Wild Brew Part Two!

Blackberry Spice Bush Mead

It was finally time. A month had gone by and it was time to bottle my Spice Bush Amber Ale and my Blackberry Spice Bush Mead. The Wild Blackberry Wine was still bubbling pretty steadily, so it gets to ferment a while longer. These are the intoxicants my daughter and I learned to make at Tim MacWelch's Wild Brew 101 class last month.

I broke out the plastic tubing and siphoned off the ale and added the priming sugar. Yes Tim, I was very careful to add exactly the amount you said so I didn't make beer bombs instead of beer. (Wouldn't  blowing up that fantastic ale be a terrible case of alcohol abuse?) In about a week, I'll chill them and try not to drink them all before my daughter gets a chance to visit and drink hers. I am fairly certain drinking her share is wrong.

The mead was next up for bottling. I did taste a little bit as I was bottling and it was very good. It will be even better after aging a while. It also looks lovely in the bottles.

In the spirit of wild brewing, I decided to build on Tim's class and also started a batch of peach wine today. It is currently in a five gallon bucket starting stage one of fermentation. I think it is going to turn out well. The must is mostly white peaches with a few yellow peaches to add a little variety to the flavor. One of the great things about making my own wine is that I can leave out the sulfites by pasteurizing the fruit to kill the wild yeast.

By the way, it takes a long time to pit and chop up 13 pounds of peaches for five gallons of wine, but I am fairly certain this is a very valuable survival skill!

Can I drink NOW?

Summer Wild Edibles and Wild Brew! Woohoo!

After a break to accommodate real life and my addictions to pick-your-own farms and canning, I finally made it back to one of Tim MacWelch's (@timmacwelch) wild edibles classes and a wild brewing class. This time I dragged my daughter along as well. (Okay, getting a 22-year-old to a brewing class didn't require much dragging.)

Dried Sassafras Leaves

Of the edibles classes so far, the summer class was one of the best and I have to credit the blackberries. I love summer fruits and I'd have been perfectly happy if all we did was park in front of the blackberry bramble to graze.

It was a large class, but we were still able to cover a lot of ground. I know. I have the step count on my pedometer to prove it. I learned a few new plants and was able to identify a few that changed their appearance for summer.

I also got to bring home some sassafras from the Wild Brew class and I dried the leaves and will go into some stew or gumbo this fall. The roots will most likely end up in a soda or an ale. I haven't decided yet.

The ale brewing
over the campfire.

Mallory adding
the spice bush
to the ale.

Wild brewing was a blast and not just because Tim brought samples.  We started off the morning with a maple wine toast to the day, then jumped into brewing basics and beer brewing. It took some discussion, but the group finally decided on a Spice Bush Amber Ale. The students set off to find the spice bush from the previous day's class. Thankfully, we had a ringer who knew the property. A friend of Tim's was there to chaperon or I'd have been lost for sure. (I can get lost in my own small condo!) Mallory got to add the spice bush and pitch the yeast for the ale.

Moving on to the wine, we knew we'd be doing blackberries and all of us (except Tim - he's a sly one) braved the blackberry brambles, ticks, and sun to acquire our three pounds of wine in waiting. This wine will be amazing considering the blood, sweat, and tears we all shed for it.

Blackberry Spice Bush Mead
in the making.

Tim's hibiscus flower mead  rounded out our afternoon break and set the mood for the final project - mead!

The flavorings for the mead were a source of great discussion. We considered a great many things, even wild carrot, but finally settled on blackberry and spice bush. We had enough leftover from bottling that we all got a taste of the unfermented juice. It tasted fantastic. It is going to be a fantastic mead.

Mallory had enough fun in the class, she's all set to start brewing at home too. She's scouted out the local brewing store and priced out the basic supplies on Amazon already. She's got a steady supply of bottles courtesy of her also 22-year-old friends.

The class was also great fodder for things you don't normally hear in conversation:

• "Kiddo, please get the blackberry branch off my butt."
• "Burn that sum'bitch. Burn him. Burn him." (about a tick found on someone's pants)
• "A tick will turn a die-hard pacifist into cold-blooded killer."
• "This stick smells like french fries." (About the oak stick we stirred the ale with.)

Ale, Wine, Mead

Prepping and Preserving!

After a few weeks of mostly pleasant distractions (Kiddo's graduation yay, vacation yay, the flu BOO!), I am finally settling back into my routine. I'm back at walking, surviving, and prepping. This weekend was all about strawberries. Finding them, picking them, preserving them.

Hollins Farm Strawberry Patch

On Saturday, I found a wonderful pick-your-own fruits and veggies farm not too far out of town, Hollins Farm. It's right next to Sky Meadows State Park, so next time I go out, I think I will do a hike at the park first, then go picking. The drive is really pretty too.

The weather was perfect. Not too hot, and just enough clouds to keep the sun from really beating down on you. It was almost as perfect as the strawberries, which were amazing. 

I picked a whole flat. Took about an hour, which my legs are now telling me is a lot like doing squats for an hour. That's dangerously close to exercise! I got out there in the afternoon, so by the time I got home it was a little late to start jam making, so I put up all the fruit and the spring greens I picked.

Sunday, it was time to make the jam. Strawberry jam is one of my favorites and I made a few variations on the classic. All total, I ended up with 27 1/2-pint jars. All 27 sealed perfectly. I love listening to the lids pop as the pressure seals the jar. It is such a satisfying sound.

Strawberry balsamic jam adds in a little balsamic vinegar instead of some of the lemon juice normally in the jam. You don't  taste the vinegar, but it really amplifies the strawberry flavor. 

For a summery twist, I made lemony strawberry jam adds some lemon zest to the jam and adds a lemony zing to the jam.Most jam has some sort of citrus juice to get the acid balance right for canning, but you don't usually taste it.

Peppered strawberry jam adds just a half teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper to the jam right before putting it in the jars. It give the jam just a little bit of kick and black pepper and strawberries go surprisingly well together.

Canning is one of my favorite cooking pastimes. Besides being fun, it is also nice to start restocking my prepping shelves. The gals at Hollins said that sour cherries might be ready next weekend! Sour cherry conserves, anyone?

Some adorable mutant strawberries I found.

Prepping for when the SHTF and a Good Meal!

Lemon balm drying in the oven.

I tried my hand and oven-drying some of my herbs today. I know it's pretty quick after planting, but that is the advantage of starting with some slightly larger plants.

Lemon balm, basil, and the mojito mint dried today. They have a bit more moisture in the leaves than some of my other herbs, so I didn't want to leave them to air dry. Also, lemon balm retains more of its flavor when dried quicker. I used this website as my primary reference: Garden Herbs. Almost all of them had virtually identical instructions.

Basil in the oven;
mojito mint on deck

I set my oven as low as it would go (170F) and made sure to prop the door open. My oven does have a door that stays about 6" open when broiling, but that was a bit more than I wanted, so I used a wooden spoon to keep the oven vented. Since I am only doing small batches for me, it only took about an hour to dry each herb.

I think they turned out quite well. They smell great and the color is good. Most ended up nice and dark green. Some of the larger lemon balm leaves turned a little brown, but the smaller leaves stayed nice and green.

The condo smells great now too!

Top to bottom:
Lemon Balm, Basil, Mojito Mint