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.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Well, howdy!

Howdy, y’all.  Been awhile, ain’t it?  I guess that my new job is really takin’ it’s toll on me, my man, my youngin, and this here blog’.  I’m just now gettin’ caught up with photos and this computer-thingy.  Anywho, here are some photos and some stories to go ‘long with ‘em.  Take a load off, you might be here awhile.

First and foremost, the men of Clan George would like to wish all our friends a Happy Valentine’s Day!

Geo-Caching.
Adults are just youngin’s in big kids clothes is what I always say.  And here’s is the blamed proof.  There’s this here thing called Geo-caching.  You take a funny tool called a GPS machine and turn it on.  It hooks up to them thar satellites running ‘round up in the sky, and what do you know? 

A whole bunch of numbers come up telling you exactly where you cotton-pickin’ are in the world!  Well someone had the bright idea of hidin’ treasure all around the world, postin’ these locating numbers on the internet, and lettin’ adults have at it.  We done marched all over this durn city of Buna Vista.  And the more we marched, the more addicted we became. 

The treasure is found is a variety of containers.  This here treasure was in a little bullet-sized capsule hidden in the hollow slat under a seat on top of a mountain.

Unfortunately for the finders, some people get distracted, leaving the main searcher all alone to find the prize, claim the prize, mark down they got the prize, and then re-hide the prize.

The treasure could be a variety of whozits or whirlygigs. We found bubbles at one place, a button.  At our last find, we dun found a cool coin that’s made it’s way all the way from a place called Calinforny.  This here one, all you had to do was sign your name sayin’ you done found it.

We’re obviously smitten with our new game and can’t wait to get out and do it again.

In other news, I decided it was high time I figure out how to satisfy my man.  In the kitchen, that is. 

So, I put my kneading skills to the test and decided to make us some bread.  The first batch didn’t rise on account of my yeast bein’ dead.  So, I sent my man out to the grocery store to fetch me some new yeast.  After rising twice I stuck it in the oven. 

After a bit of bakin’, this is how it turned out.  A bit lumpy, but overall a good tastin’ morsel of food!

Unfortunately, me bein’ so busy in the kitchen and unused to being this way, I forgot that little fingers can get into little places and cause huge messes! 

Thus is the case with the youngin’ who was too cute all covered in flour to be punished in any way. 

In fact, I was laughin so hard the tears were justa pourin’ down my face, mixin’ with the flour, causin’ a sort-of cement mixture on the floor we have yet to figure out how to clean!

After the mess, the mushroom cloud of which scared him, the little man’s nerves had to be soothed with a good ole cup o’ tea.

He was all smiles soon after, though.

He even found time to play with his newly organized toy corner of the living room!

Anyway, that’s just a little update from our neck of the woods.  Y’all have a good week now, y’hear?

Thursday, January 01, 2009

Stu’s New Years Resolutions

I always make up some kind of New Years resolution but they are always big and ambitious and never work out or last longer than a week, so this year I’m going small.

So, without any fanfare music in the background here is the list for 2009

* To waste as little food as possible (that means dont leave leftovers in the back of the fridge for three weeks)
* To plan meals in entire chunks like two weeks worth at one go
* Eat more vegies
* Make bread at home more often (and without the breadmachine), at least 2 or 3 times a month

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

The Bathroom: Phase 1

No, not peeing, dear family, remodeling!

Stu and I loved the tile bathrooms in Oz so much that we’re working on redoing our bathrooms!  Or, bathroom, rather.  The master bath will soon be covered in tile.  So far we’ve had to hacksaw some bolts, but we’re getting there.  The vinyl is up, the floor is now swept.  I’ve got to take the door off and get that little white ring and the toilet’s wax ring up today and then we’ll be ready to lay the backerboard down!

On another note, we think the little man may be teething, this time some molars, which are apparently very painful.  He’s very clingy this morning, wouldn’t let me put him down for over an hour, and then finally he just conked out.  It took a bit to weasel out from under him, but I did and this is what remains: 

I promise, this week I will post Oz updates and photos!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

I’m just full of posts this evening…

I forgot to mention what we did this weekend, other than have dinner and make cards…

Yesterday morning I was planning on taking some of my students hiking.  I’m teaching a class about the Appalachian Trail this quarter and I decided, since I only had five kids, that I was going to take them hiking.

Well, I pulled out of the driveway and the Forrester was making a lot of noise.  I go under the stone bridge and finally pull over.  The Forrester had a flat. 

I called home and woke Stu up.  I walked home, met him and Alexander, and Stu had to drive me out to school at 7:00 in the morning!  Oops! 

Our hike left a bit late, and got back a bit late, but I think we had more fun than Stu who had to change a flat and take the car to the mechanic, who informed us we need four new tires….good thing we didn’t get the Rodeo fixed!

Anyway, here’s a successful hike photo from yesterday!

Christmas Time is Here…

When you’ve got family all over the world, you’ve got to start your Christmas planning early.

All I need to do is wrap Nan and Pa’s pressie and I’m near the wrapping stage with Stu’s Nan’s pressie.

The problem is, I’ve gotten sidetracked making cards.

Here are some samples you all will most likely be getting for xmas this year! 

Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Raise Your Glasses…‘Cause This Party is Going to Damascus

Hello all!  We’re home from Damascus.  We hiked in the Grayson Highlands for a few hours until the weather turned bad and we had to run out before getting stormed upon.  After that we headed to our B&B in Damascus, the Lazy Fox.  Miss Jennie is 83 years old and cooks a MEAN breakfast of eggs, bacon, sausage, cheese grits, apple crepes, baked apples, baked pineapples, fruit tray, biscuits, gravy, hot coffee, hot tea, orange juice….oh, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

Tuesday morning we headed to the Virginia Creeper Trail—an old railroad track that’s been turned into a hiking/biking/horse trail.  We got dropped off at the top of it and biked 17 miles to Damascus, stopping along the way to eat at the Creeper Trail Cafe, which had wonderful Philly subs!  We even got some ice cream before Alexander decided he’d had enough of the dirt from the trail and screamed the last mile back to the bike store!

Well, that’s all from Buena Vista for now.  Hope everyone’s having a wonderful time.  Stu is very excited about Elmo, the chicken, whom he is getting for his birthday on Sunday!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Vive le Chesapeake Bay!

We had a wonderful few days at one of my friends’ houses on the Chesapeake Bay.  We lounged, rode boats, went over bridges, walked on beaches…basically lived the life.  Alexander loved being without clothes and his appetite was HUMONGOUS!  I guess what they say about beach air is true!

Tomorrow we head off to Damascus to ride the Virginia Creeper Trail, hike with the ponies, maybe do some emerald mining, and maybe heading to Virginia’s Highland Festival in Abingdon.

See you in a few days!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Welcome

Joy, Alexander, Gwyn and I welcome you to our journal!