This thread is for anyone working on personal projects to share their progress, and hold themselves somewhat accountable to a group of peers.
Post your project, your progress from last week, and what you hope to accomplish this week.
If you want to be pinged with a reminder asking about your project, let me know, and I'll harass you each week until you cancel the service
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Notes -
Just bottled this year's first batch of homemade sake. I got a bigger umeshu jar this year so I was able to make about 5L of the stuff. Left a good amount of the rice particulate in so it has that nigorizake taste, though much less sweet. We have a lot of sake lees from this batch, so I'm thinking of marinating some pork and probably some cucumbers and carrots. Any other ideas? (Paging @George_E_Hale -- but keep it on the down low!)
I've also got several batches of umeshu in the work, though they won't be done until next summer. But I do have one experimental batch that will be ready next month -- "Christmas umeshu" with a cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, and nutmeg. I expect it will be overpowering and terrible by itself, but maybe okay in a mug of hot water. Looking forward to cracking it open in a few weeks.
Any amateur brewers, distillers, or infusers on The Motte?
I've only messed around with micro batches of turbo cider. UHT apple juice, champagne yeast and a few slices of ginger root. I like it dry and strong so it's as simple as waiting til it finishes and then chilling it to clear. I should test if my yeast is still active, I've been thinking about making another bottle.
I made strawberry infused vodka once and that turned out better than I expected if a little overly sweet and jammy tasting. Would have been improved by cutting it back with plain vodka but I'd used all the vodka for making the infusion.
I did look into home stilling but I don't drink enough to make it worthwhile. Unlike @yofuckreddit the information I found made it look cheaper and easier than I expected. The method basically depends on judging when to cut the fractions (heads and tails from the hearts), and the more you spend on a still the more distinctly and efficiently they can be separated instead of having them bleed and smear from one into the other. There's some fairly straight forward chemistry and engineering underlying the process. As I say I lost interest as I don't drink that much and realised it would be quicker and easier to simply buy food grade ethanol to use for infusions (£20/L 95% according to the notes I took, roughly the same price as cheap vodka by alcohol volume). Still think it could be a fun project though. I saw some interesting videos* steeping different size oak pieces for making whisky that indicated a good product could be made quickly using pieces with the correct surface area, which makes sense as beneath the mystique it's basically a wood infusion. On the other hand this is coming from someone who rates UHT turbo cider as perfectly adequate, so mileage may vary. Now where's that yeast...
*Found it: Final Tasting - How does surface area affect the whiskey aging process?
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