paul o' vendange

Here in Chicago, we are actually blessed with great brewing water, at least for dark ales. 56 ppm Ca, 141 ppm bicarbonates, I seem to remember. Ok, I admit I may truly be off the deep end. But still puzzled by Miller's computer-response. Then it occurs to me. In the same paragraph, they say their beer is "essentially" natural; and their brews have no additives. OK, is is is? To wit: "Beer" is finished product; strictly speaking, a given "brew" comes from the kettle, and "brews" are the precursors to "beer." Therefore, is it me, or is Miller dissecting the English language such that they are indeed "brewing" naturally, but adding a host of crap downstream to their finished product? Come forth, O' Miller, and make testament! -P

I, too, wrote to Miller, with the following query: "Can you tell me, at any time during your brewing, cellaring or finishing process, do you use any chemical additives of any kind - i.e., added enzymes (i.e., maltase or other sugar enzymes; peptases, etc., anti-oxidants or other agents)? Thanks." And Miller, after careful consideration, wrote the following response: Thanks for contacting us. Our Beers are essentially a mixture of natural ingredients: Water, Malted Barley, Corn Syrup, Hops, and Yeast. Our brews contain no additives or preservatives of any kind. Beer is 94% water Malted Barley is the soul of beer Corn syrup gives beer a milder and lighter-bodied flavor Hops add spicy aroma and bitter flavors Yeast changes sugars into alcohol and carbon dioxide ***There are no sugars, such as table sugars, added to our products with the exception of our Flavored Malt Beverage's such as Skyy Blue, and Sharp's non-alcohol brew. A small amount of natural sugars are present in our products, but because they are in such small amounts, we do not test for them*** We appreciate your interest in our company. Cheers! --------------- I'm glad to know they've got the answer down. I am puzzled by "essentially a mixture of natural ingredients." If only essentially, among "Water, Malted Barley, Corn Syrup, Hops, and Yeast," what is left? Alright, enough perseveration. Back to a pint of ale.

Any Yoopers - how's the harvest?

Great news, Chris. Consolidation always helps out so much with maintaining quality. Watch the slide down, and cry in our beers. Crap.

Great, Robin, glad it worked out. Credit goes to James Peterson (and a host of others - I am about 80% thief, 20% improvisateur), not me. The only thing I would add, purely personal preference, but if I am using fat off a pan-sear/roast/saute, I only use the first few minutes worth of fat. After that, by my taste the fat is heated up quite a bit, changes chemical composition, and gains a bit of burnt flavor. It is for this reason, too, that I always pour off the fat, right from the start - reserving the first few minutes worth, sadly, tossing the rest. If I want fat in volume, I render off the skin (which I save, religiously) and trim from the carcass. Thanks for the Port sauce idea. I do a red wine reduction on that par (whole bottle down to a glaze), have never done that much port. Just about all the animals I cook and eat go, in toto, into the plate - a demi-glace fashioned from the duck bones, in this instance, and my cassis sauce is usually a "standard" ratio of 1/4 c or so of cassis, with the duck demi glace, reduced back to demi-glace consistency. But will do the full bottle-reduction on the port. Thanks. Paul

Found it: "A recipe from the 1500s: Take 10 gallons of ale and a large cock, the older the better; parboil the cock, flay him, and stamp him in a stone mortar until his bones are broken (you must gut him when you flaw him). Then, put the cock into two quarts of sack, and put to it five pounds of raisins of the sun-stoned; some blades of mace, and a few cloves. Put all these into a canvas bag, and a little before you find the ale has been working, put the bag and ale together in vessel. In a week or nine days bottle it up, fill the bottle just above the neck and give it the same time to ripen as other ale. Lest you think that was just an example of The Funny Stuff People Did A Long Time Ago, people actually still make this stuff. Boston Beer Co. recently whipped up some cock-ale from a recipe from Compleat Housewife (a British cookbook from 1736), out of 12 gallons of beer, "one large and elderly cockerel," raisins, mace and cloves. According to Koch, the founder of Boston Beer Co., the beer was a great success." Cheers.

Actually, Naguere, I believe the "cock ale" is an authentic 17th or 18th century recipe. Brings new meaning to "Beer is Good for You," get your restorative chicken soup with a pint. Paul

Mike, agree on all counts, and must admit I'm stumped as to the cache/appeal. A step up from "40's?" Paul

JPW, the same material as is presented on their website. I don't see a "Star Chamber" conspiracy here, I'm sure it's true. If Bud uses rice, Miller uses corn as both are cheap. What I find when I have had Miller's product is a very evident taste of DMS - di-methyl sulfide, taste of creamed corn, not my bag. There are a few Miller drinkers out there, or so I've heard, so each to their own. By the way, a blurb on Miller's "hop engineering" (reduction of isohumulone via hydrogenation), from a beverage business journal: "But what about beers like Miller that come in clear glass without the benefit of German engineering? Why don't they skunk up something fierce? Miller comes at it from a different angle, making the hop compounds less susceptible to skunking. Darwin Davidson, the technical director for major hop broker S.S. Steiner, explained the process of making the hop extracts Miller uses. Darwin is the technical director, and this does indeed get a little technical, but bear with me. First, liquid carbon dioxide is run through a bed of pelletized hops. It absorbs the hops' oils and resins, the key flavor, aroma, and bittering components. Then the carbon dioxide is allowed to evaporate, leaving the extract. Some brewers use this extract, and Davidson said that it will give a very true hop character to the beer. Extracts can be split down further to pure alpha acids, hops oil, and beta acids, the real components of interest to brewers. The oils' flavor is changed somewhat by the process. The extracted alphas can be "isomerized" (This is what actually happens to alpha acids in the brewkettle, Darwin said), and added directly to the beer for hop character. Miller Brewing takes a further step. They take the iso-alpha acids and hydrogenate them, much like is done at refineries, by forcing hydrogen through the oils at extremely high pressures. This produces rho-iso-alpha acids, also known as tetralones. These tetralones have intensified bitterness, increase foam stability and retention, and offer a better resistance to sunlight. They would be ideal, only they do not maintain the precise flavor of fresh hops. Hopping rates in mainstream American beers being what they are, this isn't a serious problem as long as the bitterness is right." (emphasis mine). It ain't all "pure, natural ingredients," brewed by a couple of old timers and moved by horse and carriage, ladies and gentlemen. I could care less, as I said if science moves it ahead, great. Just that the big boys are about as far removed from "traditional methods" as Kraft Foods.

I'd agree, CDH, malt extracts and candi sugar should give you an OG of about 1.046, if you go with 1#/1 gallon cast out wort, so your essential doubling will give you a big beer. Utilization percentage of the hops at 45 minutes will be fairly low, and the high OG will additionally reduce your utilization. Given your style, probably within range of bitterness. Paul

At Goose Island, they run, if memory serves me well, 19 assays for every production batch. Critical points throughout the process - including the heat exchanger - are differentially cultured up and incubated, and a host of other assays are regularly run (vacuum filtration, CO2/Air content, ATP Bioluminescence, forced ferments); from cast out wort out through to finished product, including a rig to test beer coming out of our kegs and daily bottle lifts off the bottling line. The kegs weren't hoff-stephens, granted, but the filler did a good job - 4 stage, caustic/peracetic/scalding H20 before a drop of beer was racked. In the years I was there, I never saw a returned case or keg due to spoilage. 6 months shelf life on the bottle, 3 months on the keg. Not every micro has the $ to run such a regimen, but, at least in this example, we put the $ and effort in, and it showed. Paul

Brooks, believe it or not, I think we are in agreement about many things here. The Bavarian law is a pile of marketing crap, I only use it to say that no brewery is "pure" if pureness means solely the reinhetsgebot ingredients, at any point in the process. I also agree that "additives," "natural" or not (Irish Moss or its refined cousins, anyone? PVCC?) are largely process in, and not product out. Maybe I wasn't clear, either - I agree that science has largely made beer better, not worse. Anyday, I'll take a consistently produced, child-of-science beer over a fouled "real ale." And a good part of what passes for "character" in "fully natural" real ale is in fact soup brimming with beasties I don't like seeing under the scope. But I don't think that was the point of argument here. It was said that beer contains little, if any, chemical additives. I agree in the main, but not wholly. As I said, I know otherwise, from brewing practice. I do agree with you re: shelf stability and distribution practice of the big boys. As National Distribution Manager, I saw what happens when distribution lines are intact, and what happens when they are not. The big boys don't have to worry about it. One more point: As to shelf stability, personally, I'd rather run dozens of checkpoint quality assays on any given batch run rather than pasteurize a beer for a millisecond. I think you can achieve shelf stable products every time, to the same rigor, without relying on pasteurization. But perhaps that is a topic for another thread. Paul

By the way, the original source for this information on Miller's (apparently, erstwhile) practice of using additives is Roger Protz, who in a 1988 CAMRA "Real Ale Guide" names the offending compounds in Miller Beer: "He mentions in particular Miller Lite, "described as 'the nearest thing to an empty glass'", and discusses how American legislation (at one time) forced the makers to list their ingredients: "propylene glycol alginate, water, barley malt, corn syrup, chemically modified hop extracts (there ya go), yeast, amyloglucosidase, carbon dioxide (!), papain enzyme (clarifier, I believe), liquid sugar, potassium metabisulphite, and Emkamalt". Apparently, the publicity was quite effective in getting Miller to change their tune, and again, I can't say for certain what the big boys do now, but presume that at least these compounds are not likely found anymore in Miller products. I also don't dispute their skill. As someone on the Homebrew Digest once said, "While they may choose to brew swill for marketing reasons, the skills of the brewers at places like Miller and Anheuser Busch are actually quite good. It takes a lot of skill to create a product that while brewed at several different plants across the country, tastes the same everywhere, state to state, month to month, year to year. It's just so sad they choose to exercise this enviable skill in the pursuit of thoroughly lackluster beer." That about captures it for me. I also know from first hand experience that it is not uncommon for "even" craft breweries to use certain compounds to avoid harmful effects during shelf storage - e.g., the antioxidants named above. Paul

An article by Fred Eckhardt on "Lite": Here

Well, a quick search of the Malting and Brewing Society of America's (MBAA's) Technical Quarterly Journal quickly revealed: "In this study, a pilot test skid equipped with an adsorption column demonstrated the ability to selectively adsorb and concentrate flavor compounds from brewery fermentation byproduct carbon dioxide gas without adsorbing sulfides. Dosing brewed products with the recov-ered flavor concentrate further enhanced the flavor characteristics of those products. This paper provides a description of the pilot adsorp-tion equipment and the method for producing a flavor concentrate." By Gil Sanchez, of Miller Brewing Company. One could easily find the sources for other things. I, personally, don't have a problem with "additives" per se, and, granted, scrubbed and re-introduced "flavor concentrates" are not the same as exogenic materials, but they are there. I am under no illusion that the "Big Three" do not use additives in one form or another. Indeed, the "Big Three" brewers have largely led the way in a host of things not having anything to do with the renheitsegbot - the Bavarian purity law specifying that only yeast, water, malt go into beer. Paul

Sam is right. In fact, as I posted elsewhere, Miller led the way in developing reduced isohumulone extracts and hydrogenated versions of these isohumulones, thereby ensuring they could package its, em, beer, in clear bottles. However, they are not alone. Many breweries, including craft breweries, use additives of one kind or another, including foam stabilizers and other compounds in modest amounts. Some of this is due to the potentially adverse effects on head retention of filtration and other processes. Additionally, post-fermentation, any addition of oxygen is considered more deleterious than the addition of anti-oxidants such as Sodium Erythorbate. Many breweries, such as the one where I worked, dry hop with agitation and during that process air is indeed introduced, so, to ensure shelf stability, some additive would be used. Hell, even on the packaging line, bottles are bathed in CL02 or peracetic acid and these are not rinsed away, but as they are below sensory thresholds no one worries about it. Paul

That's so funny - just looked up on the dictionary, and indeed it is usually considered essentially the same as salt pork. Our local butcher carries it as pure fatback - sheets or cubes, off the pig, which is how I have always bought it. Unsalted. Never knew otherwise, interesting to find out. Paul

I have not known fatback to be salted. Paul

Why, whatever for?

Count me in. Formerly of Goose Island Brewing Company. Moving out of Chicago to a rural area, where, finally, I can take "Ugly Betty" out of mothballs. She is called so as I am a lousy welder, but she is a workhorse. Two tiered, three converted kegs, 3 burners totalling 510K BTUS. Brew in 12 gallon lengths. Have my own micro lab as I enjoy running quality control on my beers, as well as capturing, storing and using many yeasts. Opening a restaurant, which is the reason why my course on homebrewing here has been put on hold, but looking forward to brewing again (and posting the Q/A on homebrewing). Cheers, all. Paul

Two things: I love the lighting. In fact, if you extended it by hanging either a pheasant (plumage on) or rabbit, or a pig's head, for that matter, I may very well go over the deep end. Secondly, if Joel Robuchon can win his audience by mashed potatoes and green salad, then certainly, a humble bowl of your "just soup" may provide worthy testament! In fact, I am semi-ripping you off as we speak. Lunch will be a root vegetable soup, topped with leftover duck confit; salmon with a horseradish crust and avocado vinaigrette, and a just-finished pain de campagne. Cheers, Paul

Wow. I have just spent the last 1/2 hour in delirium. My wife, son and 2 dogs are just looking at me with the utmost concern as dad mumbles "mon dieu, mon dieu - Nous sommes perdu ici..." as I cry into my morning mug. Absolutely stunning. Very generous of you, too, Lucy. Paul

Sounds like you were using a magret, off the Moulard duck. Did you score it? Whatever type of duck breast I use (Muscovy, Pekin, Moulard), I score generously - about 20 each way, maybe 1/8" apart, in hatching 45 deg. Serves me well, watch my flame, try to get a nice brown skin in 10-12 minutes, then light "kiss" searing on the other side for a medium rare. Scoring like this should allow a more ready rendering...with the magret, fat comes pouring off in buckets, immediately. With the magret, I score like this first then cut the lobe in half, so each serving is roughly 8 oz. Then cook according to the above, tent and rest, and serve. Your port-currant sauce sounds great - tell me a bit about it? Paul

Like I had it at Stuckey's, in L.A. A big ass single ball in the center of the bowl. Just matzo meal, good chicken broth. Working any number of bistros in the Valley, come home late at night, needing some serious comfort food - sitting alone at the lunch counter, ask for the same thing nightly - including a Kaiser roll. She's undoubtedly long gone now, god bless her, ancient then; called me darlin, asked how I was, told me the kaiser would be extra, 'that ok?' every single night...a mantra between us, a goy and my Jewish gramma. Thanks for the memory. It was heaven. Paul

In a "healthfood/breakfast joint" ? Ditto. As an entrepreneur, I have a problem with "standard wisdom says..." anything. If you want something, you do it. If there's a roadblock, find a way around it. If you listened to the standard advice from anyone, you would likely not even start, much less succeed. Go in eyes open, but not so equivocating that the angst and decision making stymies action. At some point, simply take action and don't look back. Plenty of voices out there to say, "no, don't do it"; especially as regards the hackneyed wisdom contained in "don't - it WILL FAIL!!!!!!!!!!!!!," I find absolutely useless. And in light of this person's intended operation, let's get real and allow that it may succeed, despite the firestorm of negativity. However, trysts over tea may indeed pose an irreparable threat. Be afraid. be very afraid. Paul