Quick update on the ginger wine front, I'm having real trouble getting the yeast to do its thing on the wine.

I'm using EC1118 at the recommendation of the fine people over at Brewcraft, but it's been difficult to get it to do anything much past pitching it.

At first I thought it was temperature related, but keeping it insulated and actively heating it during the night hasn't helped any.

Now I'm beginning to think that either the pH of the ginger wine solution is too low, or that the solution is anaerobic because it's so dense... something like that, yeah.

Will have to call the good people at Brewcraft unless anyone has some advice for me?

Whilst carefully evaluating a number of the proprieters of fermented goods at the local Good Food & Wine expo, or rather - trolling for tastings, I came across the booth for Stone's, a popular european brand of ginger based goosd - most notably their ginger wine.

If you haven't sampled their mouth candy, you must. Their alcoholic ginger beer and ginger wine is worth it - and I'm sure I'll be a regular buyer - once I find a bottle shop that stocks it nearby.

In the meantime though, I thought I'd give it a go for myself. Of course I did.

Well, it turns out there aren't that many recipes to be found. Of the several recipes I looked at, exactly zero of them used all the ingredients they specify - and don't inspire confidence. So in my usual tradition - I decided to wing it.

So, here's my recipe for ginger wine, complete with exact measurements:

• 1 big-ass bit of ginger, thinly sliced
• 1.5ish kg of white sugar
• 2 lemons, zested and juiced
• 2 oranges, juiced

1. Boil up about 2.5L of water in a saucepan, add ginger and lemon zest.
2. Simmer for 15 minutes.
3. Drain off juice into a second saucepan.
4. Bring ginger and another 2.5L of water to the boil in the saucepan.
5. Whilst the first saucepan is coming to the boil, heat the second and stir in all the sugar until it dissolved, then remove from heat.
6. Drain off the ginger and put the liquid into the first saucepan, stir.
7. Cover with a teatowel and stand for 12 hours.
8. Warm the juice up a little bit and add some activated wine yeast
9. Covering with a teatowel, stir twice a day for 3-5 days
10. Strain the liquid into a demijon with an airlock.
11. After twelve weeks of fermentation, rack every 3-4 months until it is has been going for 12 months.
12. Bottle and enjoy.

As I write, I'm only up to stage 7, so pretend I've got a bottle of Stone's, with a fresh linen covering the label - some I prepared earlier.

Updates as they come - I can't wait :)

Not too long ago I found myself flicking through the SixThousand site, which is supposedly covers the Perth subculture. Right, anyway. Flicking through I saw a post about making your own cheese. Awesome.

The recipe explains the very simple process of boiling milk then curdling it to seperate the curds and whey. If you take the curds away you're left with a Paneer Cheese, which is a pretty bog standard soft cheese.

As I was already trying my hand at some Chocolate Panacotta (yum), I thought I'd give this a go as well, as I've always wanted to.

First up, I decided to make the Paneer and add some Chilli flakes, to end up with something like the soft flavoured cheeses you get at the shops. The process is pretty straightforward:

• Bring 2L of milk to the boil
• Turn off heat
• Add 1 cup of lemonjuice or vinegar
• Stir the milk thoroughly to ensure maximum curdlage (yes, curdlage!)

In the end, you end up with something like this:

Lovely, om nommy cheese. Whilst the cheese was tasty and "dericious" (thanks Neil), it was a bit crumbly - and I suspected that I squeezed far too much liquid out of the cheese.

Ultimately I ditched this after leaving it uncovered in the fridge overnight, as it had gone rock hard (strange thing that). Not letting my feelings get hurt by cheese, I decided to give it another shot, this time opting to replace chilli with pepper and chives.

Unfortunately I don't have nommy photos of this cheese, however leaving more liquid in the cheese while it was setting gave me the desired soft cheese (essentially, a hard ricotta in texture and shape).

I served this up with a glass of my red wine (more on this in another post!) at a BBQ, and it was received pretty well, and I'm stoked.

At only around $2.80 for ~500gm, this cheese is not also unique and personalised but cheap! Cheese for everyone! The secret lies in how much liquid you leave in!

I'll play with this a bit more, but am very tempted to start getting some of the low-end cultures so I can make proper soft cheeses such as boccocini and brie/camambert at home. I'm not expecting much but like my beer, wine and spirits - it's a fun experience.

More soon, I promise :)