Beer brewing session

I attended a beer brewing session yesterday, creating a beer with alot of "flower" character, since half of the hops wasnt added until the fermentation process...

Its at a café in Bali, where they sell coffee and beer products...
I ordered things from here before... 
They offer courses in brewing, as well... 
We got to se how the restaurant operates, and some process information in brewing techniques...some basic things... 
grinding the malt...not too much not too little...
I ate some of it... 
 
 Then we put it into water...
 
 HEre is a list of the portions we used, to get the characteristics of this beer...

We also tried some beers on the market...

The mix has to be filitered, but before that, it has to be aroung 65 degs celsius, to get enought character (Beta particles that creates sugar)...

More beers...

Some smelling and tasting of different kinds of malt...

This is interesting...chocolate..just like guiness....

Mixing again...I asked why we just dodnt pu the pot in the oven, on 65 degrees, instead of mixing over and over, to be in the temperature spann...but I didnt understand the answer...

Digital thermometer, i ordered one of these...but the delvery is delayed :S

Then more drinking...

 And some theory...(in chinese)...
 
 And more drinking...
 
 Then, since we did not have time to wait for the whole fermentation prices (some weeks), this step was prepared in advance...
 
 We got to try different kinds of beer (mostly depending on the hops, but also the malt)...
 
 Then starting with the alpha particles, then the temperature has to be 70 degrees celsius...for a while...
 
 looks and smells like porrige...
 
 Still looking at the temperature...
Then it was time to filter the mix...
 
And boil it up with hops for some hour...

To get all the sugar out from the malt, we added some new hot water...

Nice buckets...Im using some lame milk bottles at home...

This is how the filter looks like...

And this is the cooler...same as my friends are using in sweden, when they illegally are making alcohol( over 20%)...

We also heated up bottles...

Butting in more hops...

We had 4 different kinds of hops...

It did not smell that much,,,

Then we used this pole to dry the bottles...
 
Home made things... 
Bottles are done... 
Ready to dry them... 
 
 And add some sugar...to the filtered porrige mix...(the hops usually adds bitterness to the beer, i usually prefer light beer, thats not bitter at all)...
 
 Many bottles...
 
 Then we were about to filter the mix again...
 
We continued with the pre prepared mix that was already fermented...while waiting for the boiling to be done...

Tapping...

More tapping...

And now it was time to bottle it...

Alot of alcohole added to kill bacteria, this is an imprtant procedure...

And close the bottles...

A slow process...

Now the boiling was done, time for cooling...

We added more hops, to get a special flavour of this "reddish beer)...
 And we also boiled the cupper cooler, so kill bacteria...
 And in with cold water in the cupper cylinder...
It is important the the cooling goes fast...this took maybe 1-2 minutes, from 100 to 10 degrees...
We filtered the mix again...to get ridd of the hops...(Pijiuhua in chinese meaning: beer flower)...
And pour into a barrel for fermentation...(a super clean barrel)..., and some yeast was added...
Everthing was stored in Cl2, to kill bacteria...
Or sprayed with alcohole...
This nozzle was applied to prevent to high pressure...
We also used this advanced equipment to measure the sugar percentage...(about 20,000NT (5000SEK), most people are using analoge equipment for this part...

A trip to Yilan

I went to Yilan yesterday...

Taking the bus...it was convenient...

I was dropped of at the same pace as I left from after my 53k marathon this summer

On road 9, going from Taipei to the south of taiwan, passing the east mountains...

And the hill, that I often take pics of, which I ran up on at the same marathon...

Wow, a chirstmas tree, in novmebrer...welcome to taiwan...

I brought my Whicky, that I never finished from last time I was here...

Yilan by night...if often seems like a very small village...
 
 A famous night market
 
 This was famous...
 
 I bought some fried salad...and also met 2 girls from france and germany, who was here 1 year as rotary exchange students...interesting...many restrictions...
 
 This place was also famous...
 
A nice temple in the city...
 
 Wow, Yilan produced beer...
They had 4 different kind...one with algea...as I drank in singapore... 
 
 I never heard of this brand before...
 
 I tried all the kinds, excet the algea one...
 
 One had pineapple flavour...tha dark one was suprisingly good...

They also had dance performance...

Faomus place...maybe...

And this to...

Omg...Alishan tea...

I went to a uesum the day after, near Wai ai, where I use to go and surf...and where the boats leave to Turtle island...

Omg...so many umbrellas...

_nice view of Yilan, with turtle island in the background (taiwans only active vulcano...)...

And mountains...xueshan...for instance...

Andanintersint projection of rht world...not using mercator...

Omg...so many lakes in Yilan...I love taiwanese lakes...

How to spell "Qing" dynasty? "Cing"!?!
Or "Qing" dynasty?
 
 or "Cing"...
 
 Or "Qing"...
 
 Or "Cing"...even in the same paragraph they used different spelling...confusing...
 
 "Gaga" so intersting...
 
 Omg so many island I wanna visit...
 
 An old map of Taiwan, made by dutch people...
 
 Wow...5000 years ago...people settled in Yilan...
 
 Aboriginal tattoos, reminds me of the tattoos in New Zeeland...
 
 And the move Seediq Bale...

And at the Souvenir ship, one could by the Eiffel tower...

And miniatures of the museum...

On the way out, I saw some lockers for umbrellas...some one could bend lose anyway...but it was a interesting solution...

A resturant was the next stop...

They had alof of pics of fishes...

It was still raining in this "they rainy city" of taiwan...

So weird...in taiwan, they serve chicken with the head on the plate...

More rain...

Here is a map of a water fall in Yilan...

One had to walk a path up hill...

It was kind of touristic...

But also nice...

Aobut 20-30 meters high...

Up towards the jungle...
In the winter, it get snowy here...(or in the near by area)...
I bought a bottle of the local beer...a dark beer...
Later I went to the german restaurant at taipei main station (that is 100% taiwanese, btw)...
And alot of side ddishes were ordered...
Spicy sauce...one of the guys going there did an "italian", he took the reciept for company purpose, while everyone paid for themselvess (more or less)...omg south europeans...
After this a trip was made to a spanish bar in the city...
The door was locked...but it was full party in side...
Many ppl at the bar...
And in the basement they had a band that played and people danced...
I tried this german beer "Faust"...it was fruity and good...
Many foreigners  there...I will come back here some day to try their spanish food...

Yilan whisky distillery visit...

Saturday was full off adventures...

Starting with panncakes...
Then arguing with tome tai ppl, about that I wanted a students MRT card...I eventuallt got it...
Then I went to yilan...it was a sunny nice day...
A visit was made at Kavalan distilerry (kavalan is the old name for yilan, thats a city near the north east coast of taiwan...)
The is their most famous bottle i think...
They have many differnt kind, and some awards...
This is their main factory...
They also ahve a touristic part of it...with a gift shop and resturant etc...
They hae a home page on kavalanshisky.com (yes english spelling, i was amazed that this USA loving people used engish spelling for once...)
A long queue to try coffee and some whisky...
This is their new thing...a new kind f whisky...maybe...
A king car edition...
They had a musium as well, explaining different kind of whisky...
And this also spelled in english (UK style)...
And telling the differnce between, scotish, irish, american, canadian and japanese whisky...
And how they make the barrels...
By burning...
Haha..."sweet as the girl next door"...did a taiwanese person really compose these words?!?!
And we got to see the factory...
Alot of gadgets...
And a bog group to be guided...
Omg...this is how it looks like, where the whisky is stored...I wonder how big Johhny walkeds room for equivavelnt purpose is...
Spirit Castle...where the whisky is tasted...
We got to try 1 of these kinds...
the most expensive was 6600nt per bottle...(1650SEK or something)...
A guide told us about the special thing about this whisky...
Even the glasses had Kavalan printed on it...
They were also selling coffee from taiwan...never knew "Mr Brown"was madein taiwan...
And many different kinds of coffee...
I also neede to buy something...since I like to buy locally producesitems...
They had glasses, but I dontneed more of those...
I finaly, aftersom calculations figuered out that I should take this bottle...
Outside they were decorating for christmas...
As the night came...we could see the nice shapes of the mountiansin the horizon...
A nice scooter tour inYilan downtown...
To find a nice resturant...
Event the night market didnt have anything good to offer...
Finaly a mexican and italian restaurant was found...
Almost the same dining area...
I hada salad and potato salad to start with...
And had gratain pasta adn quid plus a mexican chicken roll as a main course...not good for a guy in diet...
Later in the nice I saw this again...so cute and funny...they alwasy discriminate ppl here in taiwan...there is not waiting czone for guys at night ;(
 
 
 
 
 
 

A dinner in Jhubei...

I went to eat with my taiwanese friends some days ago...
Taiwan, full of traffic, with poluting scooters...I heard that u can take a picture of fumes form a scooter and get money from the police...for "telling", but the worst gases are not visible...I wonder what this rule is for...
 
We went to chubbys...
Sweet friends...I had to rpmis to join them to Kaohsiung next weekend, they wanna host me around...
I also mingeled with this guy who has lived in taiwan for 30 years, owns a steak house in taipei (Franks texas BBQ), and invited me to visit him, and now gonna be a citizen of taiwan...he tld me, he came here to help some local girls to set upa business...
For once, i did not order their biggest burger...
They insisted to pay...
There after we went to Beerworks...
And ordered some snax to...I insited to pay...
Im looking forward to the Kaohsiung visit...

Xian beer VIP...

I went to a Xian beer bar some weeks ago (local Hsinchu beer)...
The week after I returned, and the staff recognised me...I did not recognise them...
The third time I went there, I got this...so now I have discount every time I buy beer...
 

A night full of beer house visits

Last night I went to many beer houses in Hsinchu...
I always wanted to go here, since my friends told me they went here...
This beer logo looks very german...
And a german flag...
They had 2 kinds of beer...dark and not dark...
And not that many german dishes...this is sushi...
Some steak...
And very nice chicken...it was sweet and crispy...
And german sausage...
Then the next restaurant was near by...
It is a new place, there use to be a Giant bike store here...
They also had 2 kinds of beer, I had to try both...
It was "Xian beer"...
They are open late...and offer all you can drink during june, on saturdays...to bad I missed that offer, its only for 100nt...
But this promotion is on friday at another store in jhubei...I called many friends to try to get them here...feasting on this cheap offer...
It was not the same beer as at the Beer Work in Hsinchu...but still ok...
And sushi without rice now aswell...
And cheese sticks...
And mini burgers...
The toilet had cool design...on the gender signs...
After 3 of these...they closed the place...I told my swedish friends to join tomorrow...

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