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[unclemick]

Re: Calculating Rate of Return, when Buying.......

ex-Jarhead

Names are changed to protect the perps. But in logging country - long ago and far far away.

At age 14, me and Schroeder, borrowed some his dad's 'good' homebrew yeast and got rest from the Safeway home brew section, whipped up a beautiful ten case batch and started aging it in the rafters of their upper garden shed.

One saturday, we were helping his older brother in the lower garage on his 52 ford hot rod?? when a muffled explosion/s went off and his dad came running in a low crouch yelling about those #^&* deer hunters. When he looked out of the garage for the direction of the shot and saw the beer foam running down the shed wall - he just looked at Schroeder and said there WILL BE a shed inspection before church tomorrow. Took us four hours to clean up the mess.

ROI lost that day, skunky isn't always age related. Blew up a few more batches over the years, but improved with practice. Last great batch was 1987 with Danish malt from Bierhouse International - my SO said I stunk up the house and 'hadn't I noticed that I was the only one who drank it?' The ROI was great --BUT

If dryer sheet recyling doesn't give enough ROI - homebrew as a fallback position?

 

[Nords]

Rate of return on naval construction projects

"Home brew afloat"

Of course I didn't have anything to do with this story. I just heard it from the "other crew" and smelled the lingering aftereffects.

In the '80s, the U.S. Navy's ballistic missile submarines had a computer warehouse called a "Missile Control Center". It was an air-conditioned bunker where the weapons guys went to calculate missile launch parameters and to push "the button". Since it was such a highly classified space it had reinforced bulkheads, a heavy steel door, and lots of cypherlocks. No one could just pop their heads in to say hello, and the occupants had plenty of warning before the door actually swung open. You could hardly hear anyone snoring, er I mean working in MCC because of all the acoustic insulation and high-speed air blowers. (The hardware, not the watchstanders.)

Submarine sailors are an odd microcosm of society, but boomer sailors are an even stranger subset. Once you eat a meal and watch a few movies, these bright & highly-motivated overachievers are starved for entertainment. You can only clean, train, and run so many drills (leadership's claims to the contrary) before you're looking for a new diversion. In addition, once boomers assume the alert status (ready to launch missiles at a moment's notice) they copy a continuous radio broadcast and won't risk missing a single transmission. That means you don't dart about the ocean at large angles & high speeds, so even steely-eyed killers of the deep get kinda sloppy about leaving things unsecured or resting on top of other objects.

During a certain patrol, the oranges ran out early. When you're at sea for 90 consecutive days without shopping for groceries the fruit, veggies, & eggs can be preserved for an amazingly long time if you're not too picky. (Think of Charlton Heston eating that apple in Soylent Green.) The assumption was that someone was pilfering from the mess decks. Speculation ran rampant (remember, these guys were boring four-knot holes in the ocean and going stir crazy) but the mystery remained unsolved. Eating is strictly forbidden in the engine room so the nuclear engineers weren't the culprits (this time). Of course a few missing oranges couldn't possibly be related to the high humidity and occasional strange smells in MCC. The whole subject was forgotten as the end of the patrol approached.

About a minute after the sub went off alert, the officer of the deck yelled "Yee-haw!" (or its traditional naval equivalent) and proceeded to shake out the cobwebs. The submarine immediately began speeding up and taking a down angle. The crew immediately began speeding up in pursuit of flying objects that had been left forgotten on surfaces that were no longer horizontal. (Think of the sound effects after the sentence "Don't open that closet door!!")

A horrific crash emitted from MCC, followed by the screech of rending metal. It was accompanied by an eye-watering smell and a cascading flood of gurgling liquid bubbling under the doors & bulkheads. Footing was perilous (as was holding a lit cigarette). Amid the confusion, a few alarmed individuals furtively departed the scene.

Of course this turned out to be a something a little more complicated than an undocumented Orange Julius franchise. MCC's fun-loving yet wild-eyed amateur chemists had been fermenting their orange homebrew for almost 10 weeks and had obtained an admirable specific gravity & yield, to say nothing of a robust viscosity that was loaded with vitamin C & fiber (and an impressive bouquet). Unfortunately they'd inadequately stowed the equipment for large angles and apparently they also had a little inventory overstock problem. Details were sketchy because production & consumption records were suddenly unavailable. Cleanup was complicated by the discovery that the solvent was an amazing single-application paint & wax remover.

Of course the submarine was shredded into razor blades long ago and no doubt the miscreants have all moved on to positions of greater leadership & responsibility. But somewhere in a moldy naval archive is a copy of the Captain's Mast proceedings with the accused's claims that they were just trying to develop a high-octane alternative (so to speak) to agricultural ethanol fuels. They were reportedly dismissed with a warning (the naval equivalent of "Nothing happened here"). Conspiracy theorists claim that the embarrassed CO didn't want to mete out punishment for fear that the incident would be reported to higher authority (especially the signer of his fitness reports).

MCC was freshly painted by the time I viewed the scene. I never found out what happened to the still. And I'm sure that all those alcoholic liquids & fumes wouldn't have affected the internals of the missile-launching computers!

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Re: Rate of return on naval construction projects

The assumption was that someone was pilfering from the mess decks. Speculation ran rampant (remember, these guys were boring four-knot holes in the ocean and going stir crazy) but the mystery remained unsolved.

Ahh but the strawberries...err...the oranges! Thats where I had them!

 

[unclemick]

Re: Calculating Rate of Return, when Buying.......

Bogey and er - ??

 

[Jarhead*]

Re: Calculating Rate of Return, when Buying.......

Nords:

Did you have better luck with the 2nd. batch?