How Tos & Tutorials – Farcyde's Stuff

Cider Making, the Second Stage

(This is part III of the cider making series. Read part I and part II here.)

It seems the primary fermentation has come to a halt do far, so it’s time to transfer everything into another vessel and let the secondary fermentation take it’s course. The correct english term for this seems to be “racking the cider off it’s lees”.

While the primary fermentation is about yeast cells converting sugar into alcohol and CO², the second fermentation is lactic acid bacteria converting malic acid into lactic acid and CO² and give the brew a smoother, less sour taste. It occurs naturally and spontaneously when the liquid is transferred to a storage container and the yeast is no longer the dominant microbiological species in the soon-to-be cider.

Cider Making, the Preliminaries

April 5, 2021 farcyde

(This is part II of the cider making series. Read part I and part III here.)

Yeah! Some cidermaking progress! I got some apples from a local shop (a little less than 10 kg) and de-juiced them using my apple press. I’m not going to write a book on cider making here (in fact, I just can’t due to lack of experience…) but I want to give an outline:

At the beginning there’s always sanitizing the equipment. Just like with brewing beer (which I did often in the past), clean and sanitized tools and containers are crucial for a good outcome. A good way to to deep clean things is laundry bleach. Follow the instructions on the bottle and make sure to rinse everything most thoroughly with water after treating.

April 2, 2021 farcyde

I officially declare the mushroom season open! And to honor this appropriately, I’ve started new king oyster mushroom cultures that I hope will thrive and grow. This time, I used store-bought grain spawn (this shop is cool, give these guys a try!) – the last propagating attempt with the used up mycelium didn’t work out sooo well.

The whole action doesn’t take much time and effort (and it’s perfectly doable, sitting, with a broken knee…). But it is absolutely vital that you work as cleanly as possible, so to give your spawn an edge over any possible competing contaminats. I’ve got two versions:

November 26, 2020 farcyde

I read about this in my doctor’s waiting room in – I shit you not – a women’s magazine. Mediterranean/French style easy homemade butter! They adressed several different seasonings and further uses in the article, but the basic procedure is always the same. All you need is a food processor and half a liter of heavy cream (get the real enchilada: 30% fat). After having my TBE shot, I knew what I had to do…

How to: Prepare Sauerkraut…

November 16, 2020 farcyde

… the traditional german way – or not?

Sauerkraut is so german it even gave us our name 🙂 , it’s very widespread in the nation, very regionally diverse and versatile. It is part of the traditional german cuisine, mostly eaten as a side dish but also as a full meal when made with the appropriate ingredients. It’ very healthy – for example for it’s contents of vitamin C which even increases when cooked.

There’s what feels like a gazillion ways of preparing sauerkraut in germany alone (and I bet there are even more recipes all over the world). To condense these down to some kind of a standard formula that everything else can be built upon, here’s my way. BTW: We’re talking fresh and unprocessed Sauerkraut here, not the pre-cooked, canned version from the supermarket.

Home Made Sauerkraut Tutorial

October 24, 2020 farcyde

Update october 2020: New sauerkraut, substantially more information added 🙂

Since I happen to be a “Kraut” by birth, I decided to home-make my own Sauerkraut. Fermentation using wild lactobacillus is an ages-old and easy way of preserving almost every reasonably hard/crunchy vegetable you like. It’s easy and for our grandparent’s generation it was a perfectly common thing to do.

So what is this “fermentation thing” all about? Fermentation is latin and means the decomposing of carbohydrates in foods by various bacteria or yeasts with no oxygen around. Besides improving digestability, this produces a wide variety of distinct aromatics and other substances, the most important one being acid (lactic acid in this case). Harmful bacteria cannot thrive in an oxygen-free, acidic environment, thus, our food becomes preserved.

October 2, 2020 farcyde

I have an acquaintance who has never used a charcoal chimney. He’s not particularly a BBQ-type of person anyway, but he wanted to know how it works. So I dug out my trusty old chimney, fired it up and used it right away to try out my recently made indoor grill.

How To: Make a Roux

September 10, 2020 farcyde

Roux – Stolen Image (allrecipes.com)

I was asked by a member of the extended family circle about a recipe requiring a roux.

So let’s make a “Roux“… Ahh… yeah, right. Sure. Of course. This is french. It’s pronounced ( /ˈruː/ ) and this sounds sooo much better than the german Mehlschwitze, which – honestly – sounds more like a sore throat 🙂 .

A roux is used as a basis for things like heavy sauces, soups or stews. It thickens them up and makes them creamy and rich. Since it’s a base-ingredient, it is very versatile and can be used for a wide variety of cooking tasks from the standard french cuisine mother sauce Béchamel up to New Orleans Gumbo. Google “roux usage” and you’ll see what I mean.

Some people find making a roux a little intimidating because, yes, you can absolutely screw it up, but if you follow these simple steps here, I promise you’ll nail it every time. It’s no magic.

August 25, 2020 farcyde

I had a friend of mine over these days with two well-used and now dull knives – this inspired me to write this article. At a certain point of knife usage, just honing a blade’s edge won’t do the job anymore and you will have to re-sharpen your knife and give it a nice clean edge again.

This is how I do this with all my knives, kitchen or outdoor, in this case using a Lansky knife-sharpening-system (which I know is discussed controversially on the internet). With a little training and devotion you can achieve excellent results with it – and in a much easier way than with a traditional whetstone. This is my way to do it and it works absolutely satisfying for me.

Tips on Cold Smoking

January 23, 2020 farcyde

I plan on smoking some meat again shortly, so I find it’s a good idea to gather and sum up my experiences on cold smoking a little. I will not describe the actual processes and mechanisms of smoking foods here, but if you’re interested, read on on wikipedia. It’s worth the time.

There are three types of smoking:

Hot smoking (60 – 110 °C / 140 – 230 °F):
This is what you do in a BBQ smoker. More delicious cooking than actual smoking.

Warm smoking (25 – 60 °C / 77 – 140 °F):
The intermediate thing. Some Proteins begin to denaturate at these temperatures.

Cold smoking (10 – 25 °C / 50 – 77 °F):
The “original” way of smoking, used for centuries to conserve goods. The only method discussed here.

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Farcyde's Stuff

Category: How Tos & Tutorials

Cider Making, the Second Stage

(This is part III of the cider making series. Read part I and part II here.)

Cider Making, the Preliminaries

(This is part II of the cider making series. Read part I and part III here.)

Mushroom Growing 2021

Homemade Butter: How To

How to: Prepare Sauerkraut…

Home Made Sauerkraut Tutorial

How To: Use a Charcoal Chimney

How To: Make a Roux

Tutorial: Knife Care with a Sharpening System

Tips on Cold Smoking

There are three types of smoking:

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Farcyde's Stuff

Category: How Tos & Tutorials

(This is part III of the cider making series. Read part I and part II here.)

(This is part II of the cider making series. Read part I and part III here.)

There are three types of smoking:

All Categories:

30 Days Top 3:

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I’m (somewhat) social too!

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Notes on Advertising:

Disclaimer: