Here you'll find my assorted rants, ravings and recipes on a variety of topics, including Beer, Wine, and Homebrewing, Charcuterie and Meat, Foraging and Mushrooming, Cooking, Music, Law and whatever else I find is, arguably, fit to print.
So as you might have noticed there was a huge lag in the blog. Everything's fine here, no worries. Not mauled by rabid marmots or anything. Just been really, really busy.
Starting a brewery!Yes, I decided to go pro and we'll be opening Bainbridge Island Brewing in just about two months. It's been quite a ride, and you can follow the progress and news on the blog I'm doing over there: http://www.bainbridgebeer.com/blog/
It's been fun, but I'm shuttering this blog since the brewery has now swallowed my life. Still it's nice to have an online repository of recipes, projects, etc.. So I'm going to keep this up on blogger as long as I can.
Well a few weeks ago my laptop bricked. And for whatever reason I just can't seem to get much writing done on my desktop. Too many distractions. Screen hurts my eyes. Etc. But I've arranged use of another laptop. Even if (thanks to a prior soy sauce related disaster) it doesn't have a comma key. :/ Also the T key doesn' work very well. Ugh.
One question I've been dealing with is whether to post brew updates as soon as I brew them. On the one hand I've been hoping to get more of a complete wrapup of each beer start to finish. On the other I've found that writing as soon as I brew acts as a really useful brew journal. Records of gravities, last minute substitutions, mishaps and so on. So I think I'm going to keep a record as I go unless it's a big project.
It's been a while since the last post. Too long in fact. Truth be told I just haven't felt like writing much lately. Like to say I've been busy, but I've not been any more than usual. It's time to get back in the saddle and get some posts up.
One of the interesting things I've observed over the months of writing this has been the slow changes in subject matter. Without our weekly CSA to provide a sort of forced creativity, the cooking posts have trailed off. Mostly because I haven't really felt like I've been cooking anything really interesting. Not to say I haven't been cooking some good things, but I've been doing a lot of last minute, make it up as I go along, what have I got in the fridge, kind of cooking. Also, the charcuterie posts have dwindled as we've been eating more near-vegetarian things in the last few months. We try to eat only quality meat, from farmers that we know and trust. But quality meat is expensive, so we're not eating a lot of it. Still, a little good bacon or some decent home made stock goes a long way.
Certainly the brewing projects have been a major part of this blog, and I have been brewing up a storm in these last few months. Sadly, I've failed to post a lot of them. I'm sure this is disappointing to those of you who might read this for those recipes, but it also hurts me. I didn't realize how I valued the immediate record of the minor changes and screw ups that occurred on the brew day. So I plan to get those back in order.
Anyhow, here's to another year and another 200 posts. Well ok, probably 50 this year. Let's shoot for one a week.
Quick post because I'm going on vacation in a few hours and I really should be packing. Just popped the first 22 of my Glucose Hefe Experiment.
In two words: In more words, it's quite to my liking, thank you very much. The key here is balance. In the past I've made very cloveyhefes, but in this one the banana marches in and compliments the clove. Neither is too much (too much clove is harshly phenolic, too much banana becomes bubblegummy.) Body's good, not too thin. Head retention could be a bit better, but the carbonation is still a bit low (it's only been in bottles four days). Bubbles are still large too, as you can see in the photo. Again, it's only been in bottles a couple days and it only had about 2 hours in the fridge. Hops are just right, i.e. not present, just a hint of bitter dovetailing the clove.
It's not crazy or audacious, it's just a really good, basic German Hefeweiss. Honestly, give it a week to finish carbonating and a week or two cold storage and it will be indistinguishable from Paulaner or Ayinger. Just have to work out my efficiency issue, or calculate at 70% next time I make it. Corrected the OG up to 1.048 with light DME, so finishing at 1.011 puts it at 4.8% ABV. Could be about a quarter to a half percent stronger for my tastes.
Brewed this as my vacation/Summer beer and I can't wait to hang out in the sunny High Sierras, drinking this lakeside. Case of 22's is coming with us, that's for sure. Rest of you will have to wait a week. Slice of lemon is optional, but I'll probably mock you.
Back in February I brewed two Classic American Pilsners. One to a traditional cereal mash and 6-row malt, the other with a single infusion, flaked corn and 2-row. The object was to see whether the extra effort added anything to the brew, and whether it was worthwhile overall. Well, the last keg has kicked and the results are in.
The two beers were brewed just two days apart, using two packets of Saf-23 dry lager yeast. They were fermented for two weeks at 48, rising to 50ish. Then three days of 60 degree diacetyl-rest. They were then lagered for six weeks, kegged, carbonated for a week, and served.
I brought a growler of each to my homebrew club meeting that month and explained the experiment, doing it as a blind tasting. I'd say about 2/3 correctly identified which was which, but the group was pretty well split as to which they preferred.
The Traditional 6-Row Cereal Mash. Most noticeably this one somehow developed an unfortunate phenol, vaguely plasticky, bandaidy. My theory is that since I'd lost my Thermowell in the move I didn't cool it as well as I should have, and it started fermenting a little hot. So really, it wasn't a truly fair comparison. But the beer still had some things to recommend it. It poured a nice, very pale straw color, with a lasting white head. Slightly cloudy, chill haze from the 6-row no doubt. Just a bit sweet, somewhat corny. Floral hop in the nose, just a bit too much hop flavor and bitterness I think. Probably would scale back on the hops for both recipes, and swap out the domestic Hallertau for something else, maybe Sterling or Czech Saaz.
One thing I discovered, while out doing some work in the garden, was that this beer seriously benefited from the Green Bottle Effect. Just a few minutes in the sun brought out a hint of skunk, and though it sounds off-putting it really brought a nice balance to the beer. Next time I'd even consider putting the whole carboy out in the sun for 15 minutes or so before kegging.
The Modern 2-Row with Flaked Corn. This one fermented out much cleaner. It was a shade darker, and much clearer. That's the 2-row for ya. It was more malty, and more dry. The hops came out more clearly, and I wasn't happy with the profile. Again, I'd probably drop the IBUs down a bit and switch out for a cleaner hop. I won't be using US Hallertau for a while, maybe ever again. This one was my favorite of the two, but a lot of it was due to that weird phenol in the 6-row. It was much easier to brew too, so I guess this one was the winner.
In the future. Due to their being lagers, the experiment took several months. I'm thinking I'll try it again, but quickly this time, as simple Cream Ales for the short, hot Summer. Maybe put them on Nitro this time...
So after 10 days in the primary at 60 degrees the Schwarzweisse was finished.
It's been a while since I bottled a whole 5 gallon batch. It's a great feeling of accomplishment when you are finished, like you've just laid four dozen happy little alcohol eggs.
The big questions though: how was the color and did it end up too roasty/astringent?
Color: pretty good, as you can see definitely on the far far end of the style. Still, not quite as dark as I wanted. Next time I'll use a whole pound of Carafa II and cold steep it.
Taste: At first taste it was dry and lemony, which was disappointing. But that was more because it was too cold. As it warmed up a nice banana/clove thing came in. In the back there's some malty caramels, but they're quite low. There's just a hint of toasty, but no bitter burnt. Not too shabby. My only complaint is there is a bit too much lemon esther. The curse of every hefe I've ever made. I may try a different yeast next time, but I've got one packet left of the Saf-06 so I think I'll try it again, not muck up the mash, and see if it tastes any different.
Though the previous site design was colorful it had some embedded coding issues and it was time for a change. So here's the blog, version 3.0!
The biggest and most welcomed change will be 'click to read more' buttons on the posts, which should cut down on the wall of text and also help shield the eyes of those who didn't expect to arrive to a visceral scene of piggy carnage.
Which is good because I have two pig head posts coming up...
So I'm going to tweak this thing today until it's working properly. I have to say that I found this tutorial on moving your widgets to be pretty helpful. What a pain.
Back in 1998-2000 I was really into computers and envisioned a bright future as yet another goatee'd Seattle dot-commer. I learned HTML, Pascal, Java and some C++ before I realized that I really, really didn't enjoy it. You need that slight OCD problem-solving instinct to program well, and I would lose interest after about the tenth time something didn't work right. Nope, nitpicking code for a missed is not for me.
Days like today remind me just what a good decision that was. Of course the dot-com bust also helped. Then again I wanted to go State Dept during the Bush Years. Now I'm trying to get a job as a young lawyer during the econopocalypse.
Sometimes I feel like I live my life on an opposite wavelength to the business cycle. Whenever I'm not in need of work the economy is doing fine, whenever I need work nobody's hiring.
UPDATE 1:00 PM "Featured" slider is up and running! Three... Hours... But oh it's a thing of beauty ain't it?
This blog was never intended to be, nor shall it be, a platform for my inane rantings, petty grievances and the half-baked ideas that cross my idle brain. (Go follow some Twitter feeds if you want that. Ugh.) Nor was it designed to be a fame seeking, sensational or disgruntled catharsis for my professional frustrations. Mostly, it's just random projects I undertake and recipes I try out. Sometimes we go on adventures. I steer clear from controversy, partly because there's more than enough of it on the internet and partly because I have shady visions of some future confirmation hearing where some Senator is taking what I said 30 years earlier out of context and comparing me to Hitler. So it's rarely a platform for my opinions, because opinions are like...well we all know everyone's got one.
That said, counting two months of Bar Prep Classes, three months of waiting on the results, and another month waiting for my Bar #, I've now been unemployed for nearly seven months. Or only one month, if you just count the time after I finally got my Bar #, since in this economy I was essentially unemployable before that anyway.
And yeah, it gets me down. I want to get a job. And I want to get out of the house. And I want to make some money. We get by, but it would be nice to save for a rainy day. This time in my life is doing long term damage to my ability to own nice things and it's frustrating at times. And I look at a half dozen job boards and watch the tumbleweeds roll by. And I see posts on craigslist seeking someone with 4+ years experience who's willing to work for $25k, or that firm in Jersey that posted a similar ad and got over 300 applicants, and I sigh. And I get bored talking to the cat all day. She's not much of a conversationalist. On the plus side, at least the house is really, really clean.
But seriously, we're doing ok, things are going to be fine and are getting better, something will work out, and we'll move on with our lives. So to my friends and family: stop worrying, and stop asking. We know that it's only because you care, and we are lucky to have people like that in our lives.
I'm not going to get into statistics or quote articles, you can read the news for that sort of article. Suffice to say that unemployment of recent college graduates is higher than it's ever been, and NALP's own statistics for legal employment of the Class of 2009 are fairly miserable. This year nearly 5,000 lawyers were laid off from the top 'Big Law' firms, as well as about 10,000 assorted support staff. Times are tough out there. But I think the biggest problem (and annoyance) that the job search has shown is a sort of disconnect between the public perception of the legal world and the real world reality. And a bit of a reality check is in order. I am so tired of lawyer = instant automatic riches and success. Solid gold underwear, loose cars and fast women. Yeah that's what I thought too, going into it. But for most of the recent crop of lawyers, it just ain't so. What? You're unemployed? And you'd jump at the chance to make $30k chasing ambulances or reviewing documents 12 hours a day in damp basement? Or as a 3L recently told me, working for a firm right now for free on the off chance that they'll kick him some contract work after he graduates.
Which is sad, because I really wanted that solid gold underwear.
It's probably dry-clean only though.
As an illustration I present this (poorly animated, ugh, xtranormal.com) retelling of a Christmas Carol by Esq. Never. Despite the computer's inability to pronounce words like 'resume', Part 4 and the Epilogue are really the take home lesson. And I have to chuckle about making $35k in "Insurance Defense Chop Shops". Come on, my attorney friends at the firm I worked for made at least $40k... Haha, haha, sigh... Still, it should be required viewing for all 1Ls and those contemplating a legal career.
What's most interesting about this to me is that it was posted today on the ABA's own newsletter. Yes, the Bar Association spread this around to lawyers and law students, and without any sort of rebuttal or commentary. As always where disgruntled lawyers are concerned, I would advise against reading the comments. It may make your eyebrows curl. It's the Penny Arcade Internet Dickwad Theory in action (Normal Person + Anonymity + Audience = Total Dickwad):
But importantly the whole thing illustrates more than just one disgruntled law grad's opinion: it's endemic to the system and there are tens of thousands of law students and recent grads who agree with Esq. Never. And here's the crux: this is going to be part of our legal culture for years. Many of them will eventually find work, but it probably won't pay well and their loans will remain because you can't bankrupt out of them. I've heard tale of desperate lawyers taking out second mortgages on their homes, paying off their student loans, then bankrupting out of the mortgages, and losing their house, their credit rating and probably their license to practice in the process. That's how drastic it can get. And many of these lawyers are the, perhaps naive, but nevertheless well-meaning people who went to law school for public interest reasons, but due to loans cannot afford to work for Legal Aid, the Public Defender's Office or the State Attorney's. (Not that they're hiring anyway.)
Yes, Income Based Repayment makes it more manageable. But what exactly "Public Service" is is not clearly defined, and the only jobs that are certain, Public Defender, State Atty, etc., aren't hiring. So you could spend 10 years working for a non-profit only to be told, nope, no loan forgiveness, not publicy-servicey enough. And yeah, debt forgiveness after 25 years. Sweet! Except there's currently no income tax credit for that forgiveness, which would then be treated as income, and so after 10 or 25 years of making say $40k, you might suddenly find your income taxed as if you made $300,000 that year. Of course technically you did...and you didn't. But the IRS would still want more than your entire year's paycheck as taxes. Mercifully, at that point you'd at least be able to declare bankruptcy.
Meanwhile I'm going to be soldiering on. If the profession is broken, it's up to us, the new lawyers, the Young Turks, to fix it. Because the next half-century of legal culture will be shaped by thousands and thousands of disgruntled lawyers in debt up to their eyeballs. And hey, if U.S. history shows us anything it's that a group of disgruntled lawyers can get amazing things done!
Despite what has and is happening to the profession I still believe it's an honorable one, that things will improve, and that I can make it. And it's difficult, it's so easy to be a cynic about it. It's looking like I may try doing some pro bono work for the county Bar Association, so at least I can get out and accomplish some good in the meantime.
Which is very welcome, because the cat steadfastly refuses to actually read the book before our little book club meetings. What nerve. She just doesn't seem to care for Hemingway.
So to all of our beloved friends and family, and whatever Chinese spambots randomly crawl this blog in the future, I wish you Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Eid al-Adha, Kwanzaa, Chinese New Year, Festivus or whatever Secular Non-Denominational Seasonal Celebration you celebrate! (Jesus isn't the only reason for the season, the Earth tilting away from the Sun has a lot to do with it too.) And now I have presents to go shop for.
Annnnd we're back. The Bar Exam is over and I have taken enough of a break. Job search is beginning in earnest, but I might as well spend the rest of my time writing, eh?
For those interested: the WA Bar Exam was the single most unpleasant, difficult, and otherwise horrible test it has ever been my displeasure to take. That said, I'm certain that I didn't totally fail. Not that I passed, just that I didn't totally, epically fail. I answered all the questions, didn't get hideously stumped by anything, wrote in something resembling the King's English. Hopefully that's enough.
The format is two days of nine questions each, then a final 1/3 day of six questions. You have three 2 hour and 15 minute blocks with short breaks in-between, so it works out to about 45 minutes a question. The final day is six ethics questions in one block, so 22 minutes a question. Unlike any other Bar exam (to my knowledge) WA's is all essay and has no multistate portions. If you count them that's 24 essays.
So to practice I wrote out at least two practice essays for each possible topic, so about 50 essays. The Bar gives out sample answers that it considers 'adequate' to previous years' questions. They are generally ok, but sometimes misstate the law, confuse the parties, or have weird grammar mistakes. When you read these, sometimes it looks like a retarded monkey was jamming away on a typewriter. Also he was sleep deprived. Also there was no 'L' key. Also he was simultaneously being launched into space. So when you compare your fresh, bright-eyed, calmly typed answer it's like "Hey, no problem! I am going to dominate this test. Dominate."
Then you do six back-to-back essays to practice the equivalent of 2/3 of one day of the Bar. By then end you're typing:
"And um, P should sue D because, um, D is a Bad Man. That thing he did was illegal. Seriously, I'm pretty sure about that. Yep. And I should know, I'm a lawyer. It was that tort that begins with a P. Or was it an S? I need a banana..."
So it becomes this shotgun approach, because the test awards breadth of knowledge, not depth. You cannot possibly remember everything in enough detail, and if you could you'd run out of space and time. It's about finding just the right amount of vagueness, so that you're not misstating the law, indeed, you're implying that you could say more, but not understating it either. You start prepping and spewing this fire hose of boilerplate and hope that gets you to a 5. Then you try to carefully apply a bit of it to the facts in the question for a 6. Then you remember one weird twist in the law, or that one exception, and there's your 7th point and you're passing. Good job! 23 more to go.
During the breaks you try to remember the subjects you just spent two hours writing about and for some reason it is difficult! Durrrr, brain no function well sleep without. Eventually you start to winnow down the subjects and refresh yourself on the remaining ones. So, lets say you never had any real instruction in Law School on UCC Article 2 Sales? You study it like crazy. CivPro isn't hard but there are lots of exceptions and time periods, lets study that some more. Indian Law? Completely new to me. Now go, frantically refresh, you've got 15 more minutes. Then at the end it's: Oh! Exam's over and those subjects weren't tested... psyche! Haha thanks for playing.
And during the break you start to analyze your answers and you see all the places where you missed something. When you wrote "Prescriptive Easement" did you really write "proscriptive"? "Perscriptive?" Wait, did I remember to discuss damages? D'oh! and so on. By the time I got home my brain was pure cottage cheese. In a blender. With bananas.
Mr. Madison, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Yep. May God have mercy on my soul. We'll know for sure in October, I'm sure it will be fine.
T-minus 9 days. I'm dropping off the face of the planet until at least August. But I've got some good posts lined up. The bacon and pancetta are done (and delicious!) and I got a hog jowl today for guanciale. Also the nitro tap is up and running and pretty much everything I thought beer could be. And one of my hop vines is now over the roof. I don't know where it will stop. Some castle in the clouds, presumably.
Ok. An Evidence and a Criminal Law essay and I can go to bed. Then get up at six and write four more essays. Whee.
Indefinite Hiatus
-
Well, given that it's been a year since this was last updated clearly I
don't have the time I used to devote to it. So the blog is going on
indefinite hiat...
Yes, I decided to go pro and we'll be opening Bainbridge Island Brewing in just about two months. It's been quite a ride, and you can follow the progress and news on the blog I'm doing over there: http://www.bainbridgebeer.com/blog/
Yes, I decided to go pro and we'll be opening Bainbridge Island Brewing in just about two months. It's been quite a ride, and you can follow the progress and news on the blog I'm doing over there: http://www.bainbridgebeer.com/blog/
