mikekn

Picked up some grape juice yesterday afternoon.  Specifically six gallons of viognier juice, which I will start fermenting tonight.  I also started a new mead last night, a five gallon batch made with heather honey.  It will be a plain mead, and probably fairly dry, but I'm really curious to see how it turns out.  Heather honey has a dark amber color and a strong flavor to it - but not a dark or strong as the buckwheat - so it should be pretty good.

Not much new brewing activity.  Racked the second Oatmeal Stout batch over the weekend.  Needs to be bottled soon (needed to be racked earlier).  The mead is still bubbling away, but there is no longer any honey at the bottom of the carboy. 

Had two bottles pop their corks in the basement (making a wonderful mess).  The first one wasn't a big surprise - it was a single early bottling of the metheglin.  Bottled way too early - the rest wasn't bottled for another 5 months.  The second one was a bottle of the blueberry melomel - sadly I discovered it after it had dried.  It had only been down there a few weeks, so I was a bit worried about the other 20+ bottles that went down at the same time.  I opened one of them, but there was no pressure inside, so I'm hoping it was a freak accident.  (Hmm... still need to finish off that bottle...be right back...)

I've also reopened the door to the basement so the air can circulate better. At the very least, that will keep things cooler down there.  I had closed it after moving one of the litter boxes from there to the laundry room - I wanted to keep the cats out while I cleaned the area and try to keep the move "accident" free.

In something that is brewing related, I can no longer claim to not be a beer drinker.  I've been hanging out with too many beer brewers and have gotten to try several different styles of beer over the last few months.  Now it's just a matter of figuring out which ones I like, and then go make some. :)

Yay!  We finally kegged the beer on Saturday!

Five gallons of Oatmeal Stout and five gallons of Dunkelweizen.  I was worried that something may have gone wrong with the Dunkelweizen, but it seems to have turned out ok.  We tasted each and they are Beer.  Started another five gallons of the Oatmeal Stout as well.  All three will be going to Pennsic for the Allies War Party at EK Royal.

The gewurzt. wine cooler is ready to bottle, so I'm going to try and do that tonight.  I also moved the cider and blueberry up from the basement.  I'll let them sit tonight, but tomorrow I'll test and taste and see if they are ready to bottle.  (Mmmm cider...)

Meanwhile the new mead to bubbling along nicely.  The level of honey at the bottom has dropped by over half, so we're making good progress.  Maybe next week it will be time to start the next one - whatever that turns out to be.  Amy wants to try something with Rhubarb.

I finally got the gewurztraminer bottled.  Yield was 24 full bottles, plus 11 half bottles.  Stabilized and clarified the gewurzt. wine cooler - it should be ready to bottle is a week or two.  Started 6 gallons of a plain mead - most of this will be for blending with my very dry cyser, but there should be some left over. 

Still need to keg the beer (maybe on June 5th or 6th) and rack some of the cordials.

In the basement I have a blueberry mead and a hard cider that I need to start working on.  The cider is still clearing, but I should really take a specific gravity and taste it.  I've no idea what state the blueberry is in - it might be ready to be bottled, but I just ran out of bottles.  At least I can use beer and strongbow bottles for the cider and wine cooler.

Spent yesterday working at home (not to be confused with working from home).  Ran out to the home brew store to pick up some bottle.  As usual, I spent too much time there and more money then I had planned.  Picked up what is basically a wine cooler kit to try out (Tropical Fruit Gewurztraminer). 

The rest of the day was spent working on some code for emt_hawk, taking two of the cats to the vet for their annual checkup, getting started on the Pennsic Games Tent (only two months later then I would have liked) and resisting the urge (for now) to volunteer to help work on the upcoming Bishop Geoffrey Tourney.

We bottled another one of the meads last night (yield: 12 full size bottles and 7 half size).  Moved the wine into its final stage before bottling (needs another two or three weeks) (dang, forgot to stir it this morning...)  Bottled a batch of soda I started several weeks (months?) ago, but never got around to finishing.  It should be ready to drink in a few days.  I had mixed it up and put it into the fridge, but forgot to write down what I used - now apart from "mostly cherry juice", I no longer remember what's in it.  Spoke with Gavan about what we're doing with the rest of the beer.  Looks like it gets to sit for another week or two.

Tonight: Stir the wine, bottle the cherry mead, and test the soda for carbonation.  When that's all done, start working on EK History stuff - assuming no one shows up to do heraldry stuff.  I figure if I don't announce it this week no one will remember :)

Friday: Get ready for Beltaine Brew & Brawl - need hand outs for the game classes and documentation for the brewing competition.

Looks to be another slow week at work...

Spent last Friday working with ultrasound contrast agents.  It was mostly a sanity test for some work we did almost two years ago (did we really see what we thought we saw, but which we've not seen since?).  The good news is we are not insane.

Friday night we took a friend out to dinner for her birthday.  We went to a fairly new restaurant run by some of our friends in the SCA.  It's a tiny little place (seats 18) in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia.  Incredible food!  My dinner was:
- Overstuffed Grapeleaves: tamarind beef, rice & shaved carrot w/grilled orange dip
- Fried Walnut Ravioli w/ roasted pepper tomato & feta salad
- Turkey Chop w/sweet potato polenta cake & light sage-roasted garlic sauce
- Triple Coconut Cake
They have a yahoo group where they publish their ever changing menu.  We need to go back there again soon.

Saturday was spent helping some friends load up a truck.  They are moving most of their furniture into storage while they are between homes.  Caught up on some TV watching after we got home - Tivo had been getting kind of full.  Saw the latest Angel episodes, plus a few of Tripping the Rift and Tru Calling.  Still lots to see though.

Sunday morning I ran some errands, and spent the afternoon on various brewing projects.  William came over and we bottled two cases of beer (still have 10 gallons more to go, but we want those in kegs), plus the last gallon of my buckwheat honey mead and a gallon of riesling.  Racked another mead into 1 gallon jugs.  This one seems to have become carbonated, so I'll have to think about how/when I want to bottle that.  I still need to finish the gewurztraminer and rack it again, plus check the basement to see what else is ready to bottle (then go get more bottles...).

Not much planned for this week apart from the usual EK History stuff on Thursday.  Looks like a good week to catch up around the house.