News and developments for the New Year 2018

I’m lagging behind my schedule… I promised I’d update at least once a month and 2018 has already begun a few days ago.
What has December brought us? and how has 2018 started?
Although it’s just a month it seems that so much has happened without us noticing it.

December was the first cold month in the Old Stable and we felt it well, the broken window from November hasn’t been fixed until just before Christmas and the temperatures were dropping fast. It was difficult to maintain a level of 16-18 C in the living room. The warmest room turns out to be our small bedroom and now we have swapped with the kids so they enjoy the warmth and we take the colder, but slightly bigger space. Running up to the festivities of Christmas was when we finally got to talk more about the setting up of the cultural association. We found some of Elena’s old friends that have very similar ideas and seem enthusiastic to do something together. I think that part of our excitement is being able to bring different ideas and join our workforce. We set a deadline to discuss and write down on paper our official deceleration and goals for the association by the New Year. Although soon after our first meeting we were hit by the seasonal flu and a type of Norovirus… I think we have progressed well and hope we can update with some official announcements in the next few weeks.

Trying to focus our goals and cover all our ideas for the association without sounding too vague turns out to be a challenge. Elena on her side was afraid to enter someone else’s territory and did her best to contact whoever she knew in our area that was doing something similar. There is quite a lot going on here in terms of agriculture and environment and I agree with Elena that it’s best to find common grounds and collaborate. This whole process helps us define more clearly what we want to do and what makes us unique.

December also has brought us to setting up The Old Stable (Home) Brewery and lab… a dream of mine coming true. Marco has followed my plan for a scaffolding for the brew pots and did all the welding work. I promise to dedicate a post on the brewery setting up.

A natural gas line was installed in the designated room and all the rest is pretty much peanuts. I got hold of a pretty good balance that can weigh in increments of 10 mg , slowly expanding my home lab that already consists of a decent pH meter and temperature sensors as well as basic glassware. I’ve started a batch of dark stout using a two step mashing process (so that I could test the mash tun burner for modifying mash temperatures). The system is very comfortable but it still took me a full day of work from milling to the fermentation vessels. It will improve with practice and small technical adjustments and even then for now it’s really something to celebrate!