In between watering movements a batch of Havarti is produced from the latest batch of milk. Although we love all types of cheeses Havarti is a staple. A lovely texture and flavour and an excellent melting cheese (melted cheese and tomato). In addition it is easy to make and almost devoid of complexity which allows other tasks to be co-ordinated with its production.
A lazy light pressing for the Havarti |
A little bit of cream was pinched from the last batch of milk and Jean knocked out a Green Tea ice cream. We'll save this for Christmas when her mum visits.
One of the important tasks associated
with beer making is cleanliness. This lack of hygiene struck home
this week. I thought I'd given the fermentation containers a thorough
clean and in addition they had been stored with a Potassium
Metabisulpate solution. But not so. In one batch as it neared the end
of fermentation a small amount of white mould had started to form on
top of the brew and in the other even closer to completion the
surface had a whitish film on the surface. This is not a complete
disaster as the mould is surface formed and if the batch is bottled
carefully only a small amount of beer needs to be discarded. Having
bottled the worst affected container yesterday it went through a very
thorough cleaning process. First scrubbed and rinsed then a heavy
application of Destainex and soaked overnight. It will then sit in a
strong SO2 solution for a number of hours just to ensure every part
of the fermentation container is sterile. It is so easy when things
are going well and you are in a bit of a hurry to skip over some
important aspects of brewing. The lesson can be a hard one.
Hmmm. Wonder if we should be watering more slowly. How often do you water?
ReplyDeleteHi Linda, When the trees were much younger we watered as often as weekly in the drier periods with the idea of getting them to establish a good root system. Now that most of them are over 15 years years old we only water if they show signs of stress or if they have young fruit. If the fruit is very close to picking we don't water so as not to dilute the sugars.
ReplyDelete