Oh, and also some buckwheat.
This buckwheat was planted back at the beginning of July. It has been watered regularly and is now 3-4 feet tall. A decision has to be made at this point.
Once the flowers are formed, the protein content in the stalks and leaves is at its maximum level. If cut now, it will have the maximum value as a livestock feed, or a green manure. If left to grow, the plant will shift all its sugar and nitrogen reserves into making seeds, and the stalks and leaves will rapidly lose their palatability. This crop is destined for grain production for a friend of ours, so we are going to let it go until we harvest it in September.
In the meantime, other projects are ongoing. Like making alcohol.
The blackberry mead and wine have been in primary fermentation for 5 days, so we are prepping to transfer it to secondary fermentation. This is done by means of a siphon. However, last year with our cider making attempts, we had issues with getting the siphon to run smoothly. The starting pump essentially pumped air into the hose due to the seal being cheap and leaky. Sucking on it worked okay, except that there was no way to close the tube off when transferring it from your mouth to the reservoir. So I came up with this setup. It has two valves, and three hoses. The long hose is placed in the source reservoir, and the middle length hose is set in the receiving reservoir. Both have a shut-off valve attached. The top hose, the really short one, has no valve. To start flow, place the receiving vessel lower than the bottom of the source vessel, put the middle length tube into it and close off its valve. Set the long tube into the source vessel and open its valve. Place your mouth on the short hose, and suck on it like a straw to pull fluid into the long hose until it is completely full. Just as it gets to the brass fitting, close its shut-off valve. Place your thumb over the short hose, and then open both valves. This should flow smoothly. It worked great on our practice runs, running the sanitizing solution through the hoses.
All containers and equipment sanitized and left to air out overnight.
And here is Ellie, learning important life skills.
Like how a siphon works. It is important to know.
It worked great, except when I let my thumb off the end and let air into the line, and then couldn’t figure out how to get it restarted again.
Apparently, somewhere in the cleaning process we lost the moving parts to one of the air locks. Nothing we can’t fix with a rubber band and a medical glove (just cut a tiny hole in the end of one finger, slide it over the mouth of the air lock so that it flops down, and rubber band it in place.
All set for secondary fermentation.
Then we strained out the blackberry liqueur that we put in the refrigerator in mid July.
Very beautiful and tasty, with a round, full blackberry flavor, and a creamy texture, a little immature at present, but a few more months (or years) in the refrigerator should fix that.
We need classier stickers.
Little Farm in the Big City 