Red Belgian # 1 (I Think We’re Screwed)

This article was originally posted on Oct. 3, 2011, on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.

Not to say that we’re totally screwed, but, we may very well be.

You see, it was a long night of brewing, marked by blunders.

It started with a good dinner — vegetarian red curry. It was good.

The Belgian Red — not sure if it will ferment.

We started brewing by boiling 3.5 gallons (we thought it was only 3.) We boiled it all in the huge pot, which turned out to be a good idea.

We put the 3.5 to boil, walked down to the convenience store to buy a package of ice, came back and the water still wasn’t boiling. We waited, it boiled, we added the Amber Malt Extract and Crushed Special B Roast and half the Styrian Goldings Hops.

(Recipe at bottom of the post) 

We boiled it all for an hour, took it off the heat and put it into the fermenting bucket.

And then I realized, the recipe called for adding the other half of the hops at the last ten minutes of the boil.

Woops.

So, I put the other hops in 1 gallon of water and boiled it for ten minutes. The recipe, however, called for the 1 oz of hops to be steeped in the off-heat wort.

Once it was boiling, we put all the ice we had in the house into the wort, which didn’t cool it down much.

And then we added the extra boiling 1 gallon of hops-water.

And were way over five gallons.

So, we took it down stairs to the garage (to get out of the kitchen, so my roomie who lives below could sleep) and put the lid on.

Around midnight, as I was falling asleep, I realized I hadn’t pitched the yeast yet.

I got dressed, tested the temp and found it to be somewhere really hot. Estimated around 90 degrees.

I pitched the yeast and went to bed. “Screw it,” I said to myself.

And so, now, the next day, no bubbles are coming from the brew and the brew store is closed on Mondays.

Damn and blast.

Alas, we have no ready home-brew. We cannot relax and have a home brew. Which is sad.

Next time, we relax.

 

Recipe:

Belgian Red

Ingredients:
6 lbs.           Amber Malt Extract
1/2 lb.        Crushed Special B Roast
2 oz.            Styrian Goldings Hops
Priming:  
3/4 cup      Corn Sugar

Directions:

Bring water to boil. Add Malt Extract, 1 oz. Hops and Crushed Special B Roast.

Boil for an hour.

Turn off heat, steep the other 1 oz. Hops in wort for ten minutes.

Bring water up to five gallons.

Bring wort temperature down to yeast’s directions. Pitch yeast.

Ferment for one week, about until fermentation is complete.

Bottle, cap, let sit for two weeks.

Drink.

UPDATE, April 6, 2013: The original premise was correct. The beer has, so far, continued to be terrible. A 12-pack is still ageing, but the ageing only seems to mellow it, not make it taste less horrible.

The stout protected by pizza boxes

Stout #1

This article was originally posted on Sept. 30, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.

After having successfully brewed our first beer, a “basic dark” and both wanting to move on to a greater challenge and something with a more complex flavor, we decided to brew a stout.

And brew a stout we did!

“If we’re bottling when the sun’s setting, meaning its beaming directly at the beer, isn’t that bad?” Bryce asked.

“Yes it is,” I replied.

And so, we used what we had to protect our bottling from harmful sunlight.

From the front:

The stout protected by pizza boxes

From the front

 

 

 

 

 

 

From behind:

The stout, protected by pizza boxes.

Yes, we did protect the beer with pizza boxes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We weren’t, apparently, all there:

After I had filled the first bottle, I realized that we hadn’t yet put the priming sugar in the beer. So, we put the sugar in, stirred it up and filled the rest of the bottles and drank the first, flat bottle of stout.

And, it was good! And tasty! And so now, we wait. We wait to crack open the first brew.

Crossing our fingers.

Hurrah.

Here’s the recipe, from our local home brew store:

Ingredients:

6 lbs.      Amber Malt Extract
1 lb.        Roasted Barley
1 lb.        Amber Dry Malt Extract (DME)
1 lb.        Flaked Barley
2 oz.       Goldings, Willamette or Fuggles Hops (We used Fuggles.)

Directions:

Bring water to a boil, add malt extract, roasted barley, DME, flaked barley and hops. Stir until extract is completely dissolved. Boil for 1 hour.

Strain wort into fermenter. Bring water up to 5 gallons.

Aerate and pitch yeast.

Let beer ferment, between 60 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit,  for two weeks/when fermentation is complete.

Bottle, cap, let sit for two weeks. Enjoy.

As soon as we open, I’ll write about it. Until then, we’re still trying to figure out a name and a bottle design.

This stout:

Tag: http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/stout-1/

Recipe: Wine-Fruit Brownie Sauce

Note: This post originally ran on my blog from many years ago, wheeleringermany.blogspot.com. I posted to and updated it during some of my tenure as an au pair in Dresden, Germany.

Wine-Fruit sauce for Brownies

Adapted from: Rebekah in Germany

Note: This recipe is a work in progress

I invited my former Volkshochschule classmates to the house for dinner on Saturday night. The family was out for the weekend; I had the entire place to myself. Only Ingrid, a classmate from Columbia, replied. She brought her husband and son along.

We started out with a beef stew made with a ¾ to ¼ red wine to water base. As a side I’d roasted Kohlrabi. However, in trying to keep them warm I managed to burn most of them to a crisp. Note to self: don’t leave Kohlrabi in the oven while baking anything else. Also, I learned NOT to use sea salt on roasted kohlrabi. The sea salt adds too much saltiness in too little space. Ingrid’s husband seemed to like them though; we had an entire conversation revolving around Kohlrabi. It’s a cousin of the turnip. I’ll write its recipe later.

I also picked up .40 Euro cents garlic bread baguettes. Quite delicious by themselves and go great with the beef stew.

After the stew we moved on to a “Bavarian Apple Torte,” which did not turn out as planned, and brownies coupled with the subject of this recipe: a syrupy wine-fruit sauce. As I wrote, brownies. Gotta love ‘em.

The definition of a perfect brownie changes from person to person. To me, perfect is on the just-cooked, fudgy side; the cake side is reserved for cake. However, this recipe is not for brownies. It’s for a sour, sucker-slapping syrupy fruit-wine sauce that goes with, on or next to a brownie.

The wine to use changes with the fruit. Peaches and nectarines go well with a white wine, possibly with a splash of red. Strawberries and raspberries go better with a red wine, possibly with a splash of white. But, ultimately, the cook should make the decision on wine-and-fruit paring. I’m no wine authority. It doesn’t hurt to remember that red wine usually goes great with chocolate. However, a glass accompanying dessert is probably better than putting peaches in a red wine sauce.

Wine, wine, wine. Wine is a beautiful thing. And wine is an inexpensive thing here in Germany. I find myself using it all the time when I cook now. The not-very-good tasting wines are downright cheap. They’re close to the price of organic milk, if not cheaper in some cases.

I used terrible-for-drinking (and downright cheap) boxed wine for the sauce. Not space-bag boxed wine but honest-to-god, wine in a box. Much like milk comes in a 1-liter container, so does crappy wine. It cost under a euro. 9.5% alcohol content.

The sugary taste of the sauce gets both chopped down and spiked with the lime. I’m very much a chocolate and fruit person, so this recipe is love to me. The sour, with the wine, really brings a new taste to the brownie.

My personal favorite matching is raspberries with anything chocolate. When I made this with nectarines and juice of about ½ a lemon it contrasted beautifully with the sweetness of the brownie. Ingrid’s husband and I were in love with the combination. Ingrid and her son didn’t like the sauce because of the sour. I loved the sour. The recipe and pairing are, alas, not for everyone.

The recipe calls for boiling or cooking/reducing the wine to about half of where it was. One can reduce it more, or less. The alcohol taste was gone from the sauce when I called it quits on reducing.

I’ve yet to work on presentation. You’re on your own for that.

This recipe/concept came (to me) from a fellow expat who’s living on an Army base here. In a previous life she cooked professionally. We’re in good hands.

 

Ingredients:

2 cups chopped fruit, separated into 1 cup each

2 cups red, white or rose wine

1-2 tablespoons white granulated sugar, to taste

Juice from ½ a lime or lemon

 

Directions:

In either a deep sauce pan or a small pot add 2 cups of chosen wine. Bring to a boil, mix in the desired amount of sugar until its dissolved and half the fruit. Boil or cook/reduce the sauce until it’s about half the amount it was before boiling. The previously strong (warm/hot) alcohol taste should be gone. Add the rest of the fruit and serve with the brownies or other dessert.