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    • Wine Making 101
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Growing Potatoes in Royal Mail Sacks!

2/10/2016

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Not much is tastier than your fresh home grown veggies dug out of your garden.  This is especially true is potatoes!

We had actually forgotten that we had planted some chitted spuds in Royal Mail sacks along the side of the out-house, and today we were wondering what we could have for supper - hey presto, faster than a first class delivery, we had a decent haul of fresh spuds. ​
We have found that the postie or the local sorting office are all too happy to give you their old and worn out sacks. Royal Mail sacks (and other similar sacks and bags) are ideal for filling with soil and planting the chitted potatoes when you have filled your ground.  

​The sacks are breathable, allow water to drain out freely and the sides can be pulled up as you earth up around the potatoes.  
​

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Once the potato plants have died back, the postal sacks are easy to tip out, the spuds collected through and sorted into relevant sizes.  Big ones for mashing and jackets, small for boiling and average size for roasting.  
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Resisting the Urge to pick blackberries!

30/8/2016

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As summer is starting to pass us by and autumn approaches at a startling rate, the hedgerows are abloom with crimson and blackberries.  We do love blackberry season as we tend to spend many days harvesting the berries from the local forest covered hills and country lanes.  

Alas this year, we are not going to pick the berries in such vast quantities as we normally do.  With our forthcoming move, we are trying to reduce the quantity of wine that we have stored in bottles and demijohns (No easy feat drinking so much).  I am sure that we will have a few days out in the countryside picking blackberries for pies and crumbles. 

We are hoping that where we are going will also have an abundance of blackberries as blackberry wine is, in our opinion, the most scrumptious of  homemade wines.


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Blackberry wine ready to drink
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2014 Blackberry wine ready to be bottled!
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GOAT'S WHEY BLAAND IS A SUCCESS! 

29/8/2016

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Time has come when my three gallons of Blaand have finished fermenting and a 1/4 inch of lees has settled at the base of the demijohn.  Time to rack it!

The flavour of the goats blaand is sweet, with a mead like kick to it, slightly creamy texture on the tongue, however the gallon made with cows whey is as sour as stick of rhubarb dipped in sherbut! Yuck.  

Both the cow and goat blaand was made using the same recipe and methodology - so I can only put the difference down to the difference in the lactose.

​Goats whey all the way!
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BLAAND: GOAT'S WHEY OR COW'S WHEY? 

29/8/2016

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With my recent interest in making Blannd, I did wonder how using  different types of whey would influence the outcome of the Blaand.  What would be better?  Whey from goats milk or cows milk?  

There is a big difference in the flavour of cheese from the two types of milk, largely due to the size of the fat molecules and the lactose content.  Goats milk has smaller fat globules than cows milk, it also has a lower lactose content. 

The lactose can not normally be fermented by yeast, hence a higher lactose level may well result in a sweeter Blaand.  Well, that is my theory anyway. 
Yesterday, we decided to set up an experiment to see the difference see the difference between Blaand made from goats and cows whey.  

We followed the same recipe for Blaand that we used to make our initial batch of goats whey Blaand - recipe found here.  

We extracted the whey in the same method and added the same quantity of sugar (1,5kg) to each batch. 

​24 hours on, they are both fermenting away well.  I will add further updates as the two gallons ferment!
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BLAAND FROM GOAT'S WHEY, METHOD AND RECIPE 

29/8/2016

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Blaand, an old Norse drink that was at one time popular in the Scottish highlands and islands, frequently made before the demise of cottage cheese making.  Like all good recipes, the details of how to make this drink were held close to the chests of those who made it and passed down through the generations. 

Blaand is a fermented drink made using the whey left over after cheese making, as the recipes were passed down orally, finding information on how to make it on line are sketchy at best. Any one interested in home brew has to marvel at old methods of drink making, and an unusual drink offered to drinking companions is always worth a shot at making. 

You can find the full recipe and method here
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Blaand
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  • Home
    • About Us >
      • First Time Pregnant
    • Contact Us
  • Wine List & Recipes
    • Banana Wine Made Simple
    • Blaand
    • Blackberry Mead
    • Christmas Pudding Wine!
    • Chocolate Wine
    • Easy Rhubarb Wine
    • Gorse Flower Wine
    • Gutsy Ginger Wine
    • Liquorice Wine
    • Mead Making Made Simple
    • Melon Wine
    • Mint Wine Recipe
    • Mushroom Wine
    • Nasturtium Leaf Wine
    • Nettle and Mint Wine
    • No Boil Rhubarb Wine
    • Orange Wine
    • Lemon and Ginger Mead
    • Pear Wine
    • Pine Needle Wine
    • Pumpkin Wine
    • Rose Hip Leaf Wine
    • Red Kidney Bean Wine!
    • Rose Petal Wine
    • Rhubarb and Apple Wine
    • Seaweed Wine
    • Spiced banana wine
    • Sticky Toffee Pudding Wine
    • Turnip and Red Cabbage Wine
    • Wine Making 101
    • What is a country wine?
    • ​Can I use bread yeast to make wine?