29 January 2013

お酒 と きつね!

O-sake and kitsune, that is!

My nascent sake smells amazing and the weather is cooperating, giving us below freezing temps here in CO. Of course, the sake doesn't want to be that cold, but it helps to keep the closet where the sake lives nice and chilly- between 45 and 50, preferably. Luckily, my apt has cinderblock walls, so the chilly air gets in nicely. You might think its odd that I saw "luckily" with regards to my leaky apartment, but in the case of making sake, it is very lucky! I guess you could say that if I had a less leaky apartment, I could spend the extra money I save on the electric bill on store-bought sake, but that's no fun, now is it? Tomorrow begins the preparation for the もろみ Moromi or "dancing ferment".

On the other hand, the ales I'm making do not so much like the cold weather, and we've actually had to raise the thermostat up to a balmy 66 degrees so the yeast don't putter out and give us a stuck fermentation. My heaviest beer to date is currently fermenting, so let's hope the yeast can handle the sub-par temps and give me a delicious vanilla porter!

ANNNNNDDD I am officially a proud submitter of t-shirt designs to Threadless! Hooray! They are having a contest with the theme "East meets West", and I managed to come up with something just under the wire! I had a bunch of good ideas, but only the time to execute a group of Foxfire Kitsune bumping into a lost Bigfoot in a nameless Japanese forest. I think its pretty cute! I will post a link when I get the word from Threadless that its live!

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