Category: Home Brewing

Month(s) in review

Posted by riscphree – October 16, 2010

This year is just FLYING by. I’m also learning a lot about everything lol.

I’ve furthered my Asterisk knowledge far enough to install it for a client and think of a new business idea (coming soon). I also found out you can’t use Skype subscriptions with Digium’s SkypeForAsterisk channel driver. They only allow you to use pay-as-you-go minutes. What a retarded idea. Digium only gets binaries from Skype and then reports bugs, but I’m told it takes at least 6 months to patch any serious ones. This was a very costly mistake I learned. Digium’s support is absolutely awesome. You actually talk to a real person who is American and if that isn’t good enough, you can also speak with engineers who will help you. It’s just amazing.  Skype only has email support based out of India :( no fun.

I am attending a few more conferences these next few months: Geekend 2010 here in Savannah and Affiliate Summit 2011 in Las Vegas. I am excited about both. Opportunities abound!

I’ve been a bit busy to keep up with my beer making. The latest is a Belgian Witbier, which is DELICIOUS. I am planning on a pumpkin ale and an Oktoberfest lager this month/later this month.

Another startup is in the works with a friend regarding my love for WordPress, I’ll announce it shortly :)

MailChimp is still treating me great, btw. They also upped their plans. The free plan can now have 1000 emails and has the ability to send 6000 per month. Talk about awesome.

A few other toys I am and will be playing with: Chargify, Shopify, and Get Satisfaction.

I am always on the lookout for a good hosted shopping cart, so if anyone has suggestions, plz2comment.

WordCamp, Beerfest, oh my

Posted by riscphree – September 12, 2010

I’ve been busy. This August marked Savannah’s first WordPress WordCamp! Some good speakers were there including Matt Mullenweg, Jane Wells, Mark Jaquith, Andrew Nacin to name a few. Here’s a very bad picture I took with phone of Matt speaking.

I also got to attend Savannah’s annual Craft Brew Fest with a couple of friends. This was a great event to be at. We had the right idea to park downtown and take the ferry to the event, which was hosted at the Savannah International Trade & Convention Center.  Great selection of beers from all over the nation, I think with a running total of over 120 brews. Only downside is that most of the breweries were actually not there and just represented by local volunteers :( Here is a pic from the event right when they opened. An hour after this picture was taken, the place was crammed packed full of people.

 

New Widget

Posted by riscphree – June 12, 2010

I added a small side widget to show what beers are currently in production and the status of the brewing efforts. So much beer!

New Brew: Coffee Stout

Posted by riscphree – April 29, 2010

The new riscbeer is almost done, it is a coffee stout. I’m bottling it on National Homebrew Day which is this Saturday. Here are some pics of the stout:

New Wort Chiller

Posted by riscphree – April 3, 2010

One problem I had with the first homebrew was chilling the wort (what the beer is called before you add the yeast), and to fix that problem you buy a wort chiller.

So I did, pretty cheap actually, only about $45.

wort chiller

The idea behind it is, cold water comes in, chills the beer, and the warmer water exists. Just a basic radiator setup. It’s designed to chill the wort in 10-15 minutes. Brewing a hefe weizen beer today, so we’ll see if it really does cool it in 10-15 mins. Last time it took us a good 30 minutes to get the wort below 80 degrees F.

Homebrew Success!

Posted by riscphree – February 19, 2010

Just a quick update to the homebrew beer project: it was a success!

I cracked one open after a week and it tastes very delicious.

I won’t be brewing anymore until after I get back from Atlanta/Las Vegas trip in March. Gives me a little bit of time to see what I want to brew next.

Time To Bottle!

Posted by riscphree – February 6, 2010

It’s now February 5th and time to check the beer again. If I get the same hydrometer reading as last time, it means it’s done fermenting and it’s time to bottle it. Let’s find out.

And it is. So now we bottle the 5 gallons tomorrow!

February 6: It took me quite a while to bottle all my 5 gallons of beer, and it gave me a tired back from sitting on the floor doing it. But here’s my results:

52 bottles of homebrew beer!

They have to sit in the dark and carbonate for 2-4 weeks. I’ll be trying one at two weeks and see how they are.