Skip to content

Scotch Barrel Scottish 70 Shilling Recipe and Notes

I had the hankering to brew again, and I wanted to try something different.

I’ve been interested in brewing a Scottish 70/- or 80/- for a while. It sounded similar to the English bitters I like, but different enough to branch out a bit. There is one more wrinkle I threw in there – I had some friends wanting me to try to make something like a Kentucky Bourbon Barrel Ale so I figured I’d combine the two experiments. Here’s what I’ve got:

  • 1 lb. Simpsons Caramalt
  • 3.3 lbs Muntons Amber LME
  • 3.3 lbs Muntons Dark LME
  • 1 oz. (U.K. Grown) Fuggle Pellet Hops at 60 Minutes
  • 1 vial White Labs 007 Dry English Ale yeast
  • 1 tsp. Irish Moss

and:

  • 1.5 cups Clan MacGregor Scotch Whisky
  • 1.5 oz. Hungarian medium toast oak cubes

A few days before the brew day, I put the boiled the oak cubes for a few minutes in water. Then I drained the water off and dropped them in a mason jar with the Scotch. According to my (relatively anemic) research, I wanted to have the oak in Scotch for about 2 weeks. When primary fermentation ends I’ll rack the beer into secondary on top of the Scotch and oak.

My brewing procedure was more involved than usual, but still pretty straightforward. I steeped the Caramalt for 18 minutes as I brought two and a half gallons of water to a boil. It was removed right before I reached a rolling boil. I then added the Amber LME and the Fuggle hops, and started the 60 minute timer. At 20 minutes, I added the Dark LME. The Irish Moss was thrown in at 15 minutes. The O.G. for the beer was 1.052.

Tagged , ,
2011 09 05 admin Brewing Comments Off Permalink

The Apps I Use On The LG Optimus V: Music and Media

It’s been a month and a half since I first rooted my Optimus V. As I’ve gotten more comfortable with the device, the software I use daily has changed a bit, so I figured I would run through my current set up.

First, I’ve stopped using nearly all of the optimization software I installed shortly rooting the device. No more ATK, CacheMate, CPU Tuner, etc – I don’t see a noticeable performance or battery difference with them enabled, so I disabled them. The way I see it, the fewer fiddly software bits necessary, the better. The original reason I installed this software was to try to increase the terrible battery life of the phone. Nearly all the problems I was having with the battery were due to the battery quirk I mentioned previously.

The software I wanted to mention today is more standard fare – it’s the stuff I use on a daily basis.
Music and Podcasts
One of the main reasons I switched from the LG300 I used to use was to stop carrying around my sim-less iPhone as a media player. I work in a cubefarm, and I usually need the music or podcasts to drown out the ambient noise. My ‘workflow’ for media consists of three applications:

  • MyPod – The UI is in dire need of a once over by a user interaction designer, but MyPod is a very full-featured podcast downloader. This is actually the first application I bought from the Android Market.
  • WinAmp – I’m excited to see that this product lives on. I loved WinAmp on my PC back in college (almost a decade ago!) and Nullsoft still makes a decent media player. The primary reason I use WinAmp over the default media player is their lockscreen player controls. These are vital in a work environment with numerous interruptions.
  • Amazon MP3 – Until Amazon unveiled their Cloud Music Player this app was languishing unused on my phone. Now, it’s basically my stand-in for iTunes. I’ve been slowly uploading my music collection from my Mac to my Cloud Drive and using the Amazon MP3 app to download albums I want to listen to directly to my device.

It’s strange how liberating it feels to not have to (micro)manage iTunes to get the media I want on my phone.

Tagged , ,
2011 05 14 admin android
Ramble Comments Off Permalink

Optimus V Battery Drain Quirk

I’m still getting used to my Optimus, but I must say that the experience has been mostly positive. Since getting the phone, I’ve been plagued by an occasional extremely short battery life – like five hours to go from a full charge, to a dead battery. I though I had the problem cleared up after I rooted it , but the next day it re-appeared.

Turns out that this is a fairly common issue with several Android devices. If you are experiencing a shorter than expected battery life check the Battery Use of the Cell Standby Component (Settings/About Phone/Battery Use/Cell Standby) if it reads 50%, then you’ve got the bug. To fix it, put your device into Airplane mode (via the power button), and then immediately take it out of that mode. This blog describes a much longer process that I found unnecessary. If I do this whenever I restart the device, it does not exhibit this issue.

Tagged , , ,
2011 03 25 admin 100words
android
Wierdness Comments Off Permalink

Rooting the LG Optimus V from a Mac

I gained root access on my Optimus V last night, and I wanted to share the resources that I used. There is plenty of information out there on how to do it (even from a Mac), but much of it is squirreled away among forum posts.

Like most of the posts on this topic will say – I’m not responsible for anything bad happening to your phone. This is the process that I followed, but there is no guarantee that it will work for you.

I got a good overview of the process from this post: Using a Mac to Root the LG Optimus S.

The exploit I used was rageagainstthecage.apk, which I pulled from here (along with su and busybox: [How-To] Root LG Optimus S.

I sort of sanity checked that process against the one here:[How-To] Root the LG Optimus V. That post is informative, but reliant on SuperOneClick, a Windows program that simplifies the process.

I was surprised how easy it was to root the device. After I figured out exactly what I wanted to do, it didn’t take more than 10 minutes.

The reason I jailbroke rooted (still thinking like an iPhone user) my Android phone is simple: the battery is terrible. My LG300C spoiled me: I got used to getting a week’s worth of use out of a single charge (I’m not a big talker). Even my iPhone with a two or three day lifespan wasn’t bad. The first few days, I was getting less than ten hours on a charge, which I think is pretty ridiculous. To improve battery life, I’ve installed a few apps:

I chose these applications based on recommendations from here and here (second post). I’m still tweaking the settings, but I easily get 15 – 16 hours out of a charge now, and I don’t notice any loss of performance.

Tagged , , , ,
2011 03 18 admin 100words
android
Hardware Comments Off Permalink

All Quiet on the Blog Front…

Looking back at the calendar widget in the sidebar, I see that my posting to this site has been dwindling over the last month. I figure I speak for everyone when I say that’s a good thing. I don’t have that much interesting to say on a daily basis. This blog was a good way for me to get into the habit of doing something every day, but I want my something to move beyond the inane little blog posts that I posted most of January (and this post). I know I’ve said this before, but I need to start working on the quality of what I do, now that I’ve got the quantity of the habit pretty well ingrained in my daily routine.

Tagged , ,
2011 03 11 admin 100words
idea
Ramble Comments Off Permalink