A Fine Wallingford Day

New York next week! Here are some Wallingford photos in case I miss it while I'm there. These discs remind me of grape-flavored children's tylenol.

Weird stone discs

Somersaulter in Gasworks Park

Racking

Last week I racked my honey wine from one carboy to another, thereby achieving my goal of combining common words like rack, car, and boy into an incoherent jumble. A carboy is a jug, and racking is the process of siphoning a fermented liquid from one jug to another, leaving the yeasty sediments behind.

The original carboy.

The happy racker.

I made the honey wine as instructed by Sandor Ellix Katz in Wild Fermentation, which means it's as simple as possible: mix honey and water, let it sit around for a few days until yeast colonize it, and put it in a carboy capped with an airlock, which lets gas escape but not enter. I started it in September, and I flavored it with a little bit of mint from the patch on our sidewalk.

Racking is fun; a few pumps on the Auto Siphon (or L'auto-Siphon--the instructions were in English and French) and you're enjoying the alchemy of liquid flowing through tubes.

A glass of honey wine, with the new carboy behind it.

The honey wine is still a little sweet, though in a pleasant way. It's developed a slightly rubbery flavor; it's not terrible, but I'm still hoping it goes away. Maybe in another six months?