Caliente Hops Have Arrived

A few of us went in on some hops, and they just arrived. I got some caliente, which is fairly new.

Brewing: Peche Lambic

Since I bottled the Kriek (Cherry Lambic) today, I decided to start another Lambic recipe.  This time, I'm doing a Peche, which is a Peach Lambic.  Like the Kriek, I'm doing a sour mash.

I started a basic mash of 3# of Pilsner malt, 1# honey malt, and 1# crystal 20 malt.  I held back roughly 1/2# of the grain for later.  After the 60 minute mash, I drew off the wort and disposed of the grain, and gave the mash tun a quick rinse.  Then I put the wort back in, and threw in the final 1/2# of crushed grain, and sealed it up tight, with the wort temperature still in the low 130 range.  I'm going to let that sit for 24-48 hours, allowing it to sour.  It will smell like a mixture of old socks and dead hookers.  Or so I'm  led to believe.  Susan would know.

After the appropriate level of sourness, I'll then do a normal 60 minute boil using some old magnum hops I've had set aside since my first year of brewing.  I remember reading that lambics call for old stale hops (more of a preservative than anything) so I had set some aside in a non-sealed container.    

Incredibly exciting photo of the mash starting its souring process:

Scraps - Building a Seat

I wasn't able to find a complete Yamaha YG1-T seat for use on Scraps, so I decided to build a new seat pan and mounts for a seat that could accept a new vinyl cover for the Yamaha seat.  I ended up finding a bunch of scrap metal in the "free" bin at the local steel yard, so I set about cutting, grinding, drilling, and welding.

Then I made a few brackets for mounting the fuel tank, seat, and a luggage rack off a C100.  Nothing is pretty at this point, just raw steel in the correct shape.  I'll need to spend some time rounding off corners and making things much cleaner looking.  the front bracket mounts the rear of the tank, and the front of the seat pan. Like the Yamaha seat, I used slotted brackets up front that slide over a horizontal bar.  Then the rear of the seat bolts to a bracket.

And then this morning, I started fabbing up the exhaust.  I wanted a mid-pipe, and I was able to use a bunch of different curved pipe scraps to build the thing from cylinder head back to where I plan on mounting a simple muffler.  It hugs the frame pretty tight, and I gave it a gentle turn around the rear shock.  The whole thing will likely get wrapped and have a small heat shield in the general leg area.

New seat pan, made from scrap sheet metal

Front bracket mounts tank, and front edge of seat

Start of exhaust build.  Simple mid-pipe

Site Visit

Nice little Advantex project in Felton, just northwest of Santa Cruz. Big redwoods all around.

Scott's Valley

Having lunch in Scott's Valley. Hwy 17 was exactly as I remembered.

Sent from my iPhone

Scraps: Seat Ideas

I'm thinking a solo seat would work great on scraps.  As it happens, the seat off my Yamaha YG1-T had just the right dimensions.  It also has a very simple anchoring mechanism that won't take much to mount to the C110 frame.

Yamaha YG1-T Solo seat seems to fit just right

Unfortunately, I can't seem to find any used YG1-T seats on ebay.  I can find new seat covers, but no seat bases.  So I might need to fab up a seat base and carve some foam.  At least I'll have a pattern to go off, with the original seat. Time to pick up some scrap sheet metal and start cutting and welding.

Scraps: Gas Tank Ideas

I got the basic frame of Scraps assembled, complete with the old Trials bike leading link front fork setup, and the rear swingarm with aftermarket shocks.  So it was time to see if any of the spare gas tanks I had sitting around fit, and how they looked.  So here goes:

Bridgestone BS7 Gas Tank.  Bizarre shape, odd fitment to frame, no bueno.

Bridgestone 90 Tank.  Very pointy front, that interferes with the forks.

Honda S90 tank.  Pointy front that hits forks unless moved way back

Honda CL90 Tank.  Just right!  Fits great over tunnel, not pointy, good length

Project Intro: Scraps

Since I've been taking care of so many little loose ends on older projects lately, I thought I would start the process of dreaming up a new project.  This time, I'm going to pull as much from the parts bins as I can, which is why I'm calling it Scraps.  The basic rundown is:

-Honda C110 frame I got for free a couple years ago

-Freshly rebuilt C100 leading link front suspension I had modified for use on the trials bike

-Scrap rear adjustable shocks I got for free when I bought the rear wheel for El Guapo

-Set of lightly used 2.75x17 Trials tires (no longer used by the Trials bike since I went with the 18" setup

-Gas tank from the parts bin

-I'll build up a pushrod 50cc Honda motor, in fact I have a couple runners on the shelf

-handlebars, seat, pegs, brackets etc., all pulled from the parts bin

As with my other recent projects, I'm going to do a complete assembly with the crusty parts, before making everything all pretty with paint and polish.  I've decided to go with a very simple Scramlber type look.  Slightly raised suspension, high-pipe, maybe a solo seat, luggage rack, fairly stripped down.  I have no idea what color I'll paint it.  

Hodaka Time

The Hodaka has always sported an aftermarket white plastic front fender. I thought chrome would look better, to go along with the chrome rear fender.

Handlebars

Yep, I have some spare bars

Ovila sampling

A trio of Ovila beers to sample this weekend.  A quad aged in brandy barrels, a quad brewed with plums, and a dubbel aged in wine barrels.  I've had the dubbel so far, and it was tasty.  You could tell it was in contact with red wine.

American Pale Lager

A bit of homebrew this time.  Since I've been brewing some lagers, I decided to do a combo of a malty lager, with some citrus hop style pale ale character.  And it worked. I lagered it for four weeks, and this is my first taste.  A great balance of rich malt aroma and flavor, with the citra hops poking through.

Basic recipe for a 2.25gal batch:
2# two row
2# munich
1# aromatic
1# crystal 20L
-Magum hops for bittering, and citra hops at 10 minutes to go, and more citra for dry hopping in secondary.
-Saflager S-23 lager yeast I've re-pitched five times from other recipes
-Calcs say 18 IBU, 14 srm, OG was 1.052 with FG of 1.011 for 5.3%