The George Family Journal

Monday, August 24, 2009

Homebrew

Tonight after work I need to steam 6 cups of rice and 8 cups of water and 1.5 cups moldy rice (koji). This is for my homebrew alcohol, no not beer, I am making my own sake.

I’ve been making it for a couple of weeks now and it is a bit more involved that I expected. So far its going well and I’m at the point where I am starting to bulk add my rice to the fermentation. This is when its producing its alcohol and converting the sugars in the rice. My air lock is bubbling away non stop, it smells like wine but tastes like sake, just very bitter right now as its mostly yeast and moldy rice.

I keep writing about moldy rice, which is the big difference in brewing sake to brewing beer. In sake there is no malt as rice does not contain any enzymes to convert the starches to sugars like beer grains do, the way around that is with a special kind of mold that breaks down the rice and its byproduct in breaking down the rice is converting the start to sugar which is what we need for fermentation.

The big downside is, it takes a loooooong time to make. In order to ferment the rice you have to make a starter, this takes a couple of days to create the special mold on the rice. The first two weeks creates your base liquid that contains your yeast and some rice. The second step takes four weeks and this is your initial fermentation. The third step is the secondary fermentation which takes another two weeks (and at this point it lives in the fridge). The the final step is to clear it with bentonite clay (takes a few days) then pasteurize it.

This is my first batch, and apparently 10lbs of short grain rice will yield about 3 gallons of sake. I don’t think I’ll drink 3 gallons of sake, but you can switch sake with white wine in cooking and you can even if your lucky have it convert from sake to rice vinegar, which would be really cool.

Thursday, August 06, 2009

New Friends, Great Food

Had a wonderful evening with some new friends, April and Zach.  April is a MAJOR cook, so she made homemade pizza and zucchini brownies, both of which were fabulous.  The best part is that they have a little girl, Adi, who plays very well with Alexander!  Hope to be seeing much more of them and hiking with them—they’re hikers, yay!  April may run the Shamrock 8k with me in March, the step down from the half-marathon I did this past March.

Monday, August 03, 2009

Alexander’s Word List

Alexander’s words have blossomed over the past few weeks.  It’s amazing having little conversations with him.  After visiting one of the Great Lakes last week and riding on a boat that splashed, he said “Mommy, water boat splash” as we drove by a small lake the other night!  It’s just awesome, and I wanted to create this list just to look back on.

Click on the link to see the Words Alexander Can Say as of August 3, 2009 (167)

Arm in (as in, putting on a shirt)
ball
Bang
bath
bed
beep
bird
bite
blanket
boat
book
bright
broke
brush
Bubbles
bus
butter
Bye-bye
caroline
Caroline
catsup
cereal
cheese
Choo-choo
clean up
close
cold
Color
coming
cook
cookie
couch
cow
cracker
crash
cup
cut
Daddy
digger
ding
dirt
doggy
don’t
done
door
down
Dubby
duck
dump truck
eat
Ee-oh-ee-oh (police car
eggs
ewe
flush
french fries
go
gone
got it
hand
hat
helicopter (copper)
hello
Help
home
hot
hot dog
house
hug
ice cream
in there
Inside
John
juice
jump
kick
Kiki (what he calls his blanket)
Knock-knock
light
light on
loud
mail man
milk
mine
Mo-mo hat (helmet)
Mommy
money
more
Morgan
motorcycle
mower
Na-na (banana)
nail
Nanny
Nan
Nan-Nan
Natalie
Night-night
no
nose
oatmeal
oh
oh man!
ok
on
one
ouch
outside
Pa
park
phone
Pizza
plane
plate
play
please
Poo-poo
pool
potty
quack
Rain
Ride
run
Sean
see
see it
shoo fly
snack
splash
spoon
squirrel
step
Sticker
stop
stuck
Sucker
swing
teeth
thank you
that
there
Thunder
toot
track
tractor
trash
trash truck
truck
Tunnel
tv
Uh-oh
up
vaccum
walk
want
want see it
wash
water
water tower
watering can
watermelon
wet
where
where go
Wipe
work
yes
yogurt