Two recipes: beer and biscotti

I tried two experiments this weekend, a beer and a variation on a biscotti recipe.

I won't know how good the beer is for another 2 months or so. Here is the ingredient list:

Wayward Monk Ale

• 6 lbs Northern Brewer Amber Malt Extract


• 3.15 lbs Northern Brewer Dark Malt Extract


• 1 1b Dark Belgian Candi Sugar


• Wyeast Belgian Abbey II yeast (#1762)


• 1 oz Fuggle hops


• 1 oz Saaz hops


• 1 oz Hallertau Mittelfruh hops


• 1 gm of Myrica gale


• 1 pinch of Wormwood


• 1 lbs Belgian Biscuit Malt


• 1 lbs Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee Malt

The last two ingredients I forgot to order, and they will have to be added later. I'm not sure what effect that will have. I'm also not sure what this beer will be like - its kind of a winter-warmer/scotch ale/Belgian abbey hybrid. But that's why I homebrew - why make something you can buy in a store?

The biscotti is already a clear success. The recipe is essentially from Baking Illustrated, which I highly recommend.

• 2 cups of flour (I like to use some whole wheat in there)


• 1 tsp baking powder


• 1/2 tsp salt


• 3 tbsp unsalted butter


• 1 cup sugar (I like to use some portion of brown sugar)


• 2 eggs


• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract


• 2 oz sliced almonds, roasted briefly in a pan


• 1/2 cup of cocoa nibs (I used the organic Dagoba ones, which are the only thing I have ever seen in a supermarket)

You make the dough into two loaves, cook for about 25 minutes at 350 F. Take it out and slice into strips, then rebake at 325 for about 15 minutes. Its very easy but seems to impress people as much as much more difficult baked goods.

Polytopes in Sage, take 1

Here's a first attempt at a short video intro to polytopes in Sage. Sage 4.0, which should be released soon, has some new functionality that was added during Sage Days 15 (thanks to David Perkinson for reviewing some of that, and Rob Beezer for helping David learn the review ropes).

The video is about 4 MB and can be found here. I am not sure how the format will work on other computers so if anyone takes a look and it doesn't work let me know. Also, I am interested in getting constructive criticism on the video.

boolean Adelaide

Just a little follow-up post to my Adelaide Venn diagram post. I wanted to double-check its correctness, so I made this diagram showing whether each set was included or not. Color by numbers!

Protein of the Day #20: Sirtuin1

This week there is an set of articles in Science on the protein Sirtuin1. The sirtuin family is very interesting, involved in ageing, epigenetic gene silencing, and other cellular regulation. The Science articles provide some new links of Sirtuin1 to circadian rhythms and matebolism.

Here's a static shot of the common 3D domain of the sirtuin superfamily:



The NAD+ dependence of Sirtuin1 seems to be an important link between the circadian system, the metabolic state of the cell, and genetic regulation. As always, I am wondering if there are connections here to mammalian hibernation...