Another Wine Started & Goodies In The Mail

I started another wine this morning. This one uses 1# of frozen raspberries from my garden. I am mixing them with some apple raspberry juice concentrate. Here are the berries steeping in boiling water. I placed the berries in a mesh bag, poured the boiling water over them, and mashed them really good with a ricer. Then I left them to cool.


Afterwards I placed them into the Mr. Wine along with the juice, crushed campden tablet, yeast nutrient, acid blend and pectic enzyme. I added enough water to make a gallon. Now I'll let it set for 24 hours before stirring it well and pitching the yeast.


This afternoon the mail lady brought me a few goodies. I got that cool wine rack I'd ordered through Amazon.com as well as this bee video from a local guy who runs a web site with an online bee forum, World of Beekeeping. He sells the video for $39.99 but had a special for the folks on the forum so I got it for $19.99. I learn better by "seeing" so can't wait to watch. Some things you just can't get from a book.


I also received this nice fabric that features a wine label print. I traded 1# of cotton spinning fiber for 5 yards of this fabric. I don't know what I'll make with it. Maybe some knitting needle cases?


Sorry I am not more talkative. My two youngest children are doing really stupid things and giving me fits. I feel more gray hairs coming on.

I Racked The Fruit Wines

I still haven't gotten around to racking the Chianti. I figured I'd start with the smaller, one gallon sized wines, first. I think I'm just more excited about these two, as they're from my own recipes. The Chianti is a kit, and there really isn't a whole lot of challenge to that. I get much more enjoyment from playing mad scientist, and seeing if what I come up with is drinkable. These first two definitely are.


The Orange/Banana is on the left and the Apple/Raisin is on the right. I racked the apple wine first. This was the one with the questionable ferment. The ferment was just fine, in fact this one has an awesome alcohol content. It seems that the Mr. Beer fermenters have built in gas release by way of a groove on either side of the top opening. Even when the lid is screwed on tightly, the gas still escapes. Which makes sense since folks use these to ferment beer and there is no airlock in the kit. I had the husbeast drill the hole in the top of the lid for nothing. Now I get to find a plug for it. Live and learn. But I am happy to report that the Mr. Wine (his new name) is a dandy fermenter. So much so, I'll be looking for more of these.

This morning the husbeast woke up just as I was mid-racking. I couldn't wait for him to sample my apple raisin concoction. His verdict? "Tastes like alcoholic baby food." This from a man who swills gallons of apple juice. I guess he had on his cranky panties. More for me! I think it tastes like Wassail. All it needs is some cranberry juice, orange slices and cinnamon sticks. He declined my offer to sample the orange banana wine. That's OK. I understand that wine isn't his thing. And I really have no problem with not sharing it. The orange banana was tasty, too. This one has less alcohol, but then it started with less sugar. I am especially proud of this particular wine since it used actual fruits from my kitchen. Not just concentrated juice.

I learned a valuable lesson from these wines. A strainer bag for the must is essential. I used a bag for the orange wine and none for the apple. Can you see the raisin bits floating in the apple wine? See, I should've had those in a strainer bag. I will definitely use one from now on.

When The Going Gets Tough...

...I go shopping. Nothing relieves stress like some good old-fashioned retail therapy. And nothing makes this gal feel better than finding a bargain. I decided to head to my favorite shops, which happen to be thrift shops. I love the thrill of the hunt. You never know what treasures you might find. I did set out with a shopping list, of sorts. First on the list was a wine decanter. A friend recently gave me some of her apple wine in a pretty decanter. I returned the decanter to her but determined to find one of my own. And I hit the jackpot today. Two decanters exactly the same as the one she has (I'll have to dig corks out of one) and one that I think is lead glass. All four were $8.


The lead glass one was $4. But it is lovely.


Next on the list? Curtains for my bathroom. I found these cotton valances with crocheted trim. Now I just have to put up a curtain rod. These cost me $.98.


I was also on the prowl for cheap T-shirts for a project I want to do. They need to be colorful, and the bigger, the better. I found all these for $7.


I also found some knit fabric that should work for my purpose. All this for $4.


I managed to come home with a few things that weren't on my list. Here's a wrought iron wine rack and 2 pottery candlesticks. The wine rack was $1.99, the candle holders were $1 for the pair.


I was on the fence about getting the candle holders until I held them in my hands. Very ergonomic. They'll come in handy during a power outage as they are comfortable to carry around.


Another bargain was this set of 4 Williams-Sonoma cotton place mats. The regular retail was $10 each. I paid $1.98 for the set.


And here is another red neck coffee roaster. This one even has all its parts and isn't broken. For $3.99 (another thrift store had the same model for $7.99. They must be catching on to their worth).


Lastly we have this nice coffee pumper. This was $1.99. I'll use it at the yarn shop.


I visited a total of 3 thrift stores and spent less than $35. Not a bad price for some relaxing therapy, complete with bargains.

A Very Eventful Day

When I woke up this morning I had no idea the day would be so enjoyable. I bribed the husbeast, with an espresso, in return for his running me around on my errands. I had to go to the post office, to mail a couple of patterns, but I also wanted to go pick up a legless flamingo. Plastic, of course. It was offered on Freecycle and I've always wanted a plastic flamingo for my yard (Lord only knows why) so I jumped at the chance to add this poor amputee to my yard art menagerie. First order of business was to fashion him some proper legs. I found a wire hanger in the closet and, 3 snips of the wire cutter later, here he is.


Once at work things were pretty busy. Midway through the day a friend arrived with 3 boxes of wine bottles, some t-shirts, and a bar of her homemade soap. Sweet! As if that wasn't good enough, another friend arrived shortly after bearing a bag full of egg cartons, some empty jars with lids, and imported cookies from Deutschland. That's pretty wonderful, right? But there's more! The UPS man delivered my beekeeping supplies!!! Most of it is plastic frames and unassembled hive boxes and I won't get a chance to sort through it until Sunday. But here you can see the smoker, bee brush and hive tool on top of the middle box.


My bee mentor, Kristine, showed up and as we were hanging out who should waltz in? The Pipe Tart! A Facebook friend from Ohio. Now usually, if a female is into tobacco pipes, she's a character. And I adore characters. We had a nice visit. Before I knew it, it was time to head home. After I fed the cat I went in to check on my most recent wines. The apple wine is still not doing much (sigh). If it doesn't pick up in the next day or two I may just toss it. But the orange/banana wine is doing so well that I fear it may crawl out of the crock pot and attack me. It's a pretty robust ferment.

Homemade Lasagna Dinner

Today I tried my hand at lasagna, from scratch. I made the pasta, sauce (from my home grown tomatoes) and ground and seasoned the Italian sausage. My sons, Ian & Errol, stopped by for dinner. They enjoyed the home cooked meal and the home brewed beer that accompanied it. It was a damn good lasagna, if I do say so. Here it is before baking.


And after we had helped ourselves to some.

Cookies For My Best Friend

Now that we are venturing into all grain beer brewing we are going to have LOTS of spent grains left over. I hate to waste anything so will be looking for creative ways to use this malted barley. It makes great chicken food, and I've also added it to my bread. But I am looking for still more ways to use it to its best advantage. Today I decided to try out a recipe for dog treats. Reggie LOVES cookies but I'm sure the store bought dog treats contain things I'd rather he not ingest. There used to be a doggy bakery up on South Hill in Puyallup but sadly, it is now out of business. Time for momma to pick up the slack. For those of you who are wondering just what spent grains look like, here they are.


I had over 30 cups of this stuff left from the Harry Porter brewing. The recipe for the dog cookies is as follows:

4 cups spent grains
4 cups unbleached flour
1 cup peanut butter
2 eggs

I mixed this up with the help of Gladys, my Kitchen Aid Mixer. She had a tough time. This batter is DENSE, to say the least. Here is what I ended up with. Looks like something only a dog could love.


I divided it in half. The plan was to make 2 cookie sheets full. Trust me, it was not easy to spread into the cookie sheet. It took both the rolling pin, and my hands, to make it happen.


But we prevailed. Once spread evenly it had to be scored into the cookie shapes. I'm unimaginative, so opted for squares.


This was baked at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Then removed from the pan, broken into pieces, and allowed to cool. While this batch was cooling I baked the second pan full. Once they were both baked and cooled I loaded the cookies into the dehydrator.


The 2 cookie sheets filled all 4 trays. Now they were dried at 160 degrees for 8 hours. You need to remove all the moisture or else they will mold while being stored for the long term.


By the way, Reggie sampled them and he thinks they are DE-licious.

Free Fruit Means Cheap Wine

A friend stopped by the yarn shop with about a dozen "past their prime" satsuma oranges. She thought I might like them and I appreciate her thoughtfulness. There were a couple in there that were too squishy for wine making. The compost worms got those. I didn't take a bunch of pictures of this, because, quite frankly, it wasn't a pretty process. I had a couple of bananas that were really (no, I mean REALLY) over ripe. I decided to add those to the oranges and see what comes of it. I placed the cut up bananas into a pint of water and simmered them for 20 minutes. Then strained those into the primary fermenter. I added a 12 oz. can of frozen (thawed out) orange juice and 6 cups of sugar. Then I set about preparing the oranges. They had to be peeled and then I took my time and removed all that I could of the white pith from the segments. That part is bitter and will ruin your wine. Removing it was the most time consuming part of the process. Once they were cleaned up and segmented I put them through my juicer. The juice went straight into the primary. The pulp was placed into a nylon bag, along with 3 cups of chopped up golden raisins. That bag (the contents are called must) was closed and left to steep in the wine. I added some yeast nutrient and a crushed campden tablet. The tablet will kill off any wild yeasts that are present. Here is my wine in its fermenter (my largest crock pot).


Now the mixture needs to be covered and left to sit for 24 hours before the yeast can be pitched. The tablet will give off sulphur while it is working, so the fermenter needs to breath, but it must be covered to keep more wild yeasts (or other nasties) from entering the wine. I opted to use a kitchen towel and then set the crock pot lid on, at an angle, to keep the towel from slipping down into the juice.


Next up was an apple raisin wine. I had some frozen apple juice on hand. I defrosted that and put it into my Mr. Beer (Mr. Wine?).


I no longer intend to make beer in that, so I need to get my $5 worth. I added the juice, 3 cups of chopped dark raisins, 2 1/4 cups of sugar and 4 cloves (which I may later regret). To this I added the yeast nutrient and crushed campden tablet. It is also being covered by a kitchen towel.