Salsa

Putting all these tomatos and peppers into good use, been making salsa for the past few days straight. Every day pretty much, I go out back and pick three more pounds of tomatos and grab a dozed Jalapenos and a few of the super hots and swish them into the cook pot. I've found that two Fatalii peppers and one Habanero is a really excellent combination of spicy hot and really flavorful, but not over the top killer hot. These Fatalii peppers really have been the top dog around here lately.. they're super delicious, but pack a big punch. Easy to fine tune the heat in the salsa that way.

"Dangerous Belgian" beer, by Bryan.. review.

Here's Bryan's latest thing to review of the three he sent my way. In addition to the usual process, I'm joined by fellow beer taster, Commando Jody, who is splitting this thing with me.

On the nose, I'm getting a hint of a peach-y sort of thing, but can't put my finger on it. Jody thinks apricot, but this aroma is too strong for that he says.. evasive smell, it is. It definitely has that Belgian flavor to it. It's well done in the flavor department, no mistaking it's a Belgian inspired beer. We're both picking up some really interesting fusel alcohols, but they're not mean ones, and they're very faint.. they're just letting you know this is a big beer sort of thing, but not being obnoxious about it. Jody says it's got a sweetness about it that keeps on going, even though the beer is dry in finish, the sweetness keeps coming along well into the finish. Super clean otherwise, with no off flavors, and it's all appropriate for style. Again, another winner. I'm not sure of this is my favorite of the three he sent in that cardboard box across the way.. they were all really good, but yeah, this might be the best of the bunch so far. It's not a standout in any particular way, just well done on every side. I think the only thing I might do to change that beer is dry it out a bit, but that can't be done with an extract brew.. when Bryan get's his all grain system together, I'm thinking he'll be a force to be reckoned with..

Bryan's "Blackbery Wheat" review...

Here's another of the three that Bryan sent my way, via UPS.. first, a visual:

Bryan's Blackberry Wheat

I'll be damned if I can find the info sheet Bryan sent my way for these beers, so I'll have to wing this one and not be able to provide the info he sent for the brew like I did for the last one. Anyhow, it pours out with a relatively foamless head, which was a bit surprising from the pretty explosive 'pop' the Grolsh bottle gave when I let the top go on this one. It's not a clear beer, but rather a pretty hazy thing.. forgiven as it's a fruit beer, and sometimes those never clear quite right. On the nose I'm getting the blackberry pretty plain, and what I wanna say is a pinch of banana, but it's so fleeting I'm really not sure. Carbonation bubbles readily rise to the surface, so I know it's well carbed up. The body is big and fluffy, with the berry flavors carrying along quite well. I have no idea of the abv on this beer, but it doesn't present any real big alcoholic notes to give away that it's a huge beer or anything.. I really have no idea what its strength is. I'm getting a bit of a bubblegum flavor on the third sip and onwards, which I think would be irritating in most other beers... but is this case, seems to compliment the beer, making it appear almost 'Belgian-y', inadvertently. Heh! There is no astringent, tannic or mouthfeel issues here from use of the fruit. It seems to just work. No hops come into play at all, except for the balanced, background bitterness hops that are letting the rest of the beer take the stage. About 1/3rd of the way into the beer, and the bubblegum flavors are taking over more and more.. they're not objectionable, but they're becoming more of the centerpiece than the fruit flavors are, which I'm not sure is what Bryan was shooting for.. but snap, it's still working in the beers favor. Now towards the end of the pint, the bubblegum is definitely the dominant flavor, with the Blackberry taking a back seat. Curious that, the flip-flop of flavors from the beginning of the pour.. but there it is. It was enjoyable all the way through, bublegum or no. Mind you, that would have been a serious no-no in damn near any other brew, but in this one I think it can be overlooked. I think if Mr. Gold renamed this a the Belgian Blackberry Wheat, he'd have quite the showpiece to brag about...

In other news, I came home from vacation to find our house sitter had collected these little guys and arranged them into a centerpiece:

Some tomatoes from the garden, as well as some reddened Jalapeno's and Hot Cherry peppers too.. looks quite nice there.

Bryan's 'Honey Ale' review

My pal Bryan, whom I've known for a bazillion years from back in the day, lives out in Arizona. He recently took up brewing and we've been communicating recently about his adventures in the hobby as well as his gearing up for construction on a new home brewery. I'm excited to see what this fellow comes up with, as he's an accomplished fabricator and has his own shop out there. In fact, some of you in the audience may have heard of this fellow while we've been talking over a beer here as this is the very same guy who welded my brewery frame together at an age that wouldn't even get him into a bar. He's been welding and fabbin' *that* long.

In any case, Bryan sent me this via the mail for some deconstruction and evaluation:

Bryan's 'Honey ale'

As you can see, it was shipped in a Grolsch 16oz bottle. You can also see a healthy head of foam on there. When I opened this bottle, I nearly crapped myself, as the carbonation in this bottle was so high, I'm surprised it didn't grenade in the box during transit. This is is *carbed*. Anyone who has brewed with honey knows, it's the gift that keeps on giving.. giving bubbles, that is. Honey is sort of a complex sugar, and the yeast can eat it, all of it really.. but they tend to do so slowly. Sometimes sneakily. Sometimes like 'Rocket Mead'.. heh. Sorry, inside joke.. mostly.

Anyway, let's take a look, eh? Because it was fairly over-carbed, the explosive opening looks like it released all the co2 and blew up the yeast on the bottom of the bottle.. as a result, it's all cloudy. We can't really tell if she was clear or not as a result, so we'll have to pass on that.. the head of foam has held for a few minutes so, so that seems to be working. It's a light gold color brew, and the lacing on the sides is holding up pretty good. Bryan set the recipe for this extract beer along with the beer itself and he indicates 2.5lbs of honey was involved in it's creation. This honey is clearly apparent on the nose, thanks that that generous use. On first sip, I'm hit with a a pretty apparent honey flavor at first, followed by a mild/moderate fusel alcohol note. Since Bryan fermented this at room temp in AZ where it's 80 degrees right now, I'm surprised that this isn't more of a fusel bomb. Surprised it came out this clean.. huh! There's a relatively firm bitterness to this beer, actually doing a good job of balancing out this much honey. It's not enough to come through in the flavor or aroma, but the bitterness works for this beer. I'm not sure how strong this beer is, because Bryan doesn't have a hydrometer at this time, but a quick run through of QBrew of these ingredients in a 5 gallon batch size gives me something like 7%+ abv. Yikes! It's not small. About halfway through the pint I feel it's effects already.. If this beer had some note of hop at the end, it would be *that* much better.. as it is, it's a tad one dimensional, but it's a certainly drinkable beer. It could also use some more time in the fermenter, to work out some of this honey, but not much else to complain about. It's clean tasting with nothing 'off' about it. Nice job on a first beer, esp. once containing a weird ingredient like honey.

Here's the recipe he sent along, if you were curious:

Bryan's Honey Ale:  

Fermented 14 days @ 80 degrees

2 lbs of 10L Carmel

6 lbs of light liquid

2.5 lbs of honey

2 oz cascade 

1/3 oz 60 min

1 oz 45 min

2/3 oz at finish

American ale 1056 yeast

Starting to get some product now...

Starting to get some production out of this thing now. Some of the long season stuff, that is. The chili's we've been picking into a bit every ow and then out of the Earthbox pepers, but here's some different stuff now. The potato's that unfortunately got crushed in the storm last month finally gave up the ghost, but when I went digging around in the Smartpot to get the thing cleaned up and put away, I found a zillion little marble sized and up potato's growing happily inside. It's a meal or two worth of potatoes, though they're all really small.. sorta wish these guys had lived a long and happy life.. there would have been many, I'm sure.

Potatoes

First ripe tomato of the year. Heh...

Fatalii chili pepper

Cascades hops going really strong. 

Fall plantings..

Tis that time of year.. just did my first Fall planting of beets, turnips (yep, gonna try again..) and some more Brussel Sprouts. I've never had one of my own Brussels Sprouts, because the one I put in in the spring haven't popped out any Sprouts yet, but hey, if I love 'em I'd hate to not have planted any news ones. And I've heard the Fall crop tastes even better than the spring ones.

Pulled a few more garlics up, but damn, they're tiny.. the experiment worked, but super small results. My Jalapeno's in the Earthbox are coming along like gangbusters though, so that's good. The Habanero and Fatalii are both looking fine and I'll probably get a few good jars of those put away this year just off those two plants alone... peppers, I can handle that. These damn tomatos though, that's another story. The ones in the beds are OK, but the containers are growing like mad but they're all getting blossom end rot, I suspect dur to fluctuations in the water supply. I've had a couple instances so far where the reservoir has been dry.. it's just so hot and the plants are so damn big, they drain the couple gallons out in an afternoon alone. Sheesh.. I need a bigger bucket, apparently, but where do you get something bigger than a five gallon bucket thats' stackable?

Look at the size of these tomato plants. Space hogs! Pushing the poor peppers out of the way.. I've got half a mind to hack 'em down a bit.. cucumbers climbing that trellis on the left there pretty good though.. lots of little pickles forming just fine there..

Stay tuned..

Garlic is up.. mostly.

Just doing some research on the garlic growing stuff I've got and it turns out it's time to harvest some of them. The ones I've got out of the ground right now are happily drying on the back porch out of the direct sun on the mesh table we have. They're awfully small looking things, but I guess that's all I'm gonna get. Looks like a couple got killed off and didn't grow underground and another one looks like it just plain ol' got too far along and keeled over and broke up into pieces.. but I've got ten good ones so far. Not all of them were quite ready. Here's a shot of the evidence: