Mountain Pale Ale

Many have asked about our home-brew experience, so I decided to blog a short photo-essay on the process.  I make about two batches a year, for our friends & family gatherings.  As far as food crafts go, home-brewing is "easy" once you have all the basic tools and plenty of confidence in how to accomplish each step in your own kitchen.  You'll need to know a lot about sanitation, too, in order to achieve consistent results.   I suggest you consult our friends at THE BEVERAGE PEOPLE up in Santa Rosa, for some great kits and resources to get you started..  They also sell stuff for wine and cheese making as well.

Husband Michael and his brother, Tom, introduced me to home-brewing about 22 years ago with the Christmas gift of a brew-your-own-beer-in-a-plastic-bag-kit.  Easy enough, but produced mixed results since the bag didn't really hold in all the carbonation you want for a nice ale.  Several years of tasting, testing and learning the ropes with a local brew-club has enabled me to turn out a predictable and very tasty pale ale.

MOUNTAIN PALE ALE

Make a "Mini-Mash" with a pound of roasted malted barley grain (Caramel Malt) steeped in 1.5 quarts of hot water.  Strain to yield the sweet liquid which will be boiled up into "wort". 
The spent grain can be fed to the chickens.

Boil 2 gallons water with dry malt extract powder and the liquid strained from the mini-mash

.

Hop Pellets of the Cascade variety are added during the 60-minute boil for bittering flavor

More hops are added for flavor and aroma during the last 5 minutes of the boil

The cooled "wort" is poured into a fermenting pail and  clean cold water is added to bring volume to 5 gallons.  When the wort is about 90'F, brewing yeast is added, the lid affixed with an airlock, and fermentation begins. Within a week or so, the finished beer is siphoned off ("racked') and either bottled or kegged.  If bottled, it must be bottle conditioned for several weeks to develop the carbonation.  If kegged, the carbonation can be applied and the beer is ready to enjoy as soon as it gets cold enough!

INGREDIENTS for Our
MOUNTAIN PALE ALE


5 # Briess Light Dry Malt Extract
1# Crystal Malt (40L) in 1.5 qt. water for mini-mash
1 oz. Cascade Hops (5 IBU) for 60-min. boil
1 oz. Cascade Hops for Finishing
(Other hop varieties may be used to a calculated target of 20 IBU)
1 pkt. Nottingham Brewing Yeast, rehydrated into a starter

Makes 5 gallons


Happy Octoberfest!

Hummingbirds at the Watering Hole

Late summer means that our resident flock of hummingbirds are constantly hungry and persistently feeding at our window feeder.  We have so many of these tiny birds around, that we are making hummingbird nectar twice a day.  They will completely consume the two quarts of sugar water before nightfall.  It's really a sight to see! 

What's more, if you stand quietly next to the feeder and put your hands gently around the perches, the little creatures will alight on your fingers as they greedily slurp up the nectar.  Good idea to be wearing glasses with this trick...they get so close you might just get poked in the eye or ear!

It's amazing to watch these birds dance as they jostle for position on the perches.  Some will chase others away while allowing their favorite friends access to the same spigot.  Even more amazing is to realize the surrounding trees are filled with other birds waiting their turn to feast at our hummingbird feeder.

The hummingbirds generally stay with us all summer and fly south after the first freeze.  Here you see a hardy critter who, in spite of the icicles, is unwilling to say goodbye to the best watering hole for miles around.

Our Recipe for Hummingbird Juice

Put 2 cups of sugar in a quart canning jar.  Add 2 cups of boiling water and stir until completely dissolved.  Add enough ice cold water to fill the quart jar, and it will be at a ready-to-serve temperature.   Makes 4 cups nectar.