The Elfin Blog

I bought new shoes the other day. Running shoes. Shoes specifically for running. They are super comfortable. I’m going to try them out now. I guess that makes me a real runner.

Of course, actually running probably makes me more of a real runner than the shoes. I could don a set of football pads, and that doesn’t make me a football player.

Whatever. My shoes are still awesome.

My friend Brett recently received two pounds of hops for free and has kindly invited me, along with our friend Josh, to share in his good fortune. And what better way to use two pounds of hops, but to have a brew-off to see who can make the most of these lovely little lupilin fairies? So the plan is that each of us will brew essentially the same recipe, at the same time, in the same place, and see whose beer turns out to be the best. And of course the best way to use all those hops is to make one hell of an IPA. With that in mind, my own plan for IPA goodness is below. The will also be my first all-grain batch and the maiden run of my new, homemade mash/lauter tun.

Three Man Double IPA (TMDIPA)
14-C Imperial IPA

Size: 5.28 gal
Efficiency: 72.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 308.99 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.092 (1.075 - 1.090)
Terminal Gravity: 1.023 (1.012 - 1.020)
Color: 12.8 (8.0 - 15.0)
Alcohol: 9.14% (7.5% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 88.6 (60.0 - 100.0)

Ingredients:
18 lbs Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
12 oz Dextrine Malt
5 oz Caramel Malt 120L
0.5 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
3.25 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
0.5 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - added dry to secondary fermenter
1.25 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.75 oz Willamette (5.0%) - added during boil, boiled 30 min
2.25 oz Hallertau (4.5%) - added during boil, boiled 30 sec
0.0 ea WYeast 1056 American Ale

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 800 ft

01:05:01 Mash In - Liquor: 5.96 gal; Strike: 165.7 °F; Target: 153.0 °F
01:50:01 Batch Sparge - Sparge: 2.52 gal sparge @ 170.0 °F, 6.24 gal collected, 45.0 min; Total Runoff: 6.37 gal

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.30

In an effort to create more room for the coming spawn of Elfboy, I have been cleaning out my closet in my office. In one of the many boxes I discovered what amounts to my first journal. It’s a 9 1/2 x 6 five subject Rite Aid theme book with a yellow cover. I must have been about eight when I started this folio. Now I’ve kept a journal off and on for ages, but when I was young my discipline was particularly bad at recording events. What it does contain, though, are some priceless bits of writing or poetry. Here are some samples:

From the first page, entitled “Page of Expressions” (transcribed as written):

1. Jenny (my dog) can control her brown mountain dump, but she can not control her lake maker.

2. I’m not a walking water dish.

3. leaves fall like a roller coater. Turning and twisting.

4. water and waves go up and down and around like a crown

5. life is like a cigarett
it burns goes out

The second page contains this little gem:

Dedicated to my mom my dad and Doug.

Changes - there are so many of them. Let’s take fall, for instance. The leaves change from red to yellow. The occasional frost is a change I think. I have to go now. See you

T
h
end

Recently the Columbus City Council passed an ordinance requiring all children in the City of Columbus to wear bike helmets whenever they are on a bicycle, skateboard, skates, or other non-motorized devices. Councilwoman Charleta B. Tavares, whose idea this is, apparently has nothing better to do with her time or job than to come up with ridiculously unenforceable and intrusive laws for the citizens of Columbus. Instead of working on this city’s problems of crime, poverty, or our terrible school system, Charleta has decided to come up with this little piece of legislation, probably just so she can feel like she’s doing something. What is more disgusting is that the rest of the council members went along with her, and even worse than that is that Mayor Mike Coleman, despite opposing the law, allowed it to pass.

Thanks Charleta, but I think I’ll raise my children without City Council’s help. It is exactly this kind of law, and the mentality that produced it, that is at the rotten core of modern day government in the U.S. It’s the “I know what’s good for you” approach that our local, state, and federal governments are increasingly taking, although I think local governments are the worst. Instead of trying to effectively manage important city services and infrastructure, these governments waste time and money on these Better Homes and Gardens, Parenting Magazine-type laws. These kinds of laws make me sick. Charleta Tavares out to be immediately and summarily fired and sent to live in Siberia for her audacity and arrogance. Charleta and the rest of the City Council ought to be forced to wear fucking bike helmets wherever they go, and then they can leave the rest of the world alone.