Cross Creek Courier Another Seabreeze Publication
VOL. 40 NO. 5
www.seabreezecommunications.com
MAY 2024
Lake Banks Stabilization Project Begins By Jim Ysseldyke Lake banks stabilization work has finally begun in lake 13 adjacent to the 16th hole of the golf course. Lakes 15, 16, 17, and 18 will follow. The work is expected to be completed in late June. It has been 10 years since the Southwest Florida Water Management Division mandated that for safety reasons, we repair our lake banks to remediate any drop-offs of more than 9 inches. The Cross Creek Master Board has worked with our engineering firm, Hans Wilson, over that time to build a plan that would satisfy the Lee County Development Board. As has been reported at Board meetings, especially over the past three years, it has taken intense negotiation and legal action to get Lee County to waive the more than 20 stipulations and demands they have placed on this project. We finally received approval to go ahead with the work in November 2023. The Board and our engineering firm conducted a bidding process and included several Cross Creek members who have expertise in construction or landscaping in the
process of developing and reviewing bids. Bids were received from four contractors, and eventually Cross Creek Environmental, the contractor with the lowest bid, was selected. Cross Creek Environmental has been in business since 2007 and serves multiple locations throughout South Florida including Fort Myers. They specialize in erosion control, lake banks stabilization, lake and pond management, shoreline restoration and wetland mitigation. Cross Creek Environmental began their work on our lakes on March 16. Depending on the slope involved, several types of remediation are being used to stabilize the lake banks, including turf reinforcing mats, new riprap (stones), and open-cell containment systems. A strong feature of Cross Creek Environmental is that they use equipment that is minimally invasive to fairways and homeowner lawns. How is this work being paid for? In February 2020 the membership voted for an assessment. The Board voted the amount of the assessment to be $5,000 per door to cover the cost of the lake banks restoration. The assessment of $1,500
Turf reinforcing mat
Open-cell containment systems
that was payable on Feb. 16, covers payment for this first phase of the lake banks work. We have an approved plan for future phases of work on the lakes, but do not know if and when that work will be necessary or required. The Board will keep residents informed as this project proceeds.
Ale Tales And Lager Lore By Diane Bothfeld, Certified Cicerone® I have been writing this article for over a year now and it occurs to me that I have never shared the brewing process with you, the reader. It is always more exciting to discuss the finished product but that is only a part of the story. I spent much of the ’90s brewing my own beer at home and learned that much of the process and all the steps are the same as those used by craft brewers. When you get to industrial scale brewing – think Budweiser or Miller, then the process changes again. For this article, let’s focus on the smaller scale. There are 10 steps to brewing beer. These include selecting the recipe and the grains, grinding/milling the grain, mashing the grain with water, lautering the mash to rinse out the sugars, boiling the liquid and adding hops, cooling and fermenting the liquid with yeast, clarifying the liquid and bottling/kegging the end product. Easy peasy – right? Let’s add some details.
When I was home brewing my own beer, I started off using malt extracts, not grains, to make my beer. A company had done the grinding/milling and mashing step to get the sugars out of the grains. The malt extract was thick and viscous like corn syrup and came in different colors – pale to dark brown – and the choice of color coincided with the type of beer. I had to add water to the malt extract, boil the mixture, and add hops. After boiling, the liquid was ready to be fermented – add the yeast and wait six to 10 days and voilà – beer! This is akin to using a cake mix versus making a cake from scratch. Many can tell the difference in cakes and the same is true with beer. The scratch method involves more steps just like baking a cake. Once the recipe for the beer is selected and the grains, hops and specific yeast are obtained then the real work begins. The grains need to be milled or ground. The milling process must be just right – the grains should not be ground too finely or too coarsely. The malted barley grain
Variety News We are an entertainment trio playing pop, country, and rock ‘n roll music; hence the name “Variety.” Our mission is to support our veterans and to provide music to Cross Creek Country Club residents and guests during dinner hours from 6 to 8 p.m. usually on the second and fourth Friday of each month. We are not personally paid and we donate 100 percent of our tips to various veteran organizations. To date, we are proud to say that we have donated over $11,000 due to the generosity of Cross Creek members and guests, so keep it coming. Dick, with the guitar and Otto with the keyboard started playing music together in 2015. They participated in karaoke nights, helped Cross Creek resident Bill Bennis with the production of the sock hops and have performed at various other places. One evening by chance in 2018 they heard Patricia sing at karaoke and knew they had
to have that great voice and asked her to join the group. The rest is history. So, please come out to dance or just enjoy some music while helping support our men and women of our armed forces who have sacrificed so much for our freedom. Any amount will be greatly appreciated.
still has husks surrounding the starchy interior. The husks need to be broken open and the starchy material broken into smaller pieces but not ground fine. The husks are important in filtering the beer later in the lautering phase and if the husks are too finely ground the filter bed will not form and husk can provide tannin like bitterness in the finished beer. When I began home brewing beers using grains, I used a rolling pin to crush up the grains – what an arm workout! After milling, the grains are mixed with water and warmed up but not boiled. The starch from the grain will be transformed by a natural enzyme found in all seeds, amylase, which changes starches to sugars, at certain temperatures. The grain mash will be held at a specific temperature for a period to maximize the amount of starch that can be converted to sugar. These sugars are what the yeast will convert to alcohol later in the process. The more starch to sugar conversion, the more sugar the yeast has, and the higher alcohol content. The sugar must be rinsed away from the grains after mashing is complete. This process is called lautering. Heated water is used to rinse the grains. This is where the husks are really important from the barley grains forming a mat that the liquid flows through. This helps to clarify the liquid, which is now called wort (great Scrabble word – wort). The mash is rinsed multiple times until the liquid runs clear. The wort is now ready to boil. Boiling the wort does multiple things that are important to making beer. The wort is sterilized by boiling – this clears out any unwanted bacteria or wild yeasts that could spoil the finished beer and gives the yeast a clear advantage in fermentation – no competition. Boiling is also the time when hops are added to beer. The boiling is done for a minimum of 60 minutes and the timing of the addition of hops impacts how bitter the beer is, what the aroma of the beer is and the other flavors that hops impart. The alpha acids found in hops are transformed during boiling to Iso-alpha acids which are bitter compounds. If a bitter beer is desired, then hops are added at the start of the boil. Hops for aroma are added in the last 15 minutes of the boil and hops for flavor are added within the last five minutes or even Ale Tales And Lager Lore on page 4