So David, this one's for you. David and I were planning on brewing this together but his time in Seattle was cut short (for a job in SF) so we never got around to it, but we had the yeast that was special ordered. I've also wanted to try my luck at a saison, so now was the time. Base recipe from a friend of David's. All grain, 5 gallons.
Target OG 1.052 (I forgot to recalc based on my mash efficiency - that's a problem with recipes from others)
Water - Filtered, no additions.
Grains (assume 80% mash efficiency) - Extract conversion - substitute ~7 pounds (6 7/8) for pils malt. Steep malted wheat in water to 170 degrees. remove grains at 170 degrees and rinse, add malt extract.
8 # Belgian pils
1 # malted wheat
1# table sugar
Hops - ~35 IBU E Kent Golding + Spalt
Yeast - Wyeast 3711 (Fr. Saison). Made a starter 24 hours before pitching
Mash in with ~2.25 Gal water to 126 for 30 minutes (protein rest unnecessary). Heat to 153 for 45-60 min. Temp dropped into the mid 140's. Heat up to 170 for 10 min. Sparge with ~5 gallons. Take ~6.5 gallons.
Boil 60 minutes:
60 min (~21.4 IBU) 1.42 Oz E Kent Goldings (5.3%)
30 min (~9.2 IBU) 0.5 Oz E Kent Golding 0.5 Oz Spalt (4.1%)
8 min 0.5 Oz E Kent Goldings + Irish moss tea
3 minutes 0.25 t grains of paradise gently crushed with rolling pin and table sugar
0 min knockout, chill to 70 degrees.
Transfer to carboy, aerate with 'filtered air' and pitch. Gravity was 1.058 because volume low. Add liquor to 5.5 gallons for an OG of 1.054. Bubbles/activity by evening.
Calculated efficiency - 78%. 31 IBU
Transfered to 2 ary on 3/14. gravity at 1.003 (!!!). Is that normal? Tasted nice, clean, spicy, and aromatic. Now the only thing to decide is to crash it and keg it, or to bottle in champagne bottles?
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Snoqualmie Ski - Phantom Falls, Feb 2008
Fixed gear in hand, Lucas picked me up at 5:30 for another climb/ski. By 6:00 we were picking up Blythe (another partner in crime that tried to kill me in the trees at the resorts when I was getting back on the skis again). We ended up at the upper Alpental lot to climb/skin up Snoqualmie Mountain via a direct route - Phantom Falls, or a variation thereof. This was supposed to be a straight forward day to make sure my equipment was treating me ok after our previous trip.
Shortly after 7:00 we were skinning up the base of the mountain on a beautiful nearly blueberry day. We were i
n T-shirts almost to begin with, which would end up being a slight mistake later. Snow was of course rock solid at the start but all was fine without too much steepness. 10 minutes in, Blythe and I got stuck in a gully and booted it for about 100 feet, but besides that it was smooth going for the most part. So we ascended left up the SW face and then back right. I had indeed become one with
my gear, was a bundle of energy, and "ran" in front of the group. We zig-zagged through forests finally arriving at more open areas (Lucas pictured on the left and Blythe with Rainier on the right). Here we tried to climb right to meet up the route from cave ridge. Unfortunately things got much steeper and hadn't softened very much in the morning sun. Upon trying to turn on a switch back I ended up slipping and taking a slide. Nothing major, except I skinned most of both of my forearms on the ice. I am starting to realize that we are all drama queens and we need some kind of mild drama on all of our trips. We righted the ship and kept climbing, about 1000 feet from the summit. We traversed right under some cliff bands, over others and finally met up with the Cave Ridge route about 200 feet below the summit. By this time, the snow was getting baked by the sun and softening up, promising to give us an enjoyable ski down in contrast to Lucas' and my p
revious trip. Unfortunately, while we skinned up, a pin in Lucas toe piece (binding) broke off. Don't know what or how, but he lost lateral stability reminiscent of my day last time out, although not as bad. Yes drama queens we are! Not to be outdone, Blythe also wanted in the drama queen action and one-upped my slide down, but just without the visible scars of mine. In the end Lucas decided to boot it the last 250 feet long with Blythe who joined me on the summit for a nice summit dance (left). Luckily we would find that that the binding issue was not going to be a major impact the descent with the heal clipped.
So after the brief pow wow at the windy, cold summit, we put away the skins a
nd planned our way down. We skied down SE looking for an entrance to the bowls on the E face. We actually descended farther than needed but c'est la vie. Pictured (right) is our route down - summit just out of pic and Lucas' coming straight towards the
camera. On the ridge and to the E the snow was quite soft and slushy. We skied down to a group of trees for some rest and lunch in a warm, protected area (left; in the background is Kendall peak - Monday's excursion). After that it was pure enjoyment (mostly) skiing the bowls down to cave ridge and beyond. Of course, we did have a tad of route finding issues through some cliff bands on the lower half of the mountain, but nothing that bad.
So it was a great ski with great people again. I finally got to get out hiking/climbing/BC with Blythe, a great addition to our drama queen group. Now it's Lucas' turn to figure out the gear issues and get his gear in working order.
The most amazing thing of the day is that when we got to the car I through my gloves on the roof of Lucas' car since he didn't unlock any doors (it's all his fault). I proceeded to leave them there and completely forget about them. When we dropped Blythe of at her house she surprisingly asked, "whose gloves are these?" wtf? We were going 75 mph for 45 minutes and not only one, but both gloves stuck to the roof! crazy ... and late that night after buying a lottery ticket .....
Here's what Lucas had to say.
Shortly after 7:00 we were skinning up the base of the mountain on a beautiful nearly blueberry day. We were i
n T-shirts almost to begin with, which would end up being a slight mistake later. Snow was of course rock solid at the start but all was fine without too much steepness. 10 minutes in, Blythe and I got stuck in a gully and booted it for about 100 feet, but besides that it was smooth going for the most part. So we ascended left up the SW face and then back right. I had indeed become one with
my gear, was a bundle of energy, and "ran" in front of the group. We zig-zagged through forests finally arriving at more open areas (Lucas pictured on the left and Blythe with Rainier on the right). Here we tried to climb right to meet up the route from cave ridge. Unfortunately things got much steeper and hadn't softened very much in the morning sun. Upon trying to turn on a switch back I ended up slipping and taking a slide. Nothing major, except I skinned most of both of my forearms on the ice. I am starting to realize that we are all drama queens and we need some kind of mild drama on all of our trips. We righted the ship and kept climbing, about 1000 feet from the summit. We traversed right under some cliff bands, over others and finally met up with the Cave Ridge route about 200 feet below the summit. By this time, the snow was getting baked by the sun and softening up, promising to give us an enjoyable ski down in contrast to Lucas' and my p
revious trip. Unfortunately, while we skinned up, a pin in Lucas toe piece (binding) broke off. Don't know what or how, but he lost lateral stability reminiscent of my day last time out, although not as bad. Yes drama queens we are! Not to be outdone, Blythe also wanted in the drama queen action and one-upped my slide down, but just without the visible scars of mine. In the end Lucas decided to boot it the last 250 feet long with Blythe who joined me on the summit for a nice summit dance (left). Luckily we would find that that the binding issue was not going to be a major impact the descent with the heal clipped.So after the brief pow wow at the windy, cold summit, we put away the skins a
nd planned our way down. We skied down SE looking for an entrance to the bowls on the E face. We actually descended farther than needed but c'est la vie. Pictured (right) is our route down - summit just out of pic and Lucas' coming straight towards the
camera. On the ridge and to the E the snow was quite soft and slushy. We skied down to a group of trees for some rest and lunch in a warm, protected area (left; in the background is Kendall peak - Monday's excursion). After that it was pure enjoyment (mostly) skiing the bowls down to cave ridge and beyond. Of course, we did have a tad of route finding issues through some cliff bands on the lower half of the mountain, but nothing that bad.So it was a great ski with great people again. I finally got to get out hiking/climbing/BC with Blythe, a great addition to our drama queen group. Now it's Lucas' turn to figure out the gear issues and get his gear in working order.
The most amazing thing of the day is that when we got to the car I through my gloves on the roof of Lucas' car since he didn't unlock any doors (it's all his fault). I proceeded to leave them there and completely forget about them. When we dropped Blythe of at her house she surprisingly asked, "whose gloves are these?" wtf? We were going 75 mph for 45 minutes and not only one, but both gloves stuck to the roof! crazy ... and late that night after buying a lottery ticket .....
Here's what Lucas had to say.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Kendall Peak Feb 18th, 2008
So Lucas and I wanted to try the back country again, but this time we were goign to use the skis and try to get some more distance and do some climbing as well. The plan was to try to make Thompson and maybe do another peak in the Snoqualmie area (Red or Kendall?). So off we were at 6:00. Unfortunately the day did not turn out as planned and we just ended up climbing Kendall peak instead of Mt Thompson. In fact, it was one of those stupid days where in the end you are just glad that your luck was just not bad enough that you didn't lose anything and ended the day as healthy as you started. Some of this was user induced and some was just bad luck.
So we started up the basin and made good time until the climbing started. By this time I had tried to take some pics but my camera was dead and I was too lazy to get any spare batteries out. Unlike two days ago where the snow was pretty soft, there was a frozen crust with about an inch of surface hoar or fresh snow on top. This made for slippery conditions for us novices. So as we left Commonwealth Basin and started climbing the side of Kendall peak more or less following in the direction of the PCT things became difficult. Even more so, I had not stepped in correctly to the bindings and I kept stepping out of them on the steep slippery surface. With Lucas cruising ahead I kept stepping out and cursing the situation. In the end I took off the skis and booted up to a less steep area and actually passed him. I was thinking at this point we should have ditched the skis completely, but we were out there to get comfortable on them. Unfortunately there was more of the same, but undeterred I tried to skin again. At one point when I stepped out my ski started to free fall down the slope. Both of us thought the day was over, and so was the life of my ski. Booting down 100 feet I found the ski that hit a tree squarely stopping it from a 1000 foot (?) free fall. So I booted back up and we continued skinning, with me stepping out continuously. At least by now I had rigged my leashes so that I would lose my skis. But this made things difficult to put them back on after stepping out. So once when I was bending over messing with the boot all of a sudden I see my key drop from my pocket and watched my key start the free fall. GDI! The key stopped it's journey down the mountain side and after clipping in to the skis I skied down to it
and gently sat down (going down hill with skins on is not an art I have perfected). So I righted myself and skinned over to the key only to find water from my bladder pouring out all over my leg. I guess when I went down the mouth piece to my bladder had come off and water was spewing all over me. So I put the end in my mouth, grabbed the key and started the futile search for the mouth piece. Luckily it was stuck in the snow (on the surface) right where I fell. So again i climbed back up to the tracks and continued skinning, stepping out, and cursing ad nauseum. Obviously with the going slower than expected, Thompson was out of the picture so we went up to a false summit on Kendall, booting the final short pitch. Here we finally got to enjoy the beautiful blueberry day and refueled and rested. Pictured is Lucas with Red Mountain in the back to the NW.
After lunch instead of climbing the summit proper (Shown with Rainier in the background)
we decided to descend to the NW to scope out the terrain and other possible routes to Thompson. We got some turns in but the snow was still the rock hard crust littered with death cookies. In a very short time we had "skied" down into the basin and were slowly picking our way through the shallow forest and made it to the car all limbs intact and all gear attached to our bodies. We were both exhausted from a long tough day, with a little extra hardship. But in the end everything turned out fine and we'll obviously be smarted and better the next time we attempt something similar. It was however, a nice area to practice in with gorgeous skies all day long! So we ended up at the Rogue issaquah bantering about the idiocy of the day and the next safe practice area.
Also, in the end, I figured out the problem with the setup causing me to continually step out of the bindings and, for the love of god, i will never let it happen again.
Here is a pic from atop Kendall looking down into Commonwealth Basin (left). This would have been great to ski under the right conditions. And another (right) of Lucas booting off the false summit with his skis on his back.
So we started up the basin and made good time until the climbing started. By this time I had tried to take some pics but my camera was dead and I was too lazy to get any spare batteries out. Unlike two days ago where the snow was pretty soft, there was a frozen crust with about an inch of surface hoar or fresh snow on top. This made for slippery conditions for us novices. So as we left Commonwealth Basin and started climbing the side of Kendall peak more or less following in the direction of the PCT things became difficult. Even more so, I had not stepped in correctly to the bindings and I kept stepping out of them on the steep slippery surface. With Lucas cruising ahead I kept stepping out and cursing the situation. In the end I took off the skis and booted up to a less steep area and actually passed him. I was thinking at this point we should have ditched the skis completely, but we were out there to get comfortable on them. Unfortunately there was more of the same, but undeterred I tried to skin again. At one point when I stepped out my ski started to free fall down the slope. Both of us thought the day was over, and so was the life of my ski. Booting down 100 feet I found the ski that hit a tree squarely stopping it from a 1000 foot (?) free fall. So I booted back up and we continued skinning, with me stepping out continuously. At least by now I had rigged my leashes so that I would lose my skis. But this made things difficult to put them back on after stepping out. So once when I was bending over messing with the boot all of a sudden I see my key drop from my pocket and watched my key start the free fall. GDI! The key stopped it's journey down the mountain side and after clipping in to the skis I skied down to it
and gently sat down (going down hill with skins on is not an art I have perfected). So I righted myself and skinned over to the key only to find water from my bladder pouring out all over my leg. I guess when I went down the mouth piece to my bladder had come off and water was spewing all over me. So I put the end in my mouth, grabbed the key and started the futile search for the mouth piece. Luckily it was stuck in the snow (on the surface) right where I fell. So again i climbed back up to the tracks and continued skinning, stepping out, and cursing ad nauseum. Obviously with the going slower than expected, Thompson was out of the picture so we went up to a false summit on Kendall, booting the final short pitch. Here we finally got to enjoy the beautiful blueberry day and refueled and rested. Pictured is Lucas with Red Mountain in the back to the NW.After lunch instead of climbing the summit proper (Shown with Rainier in the background)
we decided to descend to the NW to scope out the terrain and other possible routes to Thompson. We got some turns in but the snow was still the rock hard crust littered with death cookies. In a very short time we had "skied" down into the basin and were slowly picking our way through the shallow forest and made it to the car all limbs intact and all gear attached to our bodies. We were both exhausted from a long tough day, with a little extra hardship. But in the end everything turned out fine and we'll obviously be smarted and better the next time we attempt something similar. It was however, a nice area to practice in with gorgeous skies all day long! So we ended up at the Rogue issaquah bantering about the idiocy of the day and the next safe practice area.Also, in the end, I figured out the problem with the setup causing me to continually step out of the bindings and, for the love of god, i will never let it happen again.
Here is a pic from atop Kendall looking down into Commonwealth Basin (left). This would have been great to ski under the right conditions. And another (right) of Lucas booting off the false summit with his skis on his back.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Smithbrook Feb 16, 2008
So, a few things. Being from the midwest, it's difficult to 'excel' at skiing since much of what we have is man made frozen ice crystals deposited on man made trash heaps. Anyway, I did learn (but not enough to excel) in yearly trips to CO and the wretched midwest skiing. So after moving out on my own, I really found out how expensive it was and never continued to ski, since mommy and daddy weren't supporting the habit anymore. Oh, and graduate student stipends don't really support many expensive hobbies.
So, I've been out in WA state and have skied twice out here before this year, once at whistler and once at Snowbird (good use of a scientific conference). But what finally convinced me to get back into it was winter/spring climbing and the fact that you can cover so much more terrain on skis when there's sufficient snow pack. So I started acquiring gear. Woman's tele skis from my sis for x-mas (all skis are created equal unless they have flowers, woman's symbols, and "she's piste" printed all over them - but I'm secure in my masculinity), Dynafit bindings (gulp, full price), Scarpa boots "60% off at the REI garage sale), and finally (almost unused) skins from craigslist. So after skipping the gear improvements of the 90's and early 00's, I finally have decent gear again! Time to use it.
So I've gone a few times at the resorts (Baker, alpental, and Steven's) to get used to the whole gravity pulling you down the hill on slippery things and found that I could almost keep up with Lucas and the others that are accomplished in the art. Friday I convinced Shelby to blow off work (actually sckool; otherwise frequently alpental-itis hits the city of seattle on good snow days) and we cruised up to the pass. It's been crazy here, we have had SO much snow that the passes (interstates) have closed for 4 days twice, including last weekend. So shelby and I made it and had a great morning of skiing. During the escapades Shelby was following and missed my line by a 6 feet or so. So instead of hitting a nice runout slope on snow she hit a 5 foot cliff. The site was priceless. HUGE grin, then all of a sudden a look of total surprise when the ground disappeared below, and crash! Adding to the scene was the chairlift just to the right, letting out a seemingly coordinated, "oooooouch!" Classic. I dubbed it a "shelby." So after lunch we were getting soaked with rain and made one more trip down the slopes and called it a day ending at the Rogue, Issaquah, scheming about how often we can get back up there.
Then yesterday Lucas and I decided that it was time to use the equipment for the reason why we bought it. So we went just past Steven's (long drive) with Eileen and Julie (Eileen's sis visiting from NY). We got a
pretty late start but that was ok, we just wanted to use our skins (I have never put them on) and climb a bit - hopefully getting some turns in. So we cruised up the forest service road, buried in snow and had some lunch. After lunch Lucas and I donned our skins and started climbing off trail and on the road as the girls turned around on their snowshoes, calling it a day. We started climbing and now i know what Blythe was saying when she felt like spider(wo)man with her skins sticking to the hill, schik, schik, schik, up. It was great! After climbing about 1250 feet (a complete g
uess), we had climbed up to the ridge way above us and it was time to get down. We took the skins off and skied down. The snow sucked but we were making virgin tracks that we earned. It was a great feeling and good practice! .... and at the end of the run I pulled a "Shelby". Serves me right for laughing with her on Friday. It was a great day - we would've been out there again today were it not for the very extreme (at least for our comfort) avy prognosis. Lucas and I decided that getting hit by this would not be fun: SR20 avy (that was a bit N but still pretty recent)
Anyway, again, better stories to follow, as of now we're getting the lay of the land.
So, I've been out in WA state and have skied twice out here before this year, once at whistler and once at Snowbird (good use of a scientific conference). But what finally convinced me to get back into it was winter/spring climbing and the fact that you can cover so much more terrain on skis when there's sufficient snow pack. So I started acquiring gear. Woman's tele skis from my sis for x-mas (all skis are created equal unless they have flowers, woman's symbols, and "she's piste" printed all over them - but I'm secure in my masculinity), Dynafit bindings (gulp, full price), Scarpa boots "60% off at the REI garage sale), and finally (almost unused) skins from craigslist. So after skipping the gear improvements of the 90's and early 00's, I finally have decent gear again! Time to use it.
So I've gone a few times at the resorts (Baker, alpental, and Steven's) to get used to the whole gravity pulling you down the hill on slippery things and found that I could almost keep up with Lucas and the others that are accomplished in the art. Friday I convinced Shelby to blow off work (actually sckool; otherwise frequently alpental-itis hits the city of seattle on good snow days) and we cruised up to the pass. It's been crazy here, we have had SO much snow that the passes (interstates) have closed for 4 days twice, including last weekend. So shelby and I made it and had a great morning of skiing. During the escapades Shelby was following and missed my line by a 6 feet or so. So instead of hitting a nice runout slope on snow she hit a 5 foot cliff. The site was priceless. HUGE grin, then all of a sudden a look of total surprise when the ground disappeared below, and crash! Adding to the scene was the chairlift just to the right, letting out a seemingly coordinated, "oooooouch!" Classic. I dubbed it a "shelby." So after lunch we were getting soaked with rain and made one more trip down the slopes and called it a day ending at the Rogue, Issaquah, scheming about how often we can get back up there.
Then yesterday Lucas and I decided that it was time to use the equipment for the reason why we bought it. So we went just past Steven's (long drive) with Eileen and Julie (Eileen's sis visiting from NY). We got a
pretty late start but that was ok, we just wanted to use our skins (I have never put them on) and climb a bit - hopefully getting some turns in. So we cruised up the forest service road, buried in snow and had some lunch. After lunch Lucas and I donned our skins and started climbing off trail and on the road as the girls turned around on their snowshoes, calling it a day. We started climbing and now i know what Blythe was saying when she felt like spider(wo)man with her skins sticking to the hill, schik, schik, schik, up. It was great! After climbing about 1250 feet (a complete g
uess), we had climbed up to the ridge way above us and it was time to get down. We took the skins off and skied down. The snow sucked but we were making virgin tracks that we earned. It was a great feeling and good practice! .... and at the end of the run I pulled a "Shelby". Serves me right for laughing with her on Friday. It was a great day - we would've been out there again today were it not for the very extreme (at least for our comfort) avy prognosis. Lucas and I decided that getting hit by this would not be fun: SR20 avy (that was a bit N but still pretty recent)Anyway, again, better stories to follow, as of now we're getting the lay of the land.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Tiger Mountain 2/4/08
So it's been awhile. Winter has set in and I haven't gotten out that much to, well, ... climb. But I have started to acquire some nice ski equipment and am trying to fill out the set up to get high in the back country - almost there. Until I get there, I've been skiing at some resorts, trying to remember how. I finally felt good on the new skis. So it's been the usual suspects, Baker, Alpental, and Stephens (First time for all of them in my 7 years out here; did i mention I'm trying to learn again?). So, sorry no posts about those exciting excursions.
So now it's super bowl weekend, or maybe stupid bowl weekend (It would have had a different name if the pack, i.e. Favre, hadn't bungled 2 weeks before). I was itching to get out again. After a long night on Saturday, I had a soccer game early in the day, and was pretty tired. Called Lucas up and we convinced eachother to just "get out." So we headed out to tiger mountain. We started hiking about 3 in the afternoon and made it to snow at 0.5 miles and cruised to the top. Met a couple up there also fleeing the stupid bowl, hung out, and got down as daylight was no longer. Stopped into Rogue, issaquah for some refreshments on the long 20 minute commute back to the city.
So it was the first peak of the year! yay (j/k). But after not seeing lucas for 3 months while he dealt with writing his dissertation, it was great to get back out there (ANYWHERE) with him, scheming about all of the climbs in store for the year. Hopefully there will be exciting ones, and many of them. While the first one was not, it was a start to get us out there and get back in the groove. And soon I'll have the complete ski set to add some cool excursions on snow. Here's to a successful year!
So now it's super bowl weekend, or maybe stupid bowl weekend (It would have had a different name if the pack, i.e. Favre, hadn't bungled 2 weeks before). I was itching to get out again. After a long night on Saturday, I had a soccer game early in the day, and was pretty tired. Called Lucas up and we convinced eachother to just "get out." So we headed out to tiger mountain. We started hiking about 3 in the afternoon and made it to snow at 0.5 miles and cruised to the top. Met a couple up there also fleeing the stupid bowl, hung out, and got down as daylight was no longer. Stopped into Rogue, issaquah for some refreshments on the long 20 minute commute back to the city.
So it was the first peak of the year! yay (j/k). But after not seeing lucas for 3 months while he dealt with writing his dissertation, it was great to get back out there (ANYWHERE) with him, scheming about all of the climbs in store for the year. Hopefully there will be exciting ones, and many of them. While the first one was not, it was a start to get us out there and get back in the groove. And soon I'll have the complete ski set to add some cool excursions on snow. Here's to a successful year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
