My First Homebrew: The Inaugural IPA

I am writing to you while sipping on a bottle of homemade beer, which I endearingly call the Commencement Bay Brewing Co. Inaugural IPA. It's hoppy and crisp. I'm so happy... and getting a little tipsy. There's a correlation.

Amanda, Mom and Steve went in on the homebrew kit for my (cough) 30th (cough) birthday after I had some success with the paint-by-number Mr. Beer kit Scott bought me this past Christmas. Encouraged by that success, I really wanted to try to make beer the "real" way and had been eyeing beer gear at Mash, a new homebrew supply store near our house.

A few days after receiving the birthday present, I went into Mash to meet with the owner, Jason, to get a recipe and learn how to use all of my new toys. They all just look like parts of a science experiment project to the Average Paolo.

Jason was generous with his time in walking me through the process and writing up a recipe modeled after the Ninkasi Total Domination IPA, a favorite of mine. I thought I followed most of his direction as we talked through it, but I knew that I just had to jump in and get my hands dirty. (That's really the wrong phrase. Everything about brewing is about being OCD sanitary.)

Amanda was, of course, my partner in crime when we attempted the homebrew a couple nights later.

The first step was steeping the grain, similar to putting a teabag in hot water except on a larger scale. We struggled a bit with keeping the temperature consistent when we needed to -- a challenge with an electric stove -- and I had my first panic attack about steeping the grain too hot. I recovered and we added the malt extract, which is a bit of a cheat but recommended for a first go-around.

After that, we timed adding hops over the course of an hour. That was probably the easiest part, though Jason warned us to really watch the clock.

Did I mention that you drink beer while making beer? It's an unofficial rule.

After the hops were added, we had to cool the wort (what beer makers call the puke-looking result of all that grain and hop cooking) as fast as possible.

I watched many YouTube videos walking through the home brewing process. As they all warned, chilling the wort proved to be most difficult and time consuming without a fancy wort cooler that runs cold water through copper tubing. (I should also mention I read a lot on HomeBrewTalk.com throughout the process. That's a great forum.). To keep costs low, we opted for the less-fancy method of putting the pot of wort into a large container of ice with salt. After the ice melted, we scrambled and grabbed booze out of the freezer to try and keep things chilled.

We made a couple of mistakes at this time. First, we pitched the yeast too hot and killed it. This didn't prove to be such a big deal (though it was the catalyst for my second freak out) and Jason told us just to pitch more yeast the next day, which worked out. Second, we didn't take the gravity reading of the cooled wort to help a later equation that identifies the alcohol content of the finished product.

The cooled wort sat in a dark closet for a couple weeks fermenting. After week one, we filtered the brew (that was gross) into a glass carboy or "secondary" for another week of fermenting.

After the second week I took a gravity reading per the recipe and it lined up to what Jason prescribed.

I tasted the uncarbonated, warm beer and it wasn't bad for being uncarbondated and warm! We were ready to bottle!

We boiled up some sugar in water, added it to the wort and stirred that up. From there we just filled and capped the bottles. Then we had to wait another couple of weeks for the yeast to eat of the sugar and carbonate the beer in the bottles.

All of this takes a very long time, but I used some of it to come up with some fancy labels for my first beer!

FINALLY, we were ready to drink a cold, carbonated homebrew and it tasted SOOOOOOO good.

Next up, I have a full grain lesson with Jason (thanks to Nina and Jeff for the gift) to learn more about the science of homebrewing. I think I'll try a Pale Ale next.

Thanks, Amanda, for all of your help! Now you can help me drink these couple cases of Inaugural IPA.

Sergio Graduates

A little more than four years ago, Sergio was 18 years old and fresh off a decision to drop out of college to start a photography business.

At the same time, I had just bought a little house in Tacoma and offered Sergio to move into the finished attic for cheap rent (that sounds like I put him in a Harry Potter closet, which is somewhat true). Sergio was so motivated he moved in weeks ahead of me and my then-girlfriend Amanda and crashed on the floor until we all acquired some furniture. Sergio was instrumental in getting the house into shape -- painting walls, moving boxes and providing opinions. Lots of opinions.

None of us thought about it at the time, but he had really just enrolled into my University of Hard Knocks. I threw a lot at him: a girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned wife, a cat, a dog, chickens, home construction projects, one rent increase, job changes, etc. The only certainty was a lot of change.

Sergio threw a lot at me, too. He taught -- no -- reminded me about how much college-aged kids like to party... on weekdays... usually Mondays... late... sometimes on the roof. He and Amanda bonded instantaneously and grew a strong sibling relationship but also challenged me to balance their interests when they had conflict and I had to play brother, boyfriend/fiancé/husband and landlord. I also didn't realize that my home would become "Sergio Mottola Photography Shipping & Receiving" as his business picked up.

Looking back, I can say this: Sergio was a great roommate and an OK tenant. It's a rare opportunity to enjoy so much time with an adult sibling, and it was a treat to watch him carve his path in the world. His path is also one void of deep cleaning and requiring frequent rent reminders -- common for his demographic. If I ever take another roommate here, she will be over the age of 40.

Sergio took a next step on his path last week, moving into a friend's house in the neighborhood. It's not logistically necessary, but he's outgrown the attic. He'll get to adapt to a new environment, mix-up his lifestyle and get exposure to everything else that goes along with self-inflicted change (the best kind) and mature because of it. What's so impressive about Sergio is that as much as he has accomplished for his age, there's a long way to go and that speaks to his extraordinary potential. I'm getting too old, predictable and set in my ways to push him further along.

So, congratulations on your commencement and work these past four years, Sergio. You graduated from this phase of your life with honors.

Urban Farming in Tacoma: Building the Chicken Coop

I can't believe my first blog post about our chickens, Bianca and Nera, is coming so late! That's not because the experience has been uneventful.

We really didn't know what we were getting into. Chickens are just different animals and practically dinosaurs. We often resorted to BackyardChickens.com with our questions about what to feed them, what plants to remove from our yard, how to keep their egg shells firm, if they needed heat on the coldest winter days (they don't) and why Nera started losing all of her feathers (brooding).

We thought we had it easy buying grown chickens with a coop, but the coop was ghetto and architecturally questionable. The roofing ran rain water into the chicken run -- not good -- so I spent most of the November and December weekends building a new chicken coop from scratch. Here are some photos from building process and the finished product.

We literally worked day and night!

But it was worth it!

The finished product.

The external nesting box allows us to stay on our patio to check for eggs.

One of the walls drops with a kickstand so that we can easily clean the coop and get to the chickens.

Although the coop is doing the job (keeping the chickens safe), I am planning on rebuilding part of the run so that there's a door for us to more easily access it.

Now that we're into spring, we're getting up to a dozen eggs a week from the birds. It's been a fun experience!

Eating, Drinking and Geocaching in Olympia

We've grabbed or tried most of the geocaches around Tacoma, so we escaped to the state capitol last weekend for some geocaching and good eats. We found ourselves starting the day at McMenamin's Spar Cafe. The pizza was great!

After lunch we went to Priest Point Park for our first geocache. The tide was way out.

We found a cache!

All that geocache hunting made us hungry, so we grabbed some tacos at Quality Burrito, which reminded me of Casa Que Pasa in Bellingham.

Amanda found another geocache just outside Sylvester Park on our way out of Olympia.

We made a pit stop in Steilacoom and caught a sunset on the way home.

Snowshoeing at Kendall Peak Lakes, Snoqualmie Pass

We spent yesterday snowshoeing on the Kendall Peak Lakes Trail at Snoqualmie Pass, near Hyak. Amanda has asked a few times if we could trade in the speed of skiing for a more leisurely walk in the snow, so I rented snowshoes from REI and we headed out to the pass. Considering there hasn't been much new snow to ski on, it was a perfect day to try something new.

I actually enjoyed snowshoeing quite a bit. I only wish I would have known that we needed to pay cash or check to park service for a Sno-Park permit ($20/day or $40/season) because that sent us all over the place trying to find an ATM and we got a later start on the trail. We got a good workout hiking up for a couple hours. We didn't reach the lakes because of our late start, but I wouldn't hesitate to try for it again. We got a few photos at a break.

And then my camera battery died! Fail!