Category Archives: Domesticity

Steeping crushed grains adds character to a wort based on liquid malt extract.

It’s been a long time coming, as my advisers Mrs. Wookie and Sespi are well aware, but Sampson and I have officially embarked on our homebrewing quest. Yesterday, we gathered up the supplies we laid in about a month prior, sanitized the hell out of them, and put them to their intended use.

Unfortunately, I committed the grievous blogging sin of only managing to take one picture of the process (a crappy cell phone shot, at that). Mea culpa. You’ll just have to imagine the bubbling cauldron of awesome, the zingy hops we added to to the wort, and the bathtub full of ice we used to chill it.

Anyway, we boiled up a delicious-smelling liquid that is slowly turning into porter even as I type. The English ale yeast (or as I prefer to say, the yeasty-beasties) ought to be chowing down on the malt sugars in the wort and giving us alcohol in return for the tasty meal we have provided.

At least, that is what I hope is happening. Our proto-porter is currently sealed up in a five-gallon bucket in the guest room, and I’m told that peeking is a no-no. There’s an awful lot of waiting in this beer-making business, I’m finding. You wait while the wort boils, you wait until it’s cool enough to pitch the yeast, you wait until the fermentation process begins (that’s where we are right now, waiting for the airlock to start bubbling), you wait to bottle, and then — perhaps most agonizingly of all — you wait to drink your beautiful bottled results.

If all goes according to plan, we could be looking at Bottling Day sometime during Labor Day weekend. That would make Tasting Day right around Rosh Hashanah. Apples and honey may be traditional, but I can’t think of a better way to ring in a sweet Jewish New Year than with a cold bottle of beer Sampson and I brewed ourselves.

Meanwhile, I’m off to go stare at my sealed-up fermenter bucket and try to divine if beer magic is happening yet. C’mon, yeasty-beasties! You can do it!

Sometimes, the creative urge turns to pursuits other than writing.

Delicious, delicious non-writing pursuits.

It had been a while since I’d baked bread, but the fancy struck me today to browse Tasty Kitchen for something new to try. I happened upon a recipe for Honey Oat Bread, submitted by one Erin (a fellow blogger, apparently). Intrigued by the promise of a no-knead bread, I did a quick pantry run-though to see if I had the necessary ingredients. I was pleased to discover that I did, by and large.

Alterations

• I used half AP flour and half bread flour.
• The only oats I had on hand were “quick oats,” not the “old-fashioned oats” called for in the recipe.

And the verdict is… delicious! I loved how quickly the dough came together, and the results are simple and satisfying. I can see this becoming part of my regular bread-baking rotation.