SR1: It doesn't suck!

It doesn't suck. That was my single biggest worry about this first batch of beer. Given all the sanitizing (and dire warnings about what would happen if I didn't keep everything absolutely sterile), screwing up the recipe by adding too much hops (I guess I did end up making Honkey's Pale Ale), and my prior experience with my batch of beer from Shenandoah, I was certain I had a solid 50/50 chance of pouring out this batch of beer.

As it turns out, the beer wasn't too bad. In fact, it's pretty good. Sure, I've had better pale ales and the malt flavor is a little too prominent (resulting in a faint cereal flavor), but overall the beer goes down easy, so I'm happy with the result.

I'm also ready to take what I've learned and move on to the next batch. But let me close the book on SR1 first.

When I finished the wort and transferred it to the carboy for fermentation, the dark color of the beer threw me off. Because I was making a pale ale, I was expecting a golden color to the wort, not the dark brown that it was. As you can see from the photo, the color lightened up nicely. Still, I did burn the malt extract a bit, so I need to watch that next time.

Another thing, I have no idea what the alcohol percentage is for the beer. Given it's final gravity, 1.022, and based on Papzain's equation for calculating ABV, I figured the beer was around 3 percent. This didn't seem right, so I did a little research and discovered that it maybe around 5 percent ABV, but I have no way of knowing. I can't trust my initial hydrometer reading because of the stupid rig I had to put together in order to take it. And then I took the final reading after I added the finishing malt, which is a no no (thanks for not pointing that out, Charlie). So the ABV on this batch will go in the books with a big question mark.

I shouldn't have that problem with the next batch thanks to the hydrometer test jar I bought from Maryland Homebrew, and the tips I've since picked up.

Speaking of Maryland Homebrew, I also just ordered five hops rhizomes from them. This spring I'll be planting Cascade, Willamette and Centennial hops in the backyard. These aromatic hops are supposed to grow well in all climates, so we'll see how they do. The best case scenario is a couple big batches of wet hop ale next fall. The worst case is five more plants die by my hand.

Alright, that's it, I gotta go drink my beer.

SR1: Bottled and capped

I've decided that brewing isn't all that hard, but sanitizing everything sure is a pain in the ass.

I got started on bottling this morning around 8 a.m. By the time I cleaned up the last bit of brewing equipment it was just after 3 p.m. That's nearly a full-day's work, and only about an hour or so of that involved moving the beer from the carboy to the bucket and finally to the bottles. I know there are areas that I can save time on, like getting the bottles cleaned and dried ahead of time, but the rest of the process takes the time that it takes.

Before I finish discussing my nearly complete first batch, let me back up. Earlier I mentioned the overflow I was experiencing out of the bubbler. Well, I now know why it was happening: I kept the damn top on the bubbler. Now, this isn't as dumb as it sounds. The goddamn cap is perforated, therefore I assumed you left it on and the excess carbon dioxide would exp

el through the little holes. Nope, the foam and yeast kept getting backed up until it belched out all over my closet. Once I took the cap off the bubbler, my problem was solved. So if the cap isn't supposed to stay on the bubbler, why is it perforated? Unless it was done to befuddle and irritate novice brewers, I can see no reason for the little holes. None.

The other thing I was wondering about was the color of the beer. Early on it was looking darker than a pale ale should, and I was assuming it was a result of some caramelization that occurred when I added the malt to the wort. Well, it turns out there was nothing to worry about. The beer came out a beautiful golden yellow, just as it should.

However, the beer seems to be a bit lower in alcohol than I expected. According to my final hydrometer reading of 1.022, the alcohol content is around 3 percent. I guess I've made a session beer. Also, it's a bit more bitter than Charlie Papazian intended. Although I decided to skip the brewing kit and handle the ingredients myself, it appears

I've accidentally added three-quarters of an ounce more of hops than the recipe called for. I guess I shouldn't have just dumped the pouches of hop pellets into the wort without confirming the amounts I needed. When I tasted it, the beer seemed a little bitter, but not too bad. My first thought was that it needed more malt. Turns out, it just needed less hops. Anyway, I'll know what the final product tastes like on Jan. 21. Before bottling, I added an additional cup and a quarter of malt extract to help with bottle fermenting, so that might help the bitterness some. We'll see.

I got a bottle shy of two cases of beer from this batch, which sure beats the five cases I had to plow thought after Shenandoah. Once I finish off a case, I'll start on the next batch. Hopefully with this first batch of beer behind me, the next one will go smoother.

SR1: It's alive!

Wow, yeast sure do produce a lot of carbonation. I mean a lot.

I popped my SR1 batch of Whitey's Pale Ale (if I play with the recipe, I'll rename it Honkey's) into the basement closet with an overflow hose and bucket. Following Charlie Papazian's instructions, I swapped the hose and bucket for the bubbler three days later. The yeast was a little slow to get started, but 48 hours after going into the closet, the fermenter was

belching excess foam and carbonation into the Ale Pale. So all seemed on pace when I stuck the bubbler on.

Well, sort of. As I was swapping the hose for the bubbler, I wondered how you knew whether the beer was finished foaming. Clearly there will be a lot more carbonation produced, thus the bubbler, but when will the foaming die down?

I didn't know, and still don't, so I followed Charlie's instructions. I should have gone with my gut. Although I technically didn't need to check the beer until Jan. 11, when it's due to be ready, I decided to look in on it today. Good thing I did, the foam had forced its way through the bubbler and was spitting all over the closet. So I quickly sanitized the overflow hose and stuck it back

on. I'll check it again in another 24 hours to see if the yeast are going to slow down a bit.

I think that's the lesson here: the beer will tell you when it's ready to move on to the next step. When the yeast were still dormant at 24 hours, I should have waited at least an extra day to swap the overflow hose for the bubbler. Depending on what I find in the morning, I may give it another 12 to 24 hours.

I'm sure that Papazian is generally right about the time frames. And given how precise this process seems, it pays to stick fairly close to the instructions. On the other hand, yeast is a living organism and therefore not subject to rules or instructions. They will eat and fart foam for as long as they like. I have to wait on them.

Also, my pale ale is looking a bit darker than I expected. Maybe the color will lighten as fermentation continues, but if it doesn't (and it ends up being darker than Whitey intended) I have a theory. I think a little of the malt extract caramelized on the bottom of the pot while I was making the wort. The caramelizing in turn darkened the wort, which has darkened the beer. Again, the color might lighten up and all will be well. If it doesn't, I think I know why.

Lesson of SR1? Chill the damn wort

The first batch of beer is under way.

I followed Charlie Papazain's recipe for "Whitey's Gone Fishin' Pale Ale" (though it does sound a little racist), which I figured would be easy enough for a novice, but allow me to play with the ingredients. For the most part, that's about how it went, but there were some lessons learned.

First and foremost: use cold water. That alone would have saved me about four hours.

I swung by Yes Mart yesterday and picked up five gallons of Culligan filtered water. Two gallons were needed for the boiling wort, the rest went to the fermenter.

Now, if I knew what I was doing, I would've stuck those three gallons of water into the fridge while I futzed around sanitizing everything and making the wort. That way, when I added the wort to the fermenter, I would've spent a lot less time trying to get the temperature down to 75 degrees, which is about the top of the range for ale yeast. Because I kept the three gallons of water on the counter, I spent about four hours trying to drop the temperature from 110 degrees to 75 degrees (76 degrees actually, but by then I was ready to move on). After an hour in the kitchen and an hour in my cool laundry room, I finally surrendered and placed my fermenter outside where the ambient temperature was about 25 degrees. Even still, it took just over two hours to finish cooling off that five gallon container.

Sticking the fermenter outside exacerbated my other major concern: bacteria.

Everything I've read about brewing, including Papazain, has been

emphatic about the need for proper sanitation to prevent bacteria from entering the beer. Fair enough. I sanitized everything I used yesterday, and initially everything went well. But when I had to keep opening the fermenter to check the temperature (first in the kitchen and eventually in the back yard), I started thinking about all the hungry bacteria drifting in and feasting on my sweet wort.

So at this point, I have to hope that exposure was minimal and the only organism in the fermenter is the ale yeast I added around 11 p.m. last night. I'm going to check the fermenter on Thursday to see how the yeast are progressing and swap out the overflow hose for the bubbler (By the way, for all the talk about maintaining a bacteria-free environment, I didn't see anything about submerging the end of the overflow hose into water to prevent unwanted organisms from wandering up the hose and into the wort. Odd.). After that, it's a matter of being patient. The beer is scheduled to finish on Jan. 11.

The other thing I learned was that I need a beaker. To take the hydrometer reading (to determine the density and eventually the alcohol content of the beer), I had to lower the hydrometer into the fermenter (exposing it to more bacteria). The neck of the fermenter is pretty narrow, so I had to MacGyver a twist tie and rubber band contraption together to hold on to the top of the hydrometer so it wouldn't get stuck in the jug. I eventually got the reading (1.037), but a beaker would make the task a whole lot easier.

Besides, I need to pick up some corn sugar or dried malt extract for bottling. It turns out the guy at the home brew supply store didn't give me everything I needed, which just shows that I should've carefully checked my order rather than trusting that he pulled everything together for me. Live and learn.

Reset: The homebrew revolution will be broadcast

It's been months since I bothered to dial into the old Gastronomy blog. Stories on DC Foodies have come and gone. I've traveled. I've cooked. I've met more brewers. Got food poisoning. Attended openings and plugged along with the food thing, all of which I chronicled on DC Foodies and to a much lesser extent, Facebook.

In the meantime, this blog sat. I started it to give me a space to add more information about the food columns I wrote for the Times-News. With DC Foodies, I didn't really need it. So posts became more and more forced.

Well, no more. No, now Gastronomy has a new purpose. This will be my new platform to share my efforts with you (and myself) to homebrew my very own beer. I'm psyched.

Once I got into craft beer, cooking and teaching beer classes, homebrewing was probably inevitable. Technically, I've already brewed one batch. One big, God damn batch at Shenandoah Brewing. Listen, I love beer, but five cases of mediocre hoppy brown ale is a lot of beer to go through. I brewed that beer in March and finally killed the last one in early December, and

that was after giving my buddy Tim a case for helping me brew.

Thanks to my lovely wife, I no longer need Shenandoah. She gave me my very own homebrew kit for Christmas. It's all the fun and excitement of a Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle, without the danger of shooting my eye out. Instead of

being forced to brew several cases of beer, each batch will average about 50 beers, which is still a good amount. And smaller amounts mean I can tinker with recipes much more frequently.

I think that's going to be key to learning how to do this properly: repetition. Not only will I be able to play with recipes, but I will also gain a better idea of why the ingredients react the way they do during the various stages of the brewing process.

With any luck, I'll occasionally end up with a few beers I can and want to drink. That's my first goal. Once I get there, I'll start worrying how to make that kind of beer again and again.

Instead of starting off with a weird and tart brown ale, as I did at Shenandoah, I picked up the ingredients for a traditional American pale ale (Amarillo, Sterling and Spalt hops) at myLMBS (My Local Home Brew Supply Shop) in Falls Church. And despite the urging of the guy at the homebrew supply store,

I skipped the beer kit and purchased all the individual ingredients for the beer. Although the beer kits may be quite good these days, I need to learn how to handle the indiviudal ingredients. I may end up regretting that, but I doubt it. With my copy of Charlie Papazian's Joy of Home Brewing at the ready (which I referred to no less than 13 times while talking to the homebrew guy), I think I can handle the process.

So as I go through these recipes and figure out how to be a homebrewer, I'll maintain a running log here. It'll give those of you who are interested a sneak peak into what homebrewing involves, it'll warn my friends when I plan to foist my latest creations on them, and it will help me keep track of my efforts and experiments.

As I said, I'm psyched.

A brewer kissed me and I ate foie gras

It's been a month since I updated this old blog, here. It's been a strange month.
Posts on DC Foodies have come and gone. My ongoing series about the D.C. area's best beer bars continues. The latest bar I profiled was Franklin's in Hyattsville, Md. It's a great brewpub and an interesting story about how a guy who sold toys went out on a limb and started a successful restaurant and brewery. At least that was the story I set out to tell. Judging by the comments I received on the article, the post was also an attack on Hyattsville itself. Sure I may have made a quip or two about there not being much in little Hyattsville (I believe I used the term "squat" at one point), but I meant no harm. They were throw away lines primarily meant to set up the fact that this brewery is a success despite being in a small community (no small feat). However, the proud people of Hyattsville let me know on the blog and by e-mail that they didn't think I was particularly funny. They're probably right, but I didn't see that coming.
What I did see coming was the guy who wanted to shove my next meal down my throat. After reading about a local restaurant that was repeatedly vandalized by anti-foie gras protesters, I decided it was time to talk about foie gras and the other taboo product, veal. In the animal rights world there are few food stuffs more reviled than foie gras and veal. And while I know that the members of PETA and the Humane Society know what these products are and how they're made, many of the people they're trying to reach through their protests and campaigns don't. So I figured the least I could do was talk about how these products are produced, and highlight a few of the better farms. To no surprise, the veal post and the foie gras post got a few angry comments. They also got a few comments from readers who seemed to appreciate the information. And that's all I was hoping for. As for the person who wants to force feed me, well, he/she can kiss my ass.
As part of the foie gras post, I worked with a local chef to prepare a few dishes. More specifically, I worked with a French chef. We went back and forth talking about what dishes we'd prepare. Of course, the chef wanted to focus exclusively on French preparations. Of course, I wanted to fire up the grill. This did not sit well with the chef. Grilling foie gras is not done in France, where foie gras is treated with the greatest reverence. But as I explained, I write a grilling column. It'll look more than a little odd if my grilling column doesn't include any grilling recipes. So the chef relented and agreed to try grilling ("The flavor from the grill will overwhelm the foie gras."). You know what? That piece of foie gras turned out pretty damn good. So did the cru au sel, and the seared slab of foie gras, but it was nice to win a culinary argument with a professional chef who has many, many years in the business.
To go with the grilled foie gras, we made a gastrique (sauce) with honey, balsamic and Flying Dog's Road Dog porter. It's a kick ass beer that worked perfectly in the sauce and against the foie gras. The Flying Dog folks are also good people. They're cutting me a big break on a couple cases of beer I need for a beer class I'm teaching next month.
Speaking of beer, a hairy brewer kissed me. Gotta say, I wasn't expecting it. I've been setting up beer dinners at CulinAerie, which makes me the middle man between the local brewers and the Susans. The first beer dinner I set up was with Starr Hill out of Crozet, Va., near Charlottesville. Master Brewer Mark Thompson is a great guy, if a bit eccentric (there were a lot of jokes about acid). Mark brought up three of his biggest sellers, The Love wheat beer, Jomo Lager, and Northern Lights IPA. All quality beers, which helped make for a quality night. And apparently Mark was so happy (and maybe a little drunk) with how the evening went that he felt compelled to give the guy who set it up a big hug and kiss on the cheek. It was flattering ... and a little off putting. Still, I'm looking forward to doing it again next year. Up next, we have Rich Fleicher, the founder and head brewer of Hook & Ladder, coming in for a dinner on Wednesday. Let's hope he can keep his hands to himself.
I finally got a chance to tour Cigar City Brewing in Tampa. More importantly, I finally got a chance to try the beer. Thank God it tastes good. I am happier than hell that Tampa has a budding craft brewery, but I was afraid the beer was going to suck (what can I say, I've been a Bucs fan too long). Fortunately, the beer is fantastic and the man behind Cigar City, Joey Redner, is a good guy who knew enough to bring in brewer Wayne Wambles from North Carolina's stellar brewery, Foothills. Redner was also nice enough to give me a behind-the-scenes tour while I was down. Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I plan to do a profile for DC Foodies, so I'll leave the descriptions of the beer and how well one of them played in a D.C. bar.
Finally, the Top Chef pot luck dinners continue to be a great time. The missus and I really should have started this tradition a few seasons earlier.
Oh, and I'm down to my final case of home brew. Man, I am tired of that damn beer.

Old beer and new posts (sort of)

Here's a helpful tip: beer doesn't age well. At least not Japanese beer.

Years ago, a friend brought me back a can of Orion beer from Japan. I thought that was pretty cool and decided to save it (I have a thing about saving booze). At the time (1998) you couldn't a find can of Orion beer in Florida, much less Tampa. Besides, it was a gift and I would've felt bad chugging the contents and ditching the can.

Well, I hung on to that can of beer for the past 11 years until the missus gave me an ultimatum: drink it or dump it. Mind you, I didn't store this beer in any refrigerators or cool, dark closets. The beer lived on shelves and tables. It got packed and unpacked during several moves, and generally spent its life at room temperature.

Of course I would drink it.

So a couple weeks ago I took the beer off the shelf and stuck it into the fridge. Every time I opened the fridge, it was sitting there, staring at me. Every time I shoved it aside to grab a drink, it reminded me of my decision. But I was scared. I mean, what was this thing going to taste like?

At best, it would be flat and sour. At worst, the aluminum would have deteriorated and mixed with the skunked alcohol, sending me to the porcelain oval of misfortune for the night. Was it worth it? Was the consternation even worth it?

As it turns out, not really. I finally cracked the beer the other night. To my great surprise, I was greeted with a resounding "keesshhh." The beer had maintained its carbonation. When I poured it into a glass, it even produced a respectable head. As for the taste, that wasn't too surprising. It wasn't skunked, but the beer was clearly past its prime. Instead of that crisp, dry, faintly sweet flavor Japanese lagers tend to have, the aged Orion was all sweet and funk. But it was drinkable. Well, drinkable in a "trapped on a desert island and I have no other options" kind of way, but there would be no harried trips to the thunder bucket.

After a few sips, I decided my curiosity was satiated and so the rest went down the drain.

My latest grilling post on DC Foodies is up. In fact, a few postings have gone up since I last updated the blog, including my second beer bar profile and my review of a two-day cooking class at CulinAerie. Obviously, it's been a while since I updated the old Gastronomy blog, but I have been super slammed with house guests and projects.

I also blame Facebook, which has allowed me to get the word out about new DC Foodies posts toute suite. That's great, but it gives me an all-too-convenient excuse to blow off posting any updates here.

Speaking of the DC Foodies posts, I've started adding a link to my new Flickr account. I don't know why I didn't think of this before, but the account will allow me to post all the photos that I don't have room for on my blogs. And given all the photos I shoot, that's a lot of photos that go unseen, which feels like a waste (especially when I'm still paying to develop some of them). The first Flickr link went with my write up of the Beyond Basics cooking class at CulinAerie, but I'll pop in a slide show link whenever I have additional photos to share.

Finally, the new season of Top Chef began this week. This year, the missus and I started holding a Top Chef pot luck with a few other folks. It was a great time. We ate a bunch of food (duck sliders, sweet potato cakes, homemade cookies, a few cocktails), and watched the vegetarian get kicked off the first episode. I don't know why we didn't think of this sooner.