Chicken Fried Brain




Sometimes I wonder if I'm cut out for this job. It's only Thursday, my brain is fried, and all I want to do is go home and do something that involves sensory deprivation.

OK OK OK..I'll join Yelp...Jeesh!



http://leeeeeeon.yelp.com

too much coffee!



So much coffee, I can't really concentrate on what I'm supposed to be doing here at work.

Just thought I'd give a beer update:

I bottled Sunday.
Close to 7% baby!
Tasted a sample that I used to measure the gravity.
Even though it's super early on, the beer was super delish (somewhere between a lighter Chimay and Sam Smith "Tadcaster" ale).
I plan on starting a second batch this weekend (same recipe, except maybe add some coriander)! I'm also going to try two stage fermentation this time (for a less "hazy" beer)

Ok.. back to worky.

Oh SNAP!

Hi there food fans,

Glad you decided to wander by
the shiny new altonbrown.com.
We’re working day and night to make
this humble clutch of pages a place you’ll want to come back to time and time again … not so much so that it interferes with your daily life, but often. Pretty soon there will be a darned clever podcast, video, all sorts of goodies for the eyes and brain alike.

May the food be with you, AB

Beard Brau



So once again I have been struck with another brilliant idea (happens to me all the time).

K. So I started growing a beard around the time I started making my current batch of brew. Instead of having to ask me when it's done, I'll just grow my beard until it's done.

"When you see a squeaky clean and smooth Leeeeeeon, you know it's Beard Brau time!"

Too busy to post today



In the meantime, here is a picture of h.to-the-eylove.

The homebrew update



So, as usuall, my beer making yesterday didn't go as smooth as I tried so hard to make it. No matter how hard I plan ahead, something always goes wrong, but the beer seems to turn out ok.

Disaster strikes:

Grains didn't all make it into the grain bag, so I had to filter the grains out of the pot after letting them steep directly in the water. I got rid of the grains by pouring the mixture through a mesh filter into one of the fermentation buckets and back to the pot.

Forgot to add the Irish moss! It's put in there to clarify the beer, so it'll just look a little cloudy and give you a headache (maybe).

Didn't cool the wort quick enough (to prevent contamination). Cooled the wort itself pretty fast, but when I combined it with the other water, the temperature rose to 120F (and I was out of ice water), and you have to let it cool 80-75F before you can pitch the yeast. I'm going to make my own wort chiller for the next batch so this never happens again.

Pitched the yeast at 80 degrees, then read the bottle, which says to pitch it at 70. Hope I didn't kill the little guys.

When filling the airlock (supposed to use vodka, but I only had gin) I accidentally spilled a couple drops of gin into the beer.

Bottoms up!

*fingers crossed*

Beer Making

As you all know, I enjoy making beer now and then. Well, after watching the episode of Good Eats on homebrewing last weekend, I caught the beer making bug once again.

I find most books and other sources of beer making instructions are hard to follow if you are a newbie to the process. I still feel shaky on some parts myself, so what I did for this batch is read all the material on the beer making process from different sources and came up with my own set of "leeeeeeon friendly" instructions.

I'm sure I'll still confuse the hell out of myself and all my readers still, but what's new?

Belgian Gold (variant)

Ingredients:

• 1 lb American crystal 40L
• 5.5 lb (extra) light dry malt extract (original recipe called for regular “light” dry malt extract, but the brew supply store was out.) Hope it tastes ok!
• 2 lb Honey
• 1 tsp Irish moss
• ½ tsp gypsum
• Hops
• 1 oz Styrian Goldings
• ½ oz Kent Goldings
• ½ oz Kent Goldings
• Yeast - White Labs(Belgian Trappist) WLP#500

To make:

The Boil

1. Boil 2 gallons of water for 15 minutes, set aside
2. bring 3 ½ gallons of water to 155 degrees
3. Steep grains at 150 degrees (30 minutes)
4. drain and remove grain bag
5. bring water back to a boil with lid on ½ way
6. turn off heat
7. stir in Malt extract, honey
8. bring back to a boil for 5 minutes
9. add gypsum
10. add in Styrian Goldings
11. boil for 45 minutes
12. add ½ oz Kent Goldings
13. add 1 tsp Irish moss
14. boil for 12 minutes
15. add ½ oz Kent Goldings
16. boil for 3 minutes
17. get sample and measure gravity at 85 degrees then discard

Note: At steps 3-4, grains can be set aside to steep for 30 minutes while steps 5-11 are performed in a separate pot (in that first 2 gallons of water). At 30 minutes the "grain tea" can be re-introduced back into wort (or added into the fermentor at same time as wort?..still neet to get some clarification on this)

The Cold Break

1. Cool wort as quickly as possible (using wort chiller or by placing pot in sink full of ice) to 75-80 degrees
2. add wort to fermentor through strainer
3. add yeast
4. place lid on fermentor
5. place air lock on lid

Wait 7-10 days

After 7 days, measure the time between bubbles on the air lock,

If the bubbles are more than 1 minute apart, it’s time to bottle!

Get sample and measure gravity

Bottling

1. boil ¾ cups of priming sugar with 2 cups of water for 10 minutes
2. add mixture to bottling vessel
3. siphon beer from fermentor to bottling vessel
4. Fill bottles then cap
5. Allow bottles to condition at room temperature for 7-10 days (recipe calls for 1.5 months!!!)

drink

Rockstar vids



Jens Lekman - You are the Light (live)


TVPs - Silly Girl (live)

Sportique - Love and Remains (live @ the loft...RIP!)



NOW GO HOME!!!!

SWWEEEET



My tonevendor order just arrived:

New Pia Fraus! (the only modern shoegaze/pop band I like)
New Rocketship (yes, you heard me right)
The Life Pursuit (on vinyl)




Update: The new Rocketship is a "track skipper" upon first listen. Yeah it kinda blows so far.

The new Pia Fraus is at least listenable all the way through, but seems to be missing some of the pop elements I was expecting and is way heavy on the shoegaze side of things (opposite of their older material)

When sailing in German waters



A co-worker sent this to me. He’s from Germany, so it’s ok for him to find humor in this, and since I’m half German, it’s half OK for me to laugh at it too.




ps. What's up with blogger? This is my third attempt to post today!

np: Carnival Kids - The Futureheads (aka the greatest band of the 21st century)
np+: Love Wasn't Made For You And Me - The Go-Betweens (aka the greatest band of 1978-1979)

"I was a pod before you was a pod" episode 3 finally out!



It's about dang time! This time there are no "glitches" (as previously heard in episodes 1 and 2).

podcast page

direct link to episode 3

This is the slow jamz episode (don't worry Kate and Ally ..err.. Katie and Allicia...you'll still get your comps). I always throw some old-school soul into my podcasts, so I decided to do an entire set in that genre.

Weekend Update


Friday:

After work I went to Thai Cottage (on Fulton) and had an amazing dinner. Niki and I stuffed ourselves silly with dinner and dessert. We used a coupon from the SN&R and got a free entree, so it didn't cost too much. We ran into Nicola and Rosemary there. I wanted to go to that bananas show at Old I, but I was too tired and full, so I just stayed at home.

I watched an episode of "Good Eats" (Amber Waves), where my favorite scientist/cook Alton Brown made beer. I knew there was a reason I like that guy. He had some great techniques that I'll need to implement in my next batch of homebrew. So far that guy has taught me how to make good: Cheesecake, martinis and Power bars. Most of the time, I just watch and take mental notes.

Saturday:

Laid down some additional tracks and did some mixing for the Frenchmen Black Flag cover. I'm not sure if I like it or not.

Uploaded a bunch of live music videos I made onto youtube.com. I'll post them here Friday, or you can just try to find stuff yourself by searching: Gregory Webster, TVPs, Pipas and Jens Lekmen (I'll upload some local stuff eventually). I need to reshoot The Feeling.

My sister came over and we had lunch at the Fox and Goose. I ordered a Chimay with my meal and the staff there kept on coming by and making comments about how that particular beer with get you hella wasted after a couple sips. That's why I like it (and it tastes great).

Made cookies (snowballs) and got my ass handed to me by Sacramento indie-elitist, Beckasac, in the cookie-off. Her win was well deserved.

I was gonna go see Knock Knock, then see the 4 'i's, but after eating all those cookies and Del Taco afterwards, it was time to go home and digest. SNL was hecka stupid (as usual).

Sunday:

Went to Sabs for birthday breakfast (pancakes and bloody marys), came home and remained lazy the rest of the afternoon.

I made a slow-jams compilation and a "best of girl groups" compilation and I'm pretty happy with both (let me know if you want a copy...or I might just "podcast" them).

Finally saw "Crash". It was 'aight.

Friday Night Videos



Check out this video of the TVPs "painted word"

That's it. I quit!



I'm not allowed to write comments on anyone else's blog for the rest of the month. So far today, I've made typos every time that I didn't catch until AFTER it had been published...and I've been writing some funny stuff today, or so you would think. I want people to laugh with me, not at me.

I got an email from Dan (formerly of Tonevendor Sacramento) with a link to this eBay auction. Get this super rare CDR before they're all gone!!! (or just hit up one of the former members for a free copy.) I guess the dude running this auctioning was banned from the shop. Why? Well...why would anyone get banned from a record store? Lameness.

Oh shit..better hurry up and buy that CD!

In other news:

I'm going on an all expense paid trip (by my employer) to Germany next month! Tight. Anyone know of any good record shops in Berlin?

lovers, not fighters



The Baby Grand debut went pretty well this last Saturday. I couldn't tell (the sound was weird from my angle), but I heard there were some sound level issues due to Erik having his piano plugged directly into the PA. I screwed up twice, and Tim screwed up once (does that negate one of my screw ups?). Thanks to the gracious door person who let me put an unlimited number of guests on the list. I don't have any pictures at the moment, but I have a feeling Amy might upload some to her flickr account soon. It was also good to hear that certain people were civilized towards one another. I'm all about being a uniter, not a divider(....you know...like George Bush)!

LOLZ!!!11!

While the Frenchmen successfully recorded our Black Flag cover for the Swedish comp (Charles's dream come true) we caught this rat trying to steal our cookies.

Stupid-ass hat



So it was to my surprise while skimming through the previous late night programming I had set up to record via TiVo (The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Conan) Belle and Sebastian were on Conan O'brian the other night! Sweet!

I found a recording of the performance on youtube for all you unlucky souls who missed it. (youtube is the next big thing on the net)

No matter how much I want to think he is a wanker, damn that Stevie Jackson fellow is stylish!

link to the actual music video of Funny Little Frog