What I'm reading now...

Right now, for pleasure I'm reading
World War Z, an Oral History of the Zombie War, which is actually a lot better than the name implies.
My current technical book is
Programming Erlang, which is a tutorial on Erlang, a functional programming language developed by the people at Ericsson.

Bubble, bubble...

Well, the beer got made yesterday, and it's busily bubbling in my guest bath as I write. I was going to work off a recipe in the Joy of Homebrewing, but while I was getting my wallet out of my old pants (which were in my closet, next to my stack of library books), I noticed
The Homebrewer's Recipe Guide. One thing led to another, and I decided to work off a recipe in there, specifically the "Jack the Ripper British Ale".
Their original recipe is:
6 2/3 lb light malt extract
1/4 lb crystal malt
1 oz Hellertauer hops (boiling)
1/2 oz Tatinger hops (aroma)
1 oz Hellertauer hops (dry hop)
2 tsp gypsum
1 tsp irish moss

Working with what I had on hand, I went with:
1/2 lb of Caramel malt (instead of 1/4lb crystal)
1 oz Cascade hops (boil),
1/2 oz of E Kent Goldings, 1/2 oz Willamette (aroma)

I'm going to stick with Hellertauer hops for the dry hop, though.
What I'm hoping I'll end up with is something with good body (my last beer elicited more than one comment about being really good, but lacking in body), and a good hoppy aroma plus some bitterness.

I'm going to be waiting at least 2 weeks (1 week initial ferment, 1 week secondary ferment) to taste it in flat form, but hopefully it'll be a good one!

Quiet too long...

Wow, I knew I'd been a bit slack on my posting, but I hadn't realized just how long it's been until I looked at the date on my last post. Yeesh, six whole weeks!

Anyway, I plan to make up for it, hopefully with several new posts today and in the following days.
First on tap, I'll be brewing today. I've got 5 lbs of liquid malt extract, several ounces of hops, and several varieties of loose grain from my freezer that I probably should use up (if they're not already bad), so I'm going to see if I can't take a base recipe (Wise Ass Red from Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing) and make it my own.

So here's what I have:
5 lbs amber liquid malt extract
2 oz Cascade hop pellets (alpha 5.1)
1 oz Hellertauer Hops (alpha 2.5)
1 oz E Kent Goldings hops (alpha 6.0)
1 oz Willamette hops (alpha 3.7)
1 lb caramel malt
1/2lb chocolate malt

Looking at this, and what I want to make, I think I need to make a quick trek to the brew store for more malt extract (and those grain bags to hold the hops/grain.)

Stay tuned!