Citra Pale Ale

I brewed up a Pale Ale yesterday, using some citra hops for dry hopping.  This was the third use of some S05 yeast, and it went absolutely gangbusters.  Huge krausen within 3 hours, and very vigorous bubbling.

Citra Dry-hopped Pale Ale after 3 hours of fermentation

El Guapo - More Assembly

A bit more assembly work on El Guapo has taken place this weekend, including wiring, engine install, and some more paint.

Engine installed, wiring installed, and it sparks!

Modified Kawasaki foot pegs, with lengthened kickstand

Exhaust wrapped, and heat shield installed.  Starting to look like a bike.

In desperate need of more paint on the tank

Tank needs a couple more days to cure, before I can do the lettering

El Guapo - Better Pic

Here is a shot of El Guapo in daylight, during the assembly process.  Next up is wiring, and getting the engine mounted.

Car Show Pics

Just a few quick pics from the car show we hit up this past weekend in Durham.

Six carbs on this chopped rod

love the look of these vintage dirt tracker tires

Engine tag from the Jordan motor car, note Continental 

'36 Ford Coupe

another shot of the '36, my favorite car at the show

really nice Honda CB750 based chopper/bobber

interesting manifolds for using dual carbs, instead of four

El Guapo - Assembly Begins

I'm always amazed how many tools and parts get strewn across the floor during a relatively easy 45 minutes of working on a motorcycle. Oh well, time to clean the garage anyways! Hopefully tomorrow I'll get a few more parts on, so I can roll the bike outside and snap a better photo.

El Guapo - Sneak Peak

My phone camera washed out the photo, but as you can see below the frame was sprayed a glorious shade of orange. I've also managed to prep and spray most of the small brackets and other little items, like the kick stand, footpegs, rear hub stay etc. Most of the hard work is ahead of me, as I need to do some finish work on the fenders and tank. Which means sanding. My least favorite job.

Brewing - Belgian Dubbel

A quick shot of my Belgian Dubbel burbling away. As expected, the Wyeast 1214 yeast took a couple days to get going, but when it did, look out. It has had a pretty much continuous burbling of the airlock since this morning.

Pretty basic recipe, with pilsener as a base, with additional aromatic, bisquit, special b, and caramunich grains. Also some raisins in primary. It came in a bit darker than a normal dubbel, at roughly 21SRM on the recipe calcs.

El Guapo - Final Mock-Up

I better post these photos before I forget, because El Guapo has already been stripped back down to bare parts. I'm hoping to get some finish work done Saturday, and possibly spray some primer Sunday.

The only new thing on the bike is the exhaust heat shield, and it has since been modified courtesy the sheet metal brake at work:

All new cables and levers/perches:

El Guapo - More Exhaust Fabrication

I spent the morning out in the garage working on the exhaust. I made great progress, in fact I finished it up, save for some final cleaning up and a wrapping.

Roughly 8 cut and bends in total make up the full exhaust:

The rear portion of exhaust bends inward, to clear the shock. This keeps everything nice and tidy:

Rear mount it tucked up under the seat:

El Guapo - Exhaust Fabrication

I wandered out to the garage this evening, pomegranate mead in hand, and decided to start fabbing up the exhaust on El Guapo. I literally had zero stock exhaust parts for any of these S90/CL90 bikes this is based on, so I have to fab everything up from the header flange on back.

I'm doing a high pipe, like any good scrambler should have. So far I've used a piece of precurved pipe from an old mop bucket handle that broke at work, to a scrap header pipe from a CB160 that was damaged, to a large washer that was drilled and cut down to act as the flange.

It is a little hard to see in my fuzzy cell phone pic, but the header and uppipe are in place. Those are the most difficult items, since they have the tightest radius bends. I need to grab some 1" thin-walled conduit for the rear portion of the exhaust, which will make a bend in and around the rear shock, to keep things nice and tight to the body. I'll likely use a muffler that came on a cheap ebay XR50 exhaust I bought to use for parts on the Trials bike.

As you can see from the mess, it takes a lots of parts and tools for this portion of the fab work.

Sea Dog Wild Blueberry

A nice light beer, with blueberry. Nice clean aroma, and mild blueberry flavor. Nice option after a couple hours in the garage welding, grinding, drilling and swearing.

Cisco Brewers Light Lager

A surprisingly malt forward light lager. Not the usual Bud Lite blandness, some real malt aroma and flavor. Quite tasty.

Sea Dog Hazelnut Porter

While not as roasty as the Eel River Porter (which has become my favorite porter), it is very yummy. It does indeed have a nice nutty bold flavor throughout. Not harsh, but not shy either. Full bodied might be the best term.

Cisco Brewers Whale's Tail Pale Ale

So work with me here. This is in no way shape or form a "Pale Ale." There is pretty much zero hop aroma, or flavor. But it is super yummy, with really strong malt flavor. Kinda of like a traditional Steam beer. So I like it, but it isn't a Pale Ale.

Ballast Point IPA

Pretty good IPA. Decent hop aroma and flavor, with light bitterness on the back end.

More booze gifts from my beaner inlaw

El Guapo - Fenders

I made up fenders for El Guapo over the past two days. I really liked the shape and size of the plastic front fender on the Hodaka, so I decided to use that as a mold, and run some fiberglass. I had just enough cloth to do just that.

rushing on the last bit of resin:

Side view showing both front and rear fenders mounted:

Quick shot of the front fender mounted. It only took about 10 minutes to get it trimmed into shape, and sanded:

Now I must shower off the fiberglass dust.

Big Sky Trout Slayer Wheat

A nice tasty wheat ale, with a malt forward flavor.

Chico sports boosters brewfest

Spent a great afternoon with some friends at the Chico Sports Booster brewfest. MUCH quieter and far less crowded than the Chico Homebrew fest, so we actually had a place to sit and enjoy the brews. Excellent food too, with tri-tip, sausage, pizza, and tacos. I devoured eight tacos.

Ovilla Dubbel