Springtimes

all the seeds have come up

we've done it, our first 100% successful brew, Resistor pale ale and little guy session IPA.  They both are actually pretty good.

i finally turned that thing I found on the street into this seedling shelf

the goya is sending out tendrils

in a few hours time it's latched on.

at El Tanampa on 4th ave is super Mexican and good.

Steven wasn't available so it was just me and bob for this brew sesh and what a sesh it was.  We had decided to do all grain BIAB (brea in a bag) method this time around cuz its cheaper and more authentic and better tasting.  This is all the grains for one 5 gallon batch.

the grains need to be kept at temperature for an hour so their sugars get extracted.  This is steven's new huge 10 gallon brew pot.  We didn't sparge (which is pouring a gallon or two of like 170f water over the grains at the end to extract the last bit of sugar but without the off flavor releasing squeezes that you would think would just do the job).

in the end it took like 9 hrs to do 2 five gallon batches, the stove was on max blast for like 6-7 hrs, the carbon monoxide detector even went off in the last 20 min which is scary.  So we can't do all grain brewing again unless we have some kind of solution because we can't have the stove blasting for that long or be waiting around for so many gallons of water to boil.  Which is a bummer cuz this beer came out the best.

got all my gardening stuff and am ready for spring

got all my street found wood garbage treasure.

but winters these days suck so this is March 21st, 2018.

i found a bunch of swing top bottles for cheap nearby on craigslist so I emailed and then I got an email back saying it was our old neighbors that lived upstairs from us in Carroll Gardens cuz they moved a few months before us to Park Slope as well.  What are the chances.

Jen's older sister was friends with RuthieAnn Miles in school when the grew up in Hawaii.  At the intersection of 9th street and 5th avenue a woman ran a red light and struck the pregnant RuthieAnn, her daughter, her friend Lauren Lew and her son. Her daughter Abigail and her friend Lauren son Joshua were killed.  RuthieAnn's unborn child is ok the last I heard.  The driver has a history of running red lights and speeding.  It seems callous to mention that RuthieAnn is a TONY award winning actress, winning in 2015 for The King and I, but it is impressive.  Jen and I cross every street much more cautiously now.  This is absolutely heartbreaking