Do you have different days for your “weekend” or do you typically end up working through it? Groceries is an activity that I reserve for the weekend too, I can never find the motivation to go during the week after work.
Hopefully the weather is nice for your mystery activity :)
No I typically have Sa/Su weekends, but we like to get groceries out of the way on Friday evening if we can so we don't have to on the actual weekend. Also, our grocery store has an associated gas station with a 10 cents/gallon discount for every 100 "points" you accrue using your (their) shopper's card/ID (which is usually 1 point for every 10 bucks spent, but can vary by product or by special promotion), and Fridays are usually 4 or 5x fuel points.
edit: Re-reading the OP, I realize you asked about WEEKEND plans. I saw Happy Friday and laid out my Friday plans. Reading comprehension for the win! Uh only plans are to check out a homebrew store with a friend and maybe cobble together a homemade kombucha recipe.
That’s a sweet deal on gas! Since there isn’t any gas stations that have reward memberships around me I have to rely on using my credit card that gives 5% back on gas to soften the blow every time I fill up.
Ha no worries! My Friday plan is the same as yours minus the groceries :-)
That sounds interesting for you and I hope you enjoy your trip to the home brew store. I’ve tried (although not very hard) to get into drinking kombucha. Do you have any suggestions? I don’t think I’m ready to start brewing my own but any big brands that have a good product?
I believe I tried Synergy brand kombucha cherry flavor? Don’t quote me on the flavor but definitely that brand. It was kinda meh, didn’t end up finish it. Maybe do you have a brand or particular flavor that you would introduce to someone who doesn’t really know what to buy?
I recently started homebrewing beer with pretty good results so far. I am using "brew kits" that contain malt extract, as opposed to malted grains themselves. Big difference is the extract is like a powder or a syrup (dry vs liquid malt extracts) that essentially dissolve into the water, rather than steeping malted grains like tea and removing them later. I think the malt extract method is a little easier and less messy, but I've never done the grain method.
My friend loved the beers I've made so far, and wondered aloud about making his own kombucha, so we're gonna go look at the store and see what's available. Maybe I'll try some kombucha over the weekend, too, so I know what I'm getting into if we do this.
Using a brew kit probably reduces the barrier to entry as well. How long does something like that take to make? Is there different kits depending on the type you’re shooting for? Kolsch, lager, ale, IPA? Do you just monitor the alcohol content by periodically testing?
Maybe you’ll end up with a new kombucha hobby as well!
Yeah the kit makes it a lot easier -it can be a little expensive to start though, getting all the equipment together. But I got all new stuff rather than look around for gear other people were getting rid of. The process is basically a month long per 5-gallon batch, at least for me so far. Most of the work happens on 2 days about 2 weeks apart.
Day 1 is brew day, heating the water, adding the malt, boiling, adding hops, cooling, transferring into a jug , and adding the yeast. There's a bit more to it but that's the gist. Then you set it somewhere cool and dry to ferment for about 2 weeks.
Day 2 (day 14) is bottling day. I'll add some priming sugar to the beer so the yeast has food to ferment in the bottles and create the CO2 you want in the bottle (the CO2 from the first fermentation stage has escaped by now). THen you put the bottles somewhere cool and dry to bottle condition for another 2 weeks. Then you have the most time intensive 2 cases of beer you've ever enjoyed.
Different styles will come out of different recipes -different malts, different amounts and types of hops etc. The time is roughly the same for each.
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