Little Big Adventure

The end of 2011

2011-12-21T10:29:00.000-07:00

I want to start off by doing the usual thing and remarking about how long it is since i have blogged.. blah blah. I have no excuse, I just had nothing that I really wanted to share with all and sundry since the last posting, it is as simple as that :).. and laziness.

2011 had a lot of ups and some downs. Recently we dealt with a big event that brought with it a lot of sadness, some of you know what I am referring to others may not. We are getting on ok but time is always the best healer. Christmas is rapidly approaching and tomorrow we depart the shores of Canada headed back to Australia. This will be my first return trip back to Australia since we relocated to Canada over 2 years ago. I am really not sure what to expect. There are some things I am looking forward to and others I am not.

Towards the end of the year I managed to get myself my first oil and gas job which is pretty awesome. Although when I broke the news to the people at my old job I mainly got a bunch of negativity which really came across as bitterness ect. When someone is moving on generally you should wish them the best but apparently some people took it a bit personally. I have been gone almost a month now and there is no looking back for me, this was the change that I really needed.

I am a big believer in the saying that you make your own luck. I can think back to times a few years back when I would think I had the worst luck in the world and nothing seemed to go right. Then I took a good hard look at some of the things I was doing and some of the decision I made.. I had to make some tough calls and a few life changes, before I knew it everything seemed to go the way I wanted it. It takes persistence, a bit of stubbornness and sometimes accepting that you don't always have full control over everything.

All in all 2011 has been a pretty good year and I look forward to kicking back over a couple of kegs of Homebrew, reflecting on the year with my friends on New Years Eve!

Evolution of a brew

2011-11-01T11:06:00.001-06:00

Since starting home brewing back in June, Chris and I have evolved a lot. We started out buying kits and LME/DME, heating it up, mixing it together and pitching dried yeast packets. As we progressed along the way we started experimenting with adding hops to our brews and using specialty grains in congunction with our kits. Then one day a Coleman Esky (cooler..) landed over the fence from the now departed neighbor Will. As I already had an esky (cooler) I wasn't sure what to do with it... 2 weeks later it became our mash tun and ever since then we have been making all grain beers and have not looked back.
We found that with most of the kit beers, with a few exceptions, they lacked body, flavour and bitterness. The kit beers, mainly the ones made without special grains, would lose head quickly. I recently opened the lid on a couple of kit brews from a few months back and compared the flavor with our dunkle and irish ale. The difference was profound. In the grain beer there is a lot of strong complex flavours that are not present in the kit brews. The couple of exceptions to this are our bitters and the belgium beer we made. Both brews are strong, with a lot of flavour mainly owing to the grains we steeped, the special yeast we used and the hop selection. I think yeast has had a lot to do with the transformation as well. As I said earlier we used to use some generic dried yeast that comes with the kits, it being the same yeast on all styles. Instead we have been using the Wyeast liquid starters. The wyeast has a yeast for every style of beer, the way it should be!

Foo Fighters in Calgary

2011-10-28T10:03:00.000-06:00

After wanting to see the Foo Fighters for so long, last night I finally got to see them play live, and they did not disappoint. I purchased my tickets a few months back and had been anticipating this concert since. They played a good mix of songs over their 16 year career, including Dave Grohl coming out on stage alone with his accoustic guitar and playing wheels, times like these and another song off the new album. It was pretty amazing. They finished up with Everlong. One of the coolest bits was during the song monkey wrench, right before the part of the song that goes "ONE LAST THING BEFORE I QUIT..." they went off into a solo then built it up slowly taking several epic minutes to get to that final part of the song. I have to say that I think they are the best live band i have ever seen and I won't be forgetting last night experience anytime soon.

The cool thing about the concert last night was that most of the crowd there, a LARGE majority were in the 30 - 40 bracket. I am at an age, 31, where when I go somewhere I either feel young or old without much middle ground. It is strange age, you are neither young nor old.. yet at this concert last night I looked around and I could see my generation. These are people who grew up in the same era as me and probably look at the world in a similar way. I must admit if the crowd had of been full of hipsters or kids that were 4 when the Foo Fighters started it would have been disappointing. The concert brought back memories of being a teen / young adult in the 90s. It brought back memories of going to see alternative rock music in small venues, walking away feeling really awesome with muffled hearing and just generally feeling good about life.

This morning I woke up and jump on theage.com.au website to check out this ongoing column they are writing about our best 25 test cricketers. Yesterday I read about number 3, Dennis Lillee so I knew today was either going to be Bradman or Warne. Warne it turns out was number 2 so I had a bit of a read. This guy, despite being a simple bloke who is a bit of a dill, was an amazing cricketer. I can remember back to 1992/93 when he had just come on the scene and he started really just steam rolling through teams. Starting with a bag of 7 against the all mighty windies in the boxing day test. I remember sitting up until late in the night in 1993 with Dad watching him DESTROY the poms. I was privlidged to see him bowl on a number of occasions. The thing about this guy is you knew he could just rip through a team at any moment. This is something our current team really lacks. You watch them bowling and just think "Shit we could be here all day.. how will we get a wicket?" When Warne was playing, Border, Taylor, Waugh or Ponting would toss the ball to him when we needed a week. When that happened the crowd would be on the edge of their seats in anticipation. Love him or hate him, he was awesome.

One of the great thrills was being at the MCG when Australia was bowling and after the first 10 - 20 overs the crowd would start this slow chant, demanding the skipper bring him on.. "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarnie... wwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrnie... wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrnieeeeeee.." That used to send shivers down my spine when I heard that.. when he is finall thrown the ball the crowd would go nuts. I was lucky enough to be present the day he got a hattrick against england in 94. It was amazing the tension, excitement and emtions that played out during those 3 balls. Another interesting time was when he was out for his "drug ban" and McGill was in his team. McGill had he been born in any other country would have played a lot more cricket, he was a good bowler, but he was no warne. At the boxing day test that year we also had no McGrath so we had Bracken and Brad Williams opening the bowling, the Indian team smashed us around. When McGill came on to bowl, and every over he bowled the crowd started the Warnie chant. I can't imaging how he must have felt :P. The bloke finally gets a chance to be the sole leg spinner in the side and the crowd is against him.

Laying down the concrete

2011-10-20T07:35:00.001-06:00

I have been a really lazy blogger this last month. I think the last one I posted was in September, right before the Grand Final. The Grand Final was a good night, we ended up with about 20 odd people turning up to the event, Geelong taught Collingwood a lesson and Jimmy Bartel played one of the better games I have seen in a Grand Final for a while. Also at the Grand Final I had a bit of a tussle with Jason Webb of Downunder Travel fame. He decided that he wanted to talk to me about certain things, I asked that we have this discussion another time, however we ended up laying our cards on the table so to speak right there at Bottlescrew Bills. By the end of the night there were a lot of wobbly legs but very happy people. Winter is fast approaching, even though we are teased with some nice days, those of us who have been here for a winter or 2 know that it is just that, a tease. Lee and I decided at the start of October that it was probably a good idea to winter proof our house. What needed to be done before the nasty cold comes in: - Window well cover for the basement window - Replace floor in mud room - close in mudroom - new storm door The window well was easy, found one at Totem which fit perfectly. The mud room on our house when we purchased it was in a state of decay. The room has windows cut in the side walls, they were covered with rotten wood which we knocked out and replaced with cement board, insulation and silicon sealing. The floor was also rotten wood which we pulled up and replaced with a slab of concrete. All that is left is the storm door. The storm door is the most difficult task, our house is 100 years old and back in the day when it was built no standards had to be followed. The standard door height in Canada is 80 inches, the door height on our mud room is 72 inches so I am currently searching around for a place that makes custom sized storm doors. Once this is compelted our house is winter proofed! It is amazing what we have done to the place in the last 5 months. I look forward to looking back in a couple of years time at the pictures we took when we moved in and compare it to after all the work is complete. Already the front interior looks completely different. This weekend we are going paintballing. I can't wait! It has been a few years since I last went. Last time was in Brisbane and it was a stinking hot day! This time it will most likely be about +5c or cooler since we will be really close to the Rockies at Bragg Creek. I will write about it more next week :).

decisions made

2011-10-03T14:37:00.000-06:00

I had a dream the other night which comes around every so often. It's not the same dream, but the theme is always the same. It is a dream that takes me back a few years to a time in my life when I was not a very happy person. I am reminded of the feeling I used to have of being stuck in life and unable to do anything about it.

I can remember not being able to picture my life as it is now. These days I am a content and happy person. I have everything I want in life and I don't have any regrets now. How I got here is by having a good hard think about life and the way I wanted. I had to make some decisions which seemed very tough at the time. Decisions which may have upset some, but was best for everyone concerned. It just made me think, since then I have had to make decisions and because I think I have made the right ones I am now in a good place.

Grand Memories

2011-09-28T07:43:00.000-06:00

It's Grand Final week, although here in Canada you wouldn't know it :). Thank god for the internet, back in Australia sometimes all the coverage is suffocating but it is nice here that I can take in as much as I like while avoiding all the extra ho har. This morning and last night I was just thinking about some memories from my youth ect of Grand Final day... It has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. My Dad is a Carlton fan, back in the 70s, 80s and 90s he went to all the Grand Finals the blues played in. My first memory is from about 1987, the blues won it that year. Mum and Dad went to the game while I stayed at Grandmas place. Dad was pretty happy that night as the blues got up and rolled the hawks. 1988 Dad and Uncle John were running a pub in Ararat, I have faint memories of watching the Hawks pump Melbourne. After the game I went out into the pub car park and tried to recreate the entire match on my own with my footy. 1990 I remember driving from Portland to Ampitheatre in Victoria with Mum and Dad. My old man could not believe that the pies did not choke this match. I never saw a minute of it, just heard it on the radio. 1993 My Dad went to the game, I was at my friends house while the game was being played. I remember Mum and I picking him up at a train station afterwards. Not a good day for Dad or the Blues. 1994 Peter Matera running down the winning, bombing goals from outside 50. All through out the game I kept hoping that Ablett would cut loose and bring the cats back into the game. Sadly this never happened. 1996 My Dad was able to secure me a ticket the the big game and I got to see North Melbourne win the premiership. It was a pretty amazing day all round. 1997 and 98 both spent in bars in Melbourne. At the end of both games I was pretty pissed off as I did not want Adelaide to win the flag. It hurt more in 98 because it was North they beat. One thing I see in retrospect is how amazing it was for the Crows to pull it off 2 years in a row. Darren Jarmen has given me years of nightmares. 1999 North again. This time against Carlton. Watch it with Dad, first time Carlton had played the roos in a GF and it did not end well for them. 2001 - 2003 The Lions Reign. Pretty amazing watching them smash Essendon then Collingwood 2 years in a row. 2005 and 2006 Pretty epic Grand Finals. Swans and Eagles won 1 each. Both games had me on the edge of my seat all the way through.

Aussie movies part 2

2011-09-26T11:07:00.000-06:00

A few more Aussie movies that I enjoy watching from time to time.

Crackerjack:
This movie is about a guy who is a "member" of a lawn bowls club so that he can get car parking permits for an inner city club which he then sells on to other people. The bowling club he joins becomes desperate for people to play as number have dropped and he is given an option to either turn up and bowl or lose his membership. Pretty funny movie with Mick Molloy in the starring role, supported by Sam Johnson. There is a bunch of cameos anhd supporting cast from some legendary Aussie actors including Bill Hunter and Frank Wilson.
Malcolm:
I love this film. Its about a simple minded tram driver who also happens to be a mechanical genius. He makes a whole bunch of gadgets. I don't want to give this movie away if you haven't seen it. Just go out and get it! If you have seen it, watch it again :).
He Died With A Felafel In His Hand:
This movie is witty, funny and strange. It follows a guy who lives in a bunch of different rental houses up and down the eastern coast of Australia. His friends from his travels always seem to end up showing up at the wrong time.

A side note. I watched both finals on the weekend. The hawks v pies game was pretty amazing, but I think the wrong team won that game. Very hard at it, sitting on the edge of your seat type of stuff. The Geelong game just prooved how awesome they still are and that last year was just a small hump. I look forward to the Grand Final should be a cracker.

Aussie Movies

2011-09-22T09:15:00.000-06:00

Last week a bloke at my work told me about an Aussie film he saw. This is a Canadian fellow who has seen a few "obscure" aussie films in his time. Some people over here have really surprised me, most have never heard of any Aussie films apart from Mad Max, but sometimes you get a random who has seen a classic. Another guy I work with had really got stuck into Underbelly and just loved it. I recommended that he see "The Proposition" with Guy Pearce and several other aussie movies, he loved them all. The movie in question was Griff the invisible. it is about a guy who works in an office by day and basically lives in a superhero fantasy world at night. It was a bizarre, funny and heart warming movie. It made me think of some of my favorite Aussie movies I have seen in my life. In no particular order my fav Aussie films: The Castle. Love this film, has the much loved story of an under dog family from who the airport is trying to take their home from them. What happens when you back a aussie battler bogan into a corner? Not exactly the same as a tiger but be ready for a fight. Eric Bana is awesome in this movie as is everyone else in the film :P. How's mum? Good. How's Dad? Good. How's steve? Yeah he's alright.... The Club. I can't remember the first time I saw this movie. It was released the year I was born (1980). It a classic aussie footy movie about when the VFL started to turn semi pro. Players aren't playing for love of the club anymore, they are playing for money. There is back stabbing, reconcilliation ect. It has a pretty legendary aussie cast lead by Graham Kennedy and Jack Thompson. "Get ya thumb... ram it up his bum.." Mad Max. If you haven't seen this George Miller classic you must be living under a rock. Brilliant movie made on a small budget. This would have to be one fo the best revenge movies ever made. If you are from Melbourne it is cool to watch it and see the streets of Melbourne and surrounding as a background to the film. I love it when that Knight Rider guy quotes ACDC Rock and Roller at the beginning of the film. Mel Gibson with an Aussie accent is gold. There are so many more but I have run out of time today :).

irish cream ale all grain

2011-09-17T10:38:00.001-06:00

Irish Cream Ale All grain Batch size: 5.0 gal Boil volume: 6.0 gal OG: 1.055 FG: 1.014 Bitterness (IBU): 20.1 Color (SRM): 14.1 ABV: 5.4% [Grains] Maris Otter Malt 9.000lb Grain 84.8% Barley, Flaked 1.000lb Grain 9.4% Crystal 70-80L (British) 0.500lb Grain 4.7% Chocolate Malt (British) 0.119lb Grain 1.1% [Hops] Kent Golding 1.00oz 5.1% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 18.3 IBU Kent Golding 0.50oz 5.1% AA Pellet @ 5 min, 1.8 IBU [Yeast/Other] Irish Ale yeast 1.0 unit(s), Yeast Wyeast 1084 [Recipe Notes] Mash with 13.43 qt 171.8f of water for 45 min
Add 5.37 qt of 196.5f water leave for 15 mins

Sparge with 2.29 gallons of 168f water Recipe: Irish Cream

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A watched pot never boils

2011-09-14T08:52:00.000-06:00

Something my old man used to say has been coming back to me several times over the last few months. As a kid I would be standing around waiting for something to happen or constantly checking on something as kids do, lacking patience ect. He would says either Patience is a virtue or a watched pot never boils. At the time it brought images of me wondering if I stood and stared at the kettle while it was boiling would it never boil? Anyway the reason I have been thinking about this lately is that brewing beer has a lot of waiting time. You have to wait for the water to get to a certain temperature, you have to let wurt boil ect... and while this is going on the voice of my Dad is saying inside my head "Ben, a watched pot never boils." And what is the relevance of this? On Saturday Chris and I made an all grain Dunkel. We picked up a wyeast 3068 yeast pack which we pitched into our brew. Usually when you pitch the yeast within 12 - 24 hours a layer of foam which is called Krausen forms over the brew indicating that fermentation is taking place. I checked the brew 24 hours after pitching the yeast and there was no foam. In fact the brew looked exactly the same as when I pitched the yeast. I thought, ok let's give this another day, don't stress yet... The next day (48 hours after pitching) I checked the brew again, still nothing. No krausen nothing, however I could see at the bottom of the fermenter a layer of yeast. My first thought was that I needed to get another yeast packet as maybe this one was dead? Before acting I jumped online and did a bit of reasearch and found that it is not uncommon, particularly when dealing with wyeast packets, for the yeast for take 3 - 4 days to become active. The reason is for beer to ferment properly it requires a certain number of yeast cells to get going. When you buy yeast packets or use dried yeast it has a low number, you throw it in the wurt, it has fermentables which the yeast starts acting on and next thing you know the yeast starts growing new cells ect. So the message I got from my research was "Don't do anything! Just leave it and be patient." So I left it alone, pushing the doubt aside in my mind. This morning about 80 odd hours, or almost 4 days after yeast pitching I had a look at the fermenter and just like magic a krausen had formed.

Footy and Beer

2011-09-12T07:30:00.001-06:00

September / Footy finals has kicked in. The weather has been really amazing this summer in Calgary, we have had weeks and weeks, well actually probably several MONTHS of sunshine. The temperature sits somewhere between 18 and 28 most days with no humidity. Sure winter is coming soon bringing with it serious cold and snow, which makes these wonderful days even more special! On Saturday Chris and I sat in my backyard and did a little brewing. We made our first all grain beer, a german style Dunkel. It was a bit of work but I am confident the resulting beer is going to be awesome! The only concern I have is that the yeast seems to be a little slow to become active. We pitched it on Saturday and almost 2 days later there is not much activity. I did some research and learnt that this is no uncommon and I should just leave it for another couple of days, worst case scenario I just need to get another yeast and repitch, no harm done. Saturday night was pizza and footy night. We sat around and watched the Sydney - St Kilda match. The Saints were supposed to run all over the swans, however that did not happen and a major upset took place. I think this is the end of the Saints good run. Might be a few years in the bottom 8 ahead for them. I was hoping the Blues v Bombers watch would be on but it was not broadcast on the liveafl site sadly. Sunday we spent in our usual style, being a bit slack :). We checked out that movie Contagion. It wasn't too bad but in typical disaster movie style people stuck around other people who had a virus and also around areas that had large scale riots and looting.. why not just piss off somewhere else and escape the risk of infection / violence? There was not a lot of movies to pick from, seems to be a real lack of good movies at the cinema for the last few months. We got home and watched "Paul" a film we had wanted to see for a while. That turned out to be a good light hearted comedy.

all grain dunkle

2011-09-11T20:02:00.001-06:00

Batch size: 5.0 gal OG: 1.062 FG: 1.016 Bitterness (IBU): 11.5 Color (SRM): 25.7 ABV: 6.1% [Grains] Pilsener (German) 7.000lb Grain 58.1% Munich (German) 3.500lb Grain 29.0% Crystal 40L 1.000lb Grain 8.3% Black Barley 0.300lb Grain 2.5% Chocolate Malt (US) 0.250lb Grain 2.1% [Hops] Tettnanger 1.00oz 3.7% AA Pellet @ 60 min, 11.5 IBU [Yeast/Other] Weihenstephan Weizen yeast 1.0 unit(s), Yeast Wyeast 3068 [Recipe Notes] 4 gallons of water @ 165f for 1 hour
Sparge with 4 gallons of 175f water Recipe: Dunkel

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Goodbye Neighbor

2011-09-06T14:24:00.001-06:00

On the weekend we sent off our Neigbor Will, with a couple of nights of drinks and firepits. He is off to the place he calls his sanctuary, Australia. We bid him good luck, in the couple of months we have known him we have had a lot of fun, drank a lot of beers, listen to a lot of music and played in his basement sound studio many a time. Lee farewelled him by beating him several times at pool on Friday night, something he was none to pleased about ;). Saturday night a fire pit turned almost into a forest fire :). It is always a little tricky to say goodbye to people who become good friends, but we totally understand having packed up and moved a few times ourselves, life must go on! At the same time Chris and I made up a Belgium Beer Trapisste clone, which we are hoping will be pretty delicious. Over drinks on Friday night we thought about coming up with a Dunkel recipe. I used a nice little Android app BrewR to formulate the recipe. The app is brilliant, it calculates the bitternes, ABV and color for you once you punch in the desired ingrediants. I ordered the grains on Sunday and to my surprise The Vinyard SW was open and I was able to pick up the goods today! The plan is to make the Dunkel on Saturday. It will be our first all grain brew. I also picked up a copy of Designing Great Beers to assist me with designing the next few batches. The book is extremely detailed and I find it very interesting. If you want to know everything about the brewing process, this is the book you need. The final round of the Aussie rules season played out on the weekend, I managed to turn my form around against Dave in Dream Team and take out the minor premiership :). The roos won the last game of the season against Richmond to take out 9th spot. While finals would have been great, the team is young and not ready. Had we made the finals it would have meant a fast and painful early exit. Next year... I actually see hope in this team unlike several years ago, we now have a good batch of young kids starting to hit their straps. Which brings us to the business end of the season. The finals start next weekend and I am planning on watching all the games I can! I love watching how the pressure affects different players. Some shine and others turn to water, but the one thing that is always gaurenteed is that it is the best footy that comes out at finals time. Not sure who I want to win, at this stage ANYONE BUT COLLINGWOOD. Tonight I start helping out with the "little dragons" at Karate. It is the ankle bighter class. It should be fun, I will do 2 classes (Tues and Thurs) this week then scale back to once a week from next week on. Should be a very interesting experience.

flat tire belgium ale

2011-09-02T08:16:00.001-06:00

Recipe: Flat Tire

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Grains gone wild

2011-08-30T09:33:00.000-06:00

I scored a free esky (cooler) last week and as I already have one, wasn't sure what I would do with it. Then a light went off in my head... a mash tun! I jumped on line and found a easy to follow video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftY_HZAFJFc
Chris and I went for a visit to home depot and found all the necessary stuff, It took about 30 minutes to put this sucker together for about a 60 buck investment. Not bad at all.

As a result of this, we can now do all grain brews. We might have to do some partial grain recipes first just to get the hang of it, but the possibilities are endless, it now means that any kind of style of beer is fair game!

On Saturday we made up 2 brews. The first is a porter using no can kit only various malt extracts, 3 different grains (Dark, Chocolate and Crystal) and hops. The smell of this brew was amazing!

The second brew we made was a revamped English Bitters. This time we changed it up a bit. We used the Coopers English bitters kit as before. We used 3lbs of LME, 500g of DME, 100 odd grams of Black Malt grain, about a pound of crystal malt grain and 21g Northern Brewing hops, boiled in 3 different 15 minutes stages, finishing the brew off with 8g of Willamette aroma hops. So hopefully it will taste even better than the first time. Now we have to wait 4 weeks before sampling!

On Saturday all my hopes of the Roos making the 8 got dashed by a big loss to the Saints. I should be thankful because the side has not beaten a top 8 team apart from Esseondon all season. Had they made the finals it would have been a quick and nasty exit... oh well there is always next year! I will be eagerly watching the finals. I am hoping that someone gets up and upsets the magpies. I would love it if the Hawks play them and Franklin goes nuts...

Hey Jamaica

2011-08-22T11:27:00.000-06:00

"Some people can't believe, Jamaica has a bobsled team.." On Saturday we farewelled Heidi with a Jamaican theme BBQ. On the menu was a rice salad, several dips, spinich noodle salad, Jerk Chicken and goat curry. To wash it all down we kegged up 2 brews, a partial grain amber ale and a quick aussie draught kit brew, all with reggae playing in the back ground :).

The food and brew was a great success. Everyone had burning lips from the rather spicey jerk chicken! And the beer went down so well that by the end of the night we had completely finished the Amber Ale keg and drank through about 3/4 of the Aussie Draught keg. The kegging / c02 conditioning seems to help the beer "age" faster. When they are in bottles you need to wait 6 - 8 weeks to get a good mature flavour out of a brew.

On Sunday we sat down and watched cool runnings which is as much a celebration of Calgary as it is of the Jamaican bobsled team. It's pretty awesome seeing all the bits of Calgary on the big screen :).

Adventures in Kegging

2011-08-11T11:40:00.000-06:00

Ever since I first made a batch of home brew about 10 years ago, I had always dreamed of the day I could put it in a keg. Up until recently it was kind of a pipe dream without much thought being given to it. Recently when I started making home brew again with my buddy Chris we looked into it a bit more. Here in North America people are kegging their home brew beer using old soft drink or "soda" kegs called Cornelius Kegs. They hold about 21L if fluid which makes them easy to carry around empty or full.

Anyway Chris and I had a conversation a few times about how awesome it would be to keg our brews, he contacted a few old hospitality friends to see what he could find. A few days later Chris shows up at my house with 2 Corny kegs! Score.. apparently he found some bloke here in Calgary that has a bunch of them and if you can get hold of his number, he is willing to sell them. So we had the kegs, now we needed some way to pump c02 INTO the kegs.. this prooved a bit tricky.

Over the next few weeks / month we enquired with a bunch of different places about purchasing a c02 tank all to no avail. One Saturday afternoon while walking the dogs we came across a garage sale about 2 blocks from home. Lee suggested we should go in and look, so we went and and wondered around. Lee came up to me and said, "Hey I want that trunk over there, by the way is that a c02 tank next to it that you have been looking for?" As it so happens, it WAS a c02 tank and the guy did want to get rid of it. $50 later we scored a trunk and a c02 tank.

Once we had the tank, we need it filled up, The guy I bought it from suggested I go to a paint ball shop up on the corner of Edmonton Trail and TransCanada. Sadly they did not fill tanks as large as the one I scored (5kgs). I ended up finding a place called the Recharge Station, our near Blackfoot Casino. I drove out there and for $30 they filled up the tank for me on the spot.

Fast forward to yesterday. We put our partial grain amber ale into the keg, pumped in 15psi of c02, now it is just a matter of waiting 10 days then the beer will flow free :).

Braised Lamb Shanks

2011-08-09T09:50:00.000-06:00

I picked up some lamb shanks from the local butcher last week and yesterday decided to dig up a recipe. I found the following recipe:

Ingredients

6 lamb shanks
salt and pepper to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, chopped
3 large carrots, cut into 1/4 inch rounds
10 cloves garlic, minced
1 (750 milliliter) bottle red wine
1 (28 ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes with juice
1 (10.5 ounce) can condensed chicken broth
1 (10.5 ounce) can beef broth
5 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Directions

Sprinkle shanks with salt and pepper. Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Working in batches, cook shanks until brown on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer shanks to plate.
Add onions, carrots and garlic to pot and saute until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Stir in wine, tomatoes, chicken broth and beef broth. Season with rosemary and thyme. Return shanks to pot, pressing down to submerge. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to medium-low. Cover, and simmer until meat is tender, about 2 hours.
Remove cover from pot. Simmer about 20 minutes longer. Transfer shanks to platter, place in a warm oven. Boil juices in pot until thickened, about 15 minutes. Spoon over shanks.

The shanks came out pretty awesome, although the jus was not as thick as I would have liked, it was still delicious. We had mashed potatoe and peas on the side, so the jus ended up mixed into the mashed spud :). Yum.

Kegging the brew

2011-08-04T09:31:00.001-06:00

Last Saturday while walking the dogs around the neighborhoodwe wondered by a garage sale about 2 blocks from home. Curiousity got the better of us, Lee found a trunk she liked which had leaning against it a c02 tank. Why do I need a c02 tank? I need it to attach to the Cornelias Keg that Chris found, thus making it possible for us to keg our home brew. The c02 tanks to buy new with a regulator go for $100 - $200 so I was curious about the price. A deal was struck, I could have the tank for $20.... bargain.

This Friday Chris and I will be transferring our partial grain amber ale into the keg, apply some c02 and let it condition. This means we will not require any priming sugar. We will wait the usual 2 weeks before sampling the brew and if required let it sit a bit longer. A Scottish Ale will be brewed tomorrow along with an Aussie style Draft requested by one McLean.

The weather has been pretty amazing since the start of July, and doesn't look like changing anytime soon. We have spent a lot of time outside soaking it all up, bringing our reno work to a halt. Once the good weather is gone we will have plenty of stuff to do inside the house.

2 years on...

2011-07-28T09:15:00.000-06:00

I mentioned in one of my more recent posts that the next month was one of milestones. Next week, on around the 6th of August will mark 2 years since we landed in Calgary to live. I think we departed Australia on or around the 31st of July via Hawaii.

I have been thinking about this a bit since we had an Aussie meetup last Friday. The reason I have been thinking about it is that when we came here I was on a 2 year working holiday visa. I was on that visa until early 2010 I was granted Permanent Residency. So it got me thinking, how would I feel if I knew that next week I had to get out of Canada? I would be very disappointed is my answer! Over the last two years we have really established ourselves here, making new friends all while making the city our home. So thankfully we can stay until we are ready to move on rather than being forced to move on.

The AFL finals are coming up soon. Thanks to the awesome services of liveafl.tv I have been able to watch more footy than I was ever able to watchin in Australia. With the finals approaching I am going to have to make a bunch of pies for late nights sitting around watching hopefully an enthralling finals series. This year we will organise a meetup for grand final day and hopefully be able to get a good table at bottle screw bills.

I can't write a blog entry without referring to home brew, so here goes... Chris and I bottled our Wheat beer last weekend and then brewed up a partial grain brew which is supposed to clone James Squire Amber Ale. It has been fermenting pretty strong since Saturday and I have high hopes that it comes out nicely, but will have to wait at least 3 weeks before tasting it. The bitters has come along nicely, but will be even better after another couple of weeks. I have been letting the stout sit. The Pale Ale is almost all gone now :P. I think there is only about 14 bottles left! It did teach us a good lesson about priming sugar... don't use corn syrip and never use more than 175g for priming!

James Squire Amber Ale Clone

2011-07-21T08:00:00.000-06:00

One of my fav beers back in Australia was the James Squire Amber Ale. It has been about 2 years since I had one and I found a nice little clone recipe so thought i would give it a shot. I don't really know if this will come out anything like it but I suspect it will be half decent ;).

So I modified the recipe a little but here are the incrediants I will be using:

1 can of Canadian Blonde kit.
1kg Medium DME
250g 40l Crystal Malt
15g Tettnanger hops
Provided yeast

The plan is to mix the can and Medium DME the same way I always do. What I will be doing differently is boiling the Crystal malt for 30 mins then adding the hops for a further 30 mins, then mixing it with the other wurt. Stay tuned...

Wheat beer brewsky

2011-07-19T17:06:00.000-06:00

This afternoon I got home from work and moved the Two Pissed Bastards Wheat Beer from the primary fermenter, which it had been sitting in for 9 days, across to the secondary carboy. This reminded me that I had not actually recorded any details about the brew yet!

here goes...

6 Gallons of water brought to the boil. 3 gallons into fermenter, remaining had 1 can of Coopers Wheat, 500g LME and 250g Dextrox mixed in. Brought that to the boil until the hot break then 15g of Tettnanger bittering hops added and boiled for a further 15 minutes.

A yeast starter using MME and 40c pre boiled water in a jug woke up the coopers provided dried yeast. Infact it was one of the most active yeast I have seen, big brown froth with large bubbles!

We cold chilled the wurst in the pot in ice until it got to around 40c. Remembered to take the gravity for once :).. we have a starting gravity of 1.035. We then put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast at around 36c.

The brew was actively fermenting for about 4 - 5 days. Nice healthy froth ontop with nice big brown circles. While racking the brew I could detect a smell not far off the Hoegarten smell.

A city back to normal

2011-07-18T09:18:00.000-06:00

The Stampede madness has finally come to an end. This was the 3rd Stampede Lee and I have been through, so all the thrill and excitement of it has dulled considerably for us. The city goes a bit nuts for just over a week, it is a relief that all that stuff is over with for another year. I went on the opening day for a work function that included taking in the rodeo, Lee got to go 3 times all for work related functions and she is all cow boyed out :P.

The last week has been a little frustrating, got a flare up of my knee. Usually happens a couple of times a year but this time it was a really bad one, keeping me off my feet for about 4 days. It has got a bit better thanks to some awesome pills but still isn't 100%. Hopefully it will go away soon so I can get back to doing all the things it stops me doing like taking the dogs for a good walk, karate and slow pitch.

Planning on making another brew pretty soon, maybe even this weekend. The plan is for a partial mash amber ale. I have not picked up the ingrediants yet, might do that on Wednesday. I also managed to "fix" the over cabinated pale ale. Its as simple as pulling the caps off, letting it sit for 20 minutes then recapping the beer.

I saw a very interesting documentary on the weekend called The King of Kong: A fistful of quarters. It's about some crazy nutbag nerds who are awesome at classic arcade games. There is this guy Billy Mitchell who had some crazy donkey kong score for 20 years, then one day a guy beats it and no one believes him. He has to go and proove himself over and over and the guy who originally holds the score makes a complete ass of himself. Pretty interesting watch, it is on netflix at the moment.

Milestone time

2011-07-12T08:55:00.000-06:00

July / August is one for milestones in our world. On the 14th of July it will be 5 years since Lee and I got together. So much has happened in those 5 years. Looking back at some of the things that have happened...

When we met I was living in Melbourne, about 1800km from Brisbane and after we got together I moved up to Brisbane. It was an easy move and things went pretty smoothly. After I had been there for about 3 months we moved in together for the first time.

A year later we got engaged and in 2008 we got married. On our honeymoon we visited Canada, loved it and in August 2009 moved to Canada. We have since adopted 2 puppies, made a bunch of friends and bought a house.

So it has been an awesome adventure and yes I know how lucky I am! If I never met Lee none of this would have happened. So July 14 marks 5 awesome years and August marks 2 pretty awesome years in Canada.

Chris and I have been making more beer, and on the weekend started our 4th batch. This time it is a wheat kit beer to which we added 15gs of hops. It contains 500g of LME and 300g of Dextrose. We bottled the bitters on the same day and primed the bottles with Medium ME instead of corn sugar, so it will be interesting to see how that came out.

While we where making beer there also happened to be a bit of an inpromptu party going on. We ended up with about 8 or 9 people at the house and had an awesome night. The guitar was passed around and Will's music room was utilised :).

On Friday Lee and I attended a work function at the stampede. It looks the same as the other 3 times I have been an unless I get free tickets next year, will probably give it a miss. The whole city goes completely nuts and I spend the 2 weeks walking around humming dualing banjos :P.

Tasman Amber Ale

2011-07-06T15:09:00.000-06:00

I have a bit of an idea for a future brew. I am thinking I want to make a partial grain amber ale, as one of my fav Aussie beers of all time is James Squire Amber Ale. I have been doing a bit of research and found that an Amber Ale is essentially a Pale Ale with Crystal Malt added (think Caramel).

Here is my shopping list.. (for now):

- 1.7kgs Coopers Pale Ale kit
- 1.5kgs Coopers Medium / Amber ME
- 200 - 300grams Crystal 60L grains.
- 15g of flavoring hops.

My plan is to boil the Crystal Malt in a grain bag for 30 mins, add the hops to boil for 15 - 30 more minutes, then dump it into the fermenter. I will then proceed as I normally would with the Canned ME.