Home Brewing and other things I want to do.

[rapunzelita]

OK, so arcadiane says I should be posting a bit more often on LJ. So why the fuck not!

So, lately I've started looking into something which looks really cool and pretty low-maintenance: home brewing. I'm a big fan of mead and cider, as I discovered when I moved to the UK (LINDISFARNE MEAD IS THE BEST), and the idea of making it myself is really appealing.

It also looks like it's fairly simple, as long as you're not too obsessed with checking gravity and hydrometry and all those complicated things. But then again as Patrick Rothfuss puts it in his recipe for mind-bending metheglin that I reall want to try: "Vikings made this, and I guarantee that they did not own a hydrometer. They just thumped it together in a barrel and then drank it and pillaged some shit." And that is a modus operandi I can definitely get behind.

The only problem I have with that is having to wait. I mean, I like my booze. Quite a bit. I don't drink in high quantities, but I do enjoy alcohol (a lot more than I used to, now that I've figured out what I like) and I am not a very patient person by nature.

And now that I think about it I could make a list of alcoholic stuff I want to make/replicate:

- Patrick Rothfuss's metheglin. That shit sounds delicious. (Should I use some lapis, I wonder...)
- Mead with some of my cousin's honey. (Preferably chestnut honey, which has a really strong flavour and would be amazing in mead I'm sure)
- Cider. I'm not exactly sure what exactly, but I would ideally like to make the apple juice myself (because home-made apple juice is SO different from the store-bought stuff, even the cloudy one.)
- Ginger beer. A vague acquaintance of mine does home brewing, and he makes ginger beer with chilli in it, which sounds like the BEST thing.
- Chilli gin - does not require brewing or anything like that. Just sticking coriander and chillies in a bottle of gin. A friend of ours did that and it was the most AWESOME thing in a

So there, as you see I'm somewhat ambitious. But the idea is that, if I ever have to move away from Edinburgh (and seriously if Cameron and the conservatives don't get severely kicked out during the 2015 General Election it's very likely to happen) I can take a repertoire of wondrous drinks with me and I won't have to miss British cider (too much).

PS: This morning we "mysteriously" received a copy of The Ethical Slut in the mail. I've wanted to read this for the longest time and I was realy happy and excited to get it. Jay claims that he doesn't know anything about it and it "just appeared". With that smug smile of his. I claim that it's the most romantic gift he's ever got me. (This month, anyway.)

<3

Comments

[filkerdave]

the idea of making it myself is really appealing.

Y'all are just trying to tempt me into coming to Edinburgh, aren't you?

[rapunzelita]

Well, it would be lovely to have you over. Especially if it's in long enough that I can actually offer you some home-made mead/cider/perry :)

But I'm not tempting you at all. Nooooo. (You're big enough to be tempting yourself :p)

[filkerdave]

I sadly don't see myself getting to anywhere in Europe before Loncon 3 unless work decides to send me (I keep asking but they keep not signing projects over there!).

So you've got nearly a whole year!

[rapunzelita]

Well, if you don't do a detour via Edinburgh when you come for Loncon, I could bring some of my home-made stuff with me to London :D (If I do end up home-making things.) Anything in particular that you fancy? Just so I know. I might as well make stuff that people are going to like!

I'm tempted to make very small batches to begin with anyway, just so I get the hang of it before producing bigger batches. I'd rather not waste 4 gallons of mead or cider because my first try was crap...

[filkerdave]

That's always a wise thing. Work in small batches to start! Just keep careful notes so you can reproduce anything good!

And in a related not...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24184527

[rapunzelita]

Oh, interesting!

Although this

"But what's brewing in this new crop of commercial meaderies - as they are known - is lot more refined from the drink that once decorated tables across medieval Europe.

is bugging me. Being a reenactor, I really resent the idea that just because things were not done with scientific, state-of-the-art modern equipment, they're not going to be refined or elaborate is somewhat silly.

(This is not just true of mead. I have a friend who makes swords. And scabbards are seriously some of the most complicated things you can make, ever. They are a nightmare, according to him.)

[filkerdave]

Well, yes and no. "Refined" doesn't necessarily mean more elaborate; it DOES mean that you probably have access to techniques and ingredients that weren't available back then; you can control your process far better. Think of it as cooking; we can do far more now because we can precisely control temperatures and have access to more uniformly good ingredients.

And while scabbards may be a nightmare to make, if you're using essentially the same techniques and materials, you're going to make what was available.

Now, if here were to make scabbards on a high-tech assembly line out of carbon fibre, they'd probably be far more refined, if much less period.

Note that it doesn't necessarily mean "better" (although perhaps better in terms of "more acceptable to the generic modern palate").