Beer of the Week; PARTY WAAAAVVVVEEEEE EDITION

Welcome to Beer of the Week. This week we will be reviewing Hitachino Nest Real Ginger Brew, made by Kiuchi Brewery. This beer is brewed in Japan using raw ginger during the fermentation process, how weird! Lot of reviewers in the line up this week, hope no one gets snaked!!!

Disclaimer: this is an actual beer. If you are interested in what I suppose should be called ginger wine I found this online recipe.

Appearance

Dan: Caramel
Noah: Red stained mahogany
Gabe: Red mahogany
Clarissa: Weirdly dark mahogany colored cider
Leah: Beer
Julia: I CANNOT FOLLOW DIRECTIONS
Ben: Like that tape bugs get stuck to
 

Smell

Dan: Miso soup
Noah: Ginger (how original Noah*)
Gabe: d00d sweet nectar of Christ
Clarissa: Like beer
Leah: Gingery beer
Julia: Gingery nail Polish remover
Ben: Ginger sukiyaki sauce
 

Taste

Dan: Light, gingery, syrupy? Rounded, but maybe lacking something to grab my attention.
Noah: Sweetest beer I've ever tasted. Quite smooth though.
Gabe: It is more like beer with ginger than ginger beer.
Clarissa: Tastes nothing like ginger!
Leah: Drain pour
Julia: Honeyish, but also leaves a cigarette flavor in the back of my mouth.
Ben: Tastes like beer foam with a ginger cough drop.
 

Overall

Dan: I like this beer, it is quite unique. Due to the cost I'm not sure I will ever seek it out.
Noah: Too sweet too expensive.
Gabe: Interesting, but not necessarily good.
Clarissa: Biggest disappointment of my life.
Leah: No comment at first, then just sort of copies Clarissa.
Julia: I LOVE IT!
Ben: I'M SO EXCITED FOR THE VOICE IM GOING TO BUY THIS FOR EVERY EPISODE.
 

 Due to the incredible high cost of this beer this is our lowest krunability ever :P

$42/8 = 5.25 krunkability 

"I hate Beer of the Week!"

*editors note (usually to be said sarcastically) 

#toddakin #mittromney4thewin #ginger #sean sasaki

WORM FARM II

I've been getting a lot of flack for not following through with my WORM FARM creation. This is because every one is jealous that it is the most viewed post on the food justice blog. Well, since it's spring break, I've decided to deliver. Here it is: How To Build Your Own Worm Farm (maybe, because I don't know if the worms are going to live or not.)


First, you have to get a container for the farm. You can do this in a big plastic tub, or anything else. I used this weird old wooden shelf that was in our back yard. Previously, it was full of dirt, so I dug it out.

Then, for no real reason, I put some cardboard on the bottom. I think it was because I was afraid the worms were going to try and escape. 

Then, because I thought the cardboard would be harsh and scary for the worms, I put some dirt on top of that. 

Apparently worms really like newspaper. I don't know why worms like newspaper. But I ran over to The Cooler to get a stack of old New York Times to accomodate them. We had recently taken out the recycling and didn't have any just lying around. 

So then you have to to tear the paper in to strips. About one inch thick, but no one is measuring, so don't be exact about it. In the beginning, I tried cutting with scissors, but that was too hard and made my hand cramp, so I would definitely recommend tearing. 

Wet those paper puppies down. They need to be damp, so the worms' little bodies don't dry up, but you don't want them to be too too wet, either. That could attract gross smells and maybe kill the worms. I don't know, but they're just not supposed to be super wet according to what I read. When putting them down, make sure they're fluffed up and not just a big mush of last friday's top news stories. 

Concerned that the worms might get homesick for their previous lives, I put a little bit more dirt in. This is also supposed to be good because it puts a bit of grit in to the worm's system, makes them tough.

Once again, I added some more newspaper. In all, it took me about nine New York Times, so if you plan on doing this at home, start saving your papers more than a week in advance.

And now, I reveal to you; The Worms:

I spent about two hours digging these suckers up. I'm not a worm expert, nor do I pretend to be, but I think there are three different types of worms in the FEAST garden, at least that I saw. The first are red and when you pick them up they squirm like crazy. The second are really gross looking, like a yellow/green color and just curled up. And then the third are standard earthworms, some of which were incredibly massive. I heard the red ones are supposed to be the best at composting, but I also thought that it would be nice to have a diverse worm population, so I just threw the whole bunch in a wished them luck. 

The worms need food, and the best way to do this is to add your food scraps. Be mindful, however, that worms really do not like onions, citrus, or anything else that is sting-y, since their whole bodies are very sensitive. Also, don't put meat in with the worms. Meat is universally agreed to be something you don't put in compost. As you can see in the picture, there are some carrot peelings, but later I threw in some gross blueberries after making a pie. 

Next, you have to put a top on it, to keep the moisture in and the heat out. I just used some cardboard and rocks.

After this, you just leave your worms to stew, occasionally putting in more food and adding a little bit of water. Worms eat about half of their body weight in a day, and reproduce pretty quickly, doubling their population in a month, so as time goes on, make sure you keep adding food. I don't know what to do with the worms once they're ready to be farmed, or how to gather their waste, but when I get to that point, I'll let you know what goes down.

Hopefully you are now prepared to make a worm farm of your own. If not, just use google. There are plenty of sites with advice much more expertise than my own.

WORM FARM

I'm making a worm farm.

It's going to look like this:

But my worm farm is going to be in this weird empty drawer that someone left in the backyard. Previously, it was filled with tons of weeds, but I cleared those this weekend. Hooray for reusing things! The FOOD JUSTICE garden is lacking in worms, so instead of going to the store and buying worms, we might as well farm our own. Worms are good. They are great when you're trying to compost things more quickly. They eat dirt and stuff and then, when they poop it out, it's magically super nutritious and good for plants. I don't know why, and it seems kind of gross, but whatever.

As I'm doing this project, I'm going to try to take pictures and make a little DIY blog, so get pumped to make your own awesome worm farm at home. Huzzah!