Hows my little bookworm 2012 edition?

77 Shadow Street by Dean Koontz I love Audiobooks for long drives, generally I try and choose one that sounds like its exciting with the hopes that the excitement will keep me awake while I'm driving. This book was a fun adventure that reminded me of an expanded yet very different version of 1408. Every 38 years the residents of the Pendleton experience a shift in time, generally with disastrous results. Creatures literally crawl out of the woodwork, ghosts from the past walk and talk, and The One is orchestrating the death of his captives in time. There are plenty of residents and stories to follow throughout the story and they are all very different individuals which makes each of their perspectives interesting. There is also The One, a creepy and vile mystery that when he reveals his origins is either really corny or really clever, I personally liked it. If you're into the thriller/sci-fi genre this incredibly visual book is for you. I loved it.

The Twelve by Justin Cronin The second book in the Passage Series is fantastic. I doubt you remember my review from last year of the first book so quickly refresh yourself. Book two is like book one, the first half takes place in modern times, and when the part two begins, after having read the first book, it's not quite the shock as before. The world is still recovering and cowering from the outbreak, and people are surviving their day to day. This book is different and fresh, it is fantastically exciting from start to finish. Cronin keeps it going at a blazing pace right from the start. Several familiar characters reappear and some new and interesting lines are drawn from the past into the future. After book one ended I wasn't sure what direction the series would take, after book two it's pretty clear whats going to happen in book three, and I'm excited for the ride. This is another thrilling adventure novel, I've recommended The Passage to everyone I thought who would enjoy it and will continue recommending the series to anyone who enjoys fiction.

The Girl who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson Book two in the Millenium series left me glad I listened to it as an audiobook. I thought it was an interesting story with a predictable ending. Larsson has a habit of going on about stuff that makes some long stretches relatively dry, then again mystery stories aren't always my thing either. As the story went I was pretty excited to learn more about the mystery of Lisabeth Salendar, but at the same time she no longer was this semi enigmatic creature as she was in the first one. The way the book ends is pretty satisfying but I'm not going to be reaching for book three quickly.

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks  I'm a firm believer in being prepared for anything possible and if the dead are going to reanimate I figured I should have a leg up on the rest of my human competition, and my enemy. This is a really interesting (fiction) book giving the reader plenty of excellent well thought out pointers of how one should prepare themselves for and survive a zombie outbreak. He creates a fantastic virus called Solanum that is responsible for creating a zombie and goes on to how it's transferred, and what happens to a person when they are infected. After that the book talks about survival techniques, like what weapons to choose, best modes of transportation, fortresses to build or utilize, and of course the best (and only) way to destroy a zombie forever. This first half of the book is actually really interesting and full of convincing ideas for survival in such a situation. The second half of the book is sort of a let down, it is stories of recorded (fictional) zombie outbreaks in history, some of them were clever but they were short, scattered and vague (obviously since historical details are scant, or a government covered up something). Since I tend to think about things as I'm reading I had a tough time getting over this and moved through the second half pretty slowly. Although if you're into the whole zombie thing, I'm sure you would like it. I would recommend this book to anyone in for a laugh and looking a bit of survival knowledge.

Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins Mockingjay was a very fitting end to the hunger games saga, there was all sorts of excitement, betrayal, twists, and love. A bit too much love for me though. I really enjoyed this book, there were a few parts that got a bit repetitive and drawn out, but as a whole I hated putting it down. By the time I reached the middle I had a good idea of how it would end, and when it ended, I got sad that there will be no more new books in the series. Good thing I've got the movies! I highly recommend this series to anyone who likes a good adventure now and then. They are quick and enjoyable reads for anyone.

 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Ever since reading the first book of this series I've been trying to figure out what book two would be about, in fact, I've asked a bunch of my friends who have read it and all I usually got was a long hmmm, well, I don't want to ruin it for you. After finally reading this book I understand what they meant about that. So I'm not really going to ruin any surprises for anyone. For fans of the first book this is a must read, I will warn though, this book is just a bridge to the third book, which is much easier to predict what it will be about. Catching Fire was really interesting and full of several twists, and a very abrupt ending. I'm very excited to read the third book of this series.

Maus by Art Spiegelman This book was fantastically different. I don't want to call it a graphic novel, because its more like a nicely bound comic book. It is an interesting story of survival of a Jew in Nazi Germany. The best part is the Jews are mice, the Nazi are cats, and everyone else is a pig. It is a captivating story of survival in this awful time to live and I enjoyed the story, but when I closed the book (there was definitely more story to tell) I didn't realize it was part one of two. Which for some reason I'm not excited about reading two books like this, but one is fine. If I had known it was in two parts I wouldn't have bought it in the first place. The drawings aren't very exciting and easy to skip over, just like this book.

Chasing the White Dog by Max Watman Chasing the White Dog was wisely recommended to me because of my interest in all things fermented. I have a special spot in my heart for whiskey (and how to make it) so I had I was very excited about this book. Its a really interesting documentary about moonshine, its history and where it stands now. It starts off talking about how the author made his own still and and attempted crafting his own white lightning. His forays into making moonshine sound a lot like how I would go about it full of disaster, caution, and humor. The historical parts are all really interesting, from George Washington to prohibition and onto modern moonshine cases. Of course a moonshine story isn't complete without a reference to Popcorn Sutton and NASCAR, both get some space in the book. I would recommend this book for anyone who is interested in prohibition, moonshine, or liquor production. I found it fascinating and I think most of my faithful readers would as well.

Hows my little Christmas Outtake?

Laura and I had fun with our Christmas cards this year.

How my little kegger?

Awhile back I bought a kegging system due to a problem beer that I wasn't sure would carbonate naturally in the bottle. After several months of warm beer and no idea how to fit another full sized appliance into our small home I went searching for some tutorials on building a small refrigerator kegerator. With the retail price of pre-built ones costing around $500 this seemed like a logical project. Of course keeping the homebrew in homebrewing is always a bonus. This blog is more of a how-to because I want to pay it forward to future kegerator builders.
A few sites really helped me through this and I owe them a shout:
KegKits.com
HomebrewTalk.com
This Blog

The refridgerator I used to convert was a Danby 4.4 cubic foot Compact refrigerator (model DAR125SLDD) I got it on sale from HH Greg. These are good for a couple of reasons. The shelving is mounted in back on supports instead of on the side walls (although there are two small supports on the bottom portion) this creates more space for kegs. 4.4 cu/ft is a good size too because it just barely holds two kegs side by side.

I started working on the door, you need to remove all of the plastic shelves and things to make more room for the kegs to fit.

My first obstacle was here. In all of the tutorials I found there are screws holding the plastic to the insulation and door. Danby must have redesigned their door gasket to be tool-less. As you can see the gasket fits into a groove to secure to the door. Which then made the plasitc much harder to remove, as you'll see. I decided to save the money and time instead of fitting a new gasket to the door I would use this groove area as a frame for my door interior and use the gasket that came attached to the fridge.

After trying to pry the plastic off from the edge and cracking a couple of corners I found out that the whole door is basically held together with insulation. After some rough work I used my new dremel to cut the main body of plastic off from the edge.

This picture is to show how the foam insulation is also the glue, every pocket of what I thought would be airspace was foam that connected to the main body of the door.

A messy deconstruction.

I was originally going to use plexiglass for my door interior but since i did such a hack job on the foam and I thought it was pretty ugly, I decided that there was no reason to see it. I chose whiteboard instead this way I can write on it about which beer is where, the clean white also looked pretty nice with the interior.

After I cut the board to size I used a weatherproof silicone sealant/adhesive to glue the whiteboard to the frame and used the same stuff to glue the frame to its home back onto the door. 

I used a white caulk on the inside to fill in the crack on the front side since I glued it from the back. This also helped finish the edge a little nicer. I'm not super excited about the ridge but who cares when the door will be shut and out of sight for 99% of it's use.

The cornstarch test! Mix a paste of cornstarch and rubbing alcohol together and rub over the top of the refrigerator while it is on. This is to find a refrigerant line, you don't want to hit one of those while you're drilling.

Apparently it will dry or evaporate or something will change when there is a warm refrigerant line underneath. It seems that this Danby model line runs across the front side, so no worries for me!

The top piece of plastic is pretty rigid but I've heard over time or when things get sticky the tower will wiggle a bit and I don't like that idea. so I cut a board to fit under that will hold the tower more sturdily. It's glued to the plastic with the weatherproof silicon.

I didn't notice that I had a piece of quarter inch wood lying around until after I sanded a quarter inch off the other piece. Made me wish I had a shop vac.

After doing some math I found out that with this tower there was almost no wiggle room for the tower placement. The light inside the fridge is dead center and takes up bunch of space and the  cold plate in back sticks out just far enough to make it a challenge.

I used a 1 1/8" hole saw to get through all of the layers at once. Measure a billion times cut once. When cutting through plastic go SLOW or you'll crack or chip it. I'm not sure if the painters tape really helped with that but it did make a nice temporary place to mark my drilling holes.

After your main hole is drilled line it with metal waterpoof tape to keep condensation and mold from reaching your insulation. (Not pictured)

I shoved a 1" piece of copper down the main hole and the beer lines through that. I have no idea if it really makes a difference, apparently with a larger tower hole the warmest air from the fridge hangs out in the tower and people end up pouring too much foam on their first pour of the night. The copper pipe uses convection cooling and in theory helps cool the beer lines while they are in the tower. Since it didn't cost much time nor effort I figured it would be worth a shot instead of getting some sort of jankey fan and pipe system to blow cold air into the tower.

I used my dremel to cut the ridges for the old shelf and supports off to make more room for the kegs.

I applied caulk right onto the foam to keep it from gathering mold or any other nasties. I might do a second coat someday.

Here it is loaded up. I opted for the more expensive, but more better method of twin dual gauge regulators, this way I can carbonate one beer while still dispensing another without having to mess with gages and moving the lines around. Also this way I can serve beers with different dispensing pressures to open their individual flavors and aromas better.

The finished product! 

The foamy one on the left just finished carbonating and was warm and pours much better now that its cold.

Here is a shot of the completed kegerator with two pin-lock kegs and a 5lb CO2 canister fitting snugly inside. 

Words of advice to future constructors. Without my dremel I'm not sure I would have been able to complete this project, the way the door is now constructed you would have to literally use a machete to carefully cut the plastic inner piece from the door. You would have to cut a new inner piece and glue it directly to the foam/door and rig up a new/modified door gasket if you don't use the frame method I did. Also using ball lock kegs would give you a nicer fit inside the fridge, I'm not sure you would need to cut off the shelving supports on the bottom if you did. Obviously, two pin lock kegs fit, just quite snugly.

Modifications for the future would be adding a temp. controller for lagering and a port for an external nitro tank for some old fashioned nitro love. Maybe some trim rails if I find some nice ones on sale.

Having homebrew on tap is way better than having homebrew in the bottle. Fact.