Category: Just Stuff

Posted on

Another Thing I Just Don’t Get

One of the few TV shows I really enjoy features a gal who helps folks deal with their problem dogs. Recently, I saw her deal with some serious problem owners who had let their dogs become grossly obese.

I just don’t get it. Overeating, under-exercised dogs? Who’s in charge? Our son’s “big boy” started gaining more weight than he ought to carry. Investigated. He was stealing the other dog’s food. Now, we simply supervise them at meal time. Big boy still wants more than we feed him, but all he gets is what we give him. So, for the past several years, both boys have been trim and fit. They pretty well take care of ther activity part, chasing squirrels, groundhogs, etc., out of the yard, running around barking at passers-by (yeh, they’re very “terrortorial” and I like that about them–a lot. Better than an alarm).

Still, taking one or the other out for a walk is a good way for me to get off my lazy butt. *heh*

But, fat dogs? I just don’t get it. Lazy, stupid owners are just about the only reason for fat dogs.

Coda: “taking one or the other out for a walk”–not both. One medium sized male dog, another large male dog (who really should be pulling a cart)? Walked at same time by me? Sure, they’re well-behaved. Sure, I could do it, but why? It’d mean one dog on each side, both hands occupied (I’d never walk two such dogs off one hand–just not smart). Nuh-uh. Not gonna happen. I’ll do it once a year taking ’em to the vet, but aside from that? Nope.

Posted on

Just for Fun: pico-brewing

I bottle condition the beers I make using a small shot of sugar and/or (sometimes) some of the trub, cos that’s the only way I really have of ensuring a good carbonation in the final product. OK, it also helps the flavors mature just a tad, as well. But since I add a tad of sugar to each bottle for the conditioning process, it does mean I have a lil sediment in every bottle–some more, some less.

So, as a lil experiment, I’ve been saving the sediment in one (clean) bottle and now I’m making a “one boittle pico-brew” out of it. *heh*

Added about a tablespoon of molasses and warm water, shook. Roasted some pearled barley (cos it’s what I had) and ground it up really fine; added a little Malt-O-Meal to that and ground it up some more; funneled about a tablespoon of that into the bottle, filled it with warm water, gently rolled it around a bit to get that mixed well, then placed the lid of the swingtop bottle loosely on top. Placed the bottle in my conditioning drawer. Last I looked, the top was acting as a kinda one-way airlock letting carbon dioxide out, but seemed to settle back on down after each lil mini-burp. Nice floculant on top & I can see it actually brewing.

It may be a tad high in sugar content, what with the molasses and malted grains, but… oh, well. 🙂

We’ll see how this turns out. Even though I used some trub-heavy sediment from the bottles, I don’t expect much in the way of hopsiness, and it’ll be REAL heavy on sediment (trub, in this case)… which I’ll save when I decant it into another bottle for further conditioning.

Heck. I just thought: shoulda added some coffee to it. *heh* Maybe next time, if this turns out at all well…

*heh*

Yeh, weird. And just for fun. Not going to count as one of my “real” brewing experiments, but might just turn out semi-drinkable anyway.

And the trub? Gonna make some bread. In fact, I have some I saved and dried just for that purpose. Think maybe I’ll make some “beer bread” tonight.

BTW, you know the oldest known beer recipe used bread to make the beer. In fact, it seems from the context of the Sumerian text that’s been translated that beer was thought of as something like liquid bread (as it appears some Medieval monastic orders also thought).