• 400g Cherries
• 200g Caster Sugar
• 150ml Water
• 750ml Vodka.

In the absence of caster sugar, I substituted Golden Granulated Sugar and couldn’t resist adding extra cherries.  The recipe said to slit the cherries, but not cut in half.  It didn’t say anything about removing the stone.  I opted to use a £3 cherry pitting gadget from a local shop, which as well as removing the stones, leaves a couple of small slits behind in the fruit.  Dissolve the sugar in the water in a hot pan, add the de-stoned cherries.  When the sugar dissolves and juice starts to run, transfer the whole lot to your preserving jar and add the vodka.  I did sterilise the jars in a hot over, as if making jam, although I’m not sure you actually need to do this.  I used jars not bottles, as I didn’t have a bottle with a large enough neck to get the cherries in!

The recipe says to seal and leave for 4 weeks.  Many of the webpage comments suggest leaving it longer.  I’m hoping to keep at least one bottle until late September when hopefully, I’ll be able to drink a toast to the end of summer.

The remaining cherries went into the freezer, with the air sucked out of the bags using a straw.  Am not quite sure why the Internet suggested the pseudo-vacuum packed method, but it was good fun!

There are still so many cherries on the tree, it’s great to see so many birds, including many fledglings enjoying the fruit.  Although the tree blocks a large proportion of the sunlight from our garden, I think having a source of wonderful fruit on your doorstep is worth it.  My neighbours are talking about cutting the tree down.  I hope to dissuade them.

I’ve been a fan of ‘real ales’ for a while now but I’ve always thought making your own would be a lot of effort. I used to help my Dad make wine from our home-grown grapes when I was younger, I always remember it as a long (and smelly) process, requiring quite a bit of effort (especially since I wasn’t really old enough to appreciate the benefits afterwards). I assumed beer would be the same and certainly not the kind of thing to attempt in a flat.

For my birthday I was given an exciting home-brewing kit by Belle and Paul. Not just any bit of kit though – The Brubox claimed to be easy and tasty as well as not making any mess or smell. The novel approach of the Brubox, is that everything happens in one container and box – you just simply add the ingredients provided and leave it. Another worry I had had was what I was going to do with the 10 litres plus of beer – we don’t have that much storage and don’t drink that frequently/heavily. Cunningly they’d bought it in advance of our group holiday!

Jenny was slightly worried by some of the warnings on the box, she had visions of it decorating the flat. As a result she reluctantly let me brew it in her bathroom, where minimal damage could be done. Also, it tends to be the coolest room in the flat with no windows and a hole under the bath linked to the roof (which we found out from some pigeon visitors!).

Another ingenious feature of the Brubox – the cardboard container has a perforated hole for the tap to poke out, should you wish to dispense straight from the box.

Digging into the package, there were three main components – the brewing vessel (which was cleverly folded up), a giant metal tin and a bag containing instructions, cleaner, rubber tubing, stick-on thermometer, packet of grain and hops, sachet of yeast and the cap/tap for the box.

Once everything was unpacked, I checked through the instructions. The first stage was to clean the brewing equipment which was easy enough – put the tubing in the box and add some cleaner and hot water. So far, so good – no mess, no smell.

The second step was to heat up the giant tin of malt extract in a saucepan of boiling water. Then in a jug, you needed to make a giant cup of ‘tea’ with the grain and hops bag. You then add both the ‘tea’ mixture and the malt extract to the Brubox. This bit was a little tricky – the box wasn’t that solid so I felt it needed two people to pour and stabilise it. It was also a little awkward to shake it all up.

You then leave the box to cool enough to add the yeast. We had to move the box from the kitchen to the bathroom which again was a little awkward since the 10kg box was fairly warm and a little wobbly. Once you add the yeast, you add the piping to the open tap and put the other end into a cup of water so only excess air escapes.

As the end of brewing approached, it dawned on me that I needed to work out how I was going to transport 10 litres of beer on holiday. I wasn’t sure whether transporting it in the brew box would mess the concotion up. After finally finding an email for Brupak that worked they told me that they wouldn’t recommend trying to move it in the box. I didn’t get a reply as to how long it might take to re-settle so I decided to just opt for the bottling approach.

Finding this out with a day to go, I realised I’d have to find somewhere to get bottles from. A quick search online brought up Arkwrights, a home-brew specialists in Highworth nearby. We popped along on May-day weekend. We’d never thought there was much in Highworth, but we were pleasantly surprised – it even had a surreal May-day procession.

Following directions to Arkwrights brought us to a tiny village shop in a residental area. The shop was fantastic – not much bigger than our lounge, two rows of shelves with tins of beans, papers and other village-shop stuff and the rest full of brewing equipment and a good selection of beers and spirits. The guys in the shop were really friendly and knew their stuff. I learnt that bottling the beer actually lets it last for a long time – one of the guys said he actually drunk a 5 year old bottle once and said it was OK. I had been hoping for the Grolsch-style swing-tops but they’d been cleaned out the previous day. Instead, I opted for standard glass bottles and a capping gizmo. Once we got the bottles home, we washed them out and steralised them in the oven.

We understood from the instructions that if you’re bottling, you only add sugar to each bottle – the instructions still don’t read clearly, but it seemed to taste fine. Because of the speed it emptied from the box and the dark bottles we had to first fill up a jug to accurately fill the bottles.

Although there were more sophisticated capping gadgets in the shop, the guy said the cheapest one does the job fine, although there is a slight risk of smashing the bottle. You simply, pop the cap on the bottle, put the gizmo on to and bash with a hammer (always good in my opinion). We started off fairly gentle but actually found it needed quite a hit to properly seal.

Verdict

The three objectives that Brubox claim to have set out with are:

• The beers must be the finest ever produced from a beer kit.
• The brewing method must be straightforward and problem free.
• The range should encompass all of the world’s major beer styles (and some of the minor ones).

The first one, with my experience of only having done one homebrew is equally true and false. The beer however was pretty impressive, beyond my expectations. Everyone else seemed to like it too (apart from Kate, but she doesn’t like beer). It was a bit like a London Pride but possibly slightly softer.

The second point, I can’t agree with. The instructions were the major failing point of the kit. It was often not immediately clear what and when you were supposed to be doing things. In places it was still ambiguous after several reads – the steps and pros/cons for the bottles or box option for example. The lack of rigidity and poor durability of the box itself was also an issue for me. Mine actually punctured but I managed to seal properly and quickly so it didn’t affect the brew. The issue is whether it could be improved upon without affecting the compact package.

Finally, they do seem to have a good selection of beers.

So would I recommend it? Yup, I probably would, it’s pretty good for beginners and people with a lack of space.  It’s handy for getting to know the basic procedure in a neat all-in-one package. One thing to bear in mind however is that the Brubox only lasts 6 at most brews according to their guidelines so it actually works out fairly expensive compared to conventional home-brew kits.

It’s certainly got me into home-brewing now, but since I need to get a new kit I  think I’m ready to move on to something a bit more professional.

Related to home-brewing, I recently saw Nick from Hunter-Gathering (he’s attempting to live in a treehouse in a wood), make some Nettle Beer which I may well try out.

Earlier in the year, I decided that I would grow my own garlic. My research was not thorough and involved Google’s “I’m feeling lucky” button which took me to Garlic Central Website. I had read online that it a Pagan tradition to plant garlic on the shortest day of the year.  So come the 2008 winter solstice, I was determined to plant my garlic.  I learned that it was a bad idea to plant shop bought garlic, which can be sprayed with chemicals to prevent the bulbs from sprouting shoots whilst still on the shop shelves.  The best stuff to plant was stuff bought direct from the grower. This was exactly what I was looking for; garlic direct from the grower with which to start my garlic empire.

The French garlic man said that he sold three types of garlic, two of which were grown on his cousin’s farm in Brittany and the third from a farm further south.  I asked if it was sprayed with chemicals and was told, “non, whissout the chemical…how do you say…organo”.  I said that I wanted to plant the garlic and he immediately said that the pink and the red would grow, but that the white would not be good to plant.  Since it was a market and I thought the asking price of £1 per bulb was a bit steep, I haggled a bit and pleasingly got a large pink bulb and a large red bulb for 50p.

I planted the individual cloves about 10cm apart, 2cm deep in grow bag compost left over from my tomatoes earlier in the year.  If all goes to plan, the bulbs will grow along with other spring flowers.  Apparently, the garlic is ready for harvest when the leaves turn brown and start to wither.  You then pull the bulbs up, hang to dry for a week or two (somewhere cool and dry) and then brush off the soil.  One clove grows into one bulb, so I’m on for 50 bulbs of galic next year. That’s the theory, if there’s anything to harvest, I’ll post an update next year and be searching out some garlic recipes. I have heard of one already, apparently it’s a taste sensation…garlic bread…at least that’s what Peter Kay says anyhow!