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Routine of the Day – Gauntlet of Pain

Posted by bradinator in Fitness, Routines on February 8th, 2010

Sundays workout was less of a routine and more a hodgepodge of whatever I could do over the period of two hours at the gym. I haven’t been to a gym in well over a year and I felt like a kid in a toy store; There is a ton of exercise I simply cannot do in my basement, so I ran through them all. Bench press, kettle bells, flying burpees, wall ball shots, arm curls, hundreds of pullups, pushups and situps. I went to hard for too long and had a near run in with Pukie the Clown at the very end.

Todays workout suffered because of it.

Warm Up - 3 Rounds for Time

10 Pullups
30 Pushups
30 Situps
30 Squats

Finished in 4:26

Routine of the Day – Gauntlet: Pain

For Time complete 30, 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5 of the following exercises

Lunges
Burpees
Pullups
Ring Dips

Final time with the 14lbs training vest was 25:22… For only 410 reps. This routine was probably one of the hardest I have done in a very long time. I could not string together unbroken sets of pullups, burpees or dips until I reach the rounds of 10 reps each. I imagine if I had not killed myself yesterday I may have scored a little better, but still… I am not very impressed with my time.

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Beer Review – Hek

Posted by bradinator in Beer, Beer Tasting on February 7th, 2010

Name: Hek Original Lager

Origin: Canada

Style: Lager (5%)

Appearance: It pours a pale, clear yellow colour. It produces a medium, fizzy head that dissipates almost instantly.

Taste: Smells of grasses and something metallic. As for taste, or lack thereof, there is not much to comment on. Some mild flavours of grasses, maybe something citrusy and that’s about it. The rest of this beer is watery and flavourless.

Mouth Feel: The lager thin and highly carbonated, but crisp and refreshing. There is basically no aftertaste whatsoever.

Final Thoughts (2.0 out of 5): A bland beer overall, lacking flavour and character. For $10.00 a 12-pack (thanks Dad!) your getting what you paid for. Still its a hell-of-alot better then Budweiser Lime.

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An Experiment in Brewology – Beer Yeast

Posted by bradinator in Beer, Experiments, Hobbies, Home Brewing on February 6th, 2010

It’s been a long while since I have last done an experiment in home brewing and this is one I have been planning on doing for a long time. The lack of small 1 gallon fermentation units and the terrible state of the local home brew suppliers in my city have prevented me from attempting this.

Last week I found a decent online store which supplied several strains of dry beer yeast, plus a variety of well priced hops and managed to convert several 1 gallon apple juice containers into fermenters. The yeast arrived at my house last night and the rest will be history. Until now I have exculsively used Coopers beer yeast which has served me very well in producing beer. Still from my reading and research many state that the strain of yeast plays a very large role in the overall final product. I have to find out for myself…

The Question – How much does the strain of yeast affect the final flavours of a home brewed beer?

The Experiment -4 Different strains of yeast will be used for a single beer recipe which will be divided into four seperate 1 gallon fermenters.

The Recipe -Bradinator’s Red Ale

All the ingredients collected and ready to go

3.3 lbs Pilsner LME
1.0 lbs Light DME
1 and 1/2 cups (approx 0.5 lbs) Crystal Malt 60L (steeped for 30 minutes at 70-80c)
1 oz Amarillo Gold @ 60 minutes
0.5 oz Amarillo Gold @ 30 minutes
0.5 oz Amarillo Gold @ 5 minutes
1/2 tsp Irish Moss @ 10 minutes
1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient @ Cold Break
SafeAle-04, SafeAle-05, SafeLager S-23, SafeBrew S-33

Original Gravity: 1.038 – 1.040

The Plan – 4-6 weeks in the fermenters, then an additional 2 weeks in bottles. The final products will be refridgerated for 24 hours prior to drinking and will be sampled on an individual basis (possibly 1 a night). A final gravity reading will be taken from each individual batch as I highly expect them all ferment out differently, especially the S-33.

All the beer was divided evenly and each individual yeast packet pitched.

SafeAle S-04: Described as an English Ale yeast

SafeAle S-05 - An American ale yeast, low diacetyl production

SafeLager S-23 - A german lager yeast, supposed to impart fruit like flavours

SafeBrew S-33: A robust ale yeast with high alcohol tolerance. Used in strong ales.

I am going to need to monitor this brews over the next couple days as I pitched the entire 11.5g packet of yeast into these small fermenters. To prevent the inevitable blow out that will occur in the next day or so I have all the beers pointing into a blow-off jar filled with sanitizer.