BREAD...AND LIQUID BREAD

Now that we're settled down from the awesome holidays and a sad death in the family, Super Greeny and I are venturing into some uncharted - but long overdue - territory.  Homemade staples to our lives.  Bread and Beer. 

She had been making attempting to make homemade bread for a few years now and has had her ups and downs.  She makes some very good desert breads and a very good beer bread, but has not been able to master just a normal LOAF of bread.  It's tough.  The mixing, the kneading, do I have too little or too much yeast, how long should I let it rise, etc. 

So we received a bread maker for Christmas.  THE ANSWER TO ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS.  Or so we thought.  The first 8 batches turned out denser than a Tempur-Pedic mattress.

To this point - through trial and error and deductive reasoning we have baked 3 good loaves (just a normal white sandwich bread).  It's very good tasting, soft, and light.  Hopefully there are many more to come. 

I on the other hand, am jumping face first into the world of homemade liquid bread, or Home Brewing.  I have been wanting to do this for years now and it has finally happened.

Home brewing requires a lot more than you would seem to think to do it properly and with the most success, so I am currently turning a small room in my backroom in a "Brew room," with running water, temperature control, and plenty of storage for bottles.  Awesome.

Although I have been studying the art for a few years now, and have read probably 5 books on it, Super Greeny felt that for my first batch I shoud use a kit - and I agreed.  So I have a nice IPA kit that includes everything I need.  I do plan on using a yeast starter as opposed to simply adding it into the wort like the kit instructs, but other than that I'm going to follow their lead.

This is something I have been looking forward to for a long, long time so I'll definitely be sharing my adventures. 

Little Winger turned 2 on 12/31.  Greeny made her delicious apple cake (i'll share the recipe sometime) that he got to dive into.  He also had his first Lolli-pop.  Santa brought him some small organic pops, and he had it destroyed in 3 minutes.