What would life be in Singapore without maids? I guess most of us living in Singapore do hire maids to do for us our household chores. They have become an important part of our lives. Although it is my opinion that maids are not necessary but apparently a lot of Singaporeans think otherwise.  Sure there are cases where maids are absolutely necessary, especially if we have elderly or the young to take care of at home. In that case, we will definitely need someone to help out when we are working. In Singapore, most people are busy working since very few of us can afford not to work as the cost of living in Singapore is very high. So, we are left to hiring maids to take care of our children and do our household chores for us. I am not saying that this is a good thing, but it’s a necessary “evil”.

I guess our children are also often spoiled by we having maids in the house. They have maids to bring them food, they have maids to clean the house for them and basically, they have maids to do everything for them. I wonder whether they can survive without a maid? I am pretty sure that we have youngsters nowadays who have never pick up a broom in their life. And cooking? Most of them never cooked in their life. However, I am a realist and I know that no matter what complains I have, maids are here to stay.

It is also important that we choose the correct maid. And a good maid agency can help you find a good maid and get “replacements” if necessary. The reason why we hire maids is to make life easier for us and hiring the wrong maid could spell a lot of trouble, not to mention financial headaches as we need to pay fines for any wrongdoing our maids have done during their employment here. So I have created a list of Singapore Maid Agencies for you. Hope that it will be useful for your hunt.

Again, I have to disappoint you guys. I had said that my next brew will be the Apfelwein but again circumstances have forced me to change and now I will be brewing another 2 different beers. One would be a Wheat beer while the other a Draught for my friends. I had told them that I have plans for a cider (that’s the Apfelwein) but they had wanted beers to be ready by the middle of next month for a party or something. So, if I were to make the Apfelwein, it would be way too late and I won’t be ready. I believe that the Apfelwein takes about 4 weeks to complete fermentation so during that time, my fermenter would be out of commission. And when the fermentation is complete, I won’t have enough time to do the Wheat beer and the Draught for my friends for their party.

So I ditch my plans for the Apfelwein and will be doing a Wheat beer first and then the Draught. Actually they wanted only Wheat beer, but my online supplier has offers for a package of both a Wheat beer and a Draught. And the price is just S$60 for the package and it comes with 1kg of Dextrose and 1Kg of liquid Wheat malt. Well, those ingredients make for a very light-alcoholic session beer, just what my friends need for their party. I also got myself a twin level capper and caps as I will be going for glass bottles now. I got my glass bottles from the coffee shop downstairs.They have a lot of these bottles lying around and whenever I have the opportunity I would grab one or two bottles. I would normally choose the Tiger beer bottles as they are the easiest to remove the labels, plus they are plentiful in Singapore. Just soak them in water (or a little bleach) for about 30 minutes and the labels come off when you run your fingers over them. Cool!

Well, here are the photos of what I have purchased for this beer.

That’s the Morgan’s Golden Sheaf Wheat Beer. It’s an awarding winning recipe, so I expect good things from this. Hopefully, the colour won’t be dark like the Blue Mountain Lager which actually scared a lot of my friends off. Let’s keep our fingers cross. I may even be doing a Hoegaarden Clone! Just need to add Corriander seeds and orange rinds, Wheat Malt and some Dextrose.

The back of the Morgan’s Golden Sheaf Wheat Beer can. Some instructions about making the beer which I never read.

Due on the 3rd of October. Good, at least I know it is still okay.

Yes, that’s the Morgan’s Stockman’s Draught. This is a very good party drink as all Draught beers are. Not too strong and surely it will go down easy with casual drinkers at a party. However, I am also very worried about the resulting colour of the brew. If it turns out too dark then it could be a major problem to get people to drink the beer. People will just be put off by the colour.

The back of the Morgan’s Stockman’s Draught.

The due date on the bottom of the can. Those are my toes on the left.

Hoot! That’s the liquid Wheat Malt that will go with the Wheat Beer Kit. Yummy, one kg of Wheat malt ready to be turned to even better tasting beer! I am really keeping my fingers cross that the colour of the Wheat Malt is okay. However, it may be that only barley malts that darken due to age and the Wheat Malt is still okay in terms of colour? We can only hope. However, we all know that the Wheat Malt is actually about 1/3 wheat and the rest is still from barley. So….

The back of the Morgan’s Master Blend Wheat Malt. This can expires in August unlike the two beer kits which expires in October. That’s one of the reasons why I am doing the Wheat Beer first. Actually, I should be doing the Draught first as the Wheat Beer doesn’t benefit from aging unlike barley based beers. However, I think it is better to ensure the freshness of the Wheat Malt and do it first.

That’s the dextrose. For that alcoholic kick we all love so much. However, I think adding too much can really water down the beer. Perhaps just half for the Draught?

That’s the Twin Level Capper. What you do is place the cap on the magnet on the capper, put the capper slot on the glass bottle top and then push down both the handles. This little plastic tool makes the capping very easy. Of course, there are better ones which I cannot afford currently. It’s a bench capper but I think that this will do until I have the money to buy better equipment.

It actually looks like some sort of ancient torturing device. Scary.

Yo, those are the caps for the bottles. You place them on the capper.

Well guys, hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I have enjoyed posting them. I will also be posting the actually brew itself soon. I think it will be next week when I do the Wheat beer. Yes, with full pictures!

Even with my broadband which is supposed to be blazing fast for local sites, accessing NS.SG is still very slow. How many of you have tried accessing this site and felt that the speeds are really unacceptable? I tried accessing it in the mornings, in the afternoon and in the evenings, no luck there, all the same - super slow. I wonder why such an important site for NS Men like me, the speeds are so slow. I mean it is not only important for just people like me, but also NSF, Employers (for NS Men payment matters) and basically every male in Singapore. We need to access this site often to check up on our NS liabilities.

I think it’s their server(s) that is causing the slow speeds when accessing it. Perhaps their server(s) cannot handle the huge amount of traffic that can be generated everyday by people like me who wants to know whether we have a recall manning or a 21 day ICT scheduled. What were they thinking when they planned for the setting up of the site? I mean, it’s bound to have a great deal of traffic everyday, considering that we have tens of thousands of active NSF and NSMen who needs to the site. Is this what we expect from our highly paid government officials? And worse of it, it’s been this way for a long time already. I am sure that they have realized that the speeds are unacceptable and would have at least tried to do something about it. But alas, it has remained slow and sluggish since the beginning. Perhaps they didn’t notice the slow speeds? Perhaps access from government intranets have priority and thus they don’t feel that it is slow?

Or perhaps they don’t think it is important? We peasants who had spent our time and a huge effort to defend our country certainly don’t need to do things fast. We can sit in front of the monitor and wait about 10 minutes for each page to load for all they care. They are definitely not going to spend money to upgrade their servers or increase their bandwidth just for peasants. I think they believe that we are unworthy of faster speeds. It is surprising that the government keeps on telling Singaporeans that they should do their part in defending the country, yet the site which links everything together is unable to handle it. Well….

As you guys know, I have upgraded from using bleach to do my sanitizing to using Iodophor. Well, I actually wanted to use Star San which every brewer was raving about but my supplier gave me Iodophor instead. So I am currently using Iodophor to do my sanitizing, but I have to say, it is great as a sanitizer. And it is much cheaper too (compared to Star San). It cost about S$4 for a 70ml bottle. You need to mix just 1ml of Iodophor to 500ml of water for it to be effective. Anyway, you don’t have to be so exact. Just ensure that the solution is amber in colour and your sanitizier is still effective. Plus, the Iodophor just needs about 2 minutes of contact time with the surface to get rid of the nasties. I normally just use a spray bottle which I got from my local hardware store and spray the entire solution on my brewing equipment. Let it stay on for 5 minutes and then attempt to dry it.

At first I was worried about the smell and how it will affect the taste of my beer. But surprisingly, it didn’t smell as bad as I expected and it (as the solution) didn’t have any taste at all. My brew tasted fine even when I didn’t rinse off the sanitizer afterwards. Not too sure what they did, but Iodine (the main sanitizing ingredient in Iodophor) usually smells damn bad and probably taste even worse. And, yes, there was no infection for the brew I just did. For that, I am glad.

I am surprised that a lot of brewers prefer Star San to Iodophor. Perhaps it is because Iodophor might stain their equipment. But if the correct concentration is used or if you don’t soak it for an excessive period of time, I don’t think there will be any staining. Well, from what I can see my equipment seems stain-free and the only smell is the beer smell. I can’t get rid of the beer smell from my brewing equipment, especially the fermenter.

If we were actually invaded by aliens from outer space and seek to destroy us, who do you guys think they will likely to kill first? I guess this is the very question for the government to wonder as they are the ones who must protect the important people in our country. Aliens are smart, that’s why they have space ships that can fly in space and can warp time and matter. They are also smart enough to build weapons of mass destruction (maybe like those found in Iraq) that can annihilate the human race from the face of this Earth. The only choice we have to is hide these important people and hope that the aliens cannot find them so that later on, we can continue living on as a human race.

However, we must first know who to protect and who we should throw to the wolves. Well, here is my own take on this important matter, we must protect the following groups of people.

1. Beer Makers - Without beer, we are nothing. Also we cannot get drunk and say silly things.
2. Kung Fu People - Without Kung Fu, we cannot fly about and dodge bullets. Pandas as well. They are so cute.
3. Pizza Makers - Without Pizza, we will grow hungry. When we are hungry, we get moody and cry/complain.
4. Teachers - Without teachers, we cannot sleep. And when we cannot sleep, we can’t do great things.
5. Mobile Phone Makers - Without mobile phones, we cannot discuss about the latest movies and fashion. We also cannot spread rumours fast enough to ruin people’s lives.
6. Janitors - Without janitors, we got to clean our own toilets. Where got time?
7. Internet Makers - Without Internet, we cannot share files. If we cannot share files, then what’s the point of living? We also cannot watch Youtube and post nasty messages on blogs.

Okay, that’s about it. For the sake of humanity, that’s all we should protect and perhaps hide them in an underground mountain where alien lasers cannot penetrate. Or we could build those nuclear bunkers with lead shielding? And we should also consider having an emergency response team which could extract these people and rush them to these special hideouts/bunkers fast. You will never know how fast the Aliens can strike.

For the rest of the people, I am sorry. But you guys are disposable so you will have to die if the Aliens come knocking on our front door.

And this time I will be really brewing it. Yes, I know that a few weeks back I said that I will brew the Apfelwein but instead I brewed another batch of beer. Yes, sorry about that but those are requested by my friends and I had no choice. It’s sad that they don’t drink cider. But not to worry, I will be weening them towards it soon enough. However, from what I have read, this Apfelwein is somewhat a very delicious drink with a lot of kick in the end. And the females love it too. Something of a plus when you are doing your own brewing as the wife or the girlfriend would not be gunning for you when you dirty the kitchen or when you are spending hours in the kitchen instead of accompanying them.

If you would like the recipe, please take a look at my old post. It’s based on Edwort’s recipe(from Homebrewtalk.com) but instead I will be using Fuji Apple Juice. I am sure that it will turn out great as I always liked Fuji apples. They are much sweeter and aromatic compared to other apples. Hopefully, it will turn out just as sweet (or at least more sweet) instead of a dry hard cider which a lot of people had said it would. Oh, adding sugar to the “brew” will not help as it wll just ferment out and give it more alcohol.

Have any of you tried before this very easy but award winning recipe? All you have to do is to get all your apple juice (must not have any preservatives), add in some sugar and then the yeast. Leave it for about 4 weeks or so to ferment out and you are done. No need to do any boiling, mashing, steeping, avoiding boilovers and whatever. Just add juice. Nothing can be simpler than that. And if all goes well, I think I will be doing more of this.

Yes, I broke my hydrometer. How did it happen? Well, I was washing my hydrometer which comes in a jar. Apparently, the cover for this jar isn’t exactly tightly fitted with the jar. So I poured water into the jar along with the hydrometer inside and then, perhaps due to the way I was holding the jar, the cover gave way and the hydrometer dropped onto the floor. It broke into a million pieces. Note that the hydrometer is made of glass, so it stood no chance when it dropped onto the floor. Of course, I spent the entire 15 minutes going around looking for little pieces of broken glass which could pose a threat to my family’s feet.

What a waste. And why is it always so fragile? I now have to go and buy another hydrometer which cost about 18 bucks. This is probably the most important instrument for brewing beer. You can’t brew beer without it. It will tell you how much alcohol is there in your beer. And it can be used to figure out whether your brew’s fermentation is done or not. If the hydrometer reading is constant for 3 days running, then the brew should have completed fermentation and you can bottle your beer. You can also use it to play “light saber” with your fellow brewers if you so desire. However, you may need to “mod” the hydrometer to add a neon light to mimic it accurately.

If only someone designed a plastic hydrometer which will not break so easily. It should be possible to make a hydrometer from plastic as I think the hydrometer depends on the weight and the surface area and not on the material.

Wow, we are getting some real weird weather in Singapore. Just yesterday when I was out, we have about 10 different weather patterns in a space of one hour. No, I am not joking at all. When I left my house, it was sunny. When I reach the bus-stop, it was raining. When my bus came, it was sunny again! When I reach my destination, it was raining heavily. And when I returned to the bus stop, it was windy and cloudy. After that I took the bus home, it was sunny again. Well, I cannot give you the exact time or weather, but it sure was crazy.

Perhaps now the weather is going cuckoo and we are paying for what we have done to the environment? You know, pollution and crap we throw out everyday when we drive cars, burn stuff and generally dirty the air we breathe? I think they call it green house effect and those are green house gases which trap the heat and it can’t escape. Luckily in Singapore, we don’t have those “freaks of nature” like cyclones and tornados and diasters like that. We do get the lesser kinds. But I was wondering how long will it be before we too face such diasters if we don’t stop polluting our environment? I mean we are facing weird weird weather patterns already.

Just this morning, we are facing a huge heatwave again. Yes, it’s morning and it’s very very warm already. Normally, it won’t be sunny till about 8 to 9am. Today, it is blazing hot at 745am! The sad thing is that most Singaporeans are not worried about polluting our environment. Either that or they don’t give a damn. However, I am appealing to everyone of you to start protecting our environment. You don’t need to do alot, just perhaps don’t drive for one day in a week. Or just bring your own bag when you do grocery shopping. It’s very simple and doesn’t take much effort. And you can make a difference.