Category: cooking

July 19, 2022 – Covid Activities Finally Completed

July 19, 2022 /

Back in March 2020, I ordered a root beer extract bottle. I was thinking as a family we would make root beer for something to do while we were in quarantine. It was one of those things that we never quite got around to. I think it came shortly before Sergio was to leave, after that my work on the apartment was going to get hot and heavy.

At some point, I do have some interest in making real root beer, not out of an extract bottle. I have done some investigation into this but I thought this was a good starting point. The way this works is that you add dry ice to the liquid for carbonation. That has been the long lag on actually doing this project.

My son that is half vegan and half vegetarian orders food from Thrive. They send dry ice with the frozen or liquids requiring refrigeration. So, I seized the opportunity when the order came yesterday. My son and I quickly mixed up the root beer.

You need to have some volume available in the pitcher because this gets violent when the dry ice hits the liquid. After the dry ice was gone, it was ready. It tasted good, a little too sweet for me, so maybe back off on the sugar next time. It was also a little flat unless you took a big gulp.

Finally, if you are not going to drink this all in one setting, you may want to add more dry ice when you pour again (like the next day). But, the good news of dry ice is that it doesn’t dilute or effect the volume because the temperature is too warm to keep it liquid.

Recipe:

  1. 2 1/2 cups Sugar
  2. 2 tbs root beer extract
  3. 3 qts water
  4. 3/4 pound dry ice

End Your Programming Routine: After sampling, we made root beer floats for desert. It was kind a fun thing to do and we will probably do this once a month until the extract is gone. It is something really easy to do with young kids and it is definitely unique.

May 10, 2022 – Tapped the Keg

May 10, 2022 /

My Cinco de Mayo debut turned more into a Mother’s Day dinner. I had to travel for work on Sunday. And because of Mother’s Day, we did our trap shooting on Saturday. That didn’t leave a lot of time to honor mom and have a fancy dinner party. Even though I don’t consider tacos fancy, the prep work can be extensive.

The meat I chose for tacos was beef. This was not just any cut, this was a challenge. It is cheek meat. I had a 10 pound block of beef cheeks. These are filleted of the head. You can imaging how many head it takes to make 10 pounds. A lot of those pieces are pretty tough and gristly. To make matters worse, the trimming was mostly done, but there were bits of bone, the inside of cows mouth, globs of blood and membrane still remaining. Sound good yet?

I personally don’t care for the meat. Mostly, I have had it when we prepare the whole beef head. I am not real interested in tough and greasy tacos. I can’t say the same for my wife. The fact of the matter is, this was meat that my father-in-law purchased and he liked it too. When we cleaned out his freezer last year, this was one of the items we packed away in the freezer.

I had plans to put some smoke on it, but I plum ran out of time. I made salsa and guacamole and the ensalada (the fixings) for the tacos. The plan was to pair it with the beer. What did I learn about the keg?

I did quite a bit of farting around with the carbonation. I had visions of simply applying CO2 and it would be ready to go. My first go was flat. Then I switched the inlet and outlet fittings to for the gas down the draw tube at higher pressure. I pressurized the keg four or five different days as it was not holding 20 psi. It is holding something less than that but not the full amount.

So, my fittings are leaking slightly somewhere and I didn’t feel like I got the carbonation that I wanted. Everyone else said that it was good, so maybe it was alright. It just wasn’t quite what I had in mind. That being said, I think it is probably worth pursuing some more experimenting and probably some new o-rings

End Your Programming Routine: Believe it or not, I am somewhat of a risk taker. Throwing a dinner with things that you have never done before is risky, especially if you won’t know the final results until you are serving. The tacos tasted great and the beer was a good compliment. I didn’t have the time to make the sides that I wanted, but we had plenty of taco fodder. I think it came out fine, even though I wanted things to be different. And, I will never quit pushing my limits. I find that motivating, inspiring and exciting.

April 5, 2022 – Keg Testing

April 5, 2022 /

My beer is ready for kegging. It has been lagering for four weeks. However, I don’t even know if this system works or leaks for that matter. The last thing I want to do is transfer my time and money into something that is not going to work.

This last weekend, I got my CO2 cylinder filled and I also learned something. Cylinders are pressure tested every five years. A refill is $18 but a pressure test is another $20. My cylinder was last tested in 2017, so of course it was expired. It wasn’t quite the deal that I was hoping for, since the homebrewing store charges $36 for a cylinder but hopefully this will be the last time in the next five years that I have to recertify.

I disassembled everything and checked the cleanliness, at least that was good. I connected the regulator to the cylinder and that was leak free. The Cornelius keg held pressure. I filled it up with water and pushed it through the system. Everything checks out. I have some monkeying to do with the pressure coming out of the regulator but I don’t want to do that until I do it with the beer.

Before I connect the beer, I want to replace the tubing to the tap. There is some residue dried inside. I went to the store to buy replacement tubing, but I didn’t find an exact match. The current tubing is 3/16 inner diameter (ID) and 7/16 outer diameter (OD). This is pretty thick stuff. So, I thought I would order it.

Looking at the replacement connections, they are 1/4″ hose barbs. This means that the nipple sticking out is sized for 1/4″ ID tubing, not 3/16″. This is doable, generally you can force a smaller tube onto a larger connection, but why? So, I am going to purchase the proper sized tubing which will make maintenance much easier in the future.

Looks like the original tubing is rated at 75psi. I am going to go with the larger diameter tubing because the regulator is pushing out 12 psi in this case. Pressure is a measure of a given mass of material in a set volume. It is the regulators job to allow a certain amount of gas to pass until the set pressure is reached. If I were to have multiple kegs attached, it would take more mass (of gas) to pressure two kegs, but it would still regulate at 12psi. It just might take more time.

End Your Programming Routine: Looks like things are perking up for the Cinco de Mayo inauguration. Let’s hope that the beer stands up to the hype and effort. I tasted it this weekend and I was not as happy as the first tasting. I do feel like it was too cold because it tasted like flat beer. So, I will be messing with temperature and CO2 as well as getting the menu ready.

March 22, 2022- Making Coffees

March 22, 2022 /

There are probably some people reading this that don’t remember this skit or were not even born when this aired (Jan 1991). I was only sixteen and I barely remember it myself. It was a big thing in school to emulate the name rhyming when you ran into a friend. But, this was just a cute intro to what I am talking about today.

It is probably no secret that I like making fine food. I enjoy the complexity of Pinot Noir with food and generally like quality of food and drink. My wife thought that my next step should be coffee (and tea). For Christmas, she gave me an expensive drip coffee maker along with an electric kettle.

My relationship with coffee is a little complicated. When I was working at my previous job, I was drinking tons of it. I think it was a way to get out of my chair and avoid working. On the weekends, I could easily drink a 12 cup pot. My wife asked me to switch to tea which I now drink during the week. I only make coffee on the weekend.

To unlock the world of home coffee making, you need to be able to grind your own beans. When we buy coffee at Costco, nine out of ten choices are whole bean. At the grocery store it is more like fifty-fifty. Whole bean is preferred because oxygen degrades the bean, so when it is ground, it occurs much quicker because there is so much more surface area.

Truthfully, I am not a snob. The first pot we made with the new coffee maker was Folgers and I have to say that I liked it. This maker has an insulated carafe rather than a glass one. So, it doesn’t continue to cook after it is poured through. I think that makes a huge difference in quality.

I didn’t have a grinder (officially). The last one that bought has become a spice grinder. It was a mini blender kind of device. It was small and messy. It was a hassle to use so I gave up on grinding 20 years ago. Doing some research lately, I found that there was a whole new world (and the internet) of videos and reviews and comparisons between different models. I made my choice, the Baratza Encore.

In the reviews that I watched, this model consistently produced the most consistent grind. I have come to understand that this will yield the best results when making coffee. I have also learned that different types of coffee making require different types of grinds. So, not only are whole beans fresher, but likely the grind can be controlled for better results.

I am still playing around with it since I have only used it twice at this point. In the picture above, the grind is significantly more coarse than I have been using with pre-ground. This was supposedly the optimum setting for drip. I think it needs to be a little finer personally because the overall coffee was weak. But, I will keep working at it.

End Your Programming Routine: There are many ways to make coffee. It would seem as though the grinder is more important than the way of making it. I guess that is why the prices range from $20 – $10,000 for grinders. I will probably do a more formal review after I get some time with it in a few months.

March 14, 2022 – I’ve Gotta Feeling…

March 14, 2022 /

Can you hear the song in your head yet? Last night was supposed to be a good, good night but it wasn’t quite so. I won’t go into the reasons but I was going to brew my second successive batch using reclaimed yeast. In preparation for brewing, I added some extract to my yeast to get my starter going.

The picture on the left was about 30 minutes after adding extract to my rescued yeast. I transferred what was left in the quart jar to a half gallon jar. I was clearly not expecting that quick and voluminous action. I added the bucket after about five minutes when it was clear that this was going to get messier than I had expected.

I talked about yeast some when I was talking about sanitizing. The main worry with yeast is getting wild strains. In theory, as long as the pressure is positive, meaning things are leaking out then nothing really should be getting in. There is no way for me to know what is actually in this mess without looking at it through a microscope. But, I have a good feeling that this is going to work.

So, the yeast goes back into to the refrigerator. This should be quick brew as I have shaken off the rust. It will likely be this next weekend until I try again but I will add to my starter again before we get going. I am expecting that this is going to go just fine.

End Your Programming Routine: The summary here is that plans change. I am in a difficult time in my life which is a subject for a different day. When it comes to picking brewing versus relationships then lessor things need to give. Like a farmer, when things are ready, they need attention now. It was much better to postpone this rather than push it.

March 10, 2022 – Brewing a Second Batch

March 10, 2022 /

I know the dust hasn’t settled yet on my last one but I have enough bottles to do another batch. And, I wanted to do another lager while the temperature is cool to prove to myself this wasn’t a fluke. Third, I am going to re-pitch the yeast from my Mexican beer so it will save me $13 on this batch.

I ordered a Mai Bock kit. I know, another kit but I am not quite ready to go full fledged grain brewing yet. I need to prove to myself that I can do things consistently and to my expectations before I take the next step. I don’t think it will be too long at this point. I envision kits and extract brewing to be miles simpler and quicker as well. I certainly don’t need more complications to add to my life.

Mai translates to May in German. It is sometimes called helles as well and is know as a festival beer. Think the spring counterpart to Marzen (or Octoberfest). I feel like celebrating the change of seasons. Mostly, I wanted a different style that uses the same yeast as my Mexican lager and this was it.

This one is going to be even simpler than the last one. There is only one hop addition at the beginning of the boil. Maybe I should back up a quick minute on brewing in general. I know that I haven’t talked about it a whole bunch, only aspects of brewing.

You start with boiling some water. The books recommend half of the overall water. I generally do less because of pot size and I can add hotter wort to colder water and spend less time cooling. It does come with downsides because the more concentrated the wort, the less of the alpha enzyme (hops) transfer. I have tried to add additional hops in the past to the boil to try and compensate.

As I was saying, boil some water, add some malt extract, add some hops if using adjuncts (other grains and flavorings) and boil for the time the style dictates. Cool down to pitching temperature, top off with additional water for the total batch size and add yeast. That is it for brewing. Bottling or what to do with it when it is finished is a whole separate topic.

My Mexican lager is now ‘lagering’. Lagering is a rest and clarification period that occurs after brewing. I will hold it in the keezer around 35 degrees for a month and then it will be ready for kegging. If I do my math correctly, that means it should be ready somewhere in early April. This means that my fermenting carboy is open, I have bottles ready to go and I have one more secondary carboy for lagering. Sounds like an invitation to brew again.

End Your Programming Routine: This is how I get myself into trouble. I have a tendency of having too many experiments going without having results yet. Using reloading as an example, I have loaded all of my empty brass without really shooting any of it. Right now, I don’t know if I have to make any tweaks yet. This is one reason why I haven’t pushed it too hard because I need a chance to observe what I have done. But, if we are not challenging ourselves, then are we really continually learning?

March 8, 2022 – Dinner Finds From the Freezer

March 8, 2022 /

Not really. I knew it was there. I just didn’t have the proper motivation. After reading Far Eastern Cookery, I saw a recipe that intrigued me Filipino Menudo. My wife loves Mexican menudo. When we do it, it is an event and I have written about this before. There were several things that intrigued me about this. One was the name and the second was that it used beef liver.

I am always looking for ideas to do with liver. Traditionally, liver is one of the things that would be eaten soon after the kill, not years later. I tried my hand at boudin, that needs a little work. My plan with it was to make a second batch of boudin when I prepped it. So I found what I had written as 4# of liver on the bag when I was cleaning out the freezer.

I don’t hate it, but I don’t love it. I probably should package it in smaller portions if I am going to keep this up in the future. Nevertheless, the proportions in this recipe was 5oz liver to 12oz of pork. Well, I estimate I had three pounds by the time I trimmed off freezer burn. Go big or go home.

Essentially, I quadrupled the recipe. I had an entire stockpot including 4 onions, a whole head of garlic, 8 small potatoes, 2 cans of garbanzo beans and two cans of diced tomatoes and seasonings. What was my final verdict? I was so-so. There was a heavy liver taste. I suspect that my proportions were still off since I was only guessing rather than weighing anything.

I think liver is best when it is undercooked, the distinctive liver taste is much lest pronounced if cooked medium. I think boiling it for 15 minutes is probably overcooking. Again, it wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t great. So, I won’t say that I wont try it again but this quantity is a lot if you are not a liver lover. I will be eating this the rest of the week for lunch.

End Your Programming Routine: As the adventurous cook in the house, I need to sometimes read between the lines. There are items in my house that people claim they like but really they like the idea of it or they like having it once a year with no leftovers. That’s OK because this is how we learn. I guess I would say, don’t be afraid to take risks, just be aware that they don’t always work.

March 1, 2022 – Far Eastern Cookery?

March 1, 2022 /

That seems like a funny name. Well it is the title of the latest book I finished reading. My son bought me a couple books from the local used book store for me to read for my birthday in January.

Apparently, Madhur Jaffery has had several TV shows on PBS in the 1980s. She is a James Beard award winner and primarily writes about Indian food. I have never heard of her or saw any of the shows. but definitely seems well credentialed.

What I like about this cook book is that it was written in 1990. This means that it was pre-internet and pre-access to everything, anytime we want it. Consequently, there are a lot of substitution suggestions and simple ingredients. One thing I really appreciate is not having an exhaustive inventory of exotic ingredients that get used a couple times a year.

This cookbook is a smattering of all Asian foods: Chinese, Japanese, Thai of course but also Korean, Malaysian, Indonesian, Vietnamese and also Filipino (had to look the spelling of that one up). The ingredients and the techniques are very simplistic for the most part. That makes things pretty approachable.

I plan to try a few things. I am going to make Filipino Menudo for sure. I made a Chinese hot and sour soup the other day that my family really liked. I personally like Thai, Vietnamese and Korean over the others but I am anxious to try some other cultures for something new.

It appears that book is widely available on the used market and pretty inexpensive at less than $10. Since I haven’t used it a bunch, I can recommend it yet. However, I like what I see and I think it fits well into my style of cooking.

End Your Programming Routine: The next book I am going to read is fiction. In fact, I am already a third of the way through it. I took that with me on my business trip rather than the unwieldy cookbook. Sometimes, it is just best to unplug and enjoy rather that reading for a purpose. A chapter a day and eventually I will make it through.

February 24, 2022 – Sanitizing and Brewing Beer

February 24, 2022 /

With all the build up, we finally got here. My batch has been going for almost a week now. I am pretty sure that it is gong well but there is nothing that can be done if it is not at this point. I will just have to wait and see.

Speaking of going well, I think there is a lot of todo about sanitation. In fact, I think it is way overblown. I will explain. Most people’s foray into homebrewing starts with Charlie Papazian’s The Joy of Homebrewing. My starter equipment kit came with a copy. My used equipment also came with one. Before YouTube and the internet, books or classes were all that we had available for knowledge. While they are great for learning and reference, they lack wisdom.

The purpose of pitching yeast is to overwhelm anything else around and outcompete the wild yeast that may be present. We want the free sugar converted to alcohol as fast as possible to ensure that we are making the beer that we expect. Once there is no food (sugar) and alcohol, you have achieved self sanitation. These drinks are part of our culture because they were safer than water.

I feel as if every text that I have read treats sanitation as a religion. Please understand there is a difference between cleanliness and sanitation. There is a role for sanitation, breweries cannot afford to take risks for instance. For the homebrewer, I feel like the emphasis is highly overrated.

With all that said, I do sanitize where it seems appropriate. Here is where I do it, handling yeast (like my starter I made) and before brewing and on final clean-up. I sanitize my carboys and cap them after I clean them. I sanitize the funnel for pouring wort into the carboy and the fermentation valve before use. I will also add bleach to my bottle cleaning. But really that is it. The rest is extra work, risk and clean-up.

I think where people get really wacko is that it is possible to post ferment alcohol. For instance, making vinegar is done with a secondary fermentation that is caused by a bacteria. Clearly, if you desire one outcome and get another that is not really ideal. One text I read said that the bacteria is ever present, meaning it is always possible. The good news is the this is an aerobic bacteria, meaning dissolved oxygen is required to convert. The other good news is that no one should be re-oxygenating the beer or wine post fermentation because that will ruin your brew from oxidation as much as making vinegar. That is to say the amount of dissolved oxygen should be consumed by the yeast initially.

A few years ago, I heard a podcast from an author of a book called Make Mead Like a Viking. His point was that there was not all the knowledge of science and even sanitation in the past. I haven’t read the book but I think it will go on the list for the future. It definitely changed my perspective on this topic and made me realize that this was one of the things that go into the time to brew and thus decreasing my joy of homebrewing.

End Your Programming Routine: Charlie Papazian was right about one thing, “relax and have a homebrew”. What he was trying to say was don’t get so wound up about the details, science and technicalities. I am a firm believer in learning takes making mistakes and practice while paying attention to what you are doing will build proficiency. Hey, I am still trying and I have a chemistry degree so I understand the science. I probably started off too technical without the experience to understand where to care and where to let go.

February 22, 2022 – Making a Yeast Starter

February 22, 2022 /

I dont have my old notes anymore. They sent them with my original set of brewing equipment when I sold it. However, from what I remember, it was an Octoberfest (or Marzen style) and I used a liquid yeast. I struggled with getting the fermentation started.

It was summertime in South Carolina; so it was hot. When my yeast arrived, the icepack had melted and the package was hot and bloated a little. I think my interpretation of the instructions were to pitch the yeast around room temperature and then take the temp down to fermenting temp over the course of a day.

I had a temperature controlled refrigerator so I pitched the yeast and hoped for the best. It did start fermenting, so I put it in the refrigerator and fermenting stopped. I think I tried it two or three more times to the point where I gave up and let it finish out at ale (room) temperature.

I guess to be technical, the brew didn’t fail. It just didn’t ferment at lager temperatures. It certainly didn’t result in what I wanted, because of the temperatures and I contrasted liquid versus dry yeast yesterday. This time, I thought that I would make a yeast starter to kick start my anticipated sluggish start.

Just like making bread, you get the yeast hydrated and give it some food. This in theory makes it ready to take off when pitched. So, I thought I would give it a shot.

Making a starter is a micro beer batch.

  1. A container with lid
  2. Yeast
  3. Malt Extract
  4. Sanitizer
  5. Water

This is probably a place where using Malt Extract makes sense even if you are doing whole grain brewing. In fact, yeast can be re-used if you are going to immediately start brewing the same style of beer. It can be stored in the refrigerator, in a sanitary container for a couple of weeks. I have never had enough space or bottles to do sequential brewing but it is a place to save $12 a batch if you were going to do such a thing. Maybe with this new kegging system I will speed up production volume?

Heat up water to boiling, pour into a sanitized container. Add 1/2 cup of malt extract and dissolve. Cool the liquid down to pitching temperature. Add the yeast and top the container with a sanitized lid (that will let CO2 out). Do this two up to two days before brewing and that is it. I did it the day before I brewed.

End Your Programming Routine: The reality is, I don’t know if this was the trick or the fact that the yeast was dry, not cooked or the brewing temperature is a little warmer than my Marzen attempt. The wort was fermenting the next morning. I won’t concretely say this is the way to go but I am pretty sure this is the fastest I have ever seen fermentation kick-off. Usually, it really starts going day 2.