Mead Pt. 1

Yes, Mead!

First, a little history. Beer is generally considered to be the oldest fermented beverage - the accidental product of stored grains that got rained on. Mead is slightly younger, but still decidedly ancient. To be reductionist, mead is simply fermented honey, however there is more to it than that. Most old world cultures have some form of mead product that can be made with or without flavorings such as herbs, spices, fruit, grains, or hops, dependent upon what was fashionable and available in the area.

Mead is made essentially of fermented, watered down honey. The honey must be watered down because it is far too heavy and sugary for the yeast to take hold. The alcohol content usually ranges from strong beer to fortified wine (high single digits to high teens), depending on the initial sugar content and type of yeast used. Beer yeasts tend to die off at around 10% ABV while wine yeasts last up to 15% ABV or higher. The combination of initial sugar content and yeast strain used will also determine how sweet the final beverage is.

The first time that I tried mead was in college. My roommate's brother was a (very) amateur brewer. He cooked up a batch of mead and left it sitting somewhere dark for a while. My roommate decided to crack open the bottle one evening and it was magnificent! By aging for a year and a half in the bottle, the mead had clarified and accidentally carbonated. It was truly like a honey-based Champagne. This is what I desire.

There's one trick to mead. It takes time. A whole lot of precious time. Meaders advise storing finished mead for at least SIX MONTHS before consumption, though a year is considered necessary for it to properly mature. This is considerably longer than the month needed to make a batch of drinkable beer. Thus, this project not only fosters patience but will also serve as a spectacular reward for completing what many consider to be the hardest single year of schooling that people can experience. On to it!

I recently made a driving trip to Asheville, NC. That little mountain town was selected as Beer City, USA for three years in a row due to their thriving microbrewery culture. So, it's a bit ironic that Asheville was the source of my honey - my one fermentational departure from grain-based drinks. Who knew that local farmer'd honey in Asheville would be so reasonably priced? It cost about 1/3 less than bulk honey in my urban paradise, and probably about 40% the cost of honey bears. As you can see, this is made from mountain wildflowers, which I hope will lend some depth to the flavor of the finished product. I also detest clover honey.



Calculation time!
Using my beverage calculator, I determined that, in order to reach my target 13% ABV (standard for Champagne) I would need to thin out 5 pounds of honey into two gallons of fermentable liquid.

The first step of meadery is actually a pretty quick process. When making beer, you need to mash the grain for about two hours, then strain, then boil for an hour, then chill. Honey just needs to be heated enough to incorporate it into the water, then chilled to about 70 degrees. It spent about a week and a half in the standard plastic keg fermenter before being transferred to the vessels pictured below. I was able to take a good whiff of the mead at this point. It smells like medicine. I hope that improves over time. It better!



These glass jugs are called carboys. They range in size from a gallon to about seven gallons for amateur usage. They are capped off by an airlock as seen below.



The airlock is a snakey tube of plastic that allows air to escape while preventing anything from entering the fermenter. It uses water and gravity. Simple yet cool. Fermenting beverages cannot carbonate more than a tiny tiny bit because the Carbon Dioxide is allowed to escape through the airlock. Pressure will be necessary to carbonate it very soon.

The mead will sit in here for another couple weeks until I feel compelled to bottle it. In this time it will continue to ferment, albeit very slowly. More on that coming soon...

Making Sausage - It's Much Prettier Than How Laws Are Made

Living well on a college budget: Sausage

Is there anybody in the world who doesn't like some form of sausage? The delightful combination of ground meat and spices can be found in all of the world's great (and lesser) cuisines. Traditionally, the purpose of making sausage was to take junky parts of the animal or meat that has been sitting around a wee bit too long and make a food that is palatable and satisfying. Over time sausages have become haute cuisine - a true expression of a chef's skill and taste. Think Italian dry salami, Spanish Chorizo, French Boudin, and scores of other delicacies.

The sausage medium is, like a plain white canvas, receptive of the creativity of its user. Virtually anything that can be made can be made into a sausage.

Below, I will show you the moderately easy way to make sausage at home. There's an even easier way which I'll discuss later. In this example, I am making a Sweet Italian Sausage. I wish I could give exact amounts for this recipe, but I wasn't taking notes. Any reputable recipe will do, though.

You'll need:

• Ground Meat
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Crushed Fennel Seeds
• Sweet Paprika
• Granulated Garlic & Onion
• Dried or fresh herbs (Italian Seasoning if you're extra lazy)
• (For spicy, add red pepper flakes or some other spicy spice)
  

Begin by mixing together all of the ingredients in a dishwasher-able bowl. You can move onto the next step immediately if you're in a time crunch, but if you give it time, it will pay off. The salt changes the texture of the meat by, among other things, drawing water-soluble proteins out of the muscle tissue. This liquid meat extract forms a glue that binds the sausage together, leaving you with something that feels like a sausage rather than something that feels like a hamburger. If you mix this up in the morning before class and stick it in the fridge, it will be just right when you get home for the evening.



The fairly-easy method involves a fair amount of plastic wrap. Make sure that it is the heat-safe kind. Lay out a length of plastic wrap on a clean counter. Wet your hands a bit and sprinkle the water on the plastic for lubrication. Wet your hands again and grab a hunk of meat. With practice, you will be able to easily gauge the amount of meat to grab. Lay the meat at the near edge of the plastic and form it into a cylinder of even width.



Now roll up the meat log as tightly as possible, making sure to ease out any air bubbles. You can roll it thicker or thinner depending on how you like your sausages (or as style dictates). Using food-safe kitchen twine, tie off the ends of the meat tube. If you're not going to further segment the sausage, make it very tight by pushing the knots towards the center. If you are making the tube into smaller sausages, leave some slack in the plastic as seen below.



If segmenting the sausage, tie it up with twine into the desired sizes and shapes. (Note: This method is often used in the production of fresh mozzarella for making small lobes of cheese)



Here you see what two pounds of sausage looks like in a pile.



Bring a large pot of water to 170-180 Fahrenheit. This is just below a simmer. Bubbles are not a desired. Place the wrapped sausages into the pot and simmer until cooked through - around 15 minutes depending on the size of the sausages. Remove and drain the sausages and allow to cool as much as you care to. You can eat them as is (sans plastic, of course) but it's better to let them set for a while.

If desired, you can do fun stuff with your sausage now. You can grill them, add them to sauces, put them on a pizza or, as I like to, cook them in a cast iron skillet. Bring the pan to medium-high heat and brown sausages on all sides, with or without the aid of a miniscule amount of oil.



And now the even easier way:

Once you've rested your bulk sausage meat, load it into a zip-top freezer storage bag. Quart bags work for small batches. Seal the bag, pushing as much air out of the top as you can manage. Now cut off one of the bottom corners of the bag. Obviously, the higher up you go, the larger the sausages will be. Heat up the cast iron (or other heavy-duty) pan over medium heat with a tiny bit of oil. If you've ever used a pastry bag, I don't need to tell you what to do now. If you haven't, look it up. Squeeze lengths of sausage into the hot pan. To separate them from the bag, use a metal knife or other utensil or, as I did, pinch it with your fingers. Turn the sides once they're golden brown (they will also freely release from the pain at this point). Once all sides are browned, the sausages are ready to serve. Just make sure that they're cooked through.

It's fun to play with sausages because you can experiment with dozens or even hundreds of different recipes.

Enjoy!

Pilsner Revisited

My last "Pilsner" (an ale made in the style of a Pilsner) was not as successful as I would have liked. Due to my inexperience (and still rudimentary beer recipe calculator.xls) I produced a beer that was too strong, too dark, and also had some off flavors.

Take two.

I'll spare the details of the Pilsner style other than this one tidbit: The tour guide at Highland Brewery in Asheville, NC said that the mineral profile of Asheville's water is virtually identical to that in Pilsen, Czech Republic. Sorta interesting, other than that there wasn't a lot of local lager to be had. Though, I recall that what lager we imbibed was quite good.

I'll start with the differences between the last batch and this batch.
Old Grain Bill:

• 1.62 lb American 2 row pale malt
• 2 lbs German Pilsner malt
• 1/2 lb CaraVienne
• 1/4 lb American 6 row pale malt

New Grain Bill:

• 2.5 lb German Vienna Malt
• 1 oz Belgian Victory Malt

Note, first, the difference in mass. The old recipe used 4.37 lbs of grain and the new recipe uses 2.56 lbs. The primary goal of this was to make a lighter beer. One problem with the first batch was that it was just too strong. A 7.5+% ABV beer, whether ale or lager, is simply not refreshing the way a Pilsner should be. Second, note the simpler grain bill. A light, refreshing beer should not be overly complex, lest the drinker get confused. The CaraVienne also adds too much color, shifting the hue from golden to amber. Not so desired. Here, then, is a big bowl of Vienna malt with a small sprinkling of Biscuit malt.



The next difference is in the hops. Old recipe used 1 oz of Saaz hops, boiled in even 1/3s for 60, 30, and 5 minutes. For this recipe, I upped the ante, using:

• 1/2 oz Sterling (the beer store-recommended substitute for the out-of-stock Saaz) hops as a First Wort Hop
• 1/4 oz Hallertau (another noble German variety) for 30 minutes
• 1/4 oz Hallertau for 10 minutes
• 1/2 oz Sterling, cold hopped for three days

This rounded out the hop profile, though in the final product, it proved to be no substitute for good ol' Saaz hops.

There was one other difference. For the past several batches, I've been adding Irish Moss to the boil to help clarify the beer. This time I added 1/2 of a Whirlfloc tablet, a more refined clarifying agent.

OG - 1.044

FG - 1.009

ABV - 4.7%

IBU - 37

Appearance: Golden with a hint of orange. Almost perfectly clear. Fine bubbles and a thin head that both dissipate rapidly. Not at all clinging to the glass when swirled or sipped.

Aroma: Faint aroma of piney hops. Pretty austere, actually.

Flavor: This beer rocks it on flavor. I dare say that it tastes like a decent Czech Pilsner (there's a few out there if you look hard enough). I may be crazy, but I think that I can detect the unique toasty flavor from the biscuit malt. Subtlety is a rare find in my beers. Some spicy hop flavors are around. It's not like it would be with Saaz hops, I think, but the beer clearly uses noble continental European-style hops. There's a hint of orange juice on the finish. I'd imagine that's moreso a function of the yeast than the grain.

Mouthfeel: This is incredibly rich feeling for a 4.7% abv beer. Not to say that it's like a DIPA or breakfast stout, but still...

Drinkability: Despite the rich mouthfeel, the light flavor and booze content of this beer make it quite drinkable and approachable. I challenge any beer expert or novice to dislike this.

Sorry for the boring post. There's an exciting one coming soon. I promise!

Prost!

Join the Dark Side

Not all dark beers are created equal. My first dark beer was a Porter that, due to my own novice, was wholly subpar. My second (not counting the cupric IPA) was a Nut Brown Ale - surely on the lighter end of the dark side. Now is the time to dive into a style that is perhaps the best known dark style in the world. Guinness is a Dry Stout (aka Irish Stout) - dry, in this case, meaning a beverage that has minimal residual sugar. Sweet Stouts, Oatmeal Stouts, and other styles have more residual sugar and therefore are heartier drinks. Dry stouts run about as light as any real beer gets. 12 oz of Guinness, for example, will only set you back 120 calories while a pale ale can run up to twice as caloric.

Stouts developed in the 18th century but soon after fell out of favour as Pale Ales took hold in England and elsewhere. "Stout" originally referred to a stronger drink and, though many varieties of stout are among the strongest in the world, dry stouts also have a strong hold in the commercial beer market. There are numerous explanations of the difference between a stout and a porter but currently, the distinction has become a matter of preference rather than style.

One oft overlooked component of beer is water. Not all water is created equal. Famous beering regions have distinctive mineral attributes in their water that contribute to the specific style of their beer. Dublin water is famously rich in bicarbonate which balances the acidity in heavily roasted malts (more on that later). Thus, Dublin makes some killer dark beers.



My Dry Stout begins with a fairly light-colored mix of grains:

• German Vienna Malt - 2.5 lbs
• American 2-row Pale Malt - 0.25 lb
• American 6-row Pale Malt - 0.5 lb
• Flaked Barley - 0.25 lb

The Vienna Malt is slightly darker and richer (though by no means dark) than normal pale malt. The Flaked Barley contributes no sugar, but increases head retention and adds a bit of depth to the flavor. These grains are mashed normally. Most recipes for dry stout involve the addition of gypsum or other minerals to make the water more like that in Dublin. I opted against because I'm not ready to play with water minerals yet. Soon, though.

The final grain added is Roasted Barley. Roasted barley is not malted like other brewing grains. It contributes no sugar and provides only black color and roasty toasty flavor. If added directly to the mash, it could cause severe problems in the lautering & sparging process (remember, that's extracting the liquid grain-sugar-juice from the mashed grain gruel). Thus, a different method is commonly used to generate the roasted barley's contribution to the beer. We make barley coffee. To begin, add hot water to the roasted barley (I used 5/8 lb grain with 3/4 qt water) in a cooking vessel. Let it sit for a while. Pour the liquid over a coffee filter to remove all particulate. You now have the black, bitter, undrinkable liquid seen below.



Once you have collected your wort, add the roasted barley extract and begin the boil. I used one ounce of German Hallertau hops, divided equally between 60 and 20 minutes of boil. Why you ask? I didn't want the fruity flavors that you get from American hops, but I hoped for a spicier finish than I would get from English hops. Thus born is the German-English Dry Stout.

Here's the beer after primary fermentation:



One thing that distinguishes Irish stouts from other beers is their creamy mousselike head. This is because they are usually poured from a nitro-tap. Because Nitrogen is stored at a higher pressure than Carbon Dioxide (the standard carbonation in beer), it forces finer bubbles, resulting in not only the classic head, but also a smoother mouthfeel and that distinct cascade effect during pouring and settling. Guinness recently began adding Nitrogen-containing widgets to their cans and bottles which release their nitrogen upon opening the package, duplicating the nitro-tap effect.

OG - 1.052

FG - 1.014

ABV - 5.1%

IBU - 33

Appearance: Pitch black and nearly opaque with an inch of semi-fine tan head. Forms a modest lacing along the glass. Bubbles are delicate.

Aroma: The roasted aroma dominates while hints of sweet butterscotch float in the background

Flavor: Naturally, the flavor is predominantly roasted, however this tastes like dry stout with some basic English ale mixed in. It's not quite as dry as I'd like. There's also a touch of mouthwatering acidity, due to my unwillingness to follow a good recipe and add minerals as required. Hmm... a bit jammy on the finish. Interesting. I like it.

Mouthfeel: Lacking the nitro tap, it's not as smooth as it could be, but it is still pretty darn smooth.

Drinkability: Not quite as drinkable as Guinness, but I could easily take a couple of these. It's spring right now; I'd surely prefer this beer while sitting outside in mid-late Autumn. In the still night, you need no jacket. Only your stout and a buddy (perhaps a stout buddy).

Prost!

Belgian Style Rye Ale - A Delicious Misnomer

Diligent readers will recall my series on Rye IPA Better Red Than Dead and RyePA Digested. In them, I detailed my quest to create a rye beer that has the characteristics of an American IPA, specifically, Founders Red's Rye pale ale. Red's Rye is pretty bold with its 6.6% ABV and a bit of residual sugar - a deep richness comes from four varieties of Belgian caramel malts. The dry hopping of American Amarillo is quite aggressive. My version, though not a photocopy of Founders' beer, was bone dry with bright hop aromas and hints of caramel. With the success of that beer (definitely above average for me) and my love of beers, I wanted to try to make a different version.

Somewhere in my brain was the desire to create a more Belgian-style rye beer, using Belgian malts and a softer hop character. I bought Belgian base malt, but then like an idiot picked up American caramel malt (60 L). I also had purchased some hyper-American hops (Cascade, Chinook, and Centennial). Basically, the Belgian train ran off the tracks as it was leaving the station. Not that that stopped me from calling it a Belgian-style rye beer.

Left to Right:

• 1 lb Rye Malt
• 2.5 lb Belgian Pale Malt
• .75 lb American Caramel Malt (60 L)

My mash accidentally got a bit warm (I got distracted at a critical moment) so there is definitely a potential for the ABV to be low and the residual sugar to be high.

One problem with rye malt is that it makes a mash really really sticky. It takes a long time and great pain to properly separate the spent grain from the wort. Maybe I should use the proper 10ish percent rye instead of the generous 25% to make it easier.

Hops:

• 1/3 oz Chinook for First-Wort Hopping
• 1/3 oz Centennial for 30 minutes
• 1/2 oz Cascades for 10 minutes
• 1/2 oz Cascades dry-hopped.

This time, I decided to dry-hop within the fermenter (as is traditional) using a plastic mesh bag.

OG - 1.060

FG - 1.024

ABV - 5.0%

IBU - 55

Appearance: A bit cloudy with slowly rising bubbles. The head pours slightly tan. The color is on the red side of amber with the slightest hint of brown.

Aroma: Fresh, fresh, fresh, fresh hops and all that comes with it - citrus, pine, and spice. Also a slight hint of caramel.

Flavor: Starts with the rye spice, then moves on to a medium-sweet malty flavor. Finishes with the tasty hops. It's not as complex as I'd like, but fits the genre of rye beer pretty nicely.

Mouthfeel: It's gotten thinner as it's been in the bottle from the sugar-to-alcohol conversion. It doesn't feel as satisfying in the mouth as some other beers I've made, but it's okay to have things on the lighter side from time to time. It lingers a bit sticky, but not in a bad way.

Drinkability: Keg please. Need I say more?

Oh my do I love rye.

Prost!

Jai Guru Deva Yum

Coming from my successful spice-infused Winter Ale, I wanted to continue playing with non-beer flavors in beer. With its grassy, fruity, and floral flavors, east-Asian Jasmine Green Tea seemed the natural choice.

Jasmine Green Tea is made by mixing normal green tea leaves with the dried flowers of the jasmine plant.

Grain ingredients:

• Belgian pale malt

I guess a picture of that is not necessary.

Oops! I forgot to stock proper grains. I guess I'll make my own. I started with three pounds of said Belgian pale malt. I began mashing 2.5 lbs of it normally. The other half pound I placed in a medium pot with enough water to saturate the grains. I cooked this on medium heat in order to caramelize the grains. As the water dried up, I waited until it began to smell toasty, then added more water and stirred it up. The goal is to darken the grains and create the complex flavors that you find in caramel malts. Once it was caramelized to my (amateur) liking I added more water, scraped the bottom of the pot, and added the grain and liquid to the main mash. To be safe, I also caramelized 1/2 cup of sugar and added that to the mash.



Yadda yadda yadda.

First-Wort-Hop with 1/5 oz of Cascade hops. Boil 1/10 oz of some very potent Chinook hops for 60 minutes. Boil 1/2 oz Cascade for 10 minutes. Cold hop another 1/2 oz Cascade.

Now brew some jasmine tea. I brewed about 3 oz loose tea in 1 quart of water, steeped for three minutes, strained, and cooled the tea. I figured it would be best not to boil the leaves so I added the tea to the cooled and strained wort once it was ready for fermentation. I also over-brewed the first batch of tea. It was extremely bitter and wholly unsuitable for beer. The second batch was fine. Here's what it looks like before fermentation:



And now after primary and secondary fermentation, as well as a good rest in my "Beer cellar"...

Appearance: On the amber side of golden. Crystal clear. Vigorous fine bubbles. Pours a thin, white head.

Aroma: Smells like cheap beer with hints of honey and flowers.

Flavor: It initially tastes like a basic pale ale that has been minimally hopped. The flavor almost immediately transitions to the piney and lemon zest characteristics from the hops. That quickly clears up to reveal a hint of both green tea and jasmine. If you didn't know that the beer was infused with jasmine green tea, you would probably have trouble deciphering these flavors. The tea flavors linger longer than the first two phases as the beer eases into a honey and melon finish.

Mouthfeel: Clean and light like a fine session ale.

Drinkability: It has a slight hint of that flavor that made the Gumballhead-type-beer undrinkable and the first Pilsner-style a bit off. If not for that, this would be ultimately drinkable - light and refreshing enough for summer but rich and flavorful enough for winter.

Prost!

If Buffalo Have Wings, Why Can't They Fly?

If you don't know the story of Buffalo wings, blah blah blah, fried and dipped in hot sauce blah blah.

Traditional Buffalo wings are deep fried until cripsy without the aid of flour, breading, or batter. The naked, golden brown, crispy wings are then dipped in hot sauce enriched with butter. The butter emulifies into the hot sauce, thickening it and adding much richness and mmm. These wings are served with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing to cool you off.

Most wings you find, whether or not they bear the "Buffalo" moniker, do not fit this template. Ranch dressing, which is cheaper and more available than blue cheese (and less scary to people who scare easily), has become the norm. So has breading. Most bars and restaurants get their wings breaded, par-fried, and frozen from a food supplier. Why? It's cheap and easy (much like the patrons of such unscrupulous bars). The thick coating of breading provides a satisfying crunch while filling up diners with less meat. This has become increasingly important as the chicken market has skewed towards wings.

The Chicken Market: Like any other product that is sold in an open market, chicken is subject to the whims of supply and demand. Sometimes, the greater population prefers once portion over another. For many many years, chicken wings were considered a throw-away cut and sold at a discount to the price of whole chicken while legs cost about as much as whole chicken (by weight) and breast, especially "boneless, skinless", brought a significant premium. The cheapness of wings has increased the popularity of wings which, in turn, increased the price of wings so that they now sell at a premium to whole chickens. As wings got more expensive, cost-conscious eateries found a way to give you less chicken and more breading on your plate.

Even worse, some enterprising restaurateurs have decided that anything fried and sauced can be called a "wing". "Boneless wings" are not wings but dried out chunks of chicken breast liberally coated in breading, making them even cheaper than proper wings. When servers ask me if I want my wings "traditional or boneless", I have trouble not saying "I'll have the ones that are wings".

Now that I've ranted about other people's wings, it's time to talk about my wings.

The culinary school that I attended hosts an annual wing cook-off (in addition to several other cook-offs) in one of its dorms. Small teams were given the challenge of making the best wings for a group of VERY discriminating tasters. My friends Torin and Colton entered the contest and sought to create a new recipe. I helped a little.

They did apply a light flouring to the wings, however they did not use wheat flour but a blend of rice and tapioca flours. This provides a pleasant crisp to the wings without weighing them down. It also helps absorb more sauce. The wings were then deep-fried until golden-brown and tender. Apply a little salt to the drained wings. Then toss in the sauce.

What sauce? My friends created a sauce combining sambal (a spicy, coarse chili garlic sauce), tamarind concentrate, honey, and a bit of water to thin it out. The wings were delicious but lacked sufficient depth of flavor. I added some smoked Spanish paprika, also known as pimenton, to the mix, rounding out the deliciousness of the wings. In traditional South-Eastern Asian cuisine, most dishes combine the five tastes of sweet, sour, salty, spicy, and Umami (savory, aka deliciousness). The honey provides sweet, the tamarind provides sour, the salt provides salt (shockingly), the sambal provides spicy, and the smoke flavor in the pimenton provides Umami. Thus, all things are in balance.




Namaste.