Erminespot

Back to BrewingFiled Under: Brewing

This weekend, my father came up from Florida to drop off some yard equipment. Yay for having my own lawn mower and trimmer. However, this left us with a Sunday with no real firm plans.

So, it was time to get back to my roots as a homebrewer. You see, I actually learned brewing from my father. I was in middle school when he picked up the hobby, and I used to help with all aspects of the brewing process. I can say I’ve been bottling beer since 7th grade, and it still sucked back then.

To kick off the inaugural batch for my new keg system, I thought something with a nice creamy head would really take advantage of the kegerator. Thus, I pulled out my Creamy Vanilla Ale recipe, and Dad and I spent the afternoon relaxing, not worrying, and making home brew.

Let’s see – I found out that my stove really won’t do the job for bringing wort up to a boil. We had to span the pot over two burners to get anywhere, and it still didn’t really boil like I would have liked. Guess I need to find a turkey fryer (that might be fun in January/February). I also learned that the new yeast smack packs from American Brewmaster really take off. I smacked it at the start of the brew process and the dang thing looked like it was going to explode before the wort was cool enough. Lastly, I think I used the wrong grains – it should still be tasty, but not as blonde as the last one.

Looking forward, I’m planning two experiments in the future. In the near term, I’m going to make one more partial extract beer (to use up some of the malt extract I’ve got sitting around), but this time I want to make it with Durham’s Municipal water. I’ve gotten the watter quality assessment from the city, and it’s not horribly far off the water I’m buying in the stores.

Then, probably after Ymir, I’m going to go for an all grain batch. Considering that there will be lots of opportunities to add hops, I think that one is going to be an IPA.

If all goes well, I should be able to bring a keg or two to Ymir, and anyway, it’ll be on tap at my house. Stay tuned for news of keg tapping day.

The Joys and Woes of Hyperfocus?Filed Under: Brewing, Cooking, ErmineSpot, Pictures, Sewing

So I mentioned at the Kappellenberg meeting that we were re-designing Erminespot… this process was expected to take something like a week. Well… I got interested. Which means it’s mostly up now. While most of the content hasn’t changed from the previous Erminespot, and the gallery is still a bit… fugly, there are a few things that are just now seeing the light of day:

• St. Catherine’s Tourney Documentation – A Light Evening Meal
• Feast Menus from Battle of the Oranges and Baronial Champions 2006 (recipes to follow)
• The Purple “Tacunium Sanitatis” dress
• And Girard has finally released his “Goat Scrotum Stout” recipe on the world. (NO goats were harmed in the production of this beverage).

Enjoy…

Tags: beer, dress, feast, stcatherine, tacunium