Walker IBA

Walker does pull down his pants and show his bared arse now and again, but this has nothing to do with that.

We're looking to make an unholy offspring of an Englishy Brown Ale and an India Pale. So, we're going to have some honey/meady smoothness, a sweet finish (FG above 1012, we hope) but with some lots of high-alpha Cascade for a long boil for India hoppiness and a touch of bitter. That's the plan.

* approx 1.5 lb. Quaker Oats (steeped)
* 1 lb. Crisp Brown Malt. 60-70° L. Green and cracked, hopefully with the high alpha Cascade, will add a touch bitterness to the final product, hopefully. (steeped)
* 6 lb. Briess Sparkling Amber DME 13L
*. 1.5 lb. clover honey
* 2 oz. Cascade Pellets 6.3% alpha. 1 oz (Boil - 66 mins.), .5 oz (Boil - 36 ), .5 oz. (Finishing - 6 mins, plus another 20 during chill, bah)
* a pair of Sabrew s-33s (EDME). Optimum temperature: 64-75° F, but I'm gonna have a hard time maintaining that with this new fridge. I'm gonna miss my in-line temp controller.

Shooting for an OG of 1044ish / FG: 1012+.

Got the yeast going in a couple of cups of honey and sugar water. We stuck in in the oven to hide it from prying hands.
Steeped up the Malt and Oatmeal in some old panty hose (where did that muslin bag go?) 50 mins from 100 to 155. It shure did impart some dark color to the wort. Dunno the lovibond, think soda brown.
Added the extract and the honey, 1 oz of the Cascade - 30 minutes.
Dropped in .5 oz of the Cascade, 30 minutes.
The finishing hops - .5 oz - 6 mins.
Took out the boiling hops, but left the tea ball with the finishing hops at the bottom durning chilling. Just didn't fish it out, but in keeping with the IPA nature of this IBA, we'll just let the bitters do their thing. 20 mins to chill down to 80.

...good thing Walker was here to help heft the boil keg, that sucker felt heavy. He earns his namesake this time. Poured back and forth into the two corneys (one of which blew out of the In valve overnight, and has a stuck fermentation after a day - bah number 2).
Rooted out the yeast from the stove, where it had bloomed out of the measuring bowl and gooped up the stove innards like pancake batter. Pitched the very happy yeast half and half into the kegs (about 4 gals each) and put them into the fridge.

OG of 1042. Fudging a bit at 75 degrees, reading at that temp was 1040. So, maybe a 1043, but we're right in the range. The amber extract (and the light yeast, granted) brought the pre-fermentation color back to a maple sugar brown. Happy days!

Day 3 update: Fridge is running cold - 60 - and try as I might, can't get it to get up to 65+ without just shutting down. Corney #1 is blowin' and goin', #2 was leaking pressure, so on day 3 I've swapped into #2 another corney with a good, oxygenating pour. Fingers crossed on #2!

Day 5: Corney #1 is done fermenting; 1011. Nothing ever happened with #2. Every pull on the relief valve has only ever produced a faint burp. I've got 5 gallons of ready-to-condition beer, and 5 gallons of still-waiting-to-ferment wort. Okay, so I have a great idea. I'll chill and carbonate #1 and rack off the yeast to #2. I know that the yeast from #1 is good - if it can wake up and get #2 going, all will be well, right? So, I rack off what's there into #2, put #1 into the chilly fridge, and wait until morning.

Day 6: Just as a thought before running the yeast from the #1 to the #2, I thought "why not run a hydrometer on #2? ... Has it fermented 25%? 50% ... at all?" So I did. It wasn't fermenting at all because it was done fermenting. 1011. Go figure. If it did all it's work in the first day and a half when the valve was leaking, so much the better. But geez.

Now on to conditioning. Day 7, running the C02 at 30 lbs for 3 hours at 45 degrees. Both show really strong coffee overtones and a backbone of honey sweetness.

Day 8: Racked yeast off the bottom of both corneys and blew off the loose C02 to let the ale rest. Bottled up a couple for Walker to try, after I tasted my way through the gradations of sediment. One day of conditioning for #2, 2 days for #1. What a difference a day makes! Both exchanged all the honey flaves for a round nuttiness, with just a splash of coffee surviving. Where did that nutty brown come from? Oatmeal, I reckon - Quaker Oats FTW? Or those cracked green malts? Time to do some brew testing in upcoming batches.

Now to really do some waiting and see just how brown this green beer can be.
___
The Bottom Line: What happened at last? Well, the fast-fermenting can grew worse with age. The mutations didn't condition out. The slower-fermenting corney was a brew for the ages, though. A perfect nutty-brown with a little hop kick. It didn't last long, although we tried to parcel it out a pint at a time.

Lesson learned: I'm just using Nottingham from now on. I want a fast fermentation, with no worries. Git 'er done! I'll leave the subtlety for the sweet mead-yeast when we bust some must.

Hope for Geocaching... Not!

I see the problem. There's not a defined goal to geocaching. Is this a competitive pursuit, or non-competitive? What's a "good" cache? Everyone knows how to start caching, but no one knows when they're finished.

I think some rules are in place on GC.com that steer cachers toward the wrong conclusions.

People get smileys for finds, and no smileys for placing, so implication #1:
Finding caches is a greater priority than placing caches.
Just look at who the heroes are. Everyone knows who the TeamAlamos and EMCs are, many cachers probably even know approximately how many finds the Finders have. But, does anyone have any idea who's the cacher with the most caches placed? How many caches does the leading Place-r have? Who cares? No one gets smileys for placing.

One Smiley for One Find. Implication #2:
Go after only the easiest caches.
How can you boost the numbers? Power cache the nearest, most accessible, easiest finds you can. Park and Grabs flourish. Hikes, Puzzles and Multis languish. When someone logs their copy/paste of all the caches they bagged on their powercaching excursion, what's your reaction?

...whose goal this weekend was to set our own personal best records. Our attempt was power cache 200 caches in 1 day -SO- we recorded our visits on the log as T200 to expedite our quest. We exceeded our goal! ~~
My# from this adventure= 251 caches in 1 day (Sat. in 17 hrs) / and 422 caches for the weekend.

Do you think that they're superhuman? Or that they bypassed the area's good caches to bag all the dreck? I feel pity, not awe.

Here's an issue: The star system for difficulty rating is veneer only. Ratings are totally subjective to the hider. Not to mention that one cache hider's 2 star is another's 4 star. That, and the question's always so easy when you know the answer. The hiders usually rate the harder ones too easy, since it's hidden just Right There, why can't ppl see it? And the easier ones? The skirt lifters still get two stars, don't ask me why.

Why can't the finders rate the difficulty after they've found it? Consensus wins the day.

Hey, while they're at it, they can rate the quality of the placement. Let the placer get some pointage for extending himself. Otherwise, a smiley a placement turns into another skirt lifter parade, polluting the supply like the demand's already been poisoned.

Anyway, I like the Terracaching rating system. I think it's underused there. The ratings make the multiple points per find/placement possible on that site, but I don't think ppl rate regularly. Don't ask me why.

I conclude that rating's the only ray of sunshiny hope for caching. Until there's a definitive gameplay goal, variable scoring for caches, some reward for placing (better) caches, and ratings for difficulty and quality, caching is gonna continue to serve the lowest common denominator.