How does your garden grow?

2008-08-25T09:42:00.000-07:00

Ryan, stuffing his face with hot dogs!

This Spring we spent quite a bit of time in Nicaragua, over 5 weeks! On our second trip, we extended our ticket to stay a few extra days but stopped short of missing out on the 4th of July. Due to my constant traveling, I hadn't been home for the 4th in 8 years! I didn't want to miss it again, so we returned the night of the 3rd, and got to hang out at a good old American BBQ on the 4th.

Butch, Ryan, and Fartsaresmelly, congregating at the keg.

Discussing ideas and designs for the Burnout Family Group logo.

A few core members of The Burnout Family Group. If you see these guys in the water, stay out of their way!!! : )

When I returned from Tahiti in early May, the garden was small. We were just transplanting seedlings into actual pots and only the tomatoes were really lush with bushy leaves.

When starting seeds, we put a few seeds in each small dixie cup and let them sit in the sunny warmth of the window until they are about an inch tall. Most people would then choose the largest seedling to keep and pull out the others. We have a hard time killing even tiny seedlings and always try to separate them and keep them all.

Two months later, the garden had grown a ton! One of our favorite hobbies is watching the garden grow and after returning from Nicaragua we took plenty of time just to check it all out and appreciate the growth of each individual plant.

In June, the top shelf looked like this.

By July, it looked like this.

This year we grew a few more varieties of edible plants including artichoke, chives, spinach, green onions, chard, cilantro, and basil.

Super aromatic leafy green basil ready for harvest.

Ryan is pulling off Basil leaves to make pesto.

This year we also enjoyed handfuls of super sweet blackberries.

The view from inside "tomato alley".

This is a Fatali plant, a habanero variety.

Also new this year, the big stuffable Giant Marconi peppers.

A roasted and peeled Giant Marconi ready for stuffing with ground turkey, sauteed onion, garlic, and jalapeno peppers, and cheddar cheese, all baked with a roasted red chile sauce made from last year's garden.

habaneros

We are also growing hops to add to our homebrews. Ryan is training the vines to go up string and across to the balcony.

Cascade hops beginning to bloom.

By now (the beginning of August), the hops have grown into full cones and are ready for harvest.

A homebrew and a basket of hops that will be dried and added to the next batch of homebrew.

We've nearly drank all 25 gallons of homebrew from our last few batches, so it's time to make some more!

First Brew

2008-02-09T18:18:00.000-08:00

I'm a relatively new beer aficionado. I, like most girls, didn't start out liking beer. I drank it standing around a keg in college, I sipped Coronas and Pacificos in Mexico, but I never would have described myself as a beer drinker. That is, until I met this guy:

This guy is a beer drinker and although we started out drinking too many margaritas in the very beginning, eventually we settled into beer, and little by little I developed a taste for it. This guy is not about to drink just any beer. In fact if you can buy it at Ralphs, chances are, he's not a fan (with the exception of Sierra Nevada, of which he is a big fan. Notice t-shirt in previous photo). Sure, he will take down cans of Tecates on camping trips or at the beach, but for the most part he shops for beer at places like Bristol Farms, Trader Joe's and Whole Foods. If someone dares offer him a Budweiser he will scowl in disgust replying, "I don't want rice in my beer," then launch into a tirade citing the Bavarian Purity Law of 1516, which decrees that the only ingredients that can be used in the production of beer are water, barley, and hops. Lucky for us the law was later adjusted to include wheat, because Hefeweizens deserve their respect as well.

I do most of the shopping and although I love the organic items at those specialty grocery stores, most of their items are exorbitantly priced, so when I do hit them up, I go big and fill a shopping cart with an assortment of micro-brewed beers. I used to just choose the bottles by the label, but now I've tasted most and have an idea of which he likes, which I like, and which new types have a fair chance of being good. Inevitably though, when I push my cart full of beer up to the register and begin unloading, the checker insists on heckling me by asking the classic question, "so the party's at your house this weekend, huh?" I respond with some mumbled excuse about the boyfriend not being satisfied by the selection at Ralphs while thinking, "just check my ID, put the bottles in their bags, and let me get home to start the workout that is carrying the heavy bags up the stairs."

Ryan, and one of the less commonly found beers that we savor.

So, when he announced his plans to rekindle his college love of homebrewing I was excited. It meant a new facet of life to learn about, fewer trips to Whole Foods, and new beers to enjoy.
Then he started collecting supplies and equipment and I was less sure that the experience would be pleasant.

Homebrewing requires good clean water. I purchased some one gallon drinking water jugs from Albertson's the first time, then for the second batch we drove all over town looking for an "aqua-vend" for re-filling and eventually found a water store that served perfectly.

Ryan, pulls supplies out of the tool box.

Next he had to make certain items. Near the end of the brewing process, boiling wort must be cooled down to room temperature. This is achieved by running the wort through copper pipe that is water cooled. Originally he bought two copper pipes with different radii intending to slide one within the other. That worked well until he tried coiling it around and it kinked horribly. He had to settle for copper within plastic tubing instead.

The kettle

There are shortcuts to brewing, but Ryan is never one to take any shortcuts. He is all grain, all the way. Here, he is pouring the grain into the "lauter tun" which means cooler with strainer to those of us not well-versed in brewspeak.

The grain tastes like cereal.

The one thing i've learned about the whole brewing process, temperature is incredibly important!

Here I am siphoning hot water from the kettle onto the grain in the lauter ton.

In these two photos, I am "sparging" which means pouring hot water over the grain. The extracted liquid is called "sweet wort". It will eventually be boiled along with the hops.

These photos represent three separate brews, so hopefully that explains the different versions of the same thing. Ryan installed a spigot on the brew kettle to eliminate the need for siphoning. Notice the thermometer in the grain. Temperature is way too important!

This guy is pleased with brewing

This guy admits that he is a bit of a disaster

Throughout the process, he checks his book written by homebrewing guru Charlie Papazian.

A closeup of the new improved kettle with spigot feature

He loves his hop balls!

Hops are flowers that grow on vine plants, closely related to the hemp family. They provide the "bitter" flavor in beer and a floral herby aroma. We grew several hop plants but since they take two years to establish their root systems, ours have yet to produce enough hops to really enjoy. Hopefully this year. Here Ryan adds the hops to the wort.

This is the aforementioned wort-chiller, chilled by the hose.

After the wort passes through the wort-chiller and into the "car boy", a 5 gallon glass jug, the yeast is "pitched" into it.

This guy knows he is a disaster!

We call this photo "buddy breathing" because two worts are blowing off their CO2 fermentation foam into the same collector. They look kinda cute in there amongst the surfboards. They are wrapped in towels to keep light out and the one on the left is in a bath of cold water to keep its temperature down. They will ferment for about two to three weeks.

Here he checks the final "specific gravity" with the "hydrometer". This tells him the amount of alcohol in the beer.

I am siphoning the beer into another carboy to avoid mixing up the yeast sediment during bottling.

The bottles have been cleaned and are ready to be filled with beer!

I am capping our first bottles of homebrew. They will have to age for at least two weeks before drinking.

We've waited, we've worried, and now the best part, we get to taste! Ryan pours his first glass of homebrew. This one is a Belgian Ale.

He admires the amber color.

He takes in the scent.

He takes the first sip,

he then swirls it around on his tongue to fully appreciate the flavor.

It pleases him, so he goes back in for a gulp.

He holds it up to the light,

and declares it good!

Hoppy Days, Chile Nights

How does your garden grow?

First Brew