Behind the bar

During the Rincón Plaza Art Walk this past Thursday, Rincón Beer Company made its debut! Although last-minute, the event went well. Sage had two beers ready for sampling: Sandy Blond Ale and Overhead IPA. We passed out free samples of each, along with comment cards for people to rate the flavor, mouthfeel, and general taste of the beer. We were excited to get some feedback on our product, albeit a bit nervous to put it out there in the world!

Sage serving

Once we learned about the Art Walk, Sage came up with the idea to do a beer tasting there. We talked to our friend Anthony, who owns an art gallery/workshop on the plaza called Taller Caribe, about setting up in his space during the event. Anthony was down with it, so the work began! To prepare, we packed up almost all of Sage’s bottled beer. He has a rotating system, so a couple beers are always in the works. We took pretty much everything that was ready to drink, about 200 beers.

Naomi serving

After lugging all that beer up the steps from our basement to the car in blue plastic totes (ugh!), we went to Taller Caribe to unload, get ice, and set up for the tasting. The event started at 6 pm, when people started trickling in, and by 8:30 we were completely out of beer! The IPA was much more popular and sold out by 8:00. We offered both small samples, which were free, and 12-oz bottles, for a suggested donation of $3. Eventually we ran out of 12-oz bottles to sell, so we started pouring cups from the 22-oz bottles that we had.  We found that almost everyone was super supportive and gave at least $3, and sometimes more, to support their local microbrewery. What a great community we live in! We got some great feedback, and Sage had the opportunity to chat with some local homebrewers a bit too.

Not a bad crowd

We did learn a few things: be sure signage is laminated or somehow waterproof, as it WILL get wet; the more bottle openers, the better; wear comfortable shoes; and don’t stress too much– take time to enjoy! Also, no matter how good your signage is to describe the beers, there will always be someone who asks for a can of Medalla Light.

Once we ran out of beer, we were free to experience some of the evening’s events. The/Uncharted/Studio had their grand re-opening in their new space, celebrating with live music and good vibes. There were tons of people hanging out on the plaza, enjoying the music and spending time together. Overall, I’d say the night was a success!

 

Corona mill

Crushing my grain has been a bit of a chore with my current set up. I installed a low-cost corona mill in a bucket and I’ve been using my drill to spin it. For a 10-gallon batch, though, I run through two fully charged batteries. My hammer drill doesn’t really have the torque to power it and started smoking the last time I tried it. I needed to build a proper milling station for weighing and crushing grain. I decided to re-purpose my original brewing stand and find a way to mount my mill to be powered by a proper motor, all while keeping dust down. Especially since the dust can ignite and explode.

Holes!

Reinforcement

I cut a hole to mount the mill and then reinforced the area with a strip of wood. The original hopper for the mill was reused as the lower chute for crushed grain. Since I have no jigsaw and little use for one, I drilled overlapping holes around the edge with a 7/8″ spade bit. One thing I have a lot of right now is time, so I really didn’t mind. I cleaned it up with an oscillating plunge saw and a bastard file. Looks legit, right?

Sheet metal fun

I wanted a nice smooth metal lining for the interior, so the next step was fabricating a shield out of sheet metal. I had some scrap around and played around with it. I cut and bent and shaped and folded it for hours to get something that seemed to work OK. I then used it as a template to cut an improved shape out of nice clean metal. I riveted it together and was amazed at the results. With a little clean-up work with the angle grinder this easily became one of my best works.

Metal shield

For a bigger hopper, I used a 6-gallon plastic carboy fermenter that I dropped and dented beyond use. I cut out the bottom, and trimmed down the spout to fit into the mill’s mouth. I had mixed results with cutting the bucket’s lid to hold it. I cut a hole and then slit it like a pie to spread out to allow the carboy’s spout to be inserted, while still holding it firmly.

Hopper attachment

The cuts just expanded and the hopper would lean terribly. Enter the moment of genius. I realized that if I drilled a hole at the end of each cut, it would stop the spread. Also, if I cut the length of each piece of pie properly, they would lock under the edge of the spout. This worked amazingly well! I’m not even sure I can get the carboy out now without a lot of work.

Inside the beast

I used the old bucket as a support for the grain hopper. A few angle brackets later and this sucker is solid!

The next step is motorizing this sucker. That will be a fun post!

Together at last!

Completed Chiller

The biggest problem with brewing in the tropics is temperature control. The hot wort needs to be cooled as quickly as possible to temperatures that the yeast can tolerate, below 80° F. While the wort is hot, bacteria and wild yeast are inhibited. Once the wort cools below 140°, though, it’s open season on the sugars present. The tap water here is nearly 80°,  which makes the cooling process difficult. I’ve been using ice water, but once I’m brewing on a regular schedule it will be too difficult to make enough ice. What I really need is a dedicated chiller to super cool a liquid (usually propylene glycol – a non-toxic anti-freeze) to be circulated through my plate chiller. Glycol chillers are expensive and difficult to get here on our little island. With a little research, however, I realized that I could make my own for far less money.

What I needed was a container for the glycol (a large cooler), a heat exchanger (an air conditioner), and a pump. I acquired a 15,000 BTU air conditioner (the bigger, the better) for $200 and bought a 150 quart cooler from Sam’s for $75. The next step was to totally wreck these two things so that they could never be resold. That, I’m good at!

Rolling pallet

A few modifications

I took a used wood pallet and added casters to serve as the platform. I chopped up the air conditioner with an angle grinder and carefully moved the coils away from the body so that they could fit into the cooler. Extra care was taken to not kink the lines or vent the refrigerant. I don’t need a $200 paperweight!  I also relocated the electronics so they fit inside the new and improved body.

Paired up

I slotted the cooler to accept the coils, and then filled the slot with Gorilla Glue, since it expands quite a bit. After cleaning the seam up, I covered it with white caulk. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be watertight.

Glue and caulk

I decided to use the cooler’s drain as the return and plumbed the supply line with PVC. I bought a fountain pump at Home Depot to pump the coolant, and I also had another small pump on hand that I’ll use to keep the coolant circulating around the cooling fins to prevent freeze up. The cooling and return lines will consist of reinforced vinyl tubing.

After I thought about it a bit, I decided to remove the caulk and use marine grade sealant. I want this sucker to be permanent, so it’s better to do it properly the first time. The bonus to all this is that I can add extra pumps and temperature controllers to cool fermenters that won’t fit in the walk-in cooler.

Now the difficulty will be in finding propylene glycol here. In the States it’s commonly used as potable water anti-freeze for RV’s. There’s not that much need for anti-freeze here, so I might be running it with water for awhile.

Finished kegerator

An important part of a brewery involves serving cold draft beers. This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, however. The beer needs to kept around 45°F (this is very variable and very debatable) from the keg to the tap. If the kegs are too far away, glycol cooling lines might need be run, which greatly increases expense and creates complications. The easiest option is a kegerator, which is a beer keg refrigeration and serving device. Unfortunately, they are fairly expensive, with a single-tap kegerator running upwards of $400. They get more expensive pretty quickly. I want to have a minimum of 4 different beers on tap with the ability to expand, plus extra room for cold conditioning fermenters. So we’re back to do-it-yourself.

I decided my best bet was to buy a chest freezer and convert it to my purpose. I also wanted to physically modify the freezer as little as possible to preserve its use as, you know, an actual chest freezer. All of the cooling lines in a chest freezer are in the walls, so they’re off-limits. The top is the only safe place to make any modifications, but I didn’t want to drill holes in a perfectly good freezer. The most common modification for this purpose is to build a wooden collar for the freezer and perform as many modifications as possible to the collar.

There are two options for attaching the wooden collar. The first is to permanently affix it to the chest freezer to raise its height and then mount the lid on top. The second is to affix the lid to the collar as one piece and then hinge this as the new lid. The advantage of the second method is that all the lines for the beer taps (which will be mounted in the wooden collar) are out of the way when you raise the lid, and the height of the freezer isn’t increased (we’re lifting kegs after all). This version seemed more practical and was how I decided to proceed.

Removing seal

The first step was to remove the seal from the freezer. I wanted to reuse this for sealing the collar to the freezer body. This was actually pretty easy. I was able to remove the plastic fasteners, pull out the weatherstripping and then reattach the lid liner without much difficulty. I briefly considered removing the liner entirely, but eventually decided that modifying the freezer as little as possible would be my goal.

Gluing up collar

Measure twice, cut once, right? Well, I had a lovely 1x12x8 pine board sitting around that I thought I could make work. I should have done the math once more and saved myself some time. I did a bit more joining than I should have before I realized that I needed another board anyways. Oh well, another trip to Home Depot won’t kill me. If I’d done the math correctly the first time, I would have made the collar the full size of an 8″ board. Whatever, it looks nice.

Gluing collar to lid

I then sanded and stained the collar, added angle brackets and glued the lid on. I stapled the seal to the other side of the collar and sealed it up a bit with glue as well. A coat of varnish really made the wood shine.

Hinge attachment

I attached the collar to the freezer using the stock hinges, which still handle the job perfectly fine. I drilled holes for the shanks for the taps and CO2 line, installed the hardware and tried to keep all the lines tidy.

Kegerator lines (yes, that is a paddleboard hanging behind the freezer!)

Wow, that looks really nice! Since I’m using the kegerator as my fermentation chamber for now, I’ll be running it with a temperature controller, but when it’s used for serving, I’ll modify the built-in thermostat to keep it around 45°F.

A few configuration changes

Naomi and I have been discussing the brewery quite a bit lately and we’ve decided to go legit from the start. That means a commercial location, proper permits, and everything else that’s involved. To help this process along, I’ve enlisted the services of a professional business expediter to grease the proper wheels and handle all interactions with officials. Considering I have to pay rent on my commercial space while waiting on permits, I expect her fee will be well worth it. She also comes very highly recommended!

One of my biggest bottlenecks was going to be having enough space for keeping batches of beer at the proper temperatures for fermenting and conditioning. I had been looking at used commercial chest freezers in the 20 cu. range, but these still seemed far too small. They also severely limited the size and shape of what could be put in them. I mentioned a used walk-in cooler that I saw on an online PR classifieds site to Naomi, thinking that it was simply more expensive than we could afford. She told me that if a walk-in is what I needed, then don’t waste time and money getting something else. Man, did I marry right!

Luis’s commercial equipment emporium

I had heard about the business selling the cooler and it’s actually just down the road from us. It is so classic Puerto Rican that I’ve wanted an excuse to stop by there ever since we moved here. The place consists of six or seven semi trailers, filled with random commercial equipment, lined up along the road with a desk and chair in one serving as the office. There is also no signage indicating that these trailers are someplace that you might want to stop to shop for a good deal on commercial restaurant equipment.

The owner and his assistant were very friendly and led me to one of the trailers containing the parts of the disassembled cooler. They thoughtfully brought a flashlight since there are no lights in semi trailers. The cooler seemed to have all the walls in OK shape, and the compressor and evaporator were in quite nice shape. The electrical and cooling lines had been cut for dis-assembly, but they appeared to have been done properly.

Walk-in cooler parts

We then proceeded to the negotiation. Now, I don’t really think that I’m a very good negotiator. I find it feels similar to giving a public speech. I get nervous and sweaty and I have to keep my flight or fight response in check. In this case, I knew what I was willing to pay and was perfectly willing to let this pile of parts go. I also speak enough Spanish that I overheard them say that they’d had this thing taking up room for 3 months. The first several rounds consisted of me simply shaking my head and saying “no”.

We finally got to something that was reasonable and I left with an agreement to call him back for this cash-in-hand, today-only deal on whether I would take it. I showed up a half-hour before they closed for the day with $100 less in cash than needed.

Cooler compressor/evaporator

A bit more haggling ensued, but perhaps I’m not that bad at bargaining after all.

These guys actually have quite a lot of good commercial stuff for decent prices, and I’ll definitely be stopping by again.

Almost completed

There is a lot of interest around here in locally made craft beer from the local bars and restaurants, but there is very little to be found. In fact, there is only one place in Rincón that even serves beer on tap. After much deliberation, I’ve decided to start a local nano-brewery here and I’ve begun putting together the equipment for commercial output. The goal is to ramp up production to 15-gallon batches (which is still very, very small) while improving quality and consistency.  The permit process takes awhile so I’ll be “giving” beers away for a suggested “donation” to spread the word and pay the bills. Kegs with a portable CO2 systems will also be available.

I thought people might be interested in the process of putting together a tiny brewery on a tiny budget. Keep in mind things might get a bit technical, so if your eyes begin to glaze over you’ve been warned.

Bella in the new 20 gal. pot

When I moved to Puerto Rico I moved from extract brewing, which I had done for years, to all-grain brewing. This is a big step, not only in terms of equipment, but also in knowledge. With extract brewing, all of the hard work has already been done for you and making beer is nearly as easy as making tea. When you brew from raw malted grains, however, you have much more work, but also much more control. A difference of a couple of degrees during the mashing process will produce a different beer. It’s also the only way you’ll probably be able to make money brewing beer. I wish I had paid more attention in chemistry, because the learning curve on alpha and beta amylase enzyme activity is a little steep.

RIMS example

Not only was I upgrading the size of the batch, I was also upgrading the method of mashing the grain. Mashing is the brewer’s term for the hot water steeping process which hydrates the barley, activates the malt enzymes, and converts the grain starches into fermentable sugars. Previously, I did this process in a five-gallon cooler and trusted the insulation to maintain the proper temperatures. For version 2.0, I decided to build a RIMS (Recirculating Infusion Mash) system with a temperature controller, heater, and pump to circulate the the wort in order to most efficiently extract the sweet sugars from the the mash. The pump will also come in handy for other transfer jobs.

The HERMIT Brewery

I did a lot of research on different types of brewing setups before settling on mine. I originally based my design on the Hermit Brewery, but I found that raising my HLT (hot liquor tank - big pot of hot water) to allow gravity feed allowed me to reconfigure my plumbing to allow more options with my pump (like whirlpooling –  spinning the liquid wort after boiling to help separate the solids from the liquids). That was a big breakthrough. The next was realizing that I could simplify my plumbing even more by using the pump to move liquid from the MLT (mash/lauter tun) to the brew kettle with the same circuit that handled the whirlpooling. This also meant I could easily pump the wort from the brew kettle through the plate chiller and into the fermenter with a simple hose change.

Soldered Port

I’m a cheap bastard so I instead of paying $400 for a 20-gallon ported brew kettle, I figured I would buy more affordable stainless pots and drill and port them myself. I spent many hours researching soldering stainless steel so that I didn’t have to have professional TIG welding done, and I was convinced that I could do this myself.

Hole extruder

I sourced a quality pot from Amazon for my brew kettle and a cheap pot from eBay for my hot liquor tank. Drilling a hole into a $200 stainless pot made me a bit nervous, but the soldering process was so perfect that I wish I had known about it years ago.

I drilled a smaller hole than the fitting and used an extruding tool that I put together using a stainless reducer to pull a flared hole through the pot.

Perfect solder joint

I then pulled the fitting through with the same system to make a tight fit conducive to soldering. I used high quality liquid flux and wrapped a ring of solder around the joint to make the process easier. All it took then was heat. The solders were gorgeous!  I did 5 or 6 holes and solders in my pots and every one of them was beautiful! I would have done this to my pots years ago if I’d only known. I was never very happy with the weldless fitting kits I used before.

Wiring the control panel

I needed to build a control panel to hold the PID (temperature controller), SSR (solid state relay for handling the heater power), switches, and lights.

It works!

I have some familiarity with circuits and wiring, but I am definitely not an electrical engineer. I spent a long time researching RIMS control panel designs and sketched out what I thought I wanted before I started wiring stuff up. I was quite surprised at how well it went! I only blew the circuit breaker once (stupid mistake)!

Back of the control panel. Heat sink is for SSR, GFCI is for circuit protection, & the other plugs are for pump and heater.

I carefully tested each section of the circuit and made sure it worked correctly before moving on the next part.  The most complicated section was making sure that the heater only turned on when the pump was running. This is to help avoid burning out the heater element. Although the switches are rated for the current usage, I have reservations about whether I’m going to need contactors or relays to properly handle the loads.   I suppose if the switches melt, I’ll have an answer.

Stainless RIMS heater

The heater was built out of 1.5″ stainless pipe with an ultra low density heater element (to avoid scorching the mash) in one end and a thermocouple in the other end to send temperature information to the PID. As the mash cycles through the system, the temperature is constantly monitored and the heater is cycled by the PID to maintain the exact temp. For the foodies out there, this also means that I have a gigantic 25-gallon sous-vide cooker!

Cooler Conversion

CPVC Manifold (upside down)

The mash/lauter tun is simply a large cooler. I’ve attached a ball valve instead of the standard drain, and I made a manifold out of CPVC (heat resistant PVC) to act as a false bottom.  The manifold design allows the liquid to run off the mash evenly in all directions so no area has preferential flow. Remember, the better our extraction of sugars, the less grain we have to use.

More to come…

Johnny’s Boat

Our friends Bob and Diane were in town from St. Thomas for a dental vacation, and they invited us down to La Parguera for a day of cruising through mangrove swamps in a little boat. Naomi and I had been wanting to do this for quite a while so we jumped at the chance. B & D arranged for the rental of a little flat-bottomed boat named “Johnny’s Boat,” and we met at their hotel at about 10 am. After stocking up on ice and beer, Bob took the helm and slowly motored us around the waterfront to look at the houses built out in the mangroves.

Mangrove Houses

These homes were built on pilings in the water when regulation was a bit more lax. You can’t do this anymore, but these homes are grandfathered in. You’re not able to insure them and you can’t rebuild them if they’re destroyed, but they sure are cute. Many are accessible from land, but some are only accessible by boat and require wind and solar power. I imagine they have to bring their water in as well. Let’s not think about sewage.

Cayo Mata la Gata

We headed out to a small island called Mata la Gata, which literally means Kill the Cat, but somehow loosely translates locally as Nurse Shark Grove. It was a cute little place with a nice dock, swimming area, pavilions and a tiny little mangrove trail. Luckily there were no dead cats.

Path through the mangroves

Bob had found a long path through the mangroves on Google Earth and was determined to travel its entire length in this little boat of ours. He did an amazing job of finding this little channel, and we slowly headed in.

Mangrove Trail

What an amazing little tunnel! This entire area is covered by mangroves, which branch out in crazy roots. Even the limbs of these trees send down shoots into the water to take root. Their seeds are even shaped like long spikes so that they stab into the mud to better take root! They look amazing. This little channel was barely wide enough for our boat most of the time, and there were many occasions where we had to tilt the motor up to keep the prop out of the mud or avoid roots. There were some dead mangrove trees that had fallen over the channel that required us to take the boat’s top down and carefully maneuver under them. They were so low that we had to step over the trees as the boat passed underneath.

Kelp Beach

After exiting this long channel we pulled the boat on shore and visited the local beach. The beach here isn’t as pretty as the beaches in Rincón, and at this time of the year it’s covered in kelp that washes up. The kelp was so deep that you would actually sink nearly to your knees as you walked through it. Even at the beach, there was a layer of dead kelp under the sand that made walking difficult. Not my favorite beach. With all the rotting vegetation, it was kind of stinky too.

After this, Bob pointed our little boat directly out to sea and we headed out to the reef a couple of miles offshore. It was so much fun being out on the ocean that I spent most of the trip standing on the bow, holding onto a line like a bronco rider, and enjoying the spray in my face and the waves under my feet.

Island View

We anchored on the reef and some snorkeled, some swam, and some continued to drink beer. It was a wonderful feeling sitting in a little boat, feeling the waves beneath you and, looking at the shore miles away. And here we were, seeing the reef actually poking out of the ocean. Three miles out and it’s shallow enough to stand up!

On our way back, we stopped by a small island for a little exploring. This little island was an interesting place with a lot of washed up coral, wood, and other random crap. It had a random homemade shelter that was falling apart, but I thought this place was very beautiful in a weird sort of way. It was very windy at the time and it made this place feel very desolate and run-down.

Little Mangrove

What a great day with good friends. The joy I felt being on a boat in the ocean is difficult to describe. The smell of the air, the wind, the spray of the saltwater, the crazy rocking horse of the waves– it all felt like magic.

Here they come!

I was standing as far away from the bee swarm as I could, but it was difficult on our little eight-foot balcony. Once Danny the bee keeper started brushing the bees off of the rafter, they formed a huge buzzing cloud around us. Bees are pretty calm when they’re swarming, but the bees in Puerto Rico are all Africanized and are a bit unpredictable. When I felt the first sting on my back, I gritted my teeth and stood as still as possible. Swatting at the bees would only make things worse. It’s best to just take the stings and attempt to push through the pain. Then there was a sting on my head. And another. And then another. I felt a stab on my throat and then looked down to see a bee sting my chest through my shirt. I lost count at eight, and the pain was getting too much to bear. I began to feel panic rising. The only two ways out were over the balcony to the ground 70 feet below or through the cloud of bees to the sliding door. I chose the door.

Uninvited guests

Exactly how did I find myself in this situation? Let’s go back about four days to the beginning. One night, I walked into our bedroom and noticed a few bees flying around. Once I looked around the room, I realized that there were a LOT of bees around- like hundreds! They were on the walls, the floor, the bed, and especially around the screen door.  They seemed to be pouring in from the cracks between the screen door and the glass doors. During the investigation, I was stung in the soft part of my underarm by a trapped bee. I yelled down the stairs to Naomi, “We have a problem up here!”

While the bedroom was ground zero, there were bees flying around the entire house. I described the scene to Naomi, and going to the bedroom doorway was far enough for her. I’m very comfortable with bees and know that they only sting as a last resort, but Naomi is not so understanding. Fear took over and I had to hold her, calm her down, and convince her that everything was going to be alright. I closed up every door in the house and we barricaded ourselves in the guest bedroom, which had only four bees in it. Naomi had a sleepless night full of stinger dreams, but we emerged unscathed.

Hello, bee swarm

The next morning I poked my head out of the balcony door and saw a big ball of bees in the rafters. What an impressive sight! The bees in the bedroom were mostly dead now, so I vacuumed them up. I started researching swarms and learned that usually bee swarms move on after a couple of days once they find a suitable place to build their colony. We considered calling someone to remove the bees but decided to wait a couple days to see if they would leave of their own accord. Unfortunately, a few days later, I noticed that they had begun building wax comb. Oh, we’re in trouble now. The swarm had decided that THIS was their new home. I needed a professional!

My grandfather was a beekeeper, and I have fond memories of helping him with his hives. I love bees, and I’ve been wanting to start a hive for many years, but this swarm arrived before I was ready. I emailed the professor of agriculture, Danny, at Mayagüez University, and asked him to help us. Since I’m interested in keeping bees myself, I decided that I would take part as much as possible and learn as much as I could from this expert.

Removing the comb

As soon as Danny poked his head near the swarm, worker bees darted out and pelted us. They dive-bombed us without stinging to let us know that the next step was stinger time. Danny looked at me and said nonchalantly, “These bees are feisty; I think they’re hungry.” He had me mix up some sugar water to spray on the bees- not only calm them down but also to make it more difficult for them to fly.

I was determined to document this entire experience, and if Danny wasn’t worried about wearing protective gear, then I wasn’t going to worry about it either. I knew that swarming bees are very non-aggressive but I was also acutely aware that accidental stings happen.

The Queen

Danny slowly started cutting out the combs that the bees had built and checked each one carefully for the queen. He worked so calmly handling the bees and combs while wearing no protection at all- I was amazed. He found the queen on the last comb that he retrieved. This was the first time that I had ever seen a queen bee up close! All the times that I helped my grandfather when I was a kid, I never saw a queen bee. Danny held her out for me to see, put her in a tiny little bee cage to keep her in place, and placed her in the hive that he brought.

The next step is to brush the worker bees off of their perch. Ideally, they then fly around and head for the queen. When Danny started brushing the ball of bees, a huge cloud of buzzing bees was created, and my heart started pumping a bit faster.”It’s okay,” I told myself. “They’re swarming. If they sting you, they die, so they really don’t want to sting you.” That’s when the first sting on my back happened… I felt terrible for having to bail while Danny was still carefully sweeping bees off of the rafters. It took me a few minutes of silently dealing with the pain and then splashing my face with cold water before I was ready to deal with what was also going on this evening… a dinner party!

Naomi’s sister, Elena, is in town visiting, so we hosted a potluck dinner party so that she could meet some of our friends. People were starting to arrive downstairs, food in hand, and I could hear animated voices as people greeted one another. Some came upstairs to the bedroom to check out the bee craziness. The house was filling with guests, and things were getting hectic!

The hanging queen is covered by bees at the bottom of the column.

I went back out on the balcony to help Danny, and the bees were still clumping in the rafter instead of gathering with the queen. He tried smoking them, but that wasn’t encouraging them very much so Danny had me fetch some string. He hung the queen in her little bee cage from the rafters and he slowly lowered her every five or ten minutes as the bees clumped around her. Around this time, I also had another bee fly in my ear and sting me. Great! The queen trapeze act helped a bit but not enough. We then raised the hive off of the ground as much as we could to get it closer to the remaining bees.

Raised hive

Danny decided that the hive would need to stay overnight to collect as many bees as possible, so Naomi and I invited him to join our dinner party! We commenced with the eating, drinking, and merriment, and  everyone got along famously.

The next evening Danny came back by and we chatted a bit until the sun went down. By this point most of the swarm had moved into the hive, and he plugged it up and carried it out to his van. I learned so much from this experience that I don’t regret a single sting. I plan on keeping in touch with Danny and I hope to help him on future swarm removals.

I’m arranging to have my grandfather’s bee suit and smoker shipped to me to keep up the family tradition. R.I.P. Nathan Kerby (11/25/1919 to 2/18/2012).

Danny, fully integrated with the party	Bees in the dark	Fresh wax comb
They even joined the party	Stragglers slowly gathering to the hive

Prepped and ready

Naomi and I had heard about green papaya salad a couple of times, but it wasn’t until we ate at a nice local restaurant, Casa Isleña, for my birthday that we had a chance to try it. After one bite, we both looked up and stared at each other with a gleam in our eyes. How can this be so good!? It was the perfect combination of crunchy, salty, sweet, tangy and magical for a warm evening! I decided that I had to recreate this salad.

Peeled green papaya (almost too ripe)

This is a Thai or Vietnamese recipe so it’s not commonly made here. This makes it a bit difficult to find green papayas. There are papaya trees all over the place, but most of them are on private property and the roadside stands don’t sell unripe papaya. This last week I’ve been looking all over for papaya trees, but I didn’t quite feel up to leaping over people’s fences, snatching a papaya out of their tree, and running off.

I checked out our papaya tree once again and there was a perfectly sized papaya hidden under some leaves! I’d missed that guy the last time I checked. Woo hoo! We gathered up all the ingredients from local stores and set about assembling this amazing dish.

Julienned green papaya and shredded carrot

If you can find a green papaya, this salad is incredibly easy! It consists of julienned green papaya and carrot, finely minced garlic, scallions, peanuts and cilantro; exact quantities are unimportant. The dressing is the classic Thai mix of salty, sweet, and sour: 1/4 cup fish sauce, 1/4 cup sugar, 1/3 cup fresh lime juice, a squirt of sriracha hot sauce (and a bit of lime zest for fanciness). Proper julienning of the papaya is important, but I just shredded the carrots. Don’t be tempted to shred the papaya. The crunch factor of beautiful matchsticks is important.

Green papaya salad with open-faced Thai pulled pork sandwiches

Stir the fish sauce, lime juice, sugar, scallions, and garlic together until the sugar is dissolved. Mix the papaya and carrot together. I used about three parts papaya to two parts carrot, but it doesn’t really matter. In fact, if you can’t find green papaya, try this salad with only carrot, or with julienned unripe zucchini or unripe mango. Then toss with the dressing, add peanuts and cilantro, and eat that thing! You can’t imagine how incredible the mix of textures and flavors is. To serve, just grab a handful of goodness and leave the extra dressing behind.

We had Thai pulled pork with a peanut BBQ sauce left over from our friend Amanda’s birthday party from the night before, so this was a perfect side. Honestly, I would eat this salad with anything though. Naomi and I have joked that if we eat at Casa Isleña again we’ll just order four sides of their green papaya salad. True happiness.

Parcha

Oh my, oh my. Passion fruit! This little lovely gem is known in Puerto Rico as parcha. Passiflora edulis is a vine species of  passion flower that is native to Paraguay, Brazil, and northern Argentina.

The bright yellow variety of passion fruit, which is also known as the Golden Passion Fruit, can grow up to the size of a grapefruit,  has a smooth, glossy, light and airy rind. The common variety here is about the size of a large lemon. There is also a smaller purple variety with a different flavor, but I’ve never seen it in Puerto Rico.

Backyard parcha vine

Naomi’s first encounter with parcha was from an old man with an ice cream cart on the beach. After her first bite, her eyes lit up and she said “I don’t know what this is but it’s amazing!” The flavor became her favorite variety of limber, a Puerto Rican icy treat that’s served in disposable drinking cups. She’s always excited to find parcha limber! Especially when she could tell it wasn’t from concentrate.

Opened fruit

Some friends brought Naomi some fresh fruits and vegetables for her birthday and there were five parchas included. The very same night I discovered a parcha vine in our backyard! We’d never had a fresh parcha so I cut one open to serve with Naomi’s birthday lunch.

Getting into the sucker was surprisingly difficult. The waxy rind did not cut easily at all and I finally just shoved the knife tip directly in to get things started. Upon opening, my first thought was “Well, this is going to be a pain.” It’s a bit like a pomegranate with lots of seeds, each surrounded by a tiny sack of jelly.

Straining

The smell is amazing though! A very fragrant acidic aroma. We scooped the jelly mass out with a spoon and tried sucking and biting the jelly off of the seeds but that proved to be quite a bit of work. The flavor is very tart and acidic! It’s difficult to describe it without the use of the word “awesome”. We still had 4 more parchas and I was determined to extract as much juice and pulp as possible.

Precious parcha juice

I scooped the fruits out into a sauce pan and added a bit of water. I heated the mixture to make it less viscous and then pressed it through a course straining bag. We froze this little bit and are patiently waiting for the backyard fruits to ripen. There’s got to be a couple dozen on that vine. Sweet nectar of the gods! I need more!!!

Parcha is pretty highly valued here and I’ve never seen one in a store or roadside stand. I’m considering trying to collect enough to make a wine from it. Of course I’ll probably have to hide it or it will end up in a smoothie.

Passion fruit flower

The passion fruit flower is quite beautiful as well. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish Christian missionaries adopted the unique physical structures of this plant, particularly the numbers of its various flower parts, as symbols of the passion of Christ.