Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.  This is an annual event to demonstrate support for environmental protection.  Started as several different events in 1969 and 1970, it eventually coalesced into a single event and in some places is even celebrated as an entire Earth Week. 
I was in the District (Washington, D.C., for those of you outside the Beltway) for Earth Day 2000.  That was fun, mostly for the concerts on the National Mall.  I saw classics like James Taylor and Carole King, along with then-new bands like Third Eye Blind.  Actor Leonardo Di Caprio was there early in the morning.  He seemed like a nice guy and still does a lot of work for the environment.  It was overcast and drizzly all day so I spent a lot of time under the exhibit tarps.  Lots of vendors demonstrating grid-tied and off-grid solar and wind power systems, environmentally friendly building materials, and energy efficient home design and construction.  Universities competed in a solar home building competition.  Efficient and comfortable off-grid living spaces made of environmentally friendly building materials. 
So what can a person do today to help the environment? 
I'd suggest recycling if it's available but no one wants to start a new city recycling program.  And it's simple economics, the margins are too low.  Recycling is so widespread now that there's very little profit for a business and cities trying to run it as a business end up putting in more money than they get out of it.  Expecting to make bank by selling off the products diverted from the landfill is bad budgeting.  City planners need to add a line item for the increased resilience in the waste management system.
You can plant native plants like trees or grasses.  Most developments during the recent housing boom were graded flat and all the existing plant life and even topsoil was scrapped away to make room for the buildings.  Then, to increase the selling price, landscaping was installed but was often only possible through large quantities of water and fertilizer, more than native plants would have needed. 
Enter systems like xeriscaping.  Often mistaken for replacing lawns with gravel like a desert, it is actually about smart application of water.  Place plants in zones with healthy water-holding soil and choose species adapted to the local climate.  A xeriscaped yard has a healthy micro-biome ranging from natural forest or desert at the periphery up to water filtering marshland in the wet zone.  Xeriscaping does not reduce the yard to zero water use, but uses relatively less water than the artificial environment of a lawn. 
Of course, native plants provide habitat for native animals.  Birds can nest in the trees and critters can forage in the undergrowth the way nature intended.  This is especially important when whole ecological systems are falling apart, like what's happening with colony collapse disorder.  There is growing implication that neonicotinoid pesticides are killing not only their target pest species but also native pollinators like bees.  Providing a safe habitat free from the indiscriminate application of pesticides can only help. 
Before any of that is available, you should start composting.  It can be done at any scale, from city-wide composting programs to individual backyard projects.  Start this year to have strong healthy compost to add to a raised bed garden or even small scale farming next year.  Just remember, don't put in any meat, only vegetable kitchen scraps and yard waste.  You'll lose the entire batch and have to start over.  The real achievement, beyond cooking up healthy compost is vermiculture, compost with worms.  You can add store-bought worms but healthy compost will attract native worms from the soil to move in.  Plus that guarantees you aren't introducing an invasive species. 
So get out there and start an Earth Day project today. 

St. Patrick's Day

In one of the closing posts of my Febrewary series, it's appropriate that it should fall on this day.  We've been from brewing to bottling, and now we're near the end.
St. Patrick was a 5th century Christian bishop in Ireland, where he is now the patron saint.  His life and death involve a lot of religion which I don't want to get into, including symbols of snakes and clovers.  Needless to say, Patrick is clearly identified with Irish religious history and national identity.
Currently, St. Patrick's Day, March 17, is celebrated as a day of drinking and merry-making, so I'll end with this.
Celebrate this and all holidays responsibly.  Slainte!

March Mead-ness

As part of my "Febrewary" series, I wanted to share a mead recipe I came across.  There's only a couple of ingredients, commonly available at any grocery store, and the yeast does all the work.

Almost mead

So the recipe is three pounds of honey, half a cylinder of raisins, one orange, one packet of bread yeast, and almost a gallon of water.  This fits in a one gallon fermenter.  You will also need three bottles of wine.

Sanitize all the things

The first step is, obviously, sanitize everything.  Making a lambic (yeast wrangled from the wild) mead could be a fun bucket list activity but that's not today's goal.  I use a no-rinse sanitizer available at any brewing supply house.  Do your fermenter, cap, and airlock.  Also do scissors, a knife and cutting board, the outside of the yeast packet, a funnel, and a beaker.  There's no brew stage so you won't be sanitizing your siphon, hose, or bottle filler here.
Like any fermentation, the choice of ingredients will strongly influence the outcome.  In this recipe, the water, honey, and yeast you use have the most pull.  I use tap water.  The municipal water supply here is heavy, but I like to think that particular blend of minerals and metals gives a unique character to my brew that can't be copied.  Mesquite, clover, and alfalfa are the most common honey varieties here, along with house blends from some of the local apiaries.  I specified generic bread yeast because this is supposed to be a simple recipe; most grocery stores don't stock brewer's yeast.

Rise and Shine

Next step is to wake up the yeast so it's ready to ferment.  Fill your sanitized beaker with a quarter cup of warm water and stir in the yeast.  This will activate the dormant yeast and get it ready for work.  

Cut and Run

Fill the fermenter about a third of the way with water.  Peel and cut up the orange and dump it and the raisins into the fermenter.  Pour in the honey; this is where the funnel comes in handy.  Now pour in the activated yeast and fill the fermenter the rest of the way with water.  Install the cap and airlock per the included instructions and place the fermenter somewhere warm and dark.  I leave mine on the kitchen counter with a dish towel over it.  

Now comes the hard part.  Sit back and let the yeast do all the work for two or three weeks.  Drink the wine you bought and keep the empty bottles.  When the airlock stops bubbling, the yeast has eaten all that sugar, turned it into alcohol, and gone back to sleep.  It is now bottling day. 

Sanitize all the things, again

Sanitize the two or three empty wine bottles you've accumulated along with stoppers.  Also, sanitize your auto siphon, hose, and bottle filler.  Following the instructions for the siphon, hose, and filler, transfer the mead from the fermenter to the bottles.  Or, since the fermenter is small enough to pick up, just pour it into the bottles through a sanitized funnel.  Doing it that way, with a coffee filter in the funnel, can improve the clarity of the final product.  I kind of like the unfiltered style and the siphon won't transfer much goop anyway.

Enjoy the fruits of you labor

I like to let my bottled mead sit in the refrigerator for at least a week before decanting but it is ready to drink now.  So invite your fellow vikings to join you at your hall and tell epic poems over a couple flagons.  Enjoy!

Trademarks are property of their respective owners.   Products featured or linked here are used as examples only, without endorsement or commercial consideration.  

Bottling Day

I've started a series of articles on homebrewing.  I'm calling it "Febrewary" because I'm clever like that.  In our previous episode, I shared a beer bread recipe to use up some extra supplies that came in the homebrewing kit.  In this episode, the yeast is done fermenting and it's time to bottle the beer.

Sanitize Everything

First things first, sanitize all of your equipment.  You'll need your dozen empty bottles, bottle caps, auto-siphon, hose, and bottle filler.  You'll also need the capper and conditioning sugar fizz drops.  This is why it's important to sanitize all the gear; we're reactivating the yeast with another dose of sugar.  The beer will get a little more alcohol content and it will get its carbonation in the bottle.

Flow Master

Connect the auto-siphon to the bottle filler as you did on brew day.  Remove the airlock and threaded stopper from the fermenter and insert the siphon.  Operate it per the instructions, filling each bottle in turn.  I like to fill to about a thumb's width below the mouth of the bottle.  That gets you a consistent volume for a more professional appearance.  

Go with the flow

Drop the beat

Now just plop in a fizz drop and cap the bottle.  Don't worry, the beer is still flat at this point so it won't go all Menthos and Coke when you put in the drops.  I usually get around 9 or 10 bottles from a gallon fermenter.  
At this point, you're pretty much done.  Set the bottles out of the way for another two weeks of conditioning.  Don't put the bottles in the refrigerator yet; remember, we need the yeast to work just a little bit more to condition the beer.  Remember to clean all your brewing equipment.  The residue has the perfect conditions for life.  It is the proverbial microbial soup.  

Company! Ah-ten-HUT!

Friends with benefits

It helps to have a friend stop by to lend a hand or two.  Operating the siphon and bottle filler takes two hands, especially when you add swapping bottles.  The bottle capper will also occupy at least both hands.  Then add in operating a camera for publishing this to Blogger and you can quickly run out of hands.  Set aside a couple bottles for the friend and you'll have a ready assistant for the next brew day.  See you in two weeks!

Trademarks are properties of their respective owners.  Products featured or linked here are used as examples only, without endorsement or commercial consideration.

Beer Bread

I've started a series of articles on homebrewing.  I'm calling it "Febrewary" because I'm clever like that.  In our previous episode, we had our brew day.  In this episode, I share a simple beer bread recipe to use up the other half of the yeast packet.

The dough

Three cups flour, three tablespoons sugar, three teaspoons salt, the rest of the brew day yeast, and enough water to turn it into dough.  While the wort is boiling for 45 minutes is a good time to start on this.  Mix the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and then start adding water until the dough is sticky.  Set it aside to rise.  Come back to the dough after you transfer the wort into the fermenter.  Lay this out on a pizza pan and put in the over at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour.  Go clean up from brew day and the bread should be done.

The bread

What? You never seen bread before?

Brew Day

I've started an article series on homebrewing your own beer. I called it "Febrewary" because I'm clever like that. In our last episode, I covered some of the basics of starting to brew your own beer at home.

The kit arrived, now what?

Okay, this is easy. Just follow the instructions. For brew day, you'll need your kettle, scissors, fermenter, threaded stopper, airlock, siphon, hose, beaker, a big spoon, the recipe kit, and sanitizer.

Sanitize all the things

The first step in any brewing operation is to sanitize everything. EVERYTHING! We're dealing with yeast here, a living organism. We spent good money on a particular species that is specially chosen to give us good results in our recipe. Don't screw it up by letting some other bacteria species get in there.
Use the no-rinse sanitizer that came in the kit; one tablespoon of sanitizer into one gallon of water. Don't drain this because you might need to sanitize something again later.

All clear

This next stage will vary based on your beer recipe.  For this demonstration, I've gone with the Northern Brewer's Irish Red. As per this recipe, bring one and a quarter gallons of water to a boil and steep the specialty grains in the included mesh bag.
Many breweries say that the water they use in their operation affects the flavor of their brew and they're right. You can use specially filtered water but I use plain old tap water. The local municipal water supply here is a bit heavy but I like to think that particular blend of minerals and metals give my brew a flavor that can't be copied. But the truth is that if it's okay to drink then it's okay to brew with.
If you do garden composting like I do, you can put the grains in the compost after they're done steeping. After this, stir in the malt extract and the hops. This is a beginner recipe kit so it uses extract, but as your skills improve you can switch to all-grain recipes if you'd like.

Wake up, ye beasties

In this Irish Red recipe, the extract and hops boil for 45 minutes without adding more ingredients.  Lets use this time to activate the yeast. For some reason, the recipe only uses half the yeast it comes with.  Obviously, it's the way it comes from the supplier so save half for beer bread and pour the rest into a quarter cup of warm water in your sanitized beaker.

Begin transferrence

Clowns to the left, jokers to the right

After the wort (that's unfermented beer) has boiled, we need to cool it down to add the yeast.  The yeast likes its water about 70 degrees Fahrenheit. We'll do this with an ice bath. One basin in your sink is still full of sanitizing water so fill the other side with water and ice and put the kettle in.

The general idea

After the wort has cooled, it's time to add the yeast and move it to the fermenter. Pour the yeast into the wort, either in the kettle before the transfer or into the fermenter afterwards. Drain the ice bath, lift the kettle onto the counter, and put the fermenter in the sink. That difference in altitude will help the siphon. Follow the instructions to assemble and operate the siphon.

Transfer complete

pop lock

Now install the threaded stopper and airlock onto the fermenter and put it in a quiet corner. The yeast will do their thing converting sugar to alcohol and the positive pressure in the airlock will release carbon dioxide while keeping other bacteria out of the mix. In roughly two weeks, the yeast will be done and CO₂ release will slow or stop completely.

Kick up the jams

All that's left is to clean everything and put it away. Now kick back with the craft brew you bought when you were gathering supplies so you have empty bottles for bottling day. Drink responsibly and enjoy!

Trademarks are properties of their respective owners.  Products featured or linked here are used as examples only, without endorsement or commercial consideration.

Gathering Supplies

I've started an article series on homebrewing your own beer.  I've called it "Febrewary" because I'm clever like that.

Is it legal?

Yes, homebrewing is legal!  This wasn't always the case of course.  In 1920, one of the worst laws to ever be put on the books arrived in the form of the Eighteenth Amendment which, along with the Volstead Act, lead to the dark times known as Prohibition.  All production of alcohol was illegal, leading to massive job loss and the rise of organized crime.  The Twenty-first Amendment, in 1933, saved what was left of the American beer industry but the damage was already done.  

While Prohibition had ended, it still wasn't officially legal to brew your own beer yet.  Wine making was legal but through an omission, "and/or beer" never made it into law.  We had to wait until 1979 for the Federal Register to be corrected and allow beer production.  

Is it expensive?

No, not at all.  Many starter kits, with everything you need for a first batch of beer, are available at affordable prices.  You don't have to buy the kit I linked to but that's the one I have so that's what I'll be using for this demonstration.  In addition to the equipment in a starter kit like the fermenter and capper, you'll need to add your own kettle and a few common kitchen implements.  

Everything you see here

What do I need?

I started with that kit linked above.  It includes the fermenter, threaded stopper and three-piece airlock, sanitizer, auto-siphon, and hose.  Also included in the kit was a bottle filler, capper, and bottle caps.  Of course, this kit also includes your first recipe.  I went with the Irish Red.  I really only had to add my own kettle, scissors, and beaker.  

Is that all?

Not yet, just one more thing, but you'll like this.  You need to get a dozen empty beer bottles.  You can buy them from your brewing supply house but there's a better way.  Get a dozen-bottle variety case of your favorite craft beer.  You see where this is going.  Drink it responsibly between brewing day and bottling day. Soak the empties in warm water to remove the labels; brown glass bottles with non-twist-off caps are preferred.  Now you have everything you need for your first batch.  Enjoy!

Trademarks are property of their respective owners.  Products featured or linked here are used as examples only, without endorsement or commercial consideration.