Barbara Penfold (Grandma Bobbi), rest in peace.

After just over two months of fighting to recover from a heart attack and related internal bleeding, my grandma passed away between 11 and midnight last night. Wendie and I had a great visit with she and grandpa last Monday evening, which was also she and grandpas 60th wedding anniversary.. Grandma had just been given several blood transfusions at the time, so her overall health was looking fairly well.. She certainly was very sharp mentally, chatting about the past and talking a little bit about her wishes. My parents had been on vacation in Mexico for this past week, and I think grandma was holding in there to wait for their return.. Mom and Dad spent most, if not all, of yesterday with grandma and grandpa. *sigh* I know she’s without pain and suffering now, but it sure is hard to come to terms with.. I really miss her.

Brew #27: German Pilsner

I brewed a new batch o beer today! Along with the brew, I bottled 2 and a half cases of beer to empty two of my kegs.. The chile lager (brew #26) is tasting damn good..nice and spicy hot!

This pilsner is really light in color, and should finish pretty dry.. it should be something resembling Coors, though with a bit more body and a creamy head… we will see in a short, short 8 weeks. The yeast I’m using is the second generation of a sample of German Lager yeast I saved from several brews ago. I made 4 vials using a mixture of glycol, water, and the previous brews yeast, which I’ve kept in the freezer for the past couple of months. I’ve used this yeast for two brews now and I’m really happy with the results, so I’m planning on harvesting another 4 vials from this brew.

Here’s the recipe:

German Pilsner #1
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Brewer: Josh Gum
Style: German Pilsner (Pils)
Batch: 5.50 gal, Mashed

Characteristics
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Recipe Gravity: 1.054 OG
Recipe Bitterness: 21 IBU
Recipe Color: 3° SRM
Estimated FG: 1.014
Alcohol by Volume: 5.4%
Alcohol by Weight: 4.2%

Ingredients
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German pilsener 8.50 lb, mashed
German vienna 1.00 lb, mashed
CaraPils 0.50 lb, mashed
German wheat 0.50 lb, mashed

Tettnanger 1.25 oz, whole, 60 minutes
Hallertauer 0.50 oz, whole, 10 minutes

Irish Moss 1.00 unit, clarifying
German Lager yeast 1.00 unit, 2L starter made 3 days prior

Notes
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Recipe Notes:

Batch Notes:
Mashed 148F for an hour. Boiled 90min total, the first 30min with no hop additions to boil off DMS precursors. Chilled to 55-60 before pitching starter. I plan on fermenting at 55-60 for 1 week, then 48-50 for 4 weeks before kegging and carbonating.

Giving fantasy football a try..

I setup a free league for Fantasy Football on Yahoo for this season.. If you’re interested in joining it, leave a comment or email me and I’ll send you the league login/pass.

This is the first time I’ve ran a league, so I did a simple head-to-head league with the player draft being auto-picked. Each person is the manager of their own team, you create an account with Yahoo and login to the league web site to create your team name and colors. With the settings I chose, there is no real-time draft picks.. all you have to do is login and mark who your top players picks for each position will be. When the season starts, the server will create the teams (somehow taking into account each managers top picks) and the fun will begin. The head-to-head league style appears to be that with each week your team is pitted against another of the managers team in a round robin style with all of the managers in the league. At the end of the season, the teams go through playoffs and the Superbowl based on points that the players on your team earn throughout the season. At least it makes watching football a little more fun, you root for your guy to get that touchdown or your defense team to play well so you earn points in the fantasy football league..

For those who are interested, you can do any number of player trades throughout the season.. lets say, if your guy gets arrested for financing a dog fighting ring then you can trade him for another player in the league that isn’t already on one of the other fantasy teams.