We’ve decided to start getting rid of crap. We’ve established four rules for each item:

1. If it can’t be theoretically sold on eBay, it is to be thrown out or donated somewhere.
2. If we were to move next month, it should be worth packing up and moving.
3. Any item may be deemed “sacred”, which is non-arguable; But all sacred items must be added to a ranked list. (This list may have limitations imposed on it at a later date, hence ranking by importance)
4. Once purging is done, equilibrium must be maintained (New items brought into the house must be met by an equal amount of riddance).

We went through our books and some other crap in the attic today. We have chalked up 16.328 cubic feet so far.

Some notable riddances:

• The set of DIY encyclopedias (from at least 2 decades ago) that I bought for 2 or 3 bucks at the Library book sale a year ago. They’ll likely be going back to the library.
• An unmarked video cassette tape that Melissa mysteriously unraveled without explanation
• Two shark fin cable modems
• A LaVeyan Satanic Bible & the Complete Illustrated Old Testament Bible
• A large (7′) DVD rack

Melissa and I both think this round of purging wasn’t particularly painful — just carving away at the easy stuff for now. The difficult nitty gritty stuff is yet to come still, when we get to the basement.

*UPDATE*

• Purchased 3.450 cu.ft. (kitchenware)
• Purged 9.385 cu.ft. (table, baby cereal)

New total: 22.263 cu.ft.

Tags: cleaning, lost causes
Categories: Sustainable Living
1 Comment »

Root Beer, version 1 (1 June 2008)

Boil the following ingredients:

6 oz Sassafrass tea extract (Saffrole free! This is important!)
1/4 oz Anise seeds, ground to a powder
2 cups white sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
2 qts water
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature and add:

2 qts water
1 tbsp Vanilla Extract
4 drops Wintergreen Essential Oil (dissolve in 2 tsp of Honey first)
Ginger bug(*)

(* The ginger bug is a wild yeast culture grown with sugar and grated ginger root — I’ll do a separate post about growing that. It’s necessary for fermentation.)

I’ve let mine brew for 6 days so far, and cracked open my first bottle yesterday, and second bottle today. I have one last bottle in the fermenter (a cabinet) right now, which I’ll pull tomorrow, to see if 7 days makes a difference.

The flavor is pretty good - the molasses flavor is a little too heavy, but it carbonated well and had a nice foamy head. I’m going to try using half as much (1/8 cup) next batch. The wintergreen wasn’t prominent enough, so I’ll try increasing that by 50% (6 drops). The sassafrass flavor was very abundant as well, I can probably scale that back a little bit. Beyond those three alterations, this was remarkably good for a first batch — if I were to give it to someone without telling them what it was, they would surely know it was Root beer.

So changes for version 1.1:

• 1/8 cup Molasses
• 6 drops Wintergreen extract in 3 tsp of honey
• 4 oz Sassafrass tea extract

Tags: fermentation, Instructable
Categories: Foodities, Sustainable Living
No Comments »