A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that I was going to brew a clone of Fat Tire Amber Ale. It was developed by Jeff Lebesch who melded his love for quality Belgian beers with his love for mountain biking. I don’t know if I reported any of the details after the brew but it didn’t come out exactly the way I thought it would. The recipes normally give a range of what the specific gravity of the wort (unfermented beer) should be after the boil but before fermentation. It showed an expected gravity (the O.G.) of between 1.048 and 1.050. I followed the recipe exactly and mine came out to be 1.042. It’s not all that much lower but it can have an effect on the alcohol content and the fullness of flavor.

I consulted with Matt, my mentor, and we discussed all the possibilities for why it turned out the way it did. I decided this last Friday to brew another batch using the same ingredients but using more pounds of grain. I entered the original recipe in ProMash which is a beer brewing software that does all the math for you. I changed the batch size to 5.5 gallons, reduced the mash efficiency to 64% (from my last batch) and I added enough grain quantity to get the estimated O.G. to 1.050. I OVERADJUSTED! On this last batch I went to Bells in Kalamazoo, bought the grain, and crushed it myself using the hand mill they supplied. I did change the process of the sparging of the mash, but everything else remained the same other than the quantity of grain. I ended up with an O.G. of 1.064. That will change the estimated alcohol level from an estimated 4.33% abv (alcohol by volume) to an estimated 6.87% abv. I guess bartenders have to drink their own mistakes so wish me luck.

I hate to rat on good friends but I know who caused the recent storms and heavy rains that have flooded areas all over the country. I hate to kick a guy when he’s down but it’s Bill Bradley! It’s a little complicated so try to follow along. I’ve written many times about the fact that I’ve become a triathlon race weather pox. No matter what race I enter, the weather will be bad. Either way…hotter and more humid than normal or cold and rainy. It’s my lot in life so I have to live with it. After my bike wreck of 2003 and the attendant brain injuries, my friends have taken turns watching me to make sure I don’t do anything weird or detrimental to society.

All summer without any rain made Crooked Lake drop about 8 inches and the first section of my dock was over dry land. My pontoon boat was on shore half the time and it took all my strength and body mass (no comments, please) to move it enough to go for a boat ride. I asked Bill to help me move it out one section. It was Bill’s turn to keep an eye on me and he agreed to help me anyway, knowing full well that when I moved the dock it would start raining, and it did. Now you have to wade in water for five feet just to get out to the dock. And look at all the people who are now homeless from the floods.

I usually don’t comment on politics but this past week has been a field day for the media. I told a couple of people Friday night, before the wine set in, that I try my best to avoid public bathrooms to do “number two”, but the few times that I have, my foot hasn’t come anywhere near the guy’s foot in the next stall. And I wouldn’t reach down to pick up a piece of paper (that’s the senators’ story) with my worst enemy’s hand let alone my own left hand. And if I was picking up something I thought was that important, I wouldn’t wave to the guy in the next stall under the partition. With that story and Michael Vick claiming that he didn’t actually kill the dogs that didn’t do well in the dog fights he didn’t promote but he was there when others did, I get upset. If people are going to do those kinds of things they need to take responsibility for their own actions and pay the price. People are so quick to blame someone else for their own bad actions. It makes me sick!

Better get out to the lake and rake some weeds.

Just (Glad I Take Responsibility Like A Man) Jack