Fermentation is in Bad Taste

My house really stinks lately. Ordinarily I would tell you that it is not my fault, but this time I have to take most of the blame. No I did not run through the yard after a deer migration, or bloat up on a double bean burrito. Actually the problem around here lately is purely a matter of first-degree felonious fermentation.

Recently with the garage sale acquisition of a rather large variety of beer making buckets, pots, and bottling paraphernalia, my wife and I whipped up not only a batch of brew but some sarsaparilla too. The problem of course is that each recipe fills the house with its own distinctive scent. While the sarsaparilla smells sweet and ‘rooty’, right out of the vat, the ale permeates the air with the odor of ‘damp earth’ and malt balls without the chocolaty goodness of candy varietal.

Though I am not a fan of beer in the least, I’ll line up for a chilly sarsaparilla over a ball of ice cream anytime. The ‘rilla’ likes a warmer final resting place so the bottles are banished to the upstairs bathroom to ferment. The beer likes it cooler so its potent grainy fragrance gets bounced to the basement bathroom. Sadly, I am quickly running out of bathrooms to stink up on my own.

If you don’t find that a ‘gas’ then how about the fact that today I also discovered a DEAD mouse on yet another level of the house. I don’t mean to get ‘CARRION-ED ’ AWAY, but what in the heck is going on in this stink-hole? Between my blog, a rotting Mickey, and the literally BILLIONS of yeast molecules ‘out-gassing’ around here, I feel like I’m living inside a BLIMP instead of a public dump. Oh well, fermentation I’m told, should temper bitterness. I sure hope so, because after smelling and stewing in my own juices this week, I am starting to get a REALLY bad taste in my mouth!