Only about two weeks later and I pulled my first pint from the barrel.
Generally at this stage I find the beer virtually undrinkable, so was pleasantly surprised to find it was pretty damn amazing. So far I’ve drunk about four pints over the course of the week and undeniably it’s a good brew.
I look forward to moving into freshly hopped brews going forward, even if it’s a little more expensive (about 64p a pint)
The beer has been ready for a couple of weeks now, but today it’s been moved into my bar ready for the weekend. I’ve done this early as it allows the beer to settle out again after being moved… Roll on the weekend!
I’ve created an instructable on here which is my Black Morel and Pasta Recipe.
You need:
Black Morels (I had the three pictured)
Spagetti
1 tbsp Butter
Small Onion
1 Clove garlic
1/2 Cup of cheese (I used strong cheddar)
1tbsp double cream
Salt and Pepper to taste
Put the pasta on to cook. Chop the onion and garlic finely (or use a crusher) and slice the morels. Put into a frying pan with the butter and cook until the onions are transparent and the morels have started to shrink and are gently browning.
Add the drained cooked pasta to the pan, add the cheese and cream. Turn down and wait until melted. Add salt/pepper to taste and serve quicky!
I’m sorry, I’m about to to mention the ‘C’ word even though we’re in May – it’s time to think of CHRISTMAS (you were thinking Chutney was going to be it didn’t you…)
The recipe is “Christmas Spiced Apple & Rhubarb Chutney”, and the current batch (and infact all batches as I’m not a big chutney fan) were made by my wife. It’ll be ready just in time for Christmas as chutney takes a while to mature.
Ingredients:
1.5KG Rhubarb
500g onions
500g red eating apples
1.5 cups sultanas
1KG soft brown sugar
1.25L apple cider vinegar
4tsp salt
1tsp cayenne pepper
1tsp ground cloves
1tsp ground cinnamon
2tsp ground ginger
Instructions:
Peel & thinly slice the onions, core but don’t peel the apples but thinly slice them. Cut the rhubarb into chunks (1-2″).
Put it all into a stainless steel or enamel pot and bring it up to the simmer. Simmer for two hours, stirring every 15 minutes as it reduces it gets thicker.
Wash and sterlise the jars & lids. Pour the chutney into a warm jar & place lids on straight away. Leave to cool.
The original recipe was taken & adapted from a member (frizz1974 originally taken and adapted from a link from Minerva) of the Jamie Oliver website. Enjoy
The first of my undertakings to become more green was to make myself a nettle beer – no wine here.
On the Friday of last week I read an article on selfsufficentish regarding the making of ale from nettles. I’d never considered doing this before so rather than read lots, I went out, picked a kilo of nettles, washed and boiled them, added them to a demi john with 8gms of ginger and 250gms of demeria sugar and pitched some yeast when it came to room temperate…
Just under a week later primary fermentation (the sugar has been used up) has finished and it’s ready for secondary fermentation. For those who don’t know much about brewing it’s best to visit http://www.howtobrew.com and read read read…
My first impressions of the process:
Apart from that it was fairly easy. The starting gravity of the solution was 1.010 which to me seems fairly low. We’ll see how much tonight the gravity of the beer has dropped. The difference in the gravity dictates the alcoholic content of my beer.
I'm Tim, a 28yr old ex-Allotmenteer. My wife and I used to have a small 5 rod plot in South Essex where we grew all manner of veg. I'm also involved in brewing the odd keg of beer.
Recently we bought a house with a 65ftx30ft garden, which we're converting into a mini orchard and veg beds. The entire transformation is happening at the moment and being chronicled by a timelapse camera.
The hope is to introduce chickens next year into the orchard to allow them free range.
If you want to contact me, you can do so here
