From the Mind of Trevor Stone

As Boxing Day is to Christmas, so Shadow Boxing Day (February 3rd) is to Groundhog Day. Shadow Boxing Day is a day to get shit done that you've been putting off. [previously] Although I've been funemployed for five months, there's a lot of tasks that seem like a good idea, but I just don't get around to them. Like, why haven't I brewed anything yet? Shadow Boxing Day is close enough to Imbolc that making mead will count as celebration of Brigid the brewer.

We spent July 4th of last year bottling four carboys that had been sitting on the counter for years; the newest from 2021 and the oldest from 2018. Part of the problem was that home brewing is mostly "clean your kitchen" and then a little bit of "mix stuff in a pot." I would occasionally clean the kitchen on a Saturday, be too tired to brew on Sunday, and by the time there was another clear weekend the kitchen would be dirty again. Now that I've got counter space back and I can summon the energy to clean on something other than a free weekend, the zymurgy hobby is back on the table (so to speak).

Kelly and I made a honeymoon mead starting in late 2015. We were inspired by a mead shared at Dragonfest that year made from Brazilian wildflower honey, so we ordered a 60 pound bucket of the stuff. That's enough for three or four 5-gallon batches, and I've used it a few times since. But the results were coming out with a fairly harsh off-flavor, likely a result of fermenting at too high of a temperature: the yeast are stressed out, and you taste the result of them not doing their best work. I also wasn't getting inspired with new ideas for that particular honey, so it sat all lonely in a corner.

Honey is a pretty amazing substance. I can't think of many other foods that can sit half-empty in a closet for a decade and still be worth eating. But honey is anti-microbial, so the only challenge is that a lot of it had crystalized. Fortunately, our house has a nice low-tech way to get honey flowing: I left the bucket on our sun porch for a week, occasionally digging around with a spoon to shift the crystal clumps. The flavor is still nice: not too sweet and with a bit of a mysterious taste to match the dark amber color. I decided it could do well as a pomegranate mead, and found some unfiltered, unsweetened 100% pomegranate juice from Armenia at our local Middle Eastern shop. Having learned the yeast-fermentation-temperature lesson from my initial wine yeast brews, I picked up an English Ale yeast with an ideal temperature range of 64° to 79°F. Room temperature sits in the middle, and now that we've got a heat pump we might be able to keep the kitchen below 80° in the summer. My 2021 cyser with British Ale yeast turned out well, and was able to survive into the 12% alcohol range.

I normally take fairly precise measurements while home brewing, but not today. (Relax, don't worry, have a homebrew.) This melomel has "about 7 pounds" of honey, measured by lifting the honey bucket with an analog luggage scale, then lifting the empty bucket afterwards. I added "about a gallon" of warm water by filling a quart jar four times, then four liters of juice ('cause it's imported), then "about four liters" of water in those juice jars, so I could get the last bits of sediment into the brew. There's also somewhere between an extra 3 quarters to one whole cup of water from mixing the yeast and nutrient, plus rinsing the last of the must from the pot into the carboy. That gives "a little more than three gallons of liquid," plus the volume of honey. This should work perfectly; it's got plenty of surface area for primary fermentation in a 5-gallon glass carboy, and I can then rack it to a 3 gallon carboy for secondary, leaving behind what I expect to be rather a lot of trub: the pomegranate juice was quite cloudy.

The Internet has a bunch of opinions about fermentation vessels, with most commentators discouraging using a carboy for primary fermentation; the narrow neck increases the risk of blow-outs and reduces surface area for the initial aerobic phase. My theory is that "3.5 gallons in a 5 gallon carboy" solves both of those risks, and since I'm not planning to rack to secondary for two months I'd rather it sit in glass than plastic. Plus, I think this one will be fun to watch.

The pre-fermentation taste of the must is more subtle than I expected: a little sweetness at the front, followed by subtle pomegranate flavor—including a hint of the white pith—and then back to honey flavor at the finish. If you didn't know it was pomegranate, it might take a bit to place it. We'll see if this turns into a lovely dry melomel (just 12% potential alcohol), or if that fruit flavor disappears through primary. I got a couple jars of pure pomegranate syrup which I might add in secondary fermentation if necessary; that stuff is tart and tangy on pancakes.

I've got a couple other jugs of honey waiting for a round tuit now that I'm re-building my zymurgy reflexes. I got some wildflower honey from a Rocky Ford farmstand in 2024, and should probably start that fermenting now so we can add some fresh melons to secondary this summer, giving a better shot of retaining the cantaloupe flavor than starting with fruit chunks in the must. I also stopped for a hand-made "LOCAL HONEY" sign along highway 16 in the Arkansas Ozarks in 2022, not too far from Ben Hur and the Pedestal Rocks trailhead. I'm really not sure what to make with that one, so maybe I should start it as a traditional and see what the flavor suggests. I think there are also some Palisade peaches in the freezer waiting for a project…

My favorite Google perk so far? There were two baskets of fresh persimmons in the cafeteria for lunch. Not only are you never more than 150 feet away from free food, it's succulent tasty free food.

Okay, so fresh persimmons might be more of a California perk than a specifically Google perk. I saw a guy yesterday with two persimmons in a bag, so I'd planned to go on a persimmon hunt anyway. But the copious free food illustrates Google's understanding of software engineers. Eating is part of programming.

Eating is also how humans bond.[1] So by having cafeterias and micro-kitchens all over campus, Google can foster natural communication in a community of significant size. At my previous job, I remember a lot of important decisions and designs that happened in the kitchen rather than in a meeting room.

Google firmly believes in open access within the organization -- by default, all documents employees create are visible to anyone else in the company. But with great knowledge comes great responsibility, and they rely on employees not to share that information with the outside world. So while I'd love to tell you how many people make it all the way from application to offer and the impressive size of Google's aggregate storage, those are things that competitors would love to know, so they'll have to remain private.[3] There's a strong history of public blogs talking about experiences at Google, so I'll still be able to share my perspectives and insights on things at a high level, and Google relies on word of mouth to get their message out. It's just that I need to make sure my "That's awesome!" response passes through a "Who can I share the awe with?" filter. I didn't have a problem with this at my last job, but information about Google is a lot more exciting than information about government record keeping.


[1] I think Steven Pinker's How The Mind Works quotes Dear Abby (or Emily Post?) about dating. It goes something like "A date should feature entertainment, food, and company. As time goes on, more and more company can replace entertainment, but food must always be present." I'd like to find the original quote, but my copy of HTMW is in storage and my several web searches had no luck.[2] Anybody have a proper cite? Update: Thanks to dr_tectonic for citing Miss Manners:

There are three possible parts to a date, of which at least two must be offered: entertainment, food, and affection. It is customary to begin a series of dates with a great deal of entertainment, a moderate amount of food, and the merest suggestion of affection. As the amount of affection increases, the entertainment can be reduced proportionately. When the affection IS the entertainment, we no longer call it dating. Under no circumstances can the food be omitted.

[2] The irony of failing in my first web search task after joining Google is not lost on me.

[3] There's probably also some degree of law and sausages at play. It's easy to abstractly be in favor of open communication, but sometimes you're better off not knowing.