Archive for the ‘Home Brewing’ Category
Spring Fever has slowly crept up on me and I seem to be firmly held in it’s grasp. Garden fever has also arrived along with Lowe’s receiving their first Spring shipments of plants and seeds. It’s taking all of my willpower not to immediately run there and start buying stuff. I’m trying to keep things under control for a while but it’s not easy.
And here’s a picture to prove to some of you that I actually did celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. It looks almost as good as it tasted:
‘Green Chardonnay on Ice.’
With green wine in mind I thought I might start the Spring and Summer seasons properly by making my first batch of wine for 2016. In my continuing effort to stay "outside the box" and do new things I decided to make some Sake. It’s been a very long time since I’ve made any so I figured why not. I did a quick inventory of my winemaking supplies and placed an online order for a few essentials. They arrived within 48 hours which was perfect. I then searched up a vendor to buy a case of 375 ml bottles and they’ll be here within a week.
Off to the food store to pickup eight pounds of raw rice, three pounds of white raisins, and a ten pound bag of sugar. My recipe calls for a sherry yeast but I purchased a new product which is yeast specifically created for making Sake. This yeast will tolerate alcohol up to 16% or 32 proof for you amateurs out there. It was a bit pricey but if I’m going to do this I should do it properly.
Yesterday I began the process of crushing the rice and chopping the raisins. Along with a number of other ingredients my primary fermenter will hold what should eventually give me three gallons of excellent Sake. Here are a few photo’s of the prep. The fermenter will sit for 48 hours after hot water is added and then the yeast will take over. Then I can kick back and wait while Mother Nature does her thing.
‘Empty Fermenter’
‘Bags of Chopped Raisins & Crushed Rice’
‘This + Patience = 3 1/2 Gallons of Sake’
I can’t think of a better way to start my Spring season unless it’s a couple of thick and tasty T-Bone steaks on the grill. I’ll be setting our grill up on the deck this week and the steaks will be cooked as soon as possible after that.
GOODBYE WINTER, HELLO SPRING
‘Don’t look at this image, it might be against the law here in Maine.’
With the holiday weekend coming to an end summer has officially been declared here in Maine. Even with that being said we still sat on the deck over the weekend in hoodies and sweatpants because it was a wee bit nippy. So it’s onward and upward to the many summer activities soon to come.
‘Hot Bread & Butter Pickles’
We had a stay-at-home Fourth of July this year which we both found rather enjoyable. We relaxed on the deck until dark and then decided to be outlaws and lawbreakers. For decades it was against the law in Maine to own or use fireworks. Two years ago the ban was lifted and fireworks stores sprung up overnight and everyone happily thought their future holidays could be celebrated with a little noise. Oh how wrong we were.
‘Strawberry, Blueberry, Blackberry, Rhubarb, and Triple Berry Jams’
It’s impossible for politicians, local or otherwise, to keep their collective noses out of everyone’s business for more than a heartbeat. The town politicos then began to play their silly little games by passing local ordnance to ban the use of fireworks once again. It’s just like a bunch of political morons on a power trip to pass another law that can’t be enforced.
‘Smoking Hot Black Bean & Roasted Corn Salsa’
As dark ascended on the neighborhood the law breaking began in earnest. It sounded like the first night of D-Day at Omaha Beach in Normandy. Every neighbor was trying to out do the others and being the weak minded idiots that we are, we joined right in. Sparklers, Zippers, Rockets, Roman Candles . . . you name it and we had it. All of that noise and law breaking going on and not one police car was ever seen. They were probably sitting at home in their driveway while their kids set off their own fireworks. It was a lot of fun, no injuries or deaths reported, and the cleanup the next day was only about twenty minutes.
‘Honey & Maple Mead’
The remainder of the weekend we were kept very busy. B & B pickles were made and canned, an assortment of jams were made and canned, and I finished my first batch of salsa for 2015. It yielded thirteen and a half quarts of a salsa that’ll make your head sweat.
We are definitely on a roll for 2015.
‘While we were working the cat was meditating.’
My last posting concerned our short but successful foray with strawberry picking. Even though we only managed to pick three quarts before the rains came, we still considered it a moderate success. It also succeeded in motivating my better-half into a jam making frenzy yesterday. It required another trip to the food store for additional strawberries, blue berries, and black berries with rhubarb harvested from our garden as well. As you can see in this photo the rhubarb plants are out of control and trying desperately to take over the garden.
She worked diligently for five hours and the results were impressive. She made one batch each of strawberry, strawberry rhubarb, and blueberry jam. She also completed two additional batches of tripleberry which has become a favorite of everyone (blackberry-blueberry-strawberry) who has tasted it.
Of course I did my best to taste them all as they were being made, bobbing and weaving to avoid those painful hand slaps. They were all over-the-top delicious and I can’t wait to add the strawberry/rhubarb jam to my breakfast menu.
While she was completing the jam I was in another area of the house preparing to bottle my first experimental batch of wine for 2015. My goal was to make a wine unique to Maine and one never made by anyone else. I thoroughly searched the net but could find no references to this type of mead. It was made from raw maple syrup and fresh honey.
The final product was a clear and sweet mead with a faint bouquet of maple. It was a good first effort and with some fine tuning of the recipe I may make it again soon. I bottled three and a half gallons into various size bottles and kept one for myself. I always volunteer to be first to sample anything containing alcohol before giving it to others.
After two glasses I felt that special glow I’m always looking for. Testing with my vinometer indicates an alcohol content between 7-8%, more than I anticipated. All in all a really successful experiment.
The batch was corked and capped and will go into storage for a few months and then be tasted again. Most wine improves with age and I look forward to an older version of this mead to enjoy through the winter months.
Today will be a short lesson on making wine. As I’ve mentioned in past postings I’ve been attempting to make a batch of Honey/Maple Mead. A few weeks ago I began the process and things were going quite well. After the initial fermentation the color of the mead was a beautiful golden color and was clearing nicely as the yeast completed it’s alcohol production. Maintaining a temperature of seventy degrees was the only challenge at first but things appeared to be going well.
I siphoned the wine a second time two weeks ago and was feeling pretty good about things but I should know by now never to get overconfident. After completing the siphoning and out of curiosity I decided to take a quick taste. I was hoping for a smooth and mildly sweet mead. Wrong, wrong, and wrong. It was extremely dry and tart with almost no aroma of either honey or maple. I’m afraid that the champagne yeast was a wrong choice for this type of wine. Champagne yeast is more resistant to alcohol giving the batch a tartness I wasn’t looking for. Normal yeast would’ve given me a much milder version that was a little sweeter and closer to my goal.
What I’m really trying to say is this batch is awful and I was sorely tempted to throw the entire experiment out. I then decided to attempt the impossible and fix the problem. I needed to add just enough sugar to sweeten the mead to bring back the flavor that is being hidden by the harshness of the alcohol. After experimenting with different sugars I decided to stay with the theme of the mead and to sweeten it with Maple syrup. I added one cup of diluted maple syrup to each gallon of mead which I hoped would give the mead a much sweeter flavor and a deeper color. The maple flavor was wonderful and the aroma was amazing.
I placed the jugs back into a warm room to determine if the yeast would reactivate. So far it seems to be lightly fermenting which was expected. I’ll let it sit for a few weeks to allow the yeast to die and for it to clear once again. Then a final taste test and I hope a successful bottling.
I’ll have my fingers crossed the entire time hoping against hope the problem has been resolved. I’ll let you know.
The cat and I are still in bed as I write this. My better-half is out in the snow storm on her way to work and I’m waiting by the telephone in case of any emergencies. The snow is relatively light but has been coming down steadily since last night and it’s anticipated to continue for the next twenty-four hours. The roads quite simply are a bitch.
To say I’m a little sick of the snow is a major understatement. I’ve decided that going out to clear the driveway will just have to wait until much later in the day. I’m thoroughly enjoying my coffee and cookies and I intend to stay warm and toasty for as long as possible.
Having this cold weather keeps the house temperatures in the med to low sixties. That temperature issue gave me fits earlier in the week when I decided to make a new experimental batch of home made wine. I’ve made Mead in years past which is basically nothing more than wine made from honey. In keeping with my goals for 2015 I wanted to make something new and different. After a lot of research I created a recipe that would make a Honey & Maple Syrup Mead. I had to make a few educated guesses with the ingredients but I pushed fearlessly forward.
The basic ingredients consist of distilled water, Orange Blossom honey, Clover honey, and an all natural maple syrup made with the sap from local trees. My difficulty was going to be able to keep the primary fermenter warm enough to properly activate the yeast. Our house is usually sixty three degrees but I need temps between 68-74 for the best results.
I was forced to use a small heater that I purchased many years ago that was once a tropical fish tank heater. It’ been sitting in a box in the garage for a couple of decades. It’s a long glass tube that you insert into the fermenter and it’s thermostat maintains the level of heat you select. After all these years the little devil worked perfectly. I then added just a pinch of roasted fennel seeds and rosemary for a faint hint of licorice and pine which I hope will give the wine a little character.
Once the wine was siphoned from the fermenter into the glass jugs I moved them all upstairs to store them in the warmest area of the house. The heat must be sufficiently high because they’re bubbling away as they should be. In a few months I’ll have something new and interesting to sample and it’ll either be 25 bottles of tasty wine or something God awful. We’ll just have to wait and see. Making wine teaches a person patience if nothing else.
I’d like to keep writing but I’m wanting more coffee to help me find the motivation I need to get out of this warm bed and to go play in the snow.
Before I get any further into this post I thought I’d give those of you interested in history my Lewis & Clark expedition update. The journal of their travels begins on May 14, 1804, the day they left the Mississippi River, a day or two after they arrived back in St. Louis. They left from a river camp near Dubois and proceeded up the Missouri River under full sail. The party consisted of one ship and two perogues (their spelling for canoes). Those first few weeks were rainy with the river running higher than normal. They suffered difficulties with sand bars and a broken mast when it struck an overhanging tree but they found game plentiful and plenty of fresh water.
Their group harvested dozens deer and three bears along the way and any meat not eaten was dried and made into a jerky for later use. They’ve met a few French traders roaming along the river and have only seen fresh Indian sign but no actual Indians as yet
On June 6 commander Clark reports himself as suffering from a high fever and severe headaches and here’s his actual quote on the general health of the expedition:
”The party is much aflicted with Boils and Several have the Decissentary, which I contribute to the water.” (This is his spelling not mine.)
On June 13 they made camp near the Carlton River near a beautiful open prairie and that’s where I left them last night. Using modern day maps it’s still difficult for me to determine their exact location due to the confusion in names and descriptions. An educated guess would be that they’ve traveled between thirty and forty miles up river from St. Louis.
One last quote can better explain how discipline was carried out back in the good old days. Any current and former sailors will cringe when they read this:
[Clark, June 29, 1804] Camp mouth of the Kanseis June 29th 1804. Ordered a Court martial will Set this day at 11 oClock, to Consist of five members, for the trial of John Collins and Hugh Hall, Confined on Charges exhibited against them by Sergeant Floyd, agreeable to the articles of War. Detail for the Court Sergt Nat. Pryor presd. mbs: 2 John Colter 3 John Newmon 4 Pat. Gass 1 J. B. Thompson John Potts to act as judge advocate. The Court Convened agreeable to order and proceeded to the trial of the Prisoners Viz John Collins Charged "with getting drunk on his post this morning out of whiskey put under his Charge as a Sentinal and for Suffering Hugh Hall to draw whiskey out of the Said Barrel intended for the party" To this Charge the prisoner plead not guilty. The Court after mature deliveration on the evidence abduced &c. are of oppinion that the prisoner is Guilty of the Charge exibited against him, and do therefore Sentence him to recive one hundred Lashes on his bear Back.
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Back to the present and this lovely Maine winter we’re enjoying. The temperature continues to hover in the single digits and I’m still freezing my ass off. I’m hoping for a little relief sometime soon but who knows maybe I’m just kidding myself.
‘Go Steelers Go Pat’s’
Yesterday was football day in this house and as the games were being played my better-half and I decorated our new Super Bowl tree (formerly our X-mas tree). If you remember we decided to keep the tree up for the entire year and to celebrate as many holidays as possible. As you can see by the photo the tree contains a lot of Steeler paraphernalia even though they were soundly defeated last week. After the Pat’s victory last night over the Ravens they’ll soon be properly honored on our tree as well.
Our next tree will be celebrating Valentine’s Day.
I love cold weather but this is getting ridiculous. My better-half also likes the temperature in the house kept around 65 degrees but even she’s spending more time in the bedroom wrapped in that wonderful electric blanket of ours. We’ve been in the single digits for the last two days and below zero today with wind chills bordering on dangerous and even life threatening.
I may look a little silly wandering around the house at the end of a fifty foot extension cord but I don’t really care. There are certain male body parts that demand warmth and I’m making sure they get it. So what if I have a heating pad stuffed down my sweat pants and who really cares about that stupid looking orange extension cord. I have my priorities set and no one will convince me otherwise.
Trying to stay busy and warm brought me to my next task. I’ve had three gallons of dandelion wine sitting in the man-cave for almost six months. After four months it was still a little too cloudy which required me to take emergency measures to clear it. There’s a product called Sparkloid that is nothing more than very fine clay dust. It’s mixed with water and brought to a boil for twenty minutes or so. Then each gallon jug receives a portion of that mix and is left to settle for a few weeks. It worked like a charm because I now have three gallons of a crystal clear golden liquid the exact color of dandelion blossoms.
After doing a little repair work to my wine racks I began the siphoning and bottling process. My final tally was thirteen bottles of a beautiful wine that actually tastes a little like a Chardonnay but a bit sweeter.
I boiled the corks in clean water and corked each bottle. I put a nice golden cap on each and they’re now reading for storage in the wine rack. As you can see from the photos there are thirteen bottles and a small jar of wine. That small jar I’ll be drinking with my dinner tonight. I want it chilled until it’s close to freezing and then I’ll sip it slowly and savor the flavor. I’ve made dandelion wine a number of times over the years but I think this might be my best batch ever. It’s always a pain in the butt to make dandelion wine because it takes forever to pick and prepare the blossoms. They must be cleaned of all pieces of leaves and debris and then frozen for a week or so. The freezing helps to breakdown the blossoms and convinces them to give up their beautiful color when they’re finally put in with the yeast.
This coming summer will be an interesting time for me because I fully intend to go outside the box with my winemaking projects. I want to make a few batches from ingredients that are not normally used for wine making but trying to do something never done before can be difficult. I look forward to the challenge and hopefully the results will be a few bottles of a really unique wine.
B r r r r !!!
With most of the gardening chores completed things have slowed down around here a bit. Who am I kidding? We’re just killing time until the day the “Fair” opens. That would be the Fair held every year in Fryeburg, Maine. It’s by far the largest event in the state and it’s a week long party for the many thousands of attendees from all over the country. We’ll be attending next week and it will be twelve hours of farm animals, large crowds, crazy good food, and hundreds and hundreds of photographs. So like I said we’re just killing time until the Fair.
Today I’ve been completing a number of small projects which required very little effort on my part. As I was walking through the house I remembered one thing that I absolutely had to do sooner rather than later. It was time for the Concord grape wine to be bottled. It’s been almost three months in the making and the fermentation has finally stopped.
The final product is a beautiful dry ruby red wine with an unbelievable bouquet. So it’s a half hour of washing bottles and making my usual mess. I tend to be a bit clumsy and if I don’t spill at least one bottle of wine in the process I just don’t feel like I’ve accomplished anything.
There’s nothing like siphoning wine through a little plastic tube, spilling it on the floor, down your leg, and onto nearby books, papers, and house pets. Curiosity may have killed the cat but in this house a good squirt of wine onto a persistently nosy cat is as good as it gets.
After filling and corking nineteen bottles it was then time to put on the fancy gold PVC covers. This requires a large pot of boiling water into which the bottle tops are quickly dipped causing the cover to shrink and seal the corks. It’s imperative that the bottle not remain in the hot water for more than a few seconds or there will be trouble. That truth became immediately evident when my first cool glass bottle was held into the boiling water for more than four or five seconds and the top exploded. Now I’m down to eighteen bottles but with a much better understanding of things I shouldn’t do.
I finished the remainder of the job but held back another bottle for the better-half and I to have with dinner. I poured myself a large glassful and waited for her arrival from work. I found out in the middle of the second glass that there was definitely a sufficient amount of alcohol in the wine. I had a wonderful glow on which translated to my canceling dinner. There was no way I could safely cook without possibly burning down the house.
When the better-half arrived home she drank a couple of mouthfuls of the wine, declared it delicious, and then immediately opened a beer (she isn’t much of a wine lover). She made her own meal and I ended up having an off-the-cuff snack consisting of Wheat Thins, a dab of Smart Balance and peanut butter with a dash of triple berry jam.
This batch of wine has passed my final acid test. Any wine that can make me eat this slop for dinner contains more than enough alcohol. I tested it with my vinometer and it contain just a hair more than 9 percent. That makes for an excellent batch of 18 proof red wine, more than enough to make almost any food edible.
I’ve been a coffee addict in a serious way since my time in the U.S. Army. During those years my Army buddies and I drank a great quantity of what was called coffee. It was strong and thick and black as night. It was really just a poor man’s substitute for “speed. It would keep you alert for hours on end while patrolling or carousing in the nearby villages until all hours. It was as important to us as the food we ate and there was an endless supply available in the mess hall around the clock.
I returned to the states to resume my civilian life and within a short time became a member of the Pennsylvania State Police. The coffee was a little weaker but we drank it constantly as we patrolled both at night and during the day. And no, donuts weren’t as prevalent as the media and stand-up up comics would lead you to believe. It was all about the caffeine.
I come by my coffee addiction honestly and it still remains an important part of my existence to this day. Just as a point of information I feel the need to reiterate; I hate Starbucks. They’ve made coffee a yuppie joke to those of us who are real coffee drinkers.
With International Coffee Day approaching on September 29 I thought you might find a little coffee trivia interesting since it’s been an important commodity for millions of people throughout the centuries. Here we go. . .
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Once in the past, coffee was believed to be the devil’s drink. Pope Vincent III heard about it and decided to taste it. He enjoyed it so much he baptized it, saying "Coffee is so delicious it would be a pity to let the infidels (Muslims) have exclusive use of it."
Both the American Revolution and the French Revolution were born in coffee houses. The American Revolution was developed by patriots who were customers in the Green Dragon (some say it was the Green Lion) Public House in London. The infamous French Revolution in 1789 was spurred on by Camille Desmoulins’s verbal campaign in coffeehouses.
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Vincent Van Gogh was a big frequenter of the café society and famously said “I have tried to show the café as a place where one can go mad.”
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An interesting Turkish law decreed that it was quite acceptable for a woman to ask for a divorce if her husband failed to provide her with adequate coffee rations.
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Coffee was denounced by many religious leaders as the drink of Satan. Coffee houses were known as “hotbeds of sedition”. In the 1700’s many coffee houses were ordered to close.
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There are 900 different flavors of Arabica. Complex and very volatile, they deteriorate if exposed to air and light.
The original blend called "Maxwell House" got its name from The Maxwell House Hotel, where it was first served in Nashville Tennessee in 1886 (also where Teddy Roosevelt was heard to say "good to the last drop", creating the Maxwell House slogan).
In 1732, at the height of his creative genius, Johann Sebastian Bach wrote the Cantata No. 211 or Coffee Cantata. It is considered by many to be a work of perfection.
In Turkey, bridegrooms were once required to make a promise during their wedding ceremonies to always provide their new wives with coffee. Failure to do so would be grounds for divorce (no pun intended).
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The second most widely used product in the world after oil.
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It is a living to more than 100 million people.
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It is consumed at the rate of 1400 million cups per day.
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The world’s second most popular drink after water.
Beethoven, a known coffee lover, was not only particular about his music. He was also particular about his coffee brew. He always wanted 60 beans for each cup of his coffee.
Today, there must be 10,000 coffee shops in Venice alone! (In the year 1763, there were already over 200 coffee shops in Venice)
Cappuccino derived its name due to its similarity in color to the robes of an order of Monks called the Capuchins.
Well-known performers such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan began their careers performing in coffeehouses. Another singer, Lightnin’ Hopkins, complained about his woman’s neglect with her domestic situation because of her coffeehouse socializing in his 1969 song, Coffeehouse Blues.
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Well there you have it. Every thing you always wanted to know about coffee but were afraid to ask. It’s now time for me to get back to my new friend, the K-Kup coffee maker, for a hot and sweet cup of vanilla/biscotti. Man that’s the cats ass.
As the summer continues to wind down we’re slowly preparing for the end of the garden and this years growing season. We still have a few tasks that need to be completed before I take it down for the last time. We have what seems to be an endless supply of cherry tomatoes this year which we’ll be eating steadily until the first frost. My better-half has taken steps to can a few quarts of those tomatoes and they’ll be delicious during the upcoming Maine winter. Even though they’re canned they taste better than those hot house selections available in the food stores.
This is the first year we’ve grown black beans and I have to say they grow fast and in great numbers. We spent a hour yesterday shucking the beans and delivering them to the dehydrator. We can store them for a longer period of time once they’ve been sufficiently dried.
We also planted three varieties of kale which are in need of processing in some fashion. Earlier in the summer we blanched a quantity which went directly into the freezer. I harvested what I thought was a large quantity of kale leaves yesterday thinking I would dehydrate them and store them in jars much like dried parsley. Then they could be used in soups or sprinkled on almost any food as a flavor enhancer. I really do love the smell and taste of kale and look forward to using it as often as possible. Unfortunately once dried and crushed my large pile of leaves turned into a single quart jar full.
‘Picked’
‘Blanched’
‘Iced’
‘Finished Product’
I’ve been maintaining a fairly accurate record of what our garden has produced thus far and I’ll be posting that list within a week or so. I feel the need to brag a little because this garden has produced more than we could ever have hoped for.
As you can see the concord grape wine has taken one more step towards final bottling. It looks and smells wonderful and I managed to sneak a taste and it was excellent. A few more weeks and this batch will be finished and bottled.
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