Love blogging of the ultra hot chili beer tasting! *updated*

I am just about to crack the top of the brew now!

update 12 01 PM It's very well pressurized.


update 1204 pm cracked the top. Huge hiss. Smell of chilis instantly permeated the room!


update 1205 pm Carefully pouring. Very fizzy. No head though. STRONG smell of chili!


update 1206 pm the lager has a very reddish tinge to it.

update 1208 pm first taste! hair tingles. eyes water. tongue shrivels. warmth better than a shot of whiskey wpreads throughout my gut.


update 1210 pm *beeeeeeelllllchhhhhh* Holy crap that's strong stuff! Anyone wanna come down and visit to taste some of my homebrewed chili beers?

update 1212 pm 3 sips and my scalp has the serious chili sweats going on. Wifey-Poo says just a whiff of it hurts her sinuses.


update 1214 pm Just took a large swig of it. I *think* I may be getting used to it. Gotta remember this when it's hot weather. What a great way it'd be to cool off.


update 1217 pm Ok, finished with the first 10 ounce glass... only 20 more ounces to go! Ooooo, tummy just love sit, NOT! Wifey-Poo says that if I make myself sick then she ain't cleaning it up (this time).


update 1219 pm Mmmmmm, nice, warm, tingly feeling in my tummy now. Good brew!


update 1221 pm Did you know that birds do not have receptors that react to capsaicin the way mammals do? Just another way the chili plants spread their seeds; bird poop!


update 1224 pm Everytime I take a swig of the brew, my nose tingles. Gee, wonder why? And just why does it seem so warm in here today?

update 1226 pm For some reason my nose is running. Quick, enter it in a race!


update 1228 pm Why is there a lot of pressure in my ears and why do sounds seem muffled all of a suddn?


update 1230 pm *belch* Ahhh, a tsp of sour cream soothed the boiling cauldron that is my tummy.


update 1234 pm I am now 2/3 of the way through the 750 mil bottle of F*CK*NGLY H*T chili beer.

update 1235 pm Just poured the last third. bubbles are continously rising from the dark depths of the glass.


update 1238 pm Is it any surprise to you that afte Santa visited me down under that THIS happened?


update 1243 pm Why is my face feeling puffy? Was it something I drank?


update 1245 pm Holy CRAP! The last few dregs (them cloudy bits of honebrew) are disgustlingly HOOTTTT!



updat4 1246 pm It's a good thing my tonsils were removed when I was young, otherwise they'd be seared now! And I'm feeling oooooooh so warm and tingly inside!


update4 1248 pm *blech* Ahhhh, me feels much better now.



update 1250 pm One tiny amount left in the glass... it smells like haz-mat. Fortunately, it doesn't taste like haz-mat.


update 1255 pm Done AND done! I certainly don't envy my lower intestine tomorrow morning.

I certainly hope you've enjoyed reading this, I know I enjoyed (sorta) drinking it.


update 108 pm My god... It's full of stars...

Countdown... *updated*

24 minutes and counting till I crack open the last of my chili beers and consume it.

Update: 21 minutes to go. I SWEAR I've seen the chili jiggle and shack in that last bottle...

http://alaskandavedownunder.blogspot.com/2010/07/in-exactly-19-hours-from-right-now.html

Update @ 11:45 am 15 mins to go. Bottle feels good and pressurised. Chili is wriggling nicely. Should be very very potent. I'll keep you posted, no worries.

update @ 11:52 am The scoville heat unit of the chilli I used is around 100,000. It was fresh and I pierced it before adding to the homebrew bottle for it's secondary fermentation. That was 7 months ago.


udate @ 1157 am. No one else in the house seems to give a damn. BIL is facebooking, MIL is watching Richard Dean Anderson as MacGyver, the cat is asleep, and Wifey-Poo is writing. Just me and the chillis, I guess.

In exactly 19 hours from RIGHT NOW...

... local Adelaide time, I will be live tweeting and live blogging an event.

Remember this teaser from last post?

*****************************************************************

Next up: A teaser.

This coming Friday, July 30th, at noon local Adelaide time I will be live tweeting and live blogging an event. For those of you who have no idea about international time zones, I'll give you some handy times.

If you are in Alaska, the event will occur at 6:30 PM, Thursday July 29th.

If you are on the US East coast, the event time will be 10:30 PM, Thursday July 29th.

If you are in France, it'll be 4:30 AM, Friday July 30th.

If you are in Sydney, check in at noon-thirty on the 30th, no worries.

Beer will be involved. And maybe yoghurt. Probably a toilet.

The event should last no longer than 30 minutes. 45 max.

Any guesses?

*********************************************************************

Before I let you know what the Event is I need to tell you that we have a new neighbor. And she's young, nubile and very hot lookin'! So don't tell Wifey-Poo, ok?

The other day she gave me one of those over-the-shoulder-come-hither looks that I'm sure all you cranky old guys are used to getting from young girls. Or is it just me?

Fortunately, I had the camera with me at the time!

Here she is, me new girlyfriend!




Well, I guess Wifey-Poo doesn't have anything to be worried about after all.

Next up: What is The Event!

It involves beer, of course. Specifically, homebrew. More specifically, a homebrew that was made 7 and 1/2 months ago!

Remember this post from mid december 2009?

**************************************************************


Variety is the Spice of Life


Yes, it is. Why would you want to do the same boring, mundane thing every single day and then on the weekends do the same boring, mundane thing that you've done every weekend for the last 20 years?

Do something different! Change something! Spice up your life!

Heck, if I'd been content to drive the same truck every day, punch the same clock, receive a really good paycheck with awesome benefits, ride the bike on the same roads/trails as the previous 1231 weekends, teach the same stuff four times a week in the evenings; well, gosh.

I certainly wouldn't be in Australia if I wanted to do the same thing day in and day out.

And I certainly wouldn't have an outdoor pool. I hear they aren't too common up in Fairbanks for some reason.

And I certainly would still be working!

You owe it to yourself to TRY SOMETHING NEW!

Variety is the SPICE of life. And if you don't like spices in your life then you are probably only popular at a Star Trek Trivial Pursuit convention. Jus' sayin'.

Speaking of spices... I happened upon a couple of really nice chilli peppers the other day.

I have tentatively identified them as a sub-species of Capsicum annuum. I do believe they are the cayenne variety.

These puppies are 20 times hotter than a jalapeno and 10 times hotter than tabasco sauce. However, they are only 1/5th the hotness of the thai peppers I grow (got 9 really awesome thai chilli plants this year). But hey, they are still good.

Lookie here if'ns ya don't beeleave me:




To do what I planned to do with them (GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER!), I first needed to snip the stems.

BTW, Mundial kitchen shears are da bomb! Hand crafted in Madrid, doncha know.


And I also needed to pierce them full of holes:






You'll notice I don't wear rubber gloves when handling chillis. It's cus I'm not a wuss. Besides, I've got so many callouses from, ah, um, er, other activities that I don't have to worry about and juice stinging.

But what am I planning on doing with these chillis? Weeeeeeelllllllllll, since you asked...

This is a 750 ml bottle ready for BEER! 750 mls is twice the size of wussie US beers, BTW. These are BIG chillis!

They barely even fit!




One with, one without.

Soon to be both "with".

And after a nice lager has been added to do it's secondary fermentation in the bottle




I'll let you know how they taste in about a week from now.

Hey, take a chance! Ya never know!

******************************************************************

Yes, I have ONE, count it twice, ONE of the chilli beers left. And that beer has been soaking up all the chili heat goodness for a long time now! In fact, just the other day I say the chili twitch and the bottle moved.

Tomorrow at noon I will be opening it and consuming it. And I will tell you all about it LIVE as it happens!

So tune in exactly 19 hours from RIGHT NOW to this blog and to my tweeter account! I'll be updating every few minutes so just click the refresh button to get the latest.

Hallucinations?

Sickness?

Giddiness?

Transcendental experiences?

Finding out if there's an afterlife?

Who knows what'll happen!

Just be here. Friday. July 30th. Noon. Adelaide, South Oz time.

Have You Ever Been So Embarrassed...

...that you have had to go hide your head in shame?

Have you?

I have.

It was, fortunately, I long time ago. Not recently, of course.

I felt kinda like this:




I'm sure glad I don't do things like that anymore, WHEW!

*****insert sound of gears grinding as they shift*******

Did you know that there is a species of Aussie cockatoo that is black? With a yellow tail. They are called, quite unimaginatively of course, yellow-tailed black cockatoos.

The first time I saw one --it was a pair of them-- was early in the morning while I was on the bicycle. I'd gone through Cherry Gardens and past the golf course just before Ironbank. I was on my way out to Lenswood via Deviation Road and was going to loop back via the Onkaparinga road, south to Nangkita and heading back via Kangarilla to head back towards the 'burbs of Sturt. Long day.

Anyways, I saw a pair of yellow-tailed black cockies just past the golf course. The sun was barely up and they alighted in a tree right next to the road. They were beauties! Never have seen them that close since.

There's a flock of them that hangs out in the southern Adelaide Hills that Wifey-Poo and I see every once in a while. I do have several picks of black specks that are them, but no sense putting them up.

I do however have a decent pic of a single one.

Would you like to see it?

Of course you would!





Next random topic: Shrooms! I love me some mushrooms!

Here's one that I twisted out of my shroom farm the other day:



Big sucker! It weighed 150 grams. That's 5.33 ounces, or one-third of a pound. It tasted soooooooo good!

Next up: A teaser.

This coming Friday, July 30th, at noon local Adelaide time I will be live tweeting and live blogging an event. For those of you who have no idea about international time zones, I'll give you some handy times.

If you are in Alaska, the event will occur at 6:30 PM, Thursday July 29th.

If you are on the US East coast, the event time will be 10:30 PM, Thursday July 29th.

If you are in France, it'll be 4:30 AM, Friday July 30th.

If you are in Sydney, check in at noon-thirty on the 30th, no worries.

Beer will be involved. And maybe yoghurt. Probably a toilet.

The event should last no longer than 30 minutes. 45 max.

Any guesses?

This was yesterday's food post

Since I hived off my food blog a few years ago I tend not to cross post. I think I've done it once before now. So make this 2!

Why? Cus I think y'all will like this.

Australian Sausage Rolls --With BACON!


Cus, like, seriously folks: Doesn't bacon just make any food that much better? I can picture it now... bacon flavoured ice cream... Mmmmmmmmmmm.

Ok, enough of that.

Sausage rolls are very Australian. Like SERIOUSLY Australian! If you are in the US then think of things like this:

mom & apple pie

baseball & hot dogs

nachos & beer

hot dogs & beer

football & beer

burgers, fries & beer

beer & beer

TV & beer gut

Ok, you all sorta get the message! Sausage rolls & Aussies just go together like any perfect combination you can think of.

What is an Aussie sausage roll? Did you know there's this thingy called "google"? They even have an image search function! I suggest you try it!

My homemade sausage rolls are a bit different from the norm (just like me) in the fact that mine include BACON! Bacon, sausage, and puff pastry! Can't beat that!

Here's what you need:

6 thin Aussie sausages (snags or bangers)
6 slices of Aussie bacon (12 if you use tiny US bacon slices)
3 sheets of puff pastry

Nice, short list of ingredients, eh?

What you do:

You first need to half-cook your sausages. If you are using hot dogs (BAD!!!!) then you can omit this step. Here's what a plate of half-cooked aussie sausages look like:





If you are curious, I use Slape n Sons sausages. Tasty, local, fresh.

Let the half-cooked sausages cool, and then wrap each one with a slice of bacon. If you use Aussie bacon, then you'll only need one slice per snag. If you use US bacon, then you'll need 2 bacon slices per snag. Here's why:

Just make sure you trim the rind (skin) off.

Don't forget to make fried worms with the bacon rinds!

Here's what your plate should now be looking like:

Don't worry if the bacon isn't tightly wrapped around the snags. Why? Cus bacon shrinks whilst cookin', doncha know.

Cook the bacon-wrapped, semi-cooked snags on 2 sides till they look something like this:




Let them cool and drain them of cooked bacon/snag fat. Just make sure you keep the drained fat for future use, of course. Once they are cool you get to break out the puff pastry sheets! Wee-Hoo!







Just peel off 3 sheets and put the rest back in the freezer, no worries.




Obviously, let the puff pastry sheets thaw. {insert serious DUH factor here} It shouldn't take long for them to thaw, 30 mins maybe. by the time they are thawed, the 3/4 cooked, bacon-wrapped, Aussie sausages should be cool enough to handle with no worries.

Cut a pastry sheet in half. I use a pizza cutter, BTW. Wrap the half sheet around one of the snags. You'll find there's around about 2 inches you'll need to trim after wrapping the sausage.




Continue till they are all wrapped. Place them some sort of baking sheet or tray.




Do you remember the trimmed off-cuts of the puff pastry that you trimmed after wrapping the 3/4 cooked, bacon-wrapped, Aussie sausages? You should have a nice pile looking something like this:



DO NOT THROW THEM AWAY!!!!!!!!!!!! Heat some oil up and toss them in the hot oil. 30 to 40 seconds a side. You'll find the puff up HUGELY! A very tasty side snack, they do make.

Put the rolls in a hot oven (220 C or 440 F) until they look like this:




At this point you can just pick one up and eat it --let it cool a bit as they really hold their heat-- or you can put em in the fridge or freezer for later, no worries.

And they taste ohhhhhhh so good!

More Australian Lorikeet Pictures

Plus some other stuff and quite a bit of rambling from Yours Truly --That'd be me; don't swoon ladies, I'm human! BTW, does not ANYONE want to know where the saying, "don't swoon ladies, I'm human" came from? Anyone?

Well, let's git on whit some birdie pics!



Some folks think lories have evil eyes...




This next pic it NOT a photo of the birdie in flight. It is a photograph of the lorikeet that is hanging onto the chain. Just look at the body angle compared to the feet! It seems to be so "off" that if this was attempted to be sold to a major pic library they'd say it was a piss-poor photoshop job!




Let's change some gears! {insert sound of gears grinding here}

What kind of food does Yours Truly (don't swoon ladies, I'm human) really like? I mean REALLY REALLY REALLY like?

Why, that'd be sushi, of course!




Contest forthcoming!

Like, right now.

What critter is in this picture and where is it?




I have an announcement to make.

I shall make said announcement now.

*clears throat*

Once Le Tour has finished and Yours Truly has caught up on sleep, I shall be live tweeting and live blogging an event. What sort of event might this be, I hear you ask from afar.

I ain't tellin' yet, but suffice to say it shall, of course, involve beer.

Anyone wanna guess as to the nature of the event?

I Am Still Here...

... and you are not! HAHAHHAHAHAHAH

I joke, of course.

I think I'll survive July this year, especially since Cadel's got a broken elbow. The Pyrenees are looming... Caffeine is my bestest friend right now.

Got some pics and some kapshuns for you, hope you enjoy them.

Have I mentioned how much I really really really like sushi? If not, then I have now.

Those are my mushrooms, BTW. All the other veggies are local.


I think everyone ought to have these:




This was taken at the beach a week or so ago.



I make the world's bestest homemade chips. Or pomme frites, or steak fries, or french fries.

No, I DO NOT make freedom fries!


My BIL is a very good modeller. He has several articles published about kit conversions, scratch builds, casting his own parts, airbrushing, etc. He also works parttime up at the Flinders Uni paleo lab painting and airbrushes fossil castings. He's pretty darned good. Here's a pic of piece of a cockpit for some model that HE HAND PAINTED!

Yeah, I'm impressed too.


Hey, you'd be looking pissed off too if you had this branch stuck somewhere!


Naturally, a predicament like that tends to attract a crowd and everyone offers their advice for extrication.




I have a new toy!!!!! Guess what it is!




Why, of course it is a...




You just plug it into a USB port, press the switch on the back, hold it in your hand and it massages away all the aches from typing and mousing all day!




It's also very good if your neck it tight or stiff. Have you ever had a little knot in your upper back around the scapula? Works for that too!

In
fact
it
has
a
whole
plethora
of
uses!

A
veritable
cornucopia
if
you
please!

There's one particular use I just LOVE to use it for!

J
u
s
t

s
c
r
o
l
l

d
o
w
n

a

b
i
t.

D
o
n
'
t

w
o
r
r
y
,

i
t
'
s

w
o
r
k

s
a
f
e!


You can tell it works cus of the stain on the shorts!

Guy or Gal?

For those of you who have either been following my blog for a while, or are a recent arrival and have been so bored that you've trawled through my archives...

Is this big ole sulfie a bloke or a sheila?

I think these are extinct now...

I saw this bloke at one of the glacial entrances to the Harding Icefield back in '48. I'm surprised the photo turned out as well as it did considering it was a gloomy, overcast day.

I think they've all headed way further north now as all the glaciers have been retreating and these critters really need ice and cold temps to thrive.

Anyone else ever seem em? Titanium just got back from Harding, I wonder if she saw any of them...

You'll also be happy to know that I had one of the first widescreen cameras way back then so the photo is the perfect size for someone's widescreen computer monitor.

Just click on this picture to embiggen it and feel free to save it, no worries!







What? Don't you believe me?

More Australian Critter Pictures AND Videos!

Ok, ok. I can take a hint. Sheesssshhhhhh! Y'all are quite obviously sick and, of course, tired of my 3d stuff. Or at least judging by the almost complete and total lack of reaction from everyone whilst I regaled the story of my totally true alien abduction.

Therefore, I will finish up the story in one or 2 more acts. I was going to really string it out if folks were enjoying it, but I think onl2 or 3 of you are --big shout out to Fizzgig!

So, hows abouts I show you some Aussie critter pictures and videos with, of course, my own unique capshuns? If you don't like them, then don't look at them. Oh, and I think I should be able to squeeze in a Conversation with Wifey-Poo too, also.

You know how there are times when you wake up and your hair is so unruly you can't do a damned thing with it? Or if you've been wearing a hat for a while and you get "hat hair"? Yes, you know what I mean. It usually happens when you have an important meeting or interview that day, right?

Well (and that's a deep subject) it can happen to me too! Yep, no joke folk!

This is what happens when you've a few too many homebrews and you pass out on a branch whilst sitting on your butt, naked --for a long time. You end up with what is colloquially known as "branch butt hair"!

You

think

I'm

jolking?

Fotografic evidence!





Of course when your butt hair looks like that and some hairless primate has captured it all on camera to show the world, you really need to climb higher to get away from the jerk.


Having your right buttock and leg still asleep really doesn't help!




Yeeeeaahhh... this looks like it'll support me!




I AM being careful, darnit! You don't see me doing anything stupid, do you? Of course not you stupid primate.




In Oz the critters ALWAYS have right-of-way:





Are you SURE this is my best side? And don't you dare make me look fat!







Damn! WP and I had a perfect conversation and this time SHE was the punny one. Neither of us can remember it now... Sh*t. Anyways, just think of WP and I chatting casually and phunnily back and forth, you'll really laugh cus it was funny so just imagine it.

Or imagine it and put it in the comments.