Today was supposed to be a day of hard outside work, the coconuts still need more cleaning and weeding but…the plans of mice and men aften go astray…so the rain and cold weather decreed. The next best thing, I guess, is to bottle some of that New Year’s Eve Brown Ale I made.
It is a fair bit of work, to be honest, especially this first time that we had to wash, clean and sterilize the bottles we got from town. They were filled with old napkins, cigarette butts and I hate to think what else…
Here two cases have been cleaned, washed and filled with some sanitizing solution.
After a few hours, they have to drip dry before they can be used…
Drip drying the bottles.
In the mean time, the maize beer needs to be siphoned into a bottling bin…
Maize beer and the bottling bin/bucket.
…and the priming sugar needs to be boiled…
Boiling the priming sugar.
It is only after all this is done that we can start filling the bottles and placing the caps on them.
The bottles are filled and the caps are resting on top of them.
Now we can finally use the capper to seal everything up. As a side note: A big thank you to Speedo for bequeathing his bottle capper to us…I would have hated to do this job by hand…
Capping away…almost done…
And here is the finished project!!
Yey, finished!
I’ll let you know what it tastes like in a few weeks…in the mean time…may all your beer be cold and bubbly!!
The Munchkin told me that we are running out of laundry and washing up soap…what better way to spend a Sunday messing around with soap!
I think most readers have gathered by now that we make soap. Lots of different types of soap for every conceivable occasion. Now, not every batch of soap turns out right and figuring out what to do with this soap is a combination of a Bored-In-Belize project, not wasting things and not wanting to buy washing-up soap and laundry detergent (because one of us is Scottish and both of us are cheap!).
First you get old soap…
Old Soap Chunks From Unsuccessful Soap Batches.
…grate it like so…
Gnome Fingers Grating Soap.
…putting it in a pot with water to boil…
Boiling Old Soap in a Big Pot (the camera lens steamed up!).
…and pouring it into the ubiquitous pigtail bucket for storage!
Old Soap Turned Into Laundry/Washing-up Soap by Gnome Magic!
The moral of the story is: keep all your old soap bits and you can do this too in the comfort of your own home by following the recipe in Bored-In-Belize Projects: Make Your Own Laundry Soap!!!
Hello Everyone! Hope you are all having a relaxing Sunday. I am sure by now whenever you see my bun-eating avatar, it means that the post is food related! As promised, I have posted up my recipe for Beef Jerky and Wild Mushroom Soup after yesterday’s fungi foraging. This is a warm, hearty meal for winter because it also contains red kidney beans, pasta shells, onions, ginger and leafy greens. If you haven’t been out mushroom foraging, the recipe can still be used with shop bought items (either Wood ear bought from Asian Supermarkets or Button Mushrooms bought from almost anywhere except for Belize).
Anyway, here is a picture of the dish with fried Mayan mushroom used as a garnish.
Beek Jerky and Wild Mushroom Soup Garnished with Fried Mayan Mushrooms.
And, this is a picture of the Wood ear mushroom , sliced before cooking.
It has been pouring down in Toledo so this is the best time to go foraging for mushrooms! Take a look at what we found today…a bountiful treasure for Munchkin and Gnome!
We found oyster mushrooms growing on some peach palms. We identified them as Pleurotus ostreatus which is a smaller type of edible oyster; they are fleshy and full of texture.
Oyster Mushrooms Growing on Palm.
Yay! There are more Oysters coming up!
Lots of Baby Oyster Mushrooms!!
We also found more Wood ear mushrooms which are edible. These mushrooms are well-liked by the Asian population and are usually cooked in soups and stews. Of course, we like them too! Moreover, this little number also has medicinal properties which include anti-cancer, hypoglycaemic, anti-coagulant and cholesterol lowering activities. What a wonderful mushroom!
Wood Ear Mushroom with Two Romantic Snails.
Fungi foraging also revealed more of the Mayan mushroom known as Schizophylum commune. These are rubbery in texture but are edible nonetheless.
Mayan Mushroom on Log.
There was a plethora of Turkey Tail Polypores which came in a spectacular array of different colours. Not only are they nice to look at but they can be made into a medicinal tea. This type of fungus is known to have anti-cancer properties and so a cup of tea now and then won’t do you any harm.
Trametes versicolor on Log.Big Trametes.
You may have gathered that we are really Big on Mushrooms. Gnome has written many essays on this subject. Check out these links:
We were both cleaning up our coconut plantation today. I had to collect the coconuts and pile them all in a specific area. Gnome had to clean up the coconut palms by cutting down the old leaves and mulching them around each tree. We made it a bit more fun by admiring (and taking pictures) of beautiful bush plants and mushrooms as we went along. Here are the pics:
Earth Star Fungus.Orchid on Coconut.Beautiful Pink Flowers on Bush Vine.Wood Ear Mushroom.
Of course, real life is better than the actual pictures but I hope that we have captured the essence of the simplicity of our lives through them.
Since we are doctors down here in Toledo, most locals are actually more interested in our medical products. Our copal products were the first things we made and still remain the most commonly sought after preparation in Belize.
Copal Resin (Protium copal) has been used by the Mayans for centuries in skin ailments including infections and inflammatory conditions. It is a medicine which is still used in the villages of Toledo but with westernisation and modernisation, many younger Mayans are losing these traditions.
If you are interested in reading about how we came about making this medicine, please read my article Copal in the Library.
It is nice to have an alcoholic beverage at the end of the day to wind down after some hard work. After having lived here for so long and having tried all of the drinks available, I have had to go back to my student pass-time of brewing. In this climate, rum and spirits are generally too strong; the cheap spirits aren’t distilled well enough to enjoy; the expensive spirits that could be enjoyed burn a hole in our pockets; wine is also expensive and generally crap, no matter where it has come from (and has sat at customs in a container in 45C heat for weeks to months); and the beer is fine if you just like a light lager style. Unfortunately, this situation is unacceptable to a Gnome of my (lack) of sophistication and home brewing has become a necessity for a continued existence. Brewing is fun and, as the Italians would put it, the result doesn’t taste of copper.
I’ve already talked about malting corn and making gluten-free beer from it but this requires quite a bit of work to get happening: the sprouting, kilning, roasting, mashing…it all ends up taking something like six weeks to get accomplished. So, the next logical answer is mead. I’m not at the stage of producing my own honey but fortunately, rainforest honey is available here and turns out to be much easier to brew than beer.
Traditional mead ends up being quite strong, 12-14%, and I find that this level of alcohol only allows a small drink, any more and the price is a headache. So I have reduced the concentration of honey in my meads so that the final result is closer to a beer, say 4-5%. This allows one to drink a pint without getting drunk and also appreciate the flavour of something different.
This is the honey that I use:
About Four Litres of Rainforest Honey.
You can see that it is a dark honey and if you could taste it, the strong almost musky flavour would be very evident.
It all gets poured into a big pot with added water to make five gallons and boiled for five or ten minutes to sterilize it. Then the specific gravity is checked once cooled down…
Checking the Specific Gravity.
…to make sure that the concentration of sugar is right (to make a 5% strength mead). It is put in a brew bin and fermented with some lager yeast for a few months as mead generally takes longer to brew than normal beer.
I’ve been making “everyday” batches to drink early, like a Beaujolais nouveau (without being red, obviously), since Munchkin really likes mead for an evening drink and to cook with but I’ve also put some away to slowly clear and age. Eventually bottling it so that it can have a nice fizz.
I’ll let you know in a few months how the “special brew” turns out!
Hello Everyone! I have been reviewing my product descriptions and I have been re-evaluating the contents of each page. I feel that there is not enough oomph (or heart) in my words and I would like to do a better job in translating our inspiration and creativeness into words. So far, I have re-done the pages for the soaps and it is my hope that I have enthused some of our fun-loving charm into it all! The previous descriptions were really drab, formularised “copy and paste” drivel. I will be re-writing the page contents in an effort to keep up with our philosophy in doing everything with focus and awareness. Anyway, expect to see more thoughtful product descriptions as I am preparing the way for the Grand Opening of The Apothecary very soon!!
Today was a good day to make some lime sulphur, a smelly concoction that has multiple uses as a fruit tree anti-fungal and as a pet dip for things like mange and ringworm.
One of my friends is trying to grow grapes, which in this climate are very susceptible to a plethora of fungal diseases; he asked me to make some lime sulphur for him since I am a Gnome and Gnomes like messing around with smelly stuff. Also, I am a Catholic Gnome, and obviously Brimstone, Smelliness, Catholic and Gnome are a match made in Heaven (hee, hee, hee…)!
Anyway, you need sulphur or brimstone…
Flowers of Sulphur.
And you need white lime…
White Lime.
And you boil them together…
Boiling Sulphur and Lime together.
…to get Lime Sulphur.
It is dirty, smelly work and you need to be careful as it is quite poisonous and caustic though the sulphurous fumes of brimstone are very soul-cleansing!!
After boiling for a while it looks like this…
Lime Sulphur Transformation Complete.
…a dark red-brown-rotten-egg-smelling liquid…
If you want to make your own…look at my recipe in Bored-In-Belize: Making Lime Sulphur.
Today was supposed to be a day of hard outside work, the coconuts still need more cleaning and weeding but…the plans of mice and men aften go astray…so the rain and cold weather decreed. The next best thing, I guess, is to bottle some of that New Year’s Eve Brown Ale I made.
