Week 9 Newsletter
Week #9 - Week of July 27th
It was around this time during last year's adventures on the farm when I took advantage of the bountiful supply of blackberries growing along the southernmost edge of the property, collecting roughly 5 pounds of delicious, unsprayed fruit at peak ripeness. I bagged and took them home, preparing them to be sealed away for a great many months in the deep recesses of the chest freezer that lives on my back patio. These berries were not to be eaten directly– nay, I saw greater potential in them waiting to be unleashed by the powers of heat, time, and the unknown (yet predictable) machinations of an army of microorganisms.
And so, on a cold November's evening in 2025, I saw to it that these berries would fulfill their destiny. Upon retrieving them from the freezer, I found that the cell walls of the fruit had broken down, leaving a wet pile of delicious berry mush– perfect for the role they were to fulfill. Having never made a fermented beverage before, I found the process remarkably simple to grasp. I dissolved my bottles of honey into heated water on the stovetop, letting the warmth of the stock pot pleasantly radiate throughout my chilly first-floor kitchen. The berries went into a cleaned and sanitized bucket with a lid and spout, upon which the must– the unfermented honey and water mixture– was poured. The yeast was pitched, and the bucket was left in a dark corner to begin its slow transformation.
Yeast is a remarkable organism– the fact that we have been able to not only harness its power for culinary use but also categorize it into as many unique strains as we have is a testament to human ingenuity. Yet, it is not all-powerful. While honey meads were likely some of the earliest intentionally produced fermented beverages, honey is actually quite terrible at being a fermentable sugar on its own. Honey is well-known for its natural antimicrobial properties– glucose oxidase enzymes produced by the bees acts as a slow-release producer of hydrogen peroxide, warding off bacteria and fungi. This is great for the purpose of storing it in one's cupboard for lengthy periods of time, but proves remarkably self-defeating when trying to intentionally convert the glucose into ethanol using… well, fungi. Secondly, honey doesn't provide the other essential nutrients yeast need to thrive– nitrogen being the most prominent of these. While adding fruit helps in this regard, an additional measure is to pitch bread yeast, boil it to kill it off, and feed the champagne yeast in the mead the flesh of their fallen brethren. As it turns out, dead yeast is a rather effective nutrition source for live yeast– morbid as it may sound. Thus, over the course of the next 3 weeks, I routinely added these nutrients every few days or so as not to stall the fermentation. The final ABV measurement on the mead clocked in at around 16.7%, which is nearing the point at which yeast starts to sort of… give up. It was higher than I had been aiming for, and with this knowledge I knew I had created something both tasty and dangerous.
I siphoned the mead off the blackberry remnants and into a glass jug in which it would remain for many months to come, residing in a dark corner of the living room. Its bright red coloration developed into a deeper, jammy purple as it sat and aged. Finally, coming upon the eve of the yearly Ecolibrium crew slumber party 7 months later, I bottled my beverage to be shared with my farm compatriots, many of whom watched me pick those berries nearly a year earlier. Due to a challenging, dare I say, harrowingexperience the year prior of trying to work a full 8 hour day of laborious farm work in the sun after a late night of celebration on the farm, we decided this year to work later in the days prior so that the final day of the week could involve a much lighter harvest. This proved to be worthwhile, as several crew members woke up the next morning with a mysterious, unexplainable headache… must have been the allergies.
It has been a couple of weeks since that celebration filled with delicious food and campfire tales, and I have grown ever more grateful for the bonds I have formed with the people I work with here in that time. It's a beautiful and rare thing to work alongside such a delightful group of like-minded, yet diverse and distinct personalities as we have here, and I'll cherish the memories I have of my time working on this farm for a long time.
As harvest season kicks into full swing, the team is feeling ever more like a well-oiled machine. Though the rows upon rows of wily cherry tomatoes may try to intimidate us from afar, we've found ourselves feeling prepared and unfearful of the challenge of keeping them pruned and trellised before they run amok. We're finishing harvests earlier despite larger orders, and it feels simply incredible to be accomplishing as much as we are. Some of the year's most delicious crops are finally here, and it feels surreal how quickly this part of the year has come– some days it feels like the season just barely started, but it's already nearly August. I've been making the most of the fresh cabbage, tomatoes, and summer squash in the lunches I bring with me to the farm. There's something especially rewarding about eating the literal fruits of our labor to fuel our work in the field each day.
It's been interesting being part of a second year at what I once thought was to be a single season of work for me. Something is enchanting about this work– no matter the weather conditions or occasional physical discomfort, it feels more rewarding at the day than just about anything else.
- Gerry