A Troubling Development, update

Well, due to the snowstorm, I didn’t make it to the “neighborhood meeting” about this proposed apartment building. However, for those who might be interested, I will note that Google Maps now has Street View in the Boston area, including on Grove Street here in Watertown. This here is the site where they’re planning to build their apartment building; if the photo doesn’t pop up, click the “Street View” button up top and drag the view around to look at the brick building, and you’ll have about the same angle as the artist’s rendition the Hanover Company is using to promote this plan. (In their portfolio, either use the thumbnails or the “select by property” link at the bottom to find “Watertown Grove”.)

I think it’s pretty clear that the building they want to build just doesn’t fit in the space they want to build it in.

Mash Tun Update

Over Thanksgiving I cut slots in the remaining three pipes for the lauter manifold, and cut and assembled the pieces for the sparge manifold. The long pipes for the sparge manifold will need to be cut a bit shorter, so that it’ll fit in the recess in the cooler’s lid, and I need to find an appropriate way to cut a hole in the lid for the end pipe to stick up through, so I’ll have a way to pour in the sparge water.

The spigot that came in the cooler turned out to simply unscrew, leaving a plain hole; the valve piece I have fits through the hole with only a little space around it, so I’m thinking that just sticking it in there and caulking it around with silicone or something will suffice. My only concern is that this will mean there’s a bit of a gap between one end of the lauter manifold and the floor of the cooler, but I’m not quite sure what to do about that. Probably the answer is “decide it’s not that big a deal,” but even when that’s the right answer, it’s not a very satisfying one, especially if you’ve got something of an engineering bent. But zymurgy isn’t a precise science, except perhaps if you’re Anheuser-Busch, and who wants that?

Finding time to work on the project continues to be a problem.

"Dark Roast" Coffee Porter

I bottled my not-very-cleverly-named “Dark Roast” Coffee Porter three weeks ago yesterday, so now is when it’s starting to get quite good.  It’s dry and dark, and the coffee flavor comes through clearly.  It’s not too heavy-bodied, has a good clean finish, and at about 5% ABV isn’t overwhelmingly strong, so if you like coffee, it’s a nice, easy drinking beer.  I’m quite happy with how it came out, and I’ll probably try something similar again either this season or next fall.

A Troubling Development

…if you’ll excuse the pun.

In the mail a couple days ago I received an invitation to a “neighborhood meeting” on my street, sponsored by a real estate developer planning to build a large new apartment building just down the street from me.

Blognation

I don’t mean that title as it might be interpreted, in the “Web Triumphalist” (thanks, H2otown!) sense; I don’t particularly believe in such nonsense — indeed, I’m opposed to nationalism in all its forms, with the possible exception of Red Sox Nation. It would probably be clearer to adopt that Munroe kid’s pronunciation: “blagnation” would better convey what I mean.

Point being, of course, that I have shamefully allowed F&A here to sit stagnant (though I might prefer to think of it as “lying fallow”).  I’ve got a longer post in the works, but I haven’t been having much free time to, well, work on it.  So there may be a bit of filler now and again, either dull ruminations of this sort or the dreaded link posts, before I get to it, but I hope to keep it not entirely devoid of interest.

Coming up, probably some more posts about beer; I really don’t intend for Matters Zymurgical to so predominate, but it’s often easier to write about, as I’m typically just describing stuff I do rather than attempting to marshal strong arguments for a position.