It’s the holiday season once again and you’re trying to think of thoughtful gifts for your information security professional.  You need something that will give him/her a little bit of that hacker feeling, but not require too much time or effort.  Or, maybe just something to take the edge off fighting advanced persistent tigers.

Well, L1pht is here to help!

1. Traditions Black powder pistol kit – $179 to $260
    

   You’re infosec pro will have tremendous fun working with his hands as he puts together this pistol kit. If he keeps all of his fingers, the possibilities are endless.  Now that’s goin’ out in style!

2. Scotch – $75 to $250
   
   
3. A Year of Burp Suite Pro – $299
   If you’re information security professional doesn’t already have a copy of Burp Suite Pro, treat her to a year’s worth the web application hacking enjoyment. After all that scotch they’ll probably get belligerent and want to raise a ruckus. By going pro they’ll get no throttling, one of the best scanners on the planet and so much more. Show someone you love them with Burp!
4. Web Application Hackers Handbook 2nd Edition – $31.11
   
   A great stand alone gift or companion for #3, the Web Application Hackers Handbook is THE goto book for web application security testing.
   
5. Beer – $12 – $50
   Showing you care doesn’t have to break the bank. This will put a smile on that depressed little face. Pick up anything from Great Divide Brewing, Gulden Draak or St. Bernardus to help make someone’s holiday season a bit brighter and the pain a bit duller.

Feel free to drop other gift ideas.

Beer, community fluff, gifts, holidays

Once again, l1pht is turning out beer. It’s getting cooler out, and nothing warms my bones like a killer stout. I found a great base recipe for a clone of North Coast’s Old Rasputin. I thought of attempting the clone straight away, but then thought, why not tweak it a bit. After attempting to get the grain bill filled in one place, I had to make a few more changes. Here’s what I ended up with.

Recipe:

• 9lbs – Northern Brewer’s Organic Light Malt Syrup
• 1lb – Briess Caramel 20L
• 1lb – Briess Organic Crysal 120L
• .75lb – Simpsons Chocolate
• .25lb – Simpsons Roasted Barley
• .5lb – Crisp Brown Malt
• 1oz – Centennial pellets
• 1oz – Northern Brewer pellets
• 3oz – Cluster pellets
• White Labs WLP001 California Ale

We steep the malts at 150*F for 30 minutes.  Add extract and bring to boil.  Add the cluster hops and a bit of Irish moss for 60 minutes.  Add the Nothern Brewer and centennial hops just before the end of the boil (last 2 minutes).  After this, it’s back to business as usual.

This was the first beer that I got to use a yeast starter and my immersion chiller.   It turned out well and has some of the Old Rasputin roasty notes with a big upfront sweetness.  Find me at a meeting for a sample.  Slainte!

Beer Beer, recipes

The L1pht 0ffensive Brewery is starting to take shape with the addition of a keggle hot liquor tank. For anyone thinking of doing a keg to kettle conversion it’s incredibly easy. Grab your keg, an angle grinder, a drill and a hole saw that will allow the valve to be mounted.

Draw a circle on the top with a Sharpie. Fire up the angle grinder and go to town. My go at it had sparks flying, so be sure to shield children or that pile of oily rags.

It shouldn’t take more than an hour to cut and sand the edges so that they don’t shred the brewer’s arms.

I used a 7/8″ hole saw to drill a hole in the keg 3 3/4 inches from the bottom of the keg. Adding lubrication for this cut is suggested to reduce wear on the hole saw. My valve is a weldless valve from Northern Brewer. I will say I have a small, but annoying little leak which I plan to take care of ASAP, but the HLT does hold water and the leak shouldn’t keep us from brewing.  Pictures after the jump… Read more…

Beer Beer, Brewery, Keggle

It’s spring and I was in the mood to build an extract IPA with some balance. Mission accomplished.

Ingredients:

Cooper’s IPA Extract
DME – 3lbs
Crystal 20 – 1lb
Munich – 1lb
Yakima hops – 1oz
Liberty hops – 1oz
Cascade hops – 1oz
White Labs English Ale Yeast

Bring water to 170*F.  Steep grains for 45 minutes.  At the end of the steep I ran the wort through the grains in a colander a few times(4).  Throw in DME and LME.  Add Yakima and go 20 minutes.  Add Cascade and go 20 minutes.  Add Liberty and go 20 minutes.

After a week in primary I racked to secondary and repitched a sizeable starter.  Look for this sucker to be poppin’ b0xen at the next OKC2600!  Brew!

Beer Beer, IPA, Recipe

Recently I had seen a TED talk on baking bread.  The speaker expressed in great detail his love for bread and somewhere in the mix he mentioned the idea of using spent grain from brewing as an ingredient.  I was taken in by the idea.

Malted grains that are used in the brewing process have been specifically modified.  From the germination and halting of growth at early stages, to the roasting and drying processes afterward, much energy is poured into processing these grains for the purpose of making beer.  To me it seemed like an incredible waste to just dump the stuff in the garbage.

Here’s the current recipe for Spent Grain Bread:

Read more…

Beer Baking, Beer, Brewing, recipes