this space intentionally left blank

I’m always on the lookout for dark chocolate I haven’t tried, and this morning while Elizabeth and I were drinking our respective hot chocolate and double espressos and browsing the food section at our new Super Target, I spotted the beautiful words, “DARK 70%,” in muted gold letters on a dark brown wrapper.

I dropped one of them in the cart and later while I was coding away at work, trying to figure out how I wanted to apply high-resolution imagery to our terrains, I broke it out and tried it.

It starts well, but seems to have a thinner body and a more bitter finish than some of the other 70% dark chocolates I like a lot, for example Scharffen Berger or Lindt Excellence.

And a pile of beer taps, too! Pizza Joint has opened their second location, this one in Evans, Georgia, about a mile and a half away from my office. The word is we’re headed there tomorrow to try out a few of the brews issuing from their plentiful taps. I don’t want to exaggerate, so I will just be conservative and say they have at least 30 taps, and not a lot of duplication.

Because it isn’t carbonated yet, of course! The batch of English-style India Pale Ale we brewed up a few weeks ago was more than ready for bottling or kegging, so I decided to do it this evening rather than spending precious weekend or daylight hours on something that mostly involves cleaning and siphoning, two things I can easily accomplish at night.

So, I had a little trouble starting the siphon, I think due to a clog of yeast that was sucked up in to the racking cane. I removed the racking cane and decided to siphon with just tube, and it started so fast I ended up with a lot more beer in my measuring cup than I needed to determine the final gravity. The recipe I followed called for a starting gravity of 1.057 and a final of 1.012. I had a starting gravity in the area of 1.046 and a final of 1.014, so it will only be four percent alcohol by volume or so, but I have a feeling it’s going to be one of the better ones yet — it even tastes great with zero carbonation!

Speaking of carbonation, Andrea and I deliberated about whether to force-carbonate with CO2 or to naturally carbonate by adding some priming sugar, and decided that naturally carbonated is best. We’ll add a bit of CO2 in a couple of weeks if it hasn’t generated enough on its own to get out of the keg.

Due to an Elizabeth-related tightened schedule last year, we have most of the ingredients for an English Pale Ale. The only thing we’re missing is some hops, which are pretty cheap, and the yeast. Tonight I decided to try using the yeast left over from this batch of beer to rescue that old Pale Ale kit. Maybe I’ll get a chance to try that this weekend! Anyway, word of advice if you should find yourself knocking around my kitchen looking for a brew — stay away from the Oberdorfer pop-top bottles, because they contain yeast sludge.