Update #2: Ginger Honey Mead

My home-brewed Ginger Honey mead is coming along nicely. It has been bubbling like crazy since the day after I started it.
So today I checked my Ginger Honey mead progress.
I have been stirring it up vigorously every other day to help oxidize it. At this phase of fermentation, the oxygen should help the yeast. Stirring also seems to release a lot of the carbon dioxide, which I also think would help those yeasties out. Apparently my mead has a very high starting specific gravity (og). So my yeast will need all the help they can get.
After I stirred things up to add oxygen today, I took a gravity reading and it's at 1.1090.
I added 1 tsp of yeast nutrient and 5 grams of potassium carbonate that I purchased at a brewing supply store today. I wish I had known about a staggered nutrient schedule before I started this but now I know. I can do it with my future batches. Each batch will hopefully be better than the last but I still have high hopes for this one.
We moved our fermentation bucket to our laundry room. Unfortunately it is cooler in there so fermentation might slow down a bit. We shall see. We didn't want our kitchen to smell yeasty.

I mentioned briefly that I went to a home brewing store today. There I purchased some empty wine bottles and some corks for when it comes time to bottle. I also snagged another 5 gallon fermentation bucket and a kit for brewing some oatmeal stout beer. It's a little present for my husband. So I have that coming up in the future for me.
I'll work on the oatmeal stout either tomorrow or during my next weekend.

Update #1: Ginger Honey Mead

Day 2
The fermentation lock on my Ginger Honey Mead is bubbling and jiggling, so my brew is good! Whew what a relief.
I could watch this thing go forever.

Homebrew: Ginger Honey Mead

I have been meaning to get back into home brewing some honey wine (mead) for quite a while. I am proud to say that I am offically a home-brewer again. I started about 5 gallons of a honey ginger mead yesterday.

I had to go through and inventory and sterilize my equipment. I've lost some of my gear over the years so I ordered some missing supplies and yeast from Midwest Supplies, a home brew store that sells online.
So with supplies in hand, I was ready to go yesterday!

I started by carefully sterilizing all my equipment and my entire kitchen. Sanitation is VERY important. I only want my chosen yeast to grow in my mead, not something bad instead. Much scrubbing with hot soapy water, bleaching, rinsing, and hand washing was involved. I am very particular about keeping everything completely sterile.
I filtered about 5 gallons of water through my Brita pitcher. I boiled about 1.5 gallons of water on my stovetop and added 15 POUNDS of honey. Yes, a lot of honey. The honey I used was produced by a local apiary (beekeeper) so I am very proud to say that this is a local production.
I also pureed a whole head of ginger and added that as well.

I wanted to boil my honey, water and ginger mix (called a "wort") for 15 minutes to sterilize, pasteurize, and clarify it. As it boils, a foamy scum floats to the top.

This scum is impurities in the honey and must be skimmed off. After pasteurizing and skimming, the honey water looks clear.

I added 1 tbsp of gypsum (minerals that assist fermentation), 4 tsp of yeast nutrient, and .5 oz of Irish Moss (assists in clarifying the wort), all available at brewing supply stores. I let the clarified, pasteurized honey water (now called a wort) mix cool off.

I throw the wort into my fermentation container, along with enough filtered water to measure 5 gallons.

Now it's time to take some measurements. I need to know the specific gravity of my solution. Sugar water has a higher specific gravity than water, and alcohol has a lower specific gravity than water, so I can watch my fermentation progress by taking these measurements when I want to know how things are progressing.
I have a nifty little hydrometer that also has a thermometer built in. So I can check my temperature and my specific gravity at the same time.

My original specific gravity is 1.1160 @ 90 degrees Fahrenheit. This tells me that I could end up with about 16% alcohol, if all goes well, by the time my fermentation is complete. I doubt this mead will get that far, as the alcohol tends to kill the yeast. The yeast I am using usually goes to about 15% and it will leave a bit of residual sugar. I am happy with that.
So once I cool my wort off to about 80F degrees, I throw my yeast into my wort. Here I have my yeast packet (says "ACTIVATOR" on it) prepared and ready to pitch in.

I close up my container with a lid that will completely seal the container. As yeast consumes the sugar, it produces alcohol and belches out carbon dioxide. I need a way to let the carbon dioxide out without letting any external air (and potential contaminants) in. My fermentation lock allows the carbon dioxide gas to escape, and it looks cool while it's working. It bubbles and jiggles around and is fun to watch.

I have filled my fermentation lock with vodka, but water would work fine. I just want to be certain that there is no external contamination. Like I said, I'm very particular about sterilization.

And it's done, for now! I let the yeast do it's thing. In 24 hours, I should start to hear bubbling sounds from within the container, and the fermentation lock should be jiggling like crazy. That will reassure me that all is going well.
After the initial fermentation is complete, when I no longer hear noises and see any jiggling/bubbling out of the fermentation lock, it will be time to transfer my mead to another container where it will sit for a few months.

Sprouts

I'm in my new apartment in Montana, a drastic move from Chicago-land. But it looks like we might be moving again soon. That's actually a good thing. So I'm trying to keep my new projects down to a minimum until my next move.
Today I started some broccoli sprouts. I've tried sprouting in the past and it was a dismal, inedible moldy failure. Last time, I purchased a large sprouting jar. It was a big glass jar with a mesh lid. Well unfortunately I grew some mold in addition to my sprouts. So that jar just didn't work for me. I gave up sprouting for a while.
So in the health food store yesterday, I saw a sprouting bag. Hrm. I recalled when I was a child, my mother grew some sprouts in a mason jar with some cheese cloth. I had some cheese cloth at home, so I bypassed the bag. I had an idea.

Now I'm testing that idea out.
Day 1: I found a plastic container. I think it used to have a hard drive in it. But it was shallow and clamshell. I lined it with cheese cloth, sprinkled seeds over it. I soaked the seeds overnight.
Day 2: This morning, I drained the water, rinsed the sprouts. I put it in a dark corner in my pantry to start sprouting.
We'll see how it goes.
Day 3: Yep, the sprouts are growing! I have my 3 year old daughter spray them daily with a fine mist water sprayer. She gets a kick out of her little "chore" and she loves to talk to the little sprouts.
Day 5: Moved sprouts to a sunny window so they can get some chlorophyll.
Day 6: They taste great. A bit of a spicy flavor to them, but my 3 year old and 15 year old daughter love them. We're eating them like crazy. And no mold so I would say it worked. Unfortunately, it is hard to get the sprouts out of the cheesecloth as the seedlings seem to have grown through the holes. We have to try to pick them out one by one. I don't think that would work if I actually wanted them in bulk for something like a sandwich, but it's fun to pick them and eat them one by one, sort of.

Directions I'm using:
http://www.sproutpeople.com/seed/broccoli.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broccoli_sprouts

A spicy mustard

I moved a good 1300 miles since my last post. I'm now mostly settled in my new apartment. One of the first things I did was make a batch of mustard. Hot stuff.
I mixed 1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds, 1/4 cup brown mustard seeds with equal amount of water. I let them sit a full 24 hours, topping off the water that evaporated when necessary. After the soak, I stuck the water/mustard seeds in the food processor and let it go for a while, adding a bit of additional water to keep it from being too dry. I let it sit for about 5-10 min then added some cider vinegar and red wine until it was the right consistancy. I also added some salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder to taste. Then after relocating the mustard to a mason jar, I added about a 1/4 cup of honey.
I let this mix sit on the countertop for about a week. It was initially quite hot. As it aged, some of the heat dissipated. My husband would have had an instant heart attack with the heat as high as it was at first. Aging did help reduce some heat to levels edible to normal humans :)
My mother in law and father in law tried this batch of mustard and loved it. My husband actually liked it as well but my daughter Cassie found it too spicy.
I made a second mason jar full of a mild batch of mustard, using the recipe I used in my previous post. This is probably our regular mainstay as far as mustard goes.

We Have Mustard!

I've finished my very first test batch of homemade mustard, and it's good stuff. It's definitely hotter than anything I've ever purchased at a store. Just a little tickle in the nose, but not much at all.
So here's what I did. I had previously posted that I had soaked the following together:
- 1 tbsp of yellow mustard seeds
- 1 tbsp of brown mustard seeds
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 tbsp red wine
- 1 tbsp cider vinegar
I let this concoction soak at room temperature for 2 full days to let the seeds rehydrate. Today I threw the whole mix into my food processor and let that run for about 5 minutes. It took much longer than I thought. The seeds kept flying up and sticking to the top of the food processor, so I had to stop it a lot to push them back down again with a spatula. I finally had something that truly resembled mustard. I added some more stuff:
a dash of salt
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1 tsp dried garlic powder
- 1 TBSP honey
I let that mix up some more and tasted it. Awesome. I really like it a lot. It would make for a good ham sandwich, or perhaps coating the top of a baked ham. Yummy stuff. Not as hot as I was orignally looking for, but my family (they have zero tolerance for hot/spicy food) would probably like it.


Yesterday I reviewed the pretzel episode of the cooking tv show Good Eats, which had a feature on mustard. Alton said that water and mustard combine together to produce isothiocyanates, the chemical responsible for the spicy heat of horseradish, wasabi, and mustard. He explained that the addition of acids acted to halt the isothiocyanate production.
He had a nifty bell curve chart that showed how isothiocyanate production (heat) varies by time. The longer mustard was in contact with water, the more heat was produced, up to a point, where the heat went back down again. Acids can be added at any point to halt it at that level.

In my test batch, I added acid and water at the same time. So that is what kept my heat level low. I could vary the heat in two ways. I could alter my water to acid ratio, or I could vary the point at which I add my acid. There are actually other possibilities. I could grind the whole dried mustard seeds into a powder, then add the water (and acid after a time) also.

So in future test batches, I will most likely play with these possibilities, sticking as close to my original recipe but altering my heat-production variables until I find a few mustard recipes to my liking. I would also be happy to find min/max in my experiments as well.

Now that's a spicy mustard

The epiphany came to me one day at a japanese restauraunt. I was eating my tonkatsu (breaded pork) nestled over a bed of shredded raw cabbage. There was mustard to the side, and some tonkatsu sauce in a bowl. The mustard was like horseradish. It seared my nostrils and singed my nose hairs. And I liked it.
Sure I've heard of "hot mustard", but all these years, I thought it was just a phrase. I've never had mustard like that. I've had that yellow crap that people put on hotdogs. I've had dijon and honey mustard. I am really fond of this stuff they sell in our supermarket called "dusseldorf". But none of it was exactly hot.
I later saw an episode on one of my favorite tv shows, Good Eats. Alton Brown made some pretzels, and to accompany them, some fresh mustard. I guess you can actually make that stuff.
So I set about my research on my new topic of interest: homemade mustard.

So far, I haven't found much information to my liking. Therefore, I shall have to come up with some experiments of my own. I have purchased 3 bags of mustard seeds from The Spice House. (No, I'm not an advertiser. It's just where I get my spices. I grew up in Milwaukee but they shipped to me now that I'm not there anymore). Not quite sure yet what I was going for other than a good kick in the nose (but not so much that I'm rendered unconscious).
I ordered some yellow, brown, and hot mustard seeds and they arrived in the mail today.

The first step is soaking the whole seeds in water and acid, and perhaps some alcohol if desired. I am making a mini tester batch. I am soaking 1 tbsp of yellow and 1 tbsp of brown mustard seeds in 2 tbsp water, 1 tbsp red wine, and 1 tbsp cider vinegar. I'll let that soak for a day or two and come back to this later.