The Potato Project

How about another garden post? This year we're growing potatoes for the first time, but I'm trying something a little different. One of the problems of growing potatoes in a bed is that potatoes are subject to a wide and interesting variety of diseases and over time your bed will probably develop blight. So you'll need to rotate beds at least every three years. On top of that, potatoes need to be mounded, so they also take up a lot of space.

Or do they? One solution is to grow them in containers. As the plant grows, you 'mound' by raising the dirt level in the container. Every time it is about 4" above the soil you add 3" of new dirt. The plant responds by growing taller, and will start to shoot off future potatoes from the newly buried stalk. When the season is over you can just dump the whole container out on a tarp and sift through it to find the taters. If it looks like there's a disease afflicting one container, it is isolated to that container's soil, which can be disposed of.

I've seen people grow them in a variety of things. Garbage cans, old oil drums, packed earth columns. A stack of old tires is interesting: as the plant grows you just stack on tires and fill with more dirt. So I decided to try a few different things, with the goal of finding something cheap or recycled that works well. At the end of the season I'll weigh the potatoes harvested from each container and compare.

First up are two big storage lugs that I got at Home Depot for about $4 each. They're 18 gallon capacity. I took a 3/8" spade bit and drilled drainage holes all around the bottom. Then put in about 3" of moisture control potting soil. (Potatoes do not like wet toes.) Then put four little Certified Seed Potatoes in and covered them with about an inch of soil. Pros: cheap, easy, big, reusable. Cons: cost $ (though not much), not recycled, possible chemical transfer from cheap-ass plastic?

Second, a cardboard box. I know this seems crazy, and it might be, but hear me out. It only has to last for one season, and if you've ever left cardboard outside for a while it holds up better than you'd think. And at the end of the season I can just toss the whole thing in the compost bin. This one was a leftover box from a 6-gallon carboy, and my only concern is that it may be too small. Poked some holes in the bottom and planted as above, but only three seed potatoes. Pros: free, recycled, compostable. Cons: chance it will completely fall apart on me. But I can always use duct-tape to reinforce it.

Third, a malt bag. A leftover Maris Otter bag to be precise. Took the plastic inside-liner out and rolled the bag down the sides. The plastic mesh should drain well. Filled and planted as above, again only three potatoes. My favorite part: as the plants grow I can just unroll the bag up as it fills, meaning the plants will probably get more light in the early stages (not being shaded by the walls of the container). Pros: free, possibly reusable(?), recyclable, quite large, and the whole-roll-up-thing is neat. Cons: a bit floppy, I'll have to lean it against something as it gets more full.

So now we let them grow. I'm planting "All Blue" purple potatoes and Yukon Golds. All the purples are in, and soon as I get another malt bag and reasonably same size cardboard box I'll get the last of the Yukons in. I'm hoping to end up with 30-40 lbs of each by the end of the season. We'll see.

UPDATE 9/17/10

The Final Results

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Let the turnip feast commence!

This Hakurei Turnip was the first non-herb thing harvested from our garden this year!
It was crowding out the others, who are all still a few more days from harvest. It's cute!

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Brewday: Get It Right IPA

I have a confession to make. Two of my most favorite beer styles are IPAs and American Pale Ales, and I haven't ever made a good one. I don't know what it is, but I just never end up making one that I like. Perhaps I'm a bit hyper-critical of my efforts, or perhaps I was getting sub-par hops in Florida. Either way I've got a bit of a New Year's Resolution going... make a good IPA and an APA this year.

Here's the first try. I tend to follow Vinny of Russian River when it comes to IPA theory. Make it light, keep the caramel malts down under 5%, ferment it dry, let the hops speak. It is India Pale Ale, after all. I'm giving Wyeast's Northwest Ale strain a try too, it's the Hale's Ales house strain. I'm using Columbus for bittering because I've got a gallon bag of them from Fremont Brewing in the freezer. Centennials for flavor and aroma, and some Amarillo for aroma too. It will be dryhopped with Cascade and Amarillo, because I've got those in pellet form. Here the conical will shine, I think. Finally, taking a page from the Big Book of British Brewing I'm adding a pound of invert sugar. This should ferment out completely, adding alcohol without boosting body and residual sweetness.

Brewday went well enough, but disaster soon struck. The new conical has a long dial thermometer, which goes down from the lid into the beer. On pitching it said the beer was at 50 degrees, so I got the electric blanket going on full blast to pull it back up. The next day the beer was at 65 on the dial, when I touched the side and noticed that it was markedly warmer than the room. Some swearing commenced and I yanked the thermometer. Some testing with boiling and near freezing water showed that it was off by nearly 20 degrees, and that the beer had been heated to 84 degrees. $#%&*$#@$%^%$##!!!!!!! The cloud of profanity rose into the atmosphere, where it then came down like acid rain all over the city. So if your plants die or your clothes bleach, sorry. Anyhow, the beer was rocking by that point and there was no realistic way to cool it without crashing the yeast. So I had to relax, have a homebrew, and just let it go. We'll see if it's undrinkably full of weird horrible fusel alcohols and phenolics, or whether it survived relatively unscathed. A local brewery, which shall remain nameless to protect the innocent, recently had their glycol system go down and an IPA go that hot in one of their fermenters. They couldn't distribute it, for quality control reasons, but I got to try it at the brewery. It was fine. So there's hope. It calmed down to 67 within a couple days. Ugh.

Funny thing about progress: ever notice that when you introduce something new into an established system, something inevitably goes horribly, horribly wrong, causing you to doubt the usefulness of your supposed 'improvement'? The conical has some serious growing pains going on right now.

IPA version 1.0

6 gal., All Grain
OG: 1.065 / FG: 1.014ish
SRM: 7.5
IBU: 65
ABV: 6.5%

• 11 lbs Pale Malt
• 1 lb Munich
• 4 oz Carapils
• 4 oz Crystal 40
• 1 oz Chocolate Malt
• 1 lb Invert Sugar (add in the last few minutes of the boil)
  

Mash at 154, Mash out at 168. Water Mods: 2 gm Chalk, 4 gm Gypsum, 1 gm Epsom Salts, 1 gm Kosher Salt.

90 min boil:

• 1.25 oz Columbus (aka Zeus, Tomahawk) leaf at 14.4% AA, First Wort Hop
• Whirlfloc at 15 minutes left.
  
• 1 oz Centennial, leaf, @ 9.5% AA @ 15 min
• 1 oz Centennial @ 2 min
• 1/2 oz Amarillo pellets at flameout
• 1/2 oz Cascade pellets at flameout
• 1/2 oz Amarillo pellets, dry hop 3 days
• 1/2 oz Cascade pellets, dry hop 3 days
  

Yeast is Wyeast Northwest Ale, 1 L starter on the stir-plate. Ferment as I say, 68-70, not as I do, 80-66.

To Make Invert Sugar:

Known as Lyle's Golden Syrup in the UK, invert sugar is just normal table sugar that's been boiled in the presence of an acid. This breaks the sucrose down into glucose and fructose, and sets it as a syrup. Yeast have an easier time eating the simpler sugars, so it ferments out almost completely. This boosts the alcohol, without upping the residual sweetness, resulting in a dryer, lighter tasting beer and upping the yeast's possible attenuation level. And it's easy and cheap to make.

• 1 lb white sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 t Cream of Tartar (tartaric acid. You could also use lemon juice, lactic or phosphoric acid, etc.)
  

Bring to a boil on the stove for at least 5 minutes or so. The longer you cook it the more it will caramelize. If you want funky, complex caramel flavors cook it somewhere between light amber and black. If you just want it to ferment, without adding color or much flavor, just boil a few minutes until it's clear or light yellow. It'll keep in a jar for months, or you can add it to the last few minutes of the boil, or into the fermenter as high krausen starts to ebb.

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Tomatoes

This Sunday the first tomato starts appeared in the Farmer's Market. We had a 2x6 bed all ready to go, but I was concerned about the cold and wet stunting them. We're past any frost danger, but it's still going to be cold and rainy for another month or so. A brilliant solution was arrived at by my lovely wife: use the plastic tarp I'd bought to cover the mound of dirt as a penny-conscious cloche for the bed.

So there it is. Stapled to the back of the bed, suspended over some of last year's tomato cages, and held down in front with some radish pots. It's easily 5-10 degrees warmer in there, and with the ends open it gets good airflow to keep the humidity down. The tarp and cages were technically being reused, and all in all this cost about $1.50. Hopefully, the added warmth of the cloche will let us start harvesting tomatoes in mid-late June, easily a month earlier than normal.

Unfortunately rain is pooling in areas on the top. I go out and knock the puddles off once a day or so, but if this becomes bad I'll go get some PVC and make a more rain-friendly frame.

There are four tomato plants. The first is Sun Gold, cherry tomatoes grow amazingly well in Seattle. Second, Black Prince - a black tomato variety from Siberia, well suited to Northern climates. Third is a variety called Prudence, which I believe is a big ol' beefsteaky heirloom type. Finally, San Marzano Romas, so we can sauce and can some for Fall and Winter. All of these are indeterminate varieties so I'll have to rig a trellising system when they get a bit bigger. I'm done with tomato cages.

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Brewday: Jasmine IPA

A while back I got my grubby mitts on a recipe for Elysian's Avatar Jasmine IPA. We were living in Miami at the time, seriously missing it; it's one of my wife's faves. Fortunately, I was able to brew a reasonable facsimile. And since I bought jasmine on the internet, it was... in bulk. Nearly a pound of it to be exact. Time to use some more of it.

You may notice that it's a bit low on the IBU side for an IPA. But if you've ever had over-steeped jasmine tea, you know it can get a bit bitter. The problem is how bitter? So err on the light side and let the jasmine do the rest. Also I change the hops in this thing pretty much every time I brew it. This time I had Columbus and Amarillos around, so there you go. I've used Magnum and Horizon to good effect. Any 'clean' flavor and aroma hop will work. In the past I have also noted that the jasmine really doesn't come out until it's finished, cold, and carbonated. So have faith.

Speaking of faith, it was the brewday from hell. Scale decided to freak out, wouldn't measure small amounts. (Turned out the batteries were dying.) Mash-in was off by 15 degrees due to computer error. (I'd changed some of the mash settings in BeerSmith and it didn't adjust for the new hot liquor volume) Then the valve on my Hot Liquor Tank gave out and sprayed my hand with 170 degree water. (Ow ow ow.) I was running out of propane, it started to rain on me, my lighter got wet, and so I had to light the burner with a match, resulting in more burns. (Ow.) But eventually the sun came out and I think the beer will be great. Of course the repitched yeast from the conical took over 24 hours to get going, during which time I'd bought more yeast as a CYA, which I smacked at the store so it would be ready to pitch after we ran some errands downtown. But the car got locked-in overnight in a parking garage with inadequate signage, so the yeast didn't get pitched until another day later. The pack was so swollen, I was afraid it was going to pop in the trunk.

This batch is, apparently, cursed.

JASMINE IPA (*cursed)

5.25 gallons, All Grain
OG: 1.064 / FG: 1.014
SRM: 6
IBU 43
ABV: 6.4%

• 11 lbs Pale Malt
• 1 lb Munich
• 4 oz Crystal 40
• 4 oz Carahell

Mash at 154. Mash Water Mods: 1 gm Chalk, 3 gm Gypsum, 1 gm Epsom Salts, 1 gm Kosher Salt.

90 minute boil.

• 3/4 oz Columbus (leaf) @ 14% AA for 90 min
• Whirlfloc tab at 15 min
  
• 1.5 oz Dried Jasmine Flowers @ 10 min
  
• 1.5 oz Amarillo (pellet) @ 8% AA for 5 min
• 1 oz Dried Jasmine at flameout
  
• 1 oz Amarillo at flameout
  

Using Wyeast 1056 American Ale Yeast. Fermenting in the mid-high 60's.

UPDATE: It bubbled along happily for 8 days, and at transfer to the Secondary it was just fine. Whew.

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Goose Egg

Last Week Seabreeze had goose eggs! Having never had a goose egg, we picked one up. I then carried it around in the padded protection of the pocket of my down vest for an hour while we finished up shopping; all the while envisioning disaster, wherein some lady would push a stroller into me or my seat-belt would crush the egg. Safely home, we poached it, the biggest damn poached egg I've ever seen, and served it on top of a large chef's salad. Excellent.

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Sake Update IV: Racking

After about two weeks in the lager fridge the sake had settled nicely and it was time to rack it off the remaining kasu.


I used two 1-gallon jugs to contain it, which was just about the perfect volume. The jugs went into a hot water bath until they hit an internal temp of 140. Then on went a growler lid.

This should pasteurize them, remove excess co2, and help them keep a lot longer while they mellow a bit. I figure two months should do it. Right now it's technically muroka, or unfiltered sake. But I want it to be seishu, clear sake. So I'll hit them with some bentonite about a week before I run them through my wine filter. Then it's into bottles, re-pasteurize, and drink!

So far taste tests of the muroka have led to a verdict of: delicious. I'm very optimistic about the final product. Just have to wait two months...

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