Fermenté à partir de levures sauvages et ayant fait dix mois de barriques, il comporte aussi beaucoup de vanille et on y détecte un goût légèrement fumé. Un vin blanc qui a du caractère et qui pourra se conserver pendant quelques années.

Si vous aimez les vins blancs corsés, goûteux, au goût franc et minéral, ce vin est une alternative plus que crédible aux Chablis. Pour le prix, c'est très bien. Délicieux avec des fruits de mer!

Prix: 22,75$
Code SAQ : 00860213
Ma cote: 4,1/5,0

The LA times just recently did a blog article on the book The Urban Homestead by Erik Knutzen and his wife. Erik talks about city gardening and solar cooking in this recent work. I make a very, very brief review of the interview covering concepts like starting small, the absolute importance of soil, fruit trees, permaculture and more.

STARTING SMALL
It's always a smart thing to start small. I learned that the hard way when I was trying to transform my yard almost 2 years ago.

One of the first things Erik tells people is ?to start small.� The mistake that a lot of people make is trying to transform the entire house and yard all at once.� There are all these examples of people doing these really heroic projects to try and maximize the space all at once.� The easiest thing you can do if you have a yard is to build something like a small raised bed to grow a few vegetables in. The one we have is 4x8 feet made out of wood, but it could be made out of other stuff like broken concrete or whatever you have at hand.� You make a box with no bottom, then you buy soil or make compost, and then start vegetable gardening because you know the soil is good.?

It?s a lot harder starting with a whole yard. A lot of work that could have been more wisely used. Back then I didn?t know as much as I do about soil and that tilling can destroy the soil structure. I turned over every bit of soil. Now I know. Alas, I don?t have the time to put that knowledge to use except for through my work to establish FoodCycles (http://foodcycles.org, more of a low energy, high compost greenhouse based on Growing Power Inc. [http://www.growingpower.org/]).

SOIL: THE FOUNDATION
Soil is the life blood of good food. It?s the ground you stand on. It?s what your vegetables (and animals if you have any) depend on for good nutrition. There are even cultures that eat soil just to get the right nutrients and build up a stronger immune system (by challenging it with the microbes in the soil).

Erik explains:
"Do you know the expression, "you don't grow plants, you grow the soil?"� The first thing you really need is the right soil, and in most places the soil you'll start out with is really bad. Using a raised bed is a way to jump-start growing while you amend the existing soil, which can take years.
If you want to take over the lawn or do something more ambitious, the first step is to really grow the soil.� Make compost, but most people won't be able to make enough to fertilize a whole yard so you might have to import compost.� We get horse bedding material.� Did you know L.A. has more horses per capita than any other large city in the country?� There is tons of compost around here..."

Off the top of my head, it takes 100 years to create maybe 1 cm thickness of soil (if you aren?t using a lot of worm compost - haha). Yet today's "modern" farming and land changing practices literally destroy the soil, something like at 10 times the rate it is created or we lose soil at 1 cm every 10 years - I probably read this somewhere in David Pimentel's work (a agriculture researcher out of Cornell University). It seems to mirror our destruction of biodiversity - except we're killing species at 1000 times the normal rate (still debated of course except the UN people who did some research certainly support this - think about last year?s cry about ocean?s losing all the fish!).

"We don't believe in tilling the soil.� We believe you should amend it from above.� Soil has a symbiotic system of fungus and worms that work with the roots of plants.� If you till it you're going to destroy that relationship.� The way to build it is to add organic matter as mulch. You might have to gently break the soil up a little bit, with a tool called a broadfork, but do it gently.� You definitely shouldn't till it.� Tilling isn't just bad for the soil, it contributes to pollution because it releases CO2 into the atmosphere."

FRUIT TREES
I've been thinking about how to get more of these trees in the city or in my yard. An interesting method in India called the Doshi system makes use of bags, compost and a lot of twigs to grow food. It can also be used to grow trees. You want to be "sure to plant them carefully so that they provide shade where you want it -- say to cool the house, while at the same time not shading out areas where you want to grow sun-loving vegetables" according to Erik.

PERMACULTURE
In his interview, Erik talks about permaculture and having the "the plants work with each other in a mutually beneficial relationship". He mentions the "three sisters".

"The best example of this is the "three sisters" that the Native Americans used to plant: corn, squash and beans. The idea being that beans are nitrogen-fixing plants, they pump nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the ground for the corn and the squash.� The corn grows up as a trellis for the beans. The squash serves as a mulch for the other plants. And together these three plants provide an ideal diet for humans." (the corn and beans provide complementary protein which meets all your protein needs - the human body is made of 80% protein I might add)

I definitely tried this one a year or two ago before my knowledge was as extensive as it was now. In my yard however the squirrels literally wreaked havoc. They ate my corn, knocking them over into the beans. Some of my yellow crookneck squash became victims too. The three aren?t going to be next garden idea for sure and wild corn is known to be notoriously hard to cultivate according to Gerrie Baker, Kingston market gardener and co-owner of The Worm Factory (http://www.thewormfactory.ca).

What I like is the idea of using as little fossil fuel chemicals as possible. We need living machines (the plants, the insects, the animals) to work with us to grow food and thrive. That?s an important concept coming from permaculture. Erik states: ?This sort of gardening is the opposite of American agriculture.� Too often they're putting in petro-chemicals temporarily into the soil to try and grow plants.� With permaculture you use nature to do that and create a beneficial feedback cycle.� It also simply requires less labor.?

Erik goes on to say:
?One of the main goals of permaculture is to require as few human inputs as possible. There's a phrase local permaculture expert David Khan taught me that I really like, "work makes work..." If you plant a grass lawn you have to mow it every week, you have to fertilize it.� I just don't have time for that kind of work.� I don't want that kind of work. I also don't want to pay someone else to do it.
If you work with nature rather than against her, you don't have to do as much work.� Nature doesn't need humans to make it go.?

MORE THAN GARDENING
It?s a lot more than just gardening. Erik talks about gardening for apartments or small spaces (I'm looking in your direction Molly), foraging in the nearby wild (there are cultures that still do that), home economics and fermenting your own stuff (make your own beer? preservation or canning anyone? in fact, Canadian Organic Growers Toronto is hosting a workshop on preservation - see below).

What I love about the interview is the talk about the sourdough bread.
"... all you have to do is mix flour and water together and every day throw out half the mixture (or make bread with it) and add more flour. The wild yeast is contained in the flour itself, and the air in smaller concentrations.� It's there naturally.� It's very easy to make good bread without commercial yeast."
"Bread without commercial yeast lasts longer, tastes better and some say is better for you."

Erik also talks about solar energy. It's great that you can use it on a bike and even to cook rice. It ain't as fast except you never burn it.
"DN: I saw a woman at the bike expo in Pasadena the other week pulling an oven baking cookies with solar power on her bike.� I thought that was cool."
Erik on cooking rice:
"We cook our rice in a solar cooker now and it's easier than cooking on the stove.� We just throw it in the solar cooker and two hours later you have perfectly cooked rice and you can't burn it. That's the kind of thing we show how to do in the book and the kind of thing that someone in an apartment or someone who can't afford solar panels can easily do."

The book looks to be a fascinating and practically useful read. I am definitely keeping this on my to get wish list.

June 25 : Canning and Preserving Workshop
Hosted By: Canadian Organic Growers Toronto
Whole Foods Kitchen, Hazelton Lanes, 87 Avenue Road, Toronto
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Cost: $5 (COG members free)
Reserve your space: torontochapter@cog.ca
A hands-on workshop to prepare you to can or preserve this summer's harvest for future enjoyment!

For the full interview go to:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/interview-with.html

Keywords: David Pimentel, Cornell, CO2, greenhouse gas emissions, fungus, worms, roots, plants, soil, vegetables, permaculture, urban, agriculture, garden, ferment, storage, preservation, canning, Canadian Organic Growers Toronto, biodiversity, corn, squash, bean, horse, compost, manure, chicken, egg, solar energy, cooking

The LA times just recently did a blog article on the book The Urban Homestead by Erik Knutzen and his wife. Erik talks about city gardening and solar cooking in this recent work. I make a very, very brief review of the interview covering concepts like starting small, the absolute importance of soil, fruit trees, permaculture and more.

STARTING SMALL
It's always a smart thing to start small. I learned that the hard way when I was trying to transform my yard almost 2 years ago.

One of the first things Erik tells people is ?to start small.� The mistake that a lot of people make is trying to transform the entire house and yard all at once.� There are all these examples of people doing these really heroic projects to try and maximize the space all at once.� The easiest thing you can do if you have a yard is to build something like a small raised bed to grow a few vegetables in. The one we have is 4x8 feet made out of wood, but it could be made out of other stuff like broken concrete or whatever you have at hand.� You make a box with no bottom, then you buy soil or make compost, and then start vegetable gardening because you know the soil is good.?

It?s a lot harder starting with a whole yard. A lot of work that could have been more wisely used. Back then I didn?t know as much as I do about soil and that tilling can destroy the soil structure. I turned over every bit of soil. Now I know. Alas, I don?t have the time to put that knowledge to use except for through my work to establish FoodCycles (http://foodcycles.org, more of a low energy, high compost greenhouse based on Growing Power Inc. [http://www.growingpower.org/]).

SOIL: THE FOUNDATION
Soil is the life blood of good food. It?s the ground you stand on. It?s what your vegetables (and animals if you have any) depend on for good nutrition. There are even cultures that eat soil just to get the right nutrients and build up a stronger immune system (by challenging it with the microbes in the soil).

Erik explains:
"Do you know the expression, "you don't grow plants, you grow the soil?"� The first thing you really need is the right soil, and in most places the soil you'll start out with is really bad. Using a raised bed is a way to jump-start growing while you amend the existing soil, which can take years.
If you want to take over the lawn or do something more ambitious, the first step is to really grow the soil.� Make compost, but most people won't be able to make enough to fertilize a whole yard so you might have to import compost.� We get horse bedding material.� Did you know L.A. has more horses per capita than any other large city in the country?� There is tons of compost around here..."

Off the top of my head, it takes 100 years to create maybe 1 cm thickness of soil (if you aren?t using a lot of worm compost - haha). Yet today's "modern" farming and land changing practices literally destroy the soil, something like at 10 times the rate it is created or we lose soil at 1 cm every 10 years - I probably read this somewhere in David Pimentel's work (a agriculture researcher out of Cornell University). It seems to mirror our destruction of biodiversity - except we're killing species at 1000 times the normal rate (still debated of course except the UN people who did some research certainly support this - think about last year?s cry about ocean?s losing all the fish!).

"We don't believe in tilling the soil.� We believe you should amend it from above.� Soil has a symbiotic system of fungus and worms that work with the roots of plants.� If you till it you're going to destroy that relationship.� The way to build it is to add organic matter as mulch. You might have to gently break the soil up a little bit, with a tool called a broadfork, but do it gently.� You definitely shouldn't till it.� Tilling isn't just bad for the soil, it contributes to pollution because it releases CO2 into the atmosphere."

FRUIT TREES
I've been thinking about how to get more of these trees in the city or in my yard. An interesting method in India called the Doshi system makes use of bags, compost and a lot of twigs to grow food. It can also be used to grow trees. You want to be "sure to plant them carefully so that they provide shade where you want it -- say to cool the house, while at the same time not shading out areas where you want to grow sun-loving vegetables" according to Erik.

PERMACULTURE
In his interview, Erik talks about permaculture and having the "the plants work with each other in a mutually beneficial relationship". He mentions the "three sisters".

"The best example of this is the "three sisters" that the Native Americans used to plant: corn, squash and beans. The idea being that beans are nitrogen-fixing plants, they pump nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the ground for the corn and the squash.� The corn grows up as a trellis for the beans. The squash serves as a mulch for the other plants. And together these three plants provide an ideal diet for humans." (the corn and beans provide complementary protein which meets all your protein needs - the human body is made of 80% protein I might add)

I definitely tried this one a year or two ago before my knowledge was as extensive as it was now. In my yard however the squirrels literally wreaked havoc. They ate my corn, knocking them over into the beans. Some of my yellow crookneck squash became victims too. The three aren?t going to be next garden idea for sure and wild corn is known to be notoriously hard to cultivate according to Gerrie Baker, Kingston market gardener and co-owner of The Worm Factory (http://www.thewormfactory.ca).

What I like is the idea of using as little fossil fuel chemicals as possible. We need living machines (the plants, the insects, the animals) to work with us to grow food and thrive. That?s an important concept coming from permaculture. Erik states: ?This sort of gardening is the opposite of American agriculture.� Too often they're putting in petro-chemicals temporarily into the soil to try and grow plants.� With permaculture you use nature to do that and create a beneficial feedback cycle.� It also simply requires less labor.?

Erik goes on to say:
?One of the main goals of permaculture is to require as few human inputs as possible. There's a phrase local permaculture expert David Khan taught me that I really like, "work makes work..." If you plant a grass lawn you have to mow it every week, you have to fertilize it.� I just don't have time for that kind of work.� I don't want that kind of work. I also don't want to pay someone else to do it.
If you work with nature rather than against her, you don't have to do as much work.� Nature doesn't need humans to make it go.?

MORE THAN GARDENING
It?s a lot more than just gardening. Erik talks about gardening for apartments or small spaces (I'm looking in your direction Molly), foraging in the nearby wild (there are cultures that still do that), home economics and fermenting your own stuff (make your own beer? preservation or canning anyone? in fact, Canadian Organic Growers Toronto is hosting a workshop on preservation - see below).

What I love about the interview is the talk about the sourdough bread.
"... all you have to do is mix flour and water together and every day throw out half the mixture (or make bread with it) and add more flour. The wild yeast is contained in the flour itself, and the air in smaller concentrations.� It's there naturally.� It's very easy to make good bread without commercial yeast."
"Bread without commercial yeast lasts longer, tastes better and some say is better for you."

Erik also talks about solar energy. It's great that you can use it on a bike and even to cook rice. It ain't as fast except you never burn it.
"DN: I saw a woman at the bike expo in Pasadena the other week pulling an oven baking cookies with solar power on her bike.� I thought that was cool."
Erik on cooking rice:
"We cook our rice in a solar cooker now and it's easier than cooking on the stove.� We just throw it in the solar cooker and two hours later you have perfectly cooked rice and you can't burn it. That's the kind of thing we show how to do in the book and the kind of thing that someone in an apartment or someone who can't afford solar panels can easily do."

The book looks to be a fascinating and practically useful read. I am definitely keeping this on my to get wish list.

June 25 : Canning and Preserving Workshop
Hosted By: Canadian Organic Growers Toronto
Whole Foods Kitchen, Hazelton Lanes, 87 Avenue Road, Toronto
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM
Cost: $5 (COG members free)
Reserve your space: torontochapter@cog.ca
A hands-on workshop to prepare you to can or preserve this summer's harvest for future enjoyment!

For the full interview go to:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/emeraldcity/2008/06/interview-with.html

Keywords: David Pimentel, Cornell, CO2, greenhouse gas emissions, fungus, worms, roots, plants, soil, vegetables, permaculture, urban, agriculture, garden, ferment, storage, preservation, canning, Canadian Organic Growers Toronto, biodiversity, corn, squash, bean, horse, compost, manure, chicken, egg, solar energy, cooking

History of Kombucha 101

What is Kombucha?

Kombucha is a probiotic( Remember I wrote about probiotics), microbiological food. It helps regenerate the bowel flora and is excellent for wellbeing.

What is Kombucha made of? - Kombucha is a popular health promoting beverage and natural folk remedy made by fermenting tea. Kombucha is a colony or culture of yeast and other microorganisms embedded in a pure cellulose "pancake." When the "pancake" is grown in a blend of tea and sugar, it transforms the liquid into a refreshingly lightly sparkling, sweet and sour drink with a fruity fragrance full of health giving acids and nutrients. The Kombucha culture feeds on the sugar and, in exchange, produces other valuable substances which change into the drink: glucuronic acid, glucon acid, lactic acid, vitamins, amino acids, antibiotic substances, 0.5% to 1% alcohol is produced as well as other products.

Kombucha apparently evolved from plant organisms over 2.5 billion years ago. People have been preparing and making a fermented tea drink for over 2ooo years for many centuries. The fact that is still here today is a testimonial in itself and that millions of people throughout world for centuries have found it to have great value.

Kombucha History

It is thought that Kombucha mushroom, a fermented yeast enzyme tea, originated in Asia during the Chinese Tsin dynasty in 212BC. This Eastern Tea was referred to as the Remedy for Immortality or the tea of Immortality. With the extension of trade routes it spread to India and Russia through travelers and traders. Kombucha resurfaced in Japan between the Wars after a Japanese visitor to Kargasok (Russia) found this fermented tea drink responsible for their astonishing health, longevity and well-being. It may have been introduced to Japan by a Korean physician by the name of Kombu around 415 AD. Today the tea - once routinely used by Samurai - is widely used again in Japan. Kombucha appeared in Germany about the turn of the century from Russia. This fermented tea drink became quite popular across Europe until World War II with the shortage of tea and sugar.

For hundreds of years a tea has been made from Chaga (a birch-tree mushroom) by the Russian peasants of the Alexandrove district near Moscow to cure cancer. There is speculation that the Kombucha mushroom is related to the Birch-tree mushroom.

Wherever this tea originated from it is now known throughout the world.  Kombucha Mushroom tea has been known by many names in many cultures. In 18th century Russia it was known as Cajnyj Kvas, in China as Cha Gu, in Germany as Heldenpilz.

Over all these years many stories have been told of how this fermented tea beverage, Kombucha has appeared to have performed miracles. Hence names such as miracle fungus, magical fungus, elixir of life and gout tea.

There are reports from several different countries of the use of Kombucha tea. The fungus is given local names in various countries such as: Russian Fungus, Japanese sponge, the Divine Tsche, Mongolian wine, Indian wine, Fungus Japonicus, Pichia fermentans, Cembuya, Orientalis, Combuchu, Tschambucco, Volga Spring, Mo Gu, Champignon de longue vie, Teekwass, Kwassan, pseudo lichen and Kargasok Tea, Scoby, kochakinoko.

What do probiotics do?

A probiotic is an organism which contributes to the health and balance of the intestinal tract. A probiotic is also referred to as the "friendly", "beneficial", or "good" bacteria which when ingested acts to maintain a healthy intestinal tract and help fight illness and disease.

 

A healthy lower intestine should contain at least 85% friendly bacteria to prevent the over colonization of disease causing micro-organisms like E. coli and salmonella. Our colon can maintain its health with 15% unfriendly bacteria, if the body contains at least 85% probiotic friendly bacteria. Most people have this percentage reversed.

New research is establishing how important the supplementation of probiotics can be for a variety of conditions.

Probiotics enhance the immune system by favorably altering the gut micro-ecology and preventing unfriendly

organisms from gaining a foothold in the body. They prevent the overgrowth of yeast and fungus and produce

substances that can lower cholesterol.

                                           

Why Do We Need Probiotics?

While it's true that non-beneficial bacteria are naturally occurring in the intestinal tract, problems begin

when their growth goes unchecked and probiotics play an especially important role in keeping in check the

pathogenic bacteria that cause disease.

Here's a summary of what probiotics can do:

• Inhibit the growth of harmful bacteria that cause digestive stress
  
• Improve digestion of food and absorption of vitamins
• Stimulate the body’s natural defence mechanism - the immune system
  
• Help make vitamins needed by the body

Kombucha is a probiotic. Pro = in favor of; biotic = life. Kombucha balances the pH naturally.

JOIN ME IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS AS I SHOW YOU HOW TO MAKE THIS DELICIOUS TEA AND AS I SHARE THE HISTORY AND BENEFITS OF THIS TEA.

If you've been brewing Kombucha Tea let me know how it has benefited you:)

I'm pretty excited overall and the syllabus is a dream. I hope to really absorb a lot. I've never spoken with anyone who has attended these courses but I read great things. I'm hopeful as this isn't a cheap class to attend. I'm confident it will meet my expectations and be a great experience to say the least.

It is hard to choose but I expect some of the course highlights to be;

Cider Orcharding.
An really interesting topic for me. My Mom's side of the family is from Wenatchee here is Washington. The once self proclaimed "Apple Capitol of the World" is now host to a ailing apple industry and a virgining wine industry in neighboring Lake Chelan which is or was once equally apple heavy. Now orchards are being torn out to make way for vinyards. Other than just going organic can diversifying product by means of grafting cider varieties as well as other old time varieties be a viable answer? If you know apples you know apples... Why grapes? Anyway that is another blog post entirely.

Principles for Cider Production and Preparation for Fermenting.
Can you go over read about them enough times? When all is said and done this is the real reason behind going. It will be great to hear it all and take notes from a respected professional. Fruit selection, harvesting, processing, juice composition and preparation. Nice!

Commercial Cider Producer Visit
One of the days we'll be headed North of the border to Vancouver Island to check out Merridale Estate Cider. I've had sought out and had their cider twice now while in Victoria. Heading out there for a tour was high on my list for Heather and my next trip up there. It isn't harvest or anything but it should be a nice time of year to visit and for sure interesting to no end.

The Legislative Requirements, Assessment and Profiling of Cider, Blending, Lab Analysis and so-on. Honestly it all looks great and I'm pretty excited to finally be going.

On a side note some of my own pressed and blended batches are starting to take shape. Man oh man. Much much better than what I am using from the local cider mill. I don't know what they did to their recipe but at one point I was pretty successful with their juice... I was beginning to think it was me. Well anyways fresh pressed and thoughtfully blended is key, my fermentation temperature re-revelation didn't hurt either. Keep it cool brothers.

Sometimes apple picking/press partner, fellow fermenter and coffee colleague Michael Elvin wrote me up nice review of what I think will be one of the better batches yet. Surprisingly or not, it contains some great cider apples kicked down by a buddy on Whidbey. Thats trouble... How the hell am I suppose to get my hands on cider apples every year? Ideas offers and inquiries welcome...

Weather and a global demand for hops has affected the ability for brewers to get the hops they need. A few posts ago I wrote about a conversation I had with Ralph Olsen of Hop Union in Yakima Washington about the shortage, and he was helpful in explaining how hops are bought and sold on the global market (see Fire, drought and demand=Short hop supply).

I also spoke with Todd Bellomy of the Sam Adams Brewery, in Jamaica Plain, Mass., about the shortage and how larger breweries are dealing with the situation. Todd told me that Sam Adams, part of the Boston Beer Company headed by Jim Koch, buys its hops mainly from Germany and England, and have locked their hops in at a certain price.

The brewery buys bulk quantities of hops and stores them, which has helped them continue to brew the major beers in their lineup with the same hop varieties despite the shortage, Todd said.

Still, the hop shortage has affected some of the smaller batches Sam Adams brews. One of the winners of last year's Longshot American Homebrew contest won with a particularly hoppy beer made with seven kinds of hops, Todd said. The brewery had a difficult time finding all the hops needed to brew the recipe the way the winner intended.

"People wouldn't even trade hops with Sam Adams," Todd said, of the company's efforts to secure the hops they would need to brew the beer. "We could not procure them at any price."

Sam Adams instead only brewed two of the three winning beers, and plans to release the third beer when those seven hop varieties become available on the market again, Todd said.

In the meantime, Sam Adams has started a hop sharing program to help smaller breweries cope with skyrocketing prices. The company released 20,000 pounds of hops, and is selling them to small breweries at cost, he said. Brewers have to demonstrate basic requirements, such as the small size of their brewery and their hop need, and can apply online at the Sam Adams website.

Like Ralph at Hop Union, Todd is uncertain when the hop market will stabilize. "Hops are harvested in August and September," Todd said. "So we won't know until October or November."

If brewing beer is like making soup, then what do beer recipes look like?

Many brewers tweak basic recipes and make them their own. They log their failures and successes in a variety of ways. 2006 Sam Adams Longshot American Homebrew contest winner Bruce Stott keeps his recipes in an Excel file. In addition to recording the ingredients he's used, he also notes the brewing conditions, the temperature of the batch at various points, and more.

Recipes can be simple lists of the ingredients needed, with a few tips on how long to brew and at what temperature. Other recipes, like Bruce's, make note of the brew's gravity (alchohol content as measured with a hydrometer), and keep careful detail of each stage in the brewing process.

A typical, simple recipe can look like this: (taken from BeerRecipes.org)

Ingredients:

• 7 pounds, GWM pale malt
• 14 ounces, Carastan malt (36L) (Huge Baird)
• 1/2 ounce, chocolate malt
• 7--1/4 gallons water, treated with 1/2 ounce gypsum and pinch

OG: 1.051 in 5-1/2 gallons

Procedure:
Mash in with 8 quarts at 170F. for a target of 153-155. Conversion done in 30 minutes. Mash out at 168. Sparge with remaining supply liqour to collect 6--1/4 gallons. 90 minute boil. Chill and pitch yeast. Ferment at about 68F.

Rack to secondary after fermention dies down and dry hop with Cascade pellets and Kent Goldings. Let sit until fermentation completely done (e.g., pellet crud sinks)---about a week or two.

Prime and bottle or keg in the usual manner.

*******

There are a plethora of sites on the Internet that offer beer recipes. A good friend of mine swears by Cat's Meow, a no-frills site that offers recipes categorized by beer type. It has been around since 1994, and boasts hundreds of recipes. The site has an index and a search function to find the recipe you're looking for as quickly as possible. Cat's Meow also has a converter, so brewers who don't want to calculate the difference between a gallon and a liter can type their measurements into a form and the site will do the rest.

Upon closer inspection however, it looks like Cat's Meow might not be updated anymore, or will be taken down soon. The site's creator, Mark, recommends recipe-searchers to try Gambrinus' Mug, a site very similar in presentation to Cat's Meow. The difference is that users can now contribute their own recipes and grow the database that way.

BeerRecipes.org is a little more dressed up than the previous two sites, and offers recipes organized by beer type, as well. In addition to recipes, the site has a brew forum, links, and a mailing list for those brewers who want to be connected to the brewing world at-large.

There are many more sites offering beer, mead, lambic and even wine recipes on the Internet; all it takes is a simple search! It pays to do some research and to experiment with different recipes. Bruce Stott's extremely organized record system has taught me that the best way to make a good beer the second time around is to keep good notes!

But most importantly, brewing beer is supposed to be fun!

"Sanitizing your equipment is one of the easiest and most fundamentally important things you will do. If you do not take caren to clean your equipment, the best recipe in the world will result dissapointment." --Charlie Papazian, "The New Complete Joy of Homebrewing"

If I have only learned one thing in my homebrew quest, it's that you can't make a good beer with dirty equipment.

Though it's nearly impossible to prevent some bacteria from finding their way into the brew-stew, improperly cleaned equipment can literally change the chemistry of the beer and produce a yucky taste nobody will enjoy. Each ingredient we add should be done intentionally so that the flavors come out just right.

But good tasting beer doesn't just come from the ingredients. How you clean your equipment and store your freshly-brewed beer matter almost as much as what you've lovingly added into your batch. If you don't clean and store with care, you may invite other "friends" into your brew that could change the beer for the worse.

Yeast, one of the four main ingredients of beer, plays a big role in the fermentation process. Not only do the tiny microorganisms eat the sugars from the malted barley, they also add flavor to the beer. There are thousands of yeast strains in the world; but they don't all make good beer. They are all over the place, on our bodies and in the air--everywhere.

Over the years, brewers have developed a special yeast just for brewing, much the way bakers have developed their own yeast for breads. Conveniently named, brewer's yeast is really the only yeast you want in your brew, which is why sanitation is crucial in the brewing process. If you don't clean your equipment and cover your beer as it ferments, yeast from the air or bacteria from the equipment can spoil your brew.

There's no one sanitizer that works the best, I've found--people seem to use what works for them. When my Dad brewed beer, he always bought "B-brite," a bleach-free powder that he added to his cleaning water. Other people swear by a diluted bleach-water mix, while still others use sterilizers made from an iodine base.

Whatever the cleanser may be, use it it often and carefully clean your brewing materials. Once you've brewed up your beer in your sparkly-clean equipment, keep your brew properly covered and stored, and the yeast will do the rest for you!

In the meantime, you can relax with confidence, knowing you have the right yeast in a clean brew that will make the perfect batch of beer.

Cheers!

Stout, Pilsner, IPA, Belgian, Porter, Weisse, Bock, Dortmunder, Witbier, Lambic.....the list goes on. Brewers throughout history have graced beer aficionados with a wide variety of beer types, from dark and creamy, to bitter and amber, to crisp and light.

I sat down for a few minutes with Mac, a bartender at the Sunset Grille and Tap in Allston the other day to talk about just how many types of beer there are. I figured, what better source on beer than a tender at a bar that serves more than 110 beers?

What he said surprised me.

"There are really only two," he told me.

TWO? Then why does the Sunset have such a huge menu?

That's because most beers fall under the category of ALE or LAGER. It all depends on how the yeast (that little microorganism that creates the alcohol content) is fermented. Any brew that falls under these two categories has been subsequently named to distinguish it for its taste, hue, and other factors like the country it was brewed in.

ALES are a beer that are fermented at warmer temperatures (between 60-75 degrees Farenheit, according to Beer Advocate,) with the yeast fermenting at the top of the batch.

LAGERS are fermented at cooler temperatures (closer to 34 degrees Farenheit. Thanks Beer Advocate guys!) and the yeast ferments on the bottom of the batch.

Mac went on to tell me that lager beers are relatively new, considering the fact that people have been brewing ales for thousands of years. The reason lagers are "new" (created in the past few hundred years) is the fact that they are fermented at cooler temperatures. Before pasteurization and refrigeration were invented, brewers could only ferment beers that could withstand warmer temperatures without becoming "skunked," or bad. Those are the richer, darker, stronger- tasting ales we know and love.

Since lagers are brewed at cooler temperatures, they come out "crisper" and "cleaner," according to Mac. Many of the mass-produced American beers fall under the lager category.

Judging from the Sunset's menu, there are far more ales to choose from than lagers. Yum! I'm getting thirsty just thinking about it!

So if you're in the area, stop by the Sunset Grille and Tap, have a chat with a very knowledgeable bartender and enjoy a cold one. Good luck trying to pick your sampler from all those beers!

Cheers!

So, I've been playing with the idea of drawing on terms for "making" from the days before industrial capitalism. Reproduction is preceded by terms like "generation" which in turn were accompanied by such actions as "fermenting" and "concocting." I REALLY like "ferment" given its double meaning of making and insurgence.

I'm already very fond of "conjuring" and look forward to the day when I might use the term "miraculate."

In a more chemical domain, "bind" and "affinity."

Other possibilities: evoke and invoke, ripen, sympathies, amalgamation, circulation, coagulation, combustion, composition, concoction, corrosion, crystallization, dessication, detonation, digestion, disintegration, distillation, evaporation, extraction, fermentation, filtration, fixation, granulation, ignition, incineration, melting, precipitation, preparation, separation, sublimation, and vitrification.

Thoughts?

The loose end of the hose is immersed in a jug half filled with a sterilizing solution . As of 9am this morning bubbles were rising at a rate of 1 per second. Wort/beer is a nice golden/light copper colour.

To ensure this brew went well I made some changes from the brewing process I used on my last batch before Christmas. This time I didn't add any Irish moss or any Malto-dextrose (a non-fermentable sugar used to add "body") . I'm not sure if these differences are what did it though....

I will hopefully post some pics when I bottle this in a week or so.

Cheers

Well, wife-o-mine, a 'dictatorship of the proletariat' was pretty tough to implement--it had never been done before! For years, Marxist thinkers and revolutionaries had fine-tuned their critique of capitalism, and it was largely quite valid. I think had they spent as much energy articulating what they were for, the transition from Russian czardom to a distributed system could have worked better and with less bloodshed.

Hmm...

As you no doubt know, I think that many of the critiques that we house-churchers have against more institutionally-driven expressions of Church are grounded in some solid intuition and research. And I also think that some of our positive visions of what a more egalitarian, 'organic' way of being under the guidance of the Spirit (or headship of Christ, as you put it) have beauty and merit too. BUT I'm thinking that maybe evolution is a better metaphor for what we're seeking to embody than revolution. Lasting change tends to be gradual, and only then punctuated by a time of cataclysmic upheaval. We've been riding the wave of upheaval for awhile, but it might well be that greater humility toward established expressions are called for.

These days, instead of anticipating a remnant 'torch of the testimony,' I see Church History (and indeed, all history) as compost. At one point something was alive (and probably still is alive, in some manifestation), but then it died. After this, it begins to decompose-it might even stink a good deal. But that decomposing stew releases very helpful nutrients back into the soil--indeed, the soil itself is the product of eons of compost.

So even us 'organic churches' are planted in the soil of rich compost, of all that's come before. We don't need to eat from the Tree of Judgment, and determine what was good, bad, and ugly in the beliefs and actions of our forbears. Quaker, Anabaptist, Catholic, Pentecostal, Orthodox--and yes, even house church...it's all our compost. It's all our soil. And we have one big God--disclosed in Christ--who transcends and includes all of this, helping us discern what was most good, true and beautiful about these past (and continuing) expressions, to celebrate and wisely use today. And of course, we have our sacred text, contemporary context, and Holy Spirit subtext to help us weave new meanings and trajectories for today and tomorrow.

God is at work, fermenting God's good creation. Let's compost church today!

Recommended Reading:

The Seeker's Way by Dave Fleming

Streams of Living Water by Richard Foster

A Generous Orthodoxy by Brian McLaren

I've been brewing mead for about 2 years now, and have been aching to branch out into wine. Carrado's of New Jersey, a really nifty brewing supply store nearish to my locale, is going to begin selling crushed grapes by the gallon this year [in grape season ~September] as opposed to by the 6 gallon. I'm tremendously excited by this. Most likely it will not be economically feasible to do more than a 3 gallon of so, but it'll still be a lot of fun.

And I wanted to do some experimenting before I shell out the big bucks for wine grapes.

Enter Strawberries. Over the last few months I've been slowly buying frozen strawberries as I see them for as good a price as I have found locally [roughly $2.50/lb], and the other day I found I had accumulated 6 pounds of frozen strawberries. Definitely enough to make 5 gallons of wine out of, thought I. So I set out to make an attempt.

Strawberry Wine

Ingredients:
6 pounds strawberries [frozen, even if using freshly picked yourself, freeze and defrost beforehand to break open the cell walls for easier yeast foodage]
1 can Juicy Juice Cherry juice
5 oranges, zested and juiced
4 cups of sugar [white, brown, molasses or maple syrup as per your tastes. I used white sugar cause it was cheap and I had it to hand]
strongly brewed tea [black tea, for tannins]
wine yeast, rehydrated [instructions below]
water you like the taste of/believe to be not filled with too much bacteria

The night before I set the strawberries on the bottom shelf of my fridge [I just knew they were going to leak, and of course they did, but I only have to clean one shelf cause they did not leak down the entire fridge!] to defrost.

Once defrosted, I tossed them into my large brew pot [read:huge stock pot], pouring tap water into the bags and dumping that ever-so-slightly-strawberry-flavored water into the pot with the strawberries. I firmly believe that NYC has magical, tasty, awesome tap water. Other cities and areas, not so much. So if you are not blessed with magical, great tasting tap water, consider distilled or spring water for brewing [and everything else].

So I set the strawberries to boil, adding the zest, orange juice, and sugar, as well as the 'cherry juice' [Juicy Juice is a great, cheap way to get 100% juice--but it is rarely ever 100% juice of the same fruit, regardless of what the title wants you to believe]. I used a low flame and did a few chores about the kitchen so as to be gentle with the flavor (as opposed to viciously boiling the heck out of it), but I'm not sure it made a huge difference. The important thing here is to make sure you boil it enough to kill any bacteria that might compete with the yeast.

A word about strawberries and fruit in general--fresh is vitally important. I am absolutely certain that the 'fresh' strawberries in my grocery store are no such thing. And since I do not have a place to go pick strawberries off the plant and thus know for sure how fresh they are, I turn to frozen strawberries. I figure, it's the next best thing.

Another word about fruit fermenting--freeze the fruit before fermenting it. Freezing bursts the cell barriers, making it easier for the yeast to get their nutrients and make delicious alcohol for us.

Now, I love strawberries. I really do; they are delicious. However, they really are not the strongest flavor out there. So I'm gonna see what I can do to boost up the flavor quotient on this beverage by adding oranges and cherry. Add whatever you like and think will go with the strawberry. Taste the mixture as it simmers [try not to let it go to a roiling boil for a long period of time, but definitely simmer it long enough so you are sure any bacteria living on the fruit is no longer] to see what you think of it. My mixture tasted and smelled gorgeous. It was sweeter than I like my drinks, but I know the yeasties will love it.

Right now one of my favorite yeasts is Lalvin EC-1118. It is a champagne yeast, a quick fermenter, has a relatively high alcohol tolerance (18%), and has a fairly clean flavor that I enjoy. It is also supposed to be very competitive, which is a great thing because I worry that my sterilization techniques might be a bit lazy. I'm used to brewing in honey, which is naturally anti-bacterial and while I've never had *knock wood* any problems with infections in my ferments, I'm never sure if that's due to my being careful or the honey being magical and picking up my slack. Thus, just in case, I'd prefer to go with a yeast that is known for kicking the butts of other bacteria that might try to come in and take over. It doesn't hurt at all that I happen to also love the taste. Additionally, it's nitrogen needs are low, and it's happy with a wide range of temperatures including low temperatures which given that it's winter here now, is useful.

However, any wine yeast [or maybe even a beer yeast] could be interesting with this. Hell, if you are confident in your environment or feeling daring, you could leave the must [the mixture sitting on your stove] hanging out at room temperature for a day or two and use whatever airborne yeasts you have going. And maybe one day I'll try that, when we've moved out into land we love that loves us back. But not where we are now, I don't trust it to not try to kill us.

After letting the must boil and then cool down [covered] until its at a comfortable temperature [I test this by touching my finger to a spoonful of must, but if you have a thermometer, anything around 85 degrees F should be fine, especially as we'll be adding a lot of cool water before we pitch the yeast], pour it into the fermenter. Use a funnel, and preferably have someone standing by to poke it with a [clean!] knife when the funnel gets jammed by strawberries. I use a 5 gallon glass carboy for fermenting. It's not as simple to clean as a bucket, but I, in general, like them better than buckets. But some people [especially those who make beer] swear by buckets for the initial fermentation. And I'm sure when I start to make beer I will concur. Carboys can be got from your local brewing supply store, and I'd recommend that, because shipping them in the mail is tricky and expensive.

After pouring in the must, begin to fill the carboy with water, and pour the [at least somewhat cooled] tea [for tannins] in. When the carboy is about half full, pitch the rehydrated yeast.

If you are using [cheaper than the liquid yeasts, in my experience] dehydrated yeast in little packets, you will need to rehydrate them before pitching into the must in your fermenter. I've taken to using less than the full packet (to make them last longer), and thus I should be rehydrating my yeast a day or two in advance, but if you are using the full packet adding it to a jar of water while beginning to boil the must [and thus hydrating it for at least an hour] is sufficient. I did in fact not begin hydrating my yeast a day or three in advance. Bad kitty.

When hydrating an entire package of yeast, just putting it in warm [not hot, not cold, about 75-80 degrees F] water in a jar, swirling it gently and then shaking vigorously right before pitching it into the fermenter with the must is a very easy and pain-free process. I'd then refill the jar with water and also add that to the must, just to make sure you got all the little buggers out of the jar and working for you. However if you are trying to save the packages for future use, sprinkling out some individual yeast [depending on what I'm doing and how far in advance I am doing it (further in advance can get away with less granules) I use ball park 25-50] granules from the package into a jar of water should be just the initial step for you. At first, add no sugar to the water, because it will only dehydrate the yeast further, delaying your ultimate success. But after a few hours--5 to 12--add a bit of food to help the yeast begin multiplying. This can be a tablespoon of sugar, some fruit juice, a thawed strawberry or two, whatever. Just something to get them going. Keep the jar covered with a piece of fabric, wrapped around the top with a rubber band to keep other bacteria or dust from getting in while allowing the yeast to breathe. Ideally you would let them populate the jar for 36-60 hours before pitching it into the must.

But we do not always think this far ahead. This particular batch of strawberry wine's yeast had only been hydrated for about 4 hours. They had been given a strawberry a bit of the must to munch on before being pitched. Thus the fermentation did not start in earnest right away, the yeasts had to multiply and take over a bit first. This was rather poor form on my part, because in theory in between the time of pitching and taking over, the must could have been colonized by a different strain of bacteria. However I believe this did not occur, as I was very careful about keeping things sanitary for the wine, given this danger. Also, I'm feeling lucky.

After pitching the yeast, fill the carboy up the rest of the way with water. However, leave a good 6-10 inches from the top free. I did not do this, leaving only about 4-5 inches and ran into some complications later because of this oversight. In my defense, this is rarely necessary with mead. What had happened was...

Once the carboy was thoroughly taken over by EC-1118, all the strawberries were propelled to the top of the must by these viciously active beasties. Their activity was so virulent in fact that it pushed the must and strawberries up past the 5 grace inches I'd given it and into the airlock [the 'cap' for the carboy that allows air/pressure to escape the container without causing an explosion, while keeping other things out--and if anything did manage to get in, it first goes through a rather toxic layer of grain alcohol, making sure it will not survive the trip]. I managed to catch it in time and it did not decorate my living room, but I did have to take over about 2.5 cups of the must and freeze it for later adding back. This appears to have done the trick, giving the yeast more room in which to expand without causing havoc.

So far this does not seem to be a problem with this recipe, but just a word of caution--always check to make sure that the airlock is able to 'breathe' allowing the pent up pressure to escape--and not by exploding all over the place it's being stored. This can often be fixed by something as simple as shaking the carboy, breaking up whatever has formed a barrier on the surface. Sometimes the barrier might be firmer than that, requiring it to be broken up with the handle of a long spoon--sterilized of course.

As for this batch of wine--it's my first, but I'm going to treat it as I do mead. Every 3-4 months I will rack it--siphon the must/wine into a new sterilized carboy and off of its lees [the dead yeast cells and various things that sink to the bottom] and taste it. That way I can determine in what direction the wine/mead/what have you is going and if I wish to interrupt that path and redirect it a different way. In this case, I will have the basic ingredients on hand--sugar, strawberries, oranges, maybe some cherry juice--so in case I feel it needs a bit of tweaking, I can add more of whatever I feel would benefit it. I expect it to be ready in about 12 months, but it could be ready sooner or later depending on how much & what type of tweaking needs to be done [if I decide 10 months in that it simply must have more fruit or sugar, the fermentation is going to restart making any bottles I put it into decidedly explosive, and thus extending the amount of time it needs to ferment and age in carboy before it is safer to bottle] and how quickly it turns into tastiness.

But I have high expectations and hopes for this, my very first wine. I am quite excited to see what comes of it.

I usually make these pancakes for breakfast, since I am gluten intolerant. I have always prepared them in a normal fashion with gluten-free flour. Tasty, but not the best and always tending to go stiff-as-a-board unless you got the cooking and the fat just right (impossible in the morning when you are trying to find pairs of socks and school books and cook breakfast at the same time).

"House wives of old knew that the most delicious pancakes, muffins and cakes could be made by soaking the flour in sour or cultured milk, buttermilk or cream"
Sally Fallon - Nourishing Traditions

So I thought this morning I would try Sally Fallon's pancakes from her 'Nourishing Traditions' Cook Book. This has to be quite simply a recipe for the most superb pancakes I have ever tasted and believe me, my neighbour owns a crêperie in the local village and I have seen every kind of crêpe you can imagine. She is French - but I now can say without hestiation, that I make a better crêpe then her. It's true.

Some gluten intolerant people may be able to eat the whole wheat in these pancakes, because the gluten has been broken down somewhat during the period of fermentation the night before. The agent of this fermentation is yoghurt. It is a fascinating method and one that has been done instinctively with grains for millenia. Every indigenous culture in the world, apart from the aborigines of Australia, found an important place for fermenting in their cuisine. Since we present-day people have moved onto the modern production of food, the fermentation of grains prior to cooking has been forgotten in the wake of convenience, yield and profits. Interestingly, grains were often pre-sprouted too, as in the following exerpt:

"Before the advent of factory farms, grain was partially germinated, but modern grain consists of dormant (resting) seeds...
In former times grain was harvested and sheaved. The sheaves were put into shocks and were gathered and built into stacks which stood in the field for several more weeks before threshing.
During this period of weathering in the field, the grain seeds were exposed to rain and dew, which soaked into the sheaves. the grain could pick up this moisture and, with heat from the sun, conditions were ideal to favour an degree of germination and enzyme multiplication in the grain.
The modern combine harvester removes the grain immediatley after cutting and permits it to be hauled away to the granary. Hence there is no weathering and consequent enzyme development, resulting in a mature but dormant seeds."
Edward Howell MD, Food Enzymes for health and longevity.

Unlike bread, whose gluten can be made digestible, even to those with celiac disease through sourdough or levain levening methods, flour destined to be used for baked goods that will not rise with yeast can still be fermented using yoghurt, kefir, buttermilk or soured cream. The key here is that the fermentor must be 'live'; must contain bacteria which, instead of spoiling the flour, eats away at the gluten, partly predigesting it for us. These fermented flour products are much easier for wheat sensitive individuals to digest as the enzyme inhibitor phytic acid, present in all seeds and grains has been broken down too.

I made up the whole of the recipe: i.e. the 2 cups of flour and yoghurt to ferment overnight, but I only mixed up half that amount in the morning into a batter. Twenty pancakes in the morning is far too much for us to eat, although we can polish off ten between us, mostly after the children have gone to school, though they can eat four between them.
So I added 1 egg, plus 1 egg yolk, (saving the white in the freezer to make meringues with at a later date) half teaspoon salt, half packet of vanilla essence and 1 tablespoon butter. If you are making savoury pancakes with cheese or whatever, you may want to omit the vanilla. But I have found that no-one complains of any vanilla taste when they eat savoury.

Soured Pancakes:
2 cups of wheat flour, I used type 80.
2 cups of plain yoghurt,
3 eggs lightly beaten,
1 teaspoon Celtic Sea Salt,
1 packet vanilla sugar or 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
2 tablespoons melted butter
Filtered water.

In a glass jar add the flour and the yoghurt and mix well. Make sure all the flour has been moistened. Leave this jar covered in a warm place overnight, or for 24 hours.
In the morning, I add half of the remaining ingredients, (see above) to make up half a batch of pancakes,adding the water to bring it to the best consistency. For french style crêpes, the batter needs to be able to pour like thin cream. Melt the butter in the pan you will cook the pancakes in, so that the pan is already greased, and add the butter to the batter. I find that it is best to re-grease the pan before each pancake with a small amount of butter. If you have a large frying pan, use three-quarters of a soup ladleful of batter for each pancake and make sure the pan is very hot before you cook the first, keeping it hot throughout. These pancakes take longer to cook than their white flour alternatives, but don't cook for too long as they will go stiff.

We eat our pancakes with lemon and raw sugar and I spread raw butter on the cooled pancakes for the children before I add the fillings. The taste is just beyond this world - not like any other pancake I have tried. The combination of soured wholewheat, (which is much softer than un-soured) raw butter and dark sugar with lemon really can't be beaten. The butter caramelises in the pan and the flavour is so raich and mature. I am convinced that this is how pancakes must have been prepared in the past. It just seems to have such a mellow, old kind of taste. Perhaps that is where the original tradition of leaving the batter to rest stems from. I know no real reason why we need to leave the batter to rest for half an hour in modern pancake recipes. It has no bearing on taste or cookability (Jane Grigson agrees with me). I am convinced that this is a throw-back to the original method of souring the grain overnight.

Fall has always been my favorite time of the year. The temperature, the weather, the colors, the sounds, the smells. It all works for me.

The past two years have left me Apple crazy during Autumn. This condition is exacerbated now that I own an apple press. I've been out hustling them apples and harassing my friends or anyone else I can think of for my share of the apples and/or pears that lay waste in backyards all across the Olympia/Tumwater/Lacey area. Lots of looking and lots of asking (well 1 note and 2 classifieds) but no finding... Until just this last week, it was all beginning to feel a little bleak.

Until I received an email last week from a guy Steve I met at the Darrington Bluegrass Festival in 2006 . Steve lives on Whidbey Island in or near a town named Coupeville. As we got to talking last year it was revealed to me that Steve has 2 or 3 Vintage Cider Apple varieties growing on his property. I don't recall them all by name but I do remember he's got a Kingston Black however. Well anyway Steve emailed to offer me 40-50 lbs of his cider apples. Although not enough press and ferment an entire batch, that amount of apples is more than adequate to supplement a good solid base of local Olympia neighborhood apple blend.

Besides all of that I got a phone call last night about some apples I was inquiring about on the Eastside of Olympia. My buddy Kaplan had lived in this house last year and Michael Elvin (of Batdorf & Bronson) and myself were able to take as many as we needed. We took more than we could press as it turned out but the cider that resulted from our pressings was really pretty good. Very tart but very nice. Tart and nice being WAY better than sweet and syrupy any day.

I've also had my eyes on a couple trees that are in a yard adjacent to my buddy Chris' backyard which may work out too.

If you live anywhere near the Olympia and know folks with apples or pears drop me a line. I'm not against rewarding donors or finders with some finished product... Sweet or fermented.

P.S. I promise part one of my Hard Cider Tutorials are coming. I've been too busy visiting great places and scamming apples to be inspired by the computer.

----------------
Now playing: Reeltime Travelers - Paddy Won't You Drink Some Cider
via FoxyTunes

Much instruction on the Internet describes how to make tempeh from a starter kit or spores. I have not found one which describes making tempeh from existing tempeh. It seems illogical to make tempeh from spores all the time; how did they make tempeh before the Internet?

Ingredients

Soya beans 300g
Vinegar 4 tablespoon
Tempeh 50-100g

Instructions

1. Soak soya beans for 8-12 hours
2. Once soaked for at least 8 hours, dehull and split beans in to half by kneading the beans and rubbing the beans between hands. Do so until about 90% of the beans are dehulled.
3. In between dehulling the beans, wash off excessive hull by pouring the excess water away and adding fresh water.
4. Boil 2 litre of water in a pot with a lid and add 3 tablespoon of vinegar.
5. Add dehulled beans in to boiling water and boil for 30 minutes. Watch out for overflow.
6. Once boiled for 30 minutes, drain as much water as possible.
7. Turn fire to a low heat and stir beans until relatively dry. This is to allow excess water to evaporate. Dry is defined as no water transfer if touched. Should feel like a damp cloth.
8. Add 1 tablespoon of vinegar in to dry beans and mix.
9. Leave to cool in pot until almost room temperature. Less than body tempreture.
10. Use existing tempeh and break them down to small pieces.
11. Add the tempeh in to the beans.

Fermentation

1. Using a safety pin or a paper clip, perforate 2 20x20 cm plastic bag, preferably resealable ones with holes 1 cm apart.
2. Place beans in to plastic bags and flatten with 2 chopping boards.
3. Place in a warm place, between 25-30C for 3 days.
4. The first 24 hours, you should see most of the beans covered with white stuff, and some black patches. The beans will feel warm during this period.

Harvest after 3 days. For basic preperation, cut pieces in to 1 inch square, season with salt and tumeric and fry until golden brown.