Where's my card reader? Dutch oven baking..

Man, the card reader got lost somewhere along the way a couple weeks ago, as I think I've remarked before.. and it's just downright sad that I can't post pictures now. Unless I take 'em with the iSight cam in the Mac, I'm out of luck. Take this as the best I can do:

That is the best tasting loaf of bread I've ever made, and this picture won't do it justice! I finally got around to trying a trick from the web that I've been pondering for a while now, but have just been putting off. I sure wish I had tried this earlier! It requires the use of a Dutch Oven (DO), which we just happen to have, thanks to our pal Crystal, who scored one for us a while back. There's nothing different between the bread dough itself, it's just the method of baking that's the key. All you do is preheat the DO in the oven while your dough proofs, and when it's time, lower the dough into the DO using the parchment paper as a type of sling, then stick the cover back on the DO and bake it up.. I baked at 450 because the phenolic knob of our DO is only rated to 450, and I wish I could have done 500 degrees, but I'll have to wait to try that when I get a metal knob. Anyway, I baked the standard sourdough loaf at 450 for 20 minutes, and then popped the DO cover off and baked the loaf for another 10 minutes.. when I first pulled the lid off after the 20 minute mark, the loaf was seriously pale colored and had risen quite a lot. I was very excited about that.. after the ten additional minutes of baking, I checked the loaf again and found it was still too pale, so continued for another few minutes, checking it as we went along.. I think I baked this thing for a total of 34-35 minutes, which is about 10 minutes or so longer than my standard loaf in the oven solo goes for.

The thing that's going on here is multifaceted.. the DO keeps the moisture in the kettle and there's no need for spritzing with water in this method. I also got a really nice 'curl' to the slashes that I've never gotten before, which you can just barely see in the terrible photo above. The loaf seemed to rise a bit more than usual, and the crumb was definitely more open, but also more even inside than ever before. Additionally, and most encouraging to me, was that my sourdough actually was slightly SOUR, which totally blew me away. I was really excited to get that flavor, finally, and we've already eaten most of this loaf in just a few days now. The next best thing about this method is, my crust is about half as thick, and way crispier and more pleasing to eat. Whereas before I had a really thick, dark crust that was a bit chewy, this one is light, crispy, and very full of flavor.. reminiscent of Amy's bread loaves. *very* encouraging stuff here.

It makes sense to me to preheat the DO for this method, since you're trying to get the loaf to really 'pop' and then bake, but there are people online who claim there's just really no difference between using a pre-heated DO and a non-preheated DO.. they put the dough in the DO and let it do it's final proof inside there, and then stick that whole thing in the oven to bake.. I can't imagine how that works nearly as well since the DO is now shielding and absorbing the initial temp jump from the oven and you'd think this would totally inhibit the oven spring effect, but a lot of people are saying no, it doesn't. I'll be trying this for sure.. but now, the chance of getting a loaf of bread of less quality than this one just breaks my heart. But I'll try it.. in the name of science. ;)

Foxtrot and Black Bear update, Red beer down and Curieux..

Check it:

The Red Beer, brewed with Timmay back in the very beginning of January, is down! Good beer, that. I just stuffed the mini keg of the Irritable Bear sour stout in it's place for carb'ing up for the May 2nd Big Brew we're having here.. Irritable Bear is the one gallon sour version, fermented with the Jolly Pumpkin 'Bam Bier' strain of yeast, of the ol' #79 Black Bear Belgian stout I brewed with Jody. Probably soon, I'll take that minikeg out of there and put the Black Bear stout itself in there.. for a bit of a tasting on the May 2nd fiesta. The Foxtrot IPA (109 IBU's!) was kegged yesterday as well, and that'll go online when the next keg goes off..

Tap #4 is hosting the 100% Brett 'C' beer I did way back as well.. and that's doing fine too, and I'm getting more of an appreciation for it now as time goes by. Had a fellow over yesterday (Vincent) who is a member of a rag-tag group of brewers in the Harwinton/Torrington area not affiliated with a club at this time, who I met through a Craigslist posting when he responded looking for some hops.. anyway, he popped in and had a taste of that and mentioned that he thought it tasted like a German Riesling wine.. which I thought was pretty curious and fairly accurate, when looked at in that light. Interesting.. more on this fellow and his crew (who brew on a 20 gallon+ system!) when more intel is gathered about them. So far, they operate under the radar like brewing ninja's..

Another friend came up a couple nights ago (Hi Colin and Dawn!) and brought this thing with him, Allagash Curieux, a bourbon barrel aged thing of 11% power. The oak is pretty restrained in this pale colored beer.. it's a hot one, though.. burns just a bit on the palate, but a 12oz glass is manageable solo. Bring a friend to finish this whole bottle, though.. a well done beer of some complexity, but no sour, which I was sort of expecting being that it's from Allagash and barrel aged. One would just expect it, no? Well, no. Hmm.

In sourdough news, I brought the culture back to life after a harrowing battle of a near sourdough death experience. The problem was solved with a small application of pulverized 2 row barley. Ingenious! Fired that sad stinkin' yeast beast up right quick. In the midst of the build up of the dough as we speak...

That is all for now. Carry on..

Bread..

Firm starter..

Chopped to bits and added the flour, water and salt..

Some kid..

Slashed for baking..

Baked and ready for lunch..

Other than that, went to Delaney's Tap Room and had an Ithaca apricot Wheat.. then travelled to Prime 16 where a Brewdog Paradox was consumed, followed by a Stone Pale Ale.. a trip to an Indian restaurant was next, where water was utilized to wash down the spicy, and then finally a stop over at Bar, where a Damn Good Stout was procured for the finale.

Brett beer Part II, Reinhart loaf, etc..

Exciting times afoot, kids!

This appears to be the final gravity on the Bret C. pale ale. At least, until the pellicle kicks in (or doesn't). It's still a fine beer right now, either way.. but a little funk won't hurt, I figure. I'll wait and see, esp. since I just transferred it into a Better Bottle for aging until something cool happens inside..

In either case, it does or it doesn't, the vial you see there was so clean tasting, and well attenuating I figured I'd repitch the slurry of it into a vat of my Rye Chocolate Stout I was brewing today and let 'er rip. That stout:

As seen draining from the boil kettle into the fermenter, is underway now.. no turning back now. I'm not scared. The way I see it, this Brett C is wicked versatile.. very clean when young, and supposedly develops a pellicle and some funk building buggers if you let it sit. Friggin' awesome! My new house yeast, I figure. ;)

In other news, that sourdough bread I have been building up over the course of the past 4 days... check it:

 

Sweet. It tastes great! The cell structure is open in places, but no huge gaps. The crumb is soft and slightly tangy, but not overly so. The crust is a *bit* chewy, but not hard to eat.. tho I wish it was more like the 50% starter based tinned bread I just did a couple days ago. Now *there's* a bread with a fantastic crust! But either way, it's easily my best boule so far to date. Rather complex.. so I'm working on a way to pare that down a bit.. if I could get 80% of this flavor from a much simpler dough build, I'd be a happy man. Stand by for details on that..  long story short, he suggests a much larger sourdough starter percentage than I've been using, or has been suggested to me in other books. I've been using somewhere near 30% for a starter, but this fellow is suggesting 50% or more, in some cases.. I made a tinned bread the other day that is so sour and so GOOD, I may not make yeasted bread again if I can help it. It's totally awesome! I've also been screwing around with King Arthur flour again.. as much as I hate to say it, it seems to be worth the 50% price hike over my Gold Medal stand by.. drats. I'll post some updated recipes in the near future when I can figure out which direction I'm going and what I can prove to work, at least, in my own kitchen. 

Carry on...

Another loaf, beer update..

Made another loaf of sourdough, and didn't really even get a chance to eat it. Here's it's only photo, before it was killed:

It's a good looking loaf, but circumstances conspired against it. Those circumstances being, me and the Boss and Kids went to NYC for a ballet show/Museum trip and, while there, we hit up Amy's Bread in Chelsea Market. Wow! That was impressive stuff. Big windows to look through at the processes inside, and really neat things to see. I ended up choosing a 1lb loaf of Country Sourdough to bring home, and, after carrying it around all day (literally), finally got a chance to eat a slice when I got home at 2100 hours that evening. It was awesome! Zingy taste from the sour, on a way different scale then my stuff has.. more of a tangy sour, than what mine develops. Mine is more 'funky' than lactic sour-y. This loaf had a crust that was so crisp and tasty, but not in the slightest chewy, that it was a pleasure to bite into. And the crumb was so soft, it was as if it wasn't there at all.. but the flavor from the grain really shined through. It didn't fare well here at the house, since it was so good, even The Boss ripped into it hard core and almost killed the loaf single handedly.

In other news, the 100% Brett beer I brewed up a few day ago really churned along well and seems to have finished it's ferment. It took two days to start seeing activity in there, just like most of the yeast guys said it would, and then it kicked off. It churned along really steadily with a very low (1/2") krausen during the entire main ferment until about yesterday, when it started to die off and fall back in. There is an odor to the ferment that I can't put my finger on, but I dare say you probably couldn't tell that it was a Brett beer at this point, from smell alone. It just doesn't smell funky at all at this stage of the game. Supposedly, we'll perhaps get a pelllicle out of this thing and go a little further in some other direction or another, but we'll have to wait and see what happens there.

Speaking of funky beers, the kombucha brew is still hangin' out, and I might keg that up soon... I've been drinking up the Oro de Maggie the past week or so, cause it's about time to get a new one in there I think. Problem is, I've got all sour beers in the pipeline now, and only one dedicated sour beer line. Is it time to open that up, ya' think, to two sour beer taps? Hmm..

Movie Review: Well, not really.. but I just saw The Blind Side, and I'm giving it huge props. Go see it!

Got a new book from the library, my first Reinhart book, and I'm getting some interesting info from it for sourdough recipes. He's using huge amounts of starter in some of these recipes (sometimes over half the weight of the total flour!).. and I'm thinking about trying this idea out. Probably this weekend, I think..

I can't think of what else to write about.. hm..so, that's it. Go click my Google ad, you cheapskates. Do it now, before you leave the site! Now, scram..

Challenger Special and some sourdough bagels..

Forgot to post this a few back, but...

Killed it! The Challenger Special, brewed up by Rob and me way back at the end of August.. hopped only with Challenger hops, as you might have guessed. Really tasty stuff.. but no longer.

In other news, the Red beer I did with Timmay is pretty much ready to keg. I'll get around to that soon, so there'll be something new and fun to try. The Dunkel I did with Pete, on the other hand, is flowing fine right now. Good times right there..

Here's a shot of some sourdough bagels I did up last night, from The La Brea Bakery book..

Should have made the rings they're formed from a *little* bigger, as these look more like fat dinner rolls than bagels.. but whatever, they taste really good. The consistency is spot on, though, the first time I think I can say that for my bagels. In the pat, my straight dough bagels have been more fluffy and soft than a bagel should be, but these guys are dense and chewy, bagel proper. I'm wondering if it was the vital wheat gluten, or the slow rise in the fridge that did that? Either way, I might be eating another one this afternoon.. it was that good.

Chickens are still dong very well. The Barred Rocks seem less susceptible to frostbite and cold in general than the Reds.. and I think I'd recommend those to new chicken owners, if I was asked. Plus, they're cute as all get out! And they lay eggs pretty darned well..

'Tis all...

I win! And, a brewery trip... thus, I win again!

And my win was with sourdough. Finally! A sigh of relief was heard throughout the house.. the pressure is off and I know I can do this thing now. Check it:

And the inside:

..yeah, that was a good day. Don't get me wrong, this loaf ain't perfect. If you look close, you'll see a less than totally cooked section on the center of the very bottom, about the size of a walnut. My slashing technique is also less than perfect.. but man, it tasted good! And since my Dad s comin' over tonight for dinner, I'm making up another one right now.. as I speak, it's in it's first ferment downstairs in the warm room. I'm also doing another try at a sourdough bread tin loaf.. It's the same dough, but I'll run this one through the oven in the pyrex loaf pan so the kids can use it for sandwiches and toast. I've had good luck and great taste from the preferment dough bread that I've been doing lately.. but it all comes back to loaf longevity. We don't seem to be able to go through a whole loaf here in three days or less, so the bread, minus any preservatives, doesn't seem to stay soft much more than that. So, the sourdough bread, with it's ability to supposedly stay good for up to 5 days is the solution I've come to. There's also the thing with the "wild" yeast and weird bacteria that draws me to sourdough, but that's just a quirk of mine.. just gotta be different.

Here's me with a Thomas Hooker Nor'Easter beer, provided by Timmay during a recent brew session here. We brewed up an American Amber style, aka Red beer. This things gave me big problems during the initial ferment. Almost no signs of activity at all for the better part of two days. Timmay, on the other hand, says he's rarely seen a ferment as active as this beer while fermented at his place. I was at 63 degrees here in the dining room.. so that's probably not the answer, and I may never know what it is. It mysteriously started up slowly on the third day and was chugging along well soon thereafter. It's still *mildly* going now, in fact.. a few bubbles per minute. I'm sorta curious to see what the hydrometer says in a couple of days when I keg this thing. This beer should be interesting, as it's half Munich, half two row pale, and just a hint of some dark colored malts for color and flavor.. we'll see.

Me and the family went to NYC yesterday to hit up the Ballet and the NY Museum of Natural History.. well, half went to the ballet and the other half (me and Cessy) went to see the dinosaurs. Big building! I was beat.

Afterwards, though, we all went a few blocks down to Heartland Brewery, the Burger side. There, I had a *fantastic* buffalo style burger and started out with a Belgian Red Rooster beer. It appeared to be unfiltered, Red-ish in color, and had a pretty big alcoholic note in the aroma. The flavor gave up what tasted like Jaegermeister/black liquorish mixed with a curious Belgian yeast derived flavor.. this was fantastic for the first 1/3 of the beer.. but started to wear me down by the next third, and it was actually a struggle to finish this 5.5% curiosity. After that one, I switched it up to their Black Lager, which clocked in at 6.5% abv, but hid it well. The 'black' was actually a really deep, crystal clear Mahogany color. the aroma.. I've smelled this before somewhere, but couldn't place it. The wife thought it was unique as well, but also couldn't place it.. it's faint, whatever it is. The flavor, however, was outstanding. a very mild roast note, and a hint of the same flavor as the Red Rooster, but definitely cleaner than the Red beer, as expected. Very drinkable, unlike the first brew.. As a side note, I didn't have more than two small sips of it, but The Boss had the Wheat beer here, and it got good review from her, but nothing out of the ordinary. I thought it was a solid beer, but it didn't just out at me.. but like I said, just two sips is all I had to go on. Sorry, no pics.. no camera this time.

Successful sourdough boule, Ploughman's lunch..

Well, here's a long overdue post.. and about nothing other than food. I haven't had much stuff to say since Christmas came to town. But, I've been fighting mightily with my sourdough cultures, and have finally found success. My starter can now easily double, if not nearly triple,  in 9 hours or less. It was an uphill battle, but I finally beat it. Or, rather, came to terms with it.. I'm not sure I've completely won.

..that's a pic of what I consider to be my first sourdough loaf success. It's not perfect. Far from it. the sour is not really there, the crumb is not dense, but not open, either. It's not really tall, but neither is it a discuss like the last one either. It's perfectly edible, but I *did* forget to install the salt. I still wonder what the difference would have been had I put that in there.. I also failed to get a good slash formed on top, so it never really opened up.. but that's fairly minor compared to forgetting to put in a standard component part, I figure.

What that said, this is what I had for lunch:

That is *my* cheese, *my* beer, *my* bread and .. err.. well, Jody's sausage.  But hey, other than a little foreign sausage, that meal was not just prepared, but entirely formed/created/fermented/crafted by my hand. It was a neat though as I stuffed myself on these bits for lunch today.. And I'll say, the stars of the show were the sausage and the cheese. I haven't had this cheese in months, since it was new.. and man, what a difference a bit of age can make on a cheddar cheese. Awesome! The sausage was just plain awesome all by itself. The beer wasn't awesome, but it seemed to pair well with the spicy meat and cheese parts.. so, overall, the meal was really good. And now that I've finished my lunch, and the beer glass is empty, I may just go crack open that new bottle of Kombucha I put in the fridge last night for a taste test.. which, incidentally, I also made myself.

SouRED update.. still ain't sour.

I was justchecking out my newest sour beer, the Hanssens derived thing I brewed up a month ago.. as it hasn't shown any signs of souring, and no aroma so speak of for same. I suppose I should have tasted it.. didn't think of that till right now. Not all souring bugs will form a pellicle, afterall.. hmm. In any case, I took out a bottle of the SouRED I bottled a year ago today, and had that, and pitched the dregs from that bottle into the Hanssens beer. I Figured it couldn't hurt. But check this photo of the SouRED..

Beautiful! It's not really sour.. but it has a bit of something to it that could be considered the begininngs of sour. it has a pretty good bitterness still, and an overall nice orange-ish flavor.. and a touch of what I believe is Brett, but it's hard to tell. Could be a touch of oxidation, too.. but nothing objectionable. This is really a delicious beer, when it comes down to it.. even if I missed my original mark by about four miles. Well, still have 40-something bottles of it to go to see how it develops with a few more years aging. :)

Third day in a row now, middle of December that the chickens have given 5 eggs in a day. Sweet! They're out wandering the driveway now, seeing as they still don't like to even touch the snow. Weirdos..

The new sourdough starter has still failed to rise after 48 hours. I gave it a bump with 4 tablespoons of flour and a couple of water, per the instructions I'm following online, but we'll have to wait another day to see the results of that.

That is all..

challah! I love that word...

Challah bread! Made some for The Boss the other day, and it came out pretty well. Check it:

 

And there is is. I love the weight on the scale.. apparently, this is "The challah of the Beast" I've baked here. Hopefully, I've also baked at least most of the pure evil out of it. It tastes pretty darn good, at least!

A chicken update! Here's a couple shots of the chicks playing outside in the mulch along side the house, taken yesterday.

..crazy buggers, rolling around in the dirt like it's July out there! It was about 22 degrees or so at the time this was taken, near the middle of the day. They don't seem to mind the cold, but they sure have no interest in even touching the snow. In fact, I moved their coop overtop of the pavement in the driveway now for the winter, because if there's snow on the ground, or in their coop, they won't go near it.. effectively cutting their run size in half. At least if they're on the pavement, it'll warm up in the sun during the day and give them some room to move around on.  Plus, after morning egg laying is done, I let them out to roam.. and they go where they please, as long as there's no snow covering it.  ;-)

I also scored a heated watering dish for them, too.. that process of chasing after the iced over water several times during the day was really starting to drag me down.

I also re-started the sourdough project. Apparently, I read the directions wrong.. err, interpreted them wrong, from the start. What I *think* I did, was to effectively tell my yeasts that I was going to underfeed them every time, and that they should eat and then immediately go dormant. What I should have done, from the beginning while building my starter, is to (once the starter shows some activity..) throw half the starter away, and then feed the starter it's own weight in water *and* flour, in essence, tripling the overall weight of the stuff. What I was doing, was throwing away half the starter and then mixing in half it's weight in flour and half it's weight in water, doubling it in weight. When you read the texts online and such, it's a bit misleading, because they want your starter to double in size, but in order to do that, you have to feed the thing adequately to do that. I was basically taking 100 grams of starter and feeding it only enough to support 50 grams of starter beasts.. and then starting that process over the next time, again and again. I selectively bred sissy yeasts! So, I'm starting over. It seems to be going well right now.. we're on day #3.

Kombucha revealed, busted loaf, & pickled eggs..

Ha! Fixed that damn snowblower today. Sorta. Parts of it, anyway. The drive chain is still busted, but the thing starts and runs now. Jerk!

Here's the latest flat sourdough that I hurled into space (well, the back yard anyway.. ) this morning:

Darn things keep coming out flat. Just not rising enough. Talking with some folks on The Fresh Loaf website and they think I'm on the right track.. but still doing some trouble shooting on this.

Here's a shot of the Kombucha project.. the first one, not the second. This one is all bubbly in the bottle now, and tastes just FINE. *Really* fine, in fact.

The second version of the Kombucha monster is still churning in the jar downstairs, but really probably is done by now. Interested to see how that tastes, since I used Lapsang Souchong tea as the base.. heh.

Here's a pic of the jar of pickled eggs I made up a couple days ago, too.

Here's the recipe:

• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup balsamic red vinegar
• 3/4 cup water
• 2 rings of onion (small onion)
• 1 clove of garlic
• tsp of crushed red peppers
• dash of all-spice/lawries stuff
• 3 glubs of hot sause

All but the all-spice and hot sause brought to a boil then cooled. Add to 6 hard boiled eggs after. Easy as that. Only reason I used balsamic vinegar is I just didn't have *quite* enough white vinegar to do the job.. and now the whole project is a deep red color. Curious. We'll see how that works out, as I've never pickled eggs before and have no idea if I even will like them.

Speaking of eggs, this is becoming a pretty typical sight for a morning:

Four large eggs, ranging from 52 to 57 grams per egg. This is the girls' collecting bucket.. they like it, and keep them from breaking the eggs in their hands while trying to open the doors to bring the eggs inside. Kids are funny like that.

Sourdough bread success, krappy Kaisers and a Kombucha update..

Some success! After a few defeats in the ring with sourdough breads, I went back to the drawing board. I was just not getting any luck with conventional recipes for sours and just not getting any rising action out of these things. I know my starter has the power to rise well in excess of twice it's original size.. so I was sort of at a loss as to what was going on. I came across a site with a different approach, this one Bakesourdough.com, which gave it's recipe for damn near anything you wanted to throw in it.. based on percentages. It was so different from the others, I gave it a try.. figured I had nothing to lose! Besides, they were advocating a *huge* increase in size of the starter percentage in the recipe than all the rest (typically 20-25% of the recipe, comared to the 66% of this site) that I figured it might even work.

So, I mmixed the stuff all together, shooting for a 500 gram (about one pound..) end result of dough. With that number, I used 250 grams of flour, and worked the percentages of the salt, starter and water from there, so my total was 500 grams, and let it be for a while. This was just a few hours before I had to leave for work at 1400 hours, so I wasn't sure how this timing was going to work out, but since The Boss was gonna be home for the day, I knew there'd be at least someone home to keep an eye on the thing in case of disaster.

I ended up with my numbers just about perfect, and after mixing the flour, starter and water, I let it rest. This is what they call the hydration rest.. I can't tell you how important this part is. Do it. It changes the flours and starches in ways so fantastic in only 20 minutes of hands off time, it makes the dough much more manageable. I thought this dough was a bit stiff, so I ended up adding a TOUCH of water, and left it at that. I proofed it in a bowl downstairs in the warm room for a bit, and after I ran out of time to wait, brought it upstairs to form the loaf. It didn't look all that risen for it's first rise, but when I squooze it on the table top, it surely did have co2 bubbles all through it. I gave it a bit of a knead, formed my loaf and put the thing in a greased pan to hang for the day. I was going to be gone for 10 hours at least, so I warned The Boss to watch out for it. When I called her later in the day, around 1900 hours, she said it hadn't done much.. but when I got home, it was pushing up against the plastic wrap I had sealed it with. I couldn't take a chance that it would deflate overnight, so I warmed up the oven at just prior to midnight and began to bake the thing. I also threw in the Kaiser rolls I had made the previous day that just didn't want to rise , just because they were in the way and they were gonna get tossed in the garbage if I didn't bake them. Well, when I opened the door, the "oven spring", as they call it, really did a great job on the breads and the loaf was just about an inch over the top of the pan! Awesome!

In this photo above, you can see both breads I'm describing.. me and The Boss cut the loaf up right then and there and had a few pieces. She said it was noticably different and better than a commercial yeast bread. Wile I thought it was quite good, I wasn't sure it was *that* much better. It's the longer storage times and less reliance on commercial yeasts that interest me in this project.

However, the real star of the show was the Kaisers. Tho they didn't turn out as planned, I learned something interesting. Without going into too much detail on the original recipe, it called for malt syrup, which I didn't have.. a Google search told me that malt syrup was.. well, syrup made from the malting process of grains. essentially, it's the beer brewing worlds liquid malt extract, with no hops added. That's common enough at a brewing store.. but I do all grain beer, so this didn't apply to me. I just don't use the stuff. A Google search for malt syrup replacements told me that you could take whole grains, steep them in water, begin the sprouting process and then grind the grains to a powder and add those for the flavor the recipe was calling for, in a pinch. While this sounds complicated for the normal household baker.. a lightbulb went off in my head. I didn't have to do a thing. I had many, many pounds of this stuff in my basement in the form of pale ale malt, chocolate malts, crystal malts etc. Now the gears were turning! A quick trip downstairs for 18 grams of crystal 40L, ground to a powder in the coffee mill, and I had my replacement. The color you see in the photo's above is a direct result of the crystal 40L addition.

The taste of this stuff, of those Kaiser rolls, is unbelievable! I've never had its equal in bread. It's so sweet, so powerful a flavor, and so pungent.. but let's the bread really shine. Oh, and The Boss won't go near it. Weird. This is a groundbreaking event for me, right here. This means I can color breads however I like, while still retainng the original flavor with certains grain additions, I can take lighter Lovibond malts and crystals and do fabulous things to a loafs flavor and not change the color at all. There's a whole lot of potential here for brewers/bakers that I think needs exploration. When I feel more comfortable in the area f sourdoughs, I'll definitely be experimenting with this. I'd encourage you to do the same. A zillion different grains are all as close as your nearest homebrew shop, conveniently packaged in nice, one pound bags. Do it!

This post is way too long.. but I should also mention that the Kombucha experiment is still under way and moving along slowly, still. There seems to be a thick film of goop on the top of the whole container now, but I can't get a really good picture at the moment.. gotta let it grow a bit more, still. This is day #10 for that thing.. we're still on track.

Smoked Wheat down, Orval taste test, and my chickens first 5 egg day...

Sad day, indeed. The Apple Smoked Wheat beer I brewed with Jody has been annihilated. That was a truly good beer. It has since been replaced with the IPA I made with Frank a few weeks ago. And yeah, I'm gonna call it an IPA.. I was thinking about demoting it to Pale Ale, cause it finished a bit high when I measured it last, but when I plugged it into the kegger, the thing had apparently dropped a few more points, carbed itself, and upped it's abv% just enough to properly squeak into IPA territory. Besides, it's got that Dogfish 90 Minute viscosity where it just doesn't feel like a Pale Ale anymore. It's quite good, and it's hopped entirely with Northern Brewer, so if you wanna know what that particular hop tastes like, this is a pretty good way to get that done.

I also tasted a bottle of this over the weekend:

..and it was good. The rumors are true, this is fermented with quite a bit of Brett in it, and it shows clearly. This was a hugely carbonated beer, and was pretty darned good.. if you like Brettanomyces. If not, I'd pass. If I wasn't going for just a straight sour beer in that fermenter downstairs, I'd have pitched these dregs right into it.. just because it's a fine strain and seemed like a good idea. But, my sour side won out, and I refrained. Hopefully, that thing sours right up..

Also, two days ago, our chickens had their first 5 eggs layed day. Evey chicken I have fired one out. Heck, I didn't even know they were all capable, let alone able to synchronize the operation! And here I thought I still had two lame-o's in the flock. Yesterday, we had 4 and we would have had four again today, but one broke in the nest box.. one of the new girls is still in the early 'soft shell' stages of gearing up.. too bad.

Otherwise, Turkey Day came and went yesterday as well, and that was a fine time.. my sourdough project was miserable and inedible, but I'm learning still. I'm trying to fire up some sourdough Kaiser rolls right now, but I'm not that optimistic. The dough just doesn't feel right for this..

The kombucha project is still going downstairs, but it's slow going.. we'll have some status updates on that when it get's more interesting. There's a little film on the surface, but not enough to take a picture of.

That's it for me.. carry on.

Sourdough success, loafs, rolls, and Orval

So! Here we are again. I had a bit of a setback with the sourdough thing, but then quickly realized my error and figured it all out. I had an "epiphany moment" as it were. When doing these starters, the mix at first is rather gooey, wet, and liquidy.. bbut after the wild bgs have found their way in and settled down with you, you really need to thicken up the mix. The easiest way to do it is with a scale. Simply weight the amount of goop you have into a glass bowl zeroed out on your scale, take half of that weight in water, and  the same amount in weight of flour, mix it up well with the starter, and put it back in the jar to grow again. It will double in size, ready for the next feeding. Here's my current sourdough sponge:

 

For instance, here's the math in an example. you start out with some small amount of starter you've grown in the fridge.. like, say, 25 grams. Take that, mix it well with 12.5 grams (ok, approximately, let's not get carried way here..) of water and 12.5 grams of four. Mix, and set aside in a warm spot. It'll double in size if all goes well, and will be a 50 gram mass by the next 12 hours. When growing starters, feed every 12 hours or so.. you want to feed the starter when it's at its peak of activity, not before, and not after it begins to collapse. So, 12 hours later you'll take your 50 gram mass of starter, throw it in a bowl, and measure out 25 grams of water and 25 grams of flour, whisk well (introduce lots of air, the wild stuff and souring components in there love this stuff!) and put back in the loosely covered jar. 12 hours later, you should have 100 grams of starter, that has doubled in size. Keep doing this until you have as much starter for your recipe and you're done. Remember to set aside a small amount for your next recipe, that you'll feed as normal and then stash in the fridge.. which will retard its growth significantly, and allow feedings of only once a week or so.

Yesterdy, after growing a starter up all day, I did a mixed yeast beast of part sour sponge and part cultured bread yeast. I made this gorgeous loaf:

 

I also made some rolls for Thanksgving dinner.. check 'em out. They're Oat grain topped whole wheat 10 grain rolls. Oh, snap! Oh, wait.. I forgot to take a pic of the baked versions.. these are the pre-baked rolls. Ah, nuts..

Here's me working the magic on the big sourdough project made from the starter sponge in the above-mentioned pictures later that day.. This stuff is LOOSE. Very flexible, elastic.. sorta sticky, but this is what the dough requires to rise properly. 

And here's the finished dough, waiting to rise in the bowl overnight.. I wanted a slow rise, so I stashed it out on the work bench in the garage where it's only 46 degrees, to slow down the rise. I mixed this up at 2030 hours and managed to stay awake till 2230 hours, but then got tired.. a warm rise would have taken 4-6 hours, putting me at the oven baking this thing at some time around 0230 hours in the morning.. I wasn't interested in that, so I put the chill on the dough to slow it down. It worked like a charm, and was only slightly risen in the morning at 0830. Now, it's back out in the warm room and just about doubled up.. more on that in a later post.

OK, got some stf to work on.. here's a closing shot of my dog, Barbie. Just for comic relief.

2009 coffee bean crop 2009 and the sourdough saga..

Here's a quick update on the sourdough project, the coffee tree, and the new Hanssens derived sour beer thing.

Observe:

This is day three of the sourdough project in the jar where I've been growing it. The first two das it was fairly slow.. not much to see, but today, it's got some noticeable bubbles and stuff on the surface. Figured I'd give it a post.. it's starting to stink a bit, too. No sourness.. just stinking. :)

Here's a couple pics of the new for 2009 crop of coffee beans.. check it:

Yep, there's three beans there this time, instead of the measly one I got last year. So, just like that, I tripled my output! Fantastic! Some year, we'll be able to grown a whole cup worth of coffee.. talk to me in a decade or so about that.

And finally, I got a chance to rack the Hanssens "No Problem" All-Purpose sour beer into it's 5 gallon container where it'll rest for about three months or so. I've got a sample of it right here that I'll try to describe.. It's flat and warm, mind you. Right off the bat, it's cloudy right now, but orange in color.. I get an aroma of oranges or clementines in the nose. Flavor wise, it's fairly bready.. lots of the original malty-ness is still here, almost like a spoonful of raw flour was dumped into this glass. In the finish, I'm getting more orange-ish citrus flavor and more bready-ness. Quite a bit after that, I'm picking up somethign else that I can't quite put my finger on. For a 1.050-something beer with only 23 IBU's, this has a fairly pronounced bitterness as well. This would be a fine drinker if it never goes sour.. but of course, I'm hoping for sour as heck. Bring it! I'll keep you posted on pellicles and weirdness in the carboy as time goes by.. take care!

A big post of small projects.. check it! Kombucha, Sourdough, etc.

Did a couple funny things yesterday.. went out and scored a bottle of Kobucha ($3.99 a bottle? Really? How do people afford this stuff on a regular habit?) with live cultures in it to grab on to. If you're not that familiar, go Google some Kombucha stuff or check it on the Wiki somewhere.. but essentially, it's a fermented tea product. You make tea, either black or green, in a mosty ordinary way.. then add some sugar for the bugs to grab onto and ferment, and you're done. It's served cold, and either flat or sparkling.
The cool part is, the Kombucha cultures are a mixture of weird bugs, like Brettanomyces, Lactobacillus and wild yeasts from foreign lands. Good stuff in the beer world (well, for me, anyway..), and apparently good stuff in the tea world, too. The first time I tried this stuff, I found it sorta gross.. I wasn't accustomed to this sort of flavor at the time. But now that I'm a sour beer fan, I'm finding this stuff is pretty tasty. It's a lot of the same bugs and wild vermin that's working on both products, so it all makes sense I guess.

Anyway, here's a pic of me jamming the tea down a funnel into the jar I'm going to ferment it in.

That was pretty exciting, eh? Then, I took the bottle of GTs Synergy Strawberry Kombucha, brought it up to room temp and pitched half the bottle (with the junk on the bottom) into the cooled jar of tea. Check it:

It's got a paper towel over the top held on by a rubber band.. the acetic acid monsters that dwell within need the oxygen in order to produce the vinegar compounds.. unlike beer, oxygen is good, up to a point, with this stuff.

Speaking of beer, part of this thing was inspired by that product a well. I got side tracked with trying to figure if I could somehow get this wacky culture to help ferment a beer into a sort of pseudo-Lambic (pLambic) beer. I'm not sure at this juncture if a full on, 100% Kombucha ferment is best, a secondary infusion of the beasts to finish off any residual sugars, or a simultaneous mix at initial pitching to make the magic work. I'll get to that in time and fill ya'll in on the progress as we/if we go.

Also, had this the other day:

Yuengling "Premium" lager. What's Premium mean? Dunno. It's a fairly standard Yuengling taste.. tastes just like the regular one I had a while back (a long while back..) so I'm not sure what the difference is. It's pretty good, though not a real standout in the crowd. Thankfully, it doesn't have that kick in the face corn flavor that most crappy lagers have, so that's cool. Great color and a fantastic head of foam stays on the top.  Sorry for the lame-o review, but I can't find much to single out for this one. It's good, but not stellar.

You ready for more? Good! Check this goopy mess!

 That's nothing but a glass jar with half a cup of water and half a cup of flour (a quarter cup each of Oat Flour and regular Red Wheat bread flour). It's left in that jar for somewhere over a week, with a loose fitting lid, and supposedly it's gonna pick up some wild yeasts in the air and turn sour. You're on to me now! Sourdough! I finally took the plunge.. I'm gonna give it a whirl. This should take some time to get the starter going (regular, daily feedings of the beast in the jar for a while, etc..) so I'll have to report back in some time with results. In fact, it's time to go do that feeding now. Later!

Now, go click my Google link, you cheapos!