How To | Literature and Libation

I’m not a carpenter, but I play one on the weekend. I like working with wood. And saws. And drills.

There are plenty of websites out there with instructions on how to build custom cornhole boards, but they’re all so detailed and matter of fact. Their directions are good and thorough, which I guess works out well for some people. Most of the time they suggest practical stuff like gloves and protective eye-wear, but I tried to do it without and seemed to get away with only moderate wounds.

I’m not so good at following directions, so here is an alternate guide for people who can’t be bothered with things like accuracy and quality.

You will need the following things:

-Wood (two-by-fours and plywood of various lengths)
-Screws (big ones)
-A miter saw (preferrably one with a plug)
-Wood clamps (or a very strong friend)
-A drill (with a philips head bit)
-A drill bit (to go with the above screws)
-Beer (your choice)

Beer: a valuable but often overlooked tool.

The dimensions of the boards are 48 x 24, with a 6 inch circle cut out 9 inches from the top of each board.

Step 1: Cut up the wood for the frames

If you’re making two boards, you’ll need to cut your eight-foot two-by-fours in half. You can probably eyeball this if you’re awesome, but if not, measure out 48″ with a tape measure. Try to not put your hand in the path of the miter saw blade, if possible.

Next, take another two-by-four and cut it into four pieces, each 21 inches in length. This threw me off at first because 21 + 2 + 2 (for the two-by-fours) = 25, not 24. Turns out that the two-by-fours are actually 2x4x1.5, and when they’re turned correctly, add up to 24. The more you know.

Finally, cut another two-by-four into four pieces, each 16 inches in length. These will serve as the legs of your boards, so they don’t need to be perfect.

When you’re done, you’ll have two smallish pieces of wood left over. Use these to build a wooden sword or a sailboat or a cat scratching tree.

Measure once, cut twice. Wait, no.

Step 2: Screw the boards together

As hard as you might try, those planks aren’t going to hold themselves together. Don’t try duct tape or glue either, trust me on that one.

Use the clamps and a small piece of leftover wood to hold the boards in place while you screw them together. If you don’t have clamps, you can just put the boards between your feet in a “V” shape, then carefully try to screw them together. No promises that this method will work/look good.

Hopefully you have pretty big screws. I found some that I had left over from other projects that seemed to work well. I think some came from an IKEA picture hanging kit, but whatever, screws are screws.

Feel free to swear when you accidentally smash your hand into the wood after the drill slips off the head of the screw. Wipe the blood on your jeans.

If you don’t want to strip the heads of all the screws like I did, I suggest drilling small pilot holes. You’ll need two screws through each plank, to make sure it doesn’t go all wobbly on you.

Repeat this step until you’ve secured all four corners and it doesn’t fall apart if you pick it up. Repeat it again for the second board.

90(ish) degree angles.

Step 3: Attach the tops

You’ll need plywood of the correct dimensions. You can painstakingly cut the wood by hand with a table/circular saw, or ask the nice dudes at Lowes to cut it for you. Or, you can be lazy like me, and find pre-cut 48×24 inch panels for super cheap hidden a way at the back of the lumber aisle.

Chances are, unless you were really careful as used magical moon-wood, your two-by-four frames are slightly askew. It’s best to line up one corner of the tops correctly, and screw it there to hold it in place. Don’t screw too near the edge, or you’ll end up with splintered board that you’ll have to repair with lots of glue and wood-filler. After you’ve got one corner down, choose a side, and kick/punch/coax the wood into the correct position. I’m sure there is a better way to do this, but this way works, too.

Keep moving down the side adding screws as you go. Ten to twelve screws should hold it in place. Don’t worry if it hangs over the edge a little bit. You can always cut that part off and no one will ever know (except me).

Fortunately, I cut this wood in Maryland, so this message didn't apply to me.

Step 4: Take a break and drink beer

Open your (next) beer. Pour in mouth. Check to make sure you’re not still bleeding. Sit and admire your work. Bask in your handiness.

Repeat.

Step 5: Cut holes into which bags full of corn will eventually fall, thus the name “Cornhole”

If you want your holes to be dead center, measure to the middle of the board from one side, then down from the top 9 inches.

Make a mark.

Now, if you want to be fancy, use a compass (this kind, not this kind) to draw a perfect circle. If you don’t own a compass or can’t find the one you swear you had left over from that art class you took as a Freshman in high school, you can just find something circular that has a six inch diamater. I used the top off of a big can of mixed nuts.

Draw a circle.

Drill a biggish hole near the edge of one circle with enough room to fit the blade of a jig saw. You’ll also need a jigsaw. You can also use a six inch circle cutter if you have one (I don’t and it turns out they are expensive).

When your jigsaw dies an untimely death, go borrow your neighbor’s. Break one of the blades before you even get started.

Carefully cut out the cirlces by moving the saw in a circular manner (it tends to make the best circles).

They're like doors for giant birdhouses.

Step 6: Sand and Paint

I haven’t done this yet because I took a nap mid-way through building them, and it was too dark to continue when I woke up.

Step 7: You’re done!

Finish your beer and return all the tools you borrowed. Go and nurse your various splinters, slices, and scrapes. Avoid Purell.

When I started this blog over a year ago, I had intended to occasionally chronicle my brewing adventures. Since then, I’ve broken my arm, transitioned into a new job with a new company, and gotten engaged. I’ve been a tad otherwise occupied.

But I digress. Here be the first in a randomly timed collection of intimate guides into my haphazard brewing process! Maybe the “libation” part of the title can actually be relevant, instead of an abstract homage to my propensity to write while intoxicated.

Pear Cider-Mead

All of the ingredients, minus water.

I call it “Cider-mead” because I didn’t commit to either in the brewing process. The ratio of juice to honey is rather random, which will yield either a very strong, sweet cider, or a very light, sweet wine. It’s in the hands of the fates now.

A very nice coworker of mine, Deb, jokingly (or so I thought) offered me a bevy of pears from her trees. I accepted, not expecting her to actually follow through. A few days later, in she walked with a 5 gallon bucket full to the brim with slowly ripening, pear shaped fruit-things.

I decided to do the the only decent thing a person can do when given dozens of pounds of fruit: make booze!

I forgot to take a picture before I started, so here is the bucket after I'd had my way with it.

I had planned to just do a cut and dry cider, using a very beer-like process. But after reading about how honey and pears seem to form some sort of angelic union in-fermentation-utero, I opted for the slightly more elaborate (and sweet!) option.

Step 1: Cut them things up!

I halved, and then halved, and then halved, and then halved them.

It’s a good idea to remove as many seeds as possible as they tend to add bitterness to the pear juice, but don’t spend hours trying to dig out every little guy that just refuses to leave his delicious fleshy home. I hadn’t washed the pears yet, but for good reason.

I continued to chop them up until I had halfway filled my pre-sterilized (figured I wouldn’t bore you with pictures of me cleaning stuff) mash pot. This was about 40 pears worth of choppings. If you do this yourself, do not wait until the pears are ripe; they’ll be too squishy to cut without making a huge mess, and a lot of the sugars that will make the cider-mead delicious are already starting to break down.

No need to remove the cores.

Step 2: Wash them things!

Since these were from a farm, and a good number of them had been on the ground, or played home to spiders/bees, it was important to wash them pretty thoroughly. I waited to wash them after they were cut up for three reasons: 1) it’s faster, 2) it will knock out any extra loose seeds, and 3) it helps to soak them a tiny bit before juicing them. Make sure you use very cold water. Rinse them until the water runs clear and the large seeds/chunks of gross crap are gone.

Wash your hands before you wash the pears, if that isn't a given.

Step 3: Juice them things!

This part can either be super easy, or damn near impossible, depending on how equipped you are. The best way to juice them is manually; read: smash them with something big and heavy. This isn’t always practical, especially if the fruit in question is still pretty firm. Manually mashing them into a pulp and then squeezing the pulp through a muslin bag/cheese cloth will yield the nicest, tastiest juice.

That being said, it’s absolutely impossible. After 20 minutes of standing over the mash pot, armed with a potato masher and my Herculean will, I gave up and stuck them in a food processor/juicer (I know, I suck, shut up).

This does not work. Do not try.

Despite the shame I brought upon my Viking ancestors, using the food processors was much, much, much easier. ~40 pears yielded about 7-8 pints of delicious pear juice. I only needed 92 ounces based on the random recipe I made up in my head, so I drank the last glass and a half, feeling very pleased with myself. One note: the juice will start to brown almost immediately. Be sure you have you mash pot ready before you finish juicing all the fruit.

Looks like stout, but it's not. Or maybe it is. I can't remember.

Step 4: Mix them things up!

Time to actually make the pre-mead, or the must. I always confuse wort (pre-beer) and must (pre-wine), and I don’t even know if there is one for cider. I call it all pre-whatever-it-is; must simpler. Much simpler.

Take your newly juiced juice and add it to your mash pot. If you have an electric stove, it will take a good while for the 5 gallon pot to heat up to appropriate pasteurization temperature. Crank it up as high as it will go; I promise it will still take approximately forever to get to ~200 degrees. The must (erm, pre-cider-mead) will look pretty gross at this point; that’s OK.

Looks like Orc mischief to me.

Next, dump in a ton of water. 2.5-3 gallons should do. I used Deer Park™, but you can use anything that is clear and doesn’t have weird micro organisms living in it. Distilled water is a no-no as it doesn’t contain the right minerals, but tap water might have all kinds of other weird shit in it, so I can’t recommend that either.

Once you’ve added the water, and added to the time it will take your massive pot to reach any temperature beyond luke-warm, it’s time to add the secret, not-so-secret ingredient!

I'll give you a hint: it's made by bees and is called honey.

As per the recipe that came to me in a dream, I added 9 lbs of honey that I bought from Trader Joes™. Make sure you stir it all together so that the honey doesn’t just settle at the bottom. Hopefully your massive tankard of developing joy has gotten slightly warmer, and the honey will dissolve without issue. I also threw in some cinnamon and vanilla extract because I’m recklessly impulsive and they were just sitting there.

Now we wait. And wait. And wait some more. Best to clean up the huge mess you presumably made doing all of the prior (or was that just me), before you fiancee gets home and freaks out because the house is covered in a fine mist of pear juice.

You’re waiting for the must to reach ~190 F. This is very hard to judge if you don’t like have a thermometer like me. I do the “stick your finger in to see if it burns you” trick to get a rough estimate. I know our water heater says that 150 F water coming from the sink can scold your skin in 4 seconds, so I base my whole temperature pseudo-science around that.

Once I’ve burned my finger correctly, I turn the heat off, and prep the pre-washed fermentation bucket. Against all logic and advice offered by professionals, I added ice to the bucket to cool the must as soon as it was added to the bucket. The goal is to get the must to room temperature (~75 F) as quickly as possible, so that you can add your last ingredient.

Step 5: Yeast them things up!

Once the must has cooled appropriately (or not, I was impatient and added it when the must was still warm) you can add your yeast. This is my first time using a pre-suspended liquid yeast, but it turned out to be pretty damn simple. Shake, open, pour, stir, seal, done.

All yeast smells like beer...or vice versa.

Now we’re basically done! I stirred the whole mixture one more time to make sure the yeast had enough oxygen to start the fermentation process, then seal the lid with a little airlock.

Now we just want and listen for the happy sound of bubbling. In about 2 weeks I can rack the cider-mead into a glass carboy and be able to see the fruit of my labor (pun stretched, and intended). Should be ready some time around Thanksgiving!

Coming soon: LitLib India Pale Ale!

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How to Injure Yourself (And build custom Cornhole boards in the process)

Pear Cider-Mead