It's Alive! (again)

Ok, I owe anyone that was following our blog a big apology. We did a fair job of keeping with it right up until July of 2008 when we moved out of the DC area. After that, well, the blog was forgotten along the way. It's almost like we packed it up with everything else around that time and never unpacked it.

Our very first post was about Kathy's family reunion in Oak Island, NC during the fall of 2007. Well the first reunion was such a hit that everyone wanted to do it again. So this October we packed the car and made our way to Oak Island once again. While there, Uncle Gary asked about the blog and if/when we were going to post to it. The idea has been bouncing around since then and tonight I decided it was time to start it back up. Let's see if I can bring everyone up to speed...

At the end of July 2008, we moved out of our Falls Church, VA basement apartment and into the 2nd floor/attic of my grandparents' Levittown, PA home (Shown here on the left after a snowstorm). The plan was to stay there until Kathy found a job in the greater Philadelphia area. Most of our stuff went back into storage during that time as we didn't have lots of room. We had enough though, and had a good time living with my grandparents. I know they really enjoyed having us there as we provided them with daily excitement they wouldn't otherwise have had. Dory the cat also enjoyed her new surroundings and daily interaction with my grandparents' dog, Libby. While there, we kept busy with work (me with Sigma Nu, Kathy at Michael's Arts & Crafts and babysitting), visited friends and family, enjoyed our hobbies (me brewing, Kathy knitting), and adjusted to our surroundings.

Then in January of 2009, Kathy landed a job as an Academic Advisor at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia (hereafter referred to as USP). Once we knew where she'd be commuting to, we started house hunting. Thanks to a recommendation from Boot & Monica, we worked with Marge Vechy to find our first home. Marge is awesome and in just a few weeks, we found a great place, made an offer and were all set. After 9 months of living in another small space, we moved into our home in Glenolden, PA during the first weekend in April 2009. It's an easy 20 minute commute for Kathy to USP and a 10 minute drive to the airport in case I need to fly out for work. The previous owners kept the place in great shape which meant we only needed to paint the rooms we wanted. We don't have a good picture of the outside of the house but here are a few we took as the unpacking/painting process moved along:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2363864&id=6204743

It took us longer than we anticipated but we eventually got everything unpacked. The very last stuff to get unpacked were boxes of Kathy's knitting/grad school/sorority/misc stuff. Frankly, we just got lazy and didn't want to finish tearing down wallpaper in the last bedroom. But we finally did it, painted it, and got those last few boxes unpacked into that room. Now our dining room that was once full of boxes is, for the most part, empty. Literally, empty. We still need a dining room table and chairs as well as a hutch to unpack the last two boxes (containing our china). It's become a roundabout argument for us: we haven't had enough people over to necessitate a dining room set BUT we haven't planned a housewarming party because we don't have a dining room set. I think we're going to break down and get one sometime soon though. With all these holidays upon us, we really should invite some folks over for festivities. Goodness knows, we've got the beer ready for 'em.

Speaking of beer, one of the big benefits of buying our house is the detached 1.5 car garage. It's got a huge workbench and tons of room for my brewing setup. So I've been able to brew on a regular basis out there and keep my kegs full. Another benefit of the house is the finished basement and the bar that came with the sale. I've got 4 kegs on tap behind the bar (you can see them on the front of the fridge door) and they're always ready for thirsty visitors. That's actually my biggest brewing problem. I need more help drinking the beer so that I can finish what I've got and rotate new beers on tap. So if you're reading this, consider it an invite to come over and drink some beer! As my old friend Doc Sterrett used to say, "There's no register and the bar never closes." So come on over and I'll pull you a pint or three.

Kathy's been keeping busy too. She's an advisor for two sororities - Alpha Delta Pi at the University of Delaware and now Delta Phi Epsilon at USP. As an Academic Advisor she gets a lot of one-on-one interaction with her students and as a sorority advisor, she's able to remain connected to the Student Life side of things (which she used to to at Marymount while we were in Falls Church). She's also gotten back into acting now that we're settled again. Last month she was in a local community theater production of Frankenstein and has already begun auditioning for her next play/show. Here's a shot of her as Viktor Frankenstein's fiancée. As always, she did a great job.

Once I knew we'd be here for awhile, I called around to see about getting involved with the Boy Scouts. I was a Scout from the time I was 6 until I earned my Eagle Scout Rank and turned 18. Then I went to college and just drifted away from scouts. Anyway, I spoke to folks at the local district and before I knew it, I was a Unit Commissioner for a local pack and troop. Then I got a hold of Troop 44 here in Glenolden and after just a month, became one of their Assistant Scoutmasters. It's been great getting involved again and giving back to an organization that gave me so much. I didn't realize how much I missed being a part of Scouts in the 10 years I was away from it. Hopefully I'll stay involved for a long, long time.

The last blog-worthy bit of news is the adoption of our dog, Sandy. My Mom had walked Sandy before and when she heard Sandy needed a new home, we got the call. Sandy came to live with us on August 21st, 2009. She's already 2 years old (born a day before my parents' yellow labs) and well trained by her previous owners. Dory wasn't initially thrilled with the new addition but after awhile, she came around and the two now get along really well. Here they are waiting for a part of my lunch and then napping on the chair with me:



















To bring this full circle, as I mentioned, our most recent adventure was the Bunce Reunion in Oak Island. Once again, I brought 2 kegs of beer - Oktoberfest (which was popular last time) and a Scottish 70 Shilling. Both went over well with the crowd and I returned home with two very light kegs. As with our last trip to Oak Island, in addition to drinking beer we did some surf fishing with Uncle Warren and were treated to delicious cooking by Uncle Gary and Aunt Nancy. Between the smoked trout, paella, pork rinds, and breakfast burritos (with homemade refried beans), we ate like kings. Oh, and his margaritas with Mexican limes went down too easy. I also have to mention the great pulled pork that Uncle Dick and Aunt Tommye did.

Here's a picture of Uncle Gary & Aunt Nancy preparing the paella (below left) and another (below right) of cousin Greg, myself, and Uncle Warren fishing (aka drinking beer, smoking cigars, and getting sunburnt!).

So that should just about do it. I think those are the highlights of the 16 months that have passed since our last post. Once again, we apologize for the ridiculously long delay. Hopefully this post was worth the wait and will be the first of many more to come.

P.S. - While living on the 2nd floor of my grandparents' house, I thought of changing the name of the blog to "Notes from the Attic" but obviously never got around to posting, let alone changing the name. Now that we're in our own home, our family room is in the basement and not surprisingly, it's where we spend most of our time. So the name of the blog is still very appropriate and won't be changing anytime soon.

Big Brew Day - 11.10.07

This past Saturday, Scott, Mike, James, and I gathered together for a "big brew day." The idea was to use a lot of ingredients that we had leftover from previous batches. Because we tend to brew separately most of the time, we had a great range of grains, hops, and sugars to choose from. By the time we had all of the potential ingredients in the open, they completely covered Scott's dining room table. To get the most out of the day and our ingredients, we decided to do a parti-gyle brew day, which would mean running off two beers from the same mash. After taking some time to decide what we wanted to brew and how we would differ the second batch, we went ahead with our brewing.

In the end, our first batch ended up as an American Barleywine with a whole lot of hops (about 150-175 IBUs). Based on the small tastes we took before going into the fermenter, it's actually a really well balanced beer. If all goes according to plan, the barleywine should end up at about 9.1% ABV.

Here's a picture of the Barleywine in mid-boil:










To differentiate our second batch, we decided to add some dark grains to the mash before running off. We added just .5 lb of Roasted Barley and .5 lb of Chocolate Wheat and mashed for 15 minutes. When we ran it off, we were really pleased with the change we could see. In the boil, we added English hops to provide even more difference from the barleywine. Based on the numbers, this second beer will fall into the category of a Robust Porter and will come in around 5.2% ABV.

Notice the difference in color for the porter?










Just for fun, I took a quick video of the worts in mid-boil:


This ended up being a great brewday as we got 2 5-gallon batches completed, tasted beers all day, and smoked some cigars to close out the evening. I'm definitely looking forward to doing something like this again soon.

Mead Experiment

Last November (2006) I brewed up a 5 gallon batch of mead. I added 12 lbs. of Clover honey, 4 lbs. of Orange Blossom honey, and about 2 gallons of water into the kettle and brought the whole mixture up to about 160 degrees for 15 minutes. I didn't want to boil it as I've heard that drives off a lot of the aromatics of the honey. Once the 15 minutes were up, I cooled the must, racked into the fermenter, topped off to 5 gallons and pitched yeast (White Labs Sweet Mead/Wine). Fermentation took off as usual (OG = 1.114) and after three weeks (and a few additions of DAP yeast nutrient) I racked the mead into secondary where it sat from December of '06 through August of '07. At the end of August, I racked the mead (FG=1.012) into yet another fermenter with the addition of potassium metabisulfite and potassium sorbate to prevent any further fermentation. I did not add any clarifying agents but evidently the sorbate and metabisulfite did the job because just 72 hours later, my mead was crystal clear. I let the mead sit for about a month (end of September '07) and then split the batch into 5 separate fermenters. I added the following into the various fermenters:
#1 - 8 fl. oz. of maple syrup
#2 - 1 can of OJ concentrate
#3 - 1/2 lb. of raspberries
#4 - .25 oz of oak cubes soaked in Makers' Mark bourbon (thanks to the Mad Fermentationist for these cubes!)
#5 - The last gallon of mead was left unchanged
Here are a few pictures of the results (still in separate fermenters):

Immediately upon racking:
(Left to right) Bourbon Soaked
Oak Cubes, OJ, Raspberries, Maple Syrup)














After 2 weeks
front row (left to right) Raspberries, Maple Syrup
back row (left to right) OJ, Bourbon Oak Cubes


















The remaining 1 gallon (unchanged)


















I hope to bottle these in the next couple of weeks and perhaps crack a couple with family on Christmas.

A Carolina Vacation

After having seen a number of friends start blogs lately, I've gotten the urge to create one myself. I don't know if I'll actually have enough worth posting on my own so I think a blog for both Kathy and I is a better way to go.

Now is a good time to start this blog as Kathy & I just returned from vacation. We spent a few days in Oak Island, North Carolina with Kathy's parents, aunts, and uncles. Oak Island is a small, quiet beach community south of Wilmington, NC and just up the coast from Myrtle Beach, SC. Kathy's got relatives in Oak Island so it made for a convenient meeting point. Most of our time there was spent relaxing which was exactly what we had hoped to do. Kathy got to go shopping with her Mom and aunts while I went fishing with Kathy's Dad and Uncle Warren. And at the end of each day, we got to relax with Dory (our cat) who made the trip with us.

I also got to smoke a couple of good cigars including a Perdomo and one that I bought at a small shop in the Ybor City district of Tampa, FL where they make cigars right in front of you. Both had been sitting in my humidor for awhile and were well conditioned, making them really enjoyable smokes.

In order to make a contribution to the vacation, I had brewed and kegged 10 gallons of beer - 5 gallons of Oktoberfest and 5 gallons of Honey Raspberry Wheat. I had brewed the Honey Raspberry Wheat for what I assumed would be the ladies. But in the end, it was the Oktoberfest that was the hit with everyone. I tapped the Oktoberfest keg around 2pm on Thursday and it was kicked by Monday afternoon. Since everyone was busy drinking the O'fest, we only went through about 2.5 gallons of the Honey Raspberry. Before the O'fest ran dry, I managed to get pictures of the beers:

(The Oktoberfest on the left and Honey Raspberry Wheat on the right)


To go along with the beer, Uncle Gary made some great food every day. I only managed to get pictures of one of the dishes, but it was certainly the best looking one - the Paella - Uncle Warren's birthday dinner.


We didn't have to stress at all about the directions as "Karen" (the name for the Australian female voice on our new GPS unit) took us down and back in about 7.5 hours each way. Kathy was kept busy with her knitting and I had plenty of podcasts to listen to and we were home before we knew it. Our vacation only lasted 5 days but it was a great chance to get away, relax, and visit with family. I'm already looking forward to next year for more cigars and fishing.