In the past year since I’ve posted on my blog (wow, has it really been that long?!), I have thrown myself into the world of microorganisms. You know, the good kind. My interest has come from a few things: learning the art of food preservation that the refrigerator has nearly killed off; the health benefits of good bacteria; the cost savings; and most importantly, I’m a guy, and guys play with bugs from a very early age. Mine are now just microscopic.
I started out with the sourdough bread, and then to sauerkraut. Since then I’ve moved onto kombucha, kimchi, yogurt, and I’ve finally arrived at beer. I’ve had a few experiments that didn’t turn out so well. The kombucha was a bit scary to look at, so I couldn’t bring myself to drink it. The brusselkraut, while I’m sure it was perfectly edible, was not pleasant on the taste buds. But for the most part, things have been turning out well.
There are lot of misconceptions about homebrewing beer that I want to clear up:
Brewing beer at home is completely legal. It’s not even a grey area. In 1979, President Carter signed a law allowing people to homebrew up to 200 gallons of beer a year without license or taxing. Unless you live in Alabama, Mississippi, or Oklahoma. Oh, and if you brew in Kentucky you aren’t allowed to share.
Beer is not made in a bathtub. It’s a very clean and sanitary process, taking place in a simple 5 gallon glass jar much like the plastic jugs on office water coolers. I store it out of the way in a closet.
Brewing beer does not smell. The smell of warm bread and grains goes away as soon as I’m done with the 1 to 2 hour brewing process. Once it’s fermenting, I can only pick up a mild beer scent if I sniff right at the airlock on the top of the jar. Otherwise, nada.
Things don’t explode. The only part of the process that takes place under any sort of pressure is once the beer is in bottles and is carbonating. There is a small risk that a bottle will burst, but only if you don’t measure things properly or if they get hot.
It’s not dangerous to drink. If the yeast takes over and starts converting sugars to alcohol, that alcohol prevents nearly anything that’s harmful from growing. If wild yeast or bacteria infects it, the alcohol will make things safe. It may, however, taste disgusting if it gets infected.
Homebrewing is surprisingly inexpensive. You can spend thousands of dollars on a setup, but to get going, you really only need about a $150 investment in equipment. Once you have that, the cost of a bottle seems to run around 75¢ to $1, depending on the style and not counting labor. I’ve calculated that if I switch from my current method of extract brewing (brewing using cans of reduced grain sugars) to all-grain brewing (soaking the grains myself) I might be able to get it down to about 30¢ per bottle. All-grain brewing is a little more involved and requires a bit more equipment, but the biggest problem with it is that I would really need a much bigger place than my condo to do this in.
I’m still learning my way around the terminology and technique of brewing beer. So far I’ve done a couple batches of a Belgian witbier, a chocolate porter, an Irish stout, an oatmeal stout, and a hefeweizen. I’m starting to get comfortable enough with the process to move onto getting creative with the recipes, emulating beers I’ve tasted or creating something entire new.
A Belgian witbier
Transferring the beer from the primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter
My latest foray into fermented foods is sourdough bread. A friend of mine brought some San Francisco sourdough back from California with her after the holidays, and I have been searching for something comparable on the east coast ever since. I’ve purchased sourdough from bakeries at supermarkets and bakeries, and when I can find sourdough it’s never the strong, bitter stuff I have had from California. So I did some research.
As it turns out, sourdough and San Francisco sourdough are entirely different things. Sourdough is simply the bread that has been made for years, before modern active dry yeast was produced. In the old days, if you wanted yeast, you would have to keep it alive yourself. It was known as “starter“. When you made bread, you would put some starter in your flour and water mixture, and your dough would rise. When making San Francisco sourdough, it’s basically the opposite: you make a bunch of starter and then put some flour into it to reach a bread dough consistency.
So I sent an envelope to an organization known as Carl’s Friends, who out of the kindness of their hearts will mail you some dried sourdough starter if you send them a pre-stamped envelope. Upon receiving an envelope full of white powder (which was unnerving having just read Demon in the Freezer a few weeks ago), I reactivated the yeast and bacteria mixture using flour and a little potato water. Within a few days I had a frothing, gummy mixture of living starter. It had the smell of beer and wet latex paint.
I made San Francisco sourdough bread last weekend from a recipe I found on the Internet. It turned out with an amazing aroma. I do not have any photos because it was gone too quickly. I’ll try making some more this weekend. Hopefully it will stick around a little longer.
A couple of weeks ago on Boing Boing I read about making sauerkraut and decided to give it a try. Mine didn’t ever look as gross as the photos Boing Boing showed. I sliced a head of green cabbage and red cabbage and let is sit in a big pickle jar. That was two weeks ago today, and I decided to “harvest it”. I dumped it into tupperwares and put it in the fridge, where it should last a few months.
Opening my sauerkraut. Photo credit: Preston
Next up I’m going to try green cabbage with carrots and caraway seeds. I need to slice it a little thinner though because it is a little too crispy.
The process of fermentation fascinates me, and since refrigeration has come into common use, fermentation has waned in popularity. We still consume lots of beer, wine, soy sauce, chocolate, vanilla and yogurt, but I can’t imagine that our factory-produced food has the same taste and nutritional value. One of the great benefits of fermented foods is the live (good) bacteria culture, and the canning process destroys it.
I’d love to try making mead, yogurt, and sourdough bread.
Last week I had my first automobile-bicycle incident. At the end of a weekend that was just shy of 50 miles, I was riding from College Park back to Silver Spring. While riding down University, I stopped at the light for New Hampshire and made eye contact with the woman driving a yellow Nissan Xterra behind me. She kept her distance. After about two blocks, nearly to Carroll, she was still behind me. Then, as I’m cruising down University I see this yellow flash come from my left and pass directly in front of me. Squeezing my brakes, I came to a slow plow-down-the-passenger-side of her vehicle, leaving a justice-scrape from the clips. As I continued my journey, I pushed forward the mirror and finished with a springy bounce backward toward the pavement.
Remembering in an instant how a certain friend fell and her shoes stayed clipped, I twisted my legs as the pavement approached to release my shoes. It almost seemed over before it had begun. Next thing I knew I jumped to my feet and pulled my bike onto the curb. My knees were scraped. That was all. I was pretty certain. I exchanged information with the driver and got back on my merry way to Silver Spring with blood dripping down my shin.
My wound, a couple of days later. I shaved around it so that I didn't rip out my leg hair when I changed bandages.
I didn’t have time to stop and clean up before meeting Preston at Starbucks. Maybe I should have started cleaning my leg in the bathroom rather than the sitting area of Starbucks.
Looking back, I’m pretty certain that the driver thought I was moving much slower than I actually was. She likely thought she could blast past me and turn before I got there. Instead, she just turned directly into me.
Lesson for drivers: cyclists are likely moving much faster than you think, not pedestrian speed. Typically they are moving 18 to 25 miles per hour. Occasionally faster.
Lesson for cyclists: drivers don’t realize how fast you’re moving.
Last night while driving home after dark, I saw flashing lights alongside Georgia Avenue in Woodside. Initially I thought it was a bicyclist. A little closer and I could see that it was not moving like a bicyclist. Then I saw arms waving around. But it was moving; it wasn’t someone trying to flag anyone down in an emergency. As the person got into my headlights, I saw what it was: a unicyclist. I never thought someone would use a unicycle as an actual form of transportation except for this guy. I wish I had turned around and gotten his picture.
Bicycles are not allowed on the DC Metro during rush hour. Maybe the midnight Georgia Ave unicycler found a loophole?
Yesterday while removing my address from Direct Mail America’s database, I was presented with this crap:
Important: You have selected to eliminate all mailings from organizations participating in the DMA Mail Preference Service.
Are you sure you want to proceed?
The average household can save $1422 dollars per year from marketing offers. By eliminating all mail offers not only will you miss out on these savings, but you’ll miss out on at least 80% of all commercial offers and discounts!
And you will miss the environmental benefits of shopping at home rather than driving to the mall!
By replacing just two shopping trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalogs or direct mail, DMA estimates that Americans could:
Reduce the amount we drive by 3.3 billion miles.
Reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 3 billion pounds.
I’ve noticed many times on taking my recycling to my floor’s trash room, that nearly everything in the recycling bin is beer bottles, wine bottles, and liquor bottles. And they aren’t all mine.
So I just discovered this cool bit of information: digital cameras (such as cell phones) are infrared sensitive, which means that if you point an IR remote control at the lens, you can see whether or not your batteries work.
As notedearlier, I have started listening to my iPod and riding a bicycle, both with the added benefit that it makes it difficult for panhandlers to approach me. But they have been a little more aggressive recently. They try yelling over my music or waving at me before I bicycle past them. I have started to listen to my iPod while riding, but it is only a matter of time until they adapt and begin yelling before I speed past them.
By use of this photo I am in no way suggesting that Seven of Nine or Jeri Ryan is in any way homeless. I am personally unaware of her current financial and/or housing situations.
Limbaugh to move to Costa Rica if healthcare bill passes. Hurry up, Congress! (Rush, Costa Rica has universal healthcare) http://is.gd/a4J9n4 hrs ago
@lukas42 Seriously! I went there for Clarke's 2001. 1 copy in catalog. 0 on shelf. Last checkout was 2003. And their media selection sucks. in reply to lukas424 hrs ago
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