Lets make some mead

So I have wanted to try and make mead for a couple years now ever since I had the pleasure of trying some at a friends party. Its actually really easy to do and relatively fast as fermentations go. We got the recipe from gotmead.com; basically all you need is honey, water and yeast. We added some cloves, cinnamon and an orange for some flavour.

1. We started with pure honey straight from the farm nothing added
2. We then got a funnel, rubber stoppers and a bubble top that allows air to escape but not enter.
3. We first mixed the honey with water in a bowl so it would be easier to add into our glass bottle












4. We added the oranges, cloves, Cinnamon and yeast to the mix









5. Give it a good shake


6. Then we capped it
   
7. Now to let it sit for 2 months to ferment

Just a note, we found that the fermentation stopped at about 1 and 1/4 months. At this point we let the mead sit for a weak and then sampled it. While not the greatest thing I have ever tasted it was surprisingly good.

The Bacon Burger

Now some have made claims to the ultimate bacon burger. A recent article describe a burger that had a pattie completely made out of bacon. Upon further investigation (reading the article) it was discovered that an egg was used as a bonding agent so that the burger would stick together. A good try at a bacon burger for sure however, I think we can do better.

1. Start from the source:

-Obtain a chuck of bacon meat before its been processed.

2. Soak in a mixture of brine, maple syrup and brown sugar for a week

- Try a more dilute brine to decrease the amount of salt

3. Grind the meat into hamburger using a meat grinder

4. Form into patties

5. Cook on Barbecue

6. Enjoy!

Epic Alberta Road Trip

This one is an easy how to to begin with. The classic road trip would contain maybe one to ten stops depending on the duration but for the most part you drive to one particular location and then drive home. For this epic road trip it was decided that we would tackle 29 destinations in the span of a weekend. These destinations were composed of the biggest things in Alberta. For example: largest pierogi, largest dinosaur etc.. There proved to be quite a few http://maps.google.ca/. The road trip in the end composed of 2300km of road that was driven in 32hrs stopping to see 29 sites. Just under the two day limit that was imposed on the trip. Things that are useful in planing such a trip:

1. We developed a roadtrip card game, details of which will be posted in another epic posting.

2. Pre-plan destinations using google maps

3. A GPS is indispensable unless you are a road map guru

4. Don't be afraid to stop driving and pass the responsibility to someone else.

- To achieve a road trip on this scale at least three people are needed:

A driver: to drive

Someone riding shotgun: To navigate + keep the driver awake

Someone in the back: resting up for their turn as navigator/driver

To recreate our roadtrip here is the stops that we made

Edmonton >Largest boot, Largest Baseball Bat, Large peace dove

Red Deer > Pig

Markerville > Cream Can

Torrington > Gopher

Beiseker > Skunk

Irricana > Horse

Cochrane > Cowboy

Black Diamond >Black Diamond

Blairmore > Crowsnest

Coleman >Piggy Bank

Lethbridge > Wind gauge

Taber > Corn Stalk and the Taber Whore (as the locals called her)

Vauxhall > Potatoes

Hanna > Grey Goose

Rosedale > Miner

Drumheller > Dinosaurs

Donalda > Camping Lamp

Coronation > Crown

Castor > Beaver

Wainwright > Buffalo

Chauvin > Softball

St. Paul > UFO landing pad

Glendon > Pierogi

Andrew > Malard Duck

Vegerville > Egg

Mundare > Sausage

As you may see not all of our stops turned out to be giant images of themselves. This is due to the amount of inacurrate information on the web pointing us to stops that really shouldn't have been part of our trip. But now we are able to pass this on to you and hopefully you will be able to circumvent these less than epic attractions.