Duchess

And with the above post, I can say that the 2013 Secret Gift Exchange is complete. Thank you to everyone who participated! This event has been around for a fair number of years, though the numbers of people participating has dropped considerably. We had eight folks this year down from a high in the upper 40's during the pub heyday. While I haven't tracked the statistics as meticulously as participation, it seems that there are more delayed gifts, things not getting sent until well after the new year and more drop outs, folks who vanish completely from the event. I love this event. I'm not entirely sure why, it isn't high on my list of personal things to reflect about, but I do. It isn't necessarily a lot of work for me but it does span quite a bit of time (on the order of four months this year). I also work hard to make sure everyone gets something, frequently sending out several extra gifts each year. As the number of participants drops and the number of dropouts increases, I've been debating each year whether to continue the event or not. So I'd like to ask the question publicly. Should we as a community continue the Secret Gift Exchange this year? Why? Why not? If we do, is there something that I, as the organizer, could do to encourage more participation in numbers and more complete participation by those that sign up? Are the rules daunting? Am I off putting? DEAR GOD DO I SMELL AND NO ONE HAS TOLD ME?! Should there be strict limits on what to gift? How much? Is the vagueness threatening or anxiety inducing? What could make this better? If you're not comfortable answering publicly, please do feel free to PM me and join the discussion. Thank you, Duchess

Commodore, I've followed up with your gifter and sent you a PM. Is there anyone else who hasn't received a gift?

I'm checking in here with the mead makers. I've just bottled a lovely metheglin that will most likely end up with a slight sparkle in the bottle.This one lingered in secondary for a year and then spent two months in a tertiary and ended up nice, clear and dry. The spices are delicate and smooth under the initial bite, I'm looking forward to seeing how this one ages. The plain mead that I bottled a bit prematurely never did clear properly and to my tastes isn't as nice the metheglins I've been making. I've got another 15lbs of local honey waiting for the next brew day and available carboy.

I received some delicious coffee and a wonderful mug as well as an attempted shipment of homebrew. Alas the latter was a casulty of the postal service. Thank you so much! Remember, now is the time to let me know if you haven't received anything. That way I can start the follow up process. Don't be shy!

I've heard from nearly everyone that their gift has been posted. One will go out tomorrow and one hasn't reported in. I do hope that everyone has enjoyed themselves so far! Please let me know if you haven't received anything yet and I'll start the follow up process.

Great job! Keep those packages heading in the right directions everyone!

All righty everyone, we ended up with 8 participants, including myself. A slim turn out compared to previous years, but I like to think of it as selection of only the best, most distinguished pirates in the world. A truly select few! You should all find a PM in your inbox containing the information for your designated giftee. It's time to get crafting or pillaging or purchasing and get something on the packet ship for your giftee, timed so as to arrive before the last week in December. We do have a few folks who will be gifting across long distances and political borders, so please take that into account in your personal timeline. Once you've sent off your package, please let me know via PM or a post here. If you have any questions, please ask! Thank you to everyone who signed up, I look forward to the mystery and the festivities. Duchess

Due to extremely sparse participation, I will extend the sign up through the end of this coming weekend. The last day to sign up is now November 24th.. Those of you who are already signed up will start to get messages from me at the end of this week containing your designated recipient's information.

We have exactly four people signed up....including myself...

The official sign up is here! Actually, it's HERE I look forward to hearing from all of you. Personally.

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?