The cider insider

So the bathrooms taking a little longer than planned although coming along well. I thought I'd take a break from it though to make some cider!

I've never made it before so it's a little adventure for me. 

This is only part one as I did this after work late night and didn't have time to add the yeast yet.

What you'll need:

Apples
Yeast
Patience

Equipment:

Knife for Chopping
Muslin cloth for filtering
Hand blender for blendering
Covered bucket

Method:

Take apple

Chop apple

Repeat lots

Blend apples




















 

Stick into muslin and squeeze. So far I have about 3-4 litres!
 

This is as far as I got last night so I'll update with more method and pics soon.

With this method you don't need a cider press either, which makes it a lot less expensive!

 

Dom

Homebrew and bathroom dalliance

Relaxing Saturday

Ah Saturday mornings, a time to rest those weary arteries after a week of hard slog at the office. 

As much as I would love to put my feet up work beckons me once more, back to the office? I don't think so, something a little more hands on for me.

After moving a few years ago our bathroom has been in slow decline and it has come upon me now to start the rather swift process of updating it. do I have any experience in changing a bathroom? No. Have I done a lot of manual labour in the past? Not a lot. Am I confident I can complete this job to a high calibre, hells to the yes!

Once you boil down something like changing a bathroom suite, it's nothing more than removing the old fixtures, getting new ones and reconnecting all the pipe work. After tinkering with the ceilign light the other day I also noticed what bad shape the ceiling is in, another thing for the to do list it seems.

Better get a plan ready!

Oh and the homebrew is coming along nicely :) Very please with the samples I have tasted and it is ready to bottle today. Another two weeks afterwards and I can sample my very own homebrew.

I do have one challenge for you, names. Any awesome names for my brew will be welcomed, I'm thinking something along the lines of inspiration or kingDOM Beer, although the first sounds like a perfume and the second is just my ego talking :)

Anyway whatever you're up to enjoy the day, rest recuperate and get stuck into something amazingly awesome!

Enjoy.

Dom

PS plans for Christmas lunch are under way  looks like we're hosting this year, bring on the pasting table!

Pic by: Hector Alejandro

Making do with two

I've heard three is the magic number, however I've found two to be more than ample.

I'll explain what I mean. I've been getting interested in brewing recently.

I haven't quite taken the plunge into buying a barrel and some yeast yet. But for my birthday my significant other bought me a book on the subject. I had a great time reading through it and feel much more educated and ready to take the plunge.

There were various helpful hints in the book, I now know what a mash is and that getting bladdered isn't necessarily a bad thing.

The best tip I got from the book was contained within a sloe gin recipe, as a lot of good things are, as you can imagine it went through the process of making the sloe gin (basically adding the sloes to a jar, covering them in some gin and leaving it to steep for a year), it was the last part that caught my eye. You have to leave it for a year!

This is where it added a handy tip, if you can't wait that long for your sloe gin, why not make two, then you can leave one to steep for the year and drink one pretty quickly to alleviate the pain of waiting.

I know this seems dumb, but I'd never even thought of doing this and then it hit me, some kind of internal revelation rushed through me, a resonation of sorts. This tip could be applied throughout life.

Looking to build up a handy store cupboard / freezer stock? Cook up double the amount for dinner one night, it's no more hassle than usual, then freeze/store half of the finished product.

Looking to create a savings pot, every time you go shopping for something, put the same amount into a savings pot (maybe it falls down a little here, as it's probably a little too aggressive, perhaps putting the change you get from the purchase into savings is more likely).

Looking to get ahead at work, create your monthly reports in one batch, then simply fill in the relevant data when you get to that period, rather than completely recreating the report each time.

So I'm going to look to put this into practice in other ways.

Any others you can think of just whack them in the comments, I'll admit this is not an exhaustive list!

if you'd like to pick up the book I got this from, it's here on amazon - but I think you can get it cheaper in your local  "The Works" bookshop.

Enjoy!

Pic by Malcom Murdoch