Dixie Chicks

[Beer can]

I've always used this style

 

[Beer can]

And they make all kinds of sizes of rubber stoppers.
I've fermented wine in gallon glass jugs yrs ago just with a balloon on top with a pinhole in the neck of the balloon.

 

[Beer can]

 

[Alaskan]

Now if I could just stick those in the ground and water...

 

[Mahen100]

mom made rice wine in a gallon jug aeons ago... cheese cloth at first then a screw on lid not too tight.... Tasted somewhat like whisky but definately NOT vinegary. One thing to remember carbon dioxide is heavier than air... as it is generated it will fill the container and exclude the air. As long as you dont jostle it around I think youd be fine.... Those air lock style vents are inexpensive to buy at a home brew store.... first one online I saw was 1.49.... By the way these can be used for all kinds of fermentation like Kambucha.... deb

Bonus! thanks, Deb I have cooked and mashed the muscadines, and have the result in cheese cloth bags dripping through a metal cone jelly sieve. I have been sprinkling sugar in the remains in ladles and cookig pots and eating that gritty. The taste is amazing, and so nostalgic for me. The five and a half pounds only yielded about four cups of strained juice so far...maybe five total after it all drips (I won't squeeze the bags) which I need to get for only 6 cup jars of jelly. But I did not even use water in the cooking pot, so it is full strength juice, and makes my mouth water just typing this. I need to seriously think about making that wine in the next couple of weeks. The air lock vent thingies above seem a good thing to use for wine. I think I know where a brew store is here. Thanks again!

 

[Mahen100]

@beer can...is that also an airlock of sorts?

 

[perchie.girl]

@beer can...is that also an airlock of sorts?

yes I believe he brews Beer so its just a different form

deb

 

[Beer can]

@beer can...is that also an airlock of sorts?

yes  I believe he brews Beer so its just a different form

deb

Yes, I prefer it because it's easier to clean. This is another one

You can also run a hose into a container of water. I've HAD to do that before, had a vigorous ferment, blew yeast sludge and beer all over and inside our counter, DW wasn't happy, just had to empty container when it filled. Some prefer fermenting that way 'blow off ferment' gets a lot of crap out that way it doesn't settle in the bottom.
Thing to know, high proof beer, wine, high proof hard cider should be transferred to another vessel part way through, gets it off the yeast sediment, makes it taste better and it's clearer.
If your going to add sugar do it after the initial ferm, let the yeast eat the natural sugars first, transfer it and add the sugar, this is called double ferment. They say if you add the sugar first the yeast eats it first and has a harder time eating the natural sugars, weakens the yeast as the alcohol gets higher.
Sanitize sanitize sanitize everything....
I don't even breathe when playing with whatever I'm brewing, avert your breath. Lol! :-D

 

[CanuckBock]

Heel low:

So like summer never did show up. More like the WEsT Coast with rain 90 days straight BUT (and a big butt I have!) the difference that made it tolerable here in land locked Alberta was that we got sunshine ever day....near every day there was sun shining...unlike my 25 years on the Coast of ninety days of those straight rain deluges...where no sun was seen period!

Our newest ewes...six pack of hair sheeps getting FAT on greens! "Eat yer GREENS, eh!" ​

Anyway...awesome year for grazing beasties...we are still trying to catch up to the forage growth here...for grazers, it has been a continues year of plenty.

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Waterfowl and landfowl did not get lots of time out on the lawns--

Dogs, ducks and a wayward Buff Pied Gander​

Some time had the critters out and about but never what usual summers here offer...

Jun 5, 2016 on bird yard grassy lawn...herders helping to roust them back up for the evening​

Too rainy and would have destroyed the land! Care for the land first!

June 4, 2016 Potato plantings began​

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So some may recall the helpers I had that oversaw the planting of the tater patches (NO veg garden this year...slug heaven and seed would have just rotted in the ground)...

Aug 12 2016 - Ewes beginning on the weeds in Veg area​

Best use of the Veg Garden this year...sheep feed on them weeds...har har!

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So here are me helpers...the dogs watching sheep TV and the hair sheeps clearing the patch of any green growings.

June 4, 2016 these seeds went in these furrows...



And grew up into this plot
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Tater patch


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And we marvelled at the pretty potato flowers...

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Our last official SNOW day this year was May 22...

May 22, 2016 - Unhappy geese gaggle out on a field scavenging up grains ​

So no fear we lacked moisture...har har. One smart rancher put up his forage in silage inside plastic wrap with a new machine he bought...now that is forward thinking...making hay when the rain pours and putting it by in the best optional way he could. Dang smart and he won't be whining about no winter foods for his herds! Dang smart!

May 22, 2016 - in downtown Cochrane Alberta
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First potato plant I harvested on Aug 23, was the Alta Blush...

Aug 23 2016

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Yah, one tater plant and the bounty.

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I did save four as seed potatoes for next season.

Alta Blush is a red brown skinned, white fleshed early type tater...and to do her honours, we rotissiered a chook and roasted them taters...new taters...man alive they were sum plum good!

August 23, 2016 - to celebrate the harvesting of the first potatoes!​

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Later on Aug 29th, decided with the pea sized hail we got a while back would show which particular plants got a tad more damage than others...

Aug 14 2016 at like noon...still some on the ground next day of hail...​

So that dictated I could steal (and I mean steal a plant that could have kept producing!) some plants.

Aug 29 2016 - Alta Blush top left Linzar Deleketess top Caribe bottom right Viking bottom left and AmaRose middle​

I have not harvested some real gems...those are in the ground still (like that all blue Russian blues...tee hee) but how about these colours for taters!

Aug 29 2016 - Second potato harvest; AltaBlush top, Caribe right top, Linzar Deleketess bottom right, Ama Rose bottom left, and Viking on left side​

Decided the only way to do some justice to the variety of types...make potato soup. One plant each was taken and what eye candy!

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Pretty kewl looking colander fulla tater types!

TA DA!​

Potato soup and that be that!

Course not just homegrown potatoes were in thar...fresh herbs from the herb garden too!

Thyme, two kinds of Parsley, three kinds of sage, rosemary and oregano...yeh...​

Herb garden has been supplying a great continuous harvest of freshness to our meals.

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Tomatoes in the greenhouse, what 30 plus varieties...we have not had the heat so all I got so far is green tomats...I mean there are shapes to see, like plum and cherry and more normal type tomatoes, but no colour yet in the Snow WHITE Cherry tomatoes forming, the BLACK plum tomatoes, the Coyote YELLER cherry tomatoes, not even the multi coloured as in German (picture hues of red and yellow) or the Zebra ones (green with black stripes, etc...). But I shall remain patient and hope a blast of heat (perhaps) will get some vine ripened ones done up. Otherwise, it is harvest the green ones and with a ripe apple, in a dark box to await their ripening and COLOURING on UP!

Green tomatoes...to ripen to what colour?​

These are BLACK plums...lookin' green?​

The fact I got Okra and cukes, some watermelon plants (won't likely produce...no heat!), along in the greenhouse with my hundreds of tomatoes...I shall not be complaining. Next year, I shall perhaps give the one type 42 days (what a joke) another chance to show itself...but for the most part, if judge and jury were asked...this tomato variety is pathetic and the weakest of all the tomato seeds I planted...could be it needed heat...so won't discount one plant's non performance on the whole packet of seed I still have. LOL

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Let's see...lots and lots of time spent on Man Porch due to liquid sunshine downpours every day...

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And thus, means we rotissiered our buns off...pork shoulder roasts, chickens, roasts of beef beasts...a very delicious "summer" time. We shall be upgrading to the PRO 825 Napoleon grill (nfi) from the Mirage we have worn out and outgrown...quite amazing we are ramping up to a gas grill that will do 45 hamburgers...but we have been running out of room on the old grill with a rosissiere chicken and veg and starches on it. There is a separate infra red bottom grill on this new unit...something that quickens the cooking of Rick's well done steaks and sears up my blue rare steaks to perfection. Looking forward to picking it up in a few weeks time!

Aug 20, 2016 - Cover the tallest bean plant with old towel



Aug 21, 2016 - right as rain ​

We did get one frost warning day on August 20, so Rick and I covered up our tenders and he even whisked the newest of the fish pond and waterfall plants inside the garage for the evening...

Now that be gorgeous fur a pond plant, eh!


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Jun 7, 2016, I tilled up a portion of our dirt and hand seeded it to oats in two sowings.

Leaping lizard dogs in the weed patch yet to be tilled under ​

Aug 21, 2016 - OATS!​

Not sure if I will leave these to oat grain up, or harvest some clumps or...yeh, the fact that I know I can easily grow oats means, well uh, yeh...food...I can grow ourselves a bounty of food without too much trouble.

Good to know, eh.

Doggone & Chicken UP!

Tara Lee Higgins
Higgins Rat Ranch Conservation Farm, Alberta, Canada

 

[Alaskan]

Yummy