The meaning of life...in the bottom of a mixing bowl

99 Bottles of beer.....

2011-04-01T19:56:00.000-04:00

Or a few less actually. It's been awhile, but the other night, Kevin and I bottled for the second time. The first time was our "beer for dummies". This batch was real.
   After countless days and a few worried nights that our brew wouldn't ferment properly, our Amber Ale was ready to meet its final home, that is before we drank it of course. Bottling beer feels a lot like creating a time capsule, or message in a bottle. You put a lot of thought and effort into its contents. You pick things that are meaningful, that are the best indication of how you feel, or what is important to you. This particular time we wanted a brew that was "real" and "authentic". We wanted something that we picked together, and we wanted something we'd be proud to share.
  And like that time capsule, you have to wait to open it. Even though the contents of a bottle of beer undergo changes, unlike a capsule, what is the same is how both evoke emotions when you open them. You feel a nostalgic longing when opening a capsule, maybe a little amusement when you have come across something that was "cool" at the time and is now out of fashion (like photo albums from our parent's teen years) With beer, you feel pride, and accomplishment. You feel anxiety before that very first taste, and relief after you discover that indeed...it did work!
   So with all that in mind, you can see how special bottling is.

We started with 24 cleaned and sterilized bottles. Let me tell you what a pain cleaning each bottle is, making sure the remnants of its previous occupant have been evacuated, so as not to taint the infant beverage that will be introduced. I'd rather scrub each piece of silverware in my drawer twice. But it had to be done.

Separating the gold from the swill

  Once we got the beer transferred to another container, thus leaving the sludge on the bottom, which does not a good drink make, we hooked up the bottle filler to our tubing, and to our container thusly.
   Lovely. I'm now an expert at siphoning. So if you find your car empty after I've been over for a visit.....
  Ha not really. I only know how to do it with a water start. That's no good for any engine. So I suppose I'm still stuck relying on AAA if I have a problem. =)

  So once we were ready, I set our bottles down on the floor, well below the grade of the bucket, and got our filler ready....

Single bottle being filled

It's really actually very simple to fill the bottles. You simply press the filler to the bottom inside of the bottle, the plunger inside gets pressed into it and the beer floweth. The hardest part is avoiding overfills, but after a few spills (see the towel we've laid down) we finally got the hang of it.

We got fancy and filled in the case box

We used standard 12 oz amber beer bottles. We bought some from the beer supply store, only because we took back our empties 2 weeks before we knew we were going to be doing this. We have augmented our supply however by drinking commercial beer. It's been a sacrifice. I think we did okay. ;-)

Once the last bottle was filled....actually halfway, which makes a great "tester" when we want to see how the batch is doing...we got to capping.

Capping seems so hard. It's not. The capper is lever actioned, with a magnet on the cup that holds the cap in place, the levers bring the whole cup down fitting tightly over the cap and bottle lip, crimping the cap perfectly every single time. I don't know why this amused me as much as it did. But it was a Saturday night and I was bottling beer. That's it in the fun department for me I suppose!

Cap goes on...

And it gets crimped on.

So there you have it. A little boring? Probably for the innocent bystander. But I couldn't omit the bottling of the beer in my blog, because after all, it's a very important part. Not to mention that, and more importantly, it does have a lot of meaning for us. Bottling the brew is "letting go" a little bit. Once it's in that bottle, there's absolutely nothing you can do. You have to trust that you put the right ingredients in, that you took care doing it, that luck is on your side and that the beer develops on its own, into a mature, mellow but voluminous beverage that brings great joy to all that come in contact with it.

Seems a lot like raising children. Of course mine is very little, a year old in only 3 weeks, but the moment she was born I realized the responsibility I had to put the right things into her impressionable little mind. To treat her the right way, to take care in how she's handled, but to learn that eventually I'll need to "let go" and hope that I've done the best I can, and that with a little luck and time to mature, she'll turn into someone I'll be eternally proud of.

I think I'll breathe a little easier when I hear the faint "hiss" when the first cap comes off...

It's all Gouda

2011-03-23T21:24:00.000-04:00

Oh my, did I really? I did. A "cheesy" joke. OK now I really did it. That's it for the lame jokes from this point on.--I PROMISE!
Today, I made Gouda. Well, today I started what will end up being Gouda. Much like fine wines and beer, cheese is a time intensive project. The steps that are actual activity aren't many, nor hard. It's just patience that is the true ingredient. But cheese especially, because while a wine or beer are definitely sensitive to ambient temperature and light, cheese is especially vulnerable, being that they're left naked to dry for a few days. It always makes me a little worried something might go wrong.
So here's what I did:

1. In my huge beer making stock pot (20 qt) I heated up 2 gallons - minus 16oz-- 2% milk, along with 2 pints of NOT ultra-pasteurized heavy cream. The reason for not just using milk, is all dairy sold in New York State must be pasteurized. Generally cheese is made from fresh or raw milk, so I've got to improvise. Just a note, raw milk is still available from local small dairies, but only those certified, and I think state law still requires you to purchase it as "pet milk" rather than that which is intended for people to consume...
2. I added the starter culture and let it sit for awhile. I left the culture to do its thing, and start the magic cheese chemistry!
3. Then it was time for rennet. Rennet is a coagulant originally derived from animal stomach, full of enzymes that do a rather complex bit of work. Nowadays rennet is available both from animal sources, but also engineered microbes. Generally I'm using the "vegetable" or microbial rennet. It's easy, available in tablets and keeps well in the fridge for months. And honestly, I don't want to learn that calf stomach rennet has a smell. I just really don't want to go there.
4. The rennet thickens for about 30 minutes. After that time, I test the curd to see if it's set up. It should be like firm yogurt, think of the fruit on the bottom kind. Once it's firm enough, I cut the curd with a long knife, all the way to the bottom of the pot. The goal is to get about 1/2 inch cubes throughout the entire pot.
5. As the whey leaches out of the curd, the curds settle to the bottom. I poured off some of the whey, and replaced it with hot water.

Here's a tidbit - If I use hot water to rinse off some of the whey (and lactic acid) I'd end up with Gouda. If I had used cool water, I'd end up with Colby. Fascinating isn't it?

6. This rinsing and settling act takes a few turns. Eventually I end up with a nice mess of curds all over each other at the bottom of the pot, and a bunch of whey, which for me, is useless.
7. I find myself a long handled strainer, and I start pulling out the curd, and placing it into a cheese press lined with cheesecloth.
8. The "cheese" sets up in the press under 20 lbs of weight. It stays that way for about 20 minutes, then I flip it in the press and do it again.
9. Then I press for 12 hours under 20 lbs, flip and press another 12 hours. (Yeah, see, there's a LOT of down time)

10. Then I pull the cheese block out of the press, unwrap it, and place it in a very salty brine bath for 3 hours. Once that is completed, the cheese can now sit out and dry for 3-5 days in 50 degrees. Luckily, I live in Buffalo, and my mudroom isn't that well heated. 50 degrees exactly.

So now I'm waiting. I'll have pictures of the cheese aging, but it's dark now and it won't look as good. But this is the birth of a Gouda. I can't wait to wax it, then later after several months, cut into it and share it with some friends and family.

Now to think about that cheese cave I want.......

Beer Part 2

2011-03-20T14:28:00.001-04:00

What a whirlwind! The brewing process is sometimes like a stir fry. You're best to get all your ingredients ready and waiting to be added, rather than start searching and preparing each component a few minutes before needed. Liquid yeast alone requires 3-6 hours of warm up time to get ready to do the voodoo that they do so well.
Even with the preparations we performed, primarily sterilizing everything that touches beer in this process, there was still a bit of "hurry up and wait" going on.
Here's how it played out:

Image 1 - simmering bag of grain

1. We cleaned everything...EVERYTHING. Spoons, hydrometer, lid, bucket, thermometer probe, pots, airlock, you name it, it got clean. But you ALWAYS forget something!

2. We got our GIANT pot set to simmer to 150 Degrees. Think hot tea temperature, certainly no where near a boil. Grains are a lot like tea,, and if you set them to boil, you'd get a whole bunch of things you don't want. We just let them simmer and soak in a nylon mesh bag (rather than chase grains and strain excessively later) We did that for a whole hour, turning the heat on and off to maintain close to 150 deg.

3. We removed the bag and sparged. Sparging is a fancy way to say we rinsed the rest of the grain goodness back into our pot so as not to lose the essential sugars. We poured hot water while holding the bag in a colander, over the pot. We then disposed of the spent grains. I would have had a photograph of us performing the sparging, but all our hands were full!

4. We brought the liquid back to a boil. Then we added the rest of our malts, the syrupy Amber malt extract, and the dry powdered malt extract.

**A tip when using syrup extract, place it in a sink or pan of very hot water for a few minutes before pouring. That stuff is basically the consistence of molasses--in January***

5. We added the Irish Moss and the Burton Water Salts (not previously mentioned) to help clearing the beer, and conditioning the water.

Pellet Willamette Hops, ready and waiting

6. When boiled long enough, we added the first of the hops, the Cascade Variety. Cascades are a commonly used hop, readily available, and found in a majority of American Beers. Hops come in two forms- leaf (dried clusters basically straight from the plant) and pellets. We used the pellets, which were easy to use and the pellet shape fell apart and infused throughout the entire pot. This of course let to a lot of straining later, but no matter.

7. After the proper boil, we put 7lbs of store bought ice in our primary fermenter, the bucket the beer will call home for the next week or more. Then we poured in the hot hoppy liquid, through a strainer of course, and stirred. The purpose of the ice is to bring down the temperature quickly, a slow cooling beer is more prone to free range little bacterium and what not, which does NOT make a good beer.

8. It was time to shake and "pitch" our yeast. No, we didn't do a wind up with a solid overhand. I'm pretty sure "pitching" it means adding it, and even if it didn't, that's what we did.

9. The end had come. We snapped the sterilized lid on our fermenter, placed our filled airlock firmly in place, and put the bucket where else? In the bathroom. Right next to my WINE.....that I'll tell you more about later.

All this took about 3 hours start to finish. It could have taken less without a baby toddling around, but she liked the action, and we didn't mind having her there, naturally. Only 20 more years and she can try the stuff for herself! =)

  So now we're waiting. For those of you in the Western NY area, there are from what I've seen, less than a handful of good brew supply stores. One is in N. Tonawanda, which is far from me, and the other is located - get this- around the corner from me on Transit in Depew, called "Lets Do Wine". I think it was fate, but then again, I've walked past that place hundreds of times (literally) and always said to myself "you know, I should go in there"
  There never seemed to be people cramming the store, so I was worried it would go the way of the other stores in the meager plaza, but that place has stayed. And the lack of immense traffic constantly is not a bad thing, because you get the full help of the very knowledgeable Wendy who owns the shop. She knows her beer and her wine inside OUT.
   Luckily she doesn't look at me sideways when I come in more than a couple times in a week. =)

Beer Part 1

2011-03-19T19:06:00.002-04:00

Wake up to the sound of a very bored 11 month old in her crib. Go downstairs, make breakfast and coffee, feed the ravenous almost toddler, and minutes later, am greeted by bounding coming from the stairs area, and a "Good morning! What time is it?" from my husband Kevin. Why, it's 8:32 I think to myself. "Oh....wait, it's still pretty early, the beer store doesn't open till 10. I'll make a list".........and away we go...
   Welcome to our brewery.
  Kevin and I, well, mostly Kevin, decided that our last attempt at beer making, although tasty (albeit hyper-carbonated) was rather, um, pedestrian? We jazzed it up by boiling things, and measuring things out, but lets be honest with ourselves, it was beer for dummies. Syrup and powdered dry malt. Heck we didn't even need to boil it, but since the instructions were not there, we cobbled together a method of brewing that seemed "authentic" (as authentic as you can get having been beer makers for 3 and a half minutes)
   But now that the baby beer has mostly matured enough to be drinkable (Lord I hope those bottles don't explode) he's hyped himself up to making a new "real" batch, complete with grains, hops and yes, boiling.

So let's introduce you to the ingredients:

A: Liquid Yeast - certainly not grandma's bread yeast, this stuff is formulated specifically for beer.
B: Malt Extract - Malt is what gives beer it's sweetness, and its body and color. This is a syrup in the Amber variety to give the color we're looking for
C: Grains. Caramel 40 to be exact. This gets steeped like tea, and removed before boiling occurs, lest we leach tannins and yuckies into the water. This also is a malt provider, adding the sugars that the yeasties enjoy oh so much.
D: Dry Malt Extract - more potent than the syrup or even the real grains. And the yeast LOVE it.
E: Irish Moss - to celebrate St. Patricks day. No, not really. Irish Moss is a clearing agent. While cloudy beer may taste fine, you like to look through the glass and see your neighbor through the smooth, tasty amber liquid.
F: Hops - Those green leafy sort of berry/bud things that provide the bitterness to beers. They're boiled after the malt. Some are put in to ferment with the rest of the beer after the brewing has been completed. (Called Dry hopping) We're not doing that today, but we look forward to next time.

So that's that. And we begin......

In the beginning....

2011-03-18T20:32:00.004-04:00

The island of Santorini

There was wine. I'm sure that's not how the "Good Book" starts, Lord knows I haven't read it in eons, but wine still has nearly as much influence as it did over 2000 years ago. Actually, remnants of grape fields were found in what is now Greece from 17th century BC, and actual wine pressing vessels found in Santorini, an island off of Greece, in the Aegean Sea. Wine might be wired into our genetics by now.
   And wine itself, and its basic components, hasn't changed that much either.
   That being said, the process I'm undertaking at the moment, is FAR from that of those that walked the earth thousands of years before Christ did. Bring on the kit!
   Okay okay, I know what you're thinking. "A kit? Please! That's not REAL. That's not wine-making. That's following a recipe!" Well, okay, guilty. But starting with a kit for me was ideal. Starting with grapes is not. So I found myself a nice Australian Chardonnay. It was about $80, but you get 2 cases of wine out of the deal (actually a little more). That comes to about $2 a bottle, minus materials of course. But I plan on doing this a LOT so over time the cost will be spread out. $2 a bottle? I can't get fancy iced tea for that.
  First let me say that wine making is an incredibly "season-specific" undertaking. You grow the grapes, you harvest in the fall, you press, you strain, you add stabilizers, you add yeast, ferment, rack, ferment some more, bottle, and age. Autumn is often referred to as "The Crush" the harried time that vineyard owners have to pull those succulent fruits, press them, test, test, test them, and begin fermentation.

Primary Fermentation Vessel with Airlock

   Me? I just sterilized my primary fermenter, added hot water and bentonite (a clarifier), poured in my juice, added some cool water (to get the temperature comfy for my little yeasties) checked the hydrometer for the specific gravity- which by the way indicates alcohol content, and will let me know when my fermentation has completed.... Add yeast , I then covered and waited.
   Is it "genuine"? Probably not. At least not by any wine snob's standards. But it's STILL wine and more importantly it's teaching me fundamental lessons about the motions of wine making. I learned that EVERYTHING must be clean. Actually, not just cleaned, but sanitized. And winemaking requires an efficient, but soft hand. Do things deliberately, but do not force it, do not rush it, and do things with the next step already in your mind. And CLEAN! Did I mention clean?

   So that's where I am at, currently. I wanted to get everyone up to speed. My wine has been fermenting for 9 days, and the "kit" said 5-7 days, but I'm going with what the yeast say. Every day I'm checking with a sanitized hydrometer and when the meter tells me there's a lot less sugar and a lot more alcohol, we'll move on to the second fermenter. That could happen as early as tomorrow.
   OH and stay tuned, because my ambitious husband has decided to make a second batch of beer, this time with real hops, malt extract or grains, depending on what he comes up with. I'll have LOTS of photos of that to come.....

How to Cook your Life

2011-03-15T11:40:00.002-04:00

  Recently I had the pleasure of viewing the wonderful documentary by  Doris Dorrie called "How to Cook Your Life". It featured Zen practitioner Edward Espe Brown, a long time baker and cook for a Zen center in California (and previously Austria).
   His tone and candor is so soft and calming. It was easy to fall into the comfort of the soothing and even-keeled Zen mindset, particularly when it comes to making food. He rarely spoke loudly or brashly, but exuded an excitement for what he did. He is in love with the art and practice of making foods as much as he is in love with the world.
   I found myself most interested in his method of bread making, in particular, the kneading of the dough. He is correct when he says that kneading is meditative, but he brings it to the next level when he discusses the correct way to knead, and more importantly, to SLOW DOWN when you do it. In the age of stand mixers and time savers, bread machines and mixes on store shelves, it's easy to see how we've gotten away from the simple pleasure of making a good bread, and sharing it with others.
   On a personal level, what resounded the most with me, regarding Mr. Brown's personality, was the face that while he seemed very even toned, calm, forgiving, patient, and kind, he still had flashes of anger, impatience, and minor indignation, which I found very endearing. As I watched the video, he changed from a Zen "master" (I'm not sure if there is solid criteria for master, so I use it loosely in the event I am mis-labeling him) whom I could never be anything like--not with my temper--to a feeling, imperfect, but always trying, human being, all by being honest with his faults.
   It helped me understand that when it comes to what and who we are, we're never just one thing. And just because we fail to be that "one thing" we're trying to be, it's okay. We're human. We are all bits of happy, and sad, and calm and angry and jealous.
   He embraces that, works to get as "good" as he can, but realizes that he won't be perfect. I love that. I need that.
   Can bread do that? I will find out. But in the meantime, I'll be watching this documentary a few more times.

Madam Lewis' wax museum...

2011-03-14T22:32:00.002-04:00

I'm sort of skipping ahead here, but I waxed my cheddar today. I started making it last week, the day Kevin left for Las Vegas. It was actually easier than I thought it would be. First, I started with a kit I purchased from The New England Cheesemaking Supply Company (naturally!) It was great, full of recipes to make Cheddar, Gouda, Feta, Monterey Jack, etc. You name it, it's in there. I procured two gallons of 1% milk, and a pint of heavy cream from Wegmans. I heated it up, added culture and rennet (the agent that thickens the cheese) and before I knew it, I had curds and whey!
Just call me Muffet.
I packed the cheese into the mold, let it set for 24 hours, and then let it air dry for a week. I have to say, there's something about leaving a big round of cheese out on a wooden cutting board in your kitchen. It's so...old world.

Cheddar ready to be waxed

   There's no rushing cheese. You can't hurry it along to suit your schedule. You are working with nature, at it's timetable, not yours. Some cheeses age for years. In the grocery store, I saw a cheddar aged for FIVE YEARS! It was incredibly expensive, and rightfully so.
  But if I figure this out right, I get a couple pounds of cheese for about $8 Not a bad deal.
   Anyway, I waxed it today. Red wax actually. It was INCREDIBLY messy, but probably because I'm no good at it yet.
   The key with waxing cheese, is to put it on in layers. You have got to make sure every nook and cranny of that cheese is covered in wax, to prevent mold from growing. You inevitably get wax on every horizontal surface (and some vertical ones) between the double boiler and the "landing spot", but a little Goo Gone takes it right off.

Wax on the melt!

   So I got my double boiler all ready. I even purchased a metal bowl for $4 so I would have something I didn't have to clean, and could use over and over again. I placed my wax in the bowl and melted it, about 10 minutes.
   It's sort of intimidating melting wax. You know that one false move, and you've got a painful sticky problem. Not only that, but what I read was that wax heated too high can explode! --No thanks.
   So once I melted all the way, I threw on a glove - VERY IMPORTANT - and got to work painting on wax all over my cheese.

This is nothing if not messy. But it's fun, and the glove (not shown) at least makes it bearable to hold everything. It's cross between buttering toast, and frosting a cake. Only don't lick your fingers....yuck.
So I "buttered" my cheese diligently, and while it wasn't "pretty" like you see in pictures of cheese by commercial manufacturers, it will hopefully pass the taste test....2 months from now! I set it out to let the wax harden, then moved it into a container in my refrigerator to "chill out" --literally.

Here is my finished product:

So what lessons did I learn today?

That planning and preparing ultimately have an astounding effect on the outcome of a project like this. One detail missed and I would have had either a failed wax job, or a bigger mess than it already was.

And that patience and cheese are nearly synonymous.

You can't rush this. You s l o w l y bring the milk to temperature. You slowly let the cultures and rennet do their job. You drain and press. You flip. You flip again. You keep flipping. You wait. You watch. You sniff the rind of the newly born cheese to see if it smells like anything you can recognize. And even then, it's not ready yet.

Can life be like cheese? Maybe sometimes. An infant cheese is like an infant child. They benefit from ingredients that have integrity. Without the proper additions (like culture and rennet, or love and guidance) they won't form to be the sturdy product that a successful cheese or person they have the potential to be. Patience is required to let them develop on their own, not with rushing, strong-arming, or just plain forcing. And just when you think you've protected them the very best you can, you know that in the end, all you can do is cross your fingers..............and wait and see.

Let' start with me and wine...

2011-03-14T15:42:00.004-04:00

Wine and I, have had an interesting relationship. Like any deep rooted love, it started with a mild disdain for each other, or at least a general skepticism, much like the one my husband and I had before we started dating.

My mother drank wine. Not excessively (no it's not one of those "I remember my childhood with my mom drinking gallons of jug wine while my dad spent his day running around"-ha!!) Indeed she drank wine only occasionally, and my father nearly no alcohol at all. I remember distinctly my first taste of a red. It might as well have been drain cleaner, because it felt so acidic and tasted so acrid, and smelled like burning....something. It neared my lips in the glass, but I'm no even sure if I got one microscopic drop as the aroma preceded it like a freight train. Later I learned that wines need to "air out" particularly reds, but would that have helped? Likely not. I stuck to pop at that point.

I'd ruined my taste buds with cheap light beer bought in pitchers at the local bar with a guy who was later to become an "ex". Fast forward many years. Imagine my surprise when after visiting my in-law's new summer place on Seneca Lake (the largest of the NY state Finger Lakes, smack dab in wine country) I tried wine again and found it MUCH less noxious, and a bit.....hmmm...beckoning?

Looking back now, the wine we had was sweet. VERY sweet. We're talking pour it on ice cream and have a treat kind of sweet. But I liked it. Boy did I like it. It wasn't until later did I discover it was what is called a "dessert" wine, with a high residual sugar content, which appears often in the Fingerlakes area.

Either way, I was hooked.

Oh many a night of drunken stupor (I didn't inherit my mother's moderation, or my father's teetotaling nature) with some people who came to be great friends. My "lake friends". Of course I put on oh, 25 lbs in the course of 3 or 4 years of drinking like that, but that's another blog.

As the years have trudged on, and tastes change, my wine has gone from the sweet syrupy flavor of meade wine, to Rieslings, to Chardonnays. Then I took on blends, settling later on Merlots and Cabernets. Dry tastes good to me now.

I just HAD to make my own.

Wine and I, we're compatible. To say the least....