Monday, June 30, 2008

Sima - a tasty traditional Finnish homebrew

Here is the way our friend Saara of Endor makes sima. She says "It's fermented, but not alcoholic, at least not beyond a percent or so, if that". "First we have the ingredients: 8 liters water (not shown) 1/2 kg sugar 1/2 kg brown sugar 2 lemons (organic since rinds are used) 10 hops flowers 1 bottle pilsner 1/4 tsp yeast raisins & more sugar Boil the water, mix in the sugar, and add the lemon rind, sliced lemons (pith and pits removed) and hops. When this mixture has cooled, add in the yeast and beer. Let ferment for one day. Strain into bottles. Into each bottle add 1 tsp sugar and a few raisins. Cap bottles and store in a cool location. Sima is ready to drink in one week."
Further commentary from Saara: "Here is the mixture cooling. No beer and yeast have been added yet. I'll drop in the hops tonight and let it cool until morning. I'll have to split it into a couple of pots when I add the beer and yeast. Apparently I thought a 9 liter stock pot would be enough. Unfortunately, I don't have bottles, a capper, and all that. 2 liter pop bottles would work great..." "Here we were bottling the stuff. A couple of rinsed raisins in each bottle (I was generous since they're a favorite treat), teaspoon or so of sugar (depending on bottle size) and strained into the bottles. "
Apparently bottled sima can explode at random, so might be best to use glass coke bottles or what we're planning to try, champagne bottles with wired-down corks.
........................................................................................................................

Stay tuned for a pictorial update of our "vacation" week. We've been working on Ryder's new quarters (with a spare stall for any pony we might happen to find), plus trying to fill our new garage with hay for keeping a milk cow, beef steer and bull in good shape all winter. Not to mention the usual garden frenetics. The current heat wave is good for growth, but means lots of watering. We managed a break to take the dogs swimming at Birch Bay, and to sit under the seven trees of Seven Trees with a beer and relax. The heat has been hard on all the beings here, but food comes from sunlight, one way or another, so as the saying goes - make hay while the sun shines....

Saturday, June 28, 2008

The fun is swarming at Seven Trees

A swarm of honeybees made its way through the neighborhood today. I went outside to check on the dogs and heard a loud buzzing above the garage. Hovering overhead was a huge swarm. They slowly moved south over the house, and then over the pasture and on to a tree in the neighbors' front yard. We missed seeing them form into a compact mass to rest, and they soon disappeared somewhere over the raspberry fields.
Where Newt is cute - she came to visit with us in the shade of the front yard trees this afternoon, and for once happily posed for the camera.
We replanted the cukes this evening, and Mark supervised from the greenhouse. He was a little camera-shy about waving though.

Uh oh! Vacation leaves lots of time for experiments...Bacon Salt!!

On a more laborious note, we did bring home a trailer-load of lumber to start building the new range shelter for Ryder tomorrow, our new herd sire. We'll post updates, if the current heatwave permits.