Trapped at Berkeley

During the weekends, when I have some free time, I’ve been (besides studying and sleeping):

Developing my ISP - pluto.betanegative.com went active last week (since renamed to mars.coldray.com). We’re currently hosted at ThePlanet with a modest amount of disk space and plenty of transfer. Since I’ve been busy with classes, I’ve only been able to configure Apache and some basic internal services. If time permits, I’ll be able to setup Postfix and get some spiffy webmail going this weekend. Hopefully.

Making Beer - That’s right, I’m actually using my Berkeley chemistry education. If you saw two guys carrying a large plastic bucket and a glass carboy around Berkeley this weekend, that was my friend Kevin and me. Although we can legally produce beer, we can’t legally drink it. Go figure.

Spreading OSS on the Berkeley DC Hub - If you’re a Berkeley student living in the dorms, you definitely want to check this out. It’s an incredibly fast private Berkeley P2P network hosted by my friend Mark that doesn’t count towards the bandwidth cap.

I’ve discovered a practical use for my Berkeley chemistry education: I’m going to brew beer.

The idea started with rumors about my Chem 4B GSI Alex’s brewing abilities. I had heard from other students and other GSIs that Alex was a master beer maker. Although I don’t like beer, I was interested in the subject of zymurgy, the branch of chemistry concerned with fermentation. All I knew about the subject was that it involved water, yeast, and something called ‘hops’. Needless to say, I knew practically nothing.

Since I had finished my special project early on Friday, I decided to ask Alex about brewing. He briefly explained the process and described the types of beer he had produced. I was surprised to learn that brewing beer was a relatively simple and low-cost process. I was also surprised to learn that a person could purchase the ingredients necessary for brewing at age 18, even though the legal drinking age is 21.

After talking with Alex, I was anxious to try my hand at brewing. I thought it’d be an interesting chemistry experiment, of sorts. I also wanted to try to produce a decent tasting brewed beverage. Alex had said that there was a store in Berkeley that sold the equipment and ingredients I’d need. All I had to do was find detailed instructions on the process, and I’d be ready to go.

This morning, I discovered some Internet resources on how to brew beer. I learned that the same process and equipment could also be used to make soda, cider, wine, and liquor (with a distillation still). As a result, I wouldn’t be limited to just alcoholic beverages; I could make my own soda.

So, that’s how I became interested in brewing. I plan on starting this summer.