Monday, August 17, 2020

You couldn't not buy it for a nickel

 Up at 2. I polished off the last of my first brew, the apple juice and brown sugar one, last night. And I started in on the next one, the one that had forced me to learn to make and use a blowoff tube, that had two bottles of fruit concentrate I'd made, in it. That stuff is stronger, and pretty good! Lots of fruit junk in it so it needs "racking" at least twice, which is simply pouring it into bottles, and then pouring them off into other bottles. But this 2nd racking is something that can be done as the need arises. 

It has an interesting, fruit, flavor. I actually thought I'd caught a little guava juice flavor but I think my mind was playing tricks on me, because the stuff looks like the guava juice we used to be given in elementary school. Or rather, sold. We had to bring a "juice nickel" and around 10AM we lined up in the auditorium where we exchanged said nickel for a cup of juice, alternately orange-passionfruit or guava. That guava juice was kind of rank and I didn't like it. I wanted to refuse it and just keep my nickel but that was just not done. It was unimaginable that a kid would not buy the juice and drink it because every other kid was. It was a heavily Asian school and a heavily Asian culture and I think the advantages outweighed the disadvantages, but I really did not like that juice. I'd learned to "spin" coins at around age 6 so when I got into the habit of spinning the nickel for the bewildered nickel-collecting lady, that plus my general disgust with the juice got me out of it. 

But it only looks, not tastes, like guava juice and is nice and strong. And it feels better to my system than store-bought wine. Maybe it's the sulfites in commercial wine? 

One thing I realized last night, though, was that while I can find fruit for free, the amount of time it takes finding it and processing it, may not make this worth it. I'd said that last night looked like it might have been a nice night for busking at Whole Foods. I'd have played from 7-9 and possibly made some decent money. It might make more sense to turn back to working on my trumpet skills and then if I want to drink some wine, just buying the stuff. 

I may be better off treating this brewing things as having taken a class in how to make wine when there's none in the store, as a survivalist skill. Because messing around with fruit last night cost me at least a couple of hours and more like three. 

I got my FedEx and post office run done, picked up a red cabbage leaf and a large apple behind H Mart, a little in the way of packing stuff, and a bunch of those little yellow squash that look like goose necks from the nearby dumpster, plus picked up some palm fruit out of curiosity from Fry's where a tree is really putting them out. 

Then I got back, put things away, and headed back out for some shopping at H Mart. I got all kinds of things from TP and wipes to shallots and ginger, some snack foods and a cheap Hawaiian beer, and got back here and just relaxed. 


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