Homebrew Success

I'm very happy with the results of my first batch of homebrew. My Brewer's Best, English Brown Ale came out about as good as I could have expected. It has a beautiful aroma, and a rich satisfying taste. I'm not saying it's better than Newcastle, but I'd drink it any day of the week over the mass produced domestic (or imported (such as overrated image beers like Heineken or Corona) for that matter) beers that most people drink. I'm very encouraged by the results, and I'm really looking forward to sampling my Red Ale next week, and getting started on my IPA.

Harvest Time

Even though I do enjoy all the work I do in the garden, it's the harvest that makes it all worth while. So far I've been able to grab a bunch of radishes here, a handful of peas there, or a few leaves of lettuce for a salad, but until today, I haven't been able to make a meal out of a harvest. I pulled out 9 turnips (about 3 pounds worth), and I still have a little over a dozen left (plus the seedlings I just planted).

I used them to cook braised and glazed turnips from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything Vegetarian: Simple Meatless Recipes for Great Food. Like most of Bittman's recipes it's quite simple:

• 2 tbs. butter/oil
• 1 lbs. turnips
• 1/2 c. vegetable stock
• Salt & pepper
• Lemon juice
• Chopped parsley

Combine butter, turnips, stock, and S&P. Bring to a boil, turn it down and let it simmer until the turnips are tender (15-20 min.).

Uncover and raise the heat until almost all the liquid has boiled off. Turn off the heat and garnish with the lemon juice and chopped parsley.

Herb Garden

Vegetables provide the sustenance, but herbs provide the zest. This year, I'm going all-out on zestiness. I've got herbs located in about a half-a-dozen different locations. To the left here is my little herb garden in front of the greenhouse. The bushy plant in front is chamomile. It's flowers can be used to make tea. Behind it are basil and cilantro. Basil and cilantro are herb all-stars. I use basil in every pasta dish I make, and I use it in large quantities. Likewise, I use cilantro in every Mexican dish I make, and of course salsa. Italian and Mexican dishes lend themselves well to my style of eating. I care about three things when I prepare a meal. It has to be relatively simple. It has to be healthy, and it has to be tasty. Mexican and Italian dishes work for me, because they use recognizable ingredients. I can usually leave meat out of them, and most importantly, I can load them up with vegetables. Next to the greenhouse, in a pot I have a little bit of mint. My mint didn't germinate too well, so I should probably get some more seeds started pretty soon. Mint is another of my favorite herbs. It will allow me to impress my Sanilac County friends with my Mojito making skills. In addition to those, I planted some chives, dill (I also have some dill next to my cukes), marjoram, and thyme around a bird bath, just south of the basement wall. I would've liked to have some rosemary as well, but it didn't germinate. I don't use those herbs as much, but I do use them occasionally, and just having the opportunity to smell them once in a while makes the minimal amount of effort I've put towards planting them all worthwhile.

Just in case I didn't plant enough basil and cilantro in front of the greenhouse, I planted a few rows of it in the garden. I planted a couple rose of basil in front of the tomatoes, a row of cilantro in front of the peppers, and a few parsley plants (they didn't germinate real well) alongside the peppers.

I almost forgot to mention, almost a third of our back lawn is oregano. Mom planted it one year, and it became invasive. For the most part, we just mow it down, like we would do to grass, but we've let one little section of it grow. I hope my basil and cilantro shares its ambition.

Sweet Fixie Brah

I just slapped together what could possibly be the most un-hip fixie in existence. I told my brother I'd make him one, but I'd been having some difficulty locating a vintage road bike. At our hunting lodge, I noticed a hunk of junk Huffy mountain bike, and to my surprise, it had horizontal dropouts. I didn't like the one piece crank, but I figured that I had nothing to lose, so I started putting her together. Mostly, I used stuff I already had laying around: track wheelset, 17 tooth cog, and some sweet handlebar grips. Unfortunately, I was a little short on chain, so I had to get a KMC Z410 Bicycle Chain
from Amazon, and I also had to get a Pyramid Track Cog Lockring. After acquiring the parts, everything fit together fairly nicely (all things considered). Fortunately, the inner chainring wasn't riveted, so I was left with the 40 and the fifty. Ideally, I would've disconnected those two, and just ran the 50, but they were riveted. Right now, I have it on the 50, and the chainline looks acceptable. If it gives me any problems, I'll run it from the 40 tooth, and probably go with a 14 tooth cog. The distance between the dropouts is a little longer than it should be, but the axles on the wheel are long enough, so I just need to crank on the bolts to bend the steel in a few centimeters on each side. I would also like to change the saddle, and chop a couple inches off each end of the handlebars. As of now, it's a functioning bike, but I don't think it has much of a long term future. There's a lot of rust, and the tightening bolts on the stem are completely rounded off, so I'll never be able to service the headset. The important thing is that my brother has his bike, and everything I put on there can be transferred over to a vintage road frame if I ever find one.

Starting to Produce

It's very satisfying to see a little production from the garden. So far, it's come in the form of a couple of veggies to snack on while I'm in the garden. I've eaten a handful of peas, and a few radishes. I planted radishes from two different seed packets. The Burpee radishes have been very uninspiring, with skinny little roots, but the package I bought from Lowes is producing some plump little radishes.

I'll probably harvest the rest of that row sometime this week and make a nice little salad. I still have a month or so before my staple vegetables start producing, but the reassurance offered by my early producers is comforting. I'm hoping my cool weather crops, like cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, and cabbage start producing relatively soon. The plants certainly look healthy, and have been growing away.

 My potato plants won't be producing for a while, but they are looking very healthy. As they continue to grow, I will continue to mound straw up around them in order to protect the young taters from sun poisoning.

 My tomato and pepper transplants mostly look healthy, and I even have a few little maters growing. We've been getting a lot of rain around here, but I'm going to transplant my eggplants on the next warm sunny day we get. According to the weather, that could be tomorrow.

Two More Chickens

On Memorial Day, I went to the Marlette Stockyards, and picked up two more chickens. I was much happier with the selection this time. I immediately found two nice looking Isa Browns. According to the vendor, they're 11 months old, and have been laying regularly. I hope so, because I've been less than satisfied with the average production of the three hens I purchased a couple of weeks ago. My brood now consists of five hens and a mean little two-toed rooster. They've been averaging about an egg and a half a day. I finally got my first pale blue Aracauna egg after two and a half weeks.  The banty has been laying four or five a week, and the other hen has also been laying about four or five eggs a week. 

 

The Isas have been here about four days now, and I don't think they've laid any eggs yet, but they are such nice looking, well-adjusted birds that I'm expecting them to start laying pretty soon. Once the birds start producing up to their potential, I'd like to collect at least three eggs a day, but I'd be happy to get more. I know I have to be patient, because chickens can take a while to settle in after being transferred to a new location.  

 

Bottling Day

On the first day of June, I transferred my English Brown Ale from the fermenter to the bottles. It had been in the fermenter for 10 days, and the airlock hadn't bubbled in over a week. I didn't take two separate hydrometer readings to ensure that it was no longer fermenting, so hopefully I didn't just create a couple dozen 22 oz. beer grendades. Actually, I was only able to fill 21, 22 oz. bottles, because of a miscalculation during the initial boil. Our well water here is borderline undrinkable, so I bought five gallons of spring water. Unfortunately, I boiled about a gallon of water off. On the bright side, I should have some nice strong beer. I think this batch will turn out to be drinkable, but it'll probably be mediocre. I made a number of mistakes that a more experienced brewer wouldn't have made: the aforementioned water mistake, letting the trub get into the fermenter, not cooling the wort low enough, not putting a wet towel around the wort to keep it cool, and causing a bit too much aeration during the bottling stage. According to the all-knowing internet, it's hard to make a terrible batch of beer, even for a mistake-prone noobster such as myself. I'll be putting that to a test in a couple of weeks, when I crack the first one open.