Beer Making - part two

First off, I had to siphon the batch from the primary fermentor to the secondary. Here's a photo of all the junk left in the primary fermentor (this is day 7).
Here it is in the secondary. Cap it and let it set for another week.
On my other batch, I had to prime it with sugar and water. Here's the sugar water just before I add it.
I siphoned half of the beer from the secondary to the primary - then I added the sugar water and stirred. My first batch of beer was a little hit or miss with regard to carbonation. The first bottles we drank were REALLY carbonated. The ones later on - not so much. I'm hoping by adding it to the beer at the half way mark will give it a good mix.
Here's the secondary fermentor (on top) being siphoned into the primary fermentor. Notice the bucket to the left - it's the secondary fermentor for the Honey Nut Brown Ale.
Here's what the secondary fermentor looked like after I siphoned everything out - there's still crud on the bottom, but not as much.
Now I bottle from the primary. The primary is the bucket with the spigot. Attach the tube and the bottle stick (not sure what to call it) - but it has a nice valve on the end with allows you to move from bottle to bottle without making a huge mess. See the black tip on the end of it?
Filling the bottles. J caps them and I wasn't able to get a photo of him doing it.
But here's the beer capped and primed. They'll be ready in 14 days.
I did taste this beer - it's VERY mild compared to the American Ale I did for the first batch. This batch is an American Premium Lager and I didn't have to do all the boiling that the other kit required. I would recommend doing one of those kits for your first time out. It's made by The Brew House. Their instructions are REALLY great. I just felt like I was cheating a little. FWIW, the instructions tell you to put 2.16 gallons of water in the primary fermentor prior to adding the wort. Just don't do it. You end up putting more liquid in your primary fermentor than 5 gallons and can potentially have your foam come out of the air lock.

Interesting stuff I've learned

from Sarah's book so far:

• There were two separate types of Puritans: Separatists and Non-separatists. The Mayflower ones were trying to distance themselves from the King of England.
• Puritans stressed the importance of education and learning and were prolific writers.
• All I know about American history really comes from 1970's sitcoms. She actually describes specific episodes of various shows and, sadly, I've seen them. We watched entirely too much crap TV when we were young.
  

The Wordy Shipmates

I got a package in the mail yesterday - it's an advanced copy of Sarah Vowell's latest book, The Wordy Shipmates.
I'm terribly excited about reading this as Sarah has become one of my MUST read authors. Her stuff is non-fiction and I usually stick to fiction. Sarah has a way of making her subjects interesting and funny at the same time. I mean funny. I actually laugh out loud when I read her books. I don't do that, as a rule, as I have fairly high standards as to what constitutes funny - that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

I'll have to keep you posted on what I've read. It looks like she's going to delve into the whole meme that the "US was settled as a Christian Nation". Should be fun reading.

Writing Code with DNA - wow

I'm not a code person but I am married to one. I found this talk to be just fascinating.

Corn Tortilla's

Yesterday J & I went to M's class. The initial idea was to show how to use our solar oven, but Gustav's clouds came to town (didn't bring any much needed rain), so using the solar oven was out. We showed up a little early and there were two kids who were our hosts. We signed the guest book and they brought us some spaghetti for lunch. It was great fun. M was totally excited for us to be there. I know I have to really savor these moments as pre-teen-hood is only four years away. . .

Back up plan: make homemade corn tortilla's

Worked out really great.

We had a kid read the recipe. Another measure out the masa flour. I didn't want to get the one cup measure wet because I knew we had to make another batch. I had a quarter cup measure and had the kids figure out how many quarter cups make 1-1/4 cup of water. They got the answer off the bat. I was impressed.

We mixed up the dough and I had the kids cut it in half until we had 16 pieces. Each kid was able to roll the piece in a ball and squish them in the tortilla press. I was manning the griddle and we were able to cook six tortillas at a time. There was a separate table set up with butter and a number of sprinkles (cocoa (w/ sugar), cinnamon, vanilla powder, mocha). The kids had a great time and so did we. The teacher made another batch, so we ended up making about 32 tortillas in 45 minutes.

Making Beer Batch #2

My first batch of home brew turned out really good. Very pleased with the results. I have a few photo's from my first attempt, but my camera stopped working so I decided to document my next try.

I'm not ready to do beer from scratch, so I bought an ingredients kit from a local home brew place.

I filled my 8 gallon pot with hot water and started heating it on high. We have to bring it to a boil. Notice that I have a large lip to allow the liquid to rise. This is important - you'll see.

Here's what's taped inside the kit.I have a floating thermometer. This is important for the first step of this process. . .

A close up of all the stuff in the kit. This kit's nice because it says when you add each packet to the wort (that's what we're making)
First step is put the specialty grains/grain bag in the hot water.
This kit includes a "tea bag" for the special grains. I put the grains in and knotted the bag.
Then I put the bag in to let it steep until the liquid is 170 degrees.
Then I take out the bag.
The next step is to let the mixture come to a rolling boil, then put in the stuff in the container (which is the malt). Here's what the malt looks like when you lift the lid.
Now you pour the whole contents into the liquid. This is where you are glad you have a lot of room to let the mixture rise. See this photo. This is when your one hour starts.
Boil for 45 minutes. After a while, the mixture will settle down. At 45 minutes, you add the Irish Moss (a clarifying agent). At 50 minutes, I added the Favormatic Hops. At 55 minutes, the Brewery Honey, and at 58 minutes, the Aromatic Hops. At one hour, you're done with cooking the wort. Next step, cooling process. The instructions say that it's important to cool the wort down to 75 degrees as quickly as you can. The pot I use is too large for my sink and the last time I schlepped the hot pot all the way to the garage to use my utility sink. Since the pot is SO hot and full of about 5 gallons of water, it was really tough the last time I did it. So, I bought a galvanized tub that's 24" in diameter. It worked like a charm as all I had to do was to bring the pot off the burner. . .
and into a waiting 10 pounds of ice. . .
I ended up adding over 40 pounds of ice to cool the wort down to 75 degrees. This was done really quickly as I added some salt to the ice 'ala ice cream making. (I also saw on Myth Busters that salt and ice was the quickest way to cool a can of beer - hense, I thought it would translate to cooling wort quickly. I'd say it took about 20 minutes to cool the boiling mixture to 75 degrees. I'm happy with that.
Once cooled, I siphoned the wort off into my primary fermentor. The last time I did this, I had a simple siphon. For some reason, the suction would break and I'd have to try to fill the hose with fluid and get the suction going again. I was really worried that I had introduced "bad" bacteria to the beer batch. So I bought a new type of suction apparatus - and it's worth the $12 I paid for it - it starts the suction with one pump. If making beer is something you're planning on doing, I suggest you spring for this. It's great. Here's a photo of the bottom of the pot after I suctioned the wort into the primary fermentor - there's a lot of junk on the bottom. Suctioning kept me from putting this in the primary fermentor.
The next step is to "pitch" the yeast (sprinkle it on top).
Finally, I capped the primary fermentor and put the airlock on it. Now all I have to do is wait. . .

Daring Bakers August 2008 Challenge

Always trying new things, I stumbled upon Daring Bakers last month and decided to join in the fun. Basically, someone picks a challenging recipe, it's secretly distributed to participants at the beginning of the month. We're allowed to reveal our results on a predetermined date (usually the last day of the month).

This month's challenge is Chocolate Eclair's.

The pasty dough is done on the stove top. Here's milk, butter, sugar, salt being heated to boil.
Add some flour
And the dough turns into instant mush.
Dump in mixer with the paddle and add eggs one at a time.
Then it turns into a really nice paste.
I'm not terribly coordinated, so I put my pastry bag in a large cup.
Then piped out each on parchment lined cookie sheets.
I didn't use the defined chocolate because it would have cost $22. This hunk was about $8
To melt the chocolate, I cut it up and then hit it in the microwave for about a minute. Stir till it is all melted (I know that some of you would NEVER melt chocolate this way, but my bowl heats up and retains the heat fairly well, so it doesn't get scorched).
Here's what the pastries looked like coming straight out of the oven. Puffy!
The filling is next. I have the egg yolks, sugar, and corn starch in the sauce pan. The instructions say to sift the corn starch - I just used my colander.
Wisked up with a couple of table spoons of hot milk (tempering the yolks).
The milk and melted chocolate added. I did a quick ice bath by plugging my sink, running cold water & dumping ice in it. This is to stop the cooking phase.
Making chocolate sauce for the glaze.
Heated and thickened.
Here's the beginning of the glaze (chocolate sauce not added yet). It was a little bumpy.
The tops are glazed.
I piped the filling on the bottoms.
Sprinkled some hazelnuts on the tops and put them together.

The puffs really collapsed after they cooled down. These are truly delicious and gooey.

I won!

I won four ribbons at the State Fair of Texas!!!!

Whoop!

First place: Captain Underpants (Stuffed Toy, Original)
Second Place: Flamingo (Stuffed Toy, From Pattern)
Second Place: Bar Harbor purse (Felt Craft, Any)
Fourth: Girl's Babydoll Halter Top (Knit Original Design, Any)

I think all items are now going to be on display at the fair!

Wordle

Calendar

We got a package in the mail and it had the 2009 Knitting Calendar in it. My husband was about to ask me WHY in the world would I buy the calendar now? We traditionally wait till mid January to buy our calendars because they're 50% off.

I told him that I remember sending in a submittal a while ago, but never heard from them. I guessed that I must have a pattern in the calendar.

I do.

I'm September 11th & 12th, 2009

I couldn't even make that up. September 11th!!!! (It's the striped baby halter pattern)

FO: Captain Underpants #2

Note added: I won a blue ribbon at the 2008 State Fair of Texas with this entry!!

I forgot to show my second CU. I actually entered this one into the Texas State Fair.
I'm starting to think about making a super sized CU for a school auction in November.

Sad News

I'm sure everyone has those moments where they wonder if they're adopted and I've had those moments, too.

But then you meet the one relative that makes you feel sane.

My Aunt Myrtle was one of those relatives to me. She's my Grandmother's older sister and was a wonderful woman. She married when she was 36 (deemed an old maid) and married a man whom she dearly, dearly loved. She lived and worked on a REAL farm in Ohio. Uncle Willard was so great with us as he'd take us around and we were able to ride on tractors, combines. . . you name it, he would allow us to check it out.

When Myrtle was 90, she broke her hip. Six months later, she was walking around with no problems. She didn't go to an "old folks home" until she was 95 years old.

Well, Aunt Myrtle died last night in her sleep. She was 101 years old with her 102nd birthday looming in September.

When my Grandfather was sick in the hospital, Myrtle came down from Ohio to help Grandma through all the hospital hell. I was able to spend some really great adult time with Myrtle and came to find out that we were a lot alike. It was just one of those moments where you're super happy to realize that there was sanity bred somewhere in your family.

This in no way is meant to be a knock against my family. I love my family.

I'll miss my Aunt Myrtle.

I'm back

Whew it's tough to go on vacation. Between the stress of working up to the time to make sure everything is taken care of while you're gone and the subsequent frenzy when you come back, I just haven't had time to blog!

Oh the horrors!

Seattle was really very nice - it was wonderful getting out of the heat of the D/FW area. We certainly were not prepared for the weather, though, and I usually dwell on what type of weather to expect when going on vacation. M & I ended up buying some Seattle sweaters to keep the chill off of us. On Tuesday it was 100 degrees when we left town and 57 degrees when we flew into Seattle. We were cold. It's also amazing to note that the hotel room kept the internal temperature at a freezing 60 degrees. Seattle-ites turn on the air conditioning when the temps climb up into the 70's!!!

I'll post photo's later as I do have some more work to get to before the end of the week. I just saw that it'd been quite some time since I blogged and wanted to say hi!

The Moon transits the Earth as seen by EPOXI

Very cool - actual photo's pulled together showing the earth and moon spinning. According to BAB, this is the only time anyone's seen the earth and moon move together like this.

Solar Oven

We got another toy in the mail yesterday. Meet, the hybrid Solar Oven:
It's considered a hybrid because it can plug in (in case you lose the sun and need to finish cooking your stuff). When I first got this set up, I plugged it in (you're supposed to) and let the oven heat up to season it. The cooking area got up to 270 degrees with it plugged in - it was a cloudy morning.

Here's what it looks like all set up.

The oven comes with some special pots - they're black so they absorb the heat better.
We're experimenting with cooking some chicken - barbecue in one, and Parmesan and butter in the other.
I'm not sure if you can see this, but the oven, with just the solar part, has reached 250 degrees.

We heated up a children's TV dinner straight from the freezer - and it got hot!

Reading

I forgot to update my list, but I've been in a bit of a non-fiction kick lately.

I read Infidel by Ayann Hirsi Ali. Wow. What an incredible story. She had over come SO much. I'm so glad I was born in the US. Really good read.

Next I had to get my fill of trash reading. Kusiel's Mercy by Jaquiline Carey is the sixth novel she's written in this "universe" and I've enjoyed each book. This one is no different. Surprising. Most epic book series tend to get stale. She's done a great job keeping it up. I think then next three books will be written from Melisande's point of view and deel greatly with the Unseen Guild. I think we're going to see her become a much more simpathetic character that will ultimately bring Phedre' and her son into the fold to "save" her. We'll see.

I just finished The Cloudy Patriot by Sarah Vowell. I love reading her stuff because she folds in pop culture references that only a true Gen X'er can apreciate. I also like that she writes about her atheism, too. She's a history nerd and it's fun to see how nerdy she gets - and really revels in her nerdyness.

Currently I'm reading Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? by Morgan Spurlock. Spurlock is the Supersize me guy who does a great TV show called 30 days. He's got a movie coming out by the same name as the book. The first chapter deals with a brief history of Islam and how it's being perverted and by whom. It also goes into the history of Osama. I like that Spurlock mentions in the book that my generation has been geared to fear - something. During the cold war, it was nuclear war and the Russians. Now its the Terrorists. I like that he's putting a face to something that we're being trained to fear. Makes it not so scarry.

You have to understand, I lived briefly in Turkey and saw a secular Islamic state up close and personal. It worked and the women of Turkey (granted, I ran with the upperclass when we lived there) were educated and liberated. After reading Infidel, I began to really dislike the Muslim faith because of how the author really has been terrorized for most of her life. But I think back to good friends from Turkey and former co-workers here in the US and know that just like Christianity, Muslims have their fundy's too. I know this, but it's so hard to separate it out.

I'm worried for Turkey right now. The Parliment is run by Islamic fundamentalists, and recently there was a movement by secular supporters to bring the current government ousted because they were directly violating the church/state separation clauses in their charter (or whatever). The fundies in turn jailed the secularists and are trying them for treason because they were trying to overthrow the government. I'm afraid what's going to happen is that the generals are going to step in and the country is going to descend into turmoil. I have a fondness for Turkey and their people. I don't want to see it destabilize.

Solar

I'm answering a comment made from an Aussie reader.

Yes, we know about solar here in the US, but it's not widely used. I have a unique situation as I have a solar panel on the top of my house - which is used to heat our water.

I also have a laundry sink, but it's terribly small.

But your comment reminded me of our sink out in the garage - we rarely use it. This would be perfect for icing down the beer. I also like the idea of having an outdoor burner, but need to figure out how I can get that done.

Thanks!