Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
A few days ago, I took at look through Amazon and MakeBeer.net to see if the Coopers Irish Stout I have been waiting for was back in stock. It has been unavailable since before St. Patrick’s Day. I guess all the Irish scooped it up.
Guess what? I was in luck. A new shipment of ingredients had arrived from Australia. I quickly ordered the Irish Stout kit and it arrived today. This is just in the nick of time, because I am running really low on my existing batch of regular Stout.
I am pretty excited about this upcoming batch. The ingredients include some extra malt for some reason. It says that it gives the beer a better head retention and something else…I forget. Whatever…if it makes the beer better, I’m on board.
I mixed everything togther tonight and placed the jug downstairs near the boiler. It’s a warmer, constant temperature down there. The brew has to stay between 70 and 80 degrees.
Here, I took some pics…
It’s pretty hard to take pictures in the dark. I had to turn on the flash, which I hate to do.
This was going to be my favorite shot, but it came out a little blurry. I tried to clean it up in Photoshop.
Here is that familiar jug we have all gotten used to by this point.
I really hope this batch comes out good because I have been waiting for it for a long time.
Related posts
Posted in Food & Drink | 3 Comments »
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
I am always looking to be as energy efficient as possible. One of the ways I go about this is to always use CFLs (Compact fluorescent lamps) whenever possible. I have seen these types of bulbs bring down electric bills, first hand.
When we moved in to this house, I knew I had my work cut out for me. This house is much larger than our last. In that house, I think I changed about 15 light bulbs from incandescent to CFL. I thought that was a real challenge and was quite proud of myself. Well, in this house, I already changed out over 20 bulbs and think I may have finished all of them, except for the dimmers. There are at least 20 more dimmer bulbs that need to be changed.
The problem is, I just read a bunch of reviews on dimmer (dimmable?) light bulbs on Amazon and they were not very good. People were saying that they buzz and flicker, to say the least. Some people said they burned out easily and didn’t work from the get go. I think I am going to wait on the dimmers, which kills me.
Just a word of advice about CFLs…when buying them to try to mimic a regular light bulb, go with the “soft white” ones. On most packages, you will see three choices. One is “daylight,” which you really don’t want, unless you want a very hard light. Another is “bright white,” which is pretty white and not that soothing for indoors. The last is “soft white,” which looks the most like a regular bulb. I bought the “bright white” and the “soft white” and the soft white looks much better.
Related posts
Posted in Environment, Home Improvement | No Comments »
Wednesday, November 28th, 2007
There’s No Money In The Long Tail of the Blogosphere
In a recent post here, we examined the reasons that people feel compelled to blog. From the post and the comments it received, it became clear that quite a few people are blogging to make money. The reality is that it is difficult to make money in the long tail. In this post we examine why that is and look at other aspects of long tail economics.
10 Hot Computer Driven Careers
While traditional IT careers will probably stay in-demand for the foreseeable future, don’t forget the alternatives. From climate modeling to revolutionizing the very fabric of life itself, there are plenty of enjoyable computer jobs to keep the computer professional creatively engaged.
Google preps online storage service
Offering would compete with recent products from rivals Microsoft, Amazon.com and Facebook.
The Mobile Web remains far off, and inevitable
“Within 10 years more people will be accessing the Internet from their mobile . . . than in the home from a PC,” said Geraldine Wilson, vice president of connected life at Yahoo! Europe. “In emerging markets most people’s first contact with the Internet will be with a mobile phone.”
Google hopes to undercut coal with cheap, renewable energy
Google’s latest plan to put all that money to good use is to announce an initiative that will develop renewable energy that’s cheaper than coal.
Related posts
Posted in Internet, Websites | No Comments »
