Adventures of Curious George

Cheers to another year! To celebrate my birthday, Rob and I drove out an hour north of the city to Petaluma to take a tour of the Lagunitas brewery. Since I started brewing, I really wanted to learn more about each of the steps involved in brewing and the ingredients that go into the beer. When we arrived, our very enthused tour guide brought us first to a bar where he treated us very well and got us very drunk.

I quickly learned that lagunitas beers are way too bitter for me! I also learned the reason they are so bitter is because of the extraordinary amounts of hops that they put into their beers which is what distinguishes lagunitas from other brews.

I did find one beer (Censored) I really enjoyed not just because of the story behind it but also because it was less hoppie (relatively). Tony Magee, founder of Lagunitas, wanted to originally name this beer Kronic but when the label was submitted to the authorities, it got censored…you can still see Kronic under the censor label!

During the drink fest, I learned all about the brewing process. I learned that malt is concentrated grains. Every home brew kit will start with malt extract & you steep extra grains to give each beer a unique flavor. As mentioned before, the hops gives it its bitter flavor and the more hops you add, the bitter it gets. Hops also helps in preserving the beer. There are two types of hops: wet and dry. The dry pellets as pictured above keep for longer and are preferred.

Tipsy and happy off to the brewery we go!

These fermentors are massive!

Lagunits will age their beers in whiskey barrels are shown here…thought this was really cool!

Back home to SF we go…across the Golden Gate Bridge!

My big sister is engaged!!!!!! So happy for these two :)

Looking for a good vegetarian place in SF? I highly recommend Greens Restaurant located at Fort Mason. Not only because it provides a great meal, but because it also has an interesting history and provides amazing service and ambiance. Albert and I said goodbye to Kate on Sunday by enjoying a nice brunch at Greens. Here are some highlights. Kate- We will miss you tons!

History:

Greens was built by Zen Center carpenters and for a long time the only employees at Greens were Zen students. You can definitely feel Buddha’s presence at this place.

Food:

Pouched eggs with grits, topped with chanterelle mushrooms and snap peas.

Scrambled eggs with lots of goodies: yellow finn potatoes, poblano and chipotle chilies,
scallions, cheddar and cilantro. Served with chili, crème fraiche, tomatillo and pumpkin seed cilantro salsas.

Ambiance:

My favorite part..the views of Marina. It was hard to leave. But we had some great post brunch place plans….

After brunch, we headed to Fraiche located on Fillmore. The frozen yogurt is probably the best I have had. I especially love their topics…shaved chocolate, numerous berry purees etc…definitely worth a try!

This is poison oak. I do NOT recommend rolling around in it..otherwise your will have these all over your body…

NASTY! and as bad as it looks, it itches a million times worse.

Some tips if you do find yourself in this situation:

1) Wash yourself (a lot) and everything you wore in the 
past few days in hot water with soap. Wash your towel 
and sheets too. 
2) Go to the doctor and get a cream to relieve the itching. 
3) Drink plenty	of water and take vitamins.
4) Your body should take care of the rest.  If persists 
more than 7 days, consult a doctor.
5) Don't panic..you won't die :) 

After my one week adventure to Costa Rica where I drank some of the best coffee I have ever tried, I picked up a new hobby…learning about coffee. Needless to say when I saw this article in 7 x 7 the day after I flew back to the states, I got super excited..it is time to try them all!

Check out these highly rated coffees.

1) Sightglass Coffee Roasters

270 Seventh Street

San Francisco, CA, 94103

2) Ecco Caffe

1125 Mariposa Street

San Francisco, CA 94107-2416

3) Barefoot coffee at the Loving Hut

2356 Polk St

(between Green St & Union St)

San Francisco, CA 94109

4) Four Barrel

375 Valencia St (at 15th)

San Francisco, CA 94103

5) Verve (at Ferry building)

1 Ferry Bldg Ste 46

San Francisco, CA 94111

6) Ritual

1026 Valencia St

San Francisco, CA 94110

7) Blue Bottle

Ferry Building Marketplace, Shop #7, 1 Ferry Building

During the fermentation process, the yeast converts glucose from the wort to alcohol and carbon dioxide gas which gives the beer its alcohol content and its carbonation. For a week we monitored our beer to make sure gases were being produced. After a week, we transferred our beer into a secondary fermentor.

After a week in the secondary fermentor, we transferred our beer into bottles and are waiting patiently until we can finally drink it!

What should I have done after my half marathon? Probably eat, sleep and veg on the couch. What did I do? Learn to brew :)

Naturally, if I can do science, I can brew…right? My co-worker and I are convinced that we have to be good at this…it can’t be half as hard as research and the rewards are so much better!

So here goes day one of brewing 101:

step one: after cleaning everything as carefully as possible to avoid any contamination we filled a 5 gallon pot with a lot of water and brought the temperature up to 155 degrees.

step 2: steep the grains for 20 minutes and do not let the water boil…maintain at 155 degrees.

step 3: add the malt and boil for one hour

step 4: add the hops and keep boiling

step 5: after an hour of boiling, you want to cool down your wort (what the mixtures is called at this point). you want to cool it fast. we bought a specific cooling system to help with this process. at this point you want to make sure you are very very sterile. any bacteria that gets into your wort at this point will grow and contaminate your beer.

step 6: aerate the wort. yeast need oxygen during the fermentation process. you aerate the wort by pouring it from your primary fermentor to another 5 gallon bucket a few times

KEEP ANY CONTAMINANTS AWAY..no matter how cute they are :)

step 7: add your yeast and close your primary fermentor. let the yeast do their job. check on it every day to see if you see bubbles (aka…gas is being produced and alcohol is being made)

o and don’t forget to clean up….ugg!

3:45am wake up call, 13.1 miles of running, a short nap and a few hours of brewing later….i get my reward

Finally…the inner sunset is actually sunny on the 4th of July! I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate than to stuff myself with delicious food and drink delicious vodka :) And of course….spend it with some of my favorites at the Judah house.

Thuhien making her delicious “spring” rolls.

My super delicious (and super healthy) chicken tenders

Jared’s ridiculously spicy vodka- infused with jalapenos and cucumbers

Vegan cornbread….soo good!

Jared’s crazy sliders..packed with bacon, beef, cheese, onions, garlic and spices

Josh and Kate made BBQ chicken

Jordan’s beef and peppers STUFFED with cheese….all perfectly grilled

And let’s not forget Thuhien’s AMAZING cheesecake…not only are they pretty but the flavors are perfect…a hint of mint really made the cheesecake interesting.