At some point in my journey towards awakening I realized that the path I was born to walk in this life was the path of balance.
The recipe pictures featured in this post are from the latest log book I’ve kept. Previously, recipes were stored in spreadsheet files on my computer, which I haven’t been able to find so far. There were some good ones in there too, but now these ones will never get lost :)
1. Brewing Beers
By this time I had given away everything I owned that had value and emotional or sentimental value, sold everything I didn’t see myself actively needing in the next year, and burned sentimental items that couldn’t be given away. I was doing everything I could to minimize the degree to which I was living for the physical experience when somehow, almost all of a sudden, I realized it was all a form vain wishing if I didn’t value and utilize this physical life experience to the fullest extent.
One of the things that helped bring my mind back to the physical world was brewing. My brother in law, who has brewed for many years, convinced me to give it a shot. He walked me through my first brew day, racking and dry hopping, and finally bottling. The end product was a flavorful IPA with the spice of chili peppers on the backend, and the process was far simpler than I’d expected - I was hooked.
I tried many different recipes over the next few years, but stuck to brewing beer exclusively.
As I’ve progressed over the years, I’ve enjoyed making beers immensely and look forward to the next time I’m ready to do a batch. But beers take a few hours to make; I’d say 3-5 hours is a fair estimate for a 5-6 gallon batch. Also, if you’re using malt extract (which is far less effort than all grain), you’ll be looking to spend about $50 on ingredients.
2. Hoochin’
So in the past few years, as constraints on my time and money have increased I’ve found myself less inclined to buy ingredients and invest the time. The hobby had all but died, when I saw something online about prison hooch.
The idea piqued my interest. I knew that brewing had surprised me with how simple it ultimately was, and it seemed this could be a way to use an even simpler approach as a process that could be sustained among my busy life.
My first batch of hooch was made with brown sugar, ale yeast, a couple smoked ghost peppers and the leftovers in the fruit bowl from my oldest daughter’s birthday party. The result was a slightly sweet strawberry flavored wine at around 7% ABV with a mild but noticeable spice on the backend - that spice seems to be a recurring theme, but again I was hooked.
Now that I’ve found that hooching is not only simple and cheap (about 7-10 minutes to do and $5-10 for ingredients for a 5-6 gallon batch), but since throwing a batch away doesn’t represent any major loss, this process has become a low risk approach to learning about different yeasts, different base sugars and flavor sources, and all other interesting nuances.
I hope that if I come back to beer brewing in a few years, I’ll come back with a wealth of understanding gained from this process. In the meantime, I created the Prison Hooch community as a place to document the practices and processes for any fermented beverages, from beer and hooch, to wine and champagne, or even kombucha and cold medicine - or anything else that’s fermented really :)
If you’ve stayed with me this far, thanks again! As of this moment, I’m not sure if there will be one last post or if this is it. I kind of wanted to do a wrap-up post, but all attempts so far have felt formless and unnecessary. I guess in case this is the last one, thank you sincerely for coming on this journey with me! I hope to see you not just in my communities, but in all the great communities here on Hive!
