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Habanero Bell Pepper Hot Sauce
My habanero bell pepper hot sauce ferment is done! This is a continuation of the process began hereThe ferment smelled spicy-peppery and a bit vinegary, too, if that makes sense. One of the actors at play in this kind of ferment is lactobacillus so you get a kind of souring out of it, similar to pickling with vinegar. The fizziness had completely ( Read more... ) -
Lebanese for dinner: chicken shish taouk and toum, served with saffron rice and naan
Just up-front, I'm gonna say this post came out a lot longer than I expected. I was getting kinda bummed because I felt like I didn't have anything to post about, and I've been a good little blogger posting pretty consistently. But all of my beer, ferments, and pickles are either done or in progress. Just about every container I can ferment in is ( Read more... ) -
Ginger Beer (non-alcoholic)
So, it's been a few days and my ginger bug is ready to make ginger beer. How can I tell? There's bubbles at the top, this is from the CO2 our friendly microscopic bugs are releasing as they eat through the sugar from the ginger and, well, sugar. Other blogs mention this step but I didn't see pictures of a ready ginger bug, so here you go:
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Fermentation Update
Okay, first of all, a quick check-in. Mama went to Total Wine and spent way too much money. But she brought home some beautiful beer - and a bottle of whiskey. Some of it has been drank already, my bad, but I couldn't wait to dig into the goods. I had to use panorama mode on my camera to capture this all, y'all.
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"Ginger Bug" for Ginger Beer
When dealing with fermentation, there are so many different foods and drinks you can make, explore, and/or customize. As a foodie, almost all of them are exciting/enticing to me. I am especially fond of things that are flavor bombs and ginger is definitely on that list. Ginger beer, either non-alcoholic or alcoholic (depending on how much sugar you ( Read more... ) -
Moroccan Preserved Lemons
My neighbor has a lemon tree and it's just overburdened with fruit right now. I asked if I could have some and he said to bring a shopping bag and take as many as I'd like. I've been using them to ensure there is an active yeast in my hot sauce ferments. There is probably already yeast on the peppers and any other vegetables I add, but in case they ( Read more... ) -
Jalapeno, Shallot & Garlic Hot Sauce
I got my 1 quart jars in yesterday so today I decided to get another batch of hot sauce going. I would really like to give some of these away as Christmas gifts which means I'm running out of time; I want to ferment them for 3 weeks. You could do less, but you could most certainly do more. The hot sauce will continue to ferment after it's bottled, ( Read more... ) -
Sunday Funday!
Sunday was a pretty fun day for a beer nerd like me. My wife had to run an errand in the vincinity of Wren House, so we made plans to stop in and have a brew or two. I had their Pie Thief which they are labeling a pumpkin wheat wine. Coming in at about 9% ABV (and frankly, tasting every bit of that 9%), it was a bit too strong for my tastes, but ( Read more... ) -
Brew day - Mango Wheat
Saturday was a brew day. This was my second time making a 5-gallon batch and I have to say, it went a lot smoother and more easily this round than the last. Afterwards, I felt so accomplished; but I also felt like a "real" brewer. It's the first time I really felt that way. Each step of the way, I felt confident in what I was doing. I knew what ( Read more... ) -
All-around update
I got a new shiney from Black Friday. I was looking at buying a chest freezer on Lowe's but their website apparently couldn't handle all the BF traffic and wouldn't load my cart. So I started searching for similar deals and found that Home Depot was selling the linked Magic Chef 7 cu. ft. chest freezer for $168 vs Lowe's $215. Best Buy had it for ( Read more... )