Happy New Year!!

As I sit here watching tv and waiting for the ball to drop, my wife and I decide to flip it over to the news. I'm instantly reminded why I do not watch the news. It should be called the bad news. In the first 2 minutes I learned of a robbery, the danger of opening champagne bottles and how many are injured each year. I never see any good news or hear about local heros. It's always full of instances of the negative side of humanity. If you do hear good news, it is a 30 second bit sandwiched by two negative stories and breaking news about some idiot and the hordes of police needed to address the situation. What is happening to people these days?

It also makes me realize that I am getting old. I remember looking forward to New Year's Eve for weeks ahead of time when I was in my 20's. We would party well into the early hours of the morning. Now it's just an extra day off, not a big deal at all. I don't even buy fireworks anymore. As far as resolutions, I kept last years' buy quitting smoking cigarettes. Been a few months now and doing ok. I think this year, I'll have to lose some weight and get in shape. I want to run in a cross country endurance obstacle course. I'll post more about that later. This beer is putting too much weight on me.

On a more positive note. I built a stir plate today. For a while I have been making yeast starters for my beer. It saves me ~$7 a 5gal batch. I'm all for cost savings. The stir plate will help with this by keeping a constant motion in the yeast. That keeps the little suckers reproducing and makes me a better starter. You can buy stir plates for around $70 but I'm a do-it-yourself kind of guy and figured I could save a few bucks by doing it myself. I thought I'd post a few pics.
Box - $6 Hobby Lobby
PC Fan - $12 Discount Electronics (the first one I tried was too small)
Rare Earth Magnets - $2 Radio Shack
Switch - Recycled (free)
Sticky Tak -$2 Hobby Lobby
Stir Bar - $5 Austin Homebrew Supply
1000mL Flask - $12 Austin Homebrew Supply
DC Power Supply - Recycled (free)
Potentiometer(to control fan speed) - $4.29 Radio Shack
Knob - $2 (2pak)

I placed the magnets on the hub of the motor using Stick Tak so that I can easily adjust them as needed. This pic is of the first motor which was smaller. I will add the pics of the final build later.

Mounted fan and potentiometer

Spinning like a champ. Bring on the yeasties!

Christmas 2011

Had a wonderful 4 day vacation with the family over Christmas. I kept meaning to post something but I had an overwhelming case of lazy ass. I slept in, took naps, and was the laziest I have been in at least a year. It felt great. Also got to do some fun things with the girls. We made gingerbread houses. My oldest daughter had made one at school out of a spongy foam material and also a gingerbread man so I thought it would be cool if she could build a real one. I had never done it before either. They turned out pretty good. The one in the middle are the things she made at school. as you can see, we lost some candies as we moved them.

Santa came and left lots of great gifts. We all got what we wanted (at least I think so). I still have a mountain of toys in my living room.
My wife came home from the grocery store with a bottle of a muddy brown liquid that claimed to be a fusion of chocolate and red wine. I was highly skeptical at first but when my wife woke me up from a nap with a cup of coffee that contained a shot of this and a dollop of whip cream, my skepticism vanished. It was really good. I tried a sip of this stuff by itself and it was far too sweet for my tastes but it was a good addition to coffee. Plus, with 14% ABV, it's not a bad kick.

I must have been extra good this year because I got lucky enough to get gas for only $2.88/gallon. I can remember a time not so long ago that I would have difficulty finding gas for less than $3.50/gal. Felt good to fill my tank up for under $80.

In other news, I fried up a turkey for Christmas dinner. For those that have not tried this, I'm telling you, this is the way to go! I though it would be greasy when I first heard of this but it's not. In fact, it's the juiciest, best tasting turkey I have ever had. This is the fourth one I've done. It also gave me a chance to try out a new toy. My brother sent me a lazer thermometer. I like it a lot. Thanks big bro. For those wondering, that is the tail of the turkey sticking out of the grease. It doesn't have to be cooked all the way through as nobody eats the ass of the turkey. It came off as I removed the bird from the grease anyway.

Aunt Linda

My mom cam into town today bringing gifts and joy to all. It was nice to see her. She lives near the coast and it's a 3½ hour drive so we only make the drive about once a month. She brought a gift from my Aunt Linda. It used to belong to my Uncle Dalton. He was a jack-of-all-trades kind of fellow. He mastered in welding and made a good living at it but he liked to dabble in various other interests from time to time. At one time he was going to do some homebrewing. He had a case of old Lone Star bottles and a capper that she graciously bestowed upon me. Its really cool because I had been wanting one of these cappers. The one he had is about 25+ yrs old and is pretty solid. The bottles and case they came in are cool simply for their aesthetic value. They'll look good in my manroom one day. There's even a couple Schlitz bottles with the original Schlitz bar napkin still on them. I just can't bring myself to disturb them. Thank you Aunt Linda. This was great.

Good Timing and Good Brew

So the other day I had to run by the local homebrew store to pick up a few things. My 5yr old daughter commented that she would like to come. She has accompanied me on several occasions before but it usually takes longer when I take her because she wants to look at everything. She likes to pretend she is shopping for her secret lab (because of the burners and flasks they stock on the shelves). I'm more of a get in, get what you need and get out kind of guy. But since I didn't have a lot going on that day and my wife needed to get some shopping done, I agreed to take both of my daughters. On our way the girls mentioned they were hungry. I thought to myself, "Great, Why didn't you say so 5 min ago before we left the house?". Then it dawned on me, they're crafty kids. My 5r old immediately spoke up, "There's a McDonald's on the way".. I can't stand McDonalds for various reasons that I'll save for a later date. I opted to take a different route that I knew didn't have a McDevils on the way.Instead, we went to a little place I knew the kids would have fun and had decent food. The girls were having a good time but we had to cut it short and get moving. After all, it would have only taken me 45 minutes by myself and we were already an hour into the trip and hadn't even gotten to the brewstore. When we got there they were very bus as Saturdays usually are. Thankfully I had placed my order online and was able to get in and out. While in line I noticed a guy giving one of the employees a champange-looking bottle. Knowing the guy at the store is not a champange drinker, I asked what it was. He remarked that it was a limited shipment of an english double-fermented apple cider (11% ABV). My ears perked up and I asked where I could get a bottle. He said there was only one store in all of Austin that sold it and that I could get it there the following Tuesday. On the way out I happened to see him again and asked him to remind me of the name. He reached into the backseat, pulled out a bottle, and said Merry Christmas. My timing truly was great this day, thanks to my girls. I'm holding the bottle until Christmas evening. Should help bring a little Christmas cheer!

The next day we had a big brew-a-thon. Several members of my homebrew group got together to brew a Belgian Dubbel. Once the primary fermentation is done, we will be taking our beer down to JesterKing Brewery and they will age it in one of their barrels. In a few months, we'll go back and tap it and hold a BBQ or cookout of some kind. Below is a pic of a friends system as we were brewing. His is a 30 gal (1bbl) system. One day I hope to have something this nice.

On a separate note, I saw something yesterday that restored a little bit of my faith in parents today. I was in a local store and I happen to notice a child around the age of 4 or 5 talking back to their mother and throwing a fit. The mother reached out and belted the child across the arm with her open hand. The child immediately stopped screaming and throwing a fit. It was nice to see a parent who knows that sometimes a good smack is all it takes to straighten a situation out. The child was not hurt and I even saw them a little while later, a few isles over, and they were giggling. They're ego wasn't damaged, they aren't throwing a fit, and who knows, this child might even grow up with some manners and respect for others. It drives me crazy that parents today do not dicipline, teach right from wrong, or even take responsibility for their children and their actions. Many are too wrapped up in FaceBook or some other aspect of their lives to pay attention to their children. It was nice to see a good old fashioned swat, in public, no less.

Hilary

Its been an interesting past couple of days. It's been a goal of mine to be more charitable and to make an active effort to help other whenever I can. So in this spirit, I went around taking donations from coworkers and we adopted an angel from the Salvation Army Angel tree. Her name is Hilary and she is 7 yrs old. She is in need of several clothing items for school and wants a toy laptop and makeup. With the help of my coworkers, we were able to raise enough money to buy her 6pairs of pants, 6 shirts, a hoodie, and several toys. Merry Christmas to you Hilary, wherever you may be.

Tripel

Not much has happened in the past couple of days which is why I have not posted. I may not even keep this going. Seemed like a good idea at the time but in retrospect, I may not be able to keep up with this.

One thing that has come to my attention is the popularity of my name. When I do a Google search on Jon West I get back several results. None of which are me though. Seems like most Jon Wests are fairly successful and lead interesting lives. Yeah, I may have done a little stalking research. It's my name so it doesn't really count as stalking. One thing I get a lot is that my name sounds like I should be in movies or show business. Well it is. Unfortunately, it's for porn (Party like a Porn Star and Farmers Daughters Do Hollywood). Sigh* guess my options are pretty limited in Hollywood huh? Could be worse I suppose.

I'm part of a local brewclub (http://floccu.com/default.aspx) and we recently decided to brew a beer as a club and then take it to a local brewery( http://jesterkingbrewery.com/) and age it in one of their oak barrels. I've never done this before and am really looking forward to it. We plan to let it age for about 4 months and hold a BBQ or chili cookoff or something similar. 

I've been brewing for about a year now and have brewed about 3 dozen batches in that time. One thing I have never done is enter one of my beers in a competition. I've simply had people drink it and say they're "Pretty good". However, I want more. I would like to be able to say I brew damn good beer. I decided to brew one for a competition coming up in January. The winner will have their beer brewed on a large system and served at Flix Brewhouse (http://www.flixbrewhouse.com/). The category is for a Belgian Tripel. I've never brewed this style before but I decided to give it a shot. I did the actual brew over a week ago and last night transferred it to the secondary. It looks and smells delicious. I can't wait until its ready. Even if I do not win the competition, it would be nice to have unbiased opinion on my beer.

I would really like to get a larger system but I simply do not have room in my garage due to all the other 'stuff' stored out there. Someday(hopefully soon) I will have my own house and will be able to build my pico brewery. I'm simply tired of throwing money away every month on rent.

the hypocrite

I always said I would never start one of these things. My view on blogging has always been, "Never before have so many people had so little to say." My intention is to use this as sort of a journal. Since I am new to blogging and do not know much about it, don't beat me up if you see something awry.

I have been thinking of doing this for some time. I thought I would post a blog on brewing since I am a home brewer and that is my passion but I wanted to leave it open in case I just felt like taking about something else. Who knows where this will go. It is my hope that I will be able to look back on this and see personal growth or areas where I can improve myself.

A little about me,  I was born in Ft. Worth, TX. My parents worked in power plants so we moved around a bit in my youth but a majority of my childhood was spent in North Texas. I am the youngest of three, having one brother and a sister. I have a lovely wife and two amazing daughters. We currently reside near Austin and I work for a large tech company. For the most part, I live a fairly normal life (at least I think so).

Some of my interests include beer (not that fizzy shit made by Bud, Miller, and Coors but real beer), Camping, hiking and pretty much anything outdoors, football, self-sustainability and alternative energy. I dislike large government and believe in keeping things simple. I sometimes feel I was born in the wrong era but nothing I can do about that but adapt. Adaptation may be one of my better traits.

I think That should be enough for now. Stay tuned.......