Cold Spell, Dry Hopping, and A Chicken in the Pot

Cold Fermentation: The recent Pacific Northwest cold snap (20ºs F at night) has kept the Equinox Double IPA in a very nearly stalled secondary fermentation for just about one week. Temperature in the carboy has hovered near 62º. There was a bit of yeast activity just after racking, but that quickly settled down. Small clusters of bubbles have been forming around the dry hop sacks, but the bulk of sediments have settled to the bottom.

One custom-made dry hop sack.

Dry Hop Sac Tip: My wife was good enough to split a couple of 4"x 6" drawstring hop sacks for me into 2"x 6" bags for dry hopping. Once I soaked the bags in One Step Sanitizer solution for ten minutes, I fished them out, filled three of the sacks with hop pellets, tied them shut, and dropped them into the fermenter with fish line trailing out of the airlock. At first the sacks sink into the beer, but over a couple of days' time they float to the top and stay there. I looked at marbles to use as weights next time, but they all have unknown pigment chemicals in them. Better to find and use some small river rocks.

One free-range hen after a fatal bobcat encounter.

Bobcat Attack: At dusk one of a family of three neighborhood bobcats jumped our fence and lightly mauled one of our chickens. My young son and daughter chased the cat away, over another fence into a neighbor's yard. The chicken's neck was snapped, and the left leg had a decent sized puncture wound at the hip. The bird died almost instantly. This lead me to find another good use for my borrowed propane burner - chicken de-feathering water warmer. It turns out the best temperature to soften up the skin to de-anchor the bird's feathers is the same as you'd use in a mash - between 150º and 160º, according to  Jennifer Megyesi in, "The Joy of Keeping Chickens: The Ultimate Guide to Raising Poultry for Fun or Profit". I can't say my first chicken cleaning effort was perfect - I lost the liver, and made a mess of the gizzard - but the bird looks beautiful in the refrigerator, and is sure to taste wonderful accompanied with a glass of homebrew.