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I’ve now bottled the first couple of drinks.. Here’s a picture proof!! haha

For the label i will just kiss (keep it simple stupid) and just write the name of the brew with a marker, because in the end it’s not about marketing the product and not even really the product itself but about how the process went and all the things i’ve learned throughout the trimester. That the outcome taste quite nice is just a lucky coincidence!

Now I’m heading to school to fix the last couple of things for tomorrows presentation! Almost holidays now :)

MY LAST BREW.

As my last brew i decided to make a basil soda, since i heard a lot of positive comments on elise’s fermented basil and therefore wanted to give it a go myself. Hopefully it’ll be done by tomorrow.. FINGERS CROSSED!

WOW!

ONEHUNDRED bottles just got delivered to my house!

...My boyfriend just told me that I should watch out not to get caught for running a illegal café! haha

Guess what?..

I just ordered a hundred bottles of beer. I chose transparent bottles so that you could see the colour of the brew through the glass. Hopefully it’ll arrive soon so i can start bottling the brews.

ANOTHER SODA!

This time I decided to use the mint that is growing on my balcony and a mellon that I purchased in the turkish shop nearby.

I used the same process for making it as I have with the previous sodas I’ve made, as i find it a quite good way to make sodas.

RECAP OF THE PAST TWO WEEKS.

I’m back! these two past weeks have been really busy due to the department endterm. luckily the prioritizing did pay of, i passed!

Some time ago i made a elderflower soda which i brought to school for some tasting. personally i think that the taste was a little too strong, i should have diluted it a bit more with water.

I have also put my beer brew through the second fermentation phase which means that I added another 700gr of sugar to the batch. It will be ready just in time for the evaluations!

Yesterday evening i went for a workout at the tu/e sport centre since i have a membership card there. I was there pretty late, till five past eleven or so, so i had to do my stretching outside because they were closing.

As i placed my hands on the fence it felt really sticky, i looked up to see where the stickiness had come from, and there i saw a big beautiful elderflower tree! YES!

So that’s what it’ll be this week, Elderflower soda!

RECAP OF THE PAST WEEK.

Last saturday i found a recipe of a fermented rhubarb soda: http://andhereweare.net/2014/03/make-rhubarb-soda-lacto-fermentation.html/

It looked fun and simple and since i anyhow had some rhubarb left in my fridge since my last visit at my parents, i decided to give it a go!

The great thing is that you only need a fruit of any kind, yoghurt and some honey or sugar, so it’s much cheaper and much more accessible for me since i can find all the ingredients in my supermarket! The second and probably the greatest benefit is that the fermentation only takes +/- three days (if you’re not aiming for a alcoholic drink cause then it takes longer). This makes it possible for me to prepare one drink for every lesson!

Isn’t the colour just fantastic!?

RECAP OF THE PAST WEEK.

Last thursday Eileen arranged for me and her to go to van moll so that we could join roald while he prepared a brew.

We spend a whole day from nine o’clock in the morning till four o’clock in the afternoon observing and helping out here and there when we could. it took much longer than i thought it would and there was a lot more cleaning involved than i thought as well.

And of course we finished of the day with a well deserved beer!

Here’s some pictures from the ginger beer batch i threw together last wednesday. These are the steps i went through:

1. sterilizing all the equipment. so that they’re clean and ready to use.

2. placing the package in a bowl of hot water. This helps the liquid inside the package to soften up.

3. pouring the liquid from the package into the fermentation bucket.

4. pouring nearly a kilo of sugar into the fermentation bucket.

5. adding 3 liters of boiling water.

6. adding 22 liters of cold water.

7. giving a good stir.

8. adding the yeast.

9. giving it yet another stir.

10. closing the fermentation bucket firmly and placing the airlock on top.

DONE! Now it’s been sitting for nearly a week already and the airlock has been bubbling every now and then but more then that i cannot see.

STEP TWO IN THE CIDER MAKING PROCESS.

Preparing the cider.

I poured the apple juice into a big pot and added some spices that I thought would go well with the juice. I added cloves, cinnamon, green cardamom and one lime. It filled my kitchen with a wonderful scent!

I let it boil for a little bit to kill any bacteria or wild yeast. I even managed to make it boil over.. Now my kitchen is a mess!

Preparing the fermentation container.

To ensure that my carboy was clean and ready for hard cider making, I sterilized it with the cleaning powder that came with the beer brewing kit i bought. It’s important to do this thoroughly in order to avoid any contamination.

Pouring the cider into the fermentation container.

I used a funnel to pour the cider into the carboy. i also put some of the cinnamon and cardamom into it. not sure if that was a good idea or not, i’m afraid that they might go bad and mould when they’ve been laying in the cider for too many weeks. I might take them out tomorrow? I’ll have to sleep on it.

However.. Once it was all poured into the container i had to wait until it had cooled down to about room temperature, then i could add my starter that i made yesterday. i shook the carboy for a bit just to make sure that everything was mixed. Then it was time to seal the lid and set the airlock. I also covered the airlock with a plastic bag the idea is that it should work a little like a “cleanroom”. We’ll see about that..

Now all there is to do is to be patient and to lett it ferment!

...Daaaaaaaaamn it! After having written this post i figured it would be smart to go through the instructions again. (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Apple-Cider)

when reading them again i noticed that i did some things wrong.

In the instructions it says:

Do not boil the cider

Add up to two pounds of brown sugar or honey to boost the sugar content, and make a harder hard cider!

I did boil the cider.. and I forgot to add sugar! Hopefully it will work even though I did boil it, can’t be that significant? And maybe i can still add some honey tomorrow. I’m not a big fan of too sweet drinks though. I guess I’ll have to sleep on this one too.

STEP ONE IN THE CIDER MAKING PROCESS.

Making a starter.

A day or two before you plan on brewing your hard cider, you need to make a yeast starter. This ensures that the yeast is alive and ready to go.

First of all I cleaned my jar carefully with the cleaning powder i got with my brewing kit.

Then I added the medium dry yeast to the jar. I was not quite sure of how much to put because the instructions on the package weren’t quite clear. it says that 2-3 grams of yeast is good for 10 liters, but it does not say how many grams the package contains.. it also say that it’s ok to make up to 75 liters of whine?! and the last but not least it tells you that you always have to use the whole package.. So, that’s what i did!

Lastly I added some pure apple juice.

I gave it a good shake for five to ten seconds and now I’ve set it aside overnight in the refrigerator.

Every now and then I’ll have to check if it’s bubbling. If it is I’ll have to release the pressure by partially twisting off the lid, then resealing the jar again.

hopefully i can make my first batch of cider tomorrow!

YES! The package i ordered has arrived! A ten kilo cardboard box filled with goodies. Both me and my cat, Pietje, were curious to see what was inside.

Now all there is to do is to clean my room thoroughly and to get started. Exciting!

I have finally managed to gather enough courage to order my very first brewery equipment! Hopefully it won’t take too long before it arrives so that I soon can get started. It was an expensive order but hopefully it’ll be worth the money once i hold my first home brewed drink in my hand.

These are the things i ordered: 1. two fermentation bottles. 2. two airtight caps. 3. Three different kinds of cider yeasts. one dry, one medium and one sweet. 4. Ginger beer package, containing all the ingredients you’ll need. 5. Two glass carboys of 5 liters each. 6. Starters kit for beer brewing, Pro.

#brouwmarkt

CITY TRIP STOCKHOLM.

This weekend I went to Stockholm, to visit my sister who lives there. It was good to see her again, haven’t seen her since christmas.

While in Stockholm I decided to kill two birds with one stone, to combine pleasure with business, which is actually what this whole project is all about. Down the street where my sister lives, in the middle of beautiful Stockholm, you come across a bar called Mikkeller.

Mikkeller is a microbrewery founded in 2006 in Copenhagen. The brewery is based on the so-called “phantom" or "gypsy” ethos, which means that they do not operate an official brewery themselves but instead, collaborates with other brewers to produce their recipes or experimental one-off brews.

The brewery was founded by two home brewers: Mikkel Borg Bjergsø, a high school teacher, and journalist Kristian Klarup Keller. Both sought to introduce their home-brewed beer to the public and to “challenge beer friends with intense new tastes”, drawing inspiration from the American breweries that “aren’t afraid to play and break all the rules”.

Their menu card, drawn with chalk on a blackboard painted wall, consisting of limited edition beers, change constantly, making it possible for you taste a new beer almost every time you visit them. This concept gives the place a curious, flirty vibe.

Something else Mikkeller does very well is the branding of their beers. Their signature way of illustrating gives every beer its own characteristics. This is also something that I would like to focus on this trimester. So, not only to make my own decent tasting beer but also to brand it and give it it’s own identity and characteristics.

#mikkeller

Last lesson we were asked to pair up with people with similar interest. Lotte, Eileen and I paired up. we realized that what we have in common is that we will all be making our own supplies of things. Eileen will be brewing her own whine, Lotte will be living a “zero waste life” which will also occasionally include making her own products such as butter etc. and I will brew my own beer.

To kick off this trimester we decided to go on our first “field trip” to one of the two local breweries in Eindhoven, Van Moll! There we spoke to the very passionate owner Jaap and tried a few of their own delicious beers.

#van moll

This coming trimester i will be focusing on setting up my very own home brewery.

I’m not quite sure of where to start, so in order to make things more clear for myself I’ve thrown together a quick plan.

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