Shier Winery

While the beer finishes and before I start the hard cider, I put together another short film. June 2008 to July 2009 in 12 minutes. The motion camera takes a photo at the slightest movement. When put together, the pictures create a time lapse film. The motion trigger creates odd intervals from sunlight, lightning, raindrops, snowflakes, wind blown leaves, the animals, and us. One rainy day might last a minute or more, but daily visits from Mr. Squirrel might appear as 1/30th of a second, and months can pass in 30 seconds. I even mixed a sound track for this one.

I managed to get 45 bottles out of the not quite full 5 gallon carboy. Two bottles were lost to my taste testing both at one week and two weeks of fermentation. It was much better the second week, but I can't recommend drinking flat room temperature beer. Therefore the beer must be mixed with a small corn dextrose syrup solution (0.75 cups dextrose to 1.5 cups water). By racking the beer onto the corn syrup solution, the beer is charged and ready to ferment a bit more in the bottles. The remaining yeast eats the sugar to produce the carbon dioxide bubbles during the next two weeks down in the basement. Final step is to refrigerate for cold beer. Soaking the bottles in an oxygen cleaning agent. Placing them on the dishwasher rack to dry. Filling the bottles with the corn syrup charged beer. Clamping on the bottle caps. Boxing the bottles.

With 100% positive feedback (from around 20 people) on the inaugural wine production, I've ordered the next batch of Riesling grapes for the fall. Tentatively, the harvest is set for October 24th. In the coming weeks I will set up a New York Limited Liability Company and begin the process to obtain both a farm winery and wine store license. In the meantime, I decided to try my hand at beermaking. I ordered the malt and hops from Fallbright. I received a hopped malt concentrate and brewer's yeast packet from an Australian company called Coopers. The resulting beer should be an ale. I used Munton's light dried malt extract from the UK as a fermentable sugar. I mixed up the ingredients with 2 liters of boiling water in a large pot. I siphoned the boiled mixture into a carboy and added another 15-16 liters of water. Fermentation underway, with foam pouring out of the airlock. Fermentation takes place at 72 degrees F. Good thing this is happening in the basement. I ordered 48 -...