Everyone knows phone books are basically worthless. I share local blogger Ed Kohler’s keen dislike for the things, which have basically been obsolete since the day my grandmother learned how to use Google. Yesterday, however, my friend Garrett and I discovered a use for them that doesn’t even necessitate taking them out of the bag.
The above picture probably doesn’t make much sense on its face, so let me explain: that bag of Dex phone books (and the shoe on top of them) are weighing down a 5-gallon kettle of wort, the raw liquid mixture used in fermenting beer. We recently started homebrewing, and we quickly found that cooling the wort after it’s done boiling is one of the most frustrating and time-consuming parts of the process. Most homebrewers recommend an ice bath, but we found that placing the kettle in a bathtub and circulating cold water around it is actually faster and more efficient.
Of course, the kettle has a tendency to float and bob around in the moving water, which is where the phone books come in. Drop that dirty old bag of yellow pages that Dex left on your doorstep six months ago (and that you haven’t touched since) on top of the lid and that kettle isn’t going anywhere! (In our case, a piece of footwear was also needed to effectively stabilize the kettle.)
5 Comments
July 7, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I’d like to hear more about your beer-brewing escapades sometime…perhaps over a homebrew?
August 9, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Hahah! Beer-fueled engineering! *prost*
This is also one of my favorite photos of all time. And good job on the blog. Your site looks pretty well put together.
August 30, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Ha ha that is awesome.
I can’t believe we still get this junk through our doors!
I really wanna try homebrewing but just have not gotten around to it yet. Have you managed any good brews yet?
Thanks,
Forest.
August 30, 2009 at 10:23 pm
We just bottled our second batch — an EPA — and even pre-carbonation, it tasted excellent. Beer is apparently pretty hard to screw up. Even our first batch, which was definitely a little bungled, tasted good. The second batch is great and I have high hopes for the third — an Irish draught ale brewed with honey and chocolate. Our goal is to keep honing our skills until we’re finally ready to start experimenting with our own mixes…
Homebrewing is actually pretty fun; however, it is a little time-consuming, and also requires a couple of hundred dollars’ worth of initial investment in equipment (if you want to do it right, anyway). Find a brewing partner with whom to split the costs and the labor and you’ll be set.
October 23, 2009 at 11:16 am
Hey Nick-
Next time I’m in town I’d like to try your homebrew … and see your house.