB-posted at the Thursday Thirteen Hub

I’ve just recently begun brewing my own beers. No, I’ve not yet reached the point of cracking open a swingtop bottle of one of my own brews, but I do have two very different beers brewing now, and for my Wonder Woman, I’ve already brewed a gallon of completely non-alcoholic root beer that blows away ANY commercial root beer I’ve ever tasted.

All that to say that my interest in learing how to brew my own beverages–alcholic and non-alcoholic both–has brought me into contact with some interesting folks. Following a link at Strange Brew (where I picked up a modified recipe for George Washington’s Molasses Small Beer, which I further modified based on reading other molasses beer recipes and the equipment I had on hand *heh*), I found this gem that reminded me why “all politics is local” and why I take those things which politicians *spit* at the national level do that affect me very, very personally:

Some version of “caring about the health of the consumer” surely appears in the mission statements of all the major food corporations, including the most egregious violators of the public trust. In other words, it is hard to genuinely care about someone you don’t even know. Compassion in the abstract is almost always a self-deception. Much more reliable is the goodwill and mutual sense of responsibility that exists among neighbors who are bound together into a community, their good intentions enforced by social pressure and the intimacy of long association. [emphasis added–ed]

When the political elite take steps attempting to make outlaws “okey-dokey” via mass amnesties; when the political elite treats the tax dollars they extort from me as their personal funds; when the political elite pass laws that curtail my freedoms and powers as a citizen, I take it very personally. Because it’s not just some guy in Akron, Ohio that’s affected, it has direct and indirect impact on my life, the lives of my family and friends.

So pardon me just a little when I become outraged the next time a politician takes some of the money extorted from me, my family, my neighbors and friends (as an example) and hands it to someone else instead of handing it back to the people it was stolen from, with a heartfelt apology for the theft.

[Note: Yes, I know the quoted material addresses only commercial vs. home produced “artisan” foods, but the priciple (“it is hard to genuinely care about someone you don’t even know”–or events that do not impact someone you know) does dovetail with my assertion that politics is only genuinely significant at the personal level.]

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Jerry Pournelle comments on how democracies fail:

If anyone wants to know how democracies fail, look at our energy policy, or lack thereof. We have invested a trillion dollars in a war to stabilize oil supplies — does anyone sane or insane suppose that we would have put the entire might of the empire into Iraq if it weren’t for Middle East oil? — when a fraction of that invested domestically would have given us energy independence. I said all this back before the invasion when the costs were thought to be about $300 billion. Three hundred billion is a lot of money, and that much invested in nuclear power, developing domestic oil resources, and sponsoring X-Projects on efficient transportation using electricity would have given the US energy independence; and if $300 billion wouldn’t do it, the $1,000,000,000,000 — one trillion dollars — the war actually cost certainly would have. We’d also have Solar Power Satellites and a Moon Colony (you build the Lunar Colony on weekends and third shifts while constructing Solar Power Satellites)…

…If that isn’t depressing enough, think about what’s happening with the Great Global Warming Scam. We can’t just establish a Technocracy. Science generates bureaucracies, and Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy governs there too. The bureaucrats will always run the show, and the scientists and technologists will be subordinate to them. The Great Global Warming Scam coupled with the Great Ethanol Scam to make some people (think ADL) very, very rich. It also enriches those who sell carbon offsets.

Read more at the link.

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So, I wanted to d/l and burn a copy of the newest Ubuntu, 7,10 “Gutsy Gibbon” but only had an old Win2K (with, it must be noted, the best and fastest DVD-RW/CD-RW drive and a respectable–for Win2K–512 MB memory, etc.) comp and another old comp running Puppy Linux booted. Wht to do?

Let’s see, use the comp with the fastest CDRW speed, plenty of physical memory and a relatively capable CD writing software or…

Use the comp with less memory and whatever came with the Puppy Linux CD.

Keep in mind, the only apps “installed” on the Puppy Linux box are those that came bundled with the less than 100MB FULL version of Puppy (oh, and Opera, which I added), and all the apps I run in a Puppy session–INCLUDING the OS are all loaded into memory/swap file off a CD on booting, so the built-in CD writing software is necessarily a teensy lil program,

I went with d/l-ing the latest Ybuntu distro and then burning the ISO file on the Puppy box. The builtin app–ingeniously named, cdrecord–just automagically recognizes the format of whatever one is burning (in this case, an ISO file) and burns it in the proper manner. Have to jump through twice as many (at least) hoops using the Win2K machine.

Simple, fast, easy-peasy. Just a joy to work with.

And after I reboot and do a fresh install of Ubuntu “Gutsy Gibbon” on that machine? No problem. Just save the pup.sys file to USB key and when I next want to boot Puppy on that machine, I can have all of my customization on that USB key.

As I said, what’s not to like?

🙂

Now, if only I could get Encore (music transcription software) to run under WINE on one of these Linux installs…