Latest Beer Recipes

Another LeMons is coming up. We'll be at Carolina Motorsports Park racing cars and giving away free beer May 3-4. (LeMons event page). Come on out, have a beer, and cheer on your favorite Honda race team. In case you can't make it, but want awesome beer anyway. Try these receipes. They are what I'll be bringing to the track n May.

Rice beer

5-6 cups cooked rice - add to blender

Fill blender with water to the top of the rice

Add 8oz honey to the blender and liquefy for a couple of minutes

Half fill your brewing pot with water
Pour in blended rice

3.3lbs Pilsen Light LME

3 tablespoons ginger

Bring to a boil

Bittering hops - 2oz Nelson Sauvin hops (30mins)

Flavor/Aroma hops - 1oz Mosaic (5mins)

Chill and pour wort into carboy, and fill to 5+ gallons with water

Add Kolsch yeast

Dry hop - 1oz Citra (leaf)

Mulled beer

Steep grains (30mins):

• 1/2 lb Carapils (Dextrine) Grain - Briess
• 1/2 lb Special B Grain - Dingemans Belgian
• 1 lb Maris Otter Pale Malt - Muntons

Add Malts and spices and bring to a boil

• 3.3lbs golden light LME
• 3lbs Wheat DME
• 2oz sweet orange peel
• 1oz cinnamon sticks
• 1oz cardamom seeds
• 3 tablespoons Cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons Anise seeds
• 3 tablespoons Nutmeg
• 5-8 Cloves

Bittering hops - 1oz Hallertau (35 min)

Flavor/Aroma hops - 1oz Sazz (5min)

Chill wort and add British ale yeast

When bottling add 4oz Blackberry fruit flavoring

What Do We Do When We Aren't Racing?

We race some more!

Yep, we are pretty much single minded and obsessed with emptying our wallets at race tracks. A few videos of our leisure time (outside of Chump and LeMons races).

Roger driving Duffy at a Tarheel Sports Car Club event:


Ricky, same car same evert:


And finally me, Robert, tossing my Focus ST around a Peachtree BMWCCA AutoX:

New Engine Means New Problems

So I just posted how we patched up the body on Duffy, and BAM! Less than 10 minutes into our first race at Barber - WALL. What happened? Roger had a fresh D-series engine assembled for this year's races and we didn't know how it would do. Would it burn oil? make good power? And since this is an endurance race we can't just stop every 30 minutes to check things out, so he added some extra oil. A quart of extra oil. The extra oil, created extra pressure.

Anyway that pushed out the dipstick and spilled oil on the engine which ran along the suspension to cover the driver's front tire. Then things got slippery;

It was pretty minor and not much damage beyond tweaking the body panels a little. We zipped tied down the dipstick, and back on track we went. Latter in the day the electrical system went out, thanks to an oil bathed alternator. We bought a new alternator and battery and back to the track we went.

With our oil-related stops we lost a lot of time and finished 28th out of 68 cars. A least in the top half. Before sliding out of control, we were 3rd. We did however beat a diesel Chevette by 6 laps. Yeah. Hopefully, we've excised the demons and we can keep it on the track for our next race.

Some pics:

Arriving a Barber

Driver's meeting - nice facilities at Barber

In the parking lot

On Track

Pitstop action shot

Front straight

Passing on the inside - turn 5

Diving into the turn

 LeMons FB gallery: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152030162244495.1073741845.36766739494&type=3

Video recap (We are @ 2:35)

Race Schedule for 2014

Come out and watch or sign-up and join us on track! Always free beer for anyone that asks.

LeMons

• 03-04 May - Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw SC
• 05-06 July - Sebring International Raceway, Sebring FL
• 20-21 Sept - Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw SC

Chump

• 9-10 August - Virginia International Raceway 24 Hour, Danville, VA

THSCC

• 5-6 Apr - Virginia International Raceway North, Danville, VA & Apr 5 - Karting Enduro
• 7-8 June - Carolina Motorsports Park, Kershaw SC
• 6-7 Sept – Virginia International Raceway Full, Danville, VA

NASA (Road Atlanta)

• 1-3 Aug (maybe)
• 5-7 Dec (maybe)

 

Duffy is Pretty Again!

We started this team with a wrecked '94 Honda Civic. The front and hood were a little ugly, but she cleaned up nicely.



Lovely metallic green, with a crunched front.

Some spray cans and child labor...

Ta da! It's a race car.

Sure we had some minor scrapes, but nothing a few zip ties couldn't handle.

Zip ties are great for body work too!

She was still looking pretty until the LeMons race in Sept 2010 at CMP. Bam! 80 mph hit to the passenger side and a trip to the tire wall.

After a few more seasons, and a few "who left the hood pins out!" incidents. It was time to for some fixing up. Fortunately, Rock Auto sells body panels for $35 a piece. We bought some stuff and Roger went to work. Duffy is looking good and ready for more action this season.

Gotta love Rock Auto. Dirt cheap Civic parts

Off with the old...

... on with the new

Add a little primer,

and spray some rattle cans, and Duffy's prettier than ever. 

We even have a new trailer, with brakes!

AND, a new camera. Race videos coming soon.

We'll be posting our 2014 race schedule soon, come out and join us.

Some More Beer Recipies

We brew beer and race cars. So that's pretty much what you'll see here. This post, BEER. Here's some of my latest beer recipes. If you want a taste come join us at the 'Shine Country Classic, 01 February 2014 - 02 February 2014, Barber Motorsports Park, Birmingham AL (more info).

Super Hop fermenting

Super Hop

Steep grains (15mins) - 1lb biscuit and 1lb victory
3.3 lbs liquid malt extract - Pilsen light
2 lbs dry malt extract - Pilsen light
Add bittering hops (boil 30 mins) - (1oz ea) Spalt, Saaz, Warrior
Add flavor/aroma hops (boil 5 mins) - 1oz Millennium
Liquid West Coast Pale Ale yeast
Dry hop during fermentation with 1oz each - Spalt & Saaz

Ginger Beer

3.3 lbs liquid malt extract - golden light
Blend distilled water with large chopped ginger root

48 oz light agave nectar

.5 oz Nelson Sauvin hops (boil 30 mins)

.5 oz Nelson Sauvin hops (boil 5 mins)

Champagne yeast

If It's Not Scottish It's Crap

Steep grains (20 mins):

• 4 ounce chocolate malt
• 4 ounce caramel malt
• 4 ounce crushed smoked barley malt
• 4 ounce crushed roasted barley malt
• 2 ounce whiskey oak chips
• 1 ounce chicory root

3.3 lbs Liquid malt extract - Amber

1 lb Dry malt extract - Sparkling Amber

1 lb Belgian dark candy

2 cups table sugar

.5 ounce cascade hops (boil 40 minutes)

.5 ounce cascade hops (boil 5 minutes)

British style beer yeast

Apple Ale

3.3 lbs Liquid malt extract - light pilsner extract

1 gal Apple natural juice, no preservatives

Spice with cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, vanilla

.5 oz Spalt hops (boil 30 mins)

.5 oz Spalt hops (boil 5 mins)

Champagne yeast

When Good Beer Goes Bad

As a home brewer it is inevitable. At some point you will make a batch of beer that sucks. Wrong ingredients, bad procedure, or whatever. My most recent fails seem to be from the plastic fermenting bucket. My best guess is there was some kind of bacteria or other contamination that gave a very a acidic aftertaste to my beers. My brother just tried using bacon in a beer (seriously, what could go wrong with bacon). It turns out bacon is a little too salty to use straight up.

I have already switched to glass carboys exclusively, and my brother, Roger, now uses an extract for bacon flavoring. But we still have many bottles of bad brew. Rather than waste our strange brew we have some options. Common uses for less than ideal beers:

• Soup stock
• Beer pancakes or bread
• Beer cheese soup
• Marinades
• Reductions/gravies
• ???

Any other uses for off-flavored beers? Post 'em in the comments.

We Finished, So What

Aaarrrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhh!

Another LeMons in the books. I feel like Charlie Brown trying to kick that stupid football. When will we ever learn. If you don't get that reference you're too young, deal with it.

Well at some point during the second driver shift we lost all compression in one cylinder. At that point we were second in class and top 10 overall. We were on a roll to victory, were. Since we couldn't be competitive with 3 cylinders, we decided to just change to the back up engine and minimize damage to our current power plant.


Roger and Ricky swap out the engine. I, helpfully, take pictures

Unfortunately, we wouldn't be back on track that day, and not due to our sluggish wrenching. There was an incident. Specifically, a fatality. Not to minimize the incident or the very real dangers of racing, this was not a wreck-related fatality. According to the Kershaw County coroner, Sidney Brayton, of Norcross, Ga. died of a heart attack on track. His car then went off at turn 14, through the sand trap and into the tire wall. All in-car and on-track equipment worked as designed. RIP Sidney, the details;

http://www.thestate.com/2013/09/22/2995761/driver-dies-in-kershaw-countys.html

So, we we get on track Sunday, after a delayed start to repair damage to the barriers from the impact at turn 14. We turn some laps, the car felt good, we finish mid pack, and head home. Another promising start shut down by mechanical issues. Still as the saying goes, "A bad day racing is better than a good day working." On the positive side, the beers were great (we actually had a bacon, maple porter courtesy of Roger's brewing skills), the Friday parade was fun, and the 35' Winnebago was pure awesome. Some random pics below, next time.


Our new track home, a 35' Winnebago, formerly used by the state of NC as a mobile DMV

Someone 'Slashed' our tire. Get it?!?!

Speedy Cop's near famous upside down Camero

Look, an E30, surprised? Me either.

PBR is crap, but nice try on the theme

Go Clemson!

These guys were fast AND reliable this time out. One day we might be too.