Duchess

It's time for the Secret Gift Exchange! Those of you who've been around know we've coordinated this event for more than five years with a reasonable amount of success and a few of us/you were looking forward to it again this year. If you're not looking forward to it, you can move along, or you can blame your compatriots who are. Or you can just blame me, I like this event. We've had a lot of changes here in the last few months, over the last couple of years we've seen a substantial drop off in Pub usage. Many of us who are still here, have been here for years; as we go through our lives our time in the Pub waxes and wanes. I'm sure you'll all agree that we're thankful the pub is still here. The degree of my thanks is in no way reflected by the fact that I failed to ask William if it was acceptable to run this event again. But then, I never asked Stynky either. So I'm thankful to the both of them for providing this internet ship. I'd also like to thank all the participants of previous years gift exchanges who played along with good graces and good effort. I look forward to another successful gift exchange this year! So here's how it’s going to work: Who is eligible: Any current member of the Pub is eligible. If you’ve only been around a few months, I’ll pair you with someone else in equal standing. The understanding being that this would put those newer members on equal footing, as both parties would be taking a risk with unknowns.Regardless of membership status, by signing up you solemnly agree that you will provide some sort of pleasant contact with your designated recipient. If you don't I'll be distinctly displeased with you and highly unlikely to allow participation in the future.What you'll do: Sign up. See below for information about how to accomplish this.After the sign-up cut-off I will PM you the name and address of your Designated Recipient.Sometime in the near future you will put something in the mail, timed so as to arrive before December 25, for your Designated Recipient.What you will send: Often these sorts of arrangements come with a dollar amount limit. I’m not convinced that is appropriate for some place like the Pub, and things have been pretty successful for the last several years without one. Please don't let this lack of specification make you uncomfortable. Also know that you're not buying our friendship, respect or any other sort of attention, so don't bother showing off. We'll just mock you. Things that people have done in the past: Holiday Cards, CD's, dice, a deck of cards, belt pouches, glass pens, etc.... Basically anything goes as long as it is kind and reasonably well intentioned. If this section is really stressing you out PM me, and we'll come up with something or I'll give you quantitative limits to make you feel better.The most successful gifts are often hand crafted.How to sign up: Send me a PM with your name (or something the post office will recognize as a name capable of receiving packages) and an address. Each interested party must contact me themselves, from their own account. I won't sign anyone up on someone else's say so. Simply expressing interest here is like wise insufficient. You must send me a PM with your name and address. This is a test. I MUST RECEIVE YOUR PM BY NOON CT ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16th Sunday, November 24th FOR YOU TO PARTICIPATE! I will then mix up all the entries and pair up everyone. I'll then send you a PM during the following week containing the name and address of your Designated Recipient.General Information: Once you have your recipient, you will then find, craft, beg, or barter something for them and post it off to the supplied address. Please let me know when your package has shipped.After the Gift exchange is complete everyone should purge their PM's of sensitive identifying information (like names and addresses) and I will do the same.You're free to open your Gift whenever you get it (or to wait for some special day) and post here in great detail about it. But let’s have the exchange complete before we start identifying ourselves as "giver of ...."You are free to post here, in this thread, general information about what you are interested in to help your Designated Giver. You're also free to remain entirely mum. Personally, I find the nature of the complete surprise present to be most appealing...If you've any questions please post here or send me a PM. Thanks, Duchess.

Ah. Siemens has figured out my devious plan!

Rules, official sign up and miscellaneous information will follow soon. This is your advance warning.

Oh my. You've done such wonderful things here, I do hope you'll continue to be around without the managerial role. And of course I'd like to share a drink with you someday down the line.

What's that? It's September you say? But I'm quite certain that just a few days ago it was August and before that I'm sure I remember a few days of June! However does this happen?! Regardless, thus quite soon, it shall be October. And in October I will be soliciting for participants in the annual Pyracy Pub Secret Gift Exchange. This is not the sign up. Do not PM me to sign up right now. (You can still PM me for other things right now.) Instructions about PM'ing for participation will follow at a later date. This is my shot across your bow, the warning that, in approximately one month you can PM me to sign up for the most interesting gift exchange you will participate in this year.* So pull down your thinking caps and prep your engines. Or some other such nonsense. You have been warned. *Actual mileage may vary according to your effort.** ** And the effort of other people. Which sounds a lot like life actually...

I don't generally follow a recipe. I browse through ingredient lists and think "oh....that sounds good...I wonder what would happen if I mixed it with...." I used to be pretty bad about writing down what I did, but I'm getting better. I remind myself it isn't science unless you document it! There are some great recipes available online too, available by searching. The American Homebrewers Association and their magazine Zymurgy has lots of recipes. There's a local organization that puts out a magazine called Growler that usually has a few as well. I also occasionally buy kits from Northern Brewer and find I'm pretty happy with those as well.

I'm dearly looking forward to the return of Lucette Brewing's Slow Hand Stout. I don't know what is coming up for the Big Eddy line from Linekugels, but I've been generally impressed with their offerings over the last year so I'm looking forward to that too. I just brewed up a black IPA last weekend and racked a black pilsner for more conditioning. Both recipes were created from "What do I have on hand?" in an effort to reduce the amount of supplies that I've been storing and thus are highly experimental I'll be opening bottles of last years bourbon porter soon and making plans to start this years batch. Busy busy!

I have discovered the way to create a cat organ. First acquire cats. Second, allows cats to acquire the desire to go outside/eat all the food/pilfer all the objects. Third attempt to prevent the cats from Step 1 from doing the action in Step 2. The more cats you have the more complex pieces you will be able to play.

Maybe it's a squirrel?! Or something shiny?!

I tried something different with these last two batches of not heating them much at all, a No Boil approach. My first couple of batches I did a short boil. I've since done some research and found that boiling can help the mead clear faster. Indeed those first batches underwent a series of "spontaneous" clearing over the course of eight months, ending with a lovely completely clear mead. The no boil batches are persistently cloudy and while I'm confident they'll clear eventually, I think I'll go back to a short boil for this years crop. Much scouring of research, tastings and talking to people has indicated that a short boil will reduce the aroma, but will not negatively affect the taste. And if it ultimately produces a drinkable mead in a more moderate time frame, I'm all for that. :)

Thanks for the feedback! The three competitions I've looked at around here (Minnesota and Wisconsin area) have all requested two bottles of 12oz. exactly or two bottles of 10-16oz. I didn't think of asking for an exception, but I might follow up with that and see what happens. :)

I've only really been brewing for about two years. Thus far everything I've made has been consumed by myself, friends and family. The past couple of months I've started looking into competitions, just to get some feedback. I've hit two hurdles with that: 1. Competitions (at least around here, that I've looked in to) require the 12oz bottles. Everything I have is either kegged or in the 22oz. bombers. 2. I don't brew to a particular style. I have an idea of what I want the final result to taste like and I work toward that. It is generally after the fact that I determine what "style" the brew is. So, I'm reluctant to enter something into a competition and have it get slammed for not matching a particular list of style points. Though I would dearly love some educated feedback. I think this winter I'll try to plan a few things for competitions next year and see what happens.... I'd be up for a recipe swap and a liquid yeast sharing...

I've been meaning to try naturally carbonating in the keg, but so far it's just been easier to force it. And that has worked fine for the lighter styles I've been kegging. I too bottle most of the dark stuff for aging purposes and because they aren't as regularly consumed by anyone but me. I don't smoke my own grains. I tend to keep an eye out on the specialty grains offered by Briess and others. Trying them out when available. I'm not sure but I think the Cherry wood smoked might have made it into regular rotation for them. It is still available from Northern Brewer.

I have a brush pile that needs lighting off too, so we could certainly have some fun....

Sounds delicious! Do you force carbonate in your kegs?

Quiet here as of late, so do tell...what do you have brewing? I've just finished the first batch of something I am tentatively referring to as a Black Pilsner, it is currently bubbling away quite happily and I look forward to seeing how it turns out. I've bottled a second round of an old world heavy ale. Chief on the grain bill was cherrywood smoked malt.... I'm quite proud of this recipe so far. In the keg is a cream ale. I'll confess I don't like it at all, but everyone else with access to the fridge finds it delightful. Also in the fridge, though in bottles, is a bourbon smoked porter. The one has become my old standby and something I enjoy having around. There's a dry cider too, which I'm uncertain about. Thus far all cider attempts have only produced cider vinegar. Wonderful for cooking, not at all what I've been trying to do... I'll wait a few more weeks to sample a bottle of this batch...

So I finally bottled the mead I had going last fall, I suspect it was a bit presumptuous as it was still a bit cloudy, alas I got impatient. I've got another methgelin in secondary and I've sworn to be patient enough for it to clear on its own... In the meantime I'll distract myself with some other brewing projects.

"I'm RUSTING!" She wailed as her flesh settled into a wrinkled and reddish puddle around her....

And it is rememberances like these which mark the ineffable passage of time. And of course remind me that HOLY SHIT WE'RE ALL DYING!

Hi Eva, this is something a few of us have been tossing around for several years. I believe in a couple of topics about the Ottoman Empire. Try searching that a see what comes up. I'll try to find those topics as well. :) Duchess

Pestle

Well, with a final replacement package I sent out a few weeks ago and message received this morning, I think we can put the 2012 gift exchange to bed. If I'm incorrect on this assessment and you're still waiting for a package or have something to discuss, please do PM me so we can get things straightened out. Some things went swimmingly this year, others not so much. We had our usual ranks of extremely generous thoughtful gifters, we had a few more than usual duds. My thanks go out to everyone who played along fairly and additional thanks to those who showed extra patience when their original gifters didn't gift. Please feel free to send me any thoughts, feedback or suggestions you have about this annual event!

Well Coastie hit all the big ones. I've got nothing left to add off the top of my head.