A few months ago I posted a photo of some street art I came across over by the Fulton Market while on a run to get some propane for brewing. I was struck by the piece’s scale, but I was also taken aback by what seemed a kind of mocking, mischeivousness that animated the death [...]
Category Archives: Instructional
Poke, Musubi & the Committee for Safety
I just got back from a week in southern Kaua’i. Like all vacations, the time was too short, and now I want to move there. A week living amongst people who stab away their days in the slow, tropical pulse of the south pacific rim makes me wonder how and why I managed to find [...]
Controlling Temperature in Home Brew
Anybody can brew beer, but it can be like handling plutonium to create great beer that is repeatable. Your two greatest allies in that pursuit are time and temperature. Giving the beer the time it needs to fully bloom is essential, and something that took a lot – and I mean a lot – of [...]
Duck Fat Biscuits & Boar Sausage Gravy…
“I have seen the face freedom and eaten it.” – Eldridge Cleaver after schtupping Pat Nixon. My nephew gave me some sausage he had left over from a boar he shot a few weeks ago. I wanted to do right by it. This morning I cooked up a variation of my biscuits and gravy recipe. [...]
My Encounter With At Least 2 Robert Anton Wilsons
Boingboing has been running some great pieces on Robert Anton Wilson in honor of the 5th anniversary of his death on 1/11/2007. It’s been fun reading the likes of Ken Goffman and Paul Krassner reflect on Wilson, explaining why he’s so important to them. It’s all made me uncomfortably nostalgic and forlorn. My personal interaction [...]
Closed System Wort Chiller for the Homebrew
It’s getting cold here in Weedwolf’s Shitcago. In fact, today the lake front was shut down and manned by Escalades. I saw snow fall from the sky. I pulled the long underwear from my lingerie drawer. All this means that my previous method of cooling our wort with a displacement chiller spitting upwards of 75 [...]
Pan Fried Bone Marrow
It would really hurt to put hot, liquid marrow into a syringe and shoot it into your arm or eyeball so Michael Ruhlman has this satisfactory alternative for using bone marrow to activate your pleasure centers: “To cook the marrow, roll them in flour till they’re completely coated and sauté them in canola oil over [...]
Gordon Strong’s Technique for Force Carbonating Homebrew
It’s the 11th hour and I need to get this beer carbed up for Thanksgiving. I’ve basically got about 20 hours to get this stuff to a decent level of gas. So I’m going to force carb them. Force carbonating is a black art, elusive and highly subjective in it’s execution. I’ve tried several techniques, [...]