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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

I started this beer with a starting gravity of 1.080 which has a potential alcohol yield of 10.8%.

Here is my hydrometer reading now: (clicking the pic enlarges it)

This reads 1.006. It’s only been fermenting for 10 days, so I think I’ll give it a few more days to see if it’ll get below 1.006 to be on the safe side. Then bottling time!

Edit: I forgot to mention, with the current reading, the estimated alcohol content is about 10.4%

Steeping the grains

Pouring the hops in

Primary fermenting

It has to sit in the primary fermenter for about 2-3 weeks, at which point I then bottle the beer and allow it to carbonate/ferment for another 2-3 weeks. Then we drink it!

The beer I am making is a Trappist type beer, if you’re unsure what that here, here is a wikipedia link: Trappist beer

Edit: Here’s a pic of all the equipment I received to begin with and ingredients, before brewing.

Here is a pic of all the bottles I bought. It takes about 55 12oz bottles for 5 gallons of beer. I ordered theee cases of 24 bottles (which is a total of 72 bottles).