The First Week

Well I'm on to my third week now as assistant brewer at Black Tooth Brewery. I have to say I enjoy it more than I did my desk job. The atmosphere and the pace is easy and enjoyable. Though I have a long way to go to become a master brewer, I am getting familiar with the down and dirty work of a brewery and learning more every day. Below are a few pictures from my first week. (Not shown: the keg washer. I have spent many hours with the piece of machinery, and I have a feeling we're going to see much more of each other)

Pretty new tanks all in a row! I pulled all the protective coating off these tanks the first morning on the job.  I doesn't seem like it'd be too bad, but they are crammed in against the freezer wall forcing me to think like a contortionist.

20 gallon buckets of tired yeast pulled off the bottom of the fermentors

 

Milling grains for a 640 gallon batch of Amber.  The white pipe has an auger in it the carries the cracked barley to the brewhouse

Filling kegs in the walk-in-cooler from a different 640 gallon batch of Amber.  This is a time consuming (and cold) process.  Notice the lovely yellow pallet-jack.  I have become quite proficient with this thing, and this week I learn to run a forklift :) !!!

All in all, the job doesn't suck!

Well that's one way to simplify

 

Well that was fun. Or not. I'm ok. The truck is not ok (at least we hope that's the insurance adjuster's opinion). I will forever be thankful for modern technology & engineering - the guardrail that didn't budge when a truck slammed into it at 55 mph & stopped me from going over the bridge, the truck built to absorb impact & decrease chance of injury, the air bags deploying like a gunshot & preventing my face from meeting the steering wheel, & the seat belt that harnessed me to the seat & stopped me from bouncing around like a rag doll.
To the three gentlemen camping down the hill that heard the crash, called it in, & stayed with me until HP showed up: thank you. To the gentleman that stopoed to make sure I was ok: thank you. To Kentz & Lindsey, for being there: thank you. Nothing I say or do will suffice in expressing my thanks & gratitude for all of you.

Lessons of the day: most trucks function in RWD when not in 4WD. And nothing is worth being in a hurry.

Simplify

I’ve had a strong urge to simplify as of late.  I don’t know where it came from but it was a mysterious, deep-rooted urge to step back, slow down, & simplify.  Reduce, reuse, recycle.  Or something like that. 

I began my venture by scaling back on my daily make-up.  Many of my friends are non-makeup wearing women & I appreciate their “realness” (or whatever word you want to use).  So I cut out my daily eye shadow.  Boom.  Make-up routine cut down to 5 min.  (Sorry, I’m not cutting out anything else.  I.love.mascara.)    

Not long after, Steve received word he was accepted into the position of Assistant Brewer.  *Ah ha*  In some cosmic, moon phase, low-tide-high-tide weirdness, my soul was prepping for big change.  With our new household budget, it’s without a doubt we will have to simplify.  And I’m ready.  We’re ready.  It’s time to batten the hatches, put on an eye patch, and say “yarr”…  Oh wait, wrong story.  It’s time to simplify our lifestyle.  (And if we get bored on our low budget, we just might be pretending to be pirates for entertainment)

I was inspired recently by the blog, Small Notebook.  I was particularly struck by her post, The Lost Rule of Organizing.  *Mental slap*  I wanted to add to my stuff with more stuff.  Do I have to buy a bunch of containers to hold my stuff?  Or can I reduce some of the stuff?  Why do I need more containers to hold our books when a majority of our books are novels that we won’t read again?  Can I donate those novels & find myself with plenty of bookshelf space?  Why do I need more containers to organize our bathroom closet when one of the reasons it's cluttered is because we have five bottles of sunscreen?  It’s the principal of the matter.

So that’s where I see us headed with our new adventure.  Life is going to simplify.  We’re going to simplify.  Our budget is definitely going to simplify.  But that’s part of the grand adventure, no?

We’ll keep you updated as we enter this new time.  Cheers to change!