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Mead Baby 2.0: active fermentation

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It’s only been two days, but with our set up being more in the open, I thought I’d show what the active fermentation looks like.

Even in the still shot, you can see that the water in the airlock is carbonated, with all the bubbles on the sides.

In the video, you can see that a “burp” comes up about every 6 seconds. It’s a bit on the slow side, from what I’m reading, which could be temperature based.

Now, we’re also supposed to be aerating this twice a day for the first few days, which was easy to do when using the fermentation bucket. We haven’t done that at all, yet. The spoon that came with our wine making kit is too big to fit into the opening of the 1 gallon jug.

I’ll have to see what I’ve got that’s thin enough, and can be sanitized.

This stage should take about 7-12 days, and watching those bubbles and burbs are supposed to help us know when it’s time to do that. So we’ll be keeping a close eye on that airlock. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Mead Baby, redux

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Today, we started up a second – smaller – batch of mead.

I hope.

I documented our first attempt, throughout the process, which you can revisit at the following links (they will open new tabs, so you won’t lose your place. :-) )

Part 1 getting started
Part 2 early stage maintenance
Part 3 early stage maintenance, completion
Part 4 transferring for second fermentation
Part 5 bottling and initial results

The Failure. :-(

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Planned, unplanned, new plans…

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A couple of days ago, my husband and I had appointments with someone we hoped would be our new doctor, since our previous doctor had to suddenly move out of province.

The very morning of the appointment, my husband had to cancel out.

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Fermented vegetables, take two: two week fermentation taste test

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Today, we got out one of my jars of probiotic fermented vegetable sauerkraut for a taste test!

Before I get into that, though, if you haven’t seen my earlier posts, you may want to visit the links below, first (they will open in new tabs, so you won’t lose this post!).

Take One (includes recipe)
The Failure
Take Two

The recipe I got from my friend said to leave it to ferment for 2-4 weeks. It’s 2 weeks today, so we’re trying the one jar, and will leave the other to ferment for another 2 weeks.

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Tufts

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While doing my morning rounds and starting along the path to the trail cam, I immediately noticed something odd about one of the fence wires.

It’s hard to see in the photo, but one of the wires is all bent out of shape.

On the wire below, I could see why.

A couple of barbs has tufts of deer fur stuck in them.

The electrical cord that powers our lights by the gate runs along the top wire of the fence. It’s big and thick, making it quite visible, even in the dark (at least for a deer!). My guess is, the deer tried to duck under the electrical wire, but didn’t see the barbed wire below and got hung up.

I really want to get rid of this fence.

The Re-Farmer

Iced

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This past Sunday, the weather was mild enough that I was able to spend some time on the beach.

It was really fascinating.

The sand was frozen solid, but you could see the effects of water and ice. One dramatic visual was at the outflow for storm drains.

At the time I was there, the tide was still going out. There was ample evidence of how high it had gotten.

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Winterizing: filling the gap

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The new part of the house was added on in the mid-70’s or so. I still remember bits and pieces of the construction, including the pouring of concrete for the steps at the main entry.

After all these decades, it’s to be expected that those heavy steps would slowly sink, creating a gap.

A fairly large one.

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