What's brewin'?

We received a wonderfully generous gift from some great friends over the holidays.  Our very first official beer brewing kit from Williams Brewing in San Leandro, CA.

I have always wanted to brew beer and when I became obsessed with growing hops last year, I knew it was time to make it happen.  Our friends, knowing our tastes in beer, correctly ordered us the American IPA.  After a couple of snafus (3-day winter power outage and confusion about whether the brew pot could be aluminum or if it should be stainless steel) we got her going this past weekend. 

 

Hopefully we got it all right.  True to my virgo nature, I spent a fair amount of time sanitizing everything with a bleach solution.  Everything.  Stovetop, countertop, microwave (why, I don't know - because it was near the stovetop?), utensils, buckets, brew pots, etc...  As I mentioned, there was some initial confusion about the pot in which to boil the wort.  A lot of people say aluminum is a no-no.  That was frustrating because my large pressure canner pot is aluminum.  The idea of using that was nixed.  We ended up using the water bath canner.  It's made of steel and has a ceramic coating.  I checked on several home brew forums and found this to be a suitable choice for the first-go.  If we're really excited about brewing again, we'll think about investing in a large stainless steel stock pot - $$$!!   After all of my reading, I started seeing some opposing viewpoints.  Figures.  Suddenly, it was okay to use aluminum if you didn't try to clean it with a cleaner like Oxiclean.  Apparently that will release some offensive tastes into your brew.   Everyone has an opinion.  Which is the right one?  Jury is still out.

The water bath canner was barely big enough.  Our biggest fear was a boil over which is common when you first add the malt extract.  All went well though, no scorching on the bottom of the thin pot and no boil over mess to clean up.  

The hops were wonderfully aromatic.  It makes me very eager to use my own home grown hops in the next batch!  Fingers crossed that we'll get a harvest this year.

We have no idea if this will be successful or not.  All I can tell you now is that this stuff has taken on a life of it's own in the fermenting bucket.  Lots of urps and burbs and bubbles going on.  I suppose that's a good sign.  AND - it smells like beer.  Yes!

Chicken Massacre

Sadness has fallen upon the Gap Mountain Garden.  Our chicken Fort Knox turned out to be not so Fort Knoxy.  After a year and a half we had our first break-in and it was tragic.  I arrived home from a walk with the dogs Wednesday afternoon.  Our normal path comes up our back property and past the hen house.  As I approached, I saw that something was amiss.  The hoop run was fully dented in from the top and there was an eerie silence across the yard.  As I approached, I noticed feathers.  And then the head of our timid little Golden-laced Wyandotte (damn she was pretty!).  And then her leg.  When I finally got to the coop I saw that our Light Brahma was still inside of the coop (unable to get to the run because the structure had caved in and blocked access).  She was clearly stressed and I understood why.  She just saw her 3 roomates butchered right in front of her. 

I examined the structural fail more closely.  I felt guilty that my design had not held off the predator.  It had worked so well up until now.  Not one incident.  I noticed some small footprints and nail marks where it had dug into the structure.  I'm suspsecting a hungry raccoon.  The bad thing was that this happened in broad daylight.  The husband had let the chickens out of the coop that morning and served up some cracked corn.  All was in order.  By 5pm though, things were very, very wrong.  This was a bold raccoon - although I can't blame him or her.  There's not usually a lot of human activity in our holler during the day.  He or she was free to do what they wanted without interruption.

I closed up the coop as best I could as daylight was waning.  I locked up the Brahma, and hoped for the best.  Fingers crossed that she would still be there in the morning.  If so, I would spend more time securing the run.  At 10pm we let the dogs out into their yard for one last bathroom break.  Our greyhound, Copper was very interested in the corner of the run right outside of our door.  To my extreme surprise, she had sniffed out our new (for 2012) Speckled Sussex we dubbed 'Special'.  I was surprised to see that she was still alive (against my better judgement, I had become fond of her).  Poor gal was huddled in the corner, roosting on a plastic chair - she was obviously rattled.  I picked her up and checked her out and she had been pretty roughed up in the tail area.  Most of her feathers were gone and there were some scratches.  It seemed like she would be okay though.  We brought her out to the coop to join the Brahma.  I think they were relieved to see each other....as was I.  We only had 4 chickens.  I wasn't too sure what I was going to do with just one. 

I'm still not sure these girls are through the woods.  After closer inspection, I noticed that the brahma was fairly mangled too.  Neither have been interested in their cracked corn over the past two days though they are drinking water.  I'm hoping for the best.  In the meantime, I'll be back at the coop this weekend making sure things are more secure.  Thank goodness for forcasted temperatures in the 70's on Gap Mountain (in January!).

Chicken farmin' ain't easy.....

Preserving the harvest

Eggs or egg gourds?

...or both?  :)

Corn Cobbin'

I'm a bit late for a post about our corn harvest.  It happened during the first week of August but as I have been so gently reminded AGAIN by our experiences during this speedy summer month, there is little free time to do things like blog.  I think I need to staycation for the first two weeks of August every year.  Will someone please tell me this when I'm submitting vacation plans to my employer next year?  Please?

Anyhow, things went well in the corn patch this year.  It was a little touch-and-go there for a while what with our derecho winds and less than stellar germination.  I must have adequately amended the soil there because our ears were nice, full and plump.  Water during the critical tassel and silk phase helped too.  The rains came at just the right time so we did not have to supplement.

I must admit, after eating corn for 2 weeks straight, I grew a little tired of it's presence in my kitchen.  So as we do in most years, we took the majority of it, blanched it, removed it from the ears and sequestered it in our freezer until winter when we can fully appreciate its sweet goodness.

Even the chickens got in on the action...

....and the canines too!

A pound of zinnias...

CoopUpdate

Back in May, we added two chicks to our flock.  They're now just over 12 weeks old.  They had been residing in  our basement but it was WELL past time to move them outside.  We didn't feel comfortable doing this in their previous cage setup.  We have way too many predators around here (raccoons on the deck nightly!) and didn't want to risk losing pullets that we hand-raised.  So, they sat in our basement and it actually ended up being a bad choice.  It's not news that chickens messy little creatures.  This was certainly reinforced.  There is a layer of chicken dust on every single surface.  If we do this again, we will keep them in our garage under lights.   I have lots of cleanup to do in that basement.  So, in between summer trips and obligations, we finally got phase two of the chicken coop complete.  We simply added on to our current linear setup and now have an L-shaped run for the girls.

We did a lot or research about integrating new pullets to established flocks.  I had a hunch this would be difficult since our Speckled Sussex is, for lack of a nicer name, a super sassy bitch.  Well, my hunch was correct.  I had read that placing pullets into the coop at night while everyone is asleep was a fool-proof method of introduction.  All of the chickens supposedly wake up in the morning, see each other, say hello and go about their business.  So, at 11pm on a warm July night, we carried our babies out to the coop and placed them inside.  We closed the door and hoped for the best.  We waited for a few minutes to make sure everything was okay.  All was quiet and calm.  Good, I thought.  This is going to work.  We went to bed and awoke at 6am the next morning to check on the girls.  When I arrived at the coop I witnessed the carnage.  Our new Golden-laced Wyandotte was huddled in the coop in shock and would not move.  I didn't see our new Speckled Sussex at first and got worried. I finally found her in the corner of the run, on her side breathing heavily.  She had blood all over her head and feathers were scattered everywhere.  Then I witnessed Super Sassy Bitch attack her repeatedly.  Integration FAIL!

We immediately removed the adult girls and placed them in their portable run for the day.  I checked on the pullets (fully expecting to lose one) and although they were a little battered, it seemed like they would survive.  Luckily they did.  I fenced off the entrance between the old run and the new one so we could keep them separated while still keeping the new girls outside.  We're hoping that by having them live side-by-side, they'll eventually just get used to each other and after a few more weeks, we can try integrating again.  For now it works since it's summer and the most the young girls need for protection is a little tarp to keep themselves and their food dry.  By fall though, we'll want them snug in the coop at night.

Chicken integration.  Who knew it could be so difficult?

Anyone need a SuperSassy hen?  That girl might as well be a rooster!