So, friends, I’ve been on a bit of a high. This Monday night, I found out that I won best cider, best mead, best novice, and best brewer (tied), at the Victorian amateur brewing championships (Vicbrew). That means that three of my creations are going […]
…That decade or more past Keats’s span makes me an older not a wiser man, who knows that it’s too late for dying young, but since youth leaves some sweetnesses unsung, he’s granted days and kumquats to express Man’s Being ripened by his Nothingness… ‘A Kumquat for John Keats’, by […]
This is part eight of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. If you haven’t picked it up from my posts, by now, let me be blunt… Making rice into alcohol is easy. Making sense of sake making is hard. There are […]
This is is part seven of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. I’ve been married to Mr. Small Batch for almost ten years now, and in that time I’ve picked up some instincts about Japanese food. For example, if your leftovers […]
This is is part six of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. As we came to day 20 (conveniently, a Saturday), the sake fermentation had slowed down significantly. There were still small signs of fermentation but we decided to stop and […]
This is part five of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. After ten days of gently stirring and peering at our moto for ten days, it was time to build the main fermentation, or moromi. During the moromi, you add more […]
This is part three of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. The next step in sake homebrew is ten days with very little to do. High time, because I was done babying that koji: we had that picnic cooler in our […]
Some years ago I was lucky enough to find a copy of Italian Liqueurs: History and Art of a Creation. If you have an interest in making liqueurs that are a bit out of the ordinary, this book is well worth finding. It’s not only […]
This is part two of a series on making sake at home, part one is here. The first step in sake making is building a koji starter. Um, what is koji? Koji rice means rice grains cultured with a specific kind of mould, which breaks […]
There’s a truth universally acknowledged among boozemakers, that once in a while you need to make something that the people who share your home will like. This hobby can involve weird explosions and permanent stains; if you’re going to keep doing it, you need to […]