Sun-drying Grains Equals Causing Harm, or, Stupid Things My Employer’s Administrative Officers Say

Making beer involves extracting sugars from grain. This means you end up with a lot of grain that you have no use for, since everything tasty has been extracted, but which needs to be disposed of somehow. I’ve been happy that a friend in the building, after starting a worm farm, ended up finding my spent grain useful, since that means one less wasteful outcome for the stuff. I tend to leave the grain out for him, and he dries it in the sun. Drying stuff in the sun is so common in Korea that one expects to see it: …

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The “Are you sure you want to come to Russia?” Dream

No, I’ve never been, but I have dreamed about visiting Moscow and St. Petersburg. Most recently, last night. And since I rarely remember my dreams on waking, I thought I’d set it down. In which dream I apparently was seen writing poetry (something I don’t do much anymore) somewhere in Moscow, and this was enough for some organization above both the SVR (international intellligence service) and the FSB (the domestic one) to track me, watch me, and strongarm me by visiting my short-term rental apartment in the guise of a plumber and rendering the toilet unusable. Later, when waiting for …

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A Bit of Doggerel

I’m currently trawling through my old drafts of poetry for a project I won’t talk about for now, but one thing I’ll say is that the project doesn’t involve much doggerel. But I figure, since it’ll never see the light of day anywhere else, I might as well post this thing here. Warning: for those who’ve spent too much time at poetry readings, this may provoke flashbacks, either of crass poetry or of poets trying to read stuff that isn’t crass to audiences used to it. (I’ll admit, when I was young I was perhaps as crass a poetry listener …

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Partigyle, Rebooted: Wonmisan Silvered Moon Barleywine

Note: This brew is part of a single parti-gyle batch of beer brewed on the 6th of February. The other half of the batch, Wonmisan Mild Brown Hound, is discussed here. However, the majority of the discussion of the parti-gyle itself is here. I have been considering making a barley wine for quite some time now, but I have never actually gotten around to it until now. Since I am eager to produce a batch of Mild ale for Miss Jiwaku, I figured now would be the perfect time to go ahead and make a smaller (10L) Barley Wine, using …

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