TongoRad

It also helps if you could put something heavy into the bag to keep it from floating near the surface of the beer. I like to use either marbles (if it is in a glass carboy) or a shotglass (if it in a container with a larger opening). Since either one is glass it can be boiled to sanitize, but I also dip it in sanitizing solution just to be safe.

Like all of my top lists, this is subject to change at any moment but for now: Orval . . . . . Rodenbach Drie Fonteinen Gueuze Westvletern 12 Maredsous 8

I couldn't take too many shots of the racking process because both of my hands were occupied, but I have a few. That's the fermented beer. The 3/4" or so of white stuff on the bottom is mostly yeast, and the goal here is to rack the beer off of that stuff and allow it to settle out some more. I put it into a keg, and purged as much of the oxygen as I reasonably could. Now it can safely clear up and mature before going into the final serving vessel to carbonate. The color looks a bit dark, but that is because it is in bulk form. The beer in the glass looks like this: The intermediate gravity is 1.018. The hops still taste a little green, and there is still a bit of a yeast bite so I haven't commited to dry hopping yet. The beauty of kegs is that I can monitor it every few days quite easily, so I may make that call later in the week.

Answering my own question here- at least partially. Based on today's buffet lunch this little place merits more investigation. A few of the dishes were downright excellent- particularly the baby eggplant and the potatoes with peas- and they make their own pickles in house (again, particularly impressive). For a first impression it was a very good one- fwiw. ETA: It's called Swad Indian Cuisine, at 4 Bedford Ave.

You mean like this?- The other night I made some with leftover chicken. I was going to post this one in the Dinner thread, but then thought twice about it. Perfect for this one, though. I accompanied them with one of these.

Nice to see some new shots. I have been conducting my own informal taco comparison between La Batalla and Mi Pueblo down the street (and at my pace it's gonna take a while...). So far it's very close overall, but that chorizo at La Batalla has definitely got 'em beat- more flavorful, not as greasy, and beautifully caramelized on the grill. I think my favorite filling is the cecina, though. Sometimes I'll get a craving and make the trip just for that.

Celebrator!!! Damn straight! What type of bock are you planning on brewing? It's been a while, but I have had quite a bit of success brewing traditional dunkles bocks. Wyeast #2206 gives great results and isn't too finicky about a diacetyl rest. The old 'reduce the first runnings' trick works wonders as well.

JohnnyH- you sure do seem to be thinking like a transplanted New Yorker (and that is coming from a transplanted New Yorker ). In this case I think you would be better off just ordering the thing since it is for a planned event- at least you'll know that there will be a tap waiting for you along with the beer. In New York they are actually called 'beer distributors' although they are really retail outfits.

If I may offer a suggestion- Before going through with the process of malting your own barley you might want to take the intermediate step of using malted barley from a brewing supply place in order to get your proportions in line with what will work for your recipe. The malted barley will still have to be mashed in order to convert the starches to sugars (the enzymes are there to accomplish this step), and I assume you will use the runoff in place of the malt extract powder mixed with water from your original recipe. You won't have to worry about the husks in that case because they will have effectively been filtered away. If you need any other advice please do post back.

Andros Grill, right in the heart of town. I have also gotten very good reports on the Peruvian chicken place next door by my friend who lives in Oyster Bay, but I haven't been there yet myself.

Do you know if they even offer half orders of pasta, or do you have to share with somebody?

Thanks for the plug, melonpan. Do you plan on using the 'huskless' barley for brewing? The husks are actually pretty important for a proper runoff: malted wheat has no husk so in wheat beers that start to approach 50% wheat malt you will need to add rice hulls to your grain bed in order to compensate for the lack of husks. The only huskless barley I know of is a roasted malt called carafa, which has been de-husked after it has been malted. I don't know of any base malt.

I recently cooked what is probably technically a pot roast (although I used the meat and sauce for enchiladas). I had a lovely piece of chuck roast with the bone still in it, and a whole bag full of incredible almost fruity guajillos that I recently acquired from a local Mexican market so I turned it into: Pot Roast with Guajillo/Apricot Sauce. That is how it looked prior to going in the oven. And this is what it looked like after 2 hours at 275F: So what's there, besides the beef? Season beef with salt, pepper, paprika and cumin. Dust with flour immediately before using. 9 Guajillo chiles- roasted over an open flame, seeds and stems removed, refreshed in hot water. 3/4 cup dried apricots- rough chop 1 1/2 tsp. chipotle paste 1 medium onion- chopped 1 clove garlic- sliced 6 oz. beer 1 bay leaf 1/2 stick cinnamon 5 cloves 1 tbsp ground cumin 6 canned plum tomatoes- rough chop 4 oz water from chiles (if not bitter) salt- to taste I made it the way I would norally do a braised dish: Brown the beef and remove from pan. Sweat the onions and garlic for a bit, add the spices to bloom and then deglaze and add everything else. Bring to a simmer and then put it in the oven, covered, until tender, turning once or twice along the way. Remove the meat to the side and run the remainder through a food mill to make the sauce. In this case it was very rich, perhaps a bit rustic, but didn't need any further altering aside from a bit of salt. It had a nice sweet and savory fruity/spicy quality to it. I opted to pull the meat instead of slice it, although that would work quite well also. Here are the enchiladas: The radishes worked incredibly well as a foil for the sauce. This was a first attempt and I enjoyed it well enough to plan on making it a regular thing.

You could do that if you are looking for aspects of the aluminum, but keep in mind that the draft beer will probably seem superior simply because there is an additional level of filtration involved with either bottling or canning (usually it is about 5 microns for DE filtered draft beer as opposed to .5 micron sterile filtration for items that are destined for some shelf life).

Nice blog link, Erik. That about says it all. I hope the packaging works out well for them and maybe we'll see it on the east coast one of these days.

I can see why they are going with the plastic bottles, but I actually think that cans are the superior product for what they are trying to achieve. It's high time to get rid of that stigma. Go Oskar Blues! Go Sly Fox!

That's the stuff! Keep an eye out for it, folks, it's wonderful (you do have to like smoked beers, though. This one may even make converts of some people ). That UrBock is one of my favorite beers as well. I recently took some notes as a matter of fact: "Aroma is amazing- very straightforward and taughtly composed at first glance yet underneath is a sumptuous complexity. The smoke hits you first and it is definitely omnipresent but that soon gives way to spicy elements (black pepper, nutmeg), creamy malt, dark caramel, figs, sawdust, cheese and stone ground mustard. (It's much better than that makes it sound.) Take the palate of the perfect bock beer- residual maltiness, alcohol, bitterness, and toasted malt all in perfect harmony- and add that evocative smokiness and spiciness to add up to this experience. It is almost too good to be true. The finish is long lasting smoke and malt." From what I hear it is even more amazing at the source. One of these days...

Phoenix IPA is in the fermenter! Alert the media, hoorah! The following is a blow-by-blow account of how it got there: 7:54 pm - Begin by filling the kettle with filtered water. The PUR filter is sufficient for most beers- I'm really just looking to get rid of any chlorine and whatever particulates I can here- and since this is extract I won't have to worry about the pH at all, so there will be no treatment for this beer beyond the filtration. This is a 20 qt. pot with markings on the side which I am using to measure 16 qts. for this beer. 8:01pm - Divide water between two pots and place on the stovetop to boil. I'm hoping this turns out to be a timesaver because boiling 4 gallons could take a while. 8:09pm - Remove water filter from faucet and attach hose fitting for wort chiller. 8:12pm - Make a container of iodophor sanitizing solution for everything that may come in contact with the beer post-boil. 8:27pm - Verify wort chiller hook-up is working. It is. Nothing like waiting till the last second, huh? My backup plan here would be to do the ice bath like I did for the starter. 8:29pm - Put can of LME in a pot of hot tap water to help it to flow easier from the can. This stuff can be pretty thick. 8:34pm - Enjoy a beer! 8:40pm - Water in both pots begins to boil. Turn off heat and add extract to each- half and half of each the DME and LME. Carefully incorporate into the water to minimize oxidation. 8:45pm - Return to heat. 9:01pm - Top of boil. Add 1/2 oz. Phoenix and 1/2 0z. Northern Brewer hops to each pot. 9:11pm - Put 1 gal. iodophor solution in fermenter and shake to coat all sides every 10 minutes or so. 9:45pm - Add 1/2 tsp. Irish Moss to each pot. This will act as a coagulant and aid in clarifying the beer. Put wort chiller in the large pot- the heat will sanitize it. 9:55pm - Add 1/2oz. Phoenix hops to each pot. 10:00pm - Turn off heat. Add 1/2 oz. Phoenix hops to each pot. Carefully transfer all of the wort to the large pot, trying to minimize splashing. Place near sink and begin chilling wort. Total amount is about 3 3/4 gallons. Clever me even started to rinse out the stock pot with the hot runoff from the wort chiller. 10:06pm - Empty out fermenter and cover the top with sanitized foil. 10:18pm - Wort is at 74F. Remove chiller and cover pot to allow things to settle a bit while I wash off the chiller. 10:35pm - Wort is successfully racked to fermenter. There was at least a quart of sediment (mostly hops) remaining in the pot. Yeast was pitched at high krausen (I tasted it and it had a nice profile of apples, pears and some berries). O.g. at room temperature was 1.068, right where I wanted it. 11:01pm - Finished cleaning up!

I think I may have a new favorite thing. Yesterday I finally managed to snag a few bottles of the Helles Lagerbier made by the legendary Bamberg rauchbier (smoked beer) label Schlenkerla. This one isn't technically a smoked beer, but it is made with the same equipment (mill, mash tun) and fermented and stored in the same tanks as the rauchbiers so it has a definite but gentle smoky quality. The beauty of the Schlenkerla beers is that the base beers are all supremely crafted regardless of the smoke, and this one is no exception. Too bad the price tag is a bit steep (over $3 a bottle)- I guess I'll have to start playing the lottery now

So here's what happened... It seems that the Wyeast pack's schedule and my schedule were not exactly in synch. By the next day it had barely begun to activate (which I probably should have anticipated, to tell you the truth) because it was manufactured in January, and you should really give it an extra day for each month beyond the first. Unfortunately that put my brewing day smack dab in the middle of the weekend, which didn't work for me. So I had to put things off until today. Anyway- here's the 'after' shot of the smack pack: It really swelled up there- didn't it? Well...eventually... And here it is with everything else I used to make the starter: L to R- Yeast, funnel, airlock, growler jug, squirt bottle of iodophor sanitizer, pitcher for sanitizing solution, spoon for stirring, and 1 1/4 cups of DME. I prefer iodophor for sanitizing because you don't have to rinse it off. Everything the touches the wort once it has been boiled has to be sanitized- including the funnel, spoon, thermometer, etc. I even filled up the growler jug with some solution. The items await their duty in the pitcher: I know what you're thinking, and stop it! I prefer to think it looks like flat beer, myself. So- the DME was boiled in the 1 1/2 quarts of water for about 10 minutes and then put into an ice bath to rapidly cool it down to the proper temperature to pitch the yeast. It took only 5 minutes or so to get it down to 74F (That's what the thermometer says. Honest! ) Into the emptied growler jug it went. I used the old fashioned method of aeration here which means that I just shook it like hell with the top on. Then the yeast went in with a swirl and the airlock went on. By tomorrow it will be fermented and ready for the big job.

It would help if you had a spear and magic heww-met.

Yeast starter time- here is a 'before' shot. Hopefully it will swell up with activity by tomorrow and I'll show an 'after' one. Wyeast products come in these pouches that contain the yeast culture as well as a separate small packet of nutrient within the pouch. To activate it you press down on the pouch breaking the packet of nutrient and putting it in contact with the yeast. Most folks call them 'smack packs'. This ensures that the yeast is active and viable, although you really don't get enough to ferment an entire batch on its own. That is where the starter comes into play- tomorrow I will make up a small amount of wort, like a quart and a half, with malt extract and pitch this yeast into that. As the yeast begins fermenting that wort it will multiply to the point where there is enough of a cell count for the job ahead. I really like this yeast, particularly in an IPA. It has a crisp finish and a mildly fruity profile. From the Wyeast website: I don't want anything too distinctive to compete with the hops, and the Chico strain (1056) may be too neutral for this beer so this is a good choice in that regard, plus the apparant attenuation can get to over 75% which is what I'm looking for. I haven't decided where I am putting the fermenter yet but I plan on looking for a cool spot, and again this fits the bill. When you ferment any aromatic beer I prefer to do it at cool temperatures because the more rapid fermentation of higher temperatures will 'scrub' out those lovely aromatics that you just put into your beer. ETA (the following morning): In anticipation of making the starter tonight I pre-boiled 1 1/2 qts. of water this morning. Hopefully any chlorine in the municipal water was boiled off. I just put a lid on the pot and stuck it in the fridge for now- it will be boiled again tonight to deal with any sanitation issues and dissolve the DME.

I'd agree with this in terms of reacting to heat. I used a Le Crueset tonight to fry chicken and I was not at all happy with the temperature control or lack thereof that I was unable to achieve. ← This is a bit of a tangent, I guess, but my once my mom starting frying her chicken in an electric skillet (back in the 70's) she would never consider going back to cast iron. It's definitely for the same reasons you mention, and her technique utilizes a few temperature changes.

Depending on how broadly you intended to define 'American' this may or may not be a good suggestion but, how's about tamales? It requires a fairly specific technique like many of the past cookoffs, but there is a lot of room for variation there as well. Corn husks, banana leaves, sweet ones, savory ones, different fillings and accompaniments, dry vs. fresh masa, etc.- plenty to work with for a cookoff.

Thanks for the kind words Megan and christine007. Would you believe that those fries are only $1.25? (even more reason to be jealous, I'm sure ). No wonder the line is always out the door at lunchtime... Nice looking chicken salad, Megan. I'm sure that it'll be even better in a few months with summer corn and tomatoes. christine007- I saw your post last week and it definitely put me in a chicken salad frame of mind as well. I did mine for dinner and posted it on the Dinner thread, but you definitely pushed me in that direction so thanks!