Good evening

It was nice this morning, but by mid-afternoon the weather was suited for suicide or brewing, with no obvious third option. My wife and I were lulled by the glints of sun, the dog had his romp in the park, and we rode our bicycles downtown, but of course then got soaked when the clouds rolled in. I bought the grain and hops for Randy Mosher's 'Jaggery IPA', but the Jaggery sugar itself was unavailable. They didn't even know what it was, but after a googling, the owner called it 'palm sugar', available from asian groceries.

We also bought one of these incredible fractal brocoli things, a thing I'd never have imagined before could even exist. I

t's called a 'Romanesco brocoli'

At home I mashed in the grain to about 100 degrees. I don't understand the mashing in thing very well, but it seems to be indicated in cases where you're worried about glutinous matter fouling up the sparge, so I thought it might help with the wheat malt, which has of course fouled a few sparges of mine in the past. I got everything wet and then, fatigued by my labors, fell asleep for an hour. When I awoke, feeling a little glutinous myself, I added enough boiling water to get to 150 deg, then drove to the asian market indicated for Jaggery, which appears as big hockey pucks of sugar. I let the mash sit for a couple of hours, then tested with iodine and it wasn't done yet. I was

only baffled a moment before pulling out a bit of grains to boil and add back to raise the temp. After another half hour it seemed done and I sparged very slowly, with not a stick!

I'd misread the recipe and didn't have enough hops, but I made it up with some wild hops I'd gathered at the park in August. It was fun to find and gather these hops, but they don't seem to have much aroma. Still, I added a lot of them, which will maybe make up for that.

I made chili, sauted chantrelles, and cooked up our fantastic fractal brocoli. Seems a bit odd to chop up and eat anything that pretty. I suppose if the Mona Lisa (the painting, not the lady) was edible, it would have been consumed long ago, possibly by Leonardo himself.