Let's Get Serious

I'm getting serious - seriously serious about the stuff I make and the interest I have to turn this hobby into a small business that I will grow until I can retire and turn it into my full time second career.

What the heck?

Yes.  I'm going to do it.  How - I am asking myself- really this post is for my own edification but if you would like to ramble down this road with me, I'm fine with it if you are.  *How's that for a run-on sentence?*

I have made some significant investments of a crafty nature in the past decade.  I've blogged about a few of them.  The 1" button maker.  The laminator.  The brewing equipment.  But I've also added a few more weapons to my crafting arsenal.  A spinning wheel, an embroidery machine, a paper/vinyl cutter and many leatherworking tools.  I also have a knitting machine that's been collecting dust for 16 years that I need to bust out and oil and determine if its still working.

What that equipment does for me and my crafty business idea is to give me the wherewithal to make bespoke nerd objects for folks.  There's a market for this stuff and I need to figure out how to break into it in a way that is reasonable and legal.  I'm not a sweatshop worker.  I'm also not a person who really wants to be breaking copyright law.  So I guess this means I either get really good at coaxing permissions out of nerd companies/franchise owners or I get good at creating my own nerd art.

Some things I've done:

In process, a leather Hydra patch

Nearly completed Hydra patch

An embroidered patch for a heroic librarian

Team Valor Pokemon GO patches

Again with the Wine (whine)

bottles actually bottled

bottles of port

SG WTF?

Today is all about the bottling.  Washing 25 wine bottles and scraping off the old labels is a royal PITA!  Moving forward - there are 15 bottles in the dishwasher and I washed 9 by hand because they were the ones that didn't fit in the dishwasher.  Ironically, the ones I washed by hand got filled first and here is the photographic evidence!  I put the dishwasher on super wash so it is taking a Loooooong time to get finished.  I'll finish bottling when they are out.

I used the hydrometer again - and though I do not understand the information here is the data:

SG: 1.028

Brix: 7.2


Am now thoroughly convinced that this Brix/SG stuff is crazy magic/alien technology and I will never be able to either a. measure it correctly or b. make any sense of the data collected.

Science aside, the wine is clear and very red/pink.  It is sweet and also has a kick to it.  The stuff I put into the brandy bottles I served at dinner on Sunday and it was very potent and was well received.

So - now to Office Depot to buy labels to print and put on the bottles and to finish up the bottling.

Next experiment?  Beer!

This Wine Never Ends!

Yesterday, October 7, added 3 large bottles of E & J Brandy - VS.

Today, October 8, measured Brix and SG.  Brix=2.5  SG= 8.

Bottled port into the 3 empty Brandy Bottles.  I anticipate this will be the "party bottle" to bring to upcoming events.

So...all that remains is bottling the rest in proper wine bottles.  This must wait til I have someone to help me with the corking which is pretty strength-related!  Also my hand is jacked up at the moment from a cat bite! OUCH!

To cap this all off - here's the total rundown of activity to date - straight from my little "wine journal" I've been keeping.

6/29/14
Began Plum Port.  20 lbs plums, 10.5 pounds sugar, 5 gal water, campden tablets.
6/30/14
Added yeast and nutrient
7/2/14
Brix 27
SG 1.115
7/10/14
Put wine into secondary fermenter.  Tastes NASTY.
7/20/14
Brix 10
SG 1.04
Added 2c sugar, 2c water
8/2/14
Brix 21
SG 1.0875
Decaneted, Removed sediment, returned to secondary
9/7/14
Brix 6
SG 1.0237
Decanted, removed sediment, returned to secondary
Added 1c sugar, 1c water
10/5/14
Brix 30
SG 1.1292
Decanted, removed sediment (little sediment), returned to secondary
Bottled 1 bottle
Bottled dregs
Tastes pretty good - but very little alcohol I think.
10/7/14
Added 3 bottles E&J Brandy-VS.
10/8/14
Brix 2.5
SG 1.1

Seriously - looking over these numbers I don't get the Brix/SG stuff at all.  I'm recording it in the hopes of understanding it later.

Wine Continued...

October 5, 2014

Secondary Fermenter decanting

Brix is 30

Decanted and removed the dregs- in which there was practically no sediment at all!  The wine is a clear ruby color and tastes really good.   I don't think there is much alcohol content. The Brix was 30, SG 1.1292.  I calculated the original SG against the SG at the end of the main part of fermentation and the alcohol content is about 10% or so I think...  This will be remedied by fortification.  Apparently, port is a fortified wine with an alcohol content around 19-22%.  I'll need to add a few bottles of brandy to it to make it more potent.  Okay - brandy shopping I will go!

 I bottled one bottle and the dregs I put into a couple of beer bottles and put in the fridge.

I am going to do the fortification and bottling today.  Let's hope I have enough wine bottles!

I am going to call the wine - Little Red Hen - because all by myself I made it after I asked for help.

But I will not drink it all by myself - I will be giving it away as Christmas Presents.

My first real bottle of wine!

Wine color is beautiful!

Delinquent Blogger Checks In

Now all three of my followers, I am sorry to have let you down over the past week.  We have had part of our house removed and gigantic holes dug into our yard.  Last night I came home to three of my fruit trees having been cut down - the apple, the lemon and another which I think was an apricot that had finally actually gotten fruit on it.  All in the cause of replacing the walkway with a real deck.  It isn't a real deck yet - it is the dcream of a deck that is sitting in pieces at Newark Fence Company's warehouse...

This week they redug the holes for piers because they had to go down 8 feet.  Yes - 8 feet deep holes in the ground to fasten the deck to our house.  Mind you, the previous "deck" had piers that were only concrete "feet" that sat on the ground.  So when the earthquake comes, I know where to go - onto the deck which will be up to seismic code.

When the deck is actually finished - in maybe 3 weeks is my generous estimate - I will post after photos.

A Garage...Someday a Studio?

I have this garage.  It is a 2-car garage and it is on the first floor of my house...

It is full of the usual clutter found in garages.  And now I am putting all my craft stuff in it too.

We have 2 spare bedrooms and I was hoping to turn one into a craft studio, but that was not to be as too often we actually use them as spare bedrooms and I can't just leave my stuff out in the room.  So I have turned to the garage, which we only use as extra storage as my future space to make things.

Here's the before photo.  Yes, it is a holy mess.  And this should make for a really awesome transformation/before/after set of photos.

Bread

I'm writing this recipe book on Google Drive and I realized that's a great place to get content for this blog!

So here's the how to bake bread recipe with photos.

I taught myself to bake bread in college using the following book:  Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen.  She explains everything in a very clear way with drawings of what to look for and expect while making your first loaf of bread.  I could not do it better, but here’s trying…

Basic Bread

1 package dry yeast

½ tablespoon salt

1 cup water

1 cup milk

¼ cup olive oil

As much flour as necessary - 5 cups or so

Bread is very simple - the best bread is only a few ingredients - flour, water, salt, yeast maybe some oil.  All other recipes just riff off this.  

The first step in making bread is allocating at least 3 hours of time.  Yes = it takes this long.  You can do lots of other stuff while you’re doing this because bread takes 10 minutes here, 10 minutes there and then baking, but you have to be there for the whole thing.  

Step one and a half - proof your yeast.  Yeast is ALIVE and it needs to grow - the yeast will be the leavening (rising agent) in the dough.   So you have to wake up the yeast and feed it to get it ready to do its job in the bread.  Take 1 cup of warm water (imagine baby bottle milk warm), a package of dry yeast, a couple tablespoons of flour and put them in a bowl together and stir.  Now go away for at least 5 to 10 minutes.  Go fill the dishwasher or wipe down the counters.  Now come back and check on your yeast.  It should be bubbly and have risen from where it is.  If it isn’t...something is wrong - maybe the water was too hot or the package of yeast was too old.  Start again.  If it looks right, move on to the next paragraph.

Add the rest of the ingredients, milk, flour, salt  and stir that up til it forms a ball of dough. Flour a board and prepare to get messy.  Put the dough onto the board and knead the bejezus out of that thing.  Add more flour as necessary.  You are incorporating more flour into the dough and you will be kneading for 5 minutes or so.  Longer if you are hard core.  Now oil the inside of a big bowl and put the dough in it, rubbing it all up in the oil and flipping it so the top is oiled and shiny.  Cover it with a dishcloth and GO AWAY FOR ONE HOUR!  Go watch and episode of a tv show.

An hour later, you should pull away that dishcloth and have an epic surprise!  The dough should have doubled in size!  Now for the fun part.  PUNCH IT!  Punch that dough in the face!  And it should shrink back like something that shrinks.  Okay, pull the dough out of the bowl and put it on that floured board (I didn’t tell you to clean that up did I?!)  Now knead that dough again - for about 5 minutes or longer if you are still hardcore.  Now you are going to form the bread into the shape it will take when it is baked.  You could braid it or you could form it into a ball or you could put it into a greased loaf pan.  If you are putting it on a baking sheet as a braid or ball or as rolls at this point you can either grease the pan or you could put a sprinkling of corn meal on the pan to keep it from sticking.  If you are doing the loaf pan, grease it because corn meal won’t stick to the sides of the pan…  Now cover it up again with the dishcloth and GO AWAY FOR ANOTHER HOUR!   

About 45 minutes in going away, turn on the oven to 400 degrees.

After an hour has passed, pull the dishcloth off the bread - it should have doubled in size.  DON’T PUNCH IT!  Put it in the oven!  Leave it in there for 30-45 minutes. 

 I bake by smell remember?  When it smells oh my god I want to eat it right now delicious, open the oven door and thump the top of the bread with a knife.  Does it sound kind of hollow?  Pull it out. and set it on a cooling rack or if you don’t own one like me, put it on the top of the stove and walk away.  Just walk away.   Don’t cut into it yet!  Wait like 15 minutes.  

THEN cut into it - you won’t be burning your hands and mouth now. Put butter on that and eat the hell out of it.   Your friends will believe you are amazing and will be begging you to bake bread for them all the time.