I have a new icon under my photo on the right, it is for my note.com profile.. note.com is a Japanese social sharing site, I guess, I’m still navigating it.

It does represent something that I have been avoiding for several years, that is a big centralised site potentially data harvesting me but I’m making an exception as it may be a useful tool for connecting to Japanese craft beer enthusiasts and brewers.

Sakino thinks I am OK to post in English (even though I don’t see any non-Japanese posts) but I feel that I’ll need to pepper some Japanese in as I go, though not to the extent where it becomes a deterrent to posting.

I’m treating this as an experiment and a way to read a bit more Japanese, even if just scanning initially.

5 brew days in the first quarter of the year (even though the first one was a failure)! Target of 15 beers in 2021 looking very attainable!

Had a taste of the wort before adding yeast and if I’ve done the right thing with the mash, then hopefully some of the sweetness will carry through to the beer.

Had a nice caramel aroma but that is likely to dissipate through fermentation.. probably about 6 weeks before this one is tastes as the style appears to benefit from a longer maturation period..

TODO list for this evening:

• Clean and sanitise keg

• Clean and sanitise beer line

• Transfer beer from fermenter to keg

• Clean and sanitise fermenter

• Clean and sanitise mash tun

• Write up brew day plan for tomorrow

• Stop giggling at the rugby scores

Filtration and Packaging Assignment 1 done! I’ll proofread and submit later today and then move on to assignment 2 on Monday.

It wasn’t the most exhilarating experience and I don’t expect that I’ll hit the lofty heights of my semester 1 grades but it should be good enough for a pass.

The next assignment involves completing 6 industry safety courses and writing a reflective essay on how I would apply this to the whisky packaging industry..

I hope the final assignment is a bit more relevant to my future brewery plans. Looking forward to September’s course already.. it’ll either be on cereals and mashing or on yeast and fermentation.. at the moment, I’m not sure which I should prioritise.

I’ve been wanting to watch Borgen for years but don’t watch terrestrial TV and could never find the first season online. I was recently advises that it is now all on Netflix and have watched the first episode. What a cracking start, I think I’m going to like this!

I developed a neat script which pulls a bunch of data from a GPX file, and with the help of a few free tools, namely gpxinfo and gpx2png, it calculates a few things, creates route maps and posts a summary to my site. I noticed today that the logic for pace was a little askew, so sorted it and am happy with the results..

It’s a simple enough process that I even got Sakino to switch to the free and open source FitoTrack app! We just need to record our exercise, save the GPX file to nextcloud and then run a script and about 5-10 seconds later the session is live on our sites!

From the mouths of babes..

After a 10km walk today I was standing at the door waiting for our dog to come in, I had a bag of spicy peanuts from Lidl in hand and was looking forward to a beer..

My almost 3 year old daughter, Islay launched an inquisitive line of questioning about the bag in my hand, were they for the dog? what were they? etc. Culminating in the (genuine) question, ”Does mama not love Papa’s nuts?”

.. to which, after confirming the question, I merely responded “not as much as she used to”

Just checked the temperature of my beer fridge before bed and it was down to -0.5°C, so definitely possible to use for cold-crashing.. however, given the green beer will be in kegs rather than the fermenter and they currently feed from the bottom, I might want to wait until I’ve bought the floating inlet pipe kits for the kegs before testing this.

Just kegged my Alice Porter attempt after a record 18 days in the fermenter. After my recent intestinal adventures I was very much on top of the yeast dumps this time, the beer looked very clear as it transferred to keg. Had a nice aroma and I had a taste when taking the final gravity measure.. so long as it remains non-oxidates and conditions well this is going to be good!

TODO list over the next few days:

• Fix the slight CO2 leak that still exists in my kegerator set up - may require shaving a little of the end of the pipes to ensure they are completely flat against the back of the John Guest fittings and possibly even drilling into the wall of the kegerator to fix the gas splitter in place.
• Identify why gas doesn’t seem to be filling the kegs (beers are pouring flatter than before, but still quickly) and fix, may be resolved by above step.
• Clean line and keg in preparation for conditioning the porter which is patiently waiting in the fermenter
• Keg and condition the porter
• Replace thermometer batteries and test the beer fridge’s capabilities for imminent cold crashing use.

It seems my eagerness to replace the barb and clasp system of connecting the gas and beer lines with John Guest push-lock fittings might have been premature, with little space to play with in the kegerator ensuring the lines connect flush with the JG connectors is pretty tricky. In a cellar environment the fittings are generally fixed in place so movement is minimal and the risk of gas leak also low but we are where we are and I will make it work!

Brew day number 12 is this Sunday and I’m thinking of going full Sorachi Ace with the 80 shilling.. for science!