September

March

The stout is done and I just dropped off some bottles with Joel and Elle.

From the barrel of the 2009 pinot I drew off 4 bottles to taste and see how it’s going. Kate thought the fermenting yeasty aroma was still quite strong. It’s aging on the lees, so this is to some extent the point. It’s quite dangerous experimenting with destabilizing winemaking techniques when I have yet to make a ‘clean’ wine, but I think it’s working well. It’s light, as you can see, but nonetheless moderately tannic. The cherry fruit flavors are very fresh, the wood is rather unintegrated at the moment. It’s very drinkable and Chris, Kate and I polished off the whole bottle before dinner was over.

I’ve been meeting Elle at Lovejoy Bakers every once in a while since they opened several months ago. They have decent bread and good sandwiches. Elle has buttery grilled cheese. I had a cilantro, cabbage, mayonaise, tender stewed beef sandwich on a chibatta bun.

For lunch: rice with basil; arugula; boiled beets with salt and olive oil; tomato sauce with butter.

One of the cats killed this bird in the morning. I think it’s a baby chicken, which would mean it’s probably from one of the neighbors down the street.

The horizontal is seconds, the vertical is ounces. The steep slope is a shot with the brew water at 190˚. You can see it’s flowing much faster. The two on the right are shots with water at about 202˚. The graph is useful, I think, but is very tedious to produce. For instance, it’s interesting that the flow rates don’t curve gently upward, but rather have distinct moments of increased flow. On the 202˚ shots, at about 18-20 seconds you can see that the flow rate suddenly doubles. Why is this? (The bumps in the lines are from the fact that the espresso is flowing in big, goopy drops.)

I’m trying to find all the variables that go into producing a consistent shot. The big ones are temperature of the brew water and the amount of grounds in the puck. All 3 shots used 0.75 ounces of grounds. The only other variable, I believe, is the pressure used to tamp the puck. There is a device for this. It utilizes a mechanism similar to a torque wrench.

The paint on the door of the cart was beginning to bubble and peel. Scraping off layers I discovered an old paintjob that attempted to replicate wood. There was a dark brown paint with light brown brushstrokes. Then in an attempt to really make it look like a wood door, they put a coat of polyurethane on top. Perhaps not such a bad idea, but then painting over that was not the most weatherproof choice. The door is made out of metal, it’s very tricky and all done to look like a paneled door, which it is, but each element is wrapped in zinc. I scraped off as much paint as I could and am now painting it dark green. I also need to make a little awning for the door so it doesn’t peel again.

At Pastaworks today, Dave the butcher was telling me about a dish he had at 3 Doors Down, called ‘the crouton.’ It’s a thick slice of ciabatta sauteed in olive oil, covered with a mushroom/sherry/cream sauce.

After doing some analysis with my espresso machine, measuring out exact amounts of espresso, taking temperature readings of the water, weighing the espresso as it flowed out, I was able to answer, hesitantly, a question Joel put to me. Does the espresso come out quicker or slower at a higher temperature? It comes out slower at a higher temperature, I have observed. His Ethiopian is also very tasty.

I picked up a Japanese on demand water heater today. Installation will be difficult.

Potatoes, squash, bok choy, wild spinach, and scallions are what is presently available at Peoples. Also some tasty mushrooms: black trumpet, yellowfoot, and hedgehog. I have a glut of eggs so tonight I’ll make a mushroom quiche.

At Broadacres nursery getting Pinot Noir 115 grafted onto a 101-14 rootstock. On my way back picked up some Willamette hops. Photos taken at night.