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[Levi]

I'unno. An electric kettle boils water in a matter of a short few minutes, it certainly feels longer doing it on the stove.

Unless the rest of my prep is going to take a while, I always pre-boil in an electric kettle too. 

Update on my Thursday update: Things did not go according to plan. The wine store didn't have homebrewing equipment. Picked up some yeast and mysterious white powders yesterday during lunch from an actual homebrewing store. Picked up some bungs, airlocks, an auto-siphon, and a bunch of miscellaneous crap today. Here is the result:

Nice!  My mom has been brewing beer and ciders for a few years now.  Makes going back home a real treat.  Getting into brewing is something I'd like to do when I retire and have more time.

[Trekkin]

I'unno. An electric kettle boils water in a matter of a short few minutes, it certainly feels longer doing it on the stove.

It probably is. Electric kettles and stovetop burners both consume about 1.5 kW, but the kettle has the advantage that it's built to heat a fluid, so it can just stick the heating element directly in the water. The stove needs heat to go from the heating element through an essentially planar burner/kettle interface and then through the kettle wall before it reaches the water, so a lot of the heat is ultimately wasted to the air.

[Akura]

Interesting stuff on brewing. The house we're buying has grapes growing on the property, and my mom was considering making wine from that.

I'unno. An electric kettle boils water in a matter of a short few minutes, it certainly feels longer doing it on the stove.

It probably is. Electric kettles and stovetop burners both consume about 1.5 kW, but the kettle has the advantage that it's built to heat a fluid, so it can just stick the heating element directly in the water. The stove needs heat to go from the heating element through an essentially planar burner/kettle interface and then through the kettle wall before it reaches the water, so a lot of the heat is ultimately wasted to the air.

I agree that it's probably faster with a kettle. I've been using an electric kettle for months now, and it very much feels like it heats up faster.

[Jopax]

How much is there growing? Because you need a fuck ton of grapes to get any decent amount of wine, and a bunch of other stuff too, tools and storage included.

[Akura]

Not much. A few plants growing on maybe half a dozen trellises, I think. I've only gotten quick looks driving by the house. I'm pretty sure she's vastly overestimating her capabilities as a vintner. Plus now she's saying she wants to make jelly out of the grapes.

[Jopax]

Yeah, depending on how productive they are I doubt you'd get much jelly out of them either.

Tho in general, as my mother would say, it's a waste to do that stuff when you can just eat fresh grapes instead. You make shit out of them when you have too much and it's going to spoil otherwise.

[Kagus]

Yeah, but generally speaking good wine country is shitty grape country. Wine grapes and eating grapes are not entirely interchangeable.

[Trekkin]

Wine grapes and eating grapes are not entirely interchangeable.

Oh, wine grapes are awful to eat. The seeds are bitter, the skin is like rubber, the juice is too sweet and there's no pulp to speak of. The sugar content's about 36% higher than table grapes, too.

[Yoink]

I bought peanut butter for the first time in a while, and despite having danger words like "natural" and "stir me" on the label it is actually rather tasty! Hooray! I've bought "natural" peanut butter in the past that had the taste and texture of something one would use to stop up a leaky shower cubicle.

And, having acquired peanut butter, you know what that means, right?! Peanut butter and Vegemite sandwiches are back on the menu, boys!    

[Arx]

Proper high-quality peanut butter should come with warnings like "stir this stuff" 'cause it should be ~100% peanut, which makes the oil prone to separating out. It's difficult to mangle the taste and texture like that, although if you're used to processed (usually slightly sweetened) peanut butter it can seem a bit on the bitter side.

[Mephisto]

Tonight's dinner, seitan cacciatori (ish) and two sips of my five-day-old mead. Amazing.

We like meat. We've decided that we eat too much of it, however. Last week was a tofu experiment that turned out pretty well. This week was a cultural fusion, I suppose. Couscous, soy sauce, a shit load of asiago; Seitan, carrot, onion, veggie stock, garlic sauce, year-old wine, salt, pepper, and rosemary. It turned out so much better than we had dared hope. Texture is usually our big issue with "meat substitutes" but not this time.

And the mead. I degassed it for the first time today and geysered a pint of each into our sink. I couldn't help myself so I poured about two swallows into some stemless wine glasses. My wife was hesitant to drink the stuff that's been sitting in a dark closet for a week but she generally enjoyed it. The two-pound wildflower mead tasted exactly like a bottle from Moonlight Meadery that I had a while back. The 1.5-pound clover honey didn't really have much flavor - I think most of the flavor came from the craisins that I used for reasons. Fermentation isn't done, however. My estimation is that it's close given the large-ish amount of high-tolerance yeast and low-ish amount of honey in each. After fermentation, I rack to a new container and let it sit for another month or two in secondary to make it even better.

[Yoink]

Hail Seitan   

[Mephisto]

Hail Seitan   

Seitan, I release you from your prison!

Opens plastic packaging

[Iduno]

Tonight's dinner, seitan cacciatori (ish) and two sips of my five-day-old mead. Amazing.

We like meat. We've decided that we eat too much of it, however. Last week was a tofu experiment that turned out pretty well. This week was a cultural fusion, I suppose. Couscous, soy sauce, a shit load of asiago; Seitan, carrot, onion, veggie stock, garlic sauce, year-old wine, salt, pepper, and rosemary. It turned out so much better than we had dared hope. Texture is usually our big issue with "meat substitutes" but not this time.

And the mead. I degassed it for the first time today and geysered a pint of each into our sink. I couldn't help myself so I poured about two swallows into some stemless wine glasses. My wife was hesitant to drink the stuff that's been sitting in a dark closet for a week but she generally enjoyed it. The two-pound wildflower mead tasted exactly like a bottle from Moonlight Meadery that I had a while back. The 1.5-pound clover honey didn't really have much flavor - I think most of the flavor came from the craisins that I used for reasons. Fermentation isn't done, however. My estimation is that it's close given the large-ish amount of high-tolerance yeast and low-ish amount of honey in each. After fermentation, I rack to a new container and let it sit for another month or two in secondary to make it even better.

I'll avoid linking to the Oglaf Patreon fake meat comic.

I have heard mead is something like 2-3 lbs of honey for a gallon of mead. Is that accurate-ish? I was more of a brewery than a vintner when I had enough space to do either.

[Mephisto]

I'll avoid linking to the Oglaf Patreon fake meat comic.

I suppose I'll have to go digging when I'm not at work now.

I have heard mead is something like 2-3 lbs of honey for a gallon of mead. Is that accurate-ish? I was more of a brewery than a vintner when I had enough space to do either.

Ish, yes. That's the most common measurement I've found. You can definitely go lower (my 1.5 pound/gal mead was pretty good) and can go somewhat higher if you want to end with a sweet mead that you don't have to backsweeten. There's an upper limit as well but I'm not sure what it is.