Gingerly

Work hard. Play harder.

My Ginger Minger & Scott Paisley MTB just before a clean & lube.

I worked hard this weekend. Friday was the biggest retail day of the year. I sold a bunch of bikes, got folks accessorized, and thoroughly worked my ass off. Following busy working days like these, I usually just rest on my next day off. But not today.

Today, I played. I took the Scott Paisley mountain bike out to the woods near my place. She rode beautifully. It was my first time riding the trails out there. It was fast & fun. I rode for and hour and a half and explored all the different loops on my own. I can't believe I hadn't done this sooner.

I had forgotten how important play is to me. I'd been wasting my days off, just napping & watching the boob tube. Then, I got hooked up fishing. I found a friend that makes jigs and has taught me quite a bit about fishing in the creeks and lakes around here. I caught the fishin' bug from him, and have been fishing several times a month on my own. I caught three bass two weeks ago, just a 5 minute walk into the woods from my place.

The woods are my new sanctuary. On my days off I can take my dog out there for a walk, grab a fishing pole and pull up some perch, or sling my bike down and tear up the trails.

I feel really good again. It's a high of 75F today, unseasonably warm for this time of year here in Dallas. After riding today, I came back, cracked my latest homebrew, cleaned my bike, and cranked the online stream of WTJU on TuneIn. The folks at WTJU always remember to give me a shoutout.

Oh - my latest homebrew. I was quite disappointed with it... until this week. I call it Ginger Minger. It's a basic pale ale recipe I took and played with a bit. I added a bunch of shredded ginger and fresh mint for the last 15 minutes of the wort boil. It was intended to be a late autumn beer... and it's perfect for that. Perfect for today. Play is rewarding.

"Shotgun Wedding"

...that was the name I gave to the New Belgium Saison clone at my wedding last week. It went quickly and was hands down the favorite of the crowd, due to all that orange peel, cardamom and coriander! Definitely wish I had brewed more of it, though I'm sure I'll brew it again once relocated to Dallas with an all-grain setup. I named the Fat Tire Amber clone "26 x 2.95" for all those bike nerds that attended. That clone definitely had some off-flavors, but was still enjoyable. Matt said we had an airlock malfunction with that one, apparently because the Better Bottles aren't rigid enough to prevent airlock water from getting sucked into the fermenter when they're moved. It's definitely the small things that can make or break a beer.

Bride, Brewer & Beers

The beer was very successful, so a big thanks to Matt Lockaby for the brewing equipment, brewing help, and showing up to set up the dispensing! I need to also thank a good & crazy friend of mine, Charles Locke. He piloted our post-ceremony bicycle rickshaw ride!

Look at the creepster in the car taking pictures of us!

That rickshaw ride was great. Charles and I used to work for Happy Rickshaw together and wrench side by side over at Charlottesville Community Bikes. Well, the Rickshaw fleet in Charlottesville was slowing down and was eventually sold to a group in Delaware, so Charles ended up buying a bike shop (Syklo) from Ken Margolius. Charles closed doors about a year later, and instead joined Will Canup in a local bike rickshawing venture. Oh, hey, Will, are you going to be back in town soon so we can do another beer tasting with my sick new glassware?! (Check out Will's blog from Italy: romestrong)

So needless to say, I've been busy. I'm hoping to actually start working on the Rockfish F-1 BMX in a meaningful way before the end of the year. I've been giving it some serious thought, and I've determined I need a Sachs 3x7 hub on the back. Yep, that's three gears internally and seven externally. Unfortunately, they're going for top dollar on eBay these days...

Currently drinking a Saranac Summer Ale out of a new Lenox Brandy glass!

Wedding Beer

If you haven't heard, I'm getting hitched in June. And for such a festive occasion, it's only proper for there to be copious amounts of beer on premise. I have a friend in town that can help me pull off three batches of homebrew, all New Belgium clones. Matt's great at brewing. He really knows his stuff. He'll be helping me brew my first all-grain batches with his equipment, introducing me to liquid yeast, and lending me kegging setups. It'll be nice not to bottle 15 gallons of beer. The recipes and ingredients will be from Austin Homebrew Supply. Check out the beers on Beer Advocate:

10 gallons of New Belgium's Fat Tire Amber Ale

5 gallons of New Belgium's Farmhouse Ale

Oh, and I had two bottles of our Belgian Tripel last night. At 9% ABV, I could have spaced them apart a wee bit more...

Beer & Ride Report

So my first homebrew batch ever is... a little over carbonated, but drinkable! It's sweet & malty, even for a Bock. I didn't reach my target final gravity, so the ABV is about 5.1% instead of the 6.2% that the recipe should have reached. The over-carbonation may be due to the fact I had extra fermentable sugars in each bottle from an incomplete primary & secondary fermentation. However, the over-carbonation definitely cuts the sweetness and allows the beer to be more palatable. Overall, I'm very excited that I'll be able to celebrate great recent events with my family over my first homebrewed beer.

The Old, Fat & Slow ride today at Walnut Creek was also great, although I did have a mechanical in the last mile:

A RockShox suspension seatpost cam failed

The bold pulled the threads right out of the cylinder cam.

So, I rode my Scott Paisley MTB the rest of the way without my seatpost.

'Twas most fun.

Stolen Bike, Walnut Creek OFSMBC, First Taste

Yesterday, I received a pretty crappy phone message from Will Canup. He had his bike stolen over at UVA. Most people that see this blog are in Charlottesville, so I figured I'd pass it along. His craigslist post:

I had my black Trek fixed gear stolen from on grounds at UVA sometime in the last 48 hours. It was a black frame with black rims and camo handlebars. The right side of the carbon fork had a huge crack down the middle so it may have been ditched somewhere.

Let me add that he didn't have horizontal dropouts, instead had a magic gear with kinda loose chain tension. Here's a picture, but it no longer has a steering wheel:

Good luck Will. I'll keep my eyes open.

Onto good news, riding over at Walnut Creek with the Old, Fat & Slow Mountain Bike Club tomorrow morning. Really it'll be just 3 of us. Can't wait to get back on the mtb. It's too fun with the current setup.

Cracking open my first homebrew ever... NOW...

The chickens go BOCK

I'm currently brewing my very first beer, a European Bock, using a Brewer's Best extract kit. I'm 4 weeks into the fermentation process as of today:


That's the inside of a mini-fridge that I've converted into a temperature-controlled fermenting chamber. What you can see is my 7 gallon glass carboy, a bung on the top, a piece of blow-off tubing emerging from the bung, and a small bottle of clean water tucked into the back right. The blowoff tubing allows gaseous byproducts of fermentation to escape the carboy and carries it to the water bottle. The water allows the gas to bubble out and prevents anything from traveling back up the tube into the beer.

The beer is currently in the secondary fermentation process, meaning I've already transferred the beer from a primary fermenting bucket in order to remove off-flavor-creating trub and to promote beer clarity. I've cold-crashed it and now it's lagering at around 38F.

In order to accurately control the mini-fridge temperature I picked up a Johnson Electric temp controller from Northern Brewer. It's the blue box on top of my fridge:

The temperature controller is great because it controls the on & off cycle of the fridge to maintain a specified temperature range. It has its own thermometer probe to slide into the fridge for an accurate temp reading. It has a small simple display, but is invaluable for being able to control lagering temperatures.

Also, big props to Northern Brewer. $8 for shipping really isn't bad for 3 large boxes by FedEx Ground arriving on a Saturday within 3 days. Thanks!

I plan to bottle the beer Nov. 7. It should be carbonated enough by Thanksgiving.