Brews you can use

I passed on my usual Saturday bike ride today to indulge my older hobby — I brewed. And boy, did I brew. 15 gallons total, five gallons of a nice strong Belgian dubbel, 10 gallons (more like 8 after miscalculations) of dunkel-weizen.

I started at about 9:00am getting my kit together. First order of business was cleaning out the Therminator. I’d been doing the suggested backflush with hot water after every brew session, but hadn’t done much other cleaning. So, I made a nice strong hot PBW solution, and used an autosiphon to pump it through the chiller.

Boy, did that chiller need cleaning. What came out was green, full of chunks and … bleah. I’d chalked up the odd flavor I perceived in my last few batches to the usual brewers’ anxiety, but now I have another plausible explanation…. I think it’s clean now, but I may start looking at the whirlpool/immersion chiller approach again. That would have the advantage of being pellet-hop-friendly — the hop shortage has meant extremely limited availability of leaf hops.

In previous brew session, I’d spent a lot of time running back into the house for things, and wound up leaving large vessels of hot liquid over open flame unattended for longer than I’d like to. This time, I made a point of getting everything out and assembled ahead of time. That was enough equipment that on the second-to-last trip, I grabbed the camera:

From near to far:

• Buckets of crushed grains (top has Dunkel-Weizen, bottom has Dubbel; 16 pounds each)
• Coolers for mashing: top one is a dual mash/lauter tun, bottom is for mashing only.
• Random pots (on ground): big stockpot for moving and sometimes measuring liquids, the one with the handle is for moving mash around.
• On table: Medium-size pot (6 gallon) for moving liquids, mash paddle and thermometer, retired mash/lauter tun for storing/moving/measuring hot liquids.
• Sanitizing bucket (on ground). Siphon tubing, sanitizer, and squeaky-clean Therminator are inside bucket.
• Dual propane burner with 10 gallon pot for 5 gallon batches and converted 15 gallon keg for 10 gallon batches.
• Stack-o-fermeters

Yes, I did use every last bit of this equipment. Yes, the pots did wind up boiling over. Yes, it went quite well, somehow. No stuck mashes, no screw-ups (like not heating enough water), no snags at all. When I started chilling the last bits of wort, I could barely contain my happy dance. I mostly feel like a homebrewer again! (You can’t really feel like a homebrewer until you reach the “too much” beer phase and volunteer beer for parties, random passers-by, etc. — I won’t be there before today’s bounty is ready.)

I think I’m finally healed from those darned wisdom teeth, and the double case of dry socket they led to. Not the most fun couple weeks of my life, but now I’m able to yawn without yelping, and eat sesame seed bagels without needing a follow-up cleaning (though I admit the reactions of co-workers walking into the bathroom while I’m sticking a huge syringe in my mouth were quite amusing).

So, of course it was time for some more pain.

I got an opportunity to take the Humu on an off-road ride. Answering (against my better judgment) an ALL CAPS POST ON AN INTERWEB FORUM, I showed up at Theo Wirth park at 7am today. One other person showed up early, and we went for a ride on the short loop. I climbed up OK if slowly, then the first small drop went over a rock, followed by a sharp turn to the right. I caught air off the rock, but didn’t quite catch ground in time to make the turn. My front wheel hit a downed tree, the bike flipped, I did a three-quarter somersault, and landed on my back on the forest floor about 8 feet away. The other rider was far ahead of me, and I heard “Are you OK? I saw you flying through the air and got worried.”

Surprisingly, that crash didn’t lead to any injuries. I landed on my back with an upturned branch poking me, but it was a short one and doesn’t seem to have even left a bruise. It did give me a heavy injection of trepidation though, and I walked down quite a few sketchier descents. No, the road rash was from an anticlimactic wipeout. A rock caught my rear tire and pushed the bike out from under me. I hit the dirt. I bled, end of story. But oh, what a pretty picture it left on my shin. I especially like how the ordinary abrasions are embellished by that elegant, serpentine flourish of a laceration to the right…

Having a rather sedentary life and generally safe sedentary hobbies, it’s nice to get out, play in the dirt, and bleed a bit. Almost as nice as getting out and playing in the dirt, without bleeding

After that, I stayed careful and remained upright. A couple other riders showed up, and we moved over to the main loop. The others left me with the advice “don’t turn left” (that’s where the more difficult sections are), and I wandered around the “maze of twisty little trails, all alike” enjoying myself thoroughly for another hour. About when I was ready to leave, I ran into the rest of the group and got directions out of the trails, headed back to the car, and into work, getting there just in time for a lovely 9am conference call.

Yeah, I’ll probably give this mountain biking thing another go sometime, after I’ve healed a bit…

So, last Thursday the ol’ wisdom teeth started acting up and I finally went to have them out that Friday. I was put under, so “ow, needle!”…”I go sleep now”…”Mr. Mikkelson, you’re done, the recovery room is this way”. After a few minutes laying down, I thought “hey, this is only a few whiskeys level of drunkenness” and sat up and started walking around. One of the doctor’s assistants asked if I wanted to wait out front. I said “sure”, then my lip drooped from all the novocaine, and I felt a little dribble of blood come out. I knew how I would feel sitting in the waiting room next to a large woozy, blood-drooling guy with a mouth full of gauze, and thought better of it, and went back to lay down. Then Jess and the kids came and picked me up, got me some meds, I started on the painkillers, and all was good (if a bit unclear at times).

I thought I was recovering pretty quickly, and went back to work on Tuesday, complete with a couple gently-devoured bagels in the morning. Perhaps that was a bit premature. Today, I had a nice not-so-gently-devoured Gyro for a late lunch and wound up losing quite a bit of it in a hole that shouldn’t be there. Fsck. Dry socket?
So I’ve been worrying about that crap all day, instead of looking forward to a nice kid-free weekend with Jess.

At least the serious pain hasn’t set in. It’s mostly the fear of what may come if I can’t get back to the oral surgeon in time, and how much longer it’ll be until I can eat proper solid food without worry (there goes the idea of a nice dinner out ).

To distract myself from this, and keep me away from the painkillers for a little while longer, I did a little bit of bike stuff. I had bought a nice “just for fun” bike (a Kona Humuhumunukunukua’pua’a deluxe) I off craigslist last week, and dropped it off Monday at County Cycles for a little work (bar swap, chain tension, brake tuneup). We picked it up this morning, along with some new mountain-y tires for the Humu, and some less mountain-y tires and a rack for Jess’s mountain bike. So, I changed tires all this evening rather than freaking about dentistry (yipe!). It was good.

I’m pretty excited about the Humu. It’s a scaled up version of a beach cruiser, but with a very MTB-like frame and components. I swapped out the BMX-y riser bar for a more traditional riser, and the flame-patterned cruiser tires with similar-sized Continental Mountain Kings (earworm alert!). So, now it’s a respectable single speed mountain bike. After all the mountain bikes I’ve owned (ok, two) and turned into utilitarian commuters, I’ve told myself that this one will actually see some dirt sometime.

Or failing that, some snow, as a winter commuter. It’ll be good for that.

Now for some painkillers and the fitful, itchy sleep they bring…. Yay!

Tonight, we saw some of the first session of the Minnesota Fixed Gear Classic at the NSC Velodrome. What a blast! Kids permitting (it was a late night for all) we may catch some of tomorrow’s races, too, or maybe a Thursday night one sometime this summer. I could definitely see going to these semi-regularly, now that I know how darn cool it is we have a Velodrome

It was also a chance to see Roberto Chiappa in action. 42 mph, yikes!

These races were intended to re-invigorate track cycling in Minnesota. They definitely have a good start at doing that. A lot of the people I talked to or overheard in the audience were, like us, first-time attendees and enjoying what they see. It was even exciting enough to hold the kids’ interest for a few events, although they quickly decided to run their own running and “roll down the hill” races behind the bleachers.

It’s finally time to write off all the stuff I wanted to write about, so I can write something. Ahhh… that’s better.

More to come soon, hopefully. For now, just updates in the subject areas I cover here….

Brews

I guess I’m still a homebrewer, because I’ve actually brewed in the last couple months. It was a little 5 gallon batch of a steam beer. Other than that batch, I’m essentially out of beer.

[That "out of beer" is relative; I actually have quite a bit of beer, but only one "everyday" beer on tap. And a cider. And a very sour lambic. And some of the strong bottled beers I'm saving for a special occasion... It's actually quite a lot by my pre-brewing standards, but not enough to get me to bring beer unprompted to parties, family gatherings, AA meetings, and the like.]

Bikes

My first commuter bike (the Raleigh MTB) was stolen out of our garage a few weeks ago. That had me bummed out for a few days, but at least I still had the fixed gear Schwinn to ride. I actually found that more pleasant to ride when it wasn’t by choice. Since no part of my brain was saying “gee, I wish I could coast/shift/turn the pedals while stopped”, I was better able to enjoy the ride.

Shortly after the theft, Jess’s uncle bought a recumbent and offered me his old MTB. It fit me, so I took it. It’s a nice mid to late 90s Giant Yukon. The frame is basically a touring frame with clearance for huge tires, and with a few handlebar/stem upgrades it could be a nice comfy bike for road rides. Or, since it has horizontal dropouts, I could turn it into a single speed MTB. Choices.

The biggest detriment to bike commuting now is the new garage project. Shortly after the bike theft, we decided to move on the garage replacement we’d been talking about. With no garage to store bikes, I’ve been moving the bike in an out of the house. With our short entryways, getting the bike in and out of the house is enough of a hassle to make me grab the keys and take the vehicle that’s already outside. At least the garage should be finished soon, so that may no longer be an issue

I rode the Schwinn to work today. It was a much better and less physically taxing ride than the last commute. The repacking job might have done the trick! Of course, it may have something to do with the ~27 mile brisk group ride I did on Saturday with time to recover, or that the temperature was a pleasant 20s or 30s instead of single digits with -10°F wind chill, or some benefit of the fixed gear. Y’know, little details like that….

It was an interesting adventure… The fabled mystical connection between fixed-gear cyclist and bicycle hasn’t developed yet: for the first few miles, it was more like the bike would clear its throat pointedly and try to toss me in the air when I tried to coast. That only happened about five times, then my legs relaxed a bit more, and kept moving. Since they kept moving, they kept pushing a little bit, and I made very good time home, a roughly 12 mph average speed. I wasn’t too tired, although my legs were a little shaky after a half hour of near solid spinning.

I need to get fenders on this bike before I do that again. I hadn’t needed them before, but today’s ride was a mixture of slush, puddles, and puddles of slush with occasional patches of dry pavement (or ice, which at least has the decency to stay put on the road), a lot of which wound up in a nicely-defined brown line down the seat of my pants. Of course, I had taken my spare clothes from the office home a couple weeks ago, since I hadn’t been using them. I just tried not to walk away from too many people at the office. That worked OK, but fenders are more effective

Look who’s helping me watch the game:

cute, but makes it tough to go get beer and chips

That is all..

Well, I finally got around to repacking the hubs on the Schwinn. The wheels seem to rotate a bit smoother now, but only the next long-ish ride will tell if the hubs were a problem.

Or rather, it would if I didn’t go all MVT on this and start changing multiple things at once. When I went to reassemble the bike, I couldn’t resist putting on the fixed cog, so now it’s an overhauled fixed gear. I just had to take it for a quick test ride.

I only went around the block, but it was a bit of an adventure. I coasted for about 20 feet getting out of the alley, which isn’t a good thing if you don’t have a freewheel. The cog wasn’t secured, and unscrewed most of the way, but I spun it back on with the pedals, “floored it” and it seemed pretty secure from then on (once again 270 lbs. mashing on a pedal proves to be some serious mojo — use wisely ). It started feeling more or less natural about the time I pulled back up to the garage. I’ll need to give this ride another try sometime soon.

Well, it was heading up to 40 °F today, nice and warm. I dressed like it was summer, except with a long-sleeved shirt. And drove in to work. If anyone thought I might be crazy for biking in at -10 °F, riding the car at 30-ish should remove all doubt.

Somehow, biking just didn’t seem worthwhile. The ice-cold commute at least gets your daily “Damn, that was stupid!” moment out of the way early in the day. Pleasant weather? Working bike? Where’s the adventure in that?

I’ve once again disassembled the Schwinn. This time, to pay some attention to the two (four?) bearings I missed earlier, in the hubs. The axles weren’t spinning that smoothly, either. The rear hub grease had assumed the consistency of rubber cement, and the front had turned sandy and gray from worn metal. It needs new cones.

Once that’s done, I’ll finally know for sure whether it’s the bike or the rider who’s out of shape. I think I know the answer…

…

And as for that other hobby, this hop shortage can end any time now. I’m plotting my next brew: my brewery is set up to use leaf hops, and I can only find a couple varieties of those for sale anymore. Even my backup hop sources are completely out. If I retool my brewery for pellet hops (which gets interesting, since I need to keep too much of the pellet gunk from going through the chiller) I could get a few more varieties.

I almost never did the American ale styles. Now the hops available will essentially force me into that for the next few years of brewing.

This will be tough….

This is getting to be addictive — I’m not sure which I enjoy more: riding bikes or tinkering with them.

Yesterday evening, I “rode” a short hop over to Bill’s place for a wheel-hacking session on his new truing stand. I respaced and redished the wheel in a couple hours, and mostly trued the wheel while I was at it. For a first attempt, it turned out better than I expected^*, and was quite fun. The chainline’s about perfect now, and I’m itching for a real ride to see if it makes a difference.

I chickened out for three reasons today:

1. The horizontal steam/smoke from the neighbors’ flues. Cold? Not a problem. Wind? Problem.
2. The number of ice patches on the (very short) way home made the two blocks thrilling enough, 6 miles of that would have been hell, and required a trials-caliber sense of balance.
3. A severely bent rear axle that had somehow gone unnoticed. I had probably been riding on it for a while, but … <shudder> I wasn’t comfortable riding that. I was surprised it turned smoothly at all. I’m pretty hard on bikes, I guess :-/

On my lunch break today, I headed down to Varsity for a replacement axle, and picked up a fixed cog while I was at it. I just finished replacing the axle, and am waiting for a good time to do the fixed switch. I’m not sure winter is it, although I was tempted to bring the conversion “kit” (freewheel remover, giant crescent wrench, and cog) into the new luggage, bring it to work, do the switch there, and ride home fixed.

^* Of course, what I expected was to trip some odd pattern of stresses in the >30 year old wheel and taco it on the stand. And yet I proceeded