Where has the time gone?

I've been very remiss in posting about our kitchen adventures the last year.  Time to fix that.

The last year has seen us taking up pickling --- pickled beets, pickled eggs, spicy pickled cucumber --- so easy, not sure why it took us so long to play around with that.

We also cured our own bacon, next time we'll be smoking it on the Big Green Egg to finish it off.  Lots of smoked meat since we got the BGE including some killer beef brisket.

I finally found the elusive fresh Yuzu I've been looking for and turned that into Yuzu Ice Cream, Yuzu Sugar, Yuzo Olive Oil, Yuzu Salt, and a freezer supply of Yuzu Zest.

And then there were the cocktails.  Thanks to the masterful teaching of Andrew Willett, I have learned an incredible amount about Pre-Prohibition cocktail making and the history of the bartending craft (and why the art went horribly off the rails thanks to prohibition).  Lee and I are amassing quite the bar collection and making everything from classics (Old Fashioned Rye Cocktail, Martini Cocktail, Manhattan, Whiskey Sour) to classed up versions of modern drinks like the Long Island Iced Tea and the Mojito.  And I believe a bottle of real Orjeat Syrup is about to make its way over to the US for some Mai Tais (the real thing is made with the elusive bitter almond which is illegal to be sold in much of the world and makes it hard to fabricate the real liquor).

Pie making, beer making, montreal bagels, cheese.....all the usuals too.  It's been a busy year.  And this is just our spare time hobbies ! ;)

The last week or so

March 14, 2012

Been remiss in updates the last week with work getting in the way of hobbies.  That said, we have had fun playing with dough and making soft pretzels (big hit in the house, they didn't last long) and Montreal Bagels. 

We also took our first crack at a Belgian yeast Imperial Stout, inspired by this beauty:

Lee's going for flavors of banana and chocolate with our brew.

Today, we have a light work day and hence a few fun projects planned:

- batch 2 of Montreal bagels
- batch 2 of feta cheese
- homemade meatballs (our son just saw Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and wants to know how to make them), homemade tomato sauce, and homemade mozzerella -- all of which our son will help us make including picking basil from the garden.

ChIPA v2

Our first batch of limited run ChIPA (we split a batch of dark IPA and did about 15 bottles of this as a test run) was a big success so we decided to have another go at it.  This time as a full batch and with an all grain Cascadian dark IPA brew.

After fermentation, just prior to bottling, we did a masala chai steep as follows:

Approx 5 cups of boiling water
3 sticks of cinammon
tsp ground cinammon
24 cardamon pods (crushed with a chef knife)
24 cloves (soft heads crushed with your finger nail)
1 1/2 tsp ground ginger

We let that steep for about 30 minutes, stirring periodically, and then added this (alongside the priming sugar) before bottling.

Time will tell how successful we were...........

The last week or so

Quick update on the last week:

- 3rd batch of farmhouse cheddar made, waxed, and presently aging.  Had great luck on getting a clean break in the curd this time.  Used Horizon Whole Milk (pasteurized, homogenized, gallon) and also used calcium chloride for the first time to restore some of what gets damaged in the pasteurization process.

- Had our son's friends over and taught them how to make hummos, tzaziki, and homemade pita bread. 

- Soaked the single origin cacao nibs I found in some vodka to kill any nasty bugs and start pulling the chocolate flavor out of them, and threw the whole lot into the 5 gallons of Russian imperial stout we have fermenting

- Found some other cacao nibs, soaked those in vodka, and added to my micro batch of high ABV RIS - was at 10% when I added them, the last batch hit 12% but I reduced the grain bill so that it wouldn't end up as sweet. Will probably bottle in a week or so.

- Our 3rd attempt at mead seems to have finished fermenting, which is strange since the first 2 attempts are still gong strong.

- Split the ginger beer plant a few days ago and instead of making a batch of ginger beer out of it we've kept the concentrate to use in some Asian dishes we're making soon.

- Bulked up the garden a bit - as well as the herbs we had growing we now have a bunch of tomato plants, some squash, strawberries and some new herbs. Fingers crossed. We've never had much luck with fruit and veg.

- Successful experiments with broiling instead of baking our pizzas.  Found this tip in Bon Appetite this month and it works really nicely.  Heat your pizza stone in the middle (instead of the bottom) of the oven for upwards of an hour at the highest temperature you can get your oven.  Then when you are ready to cook your pizza, turn off the oven and turn the broiler on instead.  The pizza will cook pretty quickly --- half the time from baking at a high temp. from our experience so far.  It gets a beautiful char and crisp crust.

Cutting into the farmhouse cheddar

Batch 2 of the farmhouse cheddar was cut open today while entertaining some friends. We got it right this time ---- very tasty, decent amount of depth for a cheese that is only supposed to age for a month. Quite moist---apparently farmhouse cheddar 'can' be quite dry, so this was a very happy surprise.

Higher alcohol ginger beer

A few weeks ago I decided to try and get a higher alcohol ginger beer out of the ginger beer plant we have here. Managed to get it to just under 3%, which left a nice amount of residual sweetness - probably would have gone higher but I'm getting a bit bored of seeing it sitting there. Bottled it this morning, decided to leave it pretty flat and use it as a mixer. yumyum.

Far too much stuff fermenting in this house

Last week we bottled the first attempt at the 666 imperial stout - ended up at at just under 12%, decided to roll the dice and bottle it before it finished fermenting, so we'll see if I get some real carbonation (vs the alcohol level killing off the yeast), or exploding bottles.

The bottles are hidden inside a heavy plastic container just incase.

The 5 gallons of 8% or so RIA have finished fermenting, and I've picked up some great single origin cacao nibs to throw in a few days before we bottle. Going to look into whether I can throw nibs inside the bottle, or if they make the beer too bitter over time.

We brewed a cascadian dark earlier in the week - last year we did a test run with an extract brew cascadian dark and bottled 2 gallons of it with a chai mix, our "chai-p-a", so now it's time to do an all grain and step up all the chai additions to do a full 5 gallons.

Finally we did a second version of our 666 imperial stout, upping the chocolate and caramel flavors. I also lowered the OG to try and dry it out more (first version ended at a very sweet 1.040):


666 imperial stout #2

to make 2 gallons:

4.5lb 2 row pale malt
1.5.5lb roasted barley
0.5lb special B
0.5lb German chocolate malt
0.5lb crystal 80L

sparge at 152 for 60 mins

1.5oz challenger 60 mins
0.75oz goldings 30 mins

using US05

Stout Bread

February 14, 2012

I could have sworn I posted about this the other day but we did have a lot going on.

We managed to surpass the last beer bread with an intense stout bread:

3.75 cups king arthur white flour
2.75 cups king arthur whole wheat flour
1 cup spent grain (from the Imperial 666 Stout)
1 cup Cummings sourdough starter
1.5 Tbsp kosher salt
2 cups of lukewarm water
3/4 cups of Susan's Birthday Stout, warmed to room temperature
1 Tbsp barley malt syrup
2 tsp barley malt powder
1 Tbsp commercial yeast
Flax Seeds for crust

(method is same as with past loaves)

The Cutting of the Manchego

February 14, 2012 (V Day)

Last night we decided to cut into the young manchego --- at 7 days a mere Manchego Fresco --- as we're still young in our cheesemaking and wanted to experiment to see what a young Manchego tastes like for comparison.

First, it was a big success.

The texture is firm but supple.  The flavor is slightly, pleasantly tangy (like a feta).  You can tell that with aging, this would be pretty stellar and already, at a week, very edible and tasty.  We're going to have some tonight when friends are over for dinner.  I learned that a great way to store cheese is to wrap it in parchment paper (marked with name/date in pencil) and then loosely in saran wrap and then store all your cheeses in a big tupperware.

Today, when we get some spare time, we're going to bottle the Heff!

Last night we tasted a bottle of Barred Aged Old Rasputin XIV which I picked up for Lee as a surprise.  Stellar.  If you can find it, buy it.  They're calling it one of the best RIS beers you can get.  Hopefully the one we have fermenting will be just as tasty (esp considering the price tag on this one):

M3 Mead

February 12, 2012

Today began, as most of my favorite Sundays do, with a trip with Lanyon to Hollywood Farmers Market.  Today I picked up a Raw Sage Honey from Marinez Apiaries for making our next mead.

M3 Mead:

3 lbs of the aforementioned raw sage honey
1/2 Liter apple juice
4 Liters water
1/2 teaspoon yeast fuel
1/2 packet of Red Star Pasteur champagne yeast (Note:  the other half of the packet is going to be used to amp up the 666 Imperial Stout and get it over the 12% alcohol limitation of US05 yeast)

Quick beer update

Brewed a Russian Imperial Stout yesterday, 5 gallons (1.086), which went a bit crazy overnight - filling the blowoff tube and almost popping the lid off the bucket. Luckily I got in there and released the pressure just in time. After cleaning and re-attaching

Mmm new beer grains to bake with

The Imperial Stout is underway and that means more bread grain to play with.  I'm inspired by the dark, rich smell of the grains and planning to make a Stout Bread today incorporating the new grains, and one of our older stouts.  I'm also planning to play with barley malt powder today for this first time.  Stay tuned for pics.

In other news, we cut open the first farmhouse cheddar last night.  As expected, it was no where near perfection...far from it.  A lot went wrong on that first cheese but we let it sit to see what came out.  Happy to say it was mold free and a beautiful creamy white throughout.  But it was unsalted (mistake from first batch) and a bit of a sour aftertaste.  It was creamier than I expected, which was nice.

The feta has been well used the last few days, topping some homemade pizzas last night and as part of a Greek meze spread.  Very happy with the feta -- creamy, tangy, couldn't ask for more.

Yesterday we made our first Manchego and following its bath in a salty brine last night, it is beginning its long nap at 55 degrees (in our wine refrigerator..).  The cheese changes over time of course, and in Manchego's case, it even gets a different name based on how long you wait.  We'll see how patient we decide to be.....

Big beer, small batch

I've wanted to do a big (high alcohol) imperial stout for a while now, but I wanted to wait until I made the move from extract to all grain, which happened last month.

But now I face the issue that my current BIAB all grain setup really struggles to do a bigger grain bill than 14lbs or so. So how do I get to a beer which takes 20+lb of grain?

Well, the mead experiments from a few days ago gave me an idea. I'd do a micro batch of beer in a 3 gallon water bottle. The bottles make aeration a lot easier, and long term storage is much easier (very important given that this stout is going to need to bulk age for a few months. So I started with a recipe for a very heavy 5 gallon stout, scaled it back to a third across the board (ending with 1.666 gallons of beer or so), and swapped in some DME for grain so that if I ever want to scale this back up to a bigger volume I can make with my current setup then I at least have a fighting chance of doing that.


666 imperial stout

4lb 2 row pale malt
1 lb pale dry malt extract
1.5.5lb roasted barley
0.5lb special B
0.25lb German chocolate malt

1.5oz challenger 60 mins
0.75oz goldings 30 mins

US05 (1 packet) - hoping that this will get to 10 or 11%. US05 can go to 12%.

makes 1.666 gallons of beer - I think - going to start with 2.5 gallons which, after grain absorption and boiloff should get me around 1.666.

"Run and Gunner" cocktail

1 part Jack Daniels Honey Whiskey
3 parts (homemade) ginger beer
good squeeze of fresh lemon juice
tsp of honey
3 small dashes of maple bitters
mint leaf garnish
served on neat over granite "rocks" for a chill

Making Mead

Not sure why I woke up this morning with the urge to make mead, but luckily I had a bunch of the required gear sitting around. Purchased some 3 gallon spring water bottles locally to ferment in, and we were off.
M1
3 lbs of honey mixed into 1 gallon of 85 degree water. Add 1 teaspoon of yeast fuel, pour into fermenting container and add half a packet of red star Pasteur champagne yeast, pre-bloomed. Shake the hell out of it. Add airlock.
M3
As above, but with 2.5 lbs of orange blossom honey.

EUREKA!

February 3, 2012


I was very nervous about that new bread dough I created yesterday.  It was the first time I've really gone out on a limb to use what I've learned on bread making and combine a few things I've done in the past to make a beer bread.  It ended up taking longer than I expected to rise (my normal bread is fine after a couple of hours of rising -- this I let sit for a good 4 or 5 hours before I was happy).

But I am stoked to say that this was the best bread I have yet to make and here is the recipe:

3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
2 3/4 cups of whole wheat flour
1 cup of spent grain (in this case, from our all grain Heffeweissen belgian yeast brew)
1 1/2 cups of the Cummings sourdough starter
1 1/2 Tbsp kosher salt
1 3/4 cups of warm water
1/2 cup of home crafted California Common Ale (heavily hopped with Amarillo)
1 Tbsp malt barley syrup
1 tsp commercial bread yeast
1 - 2 Tbsp flax seeds for crust when baking

Combine salt, spent grain, starter, yeast, malt barley syrup in a 5 quart container
Add the water and the beer and stir
Add all of the flour
Stir to combine using wet hands to incorporate the last of the flour (keep wetting hands as necessary until you have a nice wet dough).

Let it rest in a nice warm location (I use our small laundry room and turn on the clothes dryer to heat up the room a bit more).

When you're happy with the amount of rising (2 - 5 hours) -- it should have at least doubled in size -- you can get ready to bake your first loaf.

Oven to 425 degrees with a pizza stone -- and let that heat up for a half hour while you shape and then rest your loaf.  Put some corn meal on the pizza peel underneath the loaf.

After resting, score the top with a wet bread knife.  Use either an egg wash or Quick Shine Spray (my favorite new find) and dust with flax seeds.

Bake for 20 mins, putting a pan on another shelf of the oven with a cup or so of water in it (for steam).  At 20 mins, remove the pan of water and put the loaf on the top shelf for 10 more minutes.

Beer Bread

February 2, 2012

Today, once I finish up some "real" work, I'm thinking about going a step further with making a beer bread.  Instead of just using some of the spent grain, I'm planning to add some of our homebrewed beer too.

To get ready for this, I fed my hungry sourdough starter this morning.

Sourdough starters are pretty cool.  I bought mine from Cultures For Life -- it comes from the Camaldoli region of Italy and has been wonderfully active since I started feeding it a few months ago.  The great thing about maintaining a healthy starter is you can share it (like with the ginger beer plant) with your friends and family.

That's a lot of goat's milk...

February 1, 2012

Today we're taking our first crack at Feta cheese, using [tediously hard to find in LA] pasteurized goat's milk.  I'm pretty fed up with the trend in dairy of ultra-pasteurizing everything to death --- it leaves you with thin, tasteless milk that has had anything beneficial about it killed.  You can't make cheese with it and I'd rather not drink it either, to be honest.  My absolute favorite brand of cow's milk at the moment is Straus Family Creamery.  The stuff is incredible---I've had their milk, their cream, their half and half.  They make ice cream too but have yet to try that.

So a trip to Trader Joe's and $12 (sheesh!) later, we have 4 quarts of goat's milk to play with.

Ricki Carroll's feta recipe:

• 1 gallon whole goat’s milk
• 1/4 tsp. lipase powder diluted in 1/4 cup water and allowed to sit for 20 minutes (optional – use if making this recipe with milk other than goat’s milk)
• 1 packet direct-set mesophilic starter or 2 oz. prepared mesophilic starter
• 1/2 tsp. liquid rennet (or 1/4 rennet tablet) diluted in 1/4 cup cool, unchlorinated water
• 2-4 tbsp. cheese salt
• 1/3 cup cheese salt, for brine (optional)
• 1/2 gallon water, for brine (optional)
• 1/8 tsp. calcium chloride diluted in 1/4 cup water (optional)

1. Combine the milk and the diluted lipase, if desired; heat the milk to 86 degrees F. 
2. Add the starter, stirring to combine; cover and allow to the milk to ripen for 1 hour.
3. Add the diluted rennet and gently stir with an up-and-down motion for several minutes; cover and allow to set at 86 degrees F for 1 hour.
4. Cut the curd into 1/2-inch cubes.
5. Allow to set, undisturbed, for 10 minutes.
6. Gently stir the curds for 20 minutes.
7. Pour the curds into a colander lined with cheesecloth.
8. Tie the corners of the cheesecloth into a knot and hang the bag over the sink to drain for 6 hours.
9. Untie the bag and cut the curd into 1-inch slices, then cut the slices into 1-inch cubes.
10. Sprinkle the cubes with the salt to taste; place in a covered bowl and allow to age for 4-5 days in the refrigerator.
11. For a stronger flavor, make a brine solution by combining 1/3 cup of salt and the water. Place the cheese in the brine solution and store in refrigerator for 30 days. (Use this method only if your goat’s milk comes from a farm; store-bought goat’s milk tend to disintegrate in brine.)
12. If the curds are not setting firmly enough for you to cut easily, next time add the diluted calcium chloride to the milk before adding the starter.

 Step 5 (post curd cutting)

 Step 8 (draining the curds)

 Step 10 (post sprinkling of salt, about to go in the refrigerator)

Experiments in ginger beer

What wasn't mentioned yesterday about the whirlpool porter we just bottled is that it was an adaptation of this excellent porter recipe at Austin Homebrew Supplies.

Things on the list of things to do today -- our first attempt at feta cheese, and deal with all this ginger beer plant we have around.

Took a crack at the second of those early this morning, with an attempt to make some very alcoholic ginger beer.

1 ginger beer plant which has been fed for a week
+ 1 quart water, heated up and 1lb sugar added
+ juice from a lemon
all thrown in a thoroughly cleaned 1 gallon milk container
topped up with water.

Gave it a shake, took a reading, came out at 1.062. If I can stop the fermentation around 1.025 so it stays a little sweet, that should give me an alcohol by volume of just under 5%.

Or this could fail miserably.

In other news, the hefeweizen we brewed yesterday is bubbling away nicely. Glad I decided to use a blow off tube - the WL300 has really kicked off.

Ginger beer, the old fashioned way

January 31, 2012

Recently, we purchased a "ginger beer plant" from England, so that we could begin to create and bottle our very own ginger beer.  The idea was planted in our minds over Christmas when Lee's father told us about this old school technique which blew up many a british kitchen a few decades ago.  Few people make ginger beer the proper way anymore, and if you haven't made it this way, it is unlikely you have ever tasted anything like it.

It's very similar to keeping a bread starter.  You feed your "plant" daily with 1 tsp powdered ginger and 2 tsp of sugar.  After 7 days you are ready to make ginger beer.


On bottling day, strain liquid and reserve plant and liquid.

Boil 1 litre of water and add 680g of sugar.
Add 3 litres of cold water.
Add juice of 2 lemons.
Add reserved liquid from plant.
Bottle.
2 to 4 days later the plastic bottles should be firm, put in the fridge.
Split plant into 2 and start again.

For higher alcohol, step everything up. In a fermented add your yeast plant starter after the 7 days, add a load of water, lemons and sugar, take your gravity reading, add an airlock, and take readings every few days until you get where you want to go alcohol wise. Probably need to back sweeten if it dries out too much, and careful not to get so high that it kills the yeast or you'll have to force  carb. It. Should be able to get to 11%

For an added treat, here's a cocktail we came up with using our ginger beer.

2 parts homemade ginger beer
1 part whiskey or bourbon
.5 parts honey   UPDATE:  maple syrup works really nicely here too!
.5 parts yuzu
two dashes of maple bitters

Server over ice.