Ginger Bug Recipe CORRECTION

I bottled the ginger beer. It is still sitting out, and I am waiting for bubbles to reappear before I stick it in the fridge.

As I was forwarding the link to the recipe, I noticed that in my haste to share this with you, I made a mistake: I added 1 cup of sugar, not water. That should be water, of course, and preferably filtered water, because the chlorine in unfiltered tap water will weaken (or even kill) the natural yeasts that will make your bug ferment.

~

8 am

This might be nothing to others in the world, but to me, that’s cooooold.

Of Bees and Birds

The hive in the distance. Gotta go dig it out.

Some wading and digging and it’s done.

The new dead bees at the entrance means the bees in there are still alive, trying to clear out the die-off. They’re well insulated now in that blanket of snow, as long as the hive gets some ventilation. I am eager for that first day of temperatures in the higher 40s, when I can go and take a peek and maybe even move some honey frames closer to the cluster, or feed if necessary. I’ll have to wait a while still, because after some really cold nights (- 9 F = – 22.7 C) we’re looking at yet another snow storm.

I also put more seeds and nut in the bird feeder, which was on the way to the hive anyway.

~

When not wading through 3 feet of snow, I am reading two new books, wonderful books by wonderful people, Nancy and Michael Phillips’ The Herbalist Way and Michael Phillips’ The Apple Grower. Wow, I want to learn and do too many things at once. Better start making up a budget…

Bug to Beer. And Growing Ginger and Turmeric

Bubbles!

The Ginger Bug is bubbling so I’m moving on to the next stage of brewing a good beer: adding the culture to the base (water, more ginger and sugar/honey) and letting it ferment away some more. I’m making a little less than a gallon,  about 6 wine bottles, I should say.

DH made some wine a many years ago (it was really good), and so we have carboys in several sizes. You could use a milk container but 1) they’re plastic and 2) they’re not clear, which makes keeping an eye on the fermentation difficult. Also, 3) you need to find a way of closing the container, and that flimsy cap won’t do it, it’ll blow right off as the fermentation keeps going. DH’s carboy comes with a stopper with an airlock. Perfect!

A week to two weeks to my first ginger beer!

~

I want to grow ginger root, or rather, ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale). It seems challenging in a cold climate – it needs about 8-10 months of growing time and is not cold-hardy, so it has to come inside for a large part of the year. And inside I am still struggling with the whiteflies and the aphids – the neem seems to have gotten the majority, but the survivors are recolonizing rapidly. Keeping humidity-loving, pest-prone exotics happy in the extra dry winter indoors is not easy.

Nevertheless I want to give it a try, and while I’m at it I’ll also try to grow ginger’s relative, turmeric (Curcuma longa), another great medicinal and culinary rhizome, if I can find a fresh root somewhere.

~

More snow is coming down. It’ll have added 7 to 8 inches by the time it’s done. I  don’t think that  I’ve ever seen so much accumulated snow in the twelve years that I’ve lived in the Boston area. School is canceled for an unprecedented second day int he history of our town. I will have to go out to dig out the hoop house and the beehive. I’ll have to wade through snow up to my knees. A plus is that it is making me take a closer look at where to put the chicken coop.

If we want to make a snowman we’ll have to do it today. After today we’re looking at a couple of days of excrutiating cold – minus 5 (F) Sunday night!

Echinacea Tincture in the Making

Today I started an Echinacea tincture. Don’t know why I waited this long (and will have to wait for 6 more weeks) . This winter I’ve already spent a good $40 on store-bought tincture – gah! You can make it for about $2 a bottle at home, and control the ingredients too.

It’s a 1:5 Echinacea purpurea dried root tincture made with 80 proof vodka (that’s 40 grams of dried, powdered herb in 200 ml of vodka).

I’ve ordered more herbs, more glass dropper bottles and a stainless steel funnel from Mountain Rose Herbs. I need to find a cheap and local source of large quantities of 100 proof vodka ($20 for 750 ml at the liquor store) and 190 proof alcohol. Because this time I used dried herb I could get away with the cheaper 80 proof, but I’ll want to tincture fresh ginger root soon.

I’m using James Green’s Herbal Medicine-Maker’s Handbook. It’s very user-friendly for the beginner and encouraging. I ordered Nancy Phillips’ book The Herbalist Way as well as Michael Phillips‘ The Apple Grower. I got to peruse both books at my leisure at the NOFA conference and was very impressed.

So I’m back to the gotta-shake-my-tincture (in addition to gotta-feed-my-bug) days. Tomorrow I hope to start up the bread-baking again. Then we’ll be more or less back into our routine.

Ginger Bug and Ginger Beer

Yesterday I had great fun at the NOFA Mass. Winter Conference. (I took my red scarf off, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.)

One of the things I learned, from Sarah Shields of Birch Moon Farm & Herbals, was how to use fermentation from airborne yeasts to carbonate drinks. I just started my first ginger bug, so soon we’ll have ginger beer!

Here’s the recipe:

  • The BUG (OR CULTURE): FERMENTATION

Combine

  • 2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger (or dry ginger powder)
  • 2 teaspoons of sugar
  • 1 cup of water (preferably not chlorinated)

{UPDATE: I corrected a mistake in my earlier recipe: 1 cup of WATER, not of extra sugar! My apologies!}

{UPDATE: honey – an antibacterial – will inhibit the yeast you’re trying to grow. So be sure to use mostly or all sugar.}

Leave the bug in a mason jar on the counter, with a cheesecloth over it so it will draw the yeasts from the air but not get dust in it. Every day feed it 2 teaspoons of ginger and 2 teaspoons of sugar. Stir it twice a day to aerate it. After about 2 days – 1 week (depending on how warm your house is) you will see bubbles going up to the top. And you’ll hear it, bubbling away – it’s like listening in on thousands of little bugs having a dinner party. At that point it’s ready: fermentation has started.  After that you can feed it every 2 days but it’s best to use it straightaway in the beer.

  • The WORT = the base

Bring to  a boil:

  • 1/2 gallon of water
  • 3-6 inches of fresh grated ginger root

simmer 20 minutes, add water to taste (let it cool down a bit first!). While still warm, add

  • 1 1/2  cup of sugar

Pour the whole thing into a gallon container. Let it cool to room temp, add the juice of two lemons (or oranges), which will slow down the fermentation. Then add the ginger bug (either with or without the sediment – keep some sediment for making more bug).

Keep the jar on the counter, with cheesecloth, and stir twice a day. Keep it warm and keep an eye on it.  It could take from 3 days to to 1-2 weeks (again, depending on the temperature) to get ready. Taste it once in a while. If the bubbles rising up at the edge, it’s usually ready.

  • BOTTLE: CARBONATION

Bottle the beer. Leave the bottles out for 1-2 more days.

Keep an eye on them! Sarah kept warning us: IT’S ALIIIIIIIVE! She had many stories of exploding bottles and soda geisers when opened {UPDATE: yes, it also happened to me}. That is why corking is better, for the beginner, than capping. If the fermentation runs out of room in the bottle, it will blow out the cork, or it will explode a capped bottle. Both are messy, but the latter is more so, and dangerous. If you add fruits (and thus more sugar, i.e., food for the bacteria), then cut the fermentation and carbonation times in half and watch them even more closely.

When the yeast ferments the sugars (which it will keep doing unless it gets too cold), it produces CO2. Closing off the container at this point will force that CO2 into the liquid instead of letting it escape, thus carbonating your soda, or making it fizzy.

After several days, put the bottles in the fridge to stop the fermentation. It is ready to drink.

These drinks are usually not alcoholic. But as it’s alive and it depends on many factors, it will be up to you to tell…

Neem for Aphids and Whiteflies

This is what the view out of the window looks like at the moment. Glorious!

DH and I spent three hours digging out our driveway on Wednesday (1 1/2 feet of heavy  snow over about  2000 sq.f) and it had been a long time since I had been that exhausted. As I trudged back up our hill and felt like just falling down, face first into the snow, like you see in the movies. Instead I took a hot shower and took a two-hour nap.

But where are the plants – the overwintering peppers, the herbs – you might ask. Good question.

They’re in the tub.

The plants started out with a population of aphids and whiteflies from the beginning. I kept a lid on the infestation by washing them once every four weeks. I’d never get all of them, of course, so they would repopulate, but they never got to affect the plants too badly.

Then we left for India for three weeks and took a week to recuperate and BAM: population overshoot! It was pretty bad and some of the habaneros might not survive. But some of these pepper plants are overwintering for the second time, and they are my best producers, so today I washed the whole lot again and sprayed neem oil.  Let’s hope it does the job without stressing out the plants too much.

There was a neem tree right in front of my parents-in-law’s flat in Calcutta, where it is thought of as the Sacred Tree. The leaves taste really bitter. DH told me a horror story of how he had to eat neem leaves fried in oil.

Neem tree (not the one mentioned) on the left

~

And now back to here and now:

What a contrast! Well, I guess I won’t be visiting the hoop house any time soon… But I will be at the NOFA MA Winter Conference tomorrow. Maybe I’ll see you there? I’ll be the one wearing a red scarf!

Last Summer Harvests

Today’s harvest of pepper, from the pepper plants I brought indoors. The bell pepper is from a plant I started from seed in March 2009.

We finished the last tomatoes that were still ripening after I pulled them green, in November. of all the tomatoes in that picture, 99% ripened and was eaten. The cherry tomatoes fared best in this. Very few rotted, a couple obstinately stayed green, and a few shriveled in the drought of the kitchen. The good ones were as tasty as your average super market tomato.

~

As always I am having some trouble getting back into blogging. Bear with me.

How are the Bees Doing?

Right before we left for India and for quite some time while we were away the weather was bitter cold. Aside from the winter crop in the hoop house (all doing well), the weak spot on our property where cold matters is our bees.

I decided early on in the game not to medicate, feed or wrap the hive. We’re going to need bees that can thrive in this climate. If this colony does not survive, I will try another queen, or another breed of bee altogether, until I find the one that does. That will be the queen to breed queens from.

So it was with some trepidation that I approached my hive and saw the landing board strewn with dead bees. During winter there is no rearing of brood. The bees just huddle in a ball to stay warm and wait for warmer temperatures. If the queen and enough bees survive to get started up again in Spring, the colony has survived. Bees die before then, of the cold (if they’re on the outside of the ball), starvation and preferably just simply of age. Their fellow bees do not have the opportunity to rid the hive of the bee bodies. So they pile up.

But how to check if the colony is doing well? If I open the box, I’d chill them and stress them badly. So I put my ear to the hive box and heard…

a buzz!

There are some bees alive in there. It’s hard to know how many, what shape they’re in and how much food they have left and if they can reach it. That we will know in a couple of months, as soon as we are graced with a day warm enough to take a quick peek.

~

While I was checking out the hive a bee clambered out, dragged herself to the edge of the landing board, keeled over and fell down into the snow. There she shuddered, then lay motionless. I picked her up and brought her inside, wanting to see if she had any deformities or mites piggy-backing on her. Soon after coming into the warmth, she revived and I quickly put a bell jar above her. I am now feeding her some honey (from her own colony). I wonder how long she will survive.

We’re Back

New Delhi street view

Well, we made it there and back again, but we’re not in good shape. The trip is 32 hours door to door, in 3 airplanes, through 4 airports and too many security checks. Disturbed sleep or near-total lack of it in my case (very light sleeper and insomniac), irregular eating of warmed-over food and, especially in my case, very little of it (mild but constant motion sickness), and the folding of time itself (Calcutta is 10.5 hours ahead of Boston), and the breathing in of the dense pollution of India’s big cities — all do a decent job of lowering one’s immunity to the billions of strange germs one comes into contact with.

Goofing around in front of the Taj Mahal

Long story short, we’re all of us down with jetlag, coughs and colds, and jetlag. It’s 4 am and Amie is watching How to Train Your Dragon and coughing incessantly. My nose is running and my ears are ringing and I want to go to sleep. DH, in Amie’s room (where her bed is but where she will not as yet deign to sleep) is awake too. Amie will miss school again tomorrow.

Rajastani apiary and mustard field

But it was worth it. We got to spend lots of time with family, including Amie’s great-grandmother, her grandparents, aunts and uncles and great-aunts and great-uncles and countless friends and other family. We flew North for five days to see Delhi, Agra (the Taj Mahal had just been cleaned up for Obama’s visit) and Jaipur, and even made a short trip to Shanteniketan (Tagore’s town, a three hour drive from Calcutta).

Lake garden at the Amber Fort in Jaipur

I got to see lots of apiaries in Rajastan, but was also introduced to the sad story of Indian bees and agriculture by an eighty-year-old botanist and organic activist and a West-Bengal based NGO. The news is not good. The temperatures are unusually high for winter,  the rivers and ponds are dried up (and the rainy season only starts in June). The pollution in the cities is atrocious, there is trash everywhere – much of it Western, no doubt – and most shops don’t even sell coke anymore: it’s all diet Coke. That little detail says so much.

Along the road to Shanteniketan

There is a lot to tell, but let me recuperate a bit first.