Lot of things have been happening. Lets deal with the failures first.
The farming project has been a bust for the most part. Out of the four packets I planted, had to throw out one because it was looking gross, one is extremely slow to grow, one is in the precipice of being thrown out, and the last one which was doing pretty good I shook it around and now it's not looking so great anymore. I'll wait a week more, or perhaps two more weeks, and throw it all out. Start from scratch.
The problem was I made too many mistakes. Way too many mistakes. I know where I went wrong at every step now, so I'll know what not to do the next time. I was far too eager, far to careless first time around. I followed the basic precautions, but forgot the most fundamental advice of all time: let the things fucking grow and don't play around with them because that's how you get contamination.
Might do another batch after coming back from new york. Moving on.
The banana wine is doing alright. The bubbling has stopped, the fermentation seems to be 'stuck'. I don't have the yeast nutrients, and don't know if the nutrients would even work. It's fairly alcoholic alright, but still sweet way too sweet. It can't possibly have gotten to the upper limit of the tolerance for yeast. Either way, I might add some dead yeast to it sometime next week, maybe some of my other brews, and let it chill for a couple of more weeks. It's separated into two distinct layers, the bottom 'yeasty' layer and the drink layer so that's encouraging.
The ginger candies were gone in a week, everyone loved them. Tried buying it for cheap in bulk again, alas ginger is not dirt cheap anymore that might have to wait for next year. People absolutely loved it though, I could have made it with twenty pounds of ginger and it'd still be gone in a jiffy I'm sure now. So that's a little bit exciting.
The other dehydrated produce, limes and chilli peppers sit unloved. I use lime for my drinks but they've not had much use since. Thinking of packing 'em up and taking them to NYC or something. And maybe turning them into lime powder. The chilli peppers will definitely be powdered though, maybe after I'm back from the trip.
The plum wine, still in its primary fermentation is working quite vigorously. Too vigorously I'm afraid, since that was my problem with the banana wine, initially too active and then not much action. Will carboy it today. It's not even half a gallon so a little bit disappointing on that front. Maybe I should just go to the dollar store get me some balloons and do it the ratchet way with a balloon-and-hole as an airlock. Because why not. Either way, goes into secondary this evening.
Boiled several pounds of cut carrot with sugar last evening, gonna leave it to chill for all day today, will turn it into mush this evening, and then add the yeast nutrients tomorrow. That way it'll spend 'only' four days in the primary, will pick it after I'm back.
Also another exciting project I'm looking forward to progress: kanji, the carrot juice. Cleaned and cut a bunch of carrots last night, added ground mustard seeds, sea salt and chilli powder, put them in my cashew jars, three of them, and put 'em on top of my heating mat. My heating mat hasn't been very effective, it shuts down after 5 hours of non-change in temperature so I elevated it and put on top of a bunch of upturned plastic containers. Plastic is a good thermal insulator, the air inside the upturned containers is excellent at retaining heat too. If this doesn't work as I home, I'll keep the whole setup inside a plastic done, one of my large plastic boxes, and see where that takes us. Something I realized last night, though my projects began for the farming project and everything was a distraction, that may have been the wrong approach because I was giving too much of my love for it and screwing things up. If it becomes the distraction then I might get two benefits out of this.
The kombucha is almost finished, only primary fermentation done. It worked out quite well for me because the least concentrated batch was in the back so it's taken its sweet time to sour, just as I'm getting around to drink it it's getting in the right phase. Were it better-made, it'd have vinegered a long time ago. Once I'm done drinking the last jar, gonna start a new batch, hopefully take it to secondary this time around.
More projects on the way: pancakes and porridge with fermented flours, sprouts, bean ferments meaning natto and tempeh, microgreens, and milk ferments. Things are looking not too bad. Might go to the dollar store this evening to get balloons and other supplies.
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