chefjenny

So South Hills Brewing has just opened a Monroeville location.  Now I really need to order that kegging system since now I don't have the "no time too far" excuse for picking up brewing supplies.

As an additional note, I smell like woodsmoke.  I built a firepit in my back yard out of garden pavers and edging, and we tested it out yesterday.  It was perfect.  I'd never had a wiener roasted over a fire before, and it was really tasty.  Marshmallows, too, of course.  Happy 4th!  I think I need to build a fire every year, I think it's been my best independance day/anniversary yet.

Here's to 4 good years with Phil, and looking forward to many more.

So my next beer-related purchase is going to be a mini-kegging system - we have a mini-fridge in the basement that is just begging to be converted.  In the meantime, our  trip to Ohio scored us several six-packs of beer, where they sell them in the grocery store like godless heathens.  Wonderful, godless heathens.

Now I have read somewhere that ancient egyptians used to feed their slaves beer to make them pliant and harder workers, as well as providing for their calorie needs while they worked.  After an hour and a half of yardwork fueled by Sam Adam's Cherry Wheat, I find this to be an entirely plausible, nay, awesomely obvious theory.

Beer is also a good reward for having gone to the gym.  Must use beer incentives more often...

Just  made an online order for beer brewing supplies.  It's not as fun as going to the beer brewing store, but without a car those shops are a little too out of the way.  C'est la vie, at least I can order online.  At any rate, yeah - tis the season for pumpkin beer.  And at last count, there were five (5, ha ha ha!) pumpkins growing.  One of them is orange lots, and another was starting to turn.  It's not the pumpkin overload I thought it'd be, and I'm hoping for more to grow in, but 5 is a pretty decent haul.  Although the patch took over the yard, I'm tempted to plant pumpkins again next year, because it was still pretty fun. 

I'm t hinking of having a pumpkin party at my house in late October, if I can get the beer ready and all that.  Pumpkin flavored dishes( pumpkin lentils, pumpkin curry soup, fried pumpkin, pumpkin beer).  Maybe I'll make it a pumpkin carving party?  We could bust out the 2 table system we had for my birthday, have everyone bring their own pumpkin, and hang out... maybe make a horribly cheezy trophy for an award... that could be lots of fun.  Will decide when beer supplies get here.

EDIT:  On food - I did this awesome thing.  I took some PB, mixed in some splenda and honey, and made cookie sandwiches with the little cat-shaped cookies we get from Trader Joes.  Then I froze them - now we have these awesome frozen PB-filled vanilla cookies all cold and delicious and the texture is fantastic.  It's a little labor intensive making individual sammich cookies, not to mention that PB can get sort of messy; however, the dog didn't mind having to help clean up PB at random intervals, so at least I had some company while I worked on it :)  And they're so yummy, I think I'll do it again when we finish off this batch.  They're an awesome dessert/snack thing.

Also, in other random news:  Phil is exhibiting more pod-person behavior.  He took a bus out to monroeville mall, and then decided he didn't feel like waiting for the one home, so he just walked home.  Like, on his own initiative and everything... it's insane.  Also, he just voluntarily suspended his warcraft account - he says he's getting bored, and to be honest, I like him better when he's not playing warcraft anyway.  So... yeah.  He's being all "awesome adult" these days, and it's... well, it's nice.  I like the pod-person version of Phil better :)  Is that wrong?  Does that make me a pinko commie?

My friend Emily commented that every time she sees Phil, he's skinnier than the last time.  I'm all "I know, what a bastard."  Stupid girl-bits that are convinced that holding onto excess pudge is a good thing, and I'm all "No, really, I'm not in danger of famine, my reproductive health has some of the best care possible, really, we don't need your help..." and the pudge is all "Nyah!  I will protect teh babies when you haz dem!"  Bugger.  Trying not to weigh myself every day, but I'm hoping next Thursday I'll be pleasantly surprised and have reached my mini-goal when I do weigh in.

Gym is going great though - really easy to get to, easy to get home, personal trainer is a total nerd (he recognized the Dr Horrible songs that I was playing on my iPod).  It's... also nice :)

I have made liquid heroin.  I tried one of my beers last night - beautiful head, gorgeous color, and I practically chugged the glass it was so tasty.  Good buzz off of one beer.  Honey-Wheat is now my #2 best beer I've ever made (it's hard to top the pumpkin beer I love so much).

Also, it looks like Phil will likely be eligible for that extra 13 weeks of U.C. once his current U.C. dries up.  So awesome.

Also, I got a "job" doing some catering for my boss.  It's a non-profit venture - I'm doing it for fun, so I'm only charging her cost, but it's more that I get to do some fun food party planning and I don't have to pay for it :P

Seriously.  Must drink more of that beer.  So good...

The beer is tasty.  I am not hungover... not hungover... *repeat*

At least, I won't be once I pop some ibuprofen and drink a glass of water.

That said - I think it's true that drinking homemade beer means less of a hangover, because all the yeastie beasties are still floating around in there or something.  Because if I'd drank as much Yuengling last night as I did my own beer, I'd be crying.

I think we powered through over half a case just between me and Emily... but then another friend came late to the party and she helped too :P

Oh, and we decided - using the Jesus mii as your avatar to play Wii sports is cheating.  It's clearly instant god-mode....

xoxoxo - red mage needs water badly - Jen

Despite being left in the fermentor an extra week, the beer smelled lovely when I popped the seal. Bottling went as well as usual, which is to say boring and a little messy. I didn't really have enough bottles, nor the means to wash the Rolling Rock bottles I had picked up from the distributor, so I think I shorted myself maybe a bottle and a half's worth of beer (had to throw out perfectly good beer, *sniff*), but altogether got 30 bottles, and 3 large bottles (if you've ever seen a bottle of sparkling french lemonade, I so re-used those). Which means for a 3-way split, 10 bottles and 1 "40" for $11. Not to shabby for homemade extra-yummy beer.

Well... I hope it's extra-yummy. We'll find out in 2 weeks. It's drinkable by Nov 14th... but it'll be at its best after Dec. 5th. We'll see, eh?

If our finanaces keep looking as nice as they are, I may make beer every 8 weeks or so, and have an actual *gasp* stockpile of beer. Wouldn't that be nice?

Well... maybe not, actually. I'd have to buy a seperate beer fridge... darn dreams that are bigger than my pocketbook!

All my love, anyhow. Keep the peace, loves.

-J

So the weekend was terribly productive - we did a tons more halloween shopping and got some fun stuff for the zombie larp. I got a feather-down comforter, which is so ludicrously warm that if the house is above 60 degrees and I'm using it, I'm dying of overheating. What a better choice than a space heater, AND it's pretty :)

Sadly, it doesn't look like we'll get our graveyard put up until the end of the week - Phil is working some swing shift all week and it's havoc on our schedule.

Spent Sunday morning in the kitchen - carving out our pumpkins, roasting pumpkin seeds, roasting pumpkin, making potato soup and sandwiches. Our jack-o-lanterns are adorable and happily grinning on the front porch - and Phil hit on the smarty idea of carving a face in the backside, so there's a face looking at you no matter what part of the porch you're on. Spectacular. Sunday afternoon was repointing the bricks on the side of the house - who knew slapping on some mortar was a lot of hard work? And then making chili in the evening. Busy, but in a good way.

No, I didn't make pie out of my roasted pumpkin bits. I made beer. So, pumpkin beer in 3 weeks or so. W00t! It's definitely gurgling like a happy beer baby, so provided I didn't accidentally add any extra bacteria (I fear I wasn't as terrifically careful as usual because I had to improvise on some of the beer making steps, as I didn't have a real solid recipe), it will hopefully turn out as good as it smelled when I was boiling the wort.

But I did have another oopsie - I dropped my specific gravity reader, which is basically a lead weight in a glass tube, so needless to say that shattered all over the floor. It's used to give an estimate of a) how much alcohol will be in the finished product and b) when it's actually done fermenting. I can account for option b just by giving it sufficient time to do its thing (8 days is about enough) but as for option a? Oh well. I could never really figure out how to calculate that anyhow, it just means that there'll be a little piece of data missing from my beer log, which if this beer turns out to be fantastic, may make it a teensie bit more difficult to reproduce.

C'est la vie - maybe introducing this element of chance will allow the glory of all creation to step in and create MiracleBeer - the most delicious beer of all XD

Yeah, there are other things in my life that are a hassle right now - but they're boring hassles, so I'll just leave them by the wayside.

Lurve and snurgles,
Jen

So Phil was kind enough to make me nearly vomit today. My usual stress reaction, is unfortunately, increasing amounts of nausea (that is when it's not the giggles), and Philip called me actually with good news. It looks like the labor dispute at his work is finally going to be resolved - after months and months, it may be even as soon as 10 days. That means a raise and backpay, which, if it's true and not hearsay, is a big yippee. Then Phil quoted me a number that's almost twice what he's making now - the sort of numbers that would clear up a lot of financial discomfort. It would be a beautiful thing to be given such a suddenly clean slate.

Which of course triggered so much anxiety and worrying (I used to go through this every year at Christmas - all those presents under the tree, just sitting there, the possibilities of which would just overexcite me until Christmas morning I was laying on the couch looking green) that I almost had to go lie down.

God forbid I should ever win the lotto. I'll probably straight up hurl.

But still... yippee!

Oh! And I read an (admittedly biased) article that stated not only is beer at least as healthy for you as a glass of wine, that it tends to actually be more healthy for you. I know a pint of guiness is loaded with iron, niacin, folic acid, and all sorts of other goodies, and the alcohol has the same artery-busting goodness as that found in red wine. Then they had to ruin it, naturally, by suggesting you drink it in moderation!

Okay, well, that's not too ruined for me. I get a good buzz off of a half-bottle of homebrew (that's approximately 10oz, by the by). In my defense, the home-made stuff is "kickier" than commercial product, but I'll confess I'm a lightweight.

The other awesome thing about having home-made beer: I love cooking with alcohol, and the homebrew is making so many things taste fantastic. Used it in some beef with rice; awesome. I put some in the stew for dinner, and I'm certain it will be great. I think I could even make a decently interesting curry with it - it tasted great washing it down XD

I guess things are looking okay... we'll see how the house thing progresses though, eh?

less-than-three (<3) - J

Stayed home today, mostly to get crap done that couldn't be done on the weekend (by the by, if you own a car dealership and advertise being open on Saturdays, then by golly someone ought to be there when I show up to fix the car title you screwed up in the first place. I mean, sure, it's cute that they put Jennifer Snyder, but I'm not actually married to Phil yet, and now the credit union is having a conniption. Rawr! Today I will pounce and you will be forced to... uh... fax in a request to the bank to fix the title. Yeah. Quake in thy boots!!).
Also, we get to try and get Philip a loan of some sort today. Yeah, I don't have high hopes, but essentially it'd be nice if he could reclaim some of the debt that's currently in my name but is actually his debt. I'll keep the car loan and the personal loan, but a chance to pay off some credit cards? I'll take it. Plus, since his credit doesn't affect my house-buying thingie, I'm not especially concerned at what even the application will do to us. We're doing a great job at improving his credit, he hasn't had a late payment for a darn thing since short after he met me, but I'm thinking it's still too early in the game to expect actually being approved for some sort of personal loan.
Thirdly, today is the day the beer is drinkable. And it certainly is that... the flavors will mellow after a week in the fridge, but otherwise it's pretty good. Sweet, tart, licorice-y, clove-y, dark... the beer had a nice polite head on it (no wildly foaming over, but no anticlimactic *fzt* either). Okay, yes, I'm drinking at 10:30 am, but I woke up with the intention to go to work, it was just the realization of all the crap that didn't get accomplished over the weekend that turned me around. And then I was awake. At 7. And now I'm eating my lunch, and dammit, curried pork and spice beer just sounded like a good combo!

AND IT IS! BWAHAHA!

-J

Bottling beer is kind of boring... it's a lot of sitting and watching beer go through the tube. Sure, the sixth grade siphoning science experiment was neat, for like a second. Now, it's a little slow for the sort of fast paced world I'm used to.

On the other hand, in 15 days I'll have carbonated beer. I tasted it - no fizz of course, but it sure is interesting. The clove and anise really come out after fermentation. Hope Randy feels it's worth his 15 bucks.

EDIT: I guess the beer does taste like licorice beer... but, how can I say this? It's in a good way. I've always liked anise flavor so long as it wasn't candied, and this is anise in a savory sweet sort of way. Kind of like kettle corn...

Okay, that was stretching it. Sure, it's no skittlebrau, but it'll do.

Beer will be born on: June 26th

-Jenny

So Phil and I did find a house we like last Saturday, liked enough to seriously consider making an offer. Here's a link:

http://www.prudentialpreferred.com/property/index.cfm?fuseaction=propertymls&MLS=620613

Don't let the odd picture fool you, it's a very cute house, with a separate garage you can't really see in the picture. It's a big lot, and it's bordered on the back by a sweet little creek. The house is all hardwood floors - once all the little old lady detritus is cleared out (including the pair of old lady panties lying in the mud room for some unknown reason), I think it'd be a lovely starter home for Philip and I. There are, however, still some concerns:

That big warehouse thing next to it? A Welding and metalwork shop. Okay, so I intially thought that was sorta cool, but then... what about noise? The owner assured me the hours of operation are 7:00 to 4:30 - ok, so I'm not even home, no big deal, right? But how much noise are we talking here? Just enough to be heard over the traffic on the road? Or will I have to strap down stuff on my walls to keep it from rattling off?

Transportation is also kind of ... iffy. I don't have a car, and there aren't any really good bus stops nearby (there is one about 3/4 of a mile away... uphill... which would be a real bitch in winter snow). However, I've taken to having Phil drop me off at the gym in the mornings on his way to work - since I'm awake anyway it seems to be working out. Getting to work from the gym is super-easy, so if we keep that sort of thing up it won't be hard at all. Heck, even barring the gym, there are plenty of coffee shops and Eat n Parks open that early.

Other than that, the place does have about the right amount of potential for us. In decent move-in condition (and housing some pretty nifty 50's and 60's antique things), mostly just a nice blank slate for us. We did ask about the creek flooding - apparently never really bad enough to reach the house or the warehouse. We explored the basement - not only was it not damp, it actually smelled kinda nice. You know. For a basement. I think the attic crawlspace was done in cedar - it smelled terrific. I think I like this house just for being the first non-smelly house we went into.

And also, it probably looks great by comparison to what else we saw that day... including one with an indoor pool... how could we possibly afford an indoor pool, you ask? Easy. Put it in the kitchen, with a direct feed from the upstairs toilet, and voila... we practically ran from that house XD

And then the other one, which looked okay from the front, but was missing bits in the back. Like walls. Walls! Jeez louise, I'd like to have a house with walls please!

Well, we'll see. We're going to go looking in Sharpsburg and Etna again on Thursday, and if we can't find anything there that we like better than that one, we'll go back to that one on Saturday with Phil's parents. If it passes muster then, we'll probably make an offer.

I'm so close I can taste it...

IN OTHER NEWS: Began another batch of beer yesterday. Apartment smells like beer now. I'm glad Phil likes the smell too XD. I also bottled a bunch of root beer. The root beer will be ready by Saturday to drink - the regular beer is going to take a little while longer. It'll get bottled on the weekend, and then it'll be another 3 weeks before it's really drinkable. The longer we let it set the better it'll be.

Hearts and stars, horseshoes and balloons folks. Until next time!

-Jenny