fifth brew (light ale), part 4

I at long last bottled the light ale today. The gravity was essentially unchanged, still hanging out at about 1.010. If my measurements were accurate then that's an attenuation of [(1.031 - 1.010) / .031] * 100, or 68%. That's lower than the expected 73 - 77%. I wonder why, and I particularly wonder why there was no change even with all the additional activity after May 13.

I picked up a case of clear EZ-cap bottles. I like those a lot, and I don't think I'll have a problem with using them since I always have the full bottles in one dark location or another. It's nice to see the color and clarity in the bottle. I'll probably get another dozen or two.

The beer has remained a bit cloudy, not unexpectedly.

Flavor has mellowed a bit, and still has a pretty good bitter bite. I think it's going to be quite good once carbonated and chilled and consumed on a hot day. Between this and the witbier I'm building up some tasty summer stock.

smoke up, stumpy

Removing the cherry stump didn't take quite as long as I expected. It was surprisingly heavy, though. Over 150 pounds, probably.

Now the only evidence that the tree once graced the yard is the unremarkable patch of dirt, which blends in just fine on what is effectively a well-used soccer and football field.

I can't wait to try the wood chips in the grill. I've never used cherry but have heard that it's excellent. I collected some of the axe shrapnel for starters.

no-knead olive rosemary pan bread

I attempted the no-knead no-transfer experiment with an olive rosemary bread. Liquid was eight ounces of beer, two tablespoons of vinegar, and the water used for proofing two packets of yeast with sugar. I took the salt down to a teaspoon and a half. It was a wet dough and looked small in the big dutch oven.

After rising for two hours in the oven with the light on (and door closed) it was quite gaseously immense. I left the door cracked after this.

By morning I think the waves of dough had receded a bit.

I set the oven for 500 with the dough inside, and baked for 30 minutes covered. That is, no preheating of anything. It clearly contracted during this time.

It baked for another 20 uncovered. The decrease in size was significant.

So I ended up being disappointed that the volume was not retained. For whatever reason, the structure is just not quite there. I wonder if there's any way to end up with something as pillowy as it was after the first two hours.

However, the bread was pretty darn good. The crust wasn't quite as flavorful as what I've had using a preheated dutch oven, but it was still very tasty. The "bread finger" form factor is kind of fun, and since the crust is decent it's nice to get it in every bite. The crumb was soft and stretchy. Everyone liked it.

I'd use more rosemary next time. This had perhaps a little more than a tablespoon.

whole wheat spaghetti with fresh herbs, tomatoes, and feta

I sure love being able to snip fresh herbs from the garden. I'll be ecstatic when the basil is ready, but in the meantime I'm doing fine with parsley, oregano, chives, and rosemary. The parsley is doing great in the greenhouse. I think the chives would like it to be a little cooler. The oregano had an interestingly yellow tint to one of the stalks. I see the same thing on a bell pepper plant. They seem quite vigorous and healthy, just with a bit of a jaundiced cast. Perhaps it's a low light phenomenon? A few minutes of googling didn't help.

I threw together a quick pasta using parsley, oregano, and chives. I think the Garofalo whole wheat spaghetti from Costco is pretty good. The texture and structural integrity are acceptable, unlike a lot of whole wheat noodles, and the flavor is compatible with plenty of sauces. I tossed with the chopped herbs, diced tomatoes, feta, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Very tasty, and even better the next day. The punch of the oregano works well with the slight nuttiness of the spaghetti.

i'm a lumberjack and i'm ok

With a touch of sadness I brought down the sick cherry tree this morning. I did it all with a hand saw other than using the girly electric chainsaw (with its massive 14" bar) for the trunk. Cherry is so easy to cut that using a handsaw is pretty satisfying. The boys enjoyed taking pruning shears to the branches and pulling the roped limbs as I sawed from a ladder to achieve the desired landing spots. It brought back good memories of logging cherry orchards outside Salem with my dad when I was a kid.

I left the trunk intact, thinking I might find some use for it. Always easier to cut than uncut, I've found.

Removing the stump should be a delight.

Plenty of wood for barbecue!

 

fourth brew (Belgian witbier), part 10

I've been drinking the witbier on occasion and enjoying it more and more. Either the phenolic flavors are diminishing, as I'd hoped, or I'm beginning to like the taste of bandaids! Troy tried it when he was in town and expressed hearty approval. I think it may have been his first witbier, though, so he certainly wasn't judging it in terms of the style.

When I make another wit I'll probably try a different recipe -- I'd like to end up with something closer to Hoegaarden -- but at this point I am not at all unhappy with it.

seared ahi on cast iron

I haven't been cooking on cast iron much lately. My big dutch oven is seasoned pretty well but it's so unwieldy that I don't use it casually. I have a smaller frying pan that I finally seasoned decently this year but haven't used since. I figured I'd pan-sear some ahi.

It was decent quality, though certainly not sashimi grade. I coated each piece with sesame oil then salt, pepper, and black sesame seeds. The pan worked beautifully and I got better results than the last time I did this in a stainless steel All-Clad. The heat retention let me fill the pan completely and get just as good a sear on the second side as the first.

I took it a touch beyond what I wanted. Next time I think I need bit more heat and a bit less time. A slightly crispier exterior and slightly rarer interior would be good. Overall, not at all bad, though, and the pan wiped clean as a whistle.

recent breads: sourdough, olive rosemary

I made the basic no-knead sourdough in the oval casserole. Turned out fine, and pretty much what I've come to expect from the recipe. A single deep slash opened pretty dramatically.

I wanted to see what a no-knead sourdough does when given quite a bit of kneading. I made a dough of 3 cups all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons wheat gluten, 1 tablespoon salt, 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 cup starter, and 1 cup water. I kneaded this in a mixing bowl for 10 minutes or so, rendering it quite stretchy, still pretty sticky, and fairly smooth though not silken. Left to rise overnight atop the fridge.

Kneaded for a few minutes on a cutting board in the morning. Stretchy and stickier, it seems. Did not get a great rise. I decided to bake it in a loaf pan just to see what it would do. Nothing unexpected, I suppose. It was decent, though fairly dense, and this is too much salt. Kneading was sufficiently difficult due to the stickiness that I probably didn't perform it adequately. The crust was pallid and uninteresting. Didn't take a photo.

Another olive rosemary bread seemed in order. I kind of winged this one, varying from that recipe by using 10 ounces of water and two tablespoons of vinegar as the liquid, probably close to a cup of chopped kalamatas, a tablespoon of salt, and three tablespoons of wheat gluten. I was curious to see what would happen if I used two packets of yeast, too. I proofed them with a bit of sugar, as they were a couple of years old, but it was plenty active. The dough was not extremely wet and I kneaded it for something less than 10 minutes. It must have quadrupled in size while rising in the oven overnight. Most of that volume was lost as I gently poured it into the casserole. I let it rise for a couple more hours.

I've been pretty happy with the results from the casserole. The lid was preheated in this case, but not the dish itself. Baked at 450 for 20 minutes with the lid on and 25 with it off.

The crust was good but not great. Overall it was fine, but not as good as the last no-knead attempt using beer, either in flavor or texture. Too salty, too; I'm not sure why I thought a tablespoon was appropriate, especially since the olives are somewhat salty.

The three shallow slashes seemed to perform well.

I'm curious to see what happens if I double the yeast and let it rise in a way that lets me transfer it into a preheated dutch oven without losing so much volume. Would the loaf really turn out that large and light? The easy way to try that would be to not worry about the preheating and just let it rise in the dutch oven itself.

I didn't find much online about using extra yeast. I think there was one article that mentioned that a yeastier flavor could be achieved, and that was about it.

bye bye cherry tree

Nuts. Our big cherry tree seems to have cherry mottle leaf virus. It exhibited the symptoms last year, but this year there's scarcely a leaf on the entire tree that isn't deformed, curled, mottled, or chlorotic. The treatment appears to be removal.

It's not as if we'll miss the cherries, since the birds and squirrels reliably consumed all but three or four before they were even ripe, but the blossoms were spectacular. Removal will make the back yard a little better for sporting events, I suppose.

Cascade, Centennial, Golding hops are up

Three out of the four were up this morning. No Fuggle yet. I could swear that in the hour that elapsed between spotting the Golding shoot and shooting the Golding shoot it had doubled in size. I'll have to check it at the end of the day and see whether I was hallucinating.

Here's the Cascade. Not in focus, though I am very pleased so far with the new camera.

This is the Centennial.

And the Golding.

Potatoes are looking good. This box is ahead of the other. I failed to note which variety was in which box but I suspect these are the Yellow Finn.

And here is a delicious rhododendron, though I don't plan to eat it.

picotomatoes

Here are the first tomatoes. Plenty green but perhaps not yet frying size.

potatoes and lettuce up

The first potato vine leaves were visible this morning, with mounding elsewhere. By this afternoon more than half were up. Whew! Now bring on the bean angst.

A few mesclun lettuce shoots are already appearing. I need to get some into the greenhouse as well to see how it does there.

fifth brew (light ale), part 3

To my great surprise, the krausen atop the light ale has not dropped and the gravity remains unchanged from six days ago at about 1.010. It's just as cloudy, too. I don't know if my palate is functioning differently than when I last tasted it, but tonight it seems sharply bitter again. It tastes almost like grapefruit juice! That citrus flavor would be from the Centennial and Cascade hops. The other beers that used these hops must have had stronger flavors that masked it.

I'm wondering whether the low gravity of this wort means that the yeast was effectively overpitched and underfed, leading to a stall. 1.031 to 1.010 seems like very low attenuation. I'll have to do some research. I gave the fermenter a bit of a sloshing; we'll see if that gets anything going again. It did knock the krausen down.

Update: By the next morning the airlock was bubbling again. It still is, 24 hours later, although it has slowed down to less than two per minute.

Update 2: It's still going as of Sunday morning. There was still plenty of yeasty gorging to be done, evidently.

greenhouse cucumbers, outdoor cilantro and chard

Just when I was about to give up on the greenhouse cucumbers and replant, they have appeared. The first cilantro and swiss chard shoots are up outside.

While I was tapping the tomato blossoms the other day to pollinate them, one fell off. I was concerned that it had rotted due to pollination failing. But this morning I took a closer look and there is the first fruit: a glorious green BB.

In the evening I noticed outdoor beets and indoor leeks.

I guess now I can concentrate my worrying on the potatoes. Not sure how long it should take for them to sprout, but judging by how quickly the normal eating potatoes I buy sprout I would have expected it by now.

sourdough bread in an oval casserole

This was the no-knead 1-2-3 technique, with all-purpose flour plus three tablespoons of wheat gluten. The main idea being tested here was the shaping of the loaf by using a different baking vessel, a glazed oval stoneware casserole, rather than the huge cast iron dutch oven. I've been consistently disappointed by the tendency of these wet no-knead doughs to produce a very flat loaf.

I had the bright idea of turning the dough right onto a sheet of parchment paper, where I thought I'd easily do the tucking and shaping. Moron. Maybe that would have worked if I'd oiled or floured the paper first. This sticky dough attached itself rather enthusiastically to the paper so rather than doing anything to worsen the situation I simply picked it up and dropped it into the casserole.

The oven and casserole were at 450. I baked covered for 20 minutes then removed the loaf and set it on a cookie sheet for another 20 to finish.

I'd have used my baking stone if it hadn't shattered beneath the last pizza I made. I did not find any suitable unglazed tiles on my last trip to Home Despot.

I cannot wait for my new camera to arrive.

The experiment was a success in terms of shaping the loaf. The proportions are just about what I've wanted. There are some odd crinkles because of the parchment paper, but I think this technique would work fine without the paper. There's heavy cracking on the top. Not sure what causes that. Failure to fold the dough into the loaf shape, perhaps? I did give it a couple of shallow slashes, so it can at least be said that they did not prevent this tragic crustal event.

It lost a bit of volume as it cooled. It's all good news from there, though: excellent moist, chewy, stretchy crumb and a delicious crust with good tensile strength but still easy to eat.  It has the usual sourdough flavor from this starter: a little tangy but not overly assertive. I'm pretty pleased with this result.

Next time I'll try without the parchment paper, and will perform the four folds to see how that affects the surface. Could also try leaving it in the casserole.

This seems like a very promising technique for shaping these soft doughs. It's a lot more convenient than using a 20 pound iron pan, too.

Also, I am loving my new nine inch Wusthof Culinar bread knife. It replaces a Henckels that was OK, but aggravatingly short. The new santoku is also a real pleasure to use. That pretty much rounds out my Culinar collection. A tomato knife would be nice, I guess.

more planting and a bit of harvest

Planted in the greenhouse: white radishes, basil, cilantro, lavender (transplant).

Planted outside: mesclun, leeks, he-shi-ko green onions, beets.

Snipped a good handful of chives, parsley and oregano and minced them with (purchased) fresh basil. Stirred into casarecce pasta with olive oil and cracked black pepper. Bright and delicious! This is a pungent oregano.

carrot, cilantro, green onion sprouts

Carrots (outdoor), cilantro (greenhouse), and he-shi-ko green onions (greenhouse) are just beginning to show.

I'm starting to wonder whether I shouldn't replant the greenhouse cucumbers.

almost no-knead beer bread

I wanted to attempt something like the Cook's Illustrated almost no-knead bread again, but improve on the last one by getting a higher rise. I'm also intrigued by the contribution of beer so wanted to use that as the liquid. And I wanted to solve the overdone bottom crust problem that I've been having.

Ingredients:

• 3 cups + 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons wheat gluten
• 1.5 teaspoon salt
• 1.5 teaspoon sugar
• 1/4 ounce rapid rise yeast
• 12 ounces Budweiser
• 2 tablespoons white vinegar

The idea behind beer and vinegar is to provide some of the flavors that normally develop as a result of the yeast starter working for quite a while. My thinking on the sugar was that this additional food source might get the yeast working overtime. I don't actually know that that's a sound notion.

I whisked the dry then stirred in the wet ingredients. This made a fairly wet but not gloppy dough. Let it rise for a couple of hours then kneaded for a minute. It was wet and sticky, definitely elastic, and held together pretty well on a wet cutting board. Covered and let rise overnight.

After eight hours, kneaded for a few more minutes. It had tripled in size and was sticky enough that it kept leaving bits behind on a floured, well-used cutting board. I need a slipperier kneading surface. Formed a loaf and placed on parchment paper in a small skillet. Let rise for a couple more hours.

My new digital camera should arrive next week. This one is lying on its back with its legs twitching.

This seemed to be the best rise I've ever had. I thought the loaf was likely to be tall and majestic. I slashed a shallow X and short shallow slashes in the quadrants, then dropped in the dutch oven and covered. It certainly had greater volume than other loaves. Unfortunately it was also soft enough that it spread and flattened once it lost the support of the skillet.

I baked at 450 this time instead of 500, 20 minutes covered and 20 uncovered. I also splashed a little water into the dutch oven before adding the loaf and covering. After 20 minutes the color was that of pale straw and it looked good. At 40 it came out and sounded perfectly done when knocked.

Good: Crust consistency was vastly improved. In fact, without the hint of the loaf shape the top and bottom are indistinguishable. Crumb was highly regular, soft and chewy, with nice glutinous bubbles and stretchiness. Structurally, awfully nice, just like last time. It's a pleasure to chew.

Bad: I can't identify a flavor contribution by the beer at all. In that respect it seems like a failure. That's kind of interesting, because I've made other breads with less Budweiser in which I was sure I could pick out the beer's malty sweetness. Hmm. I don't really get any tang from the vinegar either.

So-so: The somewhat stiffer and better-risen dough did produce a larger and slightly taller loaf than last time, but it was still not what I was hoping for. And, more importantly, the flavor is unexciting. It's fine, and with some butter it's quite good, but on its own it just doesn't get me too worked up. I was expecting a bit more.

Next time I'm going to try baking in a much smaller oval, covered casserole dish to see how that changes the shape. I don't think it will do anything good for the crust, though. Maybe it could be removed halfway through?

Update: I made grilled sandwiches using this bread. It's fantastic for that. The crust doesn't become uncomfortably hard or jagged, even thin slices remain sturdily intact, and the absence of large air pockets keeps everything inside.

fourth brew (Belgian witbier), part 9

I have at last, I think, solved the mystery of the Belgian witbier flavor problem. I was talking homebrew with a co-worker the other day, describing my coriander and orange peel tea experiment, and he mentioned clove flavors. At the time I did not think that clove was a good description of the witbier weirdness, but as I was tasting another today (and liking it more, actually) with that word in mind, it did seem to have some relevance. I reread Palmer's off-flavor descriptions to find the problem that causes a clove flavor and found this:

Medicinal. These flavors are often described as medicinal, Band-Aid-Like, or spicy, like cloves. The causes are various phenols that are initially produced by the yeast.... Wild (gusher) yeasts can also produce these flavors.

Band-Aid is exactly it!

So there we have a probable cause or two. He doesn't say any more, other than that chlorophenols can result from the use of incompletely-rinsed bleach. Not an issue for me.

This page on phenols in beer offers a little more. Since I used mainly malt extract it's probably not due to leaching from the husks of overcrushed grain. Bacterial contamination is of course a possibility and I don't know how I'd rule that out. It's true that I was a little more interactive with this beer than usual. But it's this note that causes me to want to gratuitously use the word Belgium in a screenplay:

Phenols are usually part of the flavor profile in Belgians and Wheat beers, however.

Well then. That may be true, but I can say that I've had plenty of wheat beers and now a fair number of Belgians, and have found the phenolic component to be nowhere near this strong.

However, taking another look at the description of Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier is enlightening:

Produces a complex flavor profile with a spicy phenolic character and low ester production. Phenols tend to dominate other flavors and dissipate with age.

Oho! Now that I finally have a first hand grasp on the meaning of "spicy phenolic character" it all comes together! I think this is exactly what's expected, and my impression today that the beer might be improving is probably spot on. This has been a most educational brew. RTFM, man.

hops are in the ground

I took a tip from either Eric or Joe and planted in alphabetical order, left to right: Cascade, Centennial, Fuggle, Golding. I used two rhizomes per hole, as recommended. The Cascades were very scrawny but had several shoots each. Centennial was bigger, perhaps pencil diameter. Fuggle and Golding were both 3/4 to 1 inch in diameter. They all had at least a few shoots.

Mixed some composted steer manure into the soil and planted an inch or two deep with 5 or 6 feet between varieties. Watered heavily. Should see something above ground in just a few days, I'd think. I probably have a few weeks at least before I need to have a trellis in place.

fifth brew (light ale), part 2

The light ale has stopped showing airlock activity, at least within the limits of my observational patience, so I figured I'd take a reading. Gravity is still pretty high at about 1.010, and there is lots of suspended yeast as well as a layer of krausen. This American Ale yeast is low-to-medium flocculation, increasing with the presence of dark malts, and requiring filtering for a bright beer. I suspect that this one's destiny is cloudy. A little early to make that call, though.

As for flavor, well, it's a tad yeasty for obvious reasons, but I love the way the bitterness has attenuated slightly. There is almost an IPA brightness to the hops. I may like this a lot by the time it's done.

gratin of eggplant, tomato, and zucchini

I came home tonight thinking I'd make ratatouille, but after looking at a few recipes I changed course and made the Gratin of Eggplant, Tomato, and Zucchini from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home. That's a really enjoyable cookbook, by the way. For each recipe, Julia has a column of comments and Jacques has another. They sometimes disagree, and often offer interesting bits of history. It's fun to read even without intending to cook anything.

As Jacques explains, gratin means crust. In France the English social term the upper crust is rendered le gratin. Let them eat bread crumbs!

It's a little less time-consuming to prepare than a proper ratatouille with its separate sauteeing of the vegetables. Although they share some ingredients it's a very different dish. I didn't have any herbes de Provence on hand so I had to make do with just fennel seeds, basil, and thyme, leaving out the savory and the somewhat important lavender. I didn't miss it. Instead of fresh breadcrumbs I used panko, which I thought worked just fine.

The boys both ate a large helping. Have to feel good about getting kids to enjoy squash and eggplant! I thought it was quite nice, rather rich, and would certainly prepare it again.

beets, chard, and peas a-peeping

In the last couple of days the beets and chard sprouts have begun to show themselves, and today I could see some pea shoots. It's been a long time since I last saw beet sprouts. I had forgotten what an otherworldly magenta hue they sport.

I'm getting antsy about the cucumbers. Germination time at 59 degrees F is 13 days, and 6 days at 68 degrees. It's clearly been a little cold for them. I should have started them indoors.

a coriander and orange peel experiment

It has been over a week since I bottled the witbier so I thought I'd check it out. It's carbonating at the expected pace. The flavor, however, is unimproved.

It occurred to me that I could perform a small experiment to learn more about the nature of the flavors I don't like. I chewed a few coriander seeds (common used as a breath sweetener and digestive aid) and found the flavor citrusy and pleasant. I chewed a small piece of the sweet orange peel and did find it initially sweet, in a cloying sort of way, then becoming bitter, but still not nasty. Then I ground some coriander and boiled it for 15 or 20 minutes along with orange peel, just as was done when brewing.

The resultant tea was rather nice, actually. I can certainly identify those flavors in the beer, but unless it's only in combination with the rest of the brew that something awful happens (and that would be a surprise) I think it's pretty safe to say that neither the coriander nor the orange peel nor their boiling is the source of the offputting qualities of the beer. It may be that the complexity they add makes it harder to isolate the true nature of the bad taste.

I looked back at my notes from the day I brewed it, and I neither recorded nor do I recall anything unpleasant when tasting. So I'm now fairly convinced that it developed as the result of some kind of mishandling. Still, I'm in no rush to try again, just on the off chance that it turns out exactly the same way. That would suck monumentally. Maybe once I'm well-recovered from this trauma and my sad memories have faded I'll be more inclined to give it another go.

first swiss chard and nasturtium sprouts

One of each came up today in the greenhouse. Almost all the red radishes are up.

Also, some creature keeps walking through two of the raised beds and messing up some of the planted squares. It's not our cat, since I'm told he wasn't out today. I may need to screen them, at least temporarily. Grr.

hop rhizomes on the way

While searching for hop rhizomes to plant this year I discovered a couple of things. First, it's pretty late to be buying them in March. Many sellers offer them in February and are already sold out. Second, it is not legal to import them into the state of Washington because of disease concerns. So that further limits me to in-state sellers. I was having trouble finding one, but Dave Wills at Freshops in Oregon very kindly pointed me to Hopunion and Puterbaugh Farms (aka Hops Direct).

Puterbaugh was sold out for the year, but Hopunion had a few. I left a message for Debbie who returned my call immediately and was extremely helpful. So, I'm now waiting for two each of Cascade, Centennial, Fuggle, and Golding rhizomes to arrive, for what seems to me to be the ridiculously low price of $2.90 apiece! They also still had Hallertau and Tettnanger, but I think I'm less likely to use those.

Oh, I'm very excited!

first sprouts in the greenhouse

The boys planted red and white radishes outside on 4/26 and I planted red radishes in the greenhouse the same day. Theirs have come up in the last couple of days and mine were up today.

No photo, but I spotted nearly-microscopic basil sprouts this afternoon, too.

The chives I divided and moved into the greenhouse are doing well. The cat chewed on them the other day during his first greenhouse visit. I used some in omelets this morning just to make sure he wouldn't be the only consumer.

The heliotrope looks good. Smells good too, but until it's a lot larger I don't think it will be noticeable unless you stick your snout in it.

No problem with the dill.

I've been tapping the tomato flowers every day to pollinate them. Won't be many bees in the greenhouse.

The curly parsley is going great guns. I need to plant Italian parsley too.

This gerbera daisy has been very happy.

I've never had a ranunculus before. This one is flowering profusely but the blooms don't last very long. I don't know if that's typical.

The strawberries are just beginning to leaf out. It's not clear yet whether there's a difference between the indoor and outdoor plants.

The indoor peppers are doing OK but it does seem like the outdoor ones are growing better. It's pretty early to draw that conclusion yet, though.

The pot of mint I brought indoors has gone berserk. I'm sure it will be tall and ugly before long. Great to have for making mojitos, though!

Hanging pots of geraniums are doing nicely. Growth is visible just about every day.

The oregano seems happy, too. I wasn't sure that it would like the humidity. I might need to start pinching it back before long.

I haven't had marigolds for a long time. I think they are pretty sturdy and will do fine indoors.

It still seems a little bare. Many squares are unplanted, many more have unsprouted seeds, and of course nothing's very large yet. I hung nylon trellis nets for the tomatoes and cucumbers.

I hope there will be a lot more action in the next week. I'm very interested to see how the greenhouse cucumbers will do.