Making Beer in Plain Language

...home brew shop and found the process relatively simple, but the thought of making an all grain batch (extracting our own fermentable sugars from the grain rather than using the extracted syrup in a kit) seemed intimidating. Thankfully comrades Ben, Scott and Eddie showed us how to do an all grain batch a few weeks ago. Here, in plain language and crappy pictures is how it works. To the possible horror of beer aficionados, we’ll substitute plain En...

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A Homemade Mattress?

...the wool. It took her about 6 hours to fill the mattress. 3) Here is a webpage, in French, showing the mattress making process. Lots of useful pictures. I have to run it through Google Translate for more clues. 4) Do not fall for the eHow result if you search for how to make a wool mattress. It gets off to a great start by recommending you use glue, rather than stitching, to construct your mattress tick . (They call the tick a “fabric sheet pouch...

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New Project: Making Bitters

...on–their original purpose was to stimulate digestion, and you’ll find them used often in appertifs. But the definition has widened to include all sorts of aromatic flavors, from resinous flavors, like pine, to sweet, mellow flavors like vanilla, to floral notes, like lavender. Personally, I’m interested in creating an arsenal of interesting flavors to create sophisticated, adult-palette mocktails by using homemade bitters to add interesting flavor...

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How to Make Stock

...along with the bones. Roast all of this in a roasting pan in an oven set to 400F for around 40 minutes. You want it to brown but not burn. Transfer the meat and veggies to a soup pot. See if you can deglaze the roasting pan and transfer all those tasty little brown bits to the pot, too. Add water to cover all the bones. Maybe add a cup or so of red wine. Add lots of peppercorns. Add a bay leaf or two. And salt. Bring this to a boil and then reduce...

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