Misc

One way to level up your brewing abilities is to begin making yeast starters. This becomes especially important if you plan on using a yeast that was not a freshly bought commercial strain (recovered via yeast washing, or from a started bug), or plan on having a rather high starting gravity. Giving your yeast an extra bit of time to build up its population before putting them to work can help prevent your fermentation from stalling. A stalled fermentation can be difficult to restart, and can also introduce off-flavors from your stressed yeast (which should eventually age out, but why increase that aging requirement unnecessarily?).

This is where a Stir Plate comes in. You’ve probably seen them in some movie science lab, but if you’re unfamiliar with them, they are essentially a box with a spinning magnet inside. You place the container of liquid on top of it, and a ceramic-coated bar magnet goes into the liquid to be stirred. The spinning magnet in the box attracts the bar magnet’s poles and causes it to spin within the liquid, stirring it. Stirring it quick enough creates a vortex in the liquid, which introduces a much more constant supply of oxygen, as well as letting out CO2, than an occasional shake. This promotes a faster and more healthy reproduction rate of your yeast.

By the time you’re ready to pitch, you’ll have a much larger population of yeast, ready and raring to ferment your must, once introduced. This will allow them to get right to work turning those sugars into alcohol without that initial lag period. This will also decrease the time that the yeast are in a high gravity environment, which is stressful on their cell walls. A high enough gravity will actually pull the water out of them, causing them to dehydrate, which decreases the efficiency of the alcohol conversion process and could kill them if severe enough. Enough die and you’ve stalled the fermentation.

There are several brewing specific stir plates available for purchase. However, they tend to be more suited for very large starters meant for a more industrial scale of production. Due to this they have a higher price to compensate for this added power and capability.

The basic premise of a stir plate is pretty simple, so I figured I could create my own version for a fraction of the cost. And I did end up accomplishing that, with my homemade version coming in around $30 to build, compared to the $100+ price tags of the brewing stir plates I was seeing. Then I realized that there were more basic stir plates available for roughly the same price I spent on this project.

So, if you’re just interested in just having stir plate, you can find some adequate for the purposes of hobby brewing below.

If you’d still like to try your hand at constructing your own just for the fun of it, read on.

Materials Required:

• USB Computer Fan (adjustable speed preferred)
• USB Power Supply plug
• Magnets
• Plastic Case
• Screws
• Ceramic Coated Bar Magnet
• Metal Washer
• Electrical tape
• Super Glue
• Erlenmeyer flask (optional)
• Resistor (optional depending on fan speed)

Start off by drilling holes in the lid of your case that line up with the screw holes on your fan. This will be used to hold the fan to the lid of case.

Next you’ll want to glue your metal washer to the center of the fan. This will give your magnets something to attach to, and allow the spinning motion to be transferred to your bar magnet within the liquid.

Be careful with this and make sure you are as centered as possible. Being off center can put stress on the fan motor and slow it down. If you are slightly off (like I am in the picture), you spin up the fan and hold a marker to it which will give you an even circle around the center point. The weight will still be off balance, but you can at least get your magnets to move in a smooth circle so it doesn’t throw the bar magnet around by wobbling too much.

I used some rare earth magnets I had lying around from a different project. They were a bit on the small side for this, so I ended up stacking a few of them together to get the necessary strength.

The fan I purchased was meant for use externally to electronics, so came with these rubber feet. I decided they would be useful keeping the vibrations to a minimum, as well as a spacer to give room for the magnets between the fan and the lid.

I also drilled a few air holes to reduce the drag on the fan when it spins within the case. If you want to go all out, you can probably remove the fan blades to reduce even more drag on the motor. One of the holes will be necessary to snake the power wire out through.

Here I’ve lined up everything on the inside of the lid, and am ready to attach the fan.

If you determine that your fan spins too fast for your magnets to grab hold of the bar magnet and keep it spinning smoothly, you can splice in a resistor to slow it down. I used a 2Watt, 47 ohm resistor. I think this was a bit high and I could have used slightly fewer ohms. The fan has 3 speed settings and now, only the fastest will give a decent spinning speed to the bar magnet.

You will have to cut the wire, anyway, in order to fit the power wire through the case (unless you drill a big enough hole to fit a USB plug).

When everything was attached, I taped the wires to the walls to prevent them from moving around and potentially getting caught in the fan. Then all that was left was to screw the lid on.

The final product in action. If I were to do this again, I’d use a slightly smaller resistor. You can see a small vortex here, but with a bit more speed, the stirring could be a bit more vigorous.

Like with many of you, the Elder Scrolls games (particularly Skyrim) were a sizable influence in my getting into this hobby of brewing mead. There was one mead recipe that could be found written in a book within the game, but Bethesda has recently expanded upon that with the release of the official Elder Scrolls cookbook. The book contains four different recipes, although the one is a reimagining of the Honningbrew mead recipe that was obtainable in the game. The new additions are: Black-Briar Mead, Juniper Berry Mead, and Nord Mead. Beyond the brewing recipes, the book features a number of mixed drink and cocktail recipes, including one for the infamous Skooma.

The book was written by Chelsea Monroe-Cassel, who is also known a number of other themed cookbooks such as the World of Warcraft cookbook, and A Feast of Ice and Fire the official Game of thrones cookbook, The Shire Cookbook, Firefly: the Big Damn Cookbook, and many others.

The rest of the cookbook features a variety of different foods, from appetizers, to entrees, to desserts, and other baked goods. Each recipe is designed to fit within the culinary culture of one of the major playable races in the game. The Nords feature heavily, of course, but Khajiit, Imperials, Argonians, and elves all have contributions. And these aren’t arbitrarily assigned, either. It looks like a lot of thought has been put into the flavor profiles that make up the different cultures’ cuisines.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from a video game themed cookbook. It sounds like a simple novelty. However, my wife has prepared several of the dishes in the book, and they were all very good. I was able to try Baked Ash Yams from Morrowind, Hoarker Loaf and Juniper lamb chops from Skyrim, meadow rye bread with Nord spiced butter, and finally spiced root cake for dessert. It was a fun culinary adventure around Tamriel, and there are dozens of other recipes left to try.

Have you ever managed to accidentally lodge a cork inside a wine bottle? Fear not, for it isn’t lost forever. With a the use of some items you likely have lying around the house, you can recover that pesky cork and regain the use of your bottle.

Supplies

• Your bottle with lodged cork
• A length of gift wrapping ribbon, ~8 inches
• Some water
• A wine opener (as backup)

Steps

First, fill your wine bottle with hot water. You’ll want the water line to be up into the neck of the bottle slightly, this will give our cork access to the way out. Using hot water, instead of cold, will seep into the cork quicker and allow it to soften. If it’s too stiff, it will get stuck in the neck of the bottle. Let that soak for a bit in order to soften the cork.

Next, you’ll want to take your ribbon, and make a loop with it. Push this loop into the neck of the bottle until it is into the main body of the bottle. Make sure you are continuing to hold onto the ends of the ribbon as you do this. You may have to tip or shift the bottle around to move the cork out of the way, as it will float toward the neck.

Once your loop is in position, nice and open, tip/shift the bottle to get the cork to float upright into the neck. You should be able to pull your loop up until it is tight against the bottom of the cork, with each half of the loop on either side of the cork. This can take a little manipulating to achieve, especially with thinner ribbon. But once accomplished, you should be able to start pulling the cork tight into the neck of the bottle.

Continue pulling the cork up. If you had let it soften enough, this should allow you to pull the cork completely out of the bottle. If, however, your ribbon snaps, or comes loose from the bottom, don’t worry. You can easily push the cork back in and try again, or if you’re past the point of no return, it should be fair enough up the neck that you can use a wine opener to pull the cork out the rest of the way.

Mead: The Libations, Legends, and Lore of History’s Oldest Drink

Big Book of Mead Recipes

Make Mead Like a Viking

The Compleat Meadmaker

The Complete Guide to Meadmaking

Ancient Brews: Rediscovered and Recreated

The first Saturday in August is a celebration of the world’s oldest fermented beverage. It was established by the American Homebrewer’s Association in 2002 as a way to bring awareness to this oft overlooked drink in the states. It also acts as a means to foster a sense of community among fellow mead makers.

If you missed it this year, don’t fret. You now have a whole year to prep for the next one! If you’re just getting started on your brewing journey, take a look at the beginner’s guide or the intermediate guide to making mead.

The best part about brewing your own mead is drinking it. But what better way to enjoy your special brew than by pairing it with a meal that compliments the unique flavors in your creation? You hear tons about what wines pair with what types of food. Even beer has some available guidelines on which flavor profiles of food compliment the different styles. But given mead’s fairly recent resurgence into mainstream awareness, there really isn’t a lot of available information about what specific varieties of mead will complement different foods. While part of this is likely due to its relative “newness” in the brewing scene it can also be attributed to mead not having the most clear cut of styles. Most beer and wine types describe a specific flavor profile, while mead is more broadly defined by the types of ingredients used. Metheglins just describe a mead with spices or herbs in it. It doesn’t tell you much about what it will taste like. Spices and herbs cover a wide range of things from cinnamon to mint to rose petals.

Chrissie Manion Zaerpoor has done a fantastic job of compiling quite the thorough reference guide on the very subject of pairing mead with your meals in The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing. She has years of experience not only judging mead in competitions but making it herself, so is more than qualified for the in depth instructions she gives on how to properly taste a mead. Her guide also goes in depth on the different varieties of mead: from traditionals, to sparkling, or melomels to braggots. Outlining what the defining characteristics of each varietal is, and based on those unique traits how you would go about pairing them with food. She aims less to define a static list of pairings, but more to teach the reader the process of matching flavor profiles of mead with those in food.

As Zaerpoor mentions in her book, the flavors that come out as you drink your mead will gradually change from sip to sip. This can occur due to oxidation after opening the bottle, as well as your taste buds noticing subtler flavors after they adapt to the more prominent ones. This evolution can become even more pronounced when pairing it with the foods you eat. There are two main paradigms involved with pairings: mirroring, and contrasting. Essentially the food can mimic and compliment the tastes that come across in your mead, or instead they can provide a stark difference to highlight them. This dance of intermingling styles is where the fun of pairing really shines through.

She guides you through designing your pairings from both a perspective of the mead as your starting point, as well as from a food basis. This includes a breakdown of different regional cuisines, as well as information on balancing spiciness. It also contains a fair amount of advice on specific diets such as Paleo, gluten-free, dairy-free and vegetarian.

The guide is chock full of other useful information such as how to keep mead after opening, the best ways to store or cellar your bottles, and plenty of history behind the drink and the evolution of the different styles.There are plenty of recipes included in the book as suggested meals with which to begin your pairing journey. But, again, these are presented as examples to spark your creativity rather than hard and fast required pairings.

If you’re looking to experiment, and expand your culinary palate within the world of mead, do yourself a favor and check out The Art of Mead Tasting and Food Pairing.