iBooz2

Next stop for a drop was Mickey Bourke's Irish pub Koroit. As I was driving only had a small Guiness. Sign on one of their front doors says they serve a five-course meal which consists of 4 pints of Guiness and 1 spud.

From recently touring around the North East of VIC to now touring around at the other end of the state, the Southwest corner, Portland, Port Fairy, Koroit and Warrnambool. Just had to drop in at several pubs and craft breweries in the areas. First one was the Noodledoof Brewery in the Irish village of Koroit. The HSSH had the iced coffee stout, and I had their version of an Australian Pale Ale which I found was just a bit over the top with the Galaxy hops but nice. In fact, nearly all the craft beers I tried around the Southwest all focused on the Galaxy hop aroma, except the lagers of course. I also tried their Helles Lager which was nice. Place was empty as it was early in the day, and they had just opened the doors.

Yep, me too @Pale Man. Just spent a week down at Port Fairy VIC and there is a guy there that sells Coffin Bay oysters and those went down well with a squeeze of lemon. A bit pricey at $29 a dozen but a nice treat all the same. Tasmanian oysters are just as good IMO. The same guy also sells fresh caught local lobsters out of the back of his boat, you pick your live lobster out, he weighs it and then he boils it while you wait. Absolutely superb eating.

Update of the SGLY resuscitation effort. I have nicknamed my SGLY as "Roger" after all, the long-expired yeast in the pouches was a grey colour so hence named it after Roger Smith, the alien in American Dad TV show. I have been away touring around Southwest Victoria and when I got back, noticed a Krausen line in the starter flask. It had been set to 13 C for the several days I was away. Arh ha, success! Proven by testing the stater FG to find it had fermented out to 1.006 so "Roger" was alive and well. Next step was to make a 3 L starter with 295 g DME (OG 1.036), a few grams of yeast nutrient, and a couple of packs of old Cooper's dry yeast also as nutrient in the boil and when that cools will pitch the resultant trub from this first starter. That will give me an overbuild of >511 billion cells, some to go into a beer and some to keep for next time. I am aiming for a pitch rate in the next lager batch of 1.5 million cells per ml per degree plato. Take a bow Roger.

@ozdevil, our friend, you are not boring us at all. You are inspiring us; I mean all of us. Well done. Glad to hear you are progressing with your targets and I commend you on that. I am sure Mrs. OzDevil is giving you all the support you need at home (along with those "special cuddles" which also help a great deal at the appropriate time of day/night of course). Now I have one caveat on my good wishes to you with your endeavours. That is when you end up with an Alby Mangels torso please don't come back in here, post a pic and rub your abs and pec's in my face - OK. ha ha. Good luck OD. Mrs OzDevil

DO NOT BOIL THE COOPERS KIT or DME. Yes, boil the grain steep liquid with the hops but not the other.

It is.

A home-made Garlic and Caramelised Onion Focaccia bread to go with a Fettuccine Carbonara meal.

Here is a Barramundi I caught recently at the Dandenong fish market. Steamed it whole in foil with lemon butter sauce, salt and fresh cracked black pepper.

I hate beers that pour with a big sudsy looking heads, meringue foam for mine. Big bubbles just means it isn't going to hang around for long.

I use 150 Lashes 345 ml stubbies because they are crown seal type bottles. I also use some GB 375 ml bottles and never had either explode. For everyone's info I did a bit of bottle weighing when I was researching which stubby to go for and recorded the following: Bundaberg GB / SARS 375 ml bottles empty weight = 202 g 150 Lashes 345 ml bottles empty weight = 195 g Frothy 345 ml bottles empty weight = 189 g Obviously the Frothy being the larger 345 ml bottle size and being the lightest weight, has very thin glass plus it was a twist top so that's why I settled on the 150 Lashes stubbies as my main traveller stash. I did weigh a lot of others but cannot locate my notes at the moment.

Kegging up my latest batch of COPA today. Ya beat me to it @Mickep as I did not have an empty keg available until I killed a near empty keg of CSA. The extra time cold crashing did not hurt as it has cleared up superbly. Also got 8 x 345 ml stubbies as travellers. Nearly all my stash of stubbies are full of various beers so I had better get cracking and do some more travelling ha ha.

@GregT5 , Condolences to you and your family. Never easy losing a parent. All the very best wishes from me during this period of your lives.

"I'M GOING IN" As mentioned on another thread I am going to try and revive some WLP-838 Southern German Lager Yeast (SGLY) that have a use by date of 23rd October 2021. Made a 2 L starter, yes, I know Greeny said to do a small one to start with to see if any cells are alive, but I could not be bothered splitting the wort I had put aside for this job so will see how it goes. Using both packets into 2 L of 1.041 wort. It's currently being spun up on my home-made yeast stir-plate. If I can recover some for a subsequent starter, I will use it in another Carlton Draught Clone to see the difference between the SGLY and the DL yeasts.

@Cheap Charlie just in case you don't know, always top up your cube with boiling water so you don't introduce any disastrous bugs to the wort. The hot wort should kill anything introduced but to be sure I always use fresh boiled water to make up any cubing volume shortfall. And once sealed tip your cube over on its side so the hot wort gets up into the handle cavity etc. to help sanitation in those areas. If you already know all this, please ignore - cheers.