Almost Spring, Thoughts Turn to Adventure

Spring is almost here.  By some reckonings, it arrived on March 1, but for me I judge by the crocus blossoms, and they are still a few weeks away.

It's a time of year when I start thinking about recreation in the Shenandoah Valley, using Hawksbill Cabin as a basecamp.  We'll hike up in Shenandoah National Park, maybe do a canoe float on the river...and then, the farmers market in Luray will open and we'll start to grill with fresh vegetables and locally raised meat every weekend.  Add in a relaxing Sunday at Wisteria Vineyards, and you'll have a complete lifestyle statement!

During these last few days of hunkering down waiting for a thaw, my mind also wonders to adventures of the past.  My friend Marilyn discovered this high density video taken in Yosemite National Park - I've been fortunate enough to go three times, counting the Half Dome summit as among my achievements - but I never tire of getting another look at that remarkable landscape:



You can check out my Half Dome hike, and other Yosemite highlights (especially from a business trip there in 2010), from the links below.

The Page County Grown Farm to Schools Program

While the pigs were being raised, from time to time I would visit the farm at Public House Produce and see loads of apples and lettuce that were getting sent over to the Page County school system.  David explained to me that this was part of the Farm to School program, which had a sort of combined mission of improving nutrition for kids at the schools, along with outreach and benefits to local food producers - at least that's how I understood it.  

He also mentioned a video that had gone into production about the program - it's just been released, and I copied a link to it from Facebook here:

http://vimeo.com/87319238

Also, here is part of a note David posted about the video:

"I appreciate all of the compliments about the recent Farm to School video and I would like to say thank you. This has been a very rewarding endeavor and I am very proud to be involved and I look forward to helping expand the F2S program in Page County. I would also like to say that none of this would be possible with out the support of many pepole and organizations. One of the most valuable groups of people who have made this idea work in Page County is the cafeteria staff at all of our schools. With out the additional work and dedication of these employees we would not be where we are to day with our Farm to School efforts. So please take time this week and thank a "lunch lady" for their hard work!"

Berlin Reunion 2014: After Action

These friendships date back to 1982.

My friends and fellow veterans from Berlin, along with their families, held our annual reunion at Blob's Park in Jessup, Maryland this past weekend.  While there was plenty to celebrate with old friends, there was a sad note this year - Blob's has announced that it is closing after all these decades.  We'll have to find a new venue in order to continue our tradition in the future.

Along with all of us locals, who have been able to go to the reunion nearly every year, this year there were at least two out-of-towners - Eric M. was in from New Hampshire, and Tony O. came in from San Diego.  It was also good to see some of the old crowd who hadn't been able to make it to many of the past ones, especially since this was a kind of send off year.

Here's a photo of Eric at the Wall near
Checkpoint Charlie in 1985.

A couple of folks had photos with them to share this year (as in the past, I didn't take many because of the inconsistent quality for the iPhone in the light of Blob's).  I copied these two from Eric's Facebook posts, as a matter of fact - one he took at the event, and second one from Tony's collection that I found to be a poignant reminder of our Cold War experience in Berlin.

Here, Eric is taking a photo of the Wall near Checkpoint Charlie.  A group of guys were out for this walk, including Tony and others - there were a couple of other photos of them at other locations that day, including near the guard shack.  I understand there was an encounter with the border guards, and a close inspection of an AK-47 was provided at one point.

So, another great time, a chance to remember the good times of the past - and now to look forward to where our adventures will take us next year.  It was good to see everyone!

Danger to Personnel (A Mini-bobs Tale)

So, I've mentioned the mini-bobs earlier this week - I thought I might revisit them and tell a little tale of my first discovery of them.

During my time in Berlin, my Air Force friends and I would make an annual trip out to the Harz Mountains.  We'd either stay in the Torfhaus, a small alpine resort in the Harz, or in a town down below called Altenau.  There is a reference to the Torfhaus in a post here:
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/09/brocken-stasi-site-in-harz.html

The first time I joined one of these trips, it was late in the season and the snow was melting off of the little ski slopes up there.  The resort operators turned to icy hill over to kids - and to the 40 or so of us - to sled on, using these rental mini-bobs (they cost about $1 for rental, and in later years, we'd keep them for three days so we could sled at will).

That's where the story begins, on a trip in 1984, when we first stayed down in Altenau.  Before I get to that, let me share the following instructional video about mini-bobs:



After a day of cross country skiing, and visiting the little pubs that dotted the slopes and the town of Altenau, we retired to our rooms at the little Gasthaus.  We'd ordered up a couple cases of the local Altenauer pils, and the proprieter's forethought was to put us in the basement rooms, so our parties would not wake other guests, who were on the top floor.  After a little while, someone had the great idea to break out the mini-bobs for a midnight run - I think it was Guey, Manky, and Gappy, whose actual nicknames are used in this story, since the statute of limitations has long expired.

Off they went, finding an acceptable launch point not too far away, as the story goes.  And the fact that there was a ledge down there, 20 feet or so downhill, which they'd seen in daylight, didn't trouble them at all.  Neither did the stonewalled creek at the foot of the little 60-foot hill - come to think of it, it was very similar to my front yard at Hawksbill Cabin.

So the story goes that Guey went first, yelping as he hit that ledged and launched.  He landed on down below, and they could hear him slide on down the hill out of sight.  Then the sound of another launch, some ice crunching, and silence - followed after a second or two by the plaintive cry of "help!"

This is why, at the end of many sled runs, I will also cry "help" at the finish, in honor of Guey's mishap.  He'd sledded off of the stone wall and down into the creek bed.  After slipping along the ice, at last he broke through, and was partially submerged in the shallow, but cold, creek at the bottom of the hill. This didn't stop hit partners in crime, as they all made a pass or two down the hill, before the Apfelkorn wore off.

Afterwards, they made their way back to the gasthaus, where the party had continued in my room.  When they arrived, they announced their accomplishment, followed by the exclamation "pig pile!" - whereupon they jumped on me, sitting on my little bunk there.  They were covered in snow, and of course, at least one of them was soaked with freezing cold water.

We had a good time, and I took the fun in stride.  However, the next morning after we checked out, we found that there was some damage to the little bed from having the four of us piled up on it.  I'd arranged this trip, and went to the innkeeper to let him know about the little problem - this wasn't the first time we'd had an accident there, and it wouldn't be the last.

I settled up with him for about 200 marks - less than $100, which he said would be the cost of the repair and replacement of the mattress.  We split that between the four of us, a small cost for a great memory.

And that's why, at the end of most mini-bob runs, I will yell "help" at the bottom of the hill.

Mini-bobs, Revisited

So we got these mini-bobs a few years back, when just by chance I saw them for sale at an outdoors store in Clarendon.  Now, I'm sure that the clerks thought, "What the hell is this big dude going to do with those mini-bobs - they're for the kids around here!" And sure enough, they do have some nice sledding hills over there in Arlington.

But what I had in mind was to use them to sled down the front yard at Hawksbill Cabin.  We've had enough snow to use them at least once a winter - but the winter wonderland that greeted us this trip provided the best conditions yet for using them - as seen in the videos.



It took a little bit of work to build the sled run - I mentioned how the snow was frozen and crusty on top, so you'd break through.  That was happening with the little mini-bobs too, and it would bring you to a sudden dead stop after a few lurching attempts to get started.  No fun, in other words.

Eventually, I trudged down the hill in as straight a path as I could make, using small foot steps, and then back up in the track.  After Mary and I both made a pass on this route, we had the makings for a good track.  We sledded a good ten times each the first day, when the video of Mary and Tessie was taken.  Overnight, the cold temperatures set us up for a great second day of sledding, and that is when the video of me was taken.



There is a story that goes with the mini-bobs.  Frequent readers may recall that I discovered these toys when my Air Force buddies and I would go to the Harz Mountains in Germany for winter ski trips, taking a break from all the winter recreation that we had available in Berlin - mainly Guinness curls at the Irish Harp.

I think I will revisit the story of those Harz trips in a post tomorrow.

The Snowshoes

A while back, Chris, Tom, and I took a weekend trip out to Dolly Sods Wilderness in West Virginia for a hike - there's a label for Dolly Sods on the blog, if you'd like to check that trip and hike out.  Later that year, Tom and his wife went back out for a visit during the snow, and they took a walk around the ski resort there using some snowshoes.

That seemed like a good idea to me, and after the Snowpocalypse winter we had (also a label on the blog, if you'd like to check it out) I got Mary and myself a set.  This weekend was the first time we'd had enough snow to break them out, so we took them over to Hawksbill Park in Stanley for a wintry walk with Tessie.

We probably should have know from the difficulty Tess was having getting around in the snow that conditions weren't optimal - the freeze thaw cycle caused some bridging, where there is a hard crust on top and soft snow underneath.  So with each step, you'd crunch through the hard layer down to the soft below, sinking in about a foot, and the snowshoe would catch on the lip as you made your next step.  It made for an awkward and unnatural motion, so we only stuck it out for a quarter mile or so - a nice loop around the little scout cabin, although we had thought we might adventure out onto the half mile nature trail if things went well.

Meanwhile, Tessie was having a great time on the family outing.  I think she got the most out of the weekend, with all the fun she had being with us and romping and exploring everything.

We decided that better conditions will be after a fresh snow, when everything is still powdery and the shoes sink into a soft footprint.  We'll look forward to doing that during some future snow storm.

Mary went out for another short walk in her pair around Beaver Run and back in our wood lot on Monday.  She took the dog with her - Tessie enjoyed every minute of being outside with us this weekend!

Wintry Weekend 2014

We've had snow before, but it had been since 2010 that we had more than a foot on the ground at Hawksbill Cabin.  Our neighbors had warned us about it - even posting a photo of them cross country skiing around their yard.  We were looking forward to seeing everything covered in white, but waiting until Saturday morning to be sure we would drive and arrive in full daylight.

It was a beautiful sight, but the house was cold.  There are always these tradeoffs...we turned up the heat for the rest of the day on Saturday to get the mass of the house warmed.  Once that is done, it will hold heat pretty well (although there's a draft off of the picture windows.

I was looking forward to trying out some of the winter sports gear we've accumulated over the last few years, and I will post about those adventures in the next few days.

For her part, Tessie seemed to enjoy the change, even though the depth of the snow made things difficult for her.  She was a trooper, running around the backyard exploring.

When I took her out for a walk in the wood lot Sunday, I didn't expect that we'd get such a great view across the Jordan Hollow property from our back property line.  It was spectacular though, looking across over the little 10-acre field that borders us, now growing into a second growth forest, and then to the old inn, and off to the western foothills of the Blue Ridge.

You've got to find the balance in the end - we don't get weather quite this intensively every year, more like every 3 or 4 years - it's pretty, and it's fun to get out in...but truth be told, it's cold.  Spring is coming.

Everything but the Oink - 2014 edition

When the pig Kevin Bacon went down, I was surprised that after two years of butchering my own hog, for the first time, I felt a little something for the animal.  I guess handling them a little more this year, compared to the past, meant something extra to me.  I reminded myself that this is why we raised them – and steeled myself for the next one.

Afterwards, Chris and I had a chat about how hard it must be for kids doing 4H and FFA projects with an animal, only to sell them off at the fair, and saying goodbye while knowing what lays in store for the animal you’d worked so hard with.  David’s perspective is much more practical, after nearly a year of raising these animals – on that morning, he says, “all I see is meat.”  That probably leads to a steady hand on the trigger, which is important, and makes this all that much more humane, ironically.

So we hauled the four carcasses over to the butchering shed and quickly got the next step under way – scalding, cleaning off the hair, eviscerating, and then breaking down the carcasses into big cuts.  It was a little frustrating for me that after three years I still can't remember the details of each step - it's good I have a solid partner for my share in Chris.  He cheerfully did a lot of the dirty work during the evisceration, and then pitched in with taking down the halves for the other guys to begin breaking them down.

One of the shares is taken by Jesse and his dad.  Jesse is prepared every year with a fairly detailed plan about what he wants to do, and they motor through the work.  It helps that they have been doing this for 10 years, but he told us he watches a few YouTube videos each year when it gets close to the season – it’s been a good source for things to try, besides the basic processes that are involved.

I resolved to take a little time to do this in preparation next year.  One of Jesse’s techniques was to separate out the shoulder (it’s also called the butt in butchering parlance), and the others followed suit.  I like this continuous improvement aspect of butchering day, and next year will go all the better for it, I’m sure.

By the end of the day, the four or five major cuts are all done – the ham, the loin, the side (where the bacon comes from), the ribs, and the shoulder.  Also, we’ve cut out the parts of the head that are to be saved (we don’t use it all, mainly the tongue and jowls), as well as the organ meat that will be used in the scrapple. 

And that’s where we leave things at the end of the day, with a table full of meat chilling over night.  On day two of the enterprise, which I wrote about on Monday, the first day of this series of post, we proceed with breaking down the big cuts into individual portions that eaters are more likely to recognize – the chops and roasts that I’m going to look forward to cooking throughout the year.

You can follow those posts with the "Pork Diaries" label - I've already got a few of those on the record from the last two years.  I'm particularly looking forward to the day I do the whole rack of ribs I managed to save this time (limitations on our packaging gear has meant cutting the whole rack down to two halves in the past).

To conclude these "Butchering 2014" posts - maybe somewhere along the way my motivation was to be a more sustainable eater, as @andrewzimmern says.  But there's also a good share of friendship and camaraderie that makes this event special - and that's what keeps me coming back.

Call Me a Sustainable Eater - Butchering 2014

This year is the third year that I have taken part in butchering at the little red roofed shack down near the Shenandoah River.  I’m pretty comfortable with the whole process by now, but 5am Friday still rolls around early, and no matter how you slice it, it’s cold out there on the pasture when we go to get the pigs.

The first year I blogged about the experience, I generally wouldn’t even post photos of the action, out of some sense I had that I could respect the animals that way.

I've changed my opinion about this, so this year I will include some of the milder images, especially after seeing a recent series of posts by Andrew Zimmern (Twitter handle @andrewzimmern)  – and recalled seeing an image of a beef carcass strung up for butchering.  

He gets complaints about some of those images.  I saw one where he responded recently with the comment, “Connecting to our food sources makes us more sustainable eaters.  Shocking to some, necessary for all.”

Shortly after, when there was continued discourse about how gross it was to see the process play out, a reader wrote the following in support of his post:  “That’s exactly why he posted.  It challenges us to face reality and to appreciate – to be humbled – by the animal we consume.”

Ironically, this was my justification for not posting the photos the first two years.  The thing is, I know that these animals have a good life as they are prepared for us.  They're taken care of, ranging out in their pasture; and they even have a relationship with the other animals on the farm - not to mention the humans that come and go.  I think this was the first time all four of them actually were given names (although that's not recommended!)

When I say that we have a relationship with them, I want to be clear - we don't climb in the little shed with them and hug them.  Leave that to Joel Salatin...but this year even I had the chance to do a couple of ad hoc chores with them (for the record, I know I'm not much help when the rubber hits the road) – I wrote about “wrangling” them from the barnyard out to pasture back in October, here:

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pig%20Wranglin%27

Back then, they were four little piglets that weighed no more than 50 pounds each.  When we harvested them last Friday, even the lightest – the runt that the farm hands had named Kevin Bacon – topped out at around an estimated 300 pounds, and the largest was probably above 350.  

Turns out that Kevin was the first to go down, and it was quick and painless.  She took a single shot and went stone dead, to start the process.  Over the course of the next half hour or so, her three siblings followed, and then we load them up to take them over to the red-roofed butchering shed, just outside of Luray.

It's about Kevin Bacon, Isn't It?

Some beautiful pork chops and t-bones.

On Saturday morning, Chris and I arrived at the butchering shed to find second day activities under way.  Truth be told, we had dilly-dallied along the way, since I had told him to stop off at the Fairview Market for some donuts, so we brought along two dozen to make up for getting there at 9am instead of the agreed upon 8:30.  David’s dad was working the band saw to make some pork chops – and David had already broken down both of his loin cuts into chops.

After the customary greetings, Chris and I began to organize ourselves for the second day’s activities, which are comprised of breaking down the large cuts from day one into sausage, chops and roasts, and then packing them up for storage.  Meanwhile, I took a couple of photos, enjoyed a couple of the donuts, and well, in the vernacular of the butchering shed, shot the shit.  The photos accompanying the post are of those beautiful pork chops and t-bones that David had already cut down, and of his parents at the band saw cutting down their pork loins into chops.

Working the band saw to make chops and roasts.

I texted Mary the photo of David’s pork chops.  We ended up having a fairly lengthy exchange over them, as follows:

Mary:  Lotta chops!

Me:  I cut ours a little thicker this year.  We got 14 chops total, and two loin roasts.

Me:  I packed the sausage in half pound packs, half the size of last year.  So there are more packs, and we won’t have leftovers to deal with when we have them for breakfast.

Mary:  I just pulled the last pack of chops from last year to make for dinner tonight.  Also, saw a pack of breakfast sausage, two packs of ribs, and a ham roast.  There are some other packs, I’m not sure of what.

Mary:  All in the kitchen freezer.  The basement is pretty much empy, except for your hops, some pie shells, and two small tubs of scrapple.

Me:  We’ll slow cook those ribs.  I kept an amazing whole rack this time!

Me:  Also, we got Kevin Bacon!

Mary:  Oh great.

Mary:  I really didn’t want to know the pig.

Me:  To be honest, I choked up a little when she went down.

Mary:  TMI.

The 2014 bunch - that's Kevin with the white band around
her shoulders.

The Cascade American Ale

Last fall I bought a one gallon kit from Northern Brewer called Chinook IPA - it was a single-hop brew that came out pretty tasty.  The only problems were that it was a one gallon batch, so there wasn't much of it; also the Northern Brewer solution for carbonation in small batch is "fizz tabs" - capsules of corn sugar solution you apply directly to the bottle - this didn't yield a consistent result for me.

Still, the tasty beer made me want to experiment some more, especially with this single hop approach. I had some locally grown Cascade hops from my Luray neighbor Bill that I wanted to use, so I made a plan to adapt the extract recipe from "Chinook IPA" to "Cascade American Ale."  I brewed that on Sunday before the Super Bowl.

This particular batch is also the first time I used the BeerSmith software, which neighbor Dan had recommended.  I put my ingredient list in the software and it did some basic calculations for me, including expected ABV, and more importantly for an ale, the IBUs.

After inventorying the leaf Cascade, I found I had 3 ounces of the local ones - when I did the IBU calculation, the result was less than you want for this variety of beer.  I found two packs of Hop Union northwestern Cascade pellets, so I added those.  I got the IBU up to 55, where the threshold for ale styles is 50.

The expected ABV is around 5.4%, we'll see what we get when I bottle in about three weeks.  Meanwhile, the O.G., shown being measured in the second photo, was 1.050 at 74 degrees.



 

Super Sunday, Border Collie Style

We decided to stay in Alexandria for the weekend - next weekend is butchering day, so I will be out for three days.  Just seemed like a good reason to chill and not drive.

So Tessie got in the game by climbing up into the bed while we were downstairs.  She was very relaxed when Mary went back up to make the bed.

As I posted elsewhere:

Some border collies work for a living.
Some border collies just work it for a living.

The Short Ribs

Ever since they were featured at the Page County Grown Farm-to-Table Dinner in 2012, I have wanted to learn how to cook short ribs.  They're just a tasty and satisfying cut of meat, very much a comfort food.  The challenge is cooking them low and slow to bring out the flavors.

I got a nice pack of short ribs from Skyline Premium Meats at the last farmers market in the fall.  With the weather staying in the frigid range this weekend, I decided to give them a try with our slow cooker in Alexandria.

After Googling a recipe, I braised the ribs.  Then I put them in the crook pot, cooking them on high for 7 hours.  Besides the local beef, I used a cup of home canned stewed tomatoes (I still can't remember who shared these with us, but they were delicious!), and two cups of Wisteria's Norton wine.  Any on-line recipe will list the other necessary ingredients.

They came out great - I plated them on some mashed potatoes and served brussel sprouts on the side.

Here's a link to that 2012 Farm-to-Table menu.  Just a reminder of great things to come next summer!
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2012/08/farm-to-table-dinner-conclusion-of-2012.html


And hey, here are links to our two Page County Grown Farmers featured in this meal!
http://skylinepremiummeats.com/

http://wisteriavineyard.com/

Visiting the Pigs - T minus 19 days

Pigs rooting for spent grain.

A lot of home brewers use their spent grain as compost for their vegetable gardens, to bake with, or sometimes, depending where they live, they'll give it away to local farmer to supplement livestock feed.  I texted David and let him know I was planning to come by with a few pounds of spent grain and wanted to feed it to our pigs, if it was okay - he said it was.

His text ended with, "I'd be interested in your thoughts on the weight."

So, off we went to Public House Produce to check on the swine.  I knew I had a treat for them in the moist, sweet, cracked barley that is left after the mash.  They saw me drive up, and moved to the corner of the pasture where I would be coming from.

I walked up greeting them and they barked a little, I think because they realized at last that I wasn't David.  I held my buckets up close to the fence so they could get a whiff - and they were definitely interested.  I wanted to get them around to the other side of the pasture so I could work with the light to take a few photos to share, and they followed me around.

Fine swine.

When I dumped the grain out, they weren't sure about the fast movements I made, so they balked.  Soon enough they figured it out, and there was a smacking good time going on.  The sweets provoked a few tussles as well - so I was careful to dump the second bucket a little farther away and in two batches to give them all some room.

Once I reported back to David that they seemed to enjoy the treat, he asked again about the weight.  I told him I thought 220-230 pounds - these guys are pretty compact and muscular, it seemed to me.

Then he told me that Kevin Bacon is the smallest at 250 pounds (she is second from right in the first photos), and that the durocs (the two brown ones) are topping out at around 300 pounds!

Big pigs!

That's going to make for a tiring first day in a couple of weeks!

Dan's Double IPA

Here's the mash tun during the early stages.

We decided to take a three-day weekend out at Hawksbill Cabin.  There was an agenda, as we'd be meeting friends in Culpeper for dinner one of the days - and I needed to check on the pigs.  Then Dan told me he was planning to brew on Saturday, and that he'd be using a new recipe that involved 20 pounds of malt - a double IPA - so I decided I would make a stop over at Beaver Run Brewery and help out where I could.

Dan's been using the Beer Smith app to compile recipes - he has been brewing for years and the Flat Tale Ale recipe is pretty set.  Largely as a result of the brewers association, he has been adding a few ingredients to the mash, including rye, and using a step-mash technique to get as much out of the malt as possible.  This time, he was going for a double, and he queued up the app to list all the ingredients (I have a snap of that part of the recipe below).

Here's a portion of the recipe - hash marks are mine.

The step mash process is very effective, but there is a lot of extra time and detailed record-keeping involved.  It seems like, especially when you are brewing with this kind of quantity, you really do need a second set of hands in the brewery to help out with every thing.

We were checking mash temps and stirring the mash at intervals as everything progressed - it really was a demanding pace.  I know it will pay off with a high-quality brew though!

Since we are getting close to butcherin' season, I decided to save the spent grains for a trip to visit the hogs.  I'll post on that visit over to Public House Produce tomorrow.

The Home Brewery is Getting Out of Hand

My brew kitchen in the laundry room.  Such as it is.

Mary's been very tolerant of this brewing adventure.  She doesn't mind when I disappear for half a day when I go visit Dan's brew kitchen up the hill from Hawksbill Cabin.  She's gone so far as to buy me recipe books, or order gifts right from the Northern Brewer website.  And she doesn't mind that I have taken over half of the laundry room with equipment and supplies.

I should note that the beer shown in the photo is not all my product - only about half of what is on the counter there is beer, the rest are cleaned empties waiting for refills.  About half of the remainder is home brew, with the others there gifts from friends or neighbors or my own stash (I have hoarded a four-pack of Sierra's Hoptimum, for example).  There are also four cases of home brew bottle conditioning there on the floor below (along with four cases of new bottles).

For the first time since I started this hobby two years ago I have a brew calendar that stretches out to May - mostly still brewing extract kits, although I have begun piecing together my own recipes.  Here's what I have planned through May:

• Super Saison - this is the Northern Brewer Saison de Noel, however, I am late for a holiday release and instead plan to release this in time for Super Bowl.
• Honey Porter #4 - my fourth attempt at Honey Porter, this is the one I posted about yesterday.
• Nut Brown Ale - I have been waiting for winter to brew this one, and it is next on my list.
• Cascade IPA - I plan to brew a single-hopped IPA using Cascade hops.  Three ounces came from fellow brewer Bill out in Luray, grown in his backyard.  I'll dry-hop with an ounce of Willamette Cascade hops that Dan gave me.
• Petit Honey Saison - Another variation on a Northern Brewer kit.
• Honey Lavender Kolsch - I made this with the lavender tincture last year and it was very popular.  I'll brew it for an early May release this year.
• Couer de Saison - this promises to be a light saison for June release.  It's a flyer for sure, as the kit includes the makings of a basic saison with grape juice added, to lighten it up and make it a beer-wine combo.  Skeptics get in line behind me.

Since this is getting out of hand, maybe it is time to think about moving on to all grain brewing.  That means I'll need to do most of the work outside on brew days, which is okay, but it also means I'll need more room, like the entire laundry room.  Mary and I talked about it, she wants a remodel.

Accompanying that move to all grain brewing will be an aggressive move to making my own recipes.  To help with that transition, I asked Mary to get me a book called Designing Great Beers (Amazon link below), to assist in the analysis and estimation of how ingredients will work together.  After the spring and summer brew calendar above is under my belt, I'll be ready for this next step.

The Second Porter

Here's a past batch of porter.
Nice traditional American dark beer!

Last month I wrote a post called “Two Porters” – I had bottled a version of honey porter and just brewed a second.  On Saturday, I bottled that second one, just in time as it turns out, because I have given away all of the other.  The brew cellar is still full, however; the batch of “Super Saison” is down there bottle conditioning as well.

In that post (dated 12/16/2013 if you’re interested in looking back for it) I mentioned that the second honey porter is actually an adjustment to a Pumpkin Spice Porter kit that I had bought in the fall and never brewed according to the recipe.  

Here’s a description:

This seasonal release autumn ale is the perfect companion to the changing season – from harvest to the holidays!  The recipe starts with Briess CBW Porter base extract partnered with caramel 90L, Carabrown and dark chocolate steeping grains.  To spice things up we added cinnamon, allspice and a hin of ginger.  The selected hop additions provide a mild balance in bitterness and this ale is fermented with Safale S-04 premium yeast.

Of course, I substituted Virginia Shenandoah Valley honey for the spice pack, following all the other directions in this kit.  The hops here are Northern Brewer and Willamette – these should combine for a mild hop flavor, although I read that the Northern Brewer may portend notes of black currant.  Oh, look at me ramblin’ again.

The recipe said this starts at approximately 1.060 O.G., and I read it as 1.019 when I bottled it Saturday.  That yields to 5.5% ABV, which is about where I like to see my beers come out.  So two weeks in the bottle and we’ll be ready to roll with this one!

They're Omnivores Too, You Know

Sacked out pigs, all tucked in and warm out in the poke.

I was amused recently when a friend sent along a link to a New York Times article that featured Joel Salatin – he of The Omnivore’s Dilemma and Food, Inc. fame – that described his new pork venture.  Mr. Salatin is famous because of his innovative, symbiotic approach to farming, which emphasizes the connections between the land and the animals.  To us city-folk, this is incredible, ground-breaking ag-science, but I suspect that if I were to head out to Page County and engage a friend or two on the topic they’d tell me this was just common sense.

Also, call it ironic or coincidental, I’d received an update on the status of our pigs earlier in the week.  The hogs are growing nicely, and putting about a pound on a week.  David’s had them out in pasture since October (I helped wrangle ‘em, by the way, link here:  http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/search/label/Pig%20Wranglin%27).

So that is the point of my post – pasturing pigs isn’t new, but the popularity of this approach as a contrast to concentrated, industrial operations is.  My pig share is pastured, and I know those swine have a good life out there on the farm.  After three years of this, I’ve learned an element of the respect they deserve is to have a relationship with us – while I wouldn’t go as far as to climb in there and hug them (some do), I do enjoy seeing them in the field and am pretty happy to hear when they’ve been given names.

Incidentally, I’m told the four pigs this year are Kevin Bacon, Lucy, Stevie Yum Yum, and Jim Bacon. I’m not sure if that last one was named after me; if he was, I’m not sure I deserved the honor.  Their time is coming in a month or so, so they’ll continue living the good life out in their field for a little bit longer.

Now, Mr. Salatin’s strategy is to move herds of 50 or so pigs through his pastures and into the hardwood forests that he has retained on his 450 acres in the Shenandoah Valley.  If you want to know more about his methods, he’s got a video you can buy, although you have to get it directly from him – just search on “Polyface Farm” and “pigs.”

The New York Times story didn’t go so far as to talk about how he plans to process those herds of pigs, but for my pig share, I do know how that part of the story goes.  One cold February morning, a team of us will go out to the field and they’ll be dispatched.  Then we’ll haul them to the butchering shed and go to work on the carcasses for two days, emerging with all kinds of chops, roasts, sausage, ham, and bacon. 

That’ll be a fulfilling weekend, I don’t mind saying. 

The Seasonal "Super Saison"

Last year's batch.

Last year I brewed the Saison de Noel as my second or third batch of homebrew.  It’s an extract kit from Northern Brewer, designed to be a little stronger than some more typical Saisons, as described below:

Deceptively dark and beguilingly complex, this holiday specialty is brewed in the tradition of Belgian farmhouse ales.  Unlike most Saisons, intended to refresh and sustain farmers doing manual labor, this one is engineered to complement rich holiday fare and sustain you through long winter nights.  A generous malt bill with highlights of butter toffee, chocolate, dark fruit, and bread tangles with the earthy, spicy funk of Wyeast’s French Saison strain and a single addition of bittering hops to strike an evolving balance.

Now, it was an oversight on my part, but I used Safale S-04 instead of the Wyeast…I discovered my mistake after I transferred the beer into secondary and was recording the gravity reading.  I don't expect any poor effects, but it may have impacted how much fermentation occurred.  By the way:

• O.G.:  1.070, 70 degrees
• Interim:  1.020, 70 degrees
• F.G.:  1.018, 68 degrees

I calculate approximately 7.1% ABV from this.

I bottled on Saturday, January 4, and plan to release this on January 24 – in time for the Super Bowl. 

And for that reason (not to mention the yeast oversight), I am calling it “Super Saison.”

(Here's a link to the kit on Northern Brewer:  http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/saison-de-noel-limited-edition-extract-kit.html)

Cabin Lore: Another Look at the Wirkkala Fixture

After the light fixture in our guestroom was featured in last month's Atomic Ranch, and I posted about it here, there were several requests for a better scan of the letter.  The purpose of this post is to oblige those requests - but I am also going to put up the scans from Mary's research into the auctions mentioned in Atomic Ranch's response to her letter. 

Here's the scan of Mary's letter to Atomic Ranch, and their response.

The response makes a reference to two auctions for similar fixtures, and Mary sleuthed them down.  I've taken the liberty of scanning her results and fusing them into images I can use on the blog.  The auctioneers' data is included for future reference - I know we get readers that share our interest in modern design, so these might be useful to them.

First, here is the Wright auction that was referenced:

The Wright auction features an image of a similar fixture, along with details of how they were signed.

We had a brief conversation with Kevin Thompson back in 2008 and asked him about the fixture.  He told us about his parent's enthusiasm for Scandinavian design, and thought they bought these from a Scan store in the 1960's.  He remembered the colored shades, and that the round bulb in ours was a replacement.

Here's the second auction from Quittenbaum:

Here's the Quittenbaum auction, which is probably a better depiction of what our fixture looked like.

It would be a real treat to see these in person - and it would be lovely if the original shades and all three bulbs had survived.  For one thing, they'd be valuable - since the auction estimates ranged from $600 to $3,000, back in 2008 and 2010.  

But that's how it goes.  Instead we have a great bit of Cabin Lore to enjoy!