Home Cider

(by jaymacrobert)

Last year I started fermenting apple cider, and through various experiments have come up with a fairly strong apple wine. The first batch was fun, while I did not have the tools to obtain an original gravity measurement (nor final) I can say with confidence that the product finished as at a very dry 10% abv. This recipe took about three weeks to complete a ferment at room temperature, and while it was technically drinkable then it was not very good. I used cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, some raisins, and champagne yeast in the process. After three weeks it was not bad, though not bubbly like many ciders you get at the store these days. With each passing week it got a little better... but didn't last very long. I only made a gallon and a half and used the glass bottles the original cider came in to ferment the product after purchasing a couple of bubblers to monitor the yeast activity.
Since batch 01 I have added clove and not used raisins, a couple of times I have used honey at the end of the ferment to both improve flavor and inhibit further fermentation... clove, honey, cinnamon, with Brown sugar seems to create the best flavor. By adding more sugar using the Champagne yeast I have since been able to calculate (with OG and FG measurements) an abv of about 13.8% with my strongest batch.

My next batch will also be for a stronger variety but hopefully more malty. The plan is to add more sugar, since I have found that the yeast will not persist in a solution of 13.8% or higher, the yeast should essentially not be able to consume the extra sugar and this should (theoretically) improve the malty-ness and flavor. After that batch I want to try using a different yeast. I suspect that if I use a beer yeast that the yeast will not remain active at the higher abv values, and I can get a 5-7% product that retains just a little of the maltiness... similar to off-the-shelf ciders. More of a beer and less of a wine.

I was able to make a lemonade that came out a little over 7.2% using the champagne yeast, but of course there was no sugar left in it. Still it was pretty good after a couple weeks aging, and still bubbly. I have yet to make a second batch of it, but consider this, we used fresh squeezed Meyer's lemons. Yum. White sugar in this case, was really good over ice, straight, we even tried it with a shot of bourbon in it. Delicious! The truth of it is, it is not very difficult to make a malt beverage or ferment a fruit juice, the trick is making it palatable. Next time I might try adding come ginger into the concoction. We shall see.

Cheers!

Irrigation: Well? No Well.

(by Jay MacRobert)

With three small gardens to water and a couple of fruit trees we were not concerned too much about using our well for this small demand. It did occur to us that being in a drought increased the risk of issues in this department but it did not feel urgent. That was until the water pressure recently dropped like corporate-scandal-stock prices. We then realized that while we'd get the well fixed eventually the impact to food production could be drastic if it took too long. Luckily for us the outage lasted a little over 24hrs and we had some water on hand that could be used in the interim, the result of strange but fortuitous circumstance.

After the well was back online my gaze drifted towards the year-round creek that boarders the northern end of our land.

The same creek we have water rights and infrastructure to (plumbing and wiring run between an old frozen water pump at the creek, and an old wooden ~1000gal tank at the top of the property). I begin to think that a new pump is all we might need, and while I don't want to drink out of a creek it is more than adequate for irrigation. The climb up from the creek to the tank and house is pretty steep and arduous. With an elevation change of about 300ft (based on topo maps) and wildly overgrown with a plant we call Mountain Misery, blackberries, poison oak among other native flora. Big breath, need to go check that out and see what I'm in for.

So a couple days after the well is fixed the wife and I head down on a hike, we set out to walk the pipe line to make sure it is undamaged. We discover that at a couple of points trees have fallen across it but as the pipe lay flush with very soft earth covered in thick vegetation these small trees have luckily not appeared to have damaged the pipe. More in-depth inspection is still warranted, but we move on.

We reach the creek after one last very steep climb some 35ft. The pump house has long ago rotted away but it was perched atop a rock base that still supports the pump and plumbing. There's some minor damage to the plumbing and the old pump is frozen, but the electrical box checks out. I take some pictures of the pump being certain to capture the numbers printed on the motor housing plate. I am considering removing the pump to see if it is rebuild-able, I know I'm cheap, but these old pumps were built well. I won't know until I remove it and transport it back up to the house. Before I do that I need a clearer path that is a bit easier to hike, I'm guessing this pump weighs 60lbs or more (pictured below).

After spending a few more minutes looking around, it is really quite beautiful down there, we decide to head back up. I notice that off to the east there appears to be an old overgrown, graded road or path, so we decide to see how it looked. Other than being significantly overgrown with brush and even a couple of tall trees the road is in fairly good shape. I few trips down with pruners and goats in tow might make it far more passable. I think that the plan for now is to start doing just that, then maybe drive my little ranch truck down the path with pruners, saw, and other flora-control tools and clear it enough to get a small vehicle within 50ft of the creek to service this pump. Sounds like a plan.

But I think before we do that, we might utilize our roof to collect rain water (way less work).

Humble Beginnings

(by Jay MacRobert)
So why did we (my wife and I) decide to start homesteading? Well, why not? I guess that is the easy answer, but truth be told it wasn't something we just up and decided to do one day. It started with relatively small interests in the different aspects of our current operation, without any expectations of where it would go. Then at some point along the way we discovered how rewarding these individual accomplishments were, how good we felt when engaging in the farm-stead activities, and how much we enjoyed visiting and working with others. Over the past several years we have made incremental commitments, or better put, we have incrementally increased our commitment to food production independence.

Seven years ago we moved out of our 950 square-foot townhome in town to a house on 10 acres about 10 minutes outside of a rural town in the Sierra Nevada's of Northern California. The house was built primarily of concrete blocks (cinder-block) in the 1950's. The land, while rectangular in lines is best described as topographically diverse. Most of it is very steep on a heavily-wooded north-facing slope. There are, however a few usable acres at the top of the property, which caps the hill and has some southern exposure. So there is some potential.

We did not initially set out to grow anything, our first order of business besides some overdue updating to the house, was to clear back the overgrown brush that presented a significant fire hazard. After that first winter we decided to get some chickens. Oh chickens. Let me go back a bit. When we lived in the townhouse we got a couple hens for egg production, which we had to give up due to HOA objections (rules are rules). So our prior experience gave us the false sense that we had a handle on things. Back to the new house and our second attempt at chickens (first at the new residence). It might be good for me to point out the absolute rural-ness of this location. We live in the fickin' woods man! Lions, skunks, and bears oh my. So it is to be expected that our first 'coop' was easily infiltrated and our hens (~6) decimated in a week. All those hours under heat lamps, etc. wasted. Our second attempt was a little more successful, but again we lost the lot. The third time around I acquired some building materials and put my carpentry skills to the test and constructed our first serious coop. This solution served well for a few years until about 3 years ago we converted a temporary car port (one of those you can get at the auto parts store or big box store) into a 20'x11' open air coop. This is our current solution and a very cost-effective one. I'm certain that there will be a future blog covering our chicken experiences in much more detail.

Around the time we were on our second batch of chickens I planted my first fruit tree, an almond. I did this in part because I liked almonds and they grow well in my climate, but also because I had started working on some changes in my life inspired by an earth-based spirituality that I had been doing a good bit of reading on (I may post something about the AODA in the future).

As the months and years clicked by we began expanding from these seeds. At one point we had several dozen birds, raising ducks, turkeys, chickens, and most recently Guinea Fowl for egg production, meat production, and pest control. We got our first couple of goats in Spring or 2013 and have had as many as 14 after a couple of kiddings but more regularly have between 5-7 goats. Look for the post on goats as well as the one on chickens.

It was probably spring of 2014 when we really started making progress in the garden department. We had both chicken and goat manure to use for fertilizer so we expected to do well. It is now fall of 2016, we have had both success and failure, but as it stands we have 2 peach trees, an almond tree, 2 cherry trees, a fig tree 5 small garden areas that we've irrigated, including those that also have an orchard component with a 6th in the works. We have 6 goats total, 3 does, one wether and two bucks. One of the bucks will soon be going to freezer camp like his big brother did last month. We have around 20 chickens including a huge Buff Orpington Rooster, and a few bantam hens. Add a couple of runner ducks and a half dozen Guinea fowl, three dogs and a cat and you might have an idea of the typical homestead cacophony we enjoy every day.