The week in brew

I have a couple new beers in the fermenters that I still need to write up, but thought I’d switch up the format a bit and cover some of my other homebrew-related stuff going on in the past few days here.

Thursday I cooked up a couple batches of chili (one with meat for me, the other vegetarian for DeAunn) based on Sean Paxton’s recipe, which first rocked my world in the spring. I kept it pretty much the same, though I simplified the meat bill; the vegetarian version got black beans and diced red potatoes in place of the meat. My batch got a bottle of Old Rasputin (always a winner) while DeAunn’s employed a local option: Epic Brewing’s Smoked Porter. The smoke phenolics went well with the chipotle pepper I added to the vegetarian chili. Both batches turned out exceptionally, and we still have a little of each left to enjoy. We complemented them with some sharp cheddar and whole wheat crackers.

Thursday night, I finally managed to bottle my Holiday 2011 and chocolate-mint-oatmeal stout. The Holiday was pretty easy; the sample seemed bland, but as the rye 70/- started out the same way and really came into its own in the bottle, I’m not too worried. The stout was a bit messier; the cocoa powder had formed a rocky doppelganger krauesen in secondary, which made my original plan to whirlpool it all to the middle of the fermenter less of a great idea. Even after giving it some time to settle before racking, the beer ran off looking like really dark chocolate milk. I added vanilla extract and all of my mint tincture, but the mint wasn’t really coming across, so on a whim I added some of the mint extract we had in the cupboard. It wasn’t until after I added it that I read the label: it’s an alcohol-free extract that includes sunflower oil, which caused it to bead up in the bottling bucket. I kept stirring as I bottled to hopefully keep it in solution long enough for it to get into the bottles, but at least the mint aroma was there. The bottles have already formed chunky cocoa krauesens, and we’ll just have to see if they develop any head at all with the oil in there. I’m also still trying to get the mint aroma out of my bottling bucket and plastic bottling pieces.

After some excitement Friday morning involving the dog, a chocolate cookie, an emergency vet visit, and some induced vomiting, I made it down to the LHBS to pick up the packet of Wyeast Brett L I special ordered for an upcoming batch, along with grains for said batch and an extra fermenting bucket. Then late Friday night, DeAunn and I cracked open the reserve bottle of my last blueberry stout, now more than two years old, with a friend. This friend has volunteered to buy the blueberries for a new batch, so the time was right for sharing. It’s mellowed a lot, and has traded much of its winey quality for more blueberry flavour, a pleasant surprise.

The only action Saturday saw was the prepping of two starters. The traditional one of Denny’s Favorite 50 (WY1450) went on the stirplate, and looks to have already finished up. The other was a lacto starter made of table sugar and a bit of base malt kept warm with an aquarium heater; that one will keep going pretty much right up until pitching time to grow as much as possible.

Sunday morning I put the new bucket to work as a secondary for a citrus saison; more on that coming soon. Six and a half pounds of frozen mandarins and satsumas floating in five gallons of beer looks pretty cool, in my humble opinion, especially with the temperatures outside right now. I also washed the yeast cake for a Belgian dark strong in the new year. Now I’m just waiting on those blueberries to arrive so I can rack the stout onto them and leave it until the middle of next month when I get back from Chicago.

Next on the brew docket is a pretty simple pale ale and an attempt at a low-gravity “quick” sour/funky beer. Don’t know yet if there’ll be time to get one or both done before leaving town for the holiday, but it sure would be nice to do so. Writeups on the beers in primary coming soon, too.

Spring Chili with Stout

Though it’s nearing the end of May, Chicago’s weather patterns have been running hot and cold...literally.  Following several beautiful, warm days last week, it turned cool and periodically rainy over the weekend.  We’d invited over a good friend of DeAunn’s for dinner on Saturday, but the forecast precluded grilling.  Given the precipitously low temperatures and lblanket of clouds early in the day, I thought a late-season chili would work out well.

Having been tantalized by Sean Paxton’s Four Ale Nachos on Episode 33 of Brewing TV, I used his lamb chili as a base in place of my normal Pedernales River Chili recipe.  Questing out to Whole Foods for ingredients, I went with a range of organic, vegetarian-fed, antibiotic- and hormone-free, humanely raised meats; this is how I try to get my meat regularly, both for the flavour and my peace of mind.  The Black Forest bacon is particularly tasty.  Looking over the stout options at Binny’s, I went with the Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout, which had a wonderfully dark flavour that went well with the Ghirardelli 60% cacao I added.  Already having grated/powdered spices at home kept me from getting the whole seeds and roasting them myself, though that sounds like a whole lot of awesome.  To finish, I picked up a small chunk of aged cheddar for grating over top, and DeAunn scored some oyster crackers that worked out perfectly (her vegetarian choice was a Frontera Grill pre-made chili with extra black beans).

Of course, as soon as we arrived back home, the sky opened up and it turned out to be a perfect grilling day.  We went on with the chili, though, and were not disappointed in the least.  The spice level was present without being overpowering, and the mix of meats was really wonderful.  And it only got better over the next couple days.  I meant to get a picture of a bowl of the chili itself, but it never lasted long enough to get out the camera.  This chili already has me looking forward to fall, when this will make sense to make again, and there are precious few things that bring me to that.

5-Meat Stout Chili


8 oz Lean Ground Bison
8 oz Ground Lamb
8 oz Ground Pork
8 oz Beef Stew Chunks
4 oz Black Forest Bacon, chopped

1 Ancho chili
1 Fresno chili
½ Poblano chili

1 28-oz can peeled San Marzano tomatoes
1 Roasted red pepper, sliced
1 Yellow onion, chopped
1 Red onion, chopped
4-6 cloves Garlic

1 tbsp Cumin
1 tsp Allspice
1 tsp Coriander
1 tsp Paprika
2 tbsp Oregano

1/4 cup 60% cacao
1 bottle Lagunitas Cappuccino Stout

Cook down the bacon in a pan, then transfer it to the cookpot, leaving behind the grease.  Brown other the meat in the pan with the bacon grease, then transfer it to pot, again leaving behind the grease.  Saute the onions and garlic in the pan with grease at medium heat until onions become translucent; then add roasted the red pepper and continue to saute for 4-5 minutes.  Transfer all of it to the pot.

Chop all the chilies and remove the seeds, then add them to the pan; sear on high for 3-4 minutes.  Cut off the heat, add spices and tomatoes, then resume the heat; mash tomatoes and reduce for a few minutes.  Transfer all of it to the pot, then deglaze the pan with the stout; add rest of the stout to the pot.

Bring it to a boil, then add the cacao.  Reduce heat and simmer; serve when it reaches your desired consistency.  Garnish with grated cheddar and crackers of your choice.

Spent Grain No-Knead Pizza Dough

As many others have noted before, brewing is really just another type of cooking.  During our time off from everyday life last week thanks to Thundersnow 2011, I had a chance to make something I’ve read about and thought about concocting for some time: pizza dough made with grain that had previously been mashed.

My wife DeAunn and I love food and love to cook even more; pizza is something that we make fairly regularly.  After working at a by-the-slice gourmet pizza joint in undergrad, I became a pretty intractable pizza snob; I still find myself critiquing dough at various and sundry pizza parlours on its balance of crisp bite, soft inner texture, yeasty breadiness, and hint of sweetness.  I used to experiment quite a bit with making them myself, but more recently, being pretty busy/lazy, we’ve settled on the tasty whole wheat doughs from Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.

I was inspired to get back into making dough when I came across a dough recipe incorporating post-mash grain posted by Morebeer forum member Alewife.  The other source for this dough was a no-knead recipe from Ideas in Food by Aki Kamozawa and H. Alexander Talbot; I’d never done no-knead, and being stuck inside due to the snow, I had plenty of time to let it rise.  The grain came from my recent altbier.

DeAunn assembled one of our favourite pizzas on this crust: a no-marinara pie with mozzarella, cheddar, tomatoes, onions, and mushrooms, topped with a barbecue sauce lacing.  While the dough could’ve used a bit more time to cook through, it was highly enjoyable (and repeatable).



for 1 dough:

2 cups        Whole wheat flour
1 cup          Spent grain
.5 tbsp        Sea salt
.5 tbsp        Sugar
.25 tsp        Active dry yeast
1.5 cups     Water

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and yeast in a large bowl; mix well to thoroughly blend in the yeast.  Combine spent grain and 1/2 cup water in food processor; process until it all gets pretty gooey.  Add spent grain mixture to the flour mixture along with the remaining cup of water; mix with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until the water is absorbed and there are no lumps.  Cover the dough and let sit at room temperature for 4 hours; dough will rise to half again its original volume.

Loosen the dough from the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.  Slide a damp hand under one side of the dough, and fold the dough into the center.  Fold the dough this way on 4 sides, then flip over the whole dough so the folds are now on the bottom.  Cover the dough and let sit at room temperature for 3-4 hours; dough will double.

(It still looked a bit wet after sitting for a while, so I dusted on some extra wheat flour.  Some it absorbed, some just sat dry on top of the dough.  I might keep the faith a little better next time and go without this extra step.)