This is for those who are brewing beer, roasting coffee, curing meat, making condiments, pickling vegetables, or anything else that most people just buy commercially made. I know Tuckerfan makes plum ketchup, some of you make barbecue sauce. Recently I've started roasting my own coffee in a stainless steel wok on a gas burner on the roof of the building where I work. I buy my beans online for about five bucks a pound and they're delivered the next day. The roast isn't very even, but the results taste much better than anything I can get around here.
I used to have a co-worker who roasted his own beans. I think he did it in t he oven, which seems problematic to me, because I've always had the impression that the beans need to churn/turn somewhat continuously. The wok idea seems more promising. I don't know, I like the theory of doing it, but it's pretty low on my list for kitchen DIY. I frequently brew beer and make yogurt and granola. I have once made wine, and plan to do that again at some point. Pickles are on my list (higher than coffee), and maybe cheese. That's probably as far as it goes. Oh, yeah, I also make ice cream.
Flow has done tomatoes, and I have done pickles. I brew occasionally, I make make-up, lotion, and a shave cream, candles, an oil mixture that serves well as an anti microbial/bacterial/yeast/burn soother/diaper rash getter ridder of. There may be more. edit: I've made laundry soap.
I am considering making my own beer but I just don't know yet. I have pickled my own fish before. Just as tasy but way, way cheaper than the pickled herring you buy in the grocery store.
You have to keep the beans moving constantly. The first time I roasted I just put one skillet on top of another one and shook them around every 30 seconds or so like I saw in a youtube video. Some beans were nearly burnt, others were barely even roasted. Pickles are really easy to make. I've got a few jars of pickled bell peppers in my fridge right now. That reminds me of a cosmetics store I've seen in Seoul. They charge tons of money for little jars of homemade stuff. You're near Columbus, right? Stop by the homebrew shop there. It's a little hole in the wall on Britt David road past the elementary school. The guy who runs the place is really helpful and knows his stuff.
My son lives in Columbus, I'm in Augusta but we did have a home brewing store just open. It's either make my own beer, or make my own archery arrows, I won't have time for both. Then again I don't lose or break too many arrows to warrant having to make my own, but I certainly do run out of beer on a regular basis, so that does tip the scales toward beer. I'm really starting to fall in love with coffee/chocolate stouts and porters lately - is this a type of beer a novice can make at home?
Really? I need to look into this! Tonight I'm going to the craft beer place buying some Boulder (Colorado) Chocolate Shake Porter - all reviews rate it very highly! Just for fun I should ask if they accept EBT cards for payment.
Yep. Stouts, porters, and dark ales are a snap. Room temperature fermentation and not much that can go wrong. Brewing light lagers is where it gets tricky. Those take a longer cold fermentation, ideally require all-grain brewing, and flaws stand out pretty easily.
