Beach Brew

I finally got around to brewing again. Must be a month or so since I brewed. I decided to make a lower alcohol beer. I want to have something around that I can have a few of without worrying about being able to drive etc.

I decided to go with and American mild. I did ths as I could highly hop it with American hops and give it a lot of flavour that way. Due to the lower malt levels in this style I think a highly hopped beer will work out nicely. I also used Munich, carapils and crystal malts mashed at a high temp to give it body.

The brew day went very well which was nice. I cracked my grain the night before so I could get an early start. I mashed in at about 0725 and was finished with the wort in the fermenter before mid day. A farly tidy operation with no problems during the day. I had a small over shoot on my strike temp but I got that down quickly with some cool water.

After a day or so it is fermenting away nicely. There are great smells coming from the fermenter. This would be due to me adding 80gm of cascade in the last twenty minute os the boil. It will certainly be a hoppy beer but that is the way I like them.

Video crooks come in from the cold

Well it’s about time, isn’t it? Finally they are legalising what everyone has been doing for years. Knowing our Government they will find some way to mess up the legislation though.

If they do go ahead and put some kind of levy on blank CDs or other media they better stop the music companies putting copy protection on their CDs. I don’t like the idea of paying a levy/tax to start with. However, there can be no justification for copy protection if they are being compensated for the copying. They can’t have their cake and eat it too. That said I’m sure that is exactly what the Government will let them do.

The annual Sydney To Hobart blue water classic has Google Earth tracking that is updated every 10 mins with every boats position.

This is a really cool way to use Google Earth. Also a really nice feature for Sydney to Hobart fans. Even if you are not a fan of yacht racing check it out. It”s just amazing what people can do using Google’s open API’s.

read more | digg story

Apple – iPod
I got one. w00t! I got the 30G ipod. I have been loading it up and getting all my stuff on there. I have not had a chance to play with it a lot yet. However, the screen is amazing! I was surprised how good the video looks on it. An excellent device.

Well I tried to check this out as it sounds cool. However, when I got to the site I could only load the front page and everything else seemed to be dead. Maybe the digg link had knocked them out. Thus I didn’t get the chance to have a good look and evaluate it. It does sound really interesting. I am going to get back to this one as I really like the sound of it. I can’t imagine it would give you a lot of flexibility but who knows until I try.

read more | digg story

How-To: Control iTunes from any web browser – Engadget – www.engadget.com

Mostly I am just blogging about his so I don’t forget it. This is one of my projects now for the upcoming weeks. It sounds like a really cool idea. I can’t wait to give it a go.