National Ferment

I ordered a Russian Imperial Stout kit a couple of months ago. I was waiting on brewing it until Trump assumed the presidency. Building on the prior batch of Vlad the Imperialer three years ago, I have named this rendition Vlad II: The Putinator: I Will Break You, given DT's posh treatment of this former KGB Russian Autocrat Putin who assassinates and imprisons his opponents. A strange world we are living in. ISIS has made Russia and the U.S. allies. A Trump and Putin Bromance, each probably playing another as a sucker underneath it all.  

As an aside, I read the Koran over Christmas Vacation. Actually, much less violent than the Bible but it does appear to enlist the  faithful in God's War against the infidel. The Koran uses what is termed the "Royal We"  when Allah speaks of Himself, which is awfully odd considering its strong Monotheism. My thesis is that the  "We" language does seem to permit the faithful to spread Islam by force. Historically, we know, that the Muslim religion--from the get--used the sword for propagation, whereas it took Christianity about four centuries. Genocide in the Bible is a difficult topic and one that I don't wish to delve into here.

As part of my brewing strategy, I have been upgrading my equipment. I am past the fad stage and brew pretty consistently either on my home turf or at a buddy's haus. So, I bought this stainless steel fermenter above on sale from Williams Homebrew in California. I have taken plastic out of the process, so it is stainless steel and glass from here on in...plastic, for all of its conveniences, seems to be a sketchy material in general to consume hot substances or solvents like alcohol out of, and has been tied to endocrine disorders. I had tried to ferment kale in my old plastic priming tank into a sauerkraut-like food and it wound-up going bad due to oxygenation and it couldn't get the skank out of the tank. So, I tossed it. That lead me to conclude that plastic really can never be clean, also. It holds onto odors, tastes, staining, and etc.  

The new tank is really nice but had some leakage in the valve below which necessitated an emergency run down to Lancaster Homebrewing Friday, not the first time that I have been in crisis mid-brew and had to make a run. It appears as if the original valve and assorted washers and rubber gasket were defective and probably why this unit was on sale to start with. As the wort chilled outside in close to freezing temps, the guys at the store had to engineer a better seal with replacement equipment. They were very helpful and after some additional leakage, the seal seems to have taken hold. A reminder not all of my commerce can be online, particularly in an emergency. The valve on the bottom of the tank is crucial for transferring the wort to what is termed the secondary fermenter.  

All last night the fermentation sounded like a huge coffee percolator in my heated bedroom. Since I keep my house cool in the winter because of having very expensive baseboard heating, I typically only heat my bedroom up to 70 degrees or so when I am home. The rest of the house is about the temp of a meat locker, except when I turn on the heating unit in the living room or, if it is really cold outside, the wood pellet stove in the living room, which is the nuclear option. So, the fermenter was my roommate and will be for the next week. Ale yeast needs warm temps to do its primary work of initial fermentation and a strong start creates a better beer. Fermentation can stall out if the conditions are too hot or too cold. And then, the whole brewing endeavor goes down the drain literally.    

I had to wipe down the fermenter at least four times throughout last night because the wort and yeast are having a raucous time. It was like changing a baby's diaper and about as messy. It reminded me of the awesome power of fermentation. If this stainless tank didn't have a blowhole of the top like a whale, where the airlock sits (lets out the carbon dioxide and keeps out the air), the tank would blow up like an IED or barrel bomb. Fermentation is not to be trifled with, it is force of nature.

Our political system is in extreme ferment right now and probably will be for at least the next four years. Trump Inc. shows no signs of backing down. It is leading me to question of how to dissipate the building pressure insider the tank of our system. Here's a start...I think we need to ask better questions and stop stating assumptions. Questions are a tool to let the other speak and it doesn't mean that it leads to stalemate. Jesus's most difficult statements often came at the end of a series of questions where he peeled the layers of argumentation of his opponents, exposing them to the light of day and moral scrutiny.  

James in his Epistle states that we need to "Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger."  Let's try this for a change on social media. Keep asking insightful and incisive questions rather than make broad assertions that over-reach and offend. That will release some of the pressure internally and actually lead to answers rather than rancor.