Remember when we used to update this blog...

Yeah, us neither. However, we are about to remedy that at least in the near future so check back very soon for posts about what we did the last half of 2011 and what we've been doing in 2012. Until then please accept this OKCtoPDX approved Portlandia clip as an apology for our absence.

Portland Gets a New Bridge!

Courtesy OregonLive.com

Many years ago, we presented our readers reader with a post about bridges in Portland. Great times, I know. Well, get ready to add one more bridge to the mix. The City of Portland and Trimet recently broke ground on a new bridge over the Willamette. This bridge, completion date of many years from now, will carry light rail, people, and bikes. No cars allowed! That's Portland for you.

For now they are calling the bridge the Portland-Milwaukie light-rail bridge. I have a feeling they will come up with a cooler name once it gets dedicated. I'm thinking something to do with beer, books, or hipsters. Read more about the bridge and see a nice graphic here. To watch the building, live, click here.

Time to Lager!

As you know, we are homebrewers (here is proof). Our first few batches of brew were made using ale yeast (a top fermenting yeast). The different strains of ale yeast allow you to make pale ales, amber ales, porters, etc. Ale yeast like warm temperatures (room temperature is fine) and work through the beer quickly. Thus, you can drink your homebrew about a month after you boil up your wort.

Lager yeasts are a different story. These fellas like cooler temperatures (under 60 degrees Fahrenheit) and work at a slower, more relaxed pace (on the bottom of the brew). Lagers often have mellow notes, but allow for some additional flavorings if you are daring (we are not that daring yet). Pilsners are an example of lagers. If you want to brew up a batch of lager, you will need to either do it in the winter (much like the Germans who created it) or have some equipment artificially chill the batch.


Back in February we decided to take a crack at brewing a lager beer. Our garage keeps a fairly constant 50 degrees over the winter, and we had enough space in our fridge for the final lagering phase (yes that is 5 gallons of lager in our fridge above!), so we went to our local brew supply store and bought the ingredients. The key to lagering is patience - expect to wait at least three months before you pour your first beer.

Boil the wort as usual (instructions), and follow the steps up through this post. Once the lager yeast is in the primary fermentation bucket, keep the batch at around room temperature for a day. This will make sure the yeast get started. After the yeast start bubbling away, move the primary into your cool (45 to 55 deg.) area. Keep the batch in this area until the batch bubbles once every 4 minutes. Don't be too eager to move onto the next step, just be patient and let the the beer mellow.

When the primary fermentation is done, move the primary into a 60 degree area for a few days. This helps the yeast finish off its work for this round. Rack the beer to the secondary (like here), and keep the beer in the 60 degree area for a week. As long as the beer is not bubbling, you can move the secondary back into a cold storage area. We used our fridge set at 37 deg. F. This is the official lagering period and should go 3 to 4 weeks.

After the lagering period, bottle just like you would the ale beers. Store the bottles in a cool area (55 to 65 deg F) for one week, allowing the yeast to carbonate the beer. Then move the bottles back into a cooler area (45 to 55 deg F) for 4 to 6 weeks. This allows the final conditioning and flavor mellowing to occur. After this time, refrigerate, crack one open, and enjoy!

For the official instructions, from the experts, please go here.

Happy Caturday!

Post In Pictures: Woodburn Tulip Festival

We had a sunny day in April (a rare treat)! We jumped at the chance to enjoy get outside and try out our new camera. We drove down to Woodburn, Oregon to take some lovely pictures of tulips at the Wooden Shoe Tulip Farm's annual festival. Woodburn is south of Portland off of I-5 (see the map below).

















It was nice to finally get out of the house and enjoy some non-rainy, oh I mean sunny weather. The festival has been extended due to all the rainy weather so if you are in the Portland area you might want to consider checking it out if we happen to get another sunny afternoon (HA, we crack ourselves up). Here are a few pictures (we took 100 but we really narrowed it down for y'all).








































Tulips are great and all but these miniature donkeys were a-dor-able!!