Slow Morning

I woke up this morning, thought about getting 4 hours of overtime, and thought the lazy boy looked much more comfortable. I told myself that before I go anywhere today, I have to fix my rear wheel again, and maybe put my fixed gear together. I'm trying to put that off as long as possible, so I'm blogging instead.

The main commuter was plagued with a broken axle a month ago, which I fixed in a timely fashion, and it was great for a while. Last week, I started having some more bearing issues, coming from the freehub this time. I kept riding it. After all, its fine, I just can't coast, or go fast, or turn aggressively, and I don't really do any of those when commuting. I am starting to get a little worried about wrapping my rear derailleur up into the rear triangle though, so its time to put on a new (ahem, to this bike) wheel. There's also been a growing red stain under my bike at work, so I may lube the chain too. Anyways, I'm prepared to say farewell to this wheel after 13 faithful years and several rebuilds.

Recently, I've gone Google, and started using services I had no previous knowledge about. I've got one of those fancy but not shiny Chrome Notebooks, so it means I've been putting stuff up "into the cloud." This is kind of nice. Megan and I have a Google docs shopping list that is organized in a geographical layout of the grocery store, either of us can add stuff to it as we remember, whether we're at home or work, or anywhere really. I'm also starting to record my brewing notes electronically.

I brewed this week, batch #1 of the new year, also batch #1 of recording notes electronically and saving them online. I can't remember how many other beers I've brewed, so 1 is a better number than making something up, like 65 (which is probably pretty close).

Anyways, #1 is a new recipe that I'm working on, in my head, I wanted an amber ale. In my heart, I think I wanted a mild yet complex brown ale. Its going to end up being a mild yet complex brown ale. Only a couple weeks after speaking with the Summit brewmaster, and hearing him scoff at those Dogfish Head hacks who just toss anything into a beer (which often turns out poorly, the reason why their successes are so expensive), one would think I'd brew something a little more straightforward. I guess not.

Anyways, I'll post the brewing notes below, but I basically took some of my favorite brewing elements from around the world, and threw them into a low alcohol, delicately hopped brew and hope it works.

Batch #1
single infusion mash
8lbs Maris Otter
1lb Caramel 20L
1lb Biscuit
1lb Special B (this is where I went wrong, its an intense dark crystal malt wish ripe fruit flavor profiles, too much for this brew)

1oz Styrian Goldings at 45 min
1oz Strisselspalt at 15 min

Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II (from a culture)

OG 1.054 (I know, my all grain system is inefficient)