Fermenting Life is the name of the blog, so fermenting life is the title of the blog. Simplify.
I have started some new fermentations and processed some existing ones since we last met:
- I bottled 8 gallons of a brown ale made by myself and another beer brewer. We used and 80/20 mix of pale and caramel malt, and brewed it on a beer sculpture converted from 3 conventional kegs. After boiling the beer was split into two fermenters - one was inoculated with English ale yeast, 1 with American ale yeast. The two were then carbonated and filled with a counter pressure filler. It was my third time using the filler, and once a rhythm developed, the process worked quite well. The English came out toffee-like, a bit like a Newcastle Brown Ale, while the American had more of a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale character.
- I made Kim Chi again. This one started with a head of cabbage split radially, joined by a long thin leaf on a stem, cut into inch segments. these were joined by liquid fiery death - a combination of pasilla, habenero, and thai chiles, seeds, placenta, flesh and all, in a bath of grapeseed & olive oil, with a sprinkle of tibetan salt scraped directly from the block. Of course, the usual kim chi collection of spices joined the party, including turmeric, and others name unknown. Kim Chi is more of a process than a recipe, here is mine:
choose primary vegetable, seperate into bite-size pieces.
salt heavily until soggy at room temperature
make dressing - oil, fermented sauce, vinegar, sweetener, and spice. let sit at room temparuter while primary veg sogs.
To check if primary veg is ready, remove a piece from salt bath, taste it for texture and doneness.
When done, rinse salted veg with water, combine with dressing. taste.
place in ventilated glass or ceramic container
store in a cool dark place, and test daily for desired level of Kim Chi Amazing.
*If you already have a Kim Chi going, place some of the juice into the next dressing - it will accelerate the fermentation.
- With the help of many fine people, I brewed up the Auspicious Ox Truffel Dubbel. Similar to the Belgian Dubbel style, it is a sweet brown malty nectar from the gods, with an OG of 1.064. Some of the specialty malts were milled by hand, as this was an all-grain brew. This Ale was brewed on the cusp of the lunar new year, at the end of the year of the rat, and the beginning of the year of the ox. As an Ox myself, this was a very auspicious event to begin with. To add to that, my friend was an ox, and had liberated a truffel from the forest, to which the entirety of it was added to the brew. The actual cost estimate of this brew is hard to determine, but will be used in a fundraiser to generate donations for a broken window, which is an entirely different story.
-I have planted three potatoes, and a lemongrass plant. I would love some radish seed, as I have an intense craving for radish. One potato had been 'baked' beforehand. It has a very good home now. The rest of my plants are in Davis, on eighth street. If you'd like to eat the fruits of my labors, please wait.
-I made food for a dinner party that was just plain amazing. I will write that menu up properly in the future, but the dessert included live yogurt cultures. Some of those cultures are living in the people who ate that night, including myself. I'd be lying if I said the idea of colonizing gastrointestinal walls didn't fascinate and excite me.
-I also have a fruit relish going - cherries, blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, and an orange. I added some fresh orange juice, and it's been living in the fridge for the past two weeks. It was good on toast this morning, as I anticipate it will be tomorrow.
Speaking of tomorrow, I'm headed there now. Cheerio!
