My brewing buddy Curt Bird and I live on the same street. The street is shaped somewhat like a horseshoe, and while our backyards don’t meet, they’re only a few houses apart. So when Curt’s out on his back porch brewing and drinking homemade beer, I can hear him from my back yard. The smell of the boiling wort was irresistable. Here’s pics of Curt and Bruce at their kettles.
Have I ever mentioned how little I know about gas plumbing and electrical wiring? Well, I know very, very little. Priscilla has always been the one in our family that knew about electricity, and I’ve always relied on her. Sad, I know. But I’m determined to learn. Getting to the point where I could run this relatively simple test took me a month!!! It’s not that I worked on it all the time, but I had to let everything slowly sink in.
So over the past month, among other things, I read all the manuals involved 10 times, read lots of info on web pages, asked my friends a bunch of questions, visited a propane business in Beuregard and an electrical contractor business in Auburn, and Priscilla and I visited Home Depot and Lowes several times to get little bits and pieces of information from whatever electrical or plumbing experts were working. Setting up this test was a big accomplishment for someone so unskilled at such things as myself, and Priscilla was a big help throughout the entire process.
Here’s a list of the major components:
The pics and videos below show the results so far, and it’s obvious to me that my next step is to learn how to make valve adjustments to get the flame just right.
The first video is simply the pilot burner. Blue flame. No yellow. Very clean.
The second video shows the burner being turned on and off. The Honeywell gas valve is set to the standard, out of the box settings, which are going to need adjustment, as you can see from the height of the flames, and the amount of yellow flame. My understanding is that the higher percentage of blue in the flame, the better.
Just a short clip of the burner turned on in the dark.
And this video shows what can happen if there’s nothing (like a kettle) above the flame. Sometimes only part of the burner will light. In this video, only the left half of the burner lit initially, and Priscilla blew on the flame like a candle to get the flame to spread to the right half. If the burner had been placed appropriately beneath a kettle, the flame on the left would have spread across the bottom of the kettle to the right and ensured that the right side of the burner let.
Here’s some scenes I found attractive while driving from The Bottle, just north of Auburn, up 147 and 431 to Lafayette and a little beyond. Read about the history of The Bottle here. If you zoom in on a google map of the area, you can see it’s still labelled as “The Bottle.”
Found Objects / II
An annual exhibition featuring works utilizing non-traditional art materials.
Jan Dempsey Community Arts Center Gallery
January 4 – 30
After many, many months of having imagery in mind for Southern Farmhouse Ales, we finally have a logo. I’ve taken lots of pictures of structures in rural Alabama, particularly in Lee County, and spent a good bit of time down at Auburn University’s College of Architecture Library, trying to find examples to help me communicate with a graphic artist about what I was looking for. Many thanks to Jeff Cutrer down at Master Graphics in Auburn. I think he did an awesome job.
The font is based on a set of leathercraft tools my granddady left me when he passed away back in the early 80s. It has been over 25 years since he stood over my shoulder teaching me how to carve leather, and it was a real pleasure to find all those tools again recently and practice carving the text into a raw leather belt strip to show Jeff the type font I wanted to use.
I’ve finally been able to put something up other than a blank white page at http://www.southernfarmhouse.com, as well as to finally add the logo alongside other Alabama breweries and breweries-in-planning at http://www.alabamabrewersguild.org.
Before
Nowadays I just can’t stand to be behind the computer much. And so many years of legal writing makes me sound so punctuated that I sometimes cringe when I read myself, even when its just informal message board stuff… So, I’m trying to change that… do different stuff.. like with the use of these ellipses… or mybe i shld typ evrythng like i wUd in chat). I don’t know. I guess the trick will be learning to write more readably and with less clauses.
My old about me page was last updated in June of 2008, and alot has happened since then, so I’ve known I need to come up with a new one… this is part of that effort.
After
In the meanwhile, I’ve been working on doing something in the field of brewing. It has been something to keep me busy. Having been my hobby for the last 5 years, that’s really the only other thing I was any good at. I sure can’t cook. Besides homebrewing, pretty much all I’ve ever done is read and write. I can’t even wire a ceiling fan without being dumbfounded. But by golly I’m excited to be figuring out how to wire pumps, temperature gauges, float switches, and electronic ignition gas valves to a brewing system. I’m definitely needing someone to make sure everything is exactly right, but I’m enjoying the challenge of figuring out as much as I can.
It has been a little over a year now, and Priscilla and I have stumbled through a few different possibilities on which direction to take. Eventually, we settled on a nanobrewery, which is a type of brewery alot of homebrewers are starting as a sort of proof-of-concept and is the type of brewery that is possible to start without going into debt. The idea is one we feel good about getting behind, and we’re really happy with the direction its going…
Inspired by Southern culture, European farmhouse brewing and a few of my favorite brewing books, Brew Like a Monk, Farmhouse Ales and Wild Brews, what we’re working on starting is Southern Farmhouse Ales, a small batch brewery for specialized craft brews. No debt, no investors (and I hope I can keep it that way 
), just me and Priscilla, and I’m designing and building most everything from scratch… which is a challenge but is a ton of fun! I’m working on a brewing system I call The Bluto 555. I’m loving what I think it’ll be able to do. Facility, fermentation tanks and other equipment are issues that I’m working on too… and man, everything adds up fast. I wish I could move faster on getting the whole thing up and running, but the brewery probably won’t be functional until 2011. And of course my family is my priority, so I’m prepared to extend the plan further if needed.
I remember when I learned to brew, I went to sleep every night thinking about the brewing process, the ingredients, the yeast, the equipment… Ya, I’m doing the same thing now just about every night, only thinking about a bigger better system and increased (hopefully!!) attention to some of the important technical and scientific aspects of brewing. Very exciting!
I heard this the other night listening to a Brew Strong podcast. JZ and Chris White will have a new book this year, title I think “Everything You Need to Know about Yeast”.
This was taken at John Tipton’s house a couple years ago, and the pic has been on my fridge out in the garage getting wet and warped. Here’s a scan before it gets too messed up. From left to right is Vern Wolfe’s belly (Vern owned a small vineyard in California, is BJCP certified and is Alabama’s best meadmaker), Todd Swearingen (my sensei, but the student has become the masta), Adam Arnett (badass Marine Major.. don’t mess with him), John Doe (Brant doesn’t want the ABC Board to know that he is associated with law breakers, and since they are monitoring this website, I won’t provide his last name… It is definitely not Warren), me, and Scott Oberman (featured in the L.A. Times for his blatant Alabama law breaking).
It must be tough to be away from family. But I bet you have some really good friends over there. I hope you guys enjoy as much as you can while staying safe at the same time.
banjolawyer.blogspot.com
Netflix Queue
Recent Comments