Garden update..

Well, was with much anxiety that I pulled up all but one of the tomato plants in the lower raised bed. So sad! :) There's one left with a few more cherry tomato's on it, but that'll probably get pulled in the next couple of days or so.. I gotta get to the meat of this book "Four Season Harvest" by Elliot Coleman, so I can figure out the best type of cold frame for me to build there. I'm still undecided on if I'm going to do a whole 4x8 bed or just a half shooter in a 4x4 square. Still pondering that..

Check this sweet tomato I just picked from the Global Bucket project planter on the deck:

Nice work, right there.. I'm excited to see how well that thing came out. Gives good hope for next years crop of sause tomatos I'm gona do entirely on the deck in those same type buckets.

Anyway, this is the state of the garden as of this moment:

You can see the tomatos are all but gone from the lower bed. I'm probably gonna fence in the area, protect the turnips and lettuce, and let the chickens in there for a few hours or days, so they can have a bit of fun with the leftover fruits in there. They'll have a blast, I'm sure..

I'm also getting huge amounts of shade in both beds now that fall is coming up here.. the lower sun isn't getting over the tops of the trees now until around 1000 hours, whereas before it was fully blast right about 0800-0830 hours. No wonder my lettuce is slowing to a crawl.

Also, just pulled a radish out of the planter bow on the deck.. it was small, but it was tasty! The radishes in the planter are HUGE in comparison to the ones in the beds.. no comparison, really. In fact, if the beds get any grown radishes at all this time around, I might be surprised.. unless the cold frame does something magic in there.

Pretty soon, I'm also gonna do some measuring up and set up my squares for the square foot garden project. I know Mel says you aren't doing it right if you don't have solid, wood or whatever divider grids, but that stuff just isn't going to work for what I have in mind. It's gonna be twine for me, wether Mel agrees or not. The principal I like.. and that's what counts. Stay tuned for those developments in the near future..

The Am. pale ale I just did, solo style, is done with it's main ferment.. gonna keg that up for the Pink Shirt party coming up.. and I just had a taste of the Am. Amber I did with Commando Savvas.. strangely, still not carbed, but I guess it's only been 7 days.. usually takes 10, but hey, I can hope, right? It's *very* promising.

I got nuthin' else.. carry on.

Big brewin'

Here's a couple pics of me hanging out in the mashtun and boil kettle and stuff after joining my pal Timmay for a day of big boy brewing in a commercial environment. Timmay works at Cambridge Brew House, if you're not in the know, as the head brewer. He recently took over this joint from the last brewer and is already turning things around there. He took further steps to assure greatness in the finished beer by having me join him the other week, where we brewed up an Octoberfest for the upcoming Fall season. Check some of this out:

We did some milling of grains first, lofting up a few hundred lbs of grains on our shoulders and feeding them into a two stage, one pass, grain mill. That was easy enough.. went through right quick.

Here's me stirrin' the mash in the big tun after the grains were milled up. Yep, they still do it the old fashioned way here.. and that's pretty typical for a lot of brew pubs. Nothing fancy except some generally hard work with a big paddle for this step.

After that, we did some runoff of the wort into the kettle, and then it was time to clean out the spent grains from the mashtun. Dig it:

Me, just shoveling. All went into some big bins and then a farmer from New Hartford came to scoop it up from up to feed to some cows. Lucky cows.

Then, some interior detail work on the same tun:

This shot is taken from the side hatch, looking up out the top of the hatchway where in the first pic I was stirring. That thing I'm polishing there is the spray head thingy, where the hot water comes down out of to spray onto the grain bed to rinse the sugers down into the kettle.

And finally, me, peeking my head out the top of the boil kettle.. didn't get any shots of the interior of this while I was there, but I was able to crawl right in and check the thing out from the inside. Interesting, and slightly claustrophobic experience!

I loved it. It was a great time and very enlightening. The equipment is interesting, configurable, and quite flexible in its operation. Really neat stuff.

Some day..

Till then, carry on..

Canning and Propagating..

Cool stuff this time around.. first, I did my first canning  operation at home here, with the help of my pal Crystal. She's a highly experienced canner, and really made pro work of the whole project. Well, except she stuck her hand in boiling water once.. oh, and goofed around with seriously hot peppers and wasn't wearing gloves which caused her to cry most of the night because of burning fingers from the Jalapeno's and Habanero's capsaicin. But that's trivial stuff. Check these pics of the process:

Here's Crystal, smashing some Hab's into the jars.. what a pro!

..a pic of the whole operation..

..and a shot of the finished products.

All in all, we made a buch of these jars up and every one of them sealed up fine. Crystal made off with a few of 'em, and I've got 6 half pint jars and 9 whole pint jars to show for our 3.5-4 hour process. The process itself was pretty straight forward, but time consuming. We used the stove in the kitchen, as you can see from the pics, but I think next time we do this, I'll drag out the brewery equipment and we'll use that stuff to heat our water up. Most of the time wasting was due to poor heat up times for the boiling water, which a 55k brewery burner would make short work of. We'll keep that in mind for next time, like I said. 

In other news, I just got my Garland "Super 7" seedling propagator in the mail yesterday. Check this out:

This is the tiny 4x6 seeding propagator tray.. the holes in the bottom allow the water from the lower tray to be wicked up the, well, wicking material, and into the tray, so you never have to take off the top cover to water these. They always stay perfectly hydrated, just like a sub-irrigated planter would. That's pretty much what sold me on this thing, because of the promise I saw with my Earthbox and 'Global Bucket' projects.. 

Here's the water tray and the standoff I mentioned above, that keep the little propagators from sinking in the water.. 

And here's that funny water wicking material that goes on top of the standoff, and under the trays, to bring the water up to the soil. 

Here's an overall view of the contraption, and you can see that there's 7 trays with covers in total.

The other thing that really sold me was.. you get things that germinate at different rates, like at 68 degrees, our typical basement temp in the winter (coal stove power!), lettuce will come up in about 3 days, but peppers will take up to nearly 2 weeks.. if all the seedlings were in one large tray of some sort, you'd have some things out of the soil and some things still in the ground all going at different times. Ideally, you want to keep the clear tops on while things germinate to keep the moisture in, and then take the tops off after they break the surface, so you don't get mold growth. This setup allows that action, because everything can be kept individually growing in their own compartments. Nice idea. 

Also, these things are made from *thick*, reusable plastic. As long as I don't run these over with a car, they'll last a good long time. I'm not sure how long the thinner plastic kits will last. Still, I've never used this before, so we'll see how it goes. I do have some experience 'pricking out' seedlings and keeping them alive now, since I've been screwing with my planter box on the deck. I have at least some faith, because of that. :)

Anyhow, that's what I've got for the day.. so, get lost!

Potato harvest..

Here's the big potato harvest of 2010. Dig it..

Impressive, no? And heck, not even all of them are edible.. not counting the tiny ones, there's a few of the medium size'ers there that have a bug hole in 'em. Fortunately, the biggest of the bunch seems to be in good condition, and might be able to have a go 'round with my belly. ;-) Still contemplating that right now..

In addition, there was a pretty good pull for the rest of the joint, too. Check this colorful bunch:

Nice. The Habaneros are all ripening up quick now, about 8-10 a day all at once. Curious.. I hope to be able to can up the Jalapeno's this weekend with my friend Crystal, but we'll see how that goes.

In beer news, the lactic infused Stout seems to have a bit of a film over the top, indicating a good lactic buildup. But, I can't see it clearly enough to get a picture of it to show. I'll have it on tap soon enough, 'cause the Big Bear stout is nearing it's end. The Am. Amber wet-hop version I just did with Savvas is almost ready to keg, too.. just gotta find a spot to put it in and it'll be on line.

I hate my dog.

The garden planter box thingy is also doing well, but a bug ate the basil on the left ide of the planter. I just finished taking up one of the extra basils on the right hand side and transplanted it to the left, so we'll see how my first proper seedling transplant goes. apparently, you're supposed to wait till you get a few of the second 'true' leaves to form before you transplant it. I guess that's why I've been killin' 'em all up.. I've got high hopes for this recent move, though. Otherwise, the radishes are all going wild and the lettuces are having a great time. In fact, I also just took a couple of the extra lettuces and put them into tiny pots to grow on the side, instead of snipping them off to clear the way for the biggest ones. We'll do that just for fun.. probably won't much become of it. I'll get some pics of that when I can.. camera is still charging now.

Also in gardening news, I ordered up the seedling starter thing I finally decided on, and it's not the Hydrofarm Hot House with the heat mat, or even the Burpee kit I was looking at. Just happened to stumble across this setup by accident and fell in love with it. I'll get some pics when it arrives.. but it's really neat.

The Brutal Truth: Wheat Stout

Here we have a sample of Don's Wheat Stout, which has Wheat in it as a supposedly major part of it's grain bill. I'm not sure how to classify this beer, but he's telling me it's a Stout, and the closest thing I see in the book is the American Stout guidelines. So, against that we'll throw it, and see what sticks after it goes through the meat-grinder of The Brutal Truth!

Appearance: "Jet Black" is the color descriptor, and "Persistent head of light tan to light brown" is the description for the foam. I'll give it that. Hell, I'll give it a three of three, because the foam is still there, minutes later and it's still jet black. Snap, Don nailed that one! Granted, this isn't too difficult on a black beer. I think this is where Pale ales tend to take the hits.. Score: 3/3

Aroma:  I'm getting a faint to moderate chocolate malt on the nose, not so much a roasted note. Perhaps minutely, but ever so slight, if that. No alcohol hit in the aroma, and no hops either. Appropriate for style. It's an inviting smell, and I can no longer put off tasting this thing.. Score 9/12

Flavor: Chocolate. Wow. Soft as a pillow. Almost no acrid roast flavor here whatsoever. *Extremely* smooth. This is a stout for people that don't even like stout, if Roast character is not their bag. If there are hops in here, I can't taste them, other than to say the bitterness is equal to the task of balancing the dark malts, but not popping up any more than that. ..now that I've had this beer for more than a few sips, I'm starting to pick out the roast malts now.. that real roast barley, not just a chocolate malt or brown malt flavor. It's definitely there, and takes a backseat for the first block of the road-trip, but jumps up from the back seat like a knife wielding maniac might in a crappy B-movie.. you don't know it's there till it's too late. But I got it now. Well done. No esters here that I can perceive, and a moderately dry finish. How about a touch of malted milk ball? It's in there. Yeah, well done. Hit me with a 17/20 Hayyyy Hoooo!

Mouthfeel: Medium full body, silky in feel. No astringency from any dark malts.. err, maybe just a molecule worth, but that's it. Still, well done. Carbonation is on the medium low side in this bottle-conditioned version. Score it 4/5

Overall Impression: Love it! Strangely, the guidelines call for a hoppy beer in the overall impression area, but then tell you low to high in the flavor department. As such, we can take our liberties with this confusion and rank the crap out of this beer as being generally freakin' awesome. Were this my beer, I'd be especially proud. I'm halfway through a bomber of it now and am enjoying the hell out of it. There is a range of ways you can go with this beer, and this is a great interpretation of one. I'm gonna give it an 8/10. I sure as hell hope Don puts this one into a competition somewhere and tells 'em how the Krausen Commando's do it Stout Style on the east coast.

Total score: 41/50. SNAP! This beer is awesome. Have Don hook you up with a bottle and see for yourself.. it'll be worth the trip.

Garden update from planter box.. & pizza tips!

A few pics from the planter box thingy I planted with a few lettuce and radishes.. wherever there's a piece of straw poking up, there's a lettuce or basil plant. The two basil's are on the ends and the red and green lettuce are towards the middle a bit more. There's radish everywhere there was a space inch of room. I guess I can pull that straw out of there, since all of the plants are now visible..

Rather small tomato from a planter tomato plant.. the big one on the right, if you're a regular follower.

The turnips and lettuce are a little sad here cause I took this pic in the middle of the afternoon, so they're a little wilted there, but they're almost getting to be about the right size now.. I am *so* looking forward to a salad again.

Some chile peppers off the plants that I made into..

Pickled pepper rings! Love 'em. The best thing in the world? Jalapeno pepper pizza. Better than pepperoni, I think now. Just really LOVED this the other day. Also, I picked up a wooden pizza peel at Sur La Table to go along with my metal one. Why two, you say? Cause I found out the hard way that a metal peel is for removing pizza only, and the wooden one is for putting the pie in only. The wooden one helps the pie slide right off with just a touch of flour on the peel, but it's way too thick to use to get the pizza out of the oven.. but the metal one slips right under and get's that pizza out of there. The uncooked pizza will stick to the metal peel like glue, however, so you need the two peel combo to make the magic happen. Trust me. I cried sometimes.

Pre-vinegar photo op..

American Freshhop Amber brew day..

Brewed with Commando's Kapros and Rockhill yesterday. Jody brought up his newfangled Top Tier brewing rig and it seemed to work like a charm. Me and Savvas worked our magic on an American Amber style with all of the aroma hops (2 minutes before flameout) handpicked off my vines just before being thrown into the pot. Everything went fairly well until we got a hop lodged into a line somewhere.. it later turned out to be two jams.. one in a transfer line, of all places, jammed into a bend in the 90 degree elbow, and the other right into the end of the pickup tube. Sheesh, the dreaded double whammy!

That's the only pic I got so far for the day. Me, simultaneously stirring the mash and sucking back a pint. I have mad skillz.

We didn't even get all the hops picked off the vines, either.. there's a few more on the Cascades triangle still, and we didn't even touch the Nugget plant at all, not that there's terribly much out there to grab. I'll grab some more pics of that later, but I didn't have the wherewithal to work my camera much yesterday. We got some good shots of Jody and his bag o'hops though.. you gona settle up with those, kid, and upload 'em or what? I'll get back to you regular readers when he get's his act together..

Other than that, been harvesting some habaneros and stringing them up to dry.. but they're not drying so far. I think I'll have to move 'em up into the attic where it's stinking hot. Lots of activity in the window sill planter thingy I got the other day.. lettuce popping up, radishes all crazy like, and looks like a basil came up as well. I'll get some pics in a bit, but the wife took my SD card away somewhere.. gotta find that still.

I'll come back later with some more pictures.. stand by.

[Edit, photo insert!]

Some madman, who just threw in a crapload of wethops, that eventually jammed up the works. What the!