New Pot Windscreen

I finally got around to putting together a windscreen for my new 9-gallon ported kettle, all for real-like (i.e., not held together with duct tape).  Given the size of the kettle, this one was much easier to build; the favoured design here was a simple cylinder that fits tightly to the corners of the turkey fryer body.  A couple notches for the gas line and the kettle ports and we're done.  The next step is to avoid accidentally folding the damn thing in half when it's not in use.  Let's hear it for ease of lighting and heating efficiency!

-Br. Absalom

Simply a lovely spring day

I'll admit it: I'm relieved to be done with doctoral study for the summer.  Having survived the hurdles of writing back-to-back double-digit-page papers two weeks ago and finals (with sometimes downright insane "drop the needle" listening portions) this past week, it's good to put it down for a while.  Not that there's nothing to do until September; there are a few more studio projects to wrap up in the next week, and DeAunn and I are getting to work to find ways to make a summer living as musicians, sussing out new students and cajoling libraries, nursing homes, and any other venue we can think of to pay us to perform.

Having started early and fought the good fight earlier today, I found myself on my own for the afternoon and evening; DeAunn played a recording session this afternoon, will play the opera downtown tonight, and taught a lesson out of town in between.  Stopping

at Whole Foods on the way back from logging some studio time, I found their salmon steaks on sale for nearly half off.  What was there to do but have one for late lunch/early supper, pour a beer, and sit out in the beautiful spring sunshine?

I don't have a lot of experience cooking fish--I've never eaten it regularly--so after some online perusing I seared it with a little olive oil and the inimitable Spice House's Lake Shore Drive Seasoning, then baked it for a few minutes to cook it through.  A few slices of raw tomato and a sauteed chopped green onion finished the plate; I laid on too much lemon juice, but it was still excellent.  Accompanying the salmon, the dog, and myself on the porch was a glass of my "new" old ale (formerly known as my IIPA).

It still gets chilly at night, but the days are getting increasingly warmer, a trend that's right in line with my own constitution.  I look forward to more glorious days like this, hopefully including a few back in the Midwest with my fellow brothers of the Order this summer.

-Br. Absalom

A Garden Meal

Okay, so it wasn't precisely a garden meal; after all, there was actually only one ingredient from the garden which actually was ready to be in the meal, but still, it was the first harvest from our garden, so I thought I'd write up a post about it...especially considering Br. Thelonious and I were recently lamenting about the lack of cooking/food posts on the site.

There was a time, in the not-so-distant past (6 years ago), in which I would not have batted an eye at eating a meal where all of the offerings had come already prepared from a box, tube, jar, or some other container. Add water, heat, and "enjoy". Fortunately I've traveled a long way since then, to the point where it's highly unlikely that anything in a meal has been pre-prepared, pre-made, etc. For the vast percentage of Americans, however, this is not their reality, and it hurts my soul to think about. Wendell Berry sums it up best when he writes:

"The passive American consumer, sitting down to a meal of pre-prepared food, confronts inert, anonymous, substances that have been processed, dyed, breaded, sauced, gravied, ground, pulped, strained, blended, prettified, and sanitized beyond resemblance to any part of any creature that ever lived. The products of nature and agriculture have been made, to all appearances, the products of industry. Both eater and eaten are thus in exile from biological reality."

Yes, it can take time to make a meal from scratch (though it doesn't always have to), but the reward of knowing every ingredient that is in the meal, and hopefully from where it came and how it was produced, far outweighs the reward of convenience.

This meal consisted of two offerings: a Spring garden salad with goat cheese, and oven-baked macaroni and cheese. For the salad, Katherine and I harvested radishes from our garden and to them added carrots which we had peeled into thin slices. "But where are the greens!?", I hear you asking frantically. Worry not: we simply cut off the tops of the radishes, chopped them up, and used those as the greens. To that we added goat cheese, then combined lemon juice, melted butter, salt, and pepper and tossed it all together. The result, of course, was delicious:

 

The macaroni and cheese was also fairly simple (Katherine suggested this), which required neither a bechamel sauce nor par-boiling the pasta: combine the liquid with the pasta and the cheese; bake it, and you're good to go. I ended up blending milk, yogurt, butter, spices (I used salt, pepper, nutmeg, and habanero powder), then mixing in the pasta with some smoked cheddar and provolone, and baking for an hour in the oven. Again, the result, paired with Sierra Nevada Torpedo (seen in background):

It was a fantastic meal, made even more so because it utilized our first garden harvest. I look forward to the day when we can harvest multiple things at once, and make an entire meal from them all. 

~Br. Abelard

First Brewday, New Place

Kolsch, to me, is one of those styles which always seem to be overlooked when considering one's brewing docket. It either doesn't seem to be the right time of year to brew one, or I am too impatient to wait the additional time it takes to lager it, or I want to brew something intensely malty, or...well, you get the idea. This lack of initiative on my part is odd, considering the first time I truly enjoyed a lager-type beer was Goose Island's Summertime, a Kolsch-style beer. In fact, I believe I first drank it on Brother Thelonious' patio at his (old) Damen apartment, after an afternoon spent watching a Sox/Twins game and grilling hot dogs. Well, things have changed since then: I no longer drink Summertime; my hot dog consumption has been reduced significantly since switching over to only meat which I know from where it came, and how it was produced; and the Sox and Twins both are not nearly as good this season as they were in 2006.

For my first brew in the new place, I wanted to create a beer which would take advantage of the cooler temperatures in my basement, my new *gasp* temperature control system, convert some of my Wisconsin friends to craft beer, and also be a good quaffer for those hot summer days just over the horizon, threatening, ever threatening. Kolsch seemed an excellent fit for those parameters. Done well, I think the style has a balance to it which appeals to the craft beer drinker and macro beer drinker alike: subtle enough to appreciate the balance and craftsmanship for the former; and subtle enough so as to make it approachable to the latter.

I brewed the beer this past Sunday (4/29), after dragging out all of my equipment, cleaning it up, and stressing out over the best-by date on my package of yeast (April 9th). For this beer, I wanted to try out WLP862, better known as Cry Havoc, Charlie P's house strain of yeast and marketed to be good for lagers and ales. Given that it was past its best-by date and (in some camps) purported to be a slow starter, I made a 2-liter starter to compensate. Thankfully, it was chugging away by the morning of my brewday, less than 16 hours after I made it.

Next up to stress out about, of course was the temperature controller, my Johnson A419, coupled with a FermWrap to keep things warm in the cool basement.

The instructions, unfortunately, were very technical (for me), and I was in the middle of the mash and had very little time to decipher them as fully as I liked. I eventually determined I needed to shift some of the jumpers over from an open position to a close position on the internal circuitry to reflect what I wanted to accomplish, which was overriding a heating element, and instructing it to cut out (shut off) when it reached a certain temperature.

The rest of the brewday was uneventful, thankfully, given the new place and unfamiliar (and steep!) steps down to the basement. My wort chiller hooked up to the outside hose properly, chilled it down within 15 minutes, and was hustled inside before the coming storms could conspire to dump bacteria-laden water into my beer.

Above is my setup, which seems to be working well. Four days into the fermentation and it is still fermenting nicely, holding steady at 60F. Ambient temperature as of two hours ago was just around 56F. Below, the recipe specifications:

Ted's Kolsch
Batch size: 5.25 gallons
Pre-boil gravity: 1.039
Efficiency: 70.8%
Original gravity: 1.050
SRM: 4
IBU: 31
Mash: 90 minutes at 149F, for maximum conversion
Boil: 90 minutes, to drive off DMS precursors

Grains
95.4%- 10.3 lbs Pilsner malt
4.6%- .50 lbs Vienna malt

Hops
2.0 oz Hallertau (4.3% AA) (60 min)

Yeast
2 Liter starter of WLP862 (Cry Havoc)
5 tsp. yeast nutrient

Fermented at 60F

~Br. Abelard

Goodbye Winter, Hello...Summer?

Disclaimer: I wrote this exactly six weeks ago, on March 15, and forgot to click "Publish." D'oh!

Two weeks ago I was wearing double layers of external winter wear. And I was enjoying my seasonally appropriate stouts and porters, unable to whet my appetite for what has traditionally been my favorite style: the hoppy, pale variety. Today, and for the last two weeks or so, daytime temperatures have hovered in the 60s, 70s, and occasionally breaking 80.

Bacon, mushroom, and onion omelet, with a baby greens salad and
homemade balsamic vinaigrette. But that's not just any old bacon. That's
lamb bacon from Indianapolis' Smoking Goose, a "meatery" that specializes
in artisanal meat products that come from from heritage animals, properly
pasture-raised on local family farms.

A few days ago, intent on taking full advantage of our premature summer, I was enjoying a day off at home doing the usual "day off at home" things that I enjoy doing: cooking meals (like my omelets that, thanks to Jacques Pépin, are better than any I've ever had in a restaurant), drinking beer, listening to music, and doing chores with every door and window in the apartment wide open. The inherent warm-weather ability to do such things provides the possibility of chance encounters with neighbors - otherwise highly unlikely. (Two nights ago the smell of hotdogs and hamburgers sizzling over burning charcoal lured me out onto my deck to find my downstairs neighbor intent on taking full advantage of our impromptu June as well.) While cleaning dishes after cooking a delicious breakfast, I overheard voices outside spouting off names of very familiar-sounding beers. Turns out some upstairs neighbors of mine, while on their way out, spotted the ad-hoc collection of bottles that had accumulated on my back porch over the winter. Ommegang Adoration...My Antonia, that's Dogfish Head's Imperial Pilsener...hey these are some good beers! I quietly thought to myself, indeed they are. Hey wait a second...they - whoever they are - are looking at my beers! As I was poking my head out to see who these kindred spirits were, they were doing just the same; walking up to my back door to see just who, once upon a time, had enjoyed all these good beers. "Looks like you've had some good stuff here," they said. "Hey, if you're interested, City Provisions has a couple bottles of Founders KBS left. Are you familiar with that one?" "Yeah sure," I said, being unfamiliar with it. "Get over there soon if you want one. The owner is also pouring a collaboration brew he did with New Holland." "Oh you mean, Cleetus?," I replied. "Yeah! So you know..." Kindred spirits indeed.

Cleetus Friedman, a "politically-incorrect-white-jewish-ambisexual-hip-hop-artist"-comedian-chef-conceptual brewmaster, owns City Provisions, a deli-cafe-catering company that focuses on local, seasonal, sustainable, expertly prepared, awesome food. No surprise that Cleetus also has a thing for such beer. Each month, he collaborates with a different local brewery to produce a small batch of beer, often inspired by the season, something he's cooking, or his whim. By his own admission, he doesn't know much about brewing, but he knows the character he's going for, and what he wants his beers to taste like. He's recently worked with such breweries as Metropolitan, Finch's, Greenbush, Dark Horse, Two Brothers, and right now he's pouring a beer titled "Marsha Mallow's Malted Milk Stout" that he made with the powerhouse craft-brewery in Holland, Michigan: New Holland. Apparently - according to ZombiesAteMyDog, the lone reviewer of the beer on Beer Advocate - the beer was "Named after the infamous Marsha Mallow, of the NHB [New Holland Brewing] staff holiday party, 2012." I don't know if it's true or not, or whatever Ms. Mallow may have done to gain infamy, but who cares. Marshmallows, chocolate malts, milkshakes - this beer evokes them all.

But that wasn't even what I went over there for. I went for the Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout (which I had just figured out was what the "KBS" stood for). What my neighbors didn't tell me was the price of admission. About an hour after their admonition to make haste, I called up City Provisions to ask if they had any KBS left. "We do," the guy on the phone said, "but do you know the deal?" No, I did not know the deal. "The manager wants you to drop an old-school rap line in order to get one." Ok. No problem. I'm not a rap aficionado or anything, but I'm sure I can come up with a single line from a Dr. Dre, Snoop, Gangstarr, Ice Cube, someone's song. When I got there, I panicked. I asked "who I was supposed to tell that we've been spendin' all this time livin' in a gangster's paradise." Ugh. Coolio?! And it had to be the song in which he shamefully ripped off a great Stevie Wonder tune? Shame on me. I could see that Cleetus was not impressed either. He is a hip-hop artist himself, after all. But hell, it got me some KBS. And hey offered me a glass of the milk stout too. Not a taste, mind you, but a whole glass. For free. Of course I went back later that night with a friend to purchase two more, because that's what you do when you have a guy like Cleetus and a place like City Provisions in your neighborhood. You go there.

-Br. Thelonious

Session Beer Day - 7 April

There's always more to learn out there.  Thanks to the Northern Brewer blog for introducing me to the Session Beer Project and the welcome concept of Session Beer Day, which will be tomorrow, 7 April.  It will celebrate Little Repeal Day, when 4% ABV beer became legal ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition.  Beer of this low alcohol can easily come across as thin and insipid; it's much easier to pack a lot of body and flavour into a big IPA or imperial stout.  However, every rich beer culture of which I can think (Britain, Belgium, Germany, heck even America...sometimes) has a hallowed place for tasty beers of which you can consume pint after pint without needing to be taken home in a wheelbarrow.

Being in Utah presently, drinking session beer tomorrow will be pretty easy; thanks to the incredibly antiquated "3.2 Law", there's not a draft beer in the state above 4% ABV.  By no means has that slowed down resident brewers and beer enthusiasts; while I don't hold with all the local draft offerings, the microbrew scene here flourishes based on exactly this strength of beer.  What I really wish is that I had the opportunity to brew a session beer tomorrow.  Paper research takes precedence there, but I do have yet another ordinary bitter recipe in the works for the near future.  Hope you're able to get out there tomorrow and, one way or another, get sessionable.

-Br. Absalom

Uinta Brewing Co. Tour

This past Saturday, I took part in a Whole Foods "Microbrews for Microloans" fundraiser: a tour of the largest local brewery, Uinta Brewing Company.  DeAunn and I have visited the taproom once before, and had an all right time for it being pretty quiet.  Their output is decent and pretty consistent; in particular I've enjoyed their pale and kolsch, as well as the extra pale and Belgian blond from their organic line.  Right in line with their organic beers is their commitment to sustainable energy; most of their power is generated by wind turbines, which has been recently supplemented by solar.  Utah's 3.2% ABW limit on draft beer (I don't believe there are limits on what comes in bottles) puts some pretty solid constraints on what a production brewery can put out to get on tap in this state, but Uinta has managed to field a generally solid portfolio.

The brewery's kind of out on the edge of town; fortunately, that doesn't mean it's terribly hard to reach here in Salt Lake. Right inside the door, after checking in, Whole Foods had set up seven local food producers to sample their wares, covering everything from cheese to sausage to hummus.  Filling up a small plate, I headed into the taproom for the open bar.  They were pouring most of their regular line, along with a couple of their organics and a seasonal.  I stuck with half pours prior to the tour, opening with their winter lager; I usually go for ales over lagers, but this one was pretty tasty.

A full pint of Wyld in hand, I went with the first tour group of the day.  We checked out their 60-bbl brewhouse, 240-bbl fermenters, and the bottling & kegging line; our guide, a former brewer now turned area rep, did a pretty good job supplying the basic brewing information without dumbing it down too far.  I met a couple in my group who actually moved out here from Chicago at the same time DeAunn and I did, and to attend the U, to boot.  Another guy in my tour (a fellow homebrewer, it turned out later) hung back to chat with one of the brewers at the fermenters and was treated to a glass of their new IPA, Hop Notch, straight from the conical.  Even more fun, though, was getting a moment to check out their barrel room.  They have a modest barrel program going, most of the barrels coming from the local High West Distillery.  They're currently barrel aging several of their Crooked Line bottle series, including an excellent bourbon barrel barleywine.

After the tour, it was back to the taproom for more chatting, food, and beer sampling.  I had a chance to pester my guide, now pouring at the bar, with a few technical questions on their process.  Far from being put out, he was happy to answer, and eventually took me out to hang with Jeremy Gross, one of the brewers.  Jeremy was super cool, very obliging, and welcoming of my questions as he simultaneously started one boil and another mash.  Originally from Park City, he's also spent time brewing for another local, Bohemian. He was nice enough to pull me a pint of his homebrewed DIPA from a keg he brought to share at work.  Heavy with Sorachi Ace, Citra, and Simcoe, the word that came to mind was "bright"; this was a really phenomenal hop monster that belied its 8.5-9% ABV.

On top of that, after having hung out with him for the best part of an hour and a half, he sent me home with a short-fill bottle of their new 19th anniversary sour cherry ale.  The bottling date was only two days prior to when I was there; it's so fresh that it still needs to sit for a couple weeks to finish naturally carbonating.  If I see Jeremy out at the bar, I owe that guy a round.

Between the beer, food, hang, and atmosphere, it was a great time, and the best brewery tour experience I've had to date.  A big thanks goes out to Whole Foods, the local food vendors, and Jeremy and everyone at Uinta.  It reminded me of some of the things I love about beer and the process of homebrewing: the lowering of guards, the conviviality, and the friendliness of fellow brewers.  I took home several bottles, but I'll definitely be back for more of Uinta.

- Br. Absalom