Update to the recent note about brewing: brewed up some molasses beer last night and got it all started in a new primary fermenter (For the tightwads out there, a PET plastic fermenter, complete with airlock and spigot: $10–33% of its already low $15 price. Enables making another batch of ultra low cost, drinkable beer, as opposed to buying the overpriced stuff obtained by draining horses that is foisted off on stupid beer drinkers by most large American brewers). It’ll take a minimum of 24 of the swingtop bottles (or 32 12-oz regular bottles I could use my new bottle capper and regular caps to bottle) when it reaches time to bottle condition it. Oh, molasses beer? Essentially just use molasses in place of unhopped malt extract or brewing up some wort from scratch, add some ginger, cloves and lemon zest. Oh, and (this time) I “hopped” it twice–once while boiling the wort and then a dry hopping after pitching the yeast to the wort in the primary fermenter. Easy-peasy.
Oh, I’d forgotten to get some fresh beer yeast, soooo… I could have used bread yeast. After all, the earliest known beer recipe used bread soaked in water. But, nah. I’d just bottled a fresh batch of wheat beer the day before and saved the trub. Revived the yeast in the trub and used that. Result? It’s bubbling happily away today. Nanny-nanny-boo-boo to any snooty beer mavens out there who think a new batch of yeast every time is absolutely essential.
Of course, that does mean I didn’t get to use the trub to make a batch of bread with. Oh, well.