Making It: Radical Home Ec for a Post-Consumer World (32 page)

4.
Measure the temperature of the mash using the thermometer. The target temperature is 152°F. Stir in a little hot or cold water to get it there. The temperature is critical here. There is a narrow range at which enzymes break down the grains in the mash into fermentable sugars.

5.
Once the temperature of the mash is at or very near 152°F, put on the lid of the mash tun and let the mash steep for 1 hour. Check the temperature every 15 minutes and add cold or hot water, as needed, to keep the mash at or very near 152°F.

6.
Toward the end of the steeping period, heat an additional 3½ gallons water to 165° to 175°F on the propane burner, using the 24-quart pot again.

DRAINING THE WORT

7.
The mash tun is equipped with a valve and a drainage tube. Stick the end of the tube into the pitcher and open the valve just a bit to let the wort slowly trickle out. The slower, the better. Open the valve too much and you risk clogging the valve with chunks of grain. Slow draining also extracts more of the fermentable sugars. Drain out about 2 quarts into the pitcher and pour this straight back into the mash tun. Repeat this three or four times, until the wort you’re pulling out drains reasonably clear and no bits of mash are present.

8.
At this point, drain all of the wort out of the mash tun, draining it into the 32-quart pot. Be sure to drain the wort off slowly, just as in step 7. Don’t rush it.

9.
Now you’re going to add more water to the grain for a second round of extraction. Add the 3 ½gallons of 165° to 175°F water to the mash tun. This is called the sparge water. Let the grain steep with the sparge water for 15 minutes to extract the last of the sugars. Repeat step 7, draining off a little sparge water at a time, checking the clarity, and pouring it back in the mash tun.

HEATING THE WORT

10.
When the sparge water is showing reasonably clear, drain it slowly into the brew pot, the same one that is now holding the wort. Combined, the two extractions should mostly fill the pot. Put the wort onto the burner and bring it to a boil. As it heats, foam will appear. Skim this off with the handled strainer. Once the wort is at a full, rolling boil, start your timer. The total boiling period will be 60 minutes.

HOPPING THE WORT

11.
During the boiling period, you’ll follow the hopping schedule shown in the recipe on page
209
, which is notated in the form of a countdown. This is standard form for beer recipes. Adding hops to the wort at varying points in the boil results in subtle changes of flavor in the finished beer. The hops added at the beginning of the boil are known as the bittering hops. The hops added toward the middle and end of the boil are the flavoring hops. Hops varieties are grouped into these two categories, with bittering hops having more of the alpha acids that make beer bitter and flavoring hops having more subtle tastes and aromas. In this case, the Columbus hops are bittering and the Cascade flavoring.

Premeasure the hops so they are ready to go, and stir them into the wort at the prescribed time intervals:

• Add 3/4 ounce Columbus hops at the very beginning of the boil, at the 60-minute mark.
  
• Thirty minutes into the boil, add ½ ounce Cascade hops.
  
• Forty-five minutes into the boil, add another ½ ounce Cascade hops. This is noted as “15 minutes” on the schedule, because they are added 15 minutes prior to completion.
  

12.
Fifteen minutes before the end of the 60-minute boil, just after you add the second ½ ounce of Cascade hops, submerge the entire wort chiller into the pot with the wort. Doing so will assure that the chiller is sterilized by the boiling wort. It will remain in the pot for the next step.

CHILLING THE WORT

13.
Once the boil is complete, remove the pot from the burner and hook up the wort chiller to a faucet or a garden hose. Once the wort starts to cool down, it becomes vulnerable to contamination. The wort chiller is a heat exchanger that cools the wort rapidly, minimizing the likelihood of contamination. Cool water goes into one end of the copper pipe and passes through the beer, chilling it. The heated water spills out the other end, outside the pot. We use the water draining from the wort chiller to water the yard, so it doesn’t go to waste. A wort chiller can cool 5 gallons of beer in about a half hour.

14.
As soon as the wort is chilled below 80°F, pour it into the 6-gallon plastic fermenting bucket, pouring it through a strainer to catch the hops. Hold the strainer high. Making as big a splash as possible is a good thing. Splashing introduces oxygen into the wort, which the yeast will appreciate. Be sure to sanitize the bucket with iodophor prior to this step.

PITCHING THE YEAST AND STARTING THE FERMENT

15.
Toss the liquid yeast into the bucket. It should be room temperature at this stage. You don’t need to stir it in.

16.
Put the lid on the fermenting bucket and plug the hole in the lid with a stopper fitted with a fermentation lock. Put some cheap vodka in the fermentation lock. For ale, the ideal temperature for fermentation is between 65° and 75°F, so keep the bucket in a temperature-controlled part of your home, if possible. Also keep it out of direct sun.

17.
In about a day, you should see the fermentation lock thumping. Let the beer ferment for a week. During this period, the beer will produce a gunky, foamy head that leaves a residue on the side of the bucket. You’ll see the remnants of this when you transfer the beer to the carboy.

RACKING THE BEER

18.
After a week, rack (siphon) the beer into the 5-gallon glass carboy using the sanitized auto siphon. The goal of racking is to transfer clean beer into the carboy and leave behind all the debris on the bottom. Put the plastic bucket in a higher position than the glass carboy to facilitate siphoning. Put the plunger end of the auto siphon in the plastic bucket and put the hose end into the glass carboy. Raise the plunger and lower it slowly, and suction will begin. The beer will flow from one container to the other. Keep the end of the hose at the bottom of the carboy to minimize splashing the beer around.

19.
Add ½ ounce Cascade hops to the freshly racked beer. No need to stir it in, just let it float on the surface. When you add hops at this point, it’s called dry hopping. Once it’s in, transfer the stopper and fermentation lock from the plastic bucket to the mouth of the carboy. Allow the beer to ferment for 2 more weeks in the carboy.

BOTTLING THE BEER

20.
After 2 weeks, it’s time to bottle. Clean and sanitize the beer bottles with iodine solution, as you did the beer-making equipment, or run them through a dishwasher set on the sanitize setting with
no detergent.
Fill a small saucepan with water and heat until it’s just below a boil. Do not let it reach a boil. While at this temperature, drop the bottle caps in the water to sanitize them. Turn off the heat. It’s okay to leave the caps in the water while you do the other steps.

21.
Stir the
2/3
cup corn sugar into 2 cups of water and boil for 5 minutes. Allow to cool back down to room temperature. The sugar will provide the carbonation in the beer.

22.
Drag out the 5-gallon plastic bucket you used for the first fermentation. Sterilize it by swishing iodine solution inside of it, then draining. Toss the sugar water into the bottom of the bucket. Now, rack the beer from the carboy back into the bucket using the auto siphon again. This ensures that the sugar will be thoroughly mixed with the beer.

23.
Line up your beer bottles somewhere you don’t mind beer spilling. For us, it works to use the inside lid of the dishwasher as a table to hold the bottles while they are filled. That way any spillage goes into the dishwasher drain. Fill each bottle from the bucket using the auto siphon and a bottle filler wand. If you fill the bottle all the way to the rim with the bottle filler wand inside, when you withdraw the wand the beer will be at the correct height in the bottle. About 1½inches of headroom is necessary between the beer and lid to ensure the right amount of carbonation. Put the caps on the bottles and use the capper to seal them down.

24.
Wait. It takes about a month for optimal carbonation and for the flavor of the hops to mellow. Resist the urge to pop open the beer prematurely. If you open it prematurely and don’t like what you taste, wait a little longer and try again. You’ll be surprised by how much it can change over even a couple of weeks. Enjoy it within a year.

CROWINC YOUR OWN HOPS

If you’ve got some space, consider growing hops that you can use for flavoring beer. The hop plant
(Humulus lupulus)
is a huge, fast-growing perennial vine, very beautiful and fragrant. Let it run up the sunny side of your house or travel along a fence. Hops are grown from rhizomes that you plant in the spring. Harvesting the flowers takes place in mid- to late summer. In the fall, cut the vines to the ground. Choose a variety that grows well in your climate. Try to grow both a flavoring hop and a bittering hop so that you can be self-sufficient—at least hop-wise.

Section Five

Infrastructure

The final section in this book focuses on permanent systems, tools, and structures, from setting up a compost pile to installing drip irrigation to building a chicken coop. These are lasting projects, the type you tackle one time only or, at the most, once every few years.

55>

Drip Irrigation for Vegetables

PREPARATION:
3 hours

There’s a pleasant debate among our gardening friends about whether it’s better to water by hand or to use drip irrigation. We think it depends on your personality. We’re forgetful, so we’re in the drip camp. Hand-watering partisans think the time they spend watering puts them in touch with their garden. The problem with hand-watering is that it’s easy to underwater the plants.

For those who prefer hand-watering, the best method we’ve heard of to ensure deep irrigation is “beer watering.” You turn on the hose, crack open a bottle of beer, and start drinking. When you’ve finished drinking your beer, you can stop watering.

We like the efficiency and certainty that comes with a drip system on a timer. The work you put in on the front end planning and laying out the system saves loads of time in the long run. (And it means you can drink your beer sitting down.) Drip irrigation consists of plastic tubes with small in-line emitters that let out a slow dribble of water. The parts you need will vary depending on the idiosyncrasies of your garden. Good online drip-irrigation suppliers and nurseries can help you design a drip system. For this project, we’ll use the example of setting up a system for a 4 x 8-foot vegetable bed.

YOU’LL NEED

DRIP-IRRIGATION PARTS:

• Hose bib vacuum breaker
  ^A
  (They come in brass and plastic; get brass, if you can.)
  
• Hose Y connector
  ^B
  
• Battery-operated timer
  ^C
  
• Filter
  ^D
  
• Pressure regulator (25 psi or below)
  ^E
  
• Female hose beginning
  ^F
  
• ½-inch mainline tubing
  ^G
  (Purchase enough length to reach from your water source to your vegetable garden.)
  
• ½-inch elbow fittings (The number depends on installation—one for each 90-degree turn in the mainline tubing. See instructions on page
  221
  .)
  
• Figure-8 end fitting
  
• ½-inch emitter tubing
  ^H
  (Get the kind that has emitters spaced every 6 inches. It comes in a roll. For a 4 x 8-foot bed you’ll need 48 feet.)
  
• 6 (¼-inch) hose barbs (one for each run of ¼-inch emitter tubing)
  
• 6 (¼-inch) goof plugs (Get a few extras in case you make a mistake.)
  
• Hole punch (a specific tool for making drip-irrigation connections)
  

TOOLS:

• Teflon pipe tape
  
• Thermos
  
• Scissors or knife
  
• Sturdy scrap wire, any sort, cut into approximately 12-inch lengths and bent into a U shape (These will be used to pin down the irrigation tubing. You’ll need at least 20 for this project.)
  

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

A drip-irrigation system comes in two parts: the parts near the hose (which we’ll call the “headworks”) and the drip lines that run through the garden bed (which we’ll call the “drippy parts”). You can get a drip-irrigation kit that will simplify things, but make sure that it contains the parts listed above.

ASSEMBLING THE HEADWORKS

Assemble the headworks in the following order, starting at the faucet: hose bib vacuum breaker, hose Y connector, timer, filter, pressure regulator, female hose beginning, and ½-inch mainline tubing. As you connect the threaded parts, wrap Teflon tape on the threads to ensure a watertight seal. Hand-tighten—don’t use a wrench.

Here’s what these parts do:

HOSE BIB VACUUM BREAKER:
This is a backflow preventer, a one-way valve that keeps soil from getting siphoned back into your water supply.

HOSE Y CONNECTOR:
This allows you to run a hose from the same spigot as your drip system, so that you can still hand-water when needed.

TIMER:
A battery-operated timer ensures that the garden is always watered, even if you’re out of town. We’ve also used manual timers, which are kind of like a kitchen timer—you dial in a time and it runs for a set amount of time and then turns off. A manual timer is more durable but depends on your setting it daily. In a way, this is a good thing, because it makes you evaluate the water needs of your garden each day. The kind of timer you choose depends on your preference and lifestyle.

FILTER:
The filter removes particulates from the water supply that could clog tiny drip emitters. A filter isn’t optional.

PRESSURE REGULATOR:
Ordinary household water pressure is so high that it would burst the connections in the drip system. The pressure regulator reduces the pressure so that this does not happen.

FEMALE HOSE BEGINNING:
This connects the headworks to the ½-inch mainline tubing that runs out to your vegetable bed.

HALF-INCH MAINLINE TUBING:
Made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) plastic, this tubing is flexible and easy to work with. You can bury it or leave it on top of the soil. In cold climates, you will need to bring in the whole drip system for the winter so that the parts don’t burst.

QUARTER-INCH EMITTER TUBING:
^H
This is tubing with little drip emitters built in. We use the kind that comes with emitters spaced every 6 inches. Note that we are not talking about a soaker hose, which leaks water along the entire length of the hose. Emitter tubing is more durable, lasts longer, and is more efficient. Quarter-inch emitter tubing is connected to mainline tubing with the barbed connectors. You use a “goof plug” to plug up the ends.