My Coca Cherry Mead.

I love cherries. They are in my top 5 fruits. A mead had to happen.

Primary

2 weeks in the bucket 48 oz Tart Cherry Juice for lots of cherry flavor 5lbs of clover honey 36 oz of black cherries frozen Lavlin 71b-1112 re-hydrated with yeast energizer pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient Water to a gallon

I heated up the juice water and honey into a pot, brought to a simmer right below a boil and added in the honey bit by bit. While it was heating up I poured the cherries into my bag (seriously bag + bucket = so much win) the crushed then up with my hand. I poured the liquid on top. Added in the pectic enzyme, nutrient, energizer. Then whipped it up with my hand blender with whisk attachment. SG was between 1.27-1.32 the foam obscured it a bit.

With the yeast I rehydrated it with a bit of yeast engergizer. Didn't put the nutrient in as it has DAP in it. After it sat for a bit, I added a bit of must to it. Let it sit for 17 mins, it got a nice foam on top of it, so I added more must then let that sit for 20 mins. After the 20 min mark I dumped it into the bucket, stirred her up then sat the lid on top.

During the first three days I don't seal the bucket since I aerate three times a day. After the first three I sealed her up and let her blurp for two weeks.

Here is a photo of it in the bucket

Secondary 

2 weeks then racked onto 12 oz of black cherries 

After the two weeks was up I racked it off the fruit and onto more cherries and some coca nibs. The gravity was 1.001. At this gravity it was dry as a bone but it was wonderful! The taste of the cherries was thick without being cough syrup like. I let The Wife try some and even though she does not like dry wines she liked this one.

Tertiary

2-3 oz of cocoa nibs 

After sitting for another 2 weeks on the extra cherries I racked this off onto 2-3oz's of cocoa nibs just to give it a bit of extra flavor. I sample it again but did not take a gravity reading. The flavor had gotten even better. The cherry flavor was a bit more pronounced and it smelled wonderful.

Quaternary

(admit it, you just learned a new word)

I let it sit on the nibs for quite some time. I don't really remember how long. I think maybe a month or longer. The nibs did not impart as much flavor as I had hoped. Though it did add a bit of complexity to the mead. It was around this time I broke my hydrometer in the making of a future post (see what I did there?) so I could not take a gravity reading. After giving very small samples out to everyone we all agreed it needs to be backsweetened just a hair. If the gravity is still 1.001 then I would take it maybe to 1.010.

Personally I think the color on this is FANTASTIC. As of today's date it is still in the carboy bulk aging. It was sorbated and sulfited a week ago. I will backsweeten it this weekend when I trek up to the brew store to buy yet another hydrometer. I plan to let this one sit for a while before I open it up. Tell me what you think of the color. Any suggestions on additions? I will most definitely be making this one again. 

Beer Review- Shocktop Applewheat Beer

Sup People! I am back with another review. I saw this beer pop up around may in the stores. It is a seasonal beer. It looked interesting an I am really into beer right now, so I decided to give it a try. 

I forget what dead animal I cooked that night, but when I opened this beer....

The apple taste blows you away. It is crisp, smooth, and full of flavor. The Wife, who normally detests beer loved it as well. I cannot get enough of these. At 7.37 a six pack these are not exactly cheap but they are worth the price. I highly recommend these. 

The Salad Solution

WIFEY:

As newlyweds, the husband and I have had...other things on our mind than eating a super health conscience meal. BUT, I decided that I felt like trending our meals to more healthy choices so we don't end up like like "strangers" after 2 or 3 yrs. So, I've been making salads and stirfry spinach. 

Surprisingly, the husband loves it. Win.
I like most veggies so it's no biggie for me. I put up 2 pics of our meals lately. So goood!

YET.

Nacho Casserole

The other day I got a craving for nachos. After eating them, it didn't go away fully. While sitting with my little brother an idea popped up in my head.

Guys and Gals, I present,

Nacho Casserole

First thing to do was of course buy the ingredients. I am a simple person, so I did not have many ingredients, this dish can be customized to taste. Yes that is Cheerwine in the background.

First thing I did was open the ground beef, season it and line the bottom of the tray with it. [I discovered something about this, more on that later]

After getting the beef in the dish, I then coated it with a nice thick layer of cheese.

Now while this was going on, I had another pot on the stove. What was in it you ask? Nothing but that BACON...................with some jalapenos.

I let it cook down till the jalapenos were soft and the bacon somewhat crispy  It smelled soooooo good with the jalapenos in it.

After the bacon was done I  dumped in and spread on top. A layer of crushed tortilla chips were added in on top of the bacon

After that on went another layer of beef, and more cheese, this time White Queso. [Yes I know queso means cheese, but dammit that is what called on the label lol]

After the white cheese went down I sprinkled more of the bacon/jalapeno mix on top the coated that with yellow cheese.

Finally I added one last layer of crushed up chips.

Sideview of things. See how the ground beef is sticking up? Yea, that should have caught my attention....

Into the oven it went for 40 mintues at 350, no pics of that,  I am sure you know that an oven looks like.


IT'S DONE ZOMG.

It was grea i f I do say so myself and I do. However I made a few mistakes. First off since I did not cook the ground beef prior I ended up with tons of grease from the meat . Also while the bottom ground beef was done through all the way the middle layer was almost raw in some places. I had to put it back in the oven. Next time I will also cook the bacon in the oven and crispy it up as well as using a food processor to grind up the chips. to get a more even coating. I will also use more ingredients  such as salsa, a smidge of sour cream, more cheese, more peppers.

As I said before this has lots of ways to customized it. For those of us who  don't eat beef, turkey or chicken could easily be subbed in, as well as salsa, sour cream, chives etc. So it can definitely be made to taste.