Raspberry Chocolate Milk Stout Update

Last night was my monthly homebrew club meeting--the night of judging for our raspberry beer competition.  I went in completely blind, as I hadn't even had a chance to sample my own beer before judging, so I had no idea which beer was mine.  Surprisingly, there were 10 beers (there's only like 15 of us in the club) and only three were darker beers. 

So how did I place?  Dead last!

And the best part is, it's because no one could taste the raspberry!  Of course, when we talked about how each entrant got the raspberry into their beer, I realized why.  I used 6 oz. of strained raspberry jam to bottle; the winner used 3 lbs of raspberry extract (canned syrup) and most everyone else used at least 2 lbs of fresh or frozen berries.

I think I'm going to make a syrup of my own to add to the beer when drinking to see if I like the taste of the raspberry in my beer.  That way, if I decide to make it again, I have a better idea of how much raspberry to add to get the flavor I want.

It's officially summer!

I know it's definitely summer when the raspberries start coming in.  And I've picked a quart off the bushes for two nights running!

Be Jealous.

 

Whoa is me (garden)...

I came across this article in the Philadelphia Inquirer Friday, and it made me remember the sorry state of my poor poor garden...

Before

 

 So, I finally weeded it this weekend as a Father's Day present to me and my husband.  Isn't she pretty?

Well, the after picture surprisingly doesn't look much better right now.  I weed and then throw down the weeded parts back onto the garden to keep the weeds down.  I know this sounds strange and counter-intuitive, but I swear it really helps keeps weeds (in my case mostly grass) from creeping back in.  One of the things I find most helpful in this project is rhubarb leaves.  You can't eat them, so why not use them to keep the weeds down?

Raspberries are really starting to come out, and even a few have started changing!  I've gotten a scant pint off the bushes so far, so we are a happy family. Raspberry preserves are just around the corner!

Plus, I had the handsome guy on your right helping me with all of my gardening tasks this weekend, while the big guy got his father's day wish--to nerd out alone inside...

I'm thinking I'll have to move the tomatoes next year--the tree in my neighbor's yard is starting to cover part of the garden and they need full sun for sure.  Plus, the tomato blight (a weird disease that makes for lame tomato plants if you don't rotate your crops after a few years) is starting to creep in.

Happy gardening!

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!

Garden planted?

Can you believe that it's June and I STILL don't have all of my garden planted?

We had a bit of an epic fail with starting some plants from seed inside.  Basically, I kept forgetting to water the seedlings once they sprouted until I could get outside to plant them, so they died, a cruel slow death on my window sill...

In order to salvage my garden and possibly get some food from it this summer, I went into over drive a few weeks ago, and directly sowed some seeds.  PROBLEM!  My big guy had put Preen in the garden (I know, I know), so nothing could really sprout, though somehow my acorn/butternut squash hybrid did and is looking rather spritely right now.  Since I went through all of my other seeds, I broke down and bought a rosemary plant, which I can never seem to make a perennial in my garden, and a packet of basil seeds at the Depot.

Though I have sprouted the seeds and was smart enough to do so outside in a container this time, they're still not quite ready for planting and live on my patio table as an odd centerpiece.  Nor have I gotten around to planting the rosemary...

I am woefully delinquent in my gardening duties this year (weeding?  what's that?), I have to remind myself of how much better I'm doing this year as opposed to last when I was barely pregnant and dog tired.  Hopefully, I have myself together a bit more when it comes time for pickling and canning!

Baby Food Time!

Right around the 4 month mark, I noticed that my little one was reaching for my food.  Of course, at first, I thought I was just seeing things and assumed that it was a symptom of the "my baby is advanced and awesome" syndrome that so many mothers have.  Then, he tried to eat my raisin toast.

When we went in for his 4-month well visit, I mentioned this to his Dr., and she said to try some foods or cereal.  So after consulting with friends, family, and a random facebook group I'm part of, I decided to start with rice cereal, just in case he wasn't really ready for food...

I really expected it to be a disaster.  Spitting, coughing, smearing, and general displeasure and grossness all over the place.  But, boy, was this kid ready to eat.  He ate that first teeny bowl of rice cereal so quickly and eagerly that he started crying for more while I was mixing up another bowl!



We did some banana a few days after that, and MAN!  He ate half of it.  I could also see the sugar high in his eyes...but half of a banana!  And apparently a few days after starting the bananas, my husband ate one in front of the little guy, and he cried and reached out for it.  When they say, the baby will tell you what he wants, they weren't kidding!

Since he ate a whole banana, I haven't gone back to the cereal.  It literally has no nutritional content, and there are so many foods he can try that are good for him!  (And to the folks who say "he'll sleep longer with a belly full of cereal" I say, this kids has slept at least 6 hours at night since he was two weeks old...)

Last week, we tried avocado.  Little guy did not like.  So I mixed it with banana.  Little guy did not like.  So I mixed it with more banana.  Again, little guy did not like.  He ended up looking like a bird pooped on his face, and extremely unenthusiastic.  (As a rule, high eyebrows=happy; low eyebrows=annoyed)

This week, we're trying sweet potato.  I had to add a bit of water to it after mashing; little guy did not like the thickness at first, but thinned out a bit and we were good to go.

On the menu for next week?  I'm thinking pears, but the big guy gets to pick the little guy's next food, so we'll see.

I'm going to try to not go the pre-made baby food route.  I just don't see the point in spending the money on it when I just have to mush up some of what I eat for him now and eventually just cube up some stuff.  I've found some really great resources in friends and websites for ideas, and I realized that everything they're recommending for your kid, is stuff we eat anyway.  And maybe it will help me and my other guy eat better in the process...

Just to be clear: Am I ruling out ever buying/using store bought baby food?  HELL NO!  I'll probably get a few jars from the store for back up and to have jars...

How I'm making little guy's food right now:
-mashing up soft things (so far no food processor needed)
-introducing one new thing a week, while continuing to feed him the previous weeks' items as well
-once I know he likes something, I make a bit of it a time.  For example, after I realized he likes bananas, I mashed up a few in little bowls since it takes about as much time to it for three bananas as it did for a half of one.
-starting next week, I'll probably have to start freezing my mashed up bits in ice cube trays.  More than three items at one sitting might be a little too much for either me or the little guy to handle.
-I have not purchased any special "baby" eating items like a little spoon or plate.  I use a custard cup and a normal teaspoon.  Again, I don't see the point in the extra expense, but to each his own.

I found this website through a recommendation.  It has great lists of what's good to try at what time, and even some recipes, though I have not explored that part.  Of most interest to me has been (and probably will continue to be) the food preservation techniques (freezing, etc.).

I'm really excited to see what little guy will eat as our garden starts producing things he actually CAN eat.  Right now our options are non-options (rhubarb, strawberries, raspberries), but I've got squash, cucumbers, peppers, eggplant and I don't even remember what else for him to try throughout the summer and fall.  I might even try to through a melon in there real quick before it gets too late...

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?