The Ricky Show - Cold Brew, Healthy Eating, Active Living... and Beers

We’re joined by Cary’s brother-in-law who got Cary into homebrewing. Rick joins us to talk about healthy eating, MCT coffee and living a healthy, active, outdoor lifestyle. In the process, we share a few beers and have a few laughs about the tipping point with overusing MCT oil.

Highlights & Takeaways

Our introduction to brewing.

More emphasis on the importance of cleaning and sanitizing.

Hot brewed coffee is to crystal meth as cold brew coffee is to pure Colombian cocaine. [Not tested. Not necessarily true.]

MCT Oils – Fractionated coconut oil

Ketogenic Diet w/ a rough daily example – High fat, low carb diet

What we mentioned on during this show

Episode 18 Transcript

Brendan: Hey there, welcome back to Episode 18 of the Drips & Draughts podcast. As always I’m Brendan Hanson. And today we’ve got a wild episode for you. We’ve got two guests in the studio. Well, not guests, I guess we’ll call Cary my co-host now. And we’ve got Ricky, Cary’s brother in law, to talk bulletproof coffee, climbing, beers, MCT oils and much much more. If anything from this episode sparks your interest, you can read the show notes at dripsanddraughts.com/18.

A bit of our thought process behind this episode was to talk about kind of the healthy life style that can go alongside cold brew coffee. And Ricky is on here to talk about that because he’s a pretty outdoorsy guy, pretty active, leads a pretty healthy lifestyle. And we touched on this briefly in Episode 10 when we’re joined by Eric Johnson from Trident Coffee. So wanted to have somebody else on just give their own take on how they incorporate cold brew into their lifestyle. So good episode today, lots of info, lots of tangents. It’s a wild one folks. So buckle up. Get ready, here we go, Episode 18 of the Drips & Draughts podcast.

[music]

Brendan: Alright. Welcome back to the Drips & Draughts podcast. As always I’m Brendan Hanson and today we have multiple guests. One, I’ve got my brother who got me into brewing beer and now we’ve got his brother in law, Ricky, who got him into brewing beer. So long story there, I’ll let them tell you about it, while I grab a beer for the guys.

Cary: Cheers. Yes. So we got Ricky here today.

Rick: Ricky. [chuckles]

Cary: Ricky, yes. You don’t like being called Ricky? I forgot – Rick.

Rick: No, you’re family, you can call me Ricky.

Cary: So I think it was an earlier podcast we actually talked about this a bit about how I got into home-brewing and I think it was you that sparked my interest. And we got a kit together and started doing that. What many years ago?

Rick: Yes. The Netflix actually got us into it.

Cary: That’s right. What was that Brew Wars?

Rick: Brew Wars or Beer Wars.

Cary: I think it was Brew Wars who was the- [pause]

[laughter]

Cary: The head brewer of Dogfish Head brewing, which we’re going to have a beer right now [clears throat] in celebration of this. We’re having a Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA. This is probably one of the best IPAs.

Rick: Probably my favorite.

Cary: Yes.

Rick: This and actually the 60 minute IPA is really good as well.

Cary: it is. Yes. But yes, any time we can find these, especially on sale where we’re all over them. But that documentary, I think it’s still free on Netflix, we’ve started watching that and we got just into the idea of making your own beer and seeing the owner of Dogfish Head, making these beers, experimenting, leaving the stuff out on the countertop, just doing crazy things, it was just so cool.

Rick: Yes, I think we got that first brew kit at Costco, right?

Cary: It was Costco. Yes. [crosstalk] plastic buckets.

Rick: Yes, and then I remember you emailed a bunch of people and we got a clone kit for free from somebody. [crosstalk]

Cary: That’s right.

Rick: That was our first thing-

Cary: It was- [crosstalk]

Brendan: Brewcraft.

Cary: Yes, it was Brewcraft USA.

Rick: How did you do that? You emailed the guy- [crosstalk]

Cary: So I mean before all this, we had or we still do. Brew PS is our home brewing company where we started selling and distributing homebrew equipment on the internet. So yes, we started reviewing drinks and recipes on there and we were thinking, let’s make our own beer and write some reviews. And I think it was just a Brown Ale, like a Newcastle Brown.

Rick: Yes, it like it an amber, kind of like Newcastle. And it ended up turning up pretty good actually.

Cary: It turned out really good and after that we were like, “Wow, this is–“ [crosstalk]

Rick: And after that I remember we did the honey ginger brew and we had a-

Cary: That’s right, our own creation.

Rick: Yes, and we had a sushi party and unveiled that. It was really good, really fun.

Cary: Yes, honey ginger ale. That’s right.

Rick: Yes.

Brendan: I think you were pulling those honey ginger beers out of your front closet at your old condo for quite a while.

Cary: Yes. [laughs] There were some- [crosstalk]

Brendan: Hey, look what I found.

Cary: -hidden back in there for a year or two. They did get better with age though.

Brendan: In Corona bottles.

Cary: That’s right.

[laughter]

Rick: Classic.

Brendan: And what the weird thing about that was, I remember when we first started brewing, I didn’t realize how important sanitizing was and that was like biggest part of brewing was not like the ingredients you put in the beer. It was more keeping everything clean.

Cary: That’s something we’ve been talking about a lot, recently with this cold brewing that everyone’s been doing. I think it’s a new thing for a lot of coffee shops and roasters to be brewing coffee in room temperature, where bacteria thrives, not with heat and killing off bacteria. It’s the same- [crosstalk]

Brendan: Let me ask where you guys found out that that was so important, cleaning and sanitizing? Because we get phone calls like say for coffee, “I’m brewing my coffee, I emptied it, I filled it back up and I did that again and again and again and now I’ve got this weird coffee smell in this thing.”

Cary: Right. I think it was just like when we first started brewing, it was like we’d go on YouTube, How to Brew.

Brendan: Yes, that’s what I would say- –

Cary: And everybody just started stressing–

Rick: Cleaning.

Cary: -cleaning. And I don’t think cold brewing is there yet. There’s the small systems on the market that tell you what to do, they’ve interchangeable filters but if you’re using big fermenting equipment, like Cold Brew Avenue sells stainless steel equipment, you’re going to be needing to really wash the stuff and make sure you’re doing your due diligence with cleaning and sanitizing.

Brendan: Yes. Don’t you remember, we would dip- we literally would put everything in the sanitizer. We dip our hands in it, we dip lids in it, we dip the caps in it. Everything we would put in that Saniclean?

Cary: Saniclean or Starsan, we have a five gallon pail, it’s just a plastic bucket full of just a mix sanitizer right next to us. Anything that came in contact with the beer or if– for now speaking about coffee, we dip our hands in it, if we’re going to touch anything. [crosstalk]

Rick: Still our same process.

Cary: It is. Yes. So it’s actually been a good thing to come from, I guess a brewing background into this coffee background.

Brendan: Speaking of our process, just a little cold brew update that was bottled on May 21st, we brewed it on May 20th, so it’s over two months old now. Still no signs of mold.
[laughter]

Cary: That’s right, we’re talking about that.

Rick: I like the container you have it into- [crosstalk]

Brendan: You like that little Kirkland water bottle, [laughter] shout out to Kirkland.

[laughter]

Brendan: That’s where we get all our-

Rick: As you dip that in Sanicleans.

Brendan: No, this one we actually didn’t just to– all our brewing equipment was, this was just a water bottle that we emptied, filled it with coffee and yes, still looking clean. So. Yes, clean and sanitation, I don’t know how we got– [crosstalk]

Rick: I use that stuff for everything. I use it for hydration packs, it works great like cleaning hydration packs and– [crosstalk]

Cary: Oh I bet. Yes.

Rick: [unintelligible 00:08:54] we use it in, because you can’t- [crosstalk]

Brendan: Oh, for like CamelBak and stuff?

Rick: Yes.

Brendan: That’s a good idea.

Rick: Otherwise, you’ve got a- they have some product buy to clean.

Brendan: Expensive?

Rick: Yes, it’s expensive and that’s Saniclean, whatever it’s called, Starsan or whatever. [crosstalk]

Cary: Yes, there’s a few out there. Yes, they all work the same.

Rick: And it goes really long way.

Brendan: So, by the way one of the reasons we’re having Ricky on the podcast is because- I mean Rick, I’m sorry.

[laughter]

Rick: No, you’re family.

Brendan: Is because he’s an outdoorsman and one of the things that is synonymous with cold brew coffee is just out outdoorsmanship. The guys at Trident Coffee who were on- I think Episodes 10 and 12 or 10 and 13, are heavy in the outdoors, in the outdoor lifestyle. Rick is- [crosstalk]

Cary: Just healthy eating in general too, I would say.

Brendan: Yes. Low acidity, low acidic foods. Rick is an outdoorsman as well. He just got back from climbing. He climbed up our stairs that we built here, [laughter] on to the second floor. No. You do a lot of outdoor activities, correct?

Rick: Yes, I do. I do pretty much everything here in California: I surf, I climb, I do a lot of long distance hiking and backpacking and stuff. And yes, I love — Actually, I have just recently started drinking coffee, I never liked regularly brewed coffee, it has always made me feel pretty crapy. I kind of compare it to like if you were a– not that I would have any experience, but —

Brendan: Sure, so you’ve heard–

Rick: It’s like, I feel like regular coffee is like crystal meth whereas Cold Brew is like, it’s pure Colombian cocaine.

Brendan: What a fantastic analogy.

Cary: Pablo Escobar.

Brendan: Sure most of them taste very similar.

Rick: No for real though sometimes when I drink regular coffee I feel like, I really do feel cruddy after, I feel like I don’t know what it is but when I drink Cold Brew I feel much cleaner energy from it. I don’t have the calm down that I do with regularly brew coffee. Something about Cold Brew coffee just makes me feel better, it’s much better energy that I get.

Brendan: Right.

Rick: I drink it pretty much every day.

Brendan: Do you think that’s due to the lower acidity level or is it the way you drink? Because I know you drink it differently than just having black cold brew coffee, right, how do you make your coffee?

Rick: Well I do drink it just plain sometimes. Sometimes I’ll go to Rag Muffin when I’m at work and I will grab one from there and they make excellent cold brew there but usually I put, in the mornings I’ll put, I do what a lot of people know it as the Dave Asprey.

Cary: The bulletproof.

Rick: The bullet proof coffee, yes, which was originally, I believe it was originally talked about in one of Rob Wolfe’s book. He’s the guy who did, who started the primal eating movement, I believe it’s called, what is that? Elio, the Elio Diet.

Brendan: Elio Diet.

Cary: Elio Diet.

Rick: Mark Sison who wrote The Primal Blueprint. He also talks about it and basically what it is it’s I put two tablespoons of the Kerry Gold grass fat butter in it.

Brendan: I love that.

Rick: Which is delicious butter.

Brendan: A loaf of bread.

Rick: Yes. It is the best butter.

Brendan: Healthy eating.

Rick: Actually the great thing about that butter too is that you can actually take it out of the refrigerator cold and it’s still pretty soft. And then I put two tablespoons of MCT oil which is fractionated coconut oil. They put coconut oil on a centrifuge and they basically extract the medium chain triglycerides out of it and you can only do two tablespoons of it or I can only do two tablespoons of that because there’s a tipping point with MCT oil. If you have too much of it, it can cause some problems.

Brendan: Right.

Cary: I have an oil spill to be honest.

Rick: Yes, I had a problem in Martials last time I was there.

Cary: It’s better than [unintelligible 00:13:03]

Rick: I had to run home with a limp.

Brendan: What does MCT oil cost compared to just buying the coconut oil?

Rick: I believe you can get MCT oil at Whole Fruits for about 15 bucks you get like a —

Cary: Like a pint.

Rick: It’s like a 16 ounce bottle and it’s about 15 bucks, it lasts forever.

Brendan: Okay, it’s a little bit more but you don’t use much.

Rick: You don’t use much because you can’t use much like I said.

Brendan: Right.

Rick: I usually, so I will put that with some Cold Brew, I will warm some Cold Brew up in my microwave, brew it in my blender, blend it up, take like a little scoop of stevia put it in there.

Cary: To sweeten it.

Rick: To sweeten it, yes and literally I will drink that at five in the morning and I will be fine until about ten-eleven o’clock. I won’t be hungry, I’ll feel good [crosstalk]

Brendan: No crush, no jitters.

Rick: No crush and I don’t know if this is true or not but there’s something about I think when you put fat with caffeine, to me it feels like it’s a much slower release where I don’t have a crush in my energy but I —

Brendan: You don’t get quick spike and then the quick crush.

Rick: Exactly, I get like that sustained caffeinated effect for hours.

Cary: That’s interesting. Yes, it’s funny one of the reasons we wanted you on the podcast was to talk about that the bulletproof coffee, MCT oils just a fattened up coffee I guess. We talked about it on the third of July which is a huge holiday around our area, third of July folks, crazy fireworks show but I actually finally tried a bullet proof coffee for the first time.

Brendan: What did you think?

Cary: It was good, it was just the MCT oils, I watched them put a scoop of butter in there, they poured hot coffee in a blender, blended it up for me, put it back in my cup and yes it was basically a black coffee with oils in it and it tasted good.

Brendan: It was smooth.

Cary: It was smooth.

Rick: Nutty.

Brendan: Was it cold brewed coffee or was it?

Cary: This one was not, this one was a hot coffee and it was good, it was —

Brendan: It was still smooth.

Cary: Yes, it was good and I’m not a huge fun of hot black coffee, this was very drinkable, it was different so I’d love to try with Cold Brew.

Rick: Yes, it’s great with cold brew, that’s like my breakfast in the morning sometimes when I’m in a rush and I don’t have much time to make something I just make one of those and it works as a breakfast. Especially I’m obviously drinking Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA right now, so I’m not currently on the ketogenic diet that I was —

Brendan: That’s right.

Rick: A couple of weeks back I made it my goal so I’m off of it now but that was a great meal replacement while I was on a ketogenic diet.

Cary: It was like a bulletproof type coffee?

Rick: Yes, because it’s got a lot of fat in it.

Brendan: What is the keto diet exactly? Just for people that might not know and listening?

Rick: Quickly the ketodiet is basically a high fat very low carbohydrate diet. I was restricting myself to about 50 carbohydrates per day.

Brendan: Damn.

Cary: Grams?

Rick: Yes.

Cary: Okay.

Rick: Whatever carbohydrates are measured by on the back of the label.

Cary: How they are measured. I measure them by slices of bread, it’s like pizza.

Rick: I think there’s about at least 50 in a slice of bread, so my diet consisted of very low carbohydrates and very high fats and one of the ways I got those fats was putting MCT oils and butter in my coffee and basically what happens is, when you restrict your body of carbohydrates, carbohydrates are the easiest thing for your body to grab on to and to use as an energy source.

Brendan: Burner.

Rick: Yes, so when you are starved of those your body has to go back in and create these things called Ketones which it makes in your live and Ketones basically are like carbohydrates but to me when I was on that diet it was the best, I wouldn’t even call it a diet, it’s like the best diet I’d ever been on because I felt amazing while I was on it, I was never hungry because I was eating tons of fats because I was satiated all the time. My brain functioned better, I don’t know if that had to do with cold brew coffee, the amount of coffee I was drinking but I definitely think it had to do with the amount of fats I was taking into my body and good fats.

Brendan: Sure.

Rick: It wasn’t like, once in a while I would have bacon and things like that but it was mostly like a lot of avocados and I would put MCT oil on everything, I would put butter on everything, olive oil on everything.

Brendan: What was that lunch you were telling me about you were just eating like liver puttee or something that didn’t sound good though, it sounded terrible.

Rick: That wasn’t very good but it worked.

Brendan: It kept you full right and so —

Rick: It gave me energy, one of, I did Mount Whitney a few weeks ago and I was on that diet all the way into the day that I did Mount Whitney and two years previously I had done Mount Whitney. When I came down from the mountain we did the one day hike. I was spent, I was beat. I could have done it again, I felt like being on that diet because my body always was, I always have fat, everybody always have fat, some kind of fat in their body. My body was I think going to that resource and using that resource instead of telling my brain that I was hungry for carbohydrates if that makes sense.

Brendan: Interesting.

Cary: To get off topic a little bit take us through a normal day of eating and drinking on that diet, if you would?

Rick: Okay. Basically in the morning I’d do the bulletproof coffee or the Rob Wolfe coffee, I like to call it the Rob Wolfe coffee because that’s where I first heard about it.
Then about eleven o’clock I would have a salad with avocado, no dressing, I’d get one of the Trader Joe salads the packaged ones, like the mozzarella ones.

Brendan: You didn’t put anything on it not even like olive oil or anything?

Rick: No, so I would put olive oil and MCT oil and avocados, I top it with avocados and I just I’d eat it that way. Then so after that, for lunch, usually after work, at one o’clock I’d go on a climb or go on a run, I’d take some nuts with me. I would eat like pistachio nuts or some almonds–

Cary: Sprouted nuts?
[crosstalk][laughter]
Brendan: Yes, we’ll talk about that.

Rick: No, just regular nuts, maybe sometimes chicken puttee and then for the normal dinner I would have grass-fed piece of steak, broccoli, like we had las night, broccoli and cheese sauce on it.

Brendan: Sounds like delicious eating, it does not sound like a diet.

Rick: Yes, great food.

Cary: Did you say cheese sauce?

Brendan: Yes, they have that– what was it? Cheddar cheese with caramelized onions. So they just melted that and poured over the broccoli? Holy cow– So good.

Rick: Yes and I lost 10 pounds. I am not fat by any means but–

Brendan: No, you’ve lost weight though.

Rick: I’m not fat by any means but —

Brendan: No, you’ve lost weight though over the last six months or whatever.

Rick: Yes, I had to lose weight because of climbing, because I want to get better at climbing the only way you get better at climbing besides practicing a lot is lowering your body weight because of the strength —

Brendan: Having to lift as much weight.

Rick: Exactly, so that was really important to me. Because I would get scared, I would get scared hanging off of a rock and not being able to hold on so it forced me to do something different and this thing, the ketogenic diet was the best thing that I have done as far as the diet has gone. It’s so easy to stick to delicious food, never hungry and it’s pretty healthy. I don’t know how long you should do it for I really I’m not that educated on it but definitely now I’m off of it like I’m off the real strict part of it but I definitely don’t eat as many carbs now, I don’t think I eat as many and I definitely —

Brendan: It’s been like a lifestyle change.

Rick: Totally, yes.

Cary: Interesting. Let’s talk about this first beer that we had, Lagoonitas.

Brendan: Yes, that’s a good beer so – where are they at?

Cary: These guys are up by Russian River —

Brendan: Up north, right?

Cary: In Northern California I believe. I don’t know how far away they are but good brewery we always get the Lagoonitas IPA around here. The few others that we see —

Brendan: A little some, some of those around.

Cary: Those some, some – don’t they have the slightly stoopid.

Rick: Stoopid, yes S-T-O-O-P-I-D?

Cary: Yes.

Brendan: This was a new one this year though, I guess they brewed it on the Equinox, the beer is called Equinox.

Rick: That’s what it is?

Brendan: I think they brewed it on the Equinox and that’s why I don’t know–

Cary: Well it’s not new, it says, “First brewed in 1995, brewed today in a time of change.” Maybe they brewed it when they were home brewing, it’s a good beer.

Brendan: It were, at least it hasn’t been distributed down to us.

Cary: It’s got the light dark label it’s a —

Brendan: Half-moon, half sun type look.

Cary: It just gives you that feel kind of feel when you try it, it’s multi but it’s still got hot flavors.

Brendan: It’s got good aroma.

Rick: It’s pale oat ale?

Cary: Yes, a genuine pale oat ale, so that’s probably the light malt and does it have dark malt, we don’t know, good beer though check it out if you haven’t tried it already, the Equinox, 8.4% EBV.

Brendan: We’ve had some doozies already.

Rick: I liked their Ruin 10 that made me feel good.

Brendan: That one kicked up a notch.

Cary: Yes, so after the Equinox we jumped on over to Stone Beer, this Stone Ruin 10, it’s a triple IPA, it’s the 2016. This one happens to be 10.8 alcohol by volume, its good.

Rick: Delicious.

Brendan: I think it was delicious.

Rick: Kind of like fruity.

Brendan: It was fruity, you could tell it’s strong when you drink it but it was good.

Rick: It wasn’t strong though like sometimes when you drink things that are strong, it taste very good that was — [crosstalk]

Brendan: No, it didn’t have that like alcohol burn but —

Rick: it was like scary strong where —

Cary: Look at this, Stone is no longer a print in there [laughter]

Brendan: Printing on the bottles, a plastic label stone.

Rick: [Unintelligible 00:23:57] Stone.

Brendan: Geez.

Cary: Mitch still is and everything goes to hell.

Brendan: You are going to have to cut that out, oh shit.

Rick: Why? Why did you have to cut that out?

Brendan: Okay and then the —

Rick: A little controversy is good.

Brendan: Then we are on the last beer the Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial, which is, this is good. I mean this is more of a multi IPA than I’d say Hoppy for sure but it’s such a clean.

Cary: It’s 90 minute imperial IPA, 9% alcohol by volume.

Brendan: These are all doozies, we are going to need a nap pretty soon.

Cary: Great beer, you know what you should get us the Exuberance IPA.

Rick: What was that IPA you guys brewed last, I believe it was sometime last year that was —

Brendan: We had that on for my daughter’s birthday I think.

Rick: The cleanest IPA I’ve ever had.

Brendan: That was really good.

Cary: Which one was this the Session or?

Brendan: No I don’t think it was the Session, I think it was just our normal IPA, we haven’t brewed in a long time, we got to brew again.

Cary: Yes, we do.

Brendan: We’ve gotten back to, we’ve figured out our process and we like extracting flavor and aroma from hops and not as much bitterness and not too much I guess malt you’d say. We limit our —

Cary: Greener and crispy.

Brendan: We limit our grain bill and we put the hops in towards the end just to get flavor and aroma not a ton of bitterness, not let the malt kill the beer and it’s been a great drink.

Rick: I remember it was real citrusy the IPA that you guys brewed and I forgot what you guys named it but I’ve had–

Cary: What was the last name of our last IPA that we made?

Brendan: We are going to tap that I’m sure and check it out.

Cary: Yes, we can find it. It’s interesting because we always hit the proper bitterness for an IPA. Because you have to be meeting certain criteria to call a beer —

Brendan: Right an IPA or a Stella, yes —

Cary: Yes and we always hit the bitterness level but I guess our method of hopping just doing first war rather than waiting for the beer to boil before adding hops. At least we feel that it mellows out the bitterness: it’s not so lingering, it’s not so bity so.

Rick: Yes, one of the things I can’t stand about– like IPA’s but I like a good IPA like Pliny the Elder or Dogfish Head 90 Minute IPA.

Cary: That doesn’t linger.

Rick: Doesn’t linger, doesn’t stay on your tongue, you can drink several of them and not get sick of that cruddy taste that sits on the back of your tongue.

Brendan: Yes, when it’s too over the top and it just lingers in your mouth, you are just like, you don’t want another beer after that.

Rick: Yes.

Brendan: Either that or you are just going to grab a Bud Lighter or something.

Rick: Yes, that’s what I have been gravitating towards lately.

Brendan: Geez, craft brewer what are you doing?

Rick: That one was good, I hope you guys make that again.

Cary: We need to brew.

Brendan: Yes.

Rick: I need to get my brew system going. Yes, this Dogfish Head 90 Minute Imperial IPA, this is kind [unintelligible 0:27:13] is that how you say it and he’s the guy who got you guys into brewing?

Brendan: [unintelligible 0:27:13] I think.

Brendan: I think that’s how he says it.

Rick: He got you guys into brewing?

Cary: Yes.

Rick: Beer Wars.

Brendan: Brew Wars on Netflix.

Rick: Brew Wars.

Brendan: You guys watch that like even if you are not a beer fun watch that it’s really cool how just – I know a lot of our listeners are small coffee shops and he was a young startup brewery back in the day 10 years ago.

Cary: In Delaware.

Brendan: Whenever it was in Delaware and just showing his startup and he walks you through a lot of stuff and shows you how he gets bullied by the big dogs in the industry and stuff and it’s just a really cool American —

Cary: Success story.

Brendan: Success story and startup and just really cool to see so whether or not you are a beer fun like watch this but —

Rick: It could relate to your coffee company.

Brendan: Exactly totally.

Rick: Super inspiring.

Brendan: It is.

Rick: I think, I mean it’s crazy to think too– I think about back when was that? In 2000 and when did you and Steph first get married?

Brendan: 06?

Rick: Yes, that was probably 2007 around —

Brendan: No, sorry we got married in 09.

Rick: I hoped you’re in the dark less than I.

Cary: I hope she doesn’t listen to this podcast.

Brendan: Drama marker there [laughter] What day is it?

Rick: 2010, it’s crazy to think about that though how the progression of that, watching that documentary brewing our first batch of beer and then you getting into Brew PS.

Brendan: Yes, launching a website to sell this stuff we saw a need for that.

Rick: Now all the way to this place you have.

Cary: We should tell that story.

Brendan: Yes and we touched on it earlier on when he was talking about how we got like sample kits and stuff and after Ricky and I brewed our first beer, I went on the internet started looking up how– like kits to buy, home brew kits —

Rick: You got obsessed.

Brendan: Yes, I got really obsessed and so my tray is graphic design, my brother’s tray is, he’s a web developer so we fit hand in hand in working together but I went online at the time and I was just like, “Wow all these companies selling stuff online, these are terrible websites. Like you just can’t really navigate them well,” and I guess this is how websites were in early 2000’s and stuff before there was a lot of money in it.

Cary: Just picture websites before the IPhone, things have changed a lot since then.

Brendan: Yes and so I went on all these sites and I was just like, “Man, Brian do you want to start a little home brew company,” and we threw 2,000 bucks out of my savings, ordered a bunch of supplies and we were packing and shipping boxes out of our office, we launched a little website looked great —

Cary: He says we, he ordered these supplies, I was working on a second floor of a building, he had a cushy job at a university.

Brendan: Pallet shows up at his house.

Cary: I get a pallet that’s taller than I am that shows up in the handicap parking spot, it might have been two pallets, both of them taller than me, I’m six foot five and I have to drag all this shit upstairs.

Brendan: [laughs] 55 pound grain bags, so good.

Cary: Bunch of bottles, bunch of all sorts of stuff. But that was kind of start– [crosstalk]

Brendan: That was the start–

Cary: of where we are now.

Brendan: Men we started the website, we got a little bit attraction, we recouped our money, made some money, and then maybe a year or two after we launched our site it looked a lot better than anything on the web and the big companies, everyone all of sudden had this new site revamp and it was just that like –

Cary: [laughs]

Brendan: -it was just like,” Damn.” Just threw the little guy down again, but–

Rick: But you guys, your site looks, I am not just being biased I don’t–

Brendan: They still hold up and people tell us like,” You guys your site’s great, we love it, it navigates well, it’s so easy to work around.” That’s what we try to do.

Cary: Or like the design elements of our site are not there anymore. They used to be like the sites were just designed, like the [unintelligible 00:31:33] site was cool. The green background. Looked like it was on the paper that we shipped everything in and with it, it was a cool looking site.

Brendan: Very on par with all the design elements yes.

Cary: Yes throughout stamped all our boxes with Brew PS

Brendan: [laughs]

Rick: And I just drunk the beer.

Cary: That’s right.

[laughter]

Cary: I’ve got friends right now that are just like, “Hey I need more coffee.” They call it crack now. I said, “The first one is free.”

Brendan: That’s right, come fill up we’ve got a keg right here.

Cary: Costco coffee.

Brendan: Costco coffee. So I know you talked about MCT oil, we’ just talked about that but we have coconut oil at home we use that for lotion, sometimes on our skin and my wife will just throw that in her coffee instead of the MCT oil. How does coconut oil’s taste like differ from MCT oil?

Rick: So coconut oil is great, I like the taste of coconut oil. You can use it for all kinds of different things like my wife uses it for [unintelligible 00:32:50] she does a thing called [unintelligible 00:32:51], where she puts in here mouth.

Brendan: Squishes it?

Rick: She squishes it around in her mouth and it supposedly helps coat the teeth with oil and have some kind of–

Brendan: Because it is supposed to help fight bacteria too, like we make deodorant from it right?

Rick: Yes detoxifying, anti-microbial I guess, anti-bacterial. So coconut oil is great too, but coconut oil some people especially working at Trader Joe’s, you hear a lot of people when I ask them if they like coconut oil I hear a lot of people say ,” My husband doesn’t like the taste.” or,” My wife doesn’t like the taste of coconut oil. It tastes too much like coconuts.” MCT oil basically has no taste to it. The other thing about MCT oil is when you get coconut oil it hardens at certain temperatures, whereas MCT oil it does not harden it only stays.

Brendan: Remains liquid.

Cary: That’s right.

Rick: Remains liquid yes.

Brendan: Coconut oil jar at home not right now in the summer we are screwed.

Cary: Yes you got to pour it out.

Brendan: In the winter, fall you see just these conglomerates forming in there. They are like jelly fishes floating around, or then it gets hard if it gets that cold.

Cary: Yes scoop it up.

Rick: But you can totally use coconut oil if you don’t have MCT oil. You can totally use that in your bulletproof coffee it works basically the same. It still frosts up on the top and it still tastes good.

Cary: So here is the question we are going to get, “I don’t have MCT oils and I don’t want to spend the money for them, to put into my coffee. How much coconut oil do I have to have to have a serving compared with MCT oils?”

Brendan: So let’s say we are making an eight ounce coffee. What would you say?

Cary: Eight ounces of coconut oil. [laughs]

Rick: I have no idea. I have no idea the point of tipping with MCT oil. For sure you’ve got to be very careful about how much you put into your coffee because it will cause a problem but I have never had a problem with coconut oil. So I would imagine that you can put more coconut oil in because the MCTs are a more concentrated form of whatever it’s like you are extracting.

Cary: You are extracting like–

Rick: That and its more potent part of the medium change triglycerides MCTs.

Cary: Those are proteins, right? They are fatty proteins?

Rick: It’s not proteins but they are fatty acids, and there is a guy actually Don [unintelligible 00:35:22] Gastino he is a doctor. He makes a thing called jet fuel out of MCTs. There are like exogenous ketones that you can actually use if you are low on energy you can throw those into something and it will give you a massive amount of energy. But I know with coconut oil, you will probably have to use more coconut oil to get that kind of effect, but to be honest I don’t know. I don’t know the amount that you should use.

Brendan: There is definitely a tipping point, not so much that it is going to make you feel bad, but like your lips you get all kind of oily feeling if you have too much in there.

Rick: With coconut oil?

Cary: Yes.

Brendan: So that’s probably the benefit of using a straight MCT oil. You can use more you get better benefits for using less I guess.

Cary: Remind me I have got a [unintelligible 00:36:07] too.

Rick: It’s way more viscous than coconut oil. It’s more watery almost. It’s almost like a-

Brendan: So it will mix in better. It won’t just float to the surface, because I’ve noticed that when we put our butter and our stuff. We don’t blend it all at times. We just mix it up and we heat it up so it’s hot and it all floats to the top. Like when you are sipping it you got a little coconut oil moustache and butter moustache.

Rick: You know what they make now too, they make emulsified MCT oil. I think there is a company called Onnit that sells emulsified MCT oil. So if you don’t have a blender available you can just use some of that and throw it into your coffee. Just mix it up and supposedly it does the same thing as a blender, because one of the problems with if you do like the bullet proof coffee and you don’t have a blender, you get a big oil sleek at the top. That’s when-

Brendan: That’s exactly what I was talking about.

Rick: Like really– thing on your lips.

Brendan: Moustache.

Rick: So the emulsified MCTs are great too.

Brendan: Speaking of another company doing this is Coffee Blocks. Your cousin.

Rick: Yes Chad.

Brendan: Chad Galbrath, we’ve got to have him on here and talk about this.

Rick: I have never tried Coffee Blocks.

Brendan: They are good they are good.

Cary: Are those frozen?

Brendan: No they shelf stable, so they are just like little individual squeeze packets you heat up, hot water in a cup, squeeze one in and I think have a little beater or a mixer to mix it up. Its’ all frothy and it’s got all that in it: the butter, the MCT and coffee ready to go.

Cary: Amazing.

Brendan: Yes really cool.

Rick: Talked about an athlete too, when Chad gets behind something it’s probably got to work because he is an elite long distance runner. [crosstalk] I mean elite he was like ranked number two or something like that.

Brendan: Right, growing up in the Mammooth California, where you can’t even breathe going up a flight of stairs.

Rick: I think when he was a kid he was rank number two long distance runner in the nation or something.

Cary: Oh geez.

Brendan: Oh my Gosh.

Cary: So going back to coconut oil and MCT oils here’s a tangential question. Now that MCT oils are becoming so popular, do you think that if you buy coconut oil you are getting coconut oil without MCTs because so many companies are starting to popularize and sell these?

Rick: That’s a terrible question.

Cary: That’s a great.

Rick: [laughs]

Cary: That’s loaded.

Rick: No I don’t think you can, could you extract? I guess you could extract the MCTs from the– That’s actually a good question. What is that?

Brendan: That’s good beer.

Rick: [unintelligible 00:38:49]

Cary: I love how people say, drips and droughts.

Brendan: Droughts I know the name of our front desk.

Rick: Draughtsmen?

Brendan: Is that what it’s called?

Cary: That’s Draughtsmen it all works.

Rick: Actually that is a really good question.

Cary: You heard that question?

Rick: If you get coconut oil at the 99 cents store does it have MCTs in it?

Cary: Is it stripped of MCTs?

Rick: Because that is the most nutritious part of coconut oil. That’s why coconut oil is so popular.

Cary: No because I guarantee you people are still selling the remainder of the coconut oil. If you can pull the good parts of something out.

Rick: You are going to have to Google that, bud.

Cary: Yes we are going to have to look that up. If you happen to know the answer and you are listening to this, email us podcast@cobrewavenue.com.
Alright we are back after three bathroom breaks, a cold brew coffee and a new beer. But we are going to wrap this one up about the MCT oils, the cold brew, the ketogenic diet. What else did we talk about? A little bit of everything.

Brendan: Brewing.

Cary: Brewing, how we got started, how everybody got into this. How Ricky got Kerry into this, and then how Kerry got me into this and here we are. But yes Ricky had mentioned the Onnit podcast and Joe Rogan and I happen to, I don’t know why but I thought of this guy Cameron Haynes while we were talking and turns out Ricky is listening to this podcast.

Brendan: He can barely sit in his seat right now. He is [laughs] jumping out of his seat.

[laughter]

Cary: Keep hammering apparently that’s what you got to do.

Rick: That dude is a stud.

Cary: Yes.

Rick: Yes.

Brendan: He’s–

Cary: Who’s this guy?

Rick: Well. Do you want me to explain who he is?

Brendan: He’s the ultimate predator.

Rick: He is a– He’s probably the best bow hunter that I know of in the world. He’s a stud. He goes and– He also runs ultramarathons.

Brendan: Those are insane, right? 100 miles?

Rick: Yes, and he came in second at some 120mile race.

Brendan: What’s it when they do here in California that they go from like Whitney into Death Valley?

Rick: Badwater-

Brendan: Badwater.

Cary: -but they don’t do that– they don’t do that anymore.

Brendan: Why?

Rick: The National Park Service came in and shut it down for some reason, or something happened where they lost their permits, but they were running from Stovepipe or someplace down in Death Valley. They start at the lowest point on earth, and then they go to basically the almost the highest point in the contiguous United States. They run up to Whitney Portal. I think really it’s a 126 mile race.

Brendan: I heard some people continue to summit.

Rick: Yes, yes, some people will continue after the Portal-

Brendan: Even though it’s not part of the race.

Rick: -and go up to the top, yes, which is insane.

Cary: Why not after 120 miles, right?

Rick: Yes.

Cary: Just– I’m almost there I might as well get a good view.

Rick: But I don’t think Cameron has done the Badwater race, but he’s done some crazy ultramarathons, and he does it because he is training to be a crazy bow-hunter. And there’s videos of him online everywhere shooting elk from like 50 yards out and he also has a big social media following which is like keep hammering gear that you have up on the computer right now, where he’ll carry rocks up hills and– He’s crazy, he’s a crazy ass–

Brendan: That sounds like a good time.

Rick: Yes. You must drink lots of coffee.

Cary: It’s true.

Brendan: Buy a bullet proof.

Cary: Even better.

Brendan: Speaking of carrying rocks up hills, my dog that’s now passed, Roxy, I used to go on like 5 mile bike rides every day. She would run down into the water, pick up literally like a 5 or 6 pound rock, put it into her mouth, and she would run with it for the duration of our entire– my bike ride for run–

Cary: And bring in those home-

Brendan: Bring it all the way home.

Cary: -build a collection. Yes.

Brendan: Yes, built a giant rock wall. It’s incredible.

Cary: Klepto-dog.

Brendan: But yes, so we’ll put all this stuff in the show notes. We’ve got a lot of good shout outs for people. We’re doing a lot of advertising here for everybody but ourselves today. And I think it’s good, no I think it’s good. We’re networking. Networking.

Cary: That’s right.

Brendan: Alright, that’s going to do it for today. Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Drips and Draughts Podcast. Again if you’re looking for show notes for this episode, you can go to www.dripsanddraughts.com/18. If we spread any misinformation in this episode, or if you’d like to expand and elaborate on anything, let us know. Shoot us an email to podcast@coldbrewavenue.com. Or you can find us on Twitter. Shoot us a message @DripsDraughts. I actually edited this episode down to be a little bit shorter. We actually got into talking about Kombucha a little bit, and figured that that would probably be a good topic to make its own. Cary and I are going to order a scoby, we’re going to get some Kombucha going here in the office.

I think we’re going to do one out in the light, and we’re going to do one in a stainless steel fermenter and see if we can notice any differences. But it’s going to be our first time brewing Kombucha, so we will keep you guys posted on that. Alright, that’s going to do it for today. As always thanks for listening. If you got any value from this podcast, or any of the other podcasts we’ve released, hop on iTunes, leave us a review. We make it simple for you. Go to www.dripsanddraughts.com/review. Thanks to Ricky and Cary for joining me today. I am Brendan Hanson. You’ve been listening to the Drips and Draughts podcast. We’ll see you again next Friday.