Sunday, February 19, 2006

Brewsters on the loose


Sunday night. What better way to finish the weekend than bottling assorted experiments in zymurgy. First up was a braggot - a honey ale. Next was what was left of an attempted apple-jacking. The idea was to make a basic apple wine, and distill it by freezing the water and saving the alcohol left behind. An old American tradition that for some reason didn't quite work as planned. In any case, the resulting apple wine is rather tasty and should be even better after aging a few months.

The braggot is also an old recipe, using honey, malt and hops. We put priming sugar in before bottling, to make it turn out carbonated. It should be at its' best in a month.

The only brew left in the alchemy corner is Mel - a melomel which is a fruit/honey wine. In this case, blackberries we picked from our front-yard berry patch, and honey from Guilmette's Busy Bees around the corner. I need to clarify it and let it sit a bit longer before bottling. It probably won't be anywhere near ready to drink for 8 months, and not in bragging range for a year.

Otherwise this weekend, we went to the casino to help celebrate a family member's birthday, put new roosts in the chicken house and installed a thermostat & heater, stacked firewood, made 2 garden beds, ran errands, caught & brushed Lassie, and bought some things for our emergency kit. Still on the next-up list - more garden beds, fruit trees, work on new chicken coop.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Just checking how comments work!