Goals Update: September in Review

The last few months have been pretty hectic, and I feel like we're finally settling into our new life in the suburbs.  Once you move in, there's still more work to be done in getting your schedule together and truly adjusting to a whole new way of doing everything.  And it's finally starting to feel comfortable...and productive!

How am I doing on my goals?  Not too bad!

1. Sew one garment a month: Nothing in September, but I was able to get a lot of my sewing projects lined up and ready to go, including getting my sewing table set-up and ready to go. I cut out another Renfew T-shirt just after Labor Day only to discover that I couldn't find my serger pedal anywhere.  The new one came in the mail last week, so October promises to be a much more productive sewing month.

2. Post an article a month: I posted twice, but neglected an August goals update and an ode to my little Lady who turned one. Meh.
3. Run at least 2 5K races: Signed up for one that happened Oct. 3rd...I'm trying to find another one to do before the fall is over.  Any suggestions?
4. Exercise 3 times a week: Doing a pretty good job of making those 10K steps, and I ran once or twice a week in September to get ready for my October 5K.  
5. Have one date with my husband a month: Thanks to a Nana visit, we went neighborhood bar hopping one night.  I think we were home and in bed b 1030pm, but it was a date and we had fun.
6. Become better at expressing my curiosity, and be more clear in the intent of my curiosity: Following my last post, I've been speaking with some friends and colleagues about how I'm working on this.  I think that by stating my anticipated goal (or that there isn't one) for a conversation has made communication in both social and professional situations more productive and enjoyable.
7. Read 10 books: Finally finished "All the President's Men".  Picked up "The Goldfinch" not realizing it's almost 800 pages...whoops! I think I'll be sorting my GoodReads lists on page count (if that's possible) next time.  5 down, 5 to go and a little under 3 months to do it in.  

I miss making things!

Man, I never thought I'd be so out of touch with my own blog.  I've never been a super-regular journaling kind of gal (even when I had an actual diary with a lock and key that I really just drew on--not in), but the last few months (roughly 7, actually) have probably been the most unproductive of my life externally.

Since January, I've stopped my personal chef-ery business, haven't sewn a darn thing (except a rogue bra strap and hook & eye clasp repair on said bra), haven't brewed a single beer, have knitted or crocheted exactly nothing, and barely have the energy to make dinner most nights.  I've planted exactly 4 tomato plants in my garden, and put together a really cute herb garden in a strawberry pot--that's it.

Internally, I'm sustaining an expectant life.  "#2" as we affectionately call him or her is due, ironically, Labor Day weekend.  As he/she/it is literally sucking the energy right out of me, I do a lot of "supervising".  I'm lucky to have an actually helpful 2 1/2 year old and an understanding husband...

But even though I spend most of my days dreaming about making things and plotting what I might be able to make while on maternity leave, I am lucky enough to be reading a ton lately.  In addition to voraciously reading my National Geographics each month, finally catching up on my SKI and 32 degrees magazines (ironic since there's no snow and I'm really not fit to ski), I've re-discovered the awesomeness that "Leisure Reading" section at Temple University's library which is awesomely situated across the street from my office.

If you're interested in keeping up with what I'm reading or suggesting a new book, please link up!  I hate walking blindly into a book without a recommendation and I'm game to read anything.  I'm 99% sure this is my profile.

Until I'm game for making again, here are my current craft-crushes:
The Cutest Darn Thing to entertain your toddler on Two-Many
I need to have this skirt but am too lazy to make it, but I still really want to buy the pattern
Signs I may miss drinking a bit too much

I hope to have more fodder to share with you all soon, but it may just be musings on what I plan to brew for my post-baby hospital bed celebration...I'm excited about that!

Summer Re-cap

I hate bloggers who apologize for not keeping up with their blogs--because blog readers are just glued to their computers waiting for us all to share what we had for dinner, the cute outfit we spent hours laboring over for our kid who messed it up 2 minutes after the photos were taken, or finding out what fun picture frame we fashioned into a completely useless piece of wall "art".

So, I'm not apologizing for not posting anything for almost 6 months--I have a life.  But, I've missed cataloging what I've been up to, so I thought I would do a bit of a photo montage that explains what I've been up to over the last six months.  Enjoy!

Garden:

We finally had a strawberry this year!  It rained a lot, my tomatoes are coming in like crazy (still), I built a vertical planter for sweet potatoes (that died) that seems very well suited for cucumbers, pesto: the elixir of pasta, a squash plant I started from seed and hydrangea. 

Kiddo:

 

Helping me make cinnamon buns with his friend one morning.

 

And thankfully, we had a lot of beach & lake time this summer.

Cooking:

 

I discovered the olive bar at Wegmans's; Mac n Cheese, grilled lamb leg, avocado pasta, pierogies with chorizo(!), the book that started it all, cold-brewed coffee (a revelation), we made baked beans from scratch, this crazy watermelon rum drink with limes and cilantro, Heizenberg special rock candy (just a touch of chili p yo), and the most beautiful fritatta I've ever made.

Beer/Liquor Drinks:

A small sampling what I've been drinking this summer.  Lots of ales and saisons, now transitioning into festbiers and porters.  I haven't brewed since probably Februrary, but I'm enjoying what others are making immensely!

The chill of fall has also reignited the bourbon (me) vs. scotch (my husband) debate in our house.  Here's a fun maple mint julep I made--it's actually better without the ice cubes to take that chill off your bones.

If you have any questions about what I have up here, just ask!  It may make its way into a full blog post one day!

The Presidential Porter

Last night was fun.  I grouted my kitchen counter (project pics to come), listened to the Candy Show (my new name for last night's debate), and drank some of the President's Porter.  Because I know you all follow this blog religiously, I know you remember when I posted about when the White House released the recipes, too!

Well, here's the porter!  Doesn't it look pretty on that new counter?

It needs a few more days to carbonate I think, but it is REALLY good.  It doesn't have the usual bitter aftertaste that most porters seem to have and isn't sickeningly sweet even with all that honey.  It's also a gorgeous dark brown with red coming through with the light.  I didn't filter this beer, and it's pretty opaque.  Since it's still under-carbonated, there's not really any head to speak of, but what did appear was almost stark white in color. 

I would definitely make this beer again, but I guess I need to make the honey ale first...  And if Romney comes out with a good soda pop recipe, I'll try that, too. 

It's Oktober!

I feel like if you're a home brewer, there are a few things you HAVE to make every year:
1. A holiday/spiced beer for Christmas or the fall
2. An Oktoberfest

Here's what mine looked like.  And I say lookED, because that keg is KICKED!
As you can see, it's a little cloudy, but I'm really thrilled with how it turned out. 

One of the reasons I hadn't made an Oktoberfest before this year was that I didn't have any way to lager the beer (fermenting at low temperatures like 55F).  And I still don't, but I waited until the weather cooled off and the house was under 65 during the day and I dare say it worked!

I'm really disappointed that this beer is gone.  It's probably the best Oktoberfest I've ever had!

P.S. I totally cheated on this one, I went with a recipe kit from my favorite home brew store, Keystone.  Go pick it up!

Ale to the Chief: White House Beer Recipes

We might not all be destined to be the Commander in Chief, but now we can drink like him!


After a few weeks of online petitioning, bloggers demanding, and homebrewers drunkenly whining, our fearless leader and his even more fearless chef and brewing partner released the recipes for their White House Beers.  And apparently they are amateur bee-keepers as well...

And being that this weekend in the Philadelphia Honey Festival, it makes the release of this recipe very timely.

Here's the link to the recipes, and bit more on the background, and an interview of the big O talking brewing

I'm planning to do the Honey Porter first...SO EXCITED!

Blind Faith Beer Clone

A few weeks ago, the big guy seemed flabbergasted at the fact that we had no more IPA's left in the basement for us to drink and made me promise to brew more ASAP.  So I chose two, brewed one, and even employed a new hopping technique in the process!

The first one I brewed up was a Blind Faith (Magic Hat) clone.  Blind Faith is one of the few truly hoppy beers that Magic Hat produces, but it still has a pretty light mouth feel.  I remember it being pretty light in color, but it's been a while, so I could be completely wrong on that one.

The coolest thing about making this recipe is that it called for dry hopping (throwing a bit of the hops in after/during fermentation and during the boil) and with our new kegging system I used a new technique to dry hop.  I threw the 2 oz. or so of the hops into a muslin bag, tied it to the inside of the keg so that they sat in the beer without clogging up the intake and voila!

I think the only thing that this clone got right was mouth feel, but I still like my beer.

This weekend, hopefully I'll be able to brew an Oktoberfest!

Feeling kind of awesome

June 1-8 was Beer Week here in Philly. A pretty big deal in such a beer drinking town.  And guess who was part of it?  ME!  It's kind of a small (and pretty lame) accolade (especially seeing as I wasn't even mentioned in the event description), but I had two of my beers featured as the homebrew to beat a commercial version during a teaching event.  Apparently, a woman even described my tripel as "a rainstorm in my mouth"!  I really don't know what that means, but it sounds cool!

Bottling Day: Raspberry Milk Stout

I've been so terrible about posting on my brewing lately! Truth be told, I've been terrible about a lot of things that don't directly affect my little man, as evidenced by the fermented carboys sitting in my dining room for a few weeks now.

Saturday (May 5) was National Homebrew Day, so after weeks of saying I was going to bottle the beers on hold, I sucked it up and bottled with my husbands's help.

I truly hate bottling--it's the worst part of brewing in my opinion; it's messy and wet, it takes forever, requires no creativity, and then you have to wait at least 4 weeks (usually 6 or more) to actually enjoy the beer!  In addition to saving up for that sewing machine, I'm also saving up for a kegging system so we don't have to deal with the bottling BS anymore.

This time around, it wasn't as messy or as time-consuming as normal (a blessing with a 3-month-old).  I attribute this not to a new-found groove my husband and I have created for ourselves, but to the fact that we had CASES of clean and empty bottles due to the months of inactivity.  Things really only needed to be rinsed out and sanitized rather than our normal homeless person shuffle through the recycling bins for empties to re-use.  Plus, I had two cases of empty 22's and 3 growlers, so that took up about 3 gallons right there (out of 5).

Since I find no creativity in bottling, I've started thinking of ways to actually make it more fun.  This time around I decided to bottle with flavorings.

My homebrew club decided that June would be raspberry beer month (brew any style as long as you added raspberries), so I made a chocolate milk stout and bottled it with some of last year's raspberry jam (strained of seeds).  For some reason, I couldn't figure out from the recipe I used how much sugar they recommended for bottling, so I guessed using 5oz. from a partially open jar in my fridge.  I boiled the jam with the same amount of water, ran it through a wire mesh strainer, and then added it (cooled a bit of course) to the beer in the bottling bucket while it was still siphoning from the carboy to make sure no yeasties were killed in the process.

Here are some pics of our not-so-scientific process:

Step 1:  First we make an appetizer to make sure we don't get cranky while we bottle.  Saturday's cranky-killer was crab stuffed mushrooms.  If I get any requests, I can post a recipe...

Step 2:  Fill up your sink with sanitizing solution.  We use Isophor, an iodine solution that doesn't require rinsing.  Your husband should also attach the really dopey looking bottle cleaner to the faucet (and break the aerator on the faucet in the process).  This makes bottle rinsing a lot easier.

Step 3: Sanitize your bottling bucket, siphon, and wand.

Step 4:  Set up the carboy in a higher spot than the bottling bucket and siphon your little heart out.  The most important part of this step is making sure that none of the yeast cake (the beige goo at the bottom of the carboy) gets into the siphon itself by keeping the end of the wand above it.  If you don't, you'll have cloudy beer (important for competition and not freaking your friends out).  Also good to note: siphoning without making a mess takes a bit of practice, and finally I'm getting pretty good at it after a few years of brewing.  When you're done siphoning, you should only see the yeastie mess on the bottom and probably a 1/4 of beer.

As I mentioned before, this is a good opportunity to put your bottling sugar in (whether it's corn sugar, maple syrup, or in this case raspberry jam) since it will mix it in as it siphons and take out any heat that might be big enough to kill the yeast.


Step 5:  Take a really cute picture of your kid so that you can embarrass him later in life by illustrating what drunks his parents were while he was an infant.  This step is obligatory for all new parents, ps.

Step 6:  Clean, sanitize and drip-dry your bottles.  We just use the dishwasher rack, but you can buy expensive bottle trees to dry them if you like.  We're cheap, and frankly, this doesn't take up any storage space in the interim, which seems to be an issue with my brewing equipment lately.


Step 7:  Move that really heavy bottling bucket up onto a table or counter (or even a stool so that the spigot hangs off with enough room to stick a bottle under it.  We also use a bottling wand (it has this really cool "stop pouring" button in it so you make less of a mess), so we need at least an extra 12 inches.  I also put a paper towel pile under neath to catch any drips.  If I don't, the drips turn into splatters and we're walking around sticking to the floor in random spots for at least week afterward.

Step 8:  Put that beer in those bottles!  As you can see, you really just shove the bottle onto the wand, let her fill up, and then take it off.  As an FYI, the more empty the bottle gets, the slower the beer moves and the longer it will take to fill each bottle.  I highly recommend filling up the larger bottles first (growlers, 22's, etc.) before your arms are getting tired.

Step 9:  Cap the bottle.  We've got a capper, which literally just smooshes (technical terms here) the cap around the rim of the bottle.  If you do it wrong, you'll know--the cap will fall off immediately, you'll see it's crooked, etc.

Step 9:  Wait.  A lot.  This is the worst part by far.  For most beers, I'd recommend waiting at least 6 weeks, but sometimes (especially if it's warm out) you can drink them after 2.  Some beers really benefit from a long aging--particularly those that are really high in alcohol.  I made a belgian tripel last year that is so much better after 9 months of waiting than it ever was at 6 weeks.

I still haven't bottled the "Baby Bicker Brew", my ode to my little man, (but that should happen this weekend!) and then I'm allowed to brew another beer.  I'm thinking a Red IPA for the summer...thoughts?