First cheese making experiment..

Wish I had more pics of this, but the Boss had the camera on the day I whipped this one off.. so the only pic I have is the finished, new cheese, right out of the cheese press mold. I started out to make a Monterrey Jack style cheese, with two gallons of milk (Pasturised, non Homeginized Organic style stuff). Not the raw cow or goat milk I aspire to, but I'm just starting out, right? Well, I followed the recipes in my Ricki Carrol Home Cheese making book step by step and used the stuff I got from Thecheesemaker.com to build it up and I'll be darned, the whole thing worked out just fine! Only 'problem' I had was the pressing part, where my one wobbly follower design make a 1/4" taller cheese on one side than the other. It's hardly noticable, unless you measure it or really stare at it awhile while spinning it, but it bothers me. I already have a solution in mind and I'll be doing that build up and documenting it soon enough on here.. stand by! Anyway, here she is, in all her fresh cheesey glory!

 

Simply awesome!

The book didn't say, but I notice a few airgaps along the edge of this wheel and wonder if I was supposed to break up the curds into smaller pieces before I packed 'em in the press. I might look into that a bit more before I do the next one. I still have to flip this wheel a couple times a day till it's dry, then wax it with the cheese wax I have to go pick up today.. then the aging part comes in. I hope to do another one next week so I  can get a stash of cheeses going here. I'll say, a two lb wheel of cheese is a mighty big chunk to look at.. It's 6" across and like, 2" on one side of the wheel and 2-1/4" on the opposite (told you it was lopsided.. I just measured it!). It's definately substantial! Unfortunately, it's got an even longer wait til than beer does.. whereas I can have a beer from brew day to pint glass in 20 days +/-, this cheese is a *minimum* of 30 days.. and they reccomend up to 120 days if you can handle that. That's why I need to make another really quick, so I can see the difference between an aged and a younger one, side by side.. see what I like better.

While whittling it down to a nice shape, I tasted the bits I shaved off the outside of the wheel.. it's a bit tangy in taste, like yogurt, but not terribly complex at this stage. The whole aging part is where the magic happens and why old, properly aged cheese bring in the big money. We'll see what the basement in Barkhamsted can do for that..

In other news, I'm back to messing around with my old standard roasting machinery, the heat gun. Having some quality control issues with the flavors of my latest batches coming out sort of baked and lifeless from the Behmor.. stand by for some clarification on that when I get some more roasts done. 

That's all for now.. go click my Google money link! I need the cash! ;)

Just wanted to share...

This shot was the bomb. 50/50 mix of a week old dark roasted Panama Peaberry, and a the other half of the same bean, light roasted from just a couple days ago roasting.. 15.5 grams in the basket and a whole lot of mad, phat skillz! Came together like the drink this was meant to be and 10 seconds later, it was gone. But it was really *good*. Just look at the redness in the crema on this thing.. you know that was tasty!

The Boss brought home a cardboard box about 2.5x2.5 feet square that I'm going to use for my chicken brooder when the babies get here in a couple weeks. I'd show you a picture of it, but, well.. it's just a cardboard box, and it's not that exciting. Maybe when I get the heat lamp hooked up and the wood chips and waterers in there I'll take a shot, but if you're gonna get excited about a pic of a cardboard box right now, you need to get out more often. I can tell you I need to get out more often, 'cause yeah, I was excited when I got the cardboard box yesterday and decided it was *perfect*. So, there's your litmus test.. me!

That's all men. Carry on..

Fire in the Roaster!

So this is Rob's new Grindmaster 1.5lb bagger/grinder. Stick a bag under the chute, set the knob to whatever you want it ground to, and hit the start button. Slick system, nice looking machine. All the grind settings are adjustable and the burrs can be fine tuned with that screw in the center of the dial there. Nice machine!












This thing here is his new "5 lb roaster", who's name I forget now.. but it's a fancy, hot rodded rotisserie thingy, with an added set of heater coils on the bottom, and a fan assisted exhaust vent that you can see there on the left side of the thing. We did some screwing around with it back on Monday and found it to be pretty much in it's element at a 2.5 lb batch size. We're thinking anything over that is gonna take too long and 'bake' the beans rather than roast 'em. This thing makes an impressive cloud of smoke in the room if you don't have your fan thingy going!


Here's a pic of his "old" roaster, a 1lb Behmor, siting atop the new machine. Cute little bugger!



















This here (below) is really the "before" pic, however. This is what happens when you turn your back on an automated roaster for a "couple of minutes" and the beans catch fire. This blackened mess is the remains of the now defunct 1 lb roaster you see above. So sad!

Forgot to mention: kettle pickup change..

So, last time I forgot to mention about the change I made to the kettle. Look back to here for that original post... but I'm referring to the change I made to my boil kettle pickup where I took out the slotted manifold and used a very long 3/8ths tube that ran around the outside of the kettle and picked up wort from the side. It was designed to be used primarily with pellet hops and maybe a few whole hop cones. As it turns out, I did a beer with Jody a week ago and had really good luck with it. No issues with the wort recirculation during cooling, which was one of our problem areas in the past, and no issues with runoff when the chill was done. I'm not sure how it'll fare with a mixture of pellets and whole hops, or whole hops alone.. but if I'm gonna run whole hops only in there, I'll probably just swap out to my slotted manifold, which I know works great in there. The right tool for the job, eh?

In other beer related news, the big brew off with our newspaper correspondent fell through for the 14th, but the big brew is still gonna be on! Turns out I'll be brewing an American Wheat with Don this time around. Should be good times there. I haven't had an Am. Wheat on tap in way too long. I should be doing a regular split batch of 12 gallons with the newspaper guy, Will Siss, on the 28th and later on we're gonna try to get the band back together with everyone and have a re-do of the big brew so we can give Will a proper introduction to home brewing. Hey, he asked, right? :-)

On the chicken front, it should be mentioned that I actually put in my order for them last Thursday, I think it was. Put in for two Plymouth Barred Rocks, two Rhode Island Reds, and one Golden Comet. All supposed to be good egg layers and people friendly birds. We'll see. Gotta really put my mind to the task and figure out what kind of coop I wanna build now. I keep fluctuating on it lately.. can't make up my mind. Anyway, they won't be in until beginning of May, so no hurry there. Pete, you listening? Get your hammer and saw ready!

Went down to Rob's house yesterday to see his new coffee bean roaster. Totally didn't think to take pics. Rob, help a brother out and send some pics to post? Curious device! A big ol' turbo charged rotisserie for chickens, originally, now turned to roasting coffee beans . Vented to the outside too, keeping *most* of the smoke out of the room, especially for the amount of beans we were roasting in that small room. He went from about roasting 1 pound batch sizes at a time, to 2.5-ish lbs at once. Way more than a typical home roaster for just himself needs, certainly. He sent me home with a "South American Blend" that he got from the company who sold him the machine, which I'll review in just a minute. Still heating water for that now...

Rob also has got himself a brandy-new Grindmaster 1.5 lb grinder, which is really nice as an everything-but-espresso coffee grinder. I could totally put that on my coffee cart and use the hell out of that thing for my Aeropress, vac pot and filter coffees. Snap! No pics of that, either.

OK, went with 28 grams for a 10 ounce mug for this South American blend, of which we know nothing other than that. Aeropress was the method. The beans themselves, strangely, smell *exactly* like a bag full of pretzels! Unfortunately, I don't like pretzels... but we'll see how the coffee tastes. It's only day one after the roast, so it's still too young to really be judging, so we'll have to revisit this tomorrow and the next day for sure, but.. It's still too hot to drink, but I'm getting an aroma of /mint/ in this thing. Like, the sort of thing you smell in Andes Candies? Yeah, that. Dunno 'bout how that got in there, but that's what I smell. It's got a 'green' taste to it now, still sorta hay-like.. hard to get around that at the moment. Overpowering right now. I get a bit of a earthy-ness in there, Sumatra like, and that pretzel thing too.. not typical of South American coffees, so I'll have to chalk that up to the new roast still settling in. Let's check back on this one in a day or two, eh?

That's all I got today, kids. Keep clicking that Google Ad there, you cheapskates!

Chickens and things...

Chickens and things? And you're like, WTF? Is this guy off his rocker now, finally? The answer is negative. I'm giving a long, hard look at raising some chickens this year is all. I thought about this last year too, but I guess the time to do it is in the spring, and I only heard of this a bit too late in the game last year and couldn't get into it. I didn't wanna rush a thing like this, where the lives of four animals might hang in the balance, you know? So, we're giving it some more thought this year, and I have till the beginning of April to make up my mind about what I'm gonna do. If I go ahead with it (and right now, I am planning to..) the day old chicks will come in some time in the beginning of May. Then they'll stay in a cardboard box for a month, graduate to a dog pen for another month, and finally will need to go into an outdoor coop that I'll have to build sometime between now and then. I'm thinking about a coop like this one:



It's called a "chicken tractor" and it has an open bottom that lets the chickens scratch at the ground while still being safe from predators while they're inside the pen. You also tow it around the yard to keep the ground from geting all torn up from being in one spot, and also to give the little screwballs somethign fresh to peck at.

That's all the chicken info you'all need to know right now to help me along with this project.. cause I'm still pondering the pros and cons of this adventure. Giveme some fedback, eh? And rest assured, should I go ahead with it, this blog will be filled with beer, coffee *&* chicken news. Prepare yourself!

In other news, I roasted up a 1/2lb of a coffee from Bali called "Blue Krishna" provided by our coffee friend from the west, Kevin. What a guy! We'll see how that tastes in a day or two. Stand by for that review.

As for the coffee of the day, I'm working the last.. err.. almost last 1/2lb of the Kenya AA from Robs run to NYC. I've got a cup in hand that was Aeropressed just seconds ago. Waiting for it to cool to a below nuclear level. I'll mention tht I still aeropress almost everything these days, dragging out my faithful Yama 5 cup vapot about once a week or so to maintain my karmic one-ness with it. Is "karmic" a word? Hmm... For a Kenya, still have yet to find the lemony brightness in this bean that I'm used to. I seem to find only a mild burnt/roasty thing no matter *what* level of roast I personally bring it to being light or dark. That's really throwing me off. It makes an (and I'm serious when I write this) incredible single shot of espresso, which is remarkable for a supposedly known "bright bean". But like I said, I'm getting a burnt, sort of flat cup at all roast levels with this one, and maybe that's working its magic when it comes time to throw it under the pressure of the La Pavoni lever. ..ok, now that I'm near the bottom of the cup and it's really cooled off, I can get the acidic qualities of this bean... it's almost a sourness. Why does it wait so long to emerge? Strange bean!

OK, Frank just blew me off cause "I'm tired" and doesn't wanna come over for a beer. Well now. The lineup is to crack a bottle of SouRED for the monthly taste and see how it's coming along, then break open a 2005 Barley Wine, and finish by attempting to kick the keg of Coffee Porter. What kind of girlyman is he? Let's go knock over that SouRED and see how that looks, shall we?

I don't think you can see it in the photo cause there's no light, but I'll be darned if that isn't the prettiest beer I've ever seen. Perfect clarity, huge head of dense foam, the exact right mahogany red color I was looking for... and not a trace of sour on the nose. Just that 'dusty' sort of dry weirdness still, like last time.

Drats. OK, let's taste it anyway..

OK, no sour in the flavor, either. Very malty, though. Has that dry kind of taste to it, too. But not really objectionable. Actually, more chalky than dry, I think is what I mean to say. I make it seem more bad than is is.. it's actually a really fine red beer... I just was shooting for a really fine red SOUR beer. Some kind of really juicy, fruity grape thing mid-palate, too. Actually, that's a really nice taste right there. Almost like that Amber that Rob (from Plymouth Roasting Company!) did a while back that he fermented with a red wine yeast and didn't like so much, that I thought was a fine example. So, at least we know Rob won't like this one! :)

I think I'll save the Barley Wine review for something to do tomorrow.. this post is getting a little long in the tooth anyway. Keep clicking my Google Ad link there, just before you split, kids! Dig it...

Busted! A sad day... but it get's better.

I know it's hard to see in this pic, but that's a shot of my beloved iPod Touch with a big crack in the top end of the screen (which is shown at right, here). Not really sure how it happened, cause I didn't drop it or abuse it in any way. The fellow at the Apple store (a real, live Genius!) said he's seen it in the past where someone puts an iPhone or Touch in their pocket and bumps into a table, thus cracking the screen, and you're none the wiser, cause you didn't do anything that you *know* of. Maybe that's what happened to me? Dunno. End of the day, that same nice fellow sent me home with a new old stock 8 gig replacement model and I was smiling again. I was going to buy a case right then and there, but.. well... they didn't have any cases available for the 1st gen models! Ah well... I love Apple.

In other news, Jody sent me home with a couple bottles of his new IPA. I've got them on stand by here, and home to dig into them during this coming weekend for a downright brutal review of this highly touted product. We'll see how she stands up to the pressure.

Timmay's party also coming up this weekend, and there's sure to be some news from that session when the time comes. Stand by for that news as well.

Right now, I'm drinking a cup of Kenya Gethumbwini AA that I got from Rob, over at The Plymouth Roasting Company. Only took home a lb and a half or so, so it's gonna be a short lived run, but it's a nice cup so far. Day two after a roast of just into 2nd crack. a really good brightness and acidity, not quite balanced, but then.. why'd you get a Kenya if you were looking for anything else? Hint of lemony-tea in here. A slickness on the tongue that I'm not quite certain of.. not disagreeable, but odd. Really delicious stuff. I know it's insane, but I'm going to do a shot of this S.O. Kenyan puppy in the La Pavoni later on.. probably tomorrow, just to see how much it hurts. Wish me luck. ;)

Roasting Coffee Demo.

You can't really prepare yourself for a thing like this. It's the most exciting 8 minutes of video ever recorded. I'd suggest you be sitting down for when this sucker plays.

This is a video, from the very beginning setup to the very end of cooling of the coffee roasting process. This is the thing you're gonna point your friends to when they ask you "How do you DO that?!" It's an instant classic! Like, Gone With The Wind, type stuff. Dig it!



Filmed and edited entirely by myself, it's a real masterpiece. A testament to the power of the iMac. Behold, the coffee bean roasting film!

Wow. Now I'm spent!

La Pavoni Double espresso from Jan 2nd 2009

Hello peeps!

So here's the first *real* post, a video I took a couple days ago from my lever machine (La Pavoni Europiccola, Millennium model) with the wife's video camera. The lighting sucks, I know.. first time I've really used the thing for any of my own devious purposes. More to come, I'm sure.. Anywho, I took a two minute plus size video and edited it down to whatever time it's at now, which is about a minute or so, using iMovie on my iMac. I love my Mac.



And yeah, that's Maggie the dog makin' all that noise in the background. :-)

While this thing is uploading, I'm drinking a really nice cup of Colombian Gedeo whipped out of my Aeropress brewer. I'll be taking some video of that thing pretty soon too. Stand by on that. I've rarely been this impressed with a coffee brewer so quickly. I was an instant convert on my Yama 5 cup machine, and my Hario 5 cup vac pot too, but most other methods leave me cold. This one, lovin' it.



Hey Kevin and Adrienne, I think you guys are now on the email list.. let me know what kind of notification and what form it comes in (i.e. just an email saying "There's a new post on Mike's retarded Blog" ) or how that comes across, OK?