| More brewing |
[13 Sep 2004|09:51pm] |
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mood |
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 lethargic |
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So I'm finally brewing an actual beer, yay! It's been fermenting for two weeks as of this coming Tuesday, which is when I plan to bottle it. It's a Red Ale kit from the Beer Nut, and it should be ready to drink at the soonest one week after bottling, more likely two weeks, and getting better with age.
This weekend I bought five gallons of preservative free 100% apple juice/cider from Wild Oats to make a batch of hard cider for the fall. I originally planned on making a spiced cider, but now I am thinking that I will just do a plain cider with a hint of ginger. I'm going to add about five pounds of dark brown sugar to increase the flavor and alcohol, and I predict that it will be about 8-9% ABV. Question for all the peeps out there: When it comes time to decide, what is your opinion, should I make it sparkling or leave it flat?
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| Ants Ants Everywhere |
[06 Aug 2004|10:26am] |
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mood |
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 infuriated |
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Last night the fucking ants found the dishes in the sink left from beans on toast, plus the candy bowl on the counter, they also found the horehound candies I had stupidly left on the couch. After discovery, this morning has been spent vacuuming and washing and squishing them all up. They know when they're being hunted too, they all go into fast forward mode, scurrying around as fast as they can, but they're not fast enough. This colony seems to live in the wall, and they come out from the corner behind Alissa's computer. The cat Ashley keeps knocking the water out of the bowl with the cat-food bowl in it, such that she is sabotaging the only thing keeping the ants from finding the cat-food. As it is, the ants still seem to wonder what all the salt water is about and tend to scout around the edge looking for a ferrier or something.
I wish they sold those little poison crumbs in the store because the ants really yummed up the ones I have collected from the other side of the house that the terminix guy sprinkled under the rug. The little bait stations from the store? Guaranteed to work? The ants don't even go in them! I'm about ready to move back in with my parents. And this, after we've cleaned up the house. When the house was a mess, no ants, clean house, ants. The ants must like it clean too, though I can't imagine why. I can see them easier in order to squish them in a clean house.
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| Status Update |
[09 Mar 2004|08:28pm] |
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music |
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Collective Soul |
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It's been about 24 hours since I started the fermentation of my mead. After mixing everything together, I took a specific gravity reading and it came out to be 1.102, higher than I had anticipated, but acceptable. I will take another reading when the fermentation is over, and using these two numbers, I will be able to calculate the percent alcohol. I expect around 13% for this batch. The yeasties are fizzing away just as if the concoction were a fizzy drink, and the airlock is producing a bubble about once every 3.5 seconds. This morning, I removed the airlock and took a sniff at the jar opening and couldn't really smell any alcohol, just yeast, so I think the yeast were still respirating aerobically (not producing alcohol yet, but reproducing rapidly). Once the dissolved oxygen in the must (fermenting liquid) is used up, the yeast will switch to anaerobic respiration, thus producing alcohol as a by-product.
OG = 1.102 (Original Gravity)
I'd like to do some yeast farming, and my chemistry professor is helping me acquire some twist cap test tubes to grow and store the yeast in. I guess growing one's own yeast can reduce the costs of homebrewing somewhat because I wouldn't need to buy yeast for every batch.
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| Homebrewin' |
[08 Mar 2004|07:58pm] |
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mood |
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 bored |
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Well, over the weekend I bought some supplies for brewin' my own. My first batch of anything will be 2 liters of mead, which is a fermented drink made of honey diluted with water. The closest it comes to anything else in properties and taste is white wine. It has an alcohol content of 10-18% and ages well.
Adam's First Mead
| 1550 | ml | Water |
| 680 | g | Clover Honey |
| 1 | pkt | Red Star Premier Cuvee Dry Yeast |
| 1/4 | tsp | Yeast Nutrient |
First thing I did was make a yeast starter yesterday; I added 1 cup water to 2 TBS honey and a dash of yeast nutrient to a pot and boiled for 10 minutes. Let that cool to about 100 F like the yeast packet says. Then I poured it into a sanitized mason jar, added yeast and shook to aerate. I attached a lid loosely to allow CO2 to escape. This starter started bubbling and foaming away within 20 or so minutes. The next morning the foam had subsided and a layer of yeast had collected on the bottom of the jar, but it was still bubbling away. I opened the jar to check the smell later in the day and noticed quite the smell of yeast mixed with alchohol, so the yeast must have used up all their oxygen and gone on to making alcohol. I hope this is okay because none of the instructions on the 'net say whether the yeast should do this before pouring into the prepared batch.
Today, I added the water and yeast nutrient to a covered pot and brought it to a boil. Then I turned off the heat and let the liquid cool to about 155 F. Next I added the honey, which I had warmed up by putting it in a sink of hot water. Now, while occasionally stirring, I turned the heat back on to medium/low and brought the temperature back up to about 147 F. The purpose of this process was to kill the wild yeasts in the honey while preserving the honey aroma, boiling will drive off some of the nice honey aromatics. Then I left the pot sitting on the stove until the temperature was below 80 F.
Next, I will pour the "must" into my 1 gallon glass jar through a funnel, making sure to get lots of oxygen into it through aeration, which will help with yeast growth. Finally, tonight I will add my yeast starter to the bottle and affix an airlock to let the CO2 out.
The fermentation should take a few weeks to a couple months. And after that, I should have mead! Though it may take up to a year or more to age to a good flavor, according to certain sources.
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bain_easag's journal
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