That S word, and mead -

 I woke up the other morning to this.  The only redeeming feature was that there were some patches of blue sky and no wind.   I grabbed the camera and played with camera settings.  It was pretty early and the sun wasn't really up yet.   The view across the road was really postcard pretty but I was in my pyjamas, parka and barn boots and thought that maybe it was better to stay closer to home.

Sadly, by the time I got back inside and started feeding the cats, the blue sky had vanished.  Sadly, we've had more snow since then, including one horrible day dumping although a small amount of snow, only 12 cm, it was a sticky, wet snow which clung to everything including the roads.   I am so not ready for this weather!

A few weeks ago I made some mead.  A hydromel to be exact as I'm not fond of higher alcohol drinks.   A hydromel is a lower alcohol volume mead.  I'd read a lot about it being a watered mead, but then someone called it a session mead, which is much more attractive.   I'd wanted to do two types of fruits, frozen blackberries from my garden and commercially frozen cherries,  in the secondaries, to try different flavours.   Because I hadn't prepared ahead of time, it took me forever to get the blackberries thawed and strained of most of the seeds.   Such bad planning on my part.    I used a bit of pectin enzyme, to help it clear.   The black cherries went straight from the freezer and into the food processor, rather than thawing and mashing, simply because I was running out of time, stupid blackberries.  The last bit of mead in the big carboy filled up a 2 litre carboy, which I left plain for comparison.  Because I didn't chemically kill the yeast, after a couple of days, the fruited carboys showed signs of renewed fermentation, so I popped them into to the sunporch where it is too cold for the yeast.       I'll let it sit there for a few weeks while I figure out what to do next.

I used 2.5 gallons of water, 3 lbs of honey and a packet of Lavlin EC-118 yeast.   Because I tossed in the yeast while the water was probably still too warm, when it cooled, I added a packet of Cooper's Ale yeast, which I had on hand, just to be sure.  I've never used a Cooper's yeast before, so I'm not sure what to expect in terms of flavour.  The packet of yeast was an impulse purchase when I needed an emergency back up last year as it was very inexpensive compared to the other yeasts available.  It's been sitting in my fridge every since.

After the primary fermentation had stopped, I racked the hydromel over the fruits, into smaller carboys, dividing it up into 3 batches, the blackberry, from my own home grown blackberries, the cherry, from commercial frozen cherries and plain.  At some point I'll have to bottle and decide what to do about keeping the sugars from the fruits from fermenting once the mead warms up.

Putting the Novel Down, finally -

Purple superwash Merino

All that dark, grey, miserable, wet, foggy weather was making me lethargic.  Instead of doing all sorts of cool things, I ended curling up with my favourite blankie, reading and drinking gallons of herbal tea (mainly peppermint yum!).    I'd put some commercially dyed merino on the Minstrel wheel but it just wouldn't spin itself.  Finally I got off my duff and began spinning.    I started off doing a very careful short forward draw, keeping it all consistent and lovely.  Then I realized that I'd be spinning this into July, to have enough for my samples, so I switched to the long draw.   It's going much faster, although not quite so consistent.  At least it feels like I'm getting somewhere when I spin for an hour or more.   I'm hoping that I'll have enough of this yarn to weave sett samples with.

white flowered Japanese Indigo seeds

I ordered some Persicaria tintoria or Japanese Indigo seed.   This is the white flowered variety.  (The pink flowered type is really pretty).  I've started a small batch early, in hopes of planting it a) in a planter and b) planting it early enough for it to go to seed, even if I have to drag it inside for a while in the autumn.  I looked for a heating pad, to help germination, but it seems a little early as I was lucky to find the little peat moss cells for planting, let alone any other garden supplies.  I'll start more seed in March, to plant in the garden.

bottles sitting on the hearth for carbonation

This morning I bottled up 2.5 gallons of amber ale.   I coudn't get into the kitchen yesterday because hubby was painting an area which needed to be finished before he installs the sink (fingers crossed for this weekend).   I filled 10, 500 ml bottles - the plastic ones.  I have to admit that I totally forgot about  underestimated the effect of the overwhelming scent of the beer, before 8 am. Yuk!

Mid afternoon, I mixed up more sanitizing solution and bottled up the cider.  There was only about 3.5 L in the carboy, so it seemed like a huge mess and effort for such a small amount.   I had 5 small bottles and 2.5 , 500 ml bottles.   The half bottle became a tester and it was pretty good.  It's cloudy though, despite letting it crash on the rather cold sun porch for a while.   I used a siphon and bottling wand to fill these bottles and that sure was an exercise in futility.   I wasn't tall enough to prime the siphon and make sure the bottling wand was securely in a bottle.  The siphon kept losing it's prime, so I needed help to do the job, which kept the mess on the floor to a minimum but the frustration level quite high.   I'm considering a bottling bucket for next time.  Using the capper was fun though ;)

Apple Cherry Cider, Day 1

Speaking of next time, because I had the sanitizing solution made and all the equipment out, plus the ingredients, I made up a batch of Unicorn Blood (apple cherry cider) based on a recipe found on the Home Brew Forums.  The batch is just over 12.5 L, because I'm not sure if the carboy I want to use for a secondary fermenter, is in Imperial or U.S. gallons.    It's sitting the the back room, which is quite cool.  I've read in a few places, that low temperature, slow ferments, help in keeping the flavours of the fruit.    Right now the room is just under 14 C, since 55 F is the temperature called for, I'm hoping I'm in the ballpark.

I have the ingredients for a 3.25 gallon batch of amber ale, but I only have a 2 gallon fermenter, so until I get another, or the cider is done, I'll have to wait.   I suppose I could use this time for weaving .....