Michael Kindt's Blog, page 446
November 20, 2011
myheartisinmothballs replied to your post: And another thing!
Except you can't feed it to babies....
Except you can't feed it to babies. Honey is the the number one cause of Botulism in young children. O_o
I would guess it's very rare from honey (and due solely to an undeveloped immune system) and certainly not number one. The Mayo Clinic says very young children can get botulism from a number of sources, including dirt. Read about it here. I have seen the warning on honey, but you must understand that all the warnings you see on products in the U.S. have more to do with not getting sued than with reality.
And another thing!
Honey is deeply cool stuff. It is naturally clean, and though it may crystallize and become a solid (which can easily be reversed), it will never rot or go bad. It is extremely resistant to contamination. Think about it. It's perfectly safe to eat in its natural state, even with bugs crawling all over it. You can go out in the woods, tear open a hive, and start eating. You'll have to worry about getting stung, but not about food poisoning.
Short Mead Recipe
In case you don't know, my goal is to produce the vast majority of my alcohol my own damn self. I have been aiming for this since like 2005. These days, finally, I'm almost there.
I brew mead and beer so far, with varying results. One batch of beer I brewed had wimpy yeast, so I basically created a batch of O'Doule's, which was bizarre. It looked and tasted like beer, a little on the sweet side, but did nothing for me spiritually. I've had more experience and better luck with mead. I have made mead that was so good it was like having an orgasm in your mouth.
So I'm making some short mead for the first time. Short mead is called such because it is ready shortly. Mead takes at least a year to be decent. I have some pomegranate mead that I will be digging into soon that is mind-blowing, but I started it in December of 2010.
With my short mead I'm shooting for about 3 months until party time. Here's what I'm gonna do to make a gallon of it:
TRIGGER WARNING: BEE RAPE
Honey. To make mead, you need honey. And not just any honey, but good honey, honey that hasn't been pasteurized. The honey I have always used has been local wildflower honey. The only processing it's subject to is running it through a cloth filter to get all the chunks of dead bees out of it. This is necessary because, let's be frank, chunks of dead bees are gross.
Yeast starter: Bring one cup of water with about a dozen organic raisins and a drop (1/4 teaspoon) of the honey to a boil. Allow to cool to warm and strain into a glass (to keep the raisins out) into which you have already put half a package of Red Star Premiere Cuvee yeast. Stir vigorously with a fork.
Next, brew some black organic tea. Drink some of it if you want (nothing added), but make sure you save 1/8 of a cup. Also, juice a fresh lemon until you have 1/8 of a cup of that.
The tea and lemon (as well as the raisins) provide nutrients for the yeastie boys, as well as improved pH balance.
Now take out two pots. In the bigger one, bring 3 quarts of water to a boil. In the other one, bring a quart and a half to a boil. This second smaller pot is your backup water for topping off the jug you're going to ferment in. I ferment in a standard gallon glass jug. Once they boil a few minutes, allow to cool. When the bigger one has cooled enough to where you can stick your finger in it without pain but is still pretty hot, dissolve 3 quarters of a pound of honey into it with a wire whisk. Then add the tea and lemon juice. Allow to cool further a bit until warm.
Pitch the yeast: With a funnel, dump the now foaming glass of yeast starter into the jug. If it isn't foaming, it should be. If the yeast is viable, it will be frothy and foaming inside of an hour.
Then carefully pour (thru the funnel!) the water/honey/tea/lemon mixture on top of the yeast. The jug will only be about 3 quarters of the way full. Splash things around a bit to oxygenate. Then top off with your backup water.
Affix a fermentation lock and place in a warm dark place. It should be dark. If it ain't, wrap a towel around it. This is a picture of a fermentation lock:
They cost only a couple bucks and can be used again and again. This picture is not mine and I don't know what's in this. It looks like pee. Me, I use vodka or Everclear to keep germs out. Using pee seems like it would defeat the whole purpose of the lock, but maybe that's just me.
After anywhere from a few to several hours, you will notice bubbles coming through the lock. Your mead is alive and is manufacturing alcohol.
Go away and leave it alone for a month.
After 30 days, come back and reintroduce yourself. Don't worry, your mead may be shy at first, but it will remember you. Gently take your mead to the kitchen. You don't want to shake it up at this point. On the bottom will be a cake of dead yeast. You want to keep it there. In the kitchen, siphon the mead into a new jug, leaving about a half an inch of it in the bottom near the cake.
I'm not going to explain siphoning since all this pee talk has me wanting to urinate pretty badly.
Seal the new jug tightly and put it in the fridge for 6 to 8 weeks, then drink it.
kthxbye!
November 19, 2011
lalitab:
Being surrounded by people,even when they are your...
Being surrounded by people,even when they are your family,is more often than not pretty exhausting. So I treasure every minute of solitude I can get.
Pantless,fluffy blanket,and a good reading. "Note to self",from
The fuckawesome Michael Kindt is my companion this night.
I may aswell start before Murphy´s law fucks with my plan….
Here is what Note To Self looks like in Europe. Pretty, huh? The book cover's ok, too, I guess. You can get a signed copy of EOoN, Volume One via Ebay if you want. Or you can get it using PayPal or whatever other means you can think of, just contact me. Twelve bucks, free shipping.
Whole wheat baguettes :)
Whole wheat baguettes :)
Baking bread!
Woot! I'll post pics if I'm especially proud :)
Out of sriracha :(
In a blizzard, too, so I can't go get some. This sucks whale nards. My rice and veggies is gonna taste lonely.
November 18, 2011
A man in Miami Gardens, Florida has been charged with injecting...
A man in Miami Gardens, Florida has been charged with injecting Fix-A-Flat into people's asses. Officials said the injections led to "serious medical conditions," whereupon the entire universe replied "No, shit, Sherlock?"
Police believe there may be other victims, all of whom must be severely brain damaged to have even considered this, and are asking the public's help. If you know of someone whose ass has exploded in little or no time, and without the normal investment in Taco Bell, KFC, and Pizza Hut required, please come forward, try not to laugh, and report it. Contact the Miami Gardens Police Department at 305-474-1420. Thank you.
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Ginger Lynn was a very good porn star.
This statement may seem obvious to some, but I was watching some of her work last night, like actually watching it—the non-sex scenes and everything. There was a moronic plot, of course, but since this was a classic porn film, it wasn't as moronic as the "plots" in today's porn, which is all unrealistic POV stuff filmed in a Motel 6 with a handheld and the girl screaming in the fakest way imaginable. Back in the day, the porn stars could act (sorta) and they actually tried to make movies (kinda).
Ginger was playing a character that was really horny. I know, I was as shocked as you. A horny girl in a porn movie? What'll they think of next? So she was this young horny college girl, see? And her character had a name. I'm not really sure what it was, maybe Tina (it WAS the 70s). But she wasn't Ginger.
The male character was older, playing a college professor or a coach or something. So you see the fantasy, right? Older guy gets younger lusty girl. It's one of the mythic themes of storytelling, right up there with good versus evil, nerds get girls, and cowboys and Indians.
So they start doing the horizontal bop. Well, it was also the vertical and inverted and dodecahedron bop as well, but you see what I'm getting at, right? They were, like, having sex, right there on the screen!
It was awesome, and I watched intently, purely for anthropological reasons.
They're going at it and it's building, building and pretty soon it's at the end and the male character starts crying out "Oh, Ginger. Oh, god, Ginger," as he gradually stumbles off the metaphorical cliff of ecstasy (releases the Kraken).
I guess what I'm getting at is that she was SO GOOD the poor sap actually forgot he was in a movie. Cool.
I give Ginger two enthusiastic thumbs up, for a total of three skyward pointing appendages.
Carry on.
