Hilo and Beer

I drank beer in Hilo...

But I also ran.

You get the picture.  I ran every other day while we vacationed in Hilo.  This is my break from any intense half marathon training.  I allow myself this break twice a year for a maximum of two weeks. My next Half is in Santa Cruz, training begins two days ago.

Beer

You need culture, like this California Ale yeast streaked for purity.

I'm also still trying to catch some wild yeast using some impromptu wort making.

Of course if you don't want wild yeast in your beer then you need to inoculate a starter culture with the pure culture to have enough to out compete any wild yeast in the environment.

Running the grain through the Monster Mill.

Looking good.

Getting the beer tower ready.

Getting the mash/lauter tun ready.  Water is at 171 degrees Fahrenheit.

Mashing away.

Putting on the thermal blanket to hold temperature for the requisite hour.

Recirculating the wort pre-sparge.

 

Sparging

Collecting the wort.

Bringing wort to a boil.

Cooling the wort and collecting the cooled wort

After fermenting, transferring and then kegging - putting it on tap.

All that about running and beer - time for a beer!

Culinary Catch-Up

I've been collecting photos on my phone with the idea that I will "eventually" blog about it.  So here we go:

Hamine Eggs


I recently acquired an electric pressure cooker and while searching on whether such a device could truly achieve sterility (you need 15psi for 15 minutes to kill endospores) I found an article on cooking eggs for a very long time, or in this case, using a pressure cooker.  I cooked these for 65 minutes at "High" setting on my Cuisinart.  They were quite tasty.

Cheese

I recently made cheese.  I eventually read you shouldn't do this with ultra pasteurized organic milk, but too late.  I did it anyways and it tasted quite good after a relatively short fermentation period.

Coffee



I have a Fresh Roast SR500 and it does a great job of roasting coffee beans.  But I always like trying new things, so I made this effort using a gas grill and rotisserie.  It worked okay, but took a long time.  I think I will stick with the Fresh Roast.

Bacon wrapped Filet Mignon



A tasty way to end this post.