Mead and Kitchen Updates
It’s a long time coming. I finally bought a china cabinet! NOW I don’t have to bend over to grab a plate or glass and fumble through a crowded bottom cabinet. I’ve got my eyes on some metal for shelving support, think I’ll order more oak planks to make shelving (think steampunk pipes/wood type shelving) to the right of this cabinet. The corner cabinet I’ve been working on to the far left of the door frame in this picture above, it’s on hold right now as it’s rainy and I don’t wanna transport wood between the front building and this building when it’s wet out. I hope to finish the face frame for this soon as it stops raining (not complaining about the rain – we really need it out here!!!), so I can store my fermenting meads under there in a cool, dark place. Eventually I’ll build the top part from about 3′ above the top of the bottom part, all the way up to the ceiling. That’ll be a great place to store my meads that are aging and make it a wee bit o’hassle to access them… so I’ll have more bottles aging instead of drinking them all up!
Orange Creamsicle Mead update: I made the batch on 11/15 (day 0). I followed the steps in my previous posting about this recipe; the starting SG was 1.060. Airlock activity was none/minimal until I added yeast nutrient and energizer on day 1; gave the second yeast nutrient and energizer addition on day 3; airlock activity is wild, a-poppin! Today (day 4) I got the Madagascar vanilla beans from Beanilla, split ’em in half, scraped out the caviar-like beans, cut the pods in 1″ sections and added it to the primary fermenting bucket. It was my first time working with vanilla beans, and this was totally not what I expected to see! Of all instructions I’ve read up, I know I was to split the pod in half, scrape the beans out, then cut up the pod into 1″ sections… but… it wasnt beans – not as I thought they would be! I was thinking, you know.. green beans-like, but black beans instead of green. Nope – it’s caviar-like! WHOOOOAAAAAAAAHHHHhhhhhhh…. Now I’m thinking of so many ways to use the remaining beans I have (ordered 16 beans; used 5 so far, reserving 5 for secondary if I think it needs more flavor) and believe you me, I’m getting weird with these ideas!
Labels have been decided! I’m excited about these!
Updates:
- Persephone’s Golden seems to have stalled. I’ve tried to revive it by adding extra yeast nutrients and energizer; no go. I think the alcohol might be high and sugar has been depleted; it’s still a semi-sweet mead, so I figured… why not keep it semi-sweet? The alcohol is already pretty high! I took a reading on 11/11 (1.024) and 11/15 (1.020). There has been no airlock activity for over a week now; I’ve decided to cold crash the entire thing for 24 hours after adding k-meta (potassium metabisulfite). Tomorrow or Thursday, I will bottle this and take the final SG reading to determine it’s alcohol contents – using the current starting and final SG readings, it stands at 16.02% abv with about 77 Delle Units. The flavor is more apple-honey; I can barely detect any pomegranate in this.
- Hade’s Crimson has consistent airlock activity; it’s last SG reading was 1.010, which puts it at 17.16% with about 80 Delle Units. It’s not as sweet as Persephone’s Golden – its definitely more drier, but not a dry mead just yet. The pomegranate flavor is just perfect, with a hint of apples. It seems like this will continue in secondary until my planned bottling date of 12/4. We shall see!
Oh yeah, yet another tattoo!
Tattoo #21: I finally added Harley to my chest! Eons ago, I got a tattoo of Lia’s pawprint and her full name, “Xylia” on my left chest. Last week Thursday, I went to Weaving Spider Tattoo in Weaverville, and got a custom geometric tattoo of Harley’s face, and his full name, “Harlequin” below Lia’s pawprint. Next up is Marley – I’m thinking more pencil drawing type, showing her floofiness! Monika did a great job, def going back to her. Funny story – she remembers me from ages ago when I bought the fireplace for the DogHouse – her friend sold it to me, and she was there when I purchased the fireplace! Small world, especially out here in the boonies!
