The shuttle launch was a few days ago. The candle on Endeavor's last mission was lit right around the same time I fired up my home brewery for the first time. It was her 25th mission, and my first. I logged into Facebook and updated my status.
“About to light the burner in my home brewery. Hit 'refresh' a few times. If this message is still here, call the fire department.”
Suddenly everything went into launch mode.
“Control, uhhhhhh, we are in place...initiate the ignition sequence, uhhhhh.” ~chirp~
Grabbing the valve, I stopped and scanned my work one last time. Plugs. Pipe dope. Nipple. Dope. Flex hose. No dope. Reducer. No dope. Valve. Dope. After just a quarter turn there was a sharp hiss, like a gap-toothed yokel about to whistle Dixie. A spark is all you need, and I forgot to start the countdown as I stared front, realizing I didn't have an extension lighter. Just a Bic.
I leaned down and closed my eyes, briefly wondered what I might look like with no eyebrows, and let the Bic flick.
No explosion. I deleted my Facebook entry.
“Control, we uhhhhhhhh, we are go.” ~chirp~
“Kettle, you are clear. Set countdown for 20 minutes and immerse whole grains.” ~chirp~
While the grains steeped I laid out the hopping order and started sanitizing everything I'd need. Holy shit, it's already pretty hot in here. I had a fan on full blast, trying to get a current going out the window, but it wasn't easy.
“Control, we are at 160, that's one-six-zero, degrees.” ~chirp~
“Roger that uhhhhhhhhhhhh prepare to empty malt extract at one-seven-zero.” ~chirp~
This brew table was custom made, and in a word...it's perfect. I'll bet the guy who made it will be taking orders for more as soon as other people see it. You have to move the pot on and off the flame a couple times, so I had him make the boiling surface level with the table top, the burner sets on a little adjustable platform beneath. Bam. Back to boiling, 212 degrees, and then keep it there for an hour. It took about 15 minutes to get there.
“Control, we are approaching the hop break, please advise.” 
~chirp~
“Stand by, Kettle...back off on my mark....3...2...1...mark.” ~chirp~
Damn...it's hot. I had a little bit of a headache, but now all I had to do was watch the time, pitch the hops at the right intervals, and sanitize the carboy. Across the room at the bench I plunked down and started taking some notes and some big pulls on the pint of beer I had poured just before I started. The glass was so sweaty it nearly slipped through my hands. Looking up, I saw an old bottle of Biere D'Or, brought back from my trip to Melton Mowbray, sitting right alongside a can of WD-40. Biere D'or. WD-40. I kept saying it over and over.
“
Beer-dee-or...dubya-dee-fordee”, over and over. If you cheat and put in an extra 'dee', the two of these kinda sound Swedish. I said it out loud, “beer-dee-or-dee dubya-dee-fordee”.
Laugh? I nearly peed my pants. Now, I had drank only one pint of beer at this point, but man was I feeling loopy. I left the brew room and leaned against the basement wall. It was 25 degrees cooler, at least, and the air didn't seem as thick.
This is one of those times that you wish someone was there to be in on the joke. I used to have a cat, Whiskey, but I found him to be pretty stingy with laughter. You know, talking to pets isn't so crazy...it's better than talking to yourself. Wagner talked to his dog all the time when he wrote The Flying Dutchman. Socrates ended up talking to his donkey. I'd much rather talk to my dog than my ass. I don't know, I need to think about it more.
Anyway, there I was all by myself and laughing till I could hardly breathe, when I turned toward 
the wall and found myself face to face...with Bill...on a promo poster for a play I was in years ago. The laughter slowly stopped, I stared a bit. The play was about a man who somehow becomes unstuck in time; this man believes he is a Federation Starship captain from the future. Capt. John Wisher thinks his mission is to find a woman he doesn't know. In fact it is his wife, long since passed. Everyone thinks he's crazy, but he's just not from here. I don't want to give away too much, but you'll never see the show anyway...so it turns out the guy's kids were also members of Starfleet, sent back to get him. It was a great show.
Time had flown by with all that reminiscing and I ran back into the brew room with only 15 minutes left in the boil. Time for the wort chiller.
“Control, we are ready for copper.” ~chirp~
“Roger that. Immersion process initiated. Kettle, be advised, the thermometer probe is four inches from the bottom.” ~chirp~
“Affirmative. We're in the wort, five by five.” ~chirp~
Bill was one of those guys that you are always glad to see. He had a calm cheeriness about him, a serenity. Never heard him talk down about anyone. Quick to laugh. Your dad would say "he'd give you the shirt off his back". He rarely swore, but if he did it was only because the word was absolutely necessary in that instance, so he never sounded vulgar.
I was too far away to read the names of the cast, so I tried sounding it out to remember instead. “Bill Hendrix...Henson...Hanson? No...HENJUM! Bill Henjum!” The downside to all this is that Bill died unexpectedly. This was years ago, not long after this show closed. It bothers me that I can't remember how. I want to say it was a car accident, I don't know. I remember being somber for a few days after I got the word. Bill was one of those guys that you try to be like, you know?
This recipe is called “Chinook IPA”, but I think I'm just gonna call it “Bill's”. There are about 32 pints of beer in a corny keg. In 5 or 6 weeks when this this batch is ready to drink, there will be 32 toasts to Bill.
Oh yeah and a hood with a fan. Gotta install a hood with a fan. Too much carbon monoxide...that's bad, right?
This one is funny.
ReplyDelete