cdh

16 to 18 weeks for a dubbel seems excessive. They say that the Rochefort monks only age their beers a week for each degree... so a 6 rests 6 weeks, the 8 for 8 and the 10 for 10... The dubbel recipes I'm accustomed to are all at or below the 6 degrees sort of range so maybe a month of resting after the fermentation comes to an end might prove beneficial. The beer I brewed on September 14 was quite tasty today, though has a bit of mellowing to do... It was intended to be quite dry, and came out that way... it may be improved by a little sweetness that could be added by a bit of a light crystal malt... but here is the malty but dry version for a 5 gallon yield: 2.5 lb. Belgian pale 2.5 lb. Belgian Pilsner .5 lb. Dextrine malt (Cara-Pils) 2 oz. Melanoidin 4 oz. Belgian CaraMunich 4 oz. Belgian Special B 1 lb. American Munich 4 oz. Belgian biscuit Mash around 152F. 1 lb. Cane sugar 2 lb. Light dry malt extract 1 oz. Willamette (3.8% AA, 60 min.) .5 oz. Perle (8.6% AA, 60 min.) Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II fermented at about 68F.

Just being a little shy... I'm glad that I succeeded in getting some more people excited about my favorite hobby... I do wish it were easier to send samples around, as getting a taste of your beer would be a really interesting experiment... I'd like to see how my recipes turn out when brewed by people who aren't me in places that aren't my house. Something I have noticed is that the golden ale should mature really well over time... I made my pilot batch with wheat extract rather than plain pale extract and it came out a little blandly wheaty for me, so a bunch of bottles sat in my basement untouched over the summer... I grabbed one recently and the hop character had really matured nicely into an almost apricot flavor... just further evidence that beers change and mellow over time. If you have the fermentor space, make the golden ale recipe with wheat dry malt extract and let it sit until next summer and you should be in for a treat. I've been busy recently brewing the fall's beers... I've got an espresso stout and two variations on a belgian dubbel in the works, and I got swamped in pears from a few big old pear trees and couldn't help myself but to juice and ferment them in a perry making experiment... Keep us all up to date on your brewing adventures, and I'll do likewise.

I've had Vetri's food when he cooked as a part of an ensemble of chefs at the Beard House, and wasn't impressed either. I've steered clear of the place, even though Philly is in my back yard. There must be some talent in that kitchen to keep the PR buzz that he has going... but maybe you just have to be lucky or know somebody who can kick the place into gear to get served the good stuff. If I ever get the urge to go there, I think I'd look up his sibling I worked with years ago and see if any special friends of the family treatment could be arranged.... but that urge hasn't struck me yet.

If any sort of regulation were going to work, there would have to be a quick and reliable method for measuring the salt content of any particular item in the context of a compliance inspection. As far as I know, no such thing is even possible without a lab and lot of time. There would be no way to fairly and effectively enforce any regulations of salt content in prepared foods... though possibly in industrially processed products you could. Information and education is the way to go... though given the number of folks who don't regularly (or even often) visit doctors (and the number of doctors who don't talk nutrition to their patients) I could see frustrated MDs advocating regulations since they do, after all, know better.

I'm interested in figuring out how the quinine in tonic ends up there. Is an infusion of the cinchona bark enough, or must it be a tincture, a distillation or some other sort of extra processing?

Susan- The Duchesse de Bourgogne is a great beer, and in one of my favorite styles. You should also try beers like Rodenbach, and Liefman's Goudenband, which are similar in style. They're all Flanders Browns (sometimes known as Reds, or Oud Bruins)... they've got a sweet and sour thing that is really nice when well executed.

The Corsendonk is really good, and available all over NYC. If you can't find the Moonglow, you could substitute Schneider Aventinus, which is also a weizenbock.

That mead from 11 months ago did get a little oak and some fruit... I tossed a few pounds of frozen sour cherries and wineberries in there, let it sit until around May, then force carbonated and bottled it. It is quite pleasant now that the oakiness is calming down and the berry flavors are mellowing. I've got a good supply of it now, so I'll be able to observe its changes over time.

Have discovered that the Mauna Lai guava juice line of drinks has been discontinued. They were a great rum mixer, and tasty all by themselves.

Isn't peanut oil one of the prime things that go into those 10 Gallon turkey fryers? I can recall seeing gallons of the stuff in sporting goods stores next to the turkey fryers at a price that did not shock me. What is interesting is that despite this clear abundance, grocery stores do only carry peanut oil in the little expensive bottles. Do they just not want the turkey fryer business, or do they think that people who shop in grocery store and people who fry turkeys are mutually exclusive?

Hmmmm. Did beer predate the Germans in Shanghai? Tsing Tao claims a direct lineage to German colonialists and cites 1903 as their founding date. A more interesting question is where the barley to brew all the beers in Southeast Asia came from, and who malted it... was it all shipped in, or did someplace over there start growing varieties of barley conducive to making malt? Were there indigenous strains of barley that were already there? You can't make beer without malted barley... so where is it coming from? The process of malting and fermenting barley is very different from the process of extracting a sake style beverage from rice... totally different biochemistry going on in the liberation of yeast-edible carbohydrates from the starches... So, were both processes known in SE Asia, or was the malting and mashing process introduced?

Ahhh... but the New York "supermarket" is another thing entirely. Back when I lived in NYC they were often cramped, dirty, disorganized, overpriced purveyors of stuff of lesser quality than is otherwise readily available within a few blocks walk. Setting oneself the goal of eating well from a NYC supermarket is a formidable challenge, or would have been 10 years ago. I gather that some of them have changed for the better.

Your beer will be fine after 3 weeks in the fermentor. If you leave it there for a long time, and the environmental conditions are right, then the yeast may begin to break down the remains of earlier generations of yeast. This is called autolysis, and it stinks like burning tires. It is rare, but can happen if you leave beer on a yeast cake for a very long time.

I'd say to bottle this weekend. Two weeks in warm conditions is enough time.

Don't worry. You'll notice on the previous page that Bill is not following the class or making my recipes. He's doing his own thing, and his problems are not something for you to concern yourself with. The Saison recipe is a good one, and if you followed my instructions, you'll do fine. I made my own with the Wit yeast (albeit Wyeast 3944, rather than White Labs, though word has it that they are from the same source.) It came out delicious. How long has yours been going in the fermentor? How's your airlock activity now?

That flavor could have come from any number of issues-- 1. Iron in your water can cause it... got iron pipes? Does your white porcellain get reddish stains? 2. Iron brewing utensils can cause it... stainless pots and spoons and whisks are the way to go. 3. Oxidation can cause it... did your beer get shaken up/jostled after it finished fermenting?

Dave, you're not making much sense in this thread. Particularly that last pointer to your example of "simple" "local" food that you approve of. 1. Since when was lobster local to the mountains? 2. Since when was puree-ing it and shaping it into quenelles considered a simple preparation? 3. Since when was making a "cappuccino" out of mushrooms a simple preparation, and are you sure that all those many and varied mushrooms you ate are actually local to the mountains you were in? 4. Your pork was cooked sous vide, a method of which you claim to disapprove as not sufficiently simple for your preferences. Now that I've pointed out what seem like glaring inconsistencies to me, I'd like to step back a bit and try to comprehend where you're coming from... You're pining away for The Good Old Days When Things Were Simpler And The Kids Didn't Annoy Me With Their Crazy Notions... I wonder if those Good Old Days really existed anywhere ever. So, Dave, rather than complain about what Those Crazy Kids provide for your eGullet reading pleasure, write up a specification for what you would like to see, then start the threads you'd like to see it in. Griping about what's here is pointless if you'd like to remain an eG reader... folks whose ideas you don't like are not going to shut up and go away because you wish they would. If you want to direct the discussion in a path more of your choosing, take the reins and DO IT. The cheese thread is a great example of that. Make more. And don't complain if people don't flock right to them...

Ohhhh.... I must now thank Ms. Ephron for writing that piece, because from this discussion I've now been introduced to the idea of bacon-salt. The One True Condiment has been revealed.

The Wit yeast won't mind the heat much, but won't benefit from it either. It is the Saison yeasts that do interesting stuff when they get warm. Don't worry about the absence of spike in fermentation activity.

Beautiful! I'm envious. What do you call those leathery-topped ones with the yellow spongey undersides? They're some relation to cepes, no? And black truffles appear in the English countryside? How do you unearth them? Pigs, dogs, or just plain luck?

I was reading the NY Times Op-Ed page recently and found this piece by Nora Ephron. Is it just me, or is this the most grating, whiney, annoying bit of self-indulgence ever memorialized in print? Poor Nora is annoyed at sea salt, and at pepper grinders, and at glassware selection for her Pellegrino, and at the size of dessert spoons, and at servers who dare to speak to her and her dining companions. Her "problems" only afflict those fortunate enough to dine regularly at white-tablecloth restaurants, and for more well-adjusted diners, I'd doubt they're problematic. What possessed the Times to print this drivel? It belongs in her diary, where it will be safely locked away from the rest of the world, so nobody else has to put up with it... or do any of our fellow eGulletiers share her concerns?

Hear hear, Mallet! You said it quite well. Maybe if corn is getting turned into ethanol, we'll rationalize our sugar import restrictions and replace all that high fructose corn syrup with good old fashioned cane sugar, simultaneously improving the flavor of lots of things, and maybe helping some 3rd world sugar growing economies.

Gahhh M&R is my absolute least favorite sweet vermouth. I find it has a really unpleasant mustiness to it that even shines through when it is mixed with things like bourbon... I'd use Cinzano, Noilly sweet or Stock before M&R.

Room temp tomato pies are more a carry-out thing than an eat-in thing, aren't they? I'd think to go someplace like the Corropolese bakery in Norristown or its offspring institution in Limerick for one before any restaurant.

A pity we're all so far apart... I'd love to taste what you all have been making.