November 2007 - Posts

• The making of Indian white wine with local supplies

  Although making of wine is a bit offtopic to bodybuilding, research says good wine is a killer of cholesterol and burns away  fat on frequent use. The wine available in the markets are either so sweet or  tastes like vinegar. On top of it they are very expensive. So I had decided to make it at home. The first thing I did was to buy a book on wine making "The  Wine Maker's guide" by JP. Choffel. I chose to make white wine from apple about 40 litres. These are the ingredients and equipments needed Apple - 50 kg Masher(I used the conventional wooden bucket and a heavy piece of wooden log) Water - 40 litres Yeast - 20 gms Sugar - 12 kg Potassium Meta Bi Sulphate or Campden Tablet Hydrometer -950-1200 range Big Buckets -2 Long handled stirrer Water can 2 (20 liter capacity, the normal plastic water can with narrow neck) Corks and Saline tubes I bought 50 kg's of apple, ripe ones  removed the seeds and mashed it out. I cleaned the Bucket, stirrer with potassium  meta bi sulphate solution. (Prepare the solution with 1 liter of  water and 100 gms of potassium meta bi sulphate) Then the mashed apple was divided into 2 and put in the buckets. 20 liters of water was added to each bucket. 6kg of fine sugar was added to the bucket. I bought the best sugar in market. If you go for cheap sugar then the finished wine will not be of the high quality. Then the yeast was added approximate 10 gms to a bucket. A long handled stirrer(I used the stem part of a pal tree leaf) was used to stir the solution. Be careful to stir them in clockwise direction which is believed to be good for yeast multiplication. (Here is what I did and I am writing it in simple words if you wish to try it at home) Fermentation with air - phase 1  Cover the bucket with a clean cloth and leave the solution to ferment with availability of air. Stir it twice a day for 5 days. By then the yeast would have broken down the sugar and apple must.  The fermentation will be furious and you will see bubbles and foams from day2. It will be vigorous till day 4 and the must will start settling down by then. If the must is not settling down and you notice fermentation even on day 5, you can allow it to ferment for a couple of days more. Do not forget to stir it twice a day so that the must is distributed evenly. Once the primary fermentation is stopped filter the solution by a clean white cloth. Fermentation without air (secondary fermentation) Clean the  water cans with sulphate solution and rinse them thoroughly. Filter the fermented apple juice using a clean white cloth. By now it will have the smell of wine. Pour the filtered juice (we call it wine from now on) into the water bottles upto the neck only leaving an inch or so empty. If you have not enough wine to fill it, you can add clean water to make it up to the neck. Now place a airtight cap on the bottle. You can get this cap everytime you open a sealed 20 liter water can. Place the cap and wind the cap thoroughly with tape so that no air can get inside the bottle. You can use several techniques to prevent any air entering the bottle and to expell the air (gas) generated during the secondary fermentation. I used a saline kit for this purpose. With the sharp end I pierced the Cap and put the other end of the tube into a bottle of water so that no air can come inside but the fermented gases can ooze out through the water. Leave it for 2 months and then rack it. Racking is just filtering again so that the wine is clear from any suspended particles. Leave it for another 2 months. Now the wine is ready to drink. However if you can bottle it and can keep it for another 6 months, it will give best results. In my case we just drunk the 40 litres  in 3 weeks. I had took the pictures of all the apparatus, the procedures etc in my camera, but unfortunately it got corrupted. Next Time I start with wine making I will provide you with as much details as possible. Also I will offer a bottle of wine (inside India)  for the best comments        Posted Nov 17 2007, 02:04 AM by admin with no comments

• Not much success in the first phase..

  Work was so hectic that we 3 couldn't do our workouts which eventually led to the failure of phase-1. We were working out several diet plans and exercise routines but could not execute it well. I am writing the story of my part while Felix and Marilyn will be writing their experience separately. It happened that I had to expand my office with 4 more staff and we launched a series of websites including www.realkk.com which took most of my time. On top of it I had been running behind officials for a  Gun license which I finally got . I don't want to bore you with the other not so important things happened. Inspite of all the hassles I was able to reduce 2 Kg or roughly 5 pounds which was only 20% of the expected 25 pound loss. However I consider this as a good achievement and thank everyone who had contributed in the community and motivated me to do it. Without the motivation from the bodybuilding community, I bet I would have gained at least 10 pounds. Ok enough of it, I would like to share you the experience and the diets I used to get this very little success.   The Diet Initially I had followed Dr.Atkins diet plan to cut down all carbs and go for protein rich foods. Being a south Indian we are very much used to eating rice from our child hood in the form of idlies, dosa, Puttu and other forms. It was not so easy to cut it off completely. Rice is very rich in carbohydrates and the body had been used to it. So I planned to have cereals for lunch on alternate days and have a light breakfast in the morning avoiding rice based foods. So morning breakfast was eggs with noodles or two chapathis. I chose sprouted green grams for lunch on alternate days which was less carb and full protein Nutritional value of Green Gram (Per 100 grams)     Energy : 30 calories     Protein : 3 grams     Carbohydrate : 6 grams     Dietary Fiber : 2 grams     I had decided to go for sprouted green grams for lunch. To make it more edible chopped onions, salt and a little coconut gratings was added to it. This is what you have to do if you decide to go for a sprouted green gram lunch. I had tried several recipes and finally stuck with this. Take about 50-70 gms of green grams and put them in a airtight vessel with water added to the level. Keep it for 24 hours. When you open it next day you will see that the grams have sprouted with about 2-6 mm shoots. Chop a small onion and fry it in olive oil or any low fat oil. Use aas minimum oil as possible. You can add one or 2 green chillies to add taste. Once the onion is fried red add the sprouted grams and stir it for a while, then add the coconut gratings to finish the dish.. It may sound a bit annoying to have only green grams for lunch, but it is a delicious dish and will give you a stomach full feeling. It keeps your energy level high and feel light.. I had avoided taking more sugars and brought down the number of cups of coffee per day. Other than that I kept off from Grape Juice which I used to take often. I am planning for a strict diet in phase-2 Exercise  As for the exercise, I did 40 minutes a day on an average of 3 days a week, which I feel is very less than what I had planned initially. Rain, work and various other factors have really affected the routine. However I did the following exercises. 1. Taichi - Yang style, Basic -8. I had learned taichi from Master Selvaraj, who is the best Taichi Master and head of Taichi India Federation. Unfortunately, I couldn't continue the classes and Master was also flying to and fro to Hong Kong. So eventually I ended in learning the basic-8 only. I do it five reps a day. 2. Slanting Bench Press with 30 kgs, - 50 reps. 3. Biceps - 8 kg (single hand) - 50 reps 4 Forearms - 8 kg (single hand)- 50 reps  5.Pushups - 10-15 6.Cycling -(one or twice a week) -11 kms.From my home to kanyakumari and back  7. Occasional swimmiing 8. Work out on a belly trimmer rope.. Apart from this I feel I did not have a killer will and most of the times the body did not cooperate to the new exercise routines. However I feel I will achieve good success in phase-2   Posted Nov 02 2007, 04:17 PM by admin with no comments