Beer update and an ultimate sin for dinner?

I transferred the Jalopy 4 into another carboy for secondary fermentation. I probably should have transferred it earlier, but I didn't have the time. Once again, the gravity is at ~ 1.020... I can never seem to get my beer to finish at a good gravity. I blame lack of temperature control. I keep my carboys in a large plastic trash can and fill it partially with water to at least make the temp changes a little slower, and even throw some ice in there when I can. It's been pretty warm in Denver as of late, so when I transferred the beer it was >75 F. It might be time to get a chest fridge/freezer or something to control that more, or at least get me more ice production.
As for dinner last night, still excited about my grill (I've been waiting a long time to have a grill again) I got some grilling stuffs from the store. Inspired by the wife and I's favorite restaurant The Linkery (whose food and people we miss), I decided to make mexi-dogs! What are mexican hot dogs? Well, take a normal hot dog, wrap it with bacon and cook it. Then put it in a bun and cover it with salsa and whatever else you want. Like such:

Where does the ultimate sin come from? Well, the few times I get hot dogs, I like to stick to Hebrew Nationals; they're delicious. It occurred to me that I might be committing something very bad by wrapping Hebrew Nationals with bacon...
Oh well, they were awesome. Paired up with some corn also prepared on the grill for a dinner!

That's El Pinto salsa on there as well. mmmm....

Cheers and good eats!

Weekend Gifts!

Two fun things came to me this weekend.
First was my new 9 gallon brewpot I got off ebay!
It came with welded on hole and threading for a ball-valve, and a false-bottom (insert inappropriate joke here)! Once I get a wort cooling system setup, I can do full 5 gallon boils instead of the 1.5 - 2 gal I'm doing now. And eventually I can take the step from boy to man with all-grain brewing. First I'll have to get a immersion chiller and maybe a food-grade pump to cool down 5 gallons of near boiling sugar water quickly.
What was the second gift of the weekend? Well my awesome wife picked me up a little gift on her way back from a conference in Costa Mesa, CA. It serves as a small reminder of our time living in San Diego:
He is currently adorning my monitor at work, nodding his head in approval at all I do.

Back on the wagon: Jalopy 4 IPA

Well, I've been meaning to startup this blog again for a while. I won't bother going through all that's happened in the last almost 2 years, so back to the beer!

First very important thing. The 'brewery' has a name! Crooked Mouth Brewing. Why Crooked Mouth? Well, my last name means crooked mouth, and I find it an amusingly appropriate name for a beer.

Now that my wife and I are settled into our new jobs and area, the I can spend some time on brewing. So what's going? Well, my first attempt at an IPA a while back didn't turn out well (not enough malt, so it tasted like a hop-tea), so it's time to try again.

One of my favorite beers in San Diego was Bear Republic's Racer 5.
And since it's not easily found in Denver, I went searching for a clone recipe. I found one, but it got changed around due to 1) leftovers I had on hand and 2) hop substitutions due to what my brewshop had (also limited by the hop shortage).
Without further adieu, the recipe.

Jalopy 4:

0.5 # of 2-row
0.5 # of Catastan 20 (15 lovibond)
0.25 # of Carapils
5.5 # Pale LME
3.0 # Munich LME (Amber malt extract)
1.5 # Wheat LME
0.25 # Turbinado Sugar (organic, raw cane sugar)

6.25 AAU Centennial (10% AA) for 90 min boil
8.9 AAU Amarillo (8.9% AA) for 60 min boil

Dry-hopped:
0.375 oz Centennial (10%)
0.25 oz Magnum (13%)
0.75 oz Cascade (whole leaf hops, old in my case, 7.6%)

Steep grains at 155F for 45 min. Etc, etc.

My starting gravity was 1.082! Racer 5 is supposed to start at 1.070. I probably didn't add enough water, but oh well. Why Jalopy 4? Well, it's my slapped together (Jalopy) version of Racer 5 with 4 different hops.
The foam was pushing the top of my 3 gal stockpot for almost the entire boil... I was blowing on it so much to keep it from boiling over (failed once) that I was light-headed for the last 15 min of boiling.

The fermenter is bubbling away as we speak. I hope it turns out better than my last IPA.

More to come! I promise!

Cheers!