This past Monday Michael and I brewed up a batch of Vanilla Oatmeal Bourbon Porter. We are counting on this beer to blow our minds. Our plan is to end up with a beer with a strong vanilla taste with a faint hint of bourbon. We will be racking the beer over the vanilla beans as we make the switch to second fermentation. The bourbon (still undecided on the brand) will be added right before we bottle. Over all we should end up with 2.5 - 2.7 gallons of heaven. If you’re lucky you’ll be able to try some.

We are working on adding to our brewing set up. This time around we added a propane burner which shaved tons of time off of bringing everything to a boil versus a standard electric stove. Up next, we are looking at increasing the size of our brew kettle to to a 6 gallon or 1/2 barrel keg. We’ll have to increase the size of our mash/ lauter tun quickly after. After doing so we’ll be able to brew 5 gallon batches with ease.

By the way, the IPA we made turned out amazing. I’ll post a picture of it and a detailed description next time I crack open a bottle. We are calling it Declaration of IndiaPendAnce, as it was brewed on July 4th. Still working on a name for our Vanilla Oatmeal Bourbon Porter…

This last Friday Michael and I bottled the IPA. Both of us agree that it is going to turn out amazing. We each had some of the leftovers, which turned out to be about five ounces each. The flat beer tasted wonderful, and had great hop aroma/ taste and a full body. I can hardly wait two more weeks to try it. Mmmm…

The BBQ I threw yesterday was a huge hit. Over 30 people showed up to celebrate friends, family and Summer. Everyone brought something delicious, and needless to say we had far more food than we could possibly eat. There was salad after salad, chips and salsa galore, guacamole that you could eat with a spoon, berries so ripe bears would have gorged for days, bread you could smother in brie or other great cheesy dips and of course good old fashion vanilla ice cream. The main dish (MEAT!) was pulled pork. As with everything else the pork turned out fabulous!

There were a total of four Pork Butts (20+ pounds) that I smoked for 12+ hours, on my Traeger. We pulled two of them off the grill at 180 degrees and left the other two on to hit 195 degrees. The first two we pulled off the grill were great, but we had to do more chopping than pulling. We only pulled them off the grill due to impatience. The meat was still amazing but a little hard to separate, hence the chopping. The two we left on to hit 195 degrees pulled apart with ease. In fact, when I went to pull them off the grill they started falling apart. Those though took around 14 hours of smoking at 210-250 degrees. Oh my god, they were fantastic.

Out of the four Pork Butts, two of them were rubbed with a Cuban influence and two of them were rubbed with a Carolina style influence. Those four butts sat for 36 hours (wrapped in saran wrap) in the fridge. After smoking for four hours untouched (saran wrap removed, of course), each of them were mopped with thier corresponding liquid heaven every hour. They were then served with toppings and sauces to enhance their flavor. Matt made a brilliant pineapple jalapeno relish for the Cuban style butt and I made a vinegar based sauce for the Carolina style butt. MMM…MMM…mmmmm.

If you have any questions about the recipes or smoking these butts, please feel free to shoot me an email. I’d be more than happy to help out as much as possible.

Yesterday, others were busy blowing stuff up and shooting dollar bills into the sky. Not I. And, not Michael. We were busy brewing a ridiculously hoppy batch of IPA. Michael brought his equipment over around 12:30 or so. After quickly sanitizing everything we were up and brewing by 1pm. This was my first experience homebrewing, and I am so thankful that Michael was kind enough to show me the way. It’s nice to jump right into the process with someone who understands what they’re doing. You get to learn from their past mistakes and have someone that can tell you what’s going on in plain english.

Michael found an all-grain IPA recipe for us to use. It contains 3.5lbs of Marris Otter (British 2-row), 2.75lbs of German Wheat, .5lbs of Belgian Carapils, .25lbs of Belgian Caravienne and 2oz of Simcoe Hops. I’ll be able to brag about how tasty it is in a month.

Coming in at 48″tall, 76″ wide and 16″ deep, pictures do this new bookcase no justice. It fills up a whole wall, and sleeps four large adults comfortably. In fact, you’ll have to see this bookcase in person to truly appreciate all of it’s massiveness. Free admission for a limited time. Duh. Duh. DUH.

Earlier this year I cut out caffeine. Instead of the typical Grande coffee with cream, every morning, I switched to herbal tea. The killing of small children, tripping of elderly folks, pummeling of strangers, there was none of that. The transition wasn’t all that bad. And, as hard as it is to imagine I don’t miss the daily jolt.

For as long as I can remember, I never owned a coffee table. I have always resorted to using something entirely way too small to hold my drinks, magazines, controllers, etc. while sitting on the couch. Such sacrifices meant surrendering to a daily game of Jenga made up of the necessary sitting requirements. After several overturned beers and other disasters, I decided it was time to actually create something that I could kick back with feet upon, while providing ample room for sitting materials. Therefore, in honor of my new found habit of drinking tea, I built a tea table. In retrospect, I should have called it a beer table, as I do far more beer drinking in this location than tea drinking. Nevertheless, I now have something to place my feet on, while sitting on my couch. After all, the top is made out of old flooring. It’s lovely. Really.

So low and behold, here is what I came up with. It’s roughly 20″ wide, 43″ in length and 17″ tall. 95% of the materials were salvaged from wood purchased at The Rebuilding Center.

Pops, Wayne and myself built the tea table from scratch in one day. It turned out wonderful. It’s hard to believe I went for so many years with out one.

This past weekend Pops and I made another bookcase out of two old doors. It’s basically the same design as the last one we made, except we added a toe kick. This one is going to be placed in my office, and is deep enough to hold my printer/fax/copier/scanner (all-in-one machine). It measures 78″h x 35-3/4″w x 14″d. There are plans to make another bookcase for my living room in the near future. However, this upcoming one will be about 4′ high and about 5′ to 6′ wide. All we need to do is find the right doors to make it.

The weather today was odd. It would rain and rain harder, then it would let up and the sun would come out. Throughout the whole thing I was downtown taking pictures of the war protest and other people reacting to it. Here are some pictures I took, if you’d like to see or learn more check out my flickr account.

Well the bathroom is almost finished. Pops and I made this mirror from reclaimed CVG fir that I found at The ReBuilding Center. The mirror itself is 30″w x 24″h, and the overall is 36.5″w x 28.5″h. It rounded out the updated feel of the bathroom to a “lived” in feel. I am super happy about how it turned out. I can hardly wait to shave in front of it.

And, here’s what it looks like in the bathroom. Never mind the sasquatch…

I’ve had a new bathroom cabinet taking up space in my office for close to one year. It finally came time to put it in it’s place. It took three good beers and all the parts before Pops and I made a brand new bathroom.