cooking, roasting, brewing

AHA Big Brew: ginger witbier

2011-12-27T22:26:00.000-08:00

May 7 was the American Homebrewers Association's Big Brew celebration of the 2011 National Homebrew Day. The idea is to participate in a group brewing event with a local club using one of the suggested recipes. My brewing gear isn't mobile, so I had to brew at home and catch up with the North Seattle dudes later.

The witbier recipe caught my eye along with the suggestion that homebrewers "add local, seasonal adjuncts such as flowers, herbs, spices, or fruit." About the only thing growing in my local garden at this point was chives, though, and I was not willing to commit so robustly to the seasonality of the event. Instead, I purchased a couple of pounds of ginger root and decided to experiment with a ginger witbier.

The Cellar sells LME in six pound tubs and the recipe called for 7.25 pounds. Having been repeatedly annoyed by the darkness of my witbiers I decided to use rice extract to make up the difference.

The ingredients ended up being:

6 pounds liquid wheat malt
1 pound dry rice extract
25 grams Mount Hood pellet hops at 5.5%
780 grams ginger root
30 grams orange zest
120 grams coriander
Wyeast 3944, Belgian Witbier liquid yeast

I used a single smack pack of yeast. I've never used two and am not sure why this recipe called for two since the original gravity is a mere 1.051.

Based on some experimentation I figured I'd want about two teaspoons of ginger puree per eight ounces of beer. That amounted to 780 grams (28 ounces) of ginger for the batch. I used the Kitchenaid grinder attachment to produce that pretty quickly.

I savaged three oranges with a microplane to obtain the 30 grams of zest.

It takes just a few seconds to bust up the coriander seeds in a grinder.

To the boiling water I added the rice extract and hops. Still in pursuit of a lighter color I went with the late malt addition at 40 minutes. In 15 minutes it was back to a boil. I waited five minutes, then added the separated ginger liquid and hops bags containing the zest, coriander, and ginger pulp. It took another five minutes to return to boiling. Five more minutes then flameout.

Cooled to 74 degrees and 5.5 gallons, with a gravity of 1.046. Without doing the computation, that seems about right for the original recipe's 5.3 gallons and slightly more malt.

And, I did achieve a significantly lighter color. Compare to the first witbier and second witbier.

The wort had an excellent ginger kick, and nice balance between citrus and ginger. At the pre-fermentation sweetness it was actually quite delicious!

The wort started bubbling within 5 hours. It was vigorous for about 24 hours, slowing down to nothing very noticeable after 48. I did not rack to a secondary.

At bottling on May 15 the final gravity was 1.013, exactly on target.

The flavors were of pronounced bitterness, strong ginger, and both grapefruit and orange citrus. It was very cloudy but I think that may be unavoidable with this much ginger.

I screwed up during bottling, forgetting to add corn sugar until I'd already filled several bottles. Had to pour those back and then try to blend dissolved sugar into the full bucket. This is the second time I've done that and it makes me concerned about oxygenation, infection, and uneven distribution. Well, checklists have been shown repeatedly to greatly reduce all sorts of mistakes even amongst expert practitioners of an art. Probably time to make one.

Carbonation of bottles did end up being hit-or-miss. I think it's due to uneven bottling sugar distribution. However, even the ones that are closest to still have a good ginger bite that seems to accentuate even the mild carbonation.

It has clarified beautifully, although this photo doesn't do it justice.

Of course that's not the proper way to serve a witbier. It's best with the settled yeast poured into the glass, improving both flavor and body. This was from a bottle that did not develop much carbonation, but the ones that did produce a lovely white head.

The color is supposed to be 5 SRM units. I haven't applied the correct methodology with the BJCP color guide but eyeballing it in a glass with a light background leads me to believe it's pretty close.

I've been enjoying this witbier for several months and it is one of my favorite homebrews so far. I love the ginger kick and I'm pleased to have obtained a more appropriate color. Proper management of bottling sugar is the only change I would certainly make for the second attempt. Additional coriander would be interesting as well.

tasting the March 2009 witbier

2011-11-06T13:45:00.000-08:00

Opened a bottle of the first witbier I brewed, in March 2009. It was problematic, but by May I'd figured out what was going on and ended up thinking it was at least not abominable.

Unlike the aged Tipsy Bird red ale, I'm not sure this has improved over time. It's not much different from what I recall. Perhaps the phenolic component has rounded off a bit, but spicy phenols are still the dominant flavor by far. The citrus is there if I look for it in the aftertaste. If it were a little more dry I might like it better.

tasting the Tipsy Bird after three years

2011-11-06T13:33:00.000-08:00

During a bit of garage cleanup I found a box with some bottles of Tipsy Bird red ale, my first real brew from late 2008. It poured with an enormous head, which concerned me at first, but it was delicious. Incredibly smooth with a sweet caramel maltiness. I remember it being simpler and sharper. Quite interesting to see how it has changed. I think I'll go see what else I can find!

2010 potato harvest

2011-03-25T16:49:00.000-07:00

The second attempt at obtaining a massive potato yield through the use of potato towers was not as successful as the first. I did change more than one variable, so it's not highly valid as an experimental result, and the weather was uniformly rotten.

The 2010 result was about nine pounds of All Blues

and ten pounds of German Butterballs.

The were of excellent size and quality, but the yield was really disappointing. Last year I got 29 pounds of Desiree Reds and 18 pounds of Yellow Finns from the boxes.

The blues are (were) really lovely and delicious:

Although I did attempt to keep the vines much more covered as they grew, in comparison to 2009, I don't think I did it well enough. Here's an interesting comment from a thread on this site about potato towers:

I'm both amazed and amused that nobody has taken the time to explain the facts. In the first place, the thread title is 100% correct. Potatoes do not grow along the stem. They grow at the ends of modified branches called stolons. Those grow only from a certain portion of the stem which is just above the roots. If allowed to grow without interference, all of the stolon buds will form in a tight little ring at the base of the stem. Immediately above that will begin the true stem. If that basal portion of the stem is allowed to elongate, stolon buds continue to be formed. 5 stolons equal 5 potatoes, 20 stolons equal 20 potatoes. It is that factor which makes tire planting so very effective. At the same time, it is why tire planting can be a total flop. As long as the stolon-producing portion of the stem is well underground, and the true stem has not formed, it is able to continue growing longer. If that portion stops growing, it doesn't matter if 10' of vine is covered as there will never be another stolon.

It sounds critically important to keep the young vines covered long enough for the stolon-producing portion to develop some length. I'm sure I did not do that effectively. That's what I'll focus on in 2011.

new favorite beer term

2010-10-31T19:54:00.001-07:00

"Growler deposit."

That is all.

recipe development notes

2010-10-10T20:57:00.000-07:00

This entry is a placeholder for recipe notes.

black prince tomatoes

2010-10-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

We've been getting lots of tomatoes from the greenhouse lately. I haven't kept very good track of the varieties I've most enjoyed, but the Black Prince is a standout both visually and for its flavor. I planted seeds from Territorial. It's an indeterminate variety from Russia that is supposed to tolerate cooler conditions.

They range from golf ball to baseball in size. This one isn't the prettiest but it's fairly representative of ones that should probably be harvested.

I'm still trying to figure out the optimal color and firmness at which to pick them. They tend to have a softer texture than I like when too ripe, but by appearance alone it's tempting to not pick them early enough. I think there should still be a fair amount of green showing to get firmer flesh with good flavor.

The flavor is really outstanding. I've enjoyed them plain, in green salads, and in insalata caprese. These are some of the tastiest tomatoes I've grown. The flavor is rich and sweet. Wedges with cracked black pepper and salt satisfy perfectly.

All the tomatoes are still going strong in the greenhouse, so I'm not sure yet whether these will prove to have a longer season than the others. I will definitely plant Black Prince again next year, regardless. I've had no problems with them at all.

fresh hops American pale ale, part 1

2010-10-09T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is an American pale ale made with hops fresh from the garden. When using fresh (wet) hops rather than dried, somewhere between 4 and 6 times the quantity by weight is required. I have just enough fresh Centennial and Cascade to make what I hope will be a robustly aromatic beer.

Here's an interesting article and slide show from the NY Times about fresh hops beer and a hops farm in Salem, Oregon.

I looked to Palmer's American Pale Ale recipe from How To Brew as a starting point, as well as the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale clone recipe from BYO's May/June 2005 issue.

I probably would have gone with the recommended Wyeast American Ale if The Cellar hadn't been out. Instead I got Wyeast yeast strain 1272, American Ale II, described thusly:

With many of the best qualities that brewers look for when brewing American styles of beer, this strain’s performance is consistent and it makes great beer. Fruitier and more flocculent than Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast, slightly nutty, soft, clean with a slightly tart finish. Ferment at warmer temperatures to accentuate hop character with intense fruitiness, or ferment cool for clean, light citrus character. Expect good attenuation, but this will vary with grist makeup, mashing protocol, or other wort characteristics. Reliably flocculent, producing bright beer without filtration.

Flocculation is high, attenuation is 72 - 76%, and temperature range is 60F - 72F.

The recipe I ended up with for a 5.5 gallon batch was:

6 pounds light liquid malt extract (The Cellar's house brand)
1 pound Briess Pilsen light DME
1 pound 2-row malt
1 pound crystal 40 malt
1 ounce Northern Brewer hops, 8.5 AA, 65 min
4.1 ounces fresh (wet) Centennial hops, 35 min (AA unknown)
4.1 ounces fresh (wet) Centennial hops, 15 min (AA unknown)
2.8 ounces fresh (wet) Cascade hops, 5 min (AA unknown)
Wyeast 1272, American Ale II liquid yeast

This is a little heavier on the bittering hops than Palmer's recipe, which would have called for about .65 ounces of Northern Brewer after AA adjustment.

I steeped the grains for 30 minutes, starting at 170 degrees and ending at 156, in 3 gallons. I see from Palmer, page 136, that it's best to have no more than a gallon per pound, so I should have used only 2 gallons.

Refilled the kettle to 3 gallons, added the DME at 200 degrees, brought to boil, and added the bittering hops.

At 30 minutes, added the Centennial. At 45, added the LME and returned to boil. I brought the container of LME up to something over 150 degrees in a hot water bath to minimize the recovery time. At 50 minutes, added more Centennial. At 60, added Cascade. Knockout at 65 and into icy sink where I removed the hop boiling bags.

Cooled to about 90 degrees, aerated by pouring between kettle and fermenter three times, and topped off with refrigerated Crystal Geyser spring water. Mixing of wort and water was very poor, so poured off about 4 gallons into the kettle and back to the fermenter, which did the trick. Temperature was 71 degrees and volume was 5.5 gallons.

Original gravity was measured at 1.052, smack in the middle of Palmer's range of 1.045 to 1.060. That agrees very well with the calculated gravity using 22 points from the steeped crystal, 42 from the DME, and 216 from the LME, or 50.91 points per gallon, or 1.051 gravity.

Pitched the yeast and transported to the downstairs bathroom where I think it will stay at the lower end of the temperature range. After seven hours it was down to 68 degrees, with no noticeable activity.

Next time, I need to drain the hops bags into a sanitized bowl. There was 8 or 12 ounces of wort that didn't make it into the primary. I poured it into a jar (unsanitized), added a little water, and pitched the dregs from the yeast pack. Maybe I'll get a picobrew out of it. It was already active after just a few hours.

The wort is quite bitter. There is some hop aroma but it's not a blast in the face or anything. I believe that much of the aroma is transported to the snout via carbonation so it's probably inappropriate to draw any conclusions yet. There is definitely a flavor I have not experienced in a wort before and I'd say it's something close to the aroma of the fresh hops, perhaps a little vegetal. I'm not sure I'd say grassy, though, which is one description I've heard of fresh hops ales. I think I'm going to like this!

Update: 24 hours later I still wasn't seeing any bubbling, but I did notice a strong (and delicious) hoppy aroma in the vicinity. Realizing that I'd first noticed it much earlier in the day I inspected the stopper and found it to be loose. Jammed it in and the blowoff tube began bubbling immediately and continuously. The temperature is holding at 68 degrees. The picobrew jar has a thick layer of krausen.

Update: After a week, racked to the secondary/bottling bucket. Gravity is 1.015 and bubbling is very infrequent. I'm hoping it will clarify considerably in the next week. There's not a particularly strong hop aroma but perhaps that will become evident once carbonated. I'm quite pleased with the overall flavor at this point, though, and the body is really nice. I'll be a bit disappointed if the aroma hops don't make an appearance, but it's likely to be a nice pale in any event.

I think this is the first time I've used a bottling bucket as a secondary. This lets me take gravity samples easily and safely through the spigot and since it's off the trub they should be clean. No racking and less cleaning on bottling day will be a nice convenience.

Update: Final gravity on 10/29 before bottling is 1.014 for an apparent attenuation of 72%. Tastes excellent. Very smooth, good body, nice bitterness, a little sweetness. I'd say it mainly exhibits the expected characteristics of warmer fermentation with this yeast. Still not a particularly hoppy nose. Clarified pretty well, but the sample is from the bottom of the secondary and I'm sure it will be crystal clear in bottles.

face full of lupulin

2010-10-08T16:46:00.000-07:00

It was hop harvest day! For 15 rapturous minutes I was in a cloud of aromatic Cascade and Centennial hop cones. It was a delicious sensorily immersive experience, like standing in the cloud of smoke from roasting coffee beans.

Not that I have all that much to show for it. There were 2.8 ounces of Cascade, and 8.2 ounces of Centennial. But it's more than enough to use for aroma in a five gallon batch of fresh hop pale ale, which I plan to do tomorrow.

I should have brought these in sooner, since quite a few cones have brown spots, but I haven't had time to brew and really wanted to do something with them fresh.

Once I got them into bags I noticed that they are pretty buggy. Probably nothing to worry about, but this brew may have a little extra protein.

The Golding hops did not grow very well and the few cones were already completely dried.

Next year will be the third for these plants. They should be substantially larger, but I also think they need more nourishment than I provided this year.

baked Scotch eggs

2010-10-04T21:53:00.000-07:00

I had Scotch eggs once, years ago, probably at a restaurant in Victoria. Unlike the fine people of Scotland I don't regard deep frying to be the apotheosis of cooking methods, but a breaded, sausage-wrapped hard-cooked egg hurled into boiling oil is indeed heart-stoppingly delicious.

Deep frying really doesn't seem necessary, though. I thought I'd attempt to make them in the oven.

I like baking eggs rather than boiling them. 30 minutes at 325 degrees is just right. The yolks become exceptionally creamy and it's much easier to hard-cook a dozen or two eggs this way than it is to boil or steam them.

I used a mild Italian bulk sausage mixed with a handful of minced onion and chives. I patted a couple ounces of sausage into a thin oval, dredged a wet egg in flour, and packed the meat around the egg. After being bathed in raw egg beaten with Dijon mustard, the egg was rolled in panko bread crumbs.

They rested on a cookie sheet in the refrigerator for a couple of hours, then went into a cold oven set to 350 degrees. After about 35 minutes I turned on the broiler for a few minutes to brown the bread crumbs.

The only problem was that the sausage split on most of them. I really didn't use a thick enough coating. I'd purchased only a pound of sausage and that just wasn't enough for eight eggs. Three ounces per egg would probably do the trick.

Despite this aesthetic glitch, the boys and I were quite pleased. The breading was crisp and not at all greasy, and the flavors and texture were just what I was looking for. And baking is so much more convenient than deep frying. I think I'll be trying this again.

Brother Juniper's wild rice and onion bread

2010-10-01T17:46:00.000-07:00

I just got the updated edition of Peter Reinhart's Brother Juniper's Bread Book: Slow Rise as Method and Metaphor. I've only skimmed it, liking very much what I've seen, but I did take a stab at the recipe for wild rice and onion bread.

Rather than wild rice I used leftover red jasmine rice, and I also chose the fresh onion variation rather than dried. Executive summary: fantastic!

It's slightly sweet, nicely oniony, very tender, and when freshly baked had a superb crackly crust.

Ingredients:

4 cups bread flour
4 cups AP flour
1 cup diced onion
1/3 cup brown sugar
2.5 tablespoons active dry yeast proofed in 4 tablespoons water
1.5 tablespoons salt
1 cup cooked red jasmine rice
1/3 cup buttermilk
1.5 cups water

All the dry ingredients are mixed and then liquids added. I kneaded it in the KitchenAid for about 8 minutes. With this much yeast and sugar it rises aggressively. The first rise was an hour. I formed two loaves and let them rise for another hour. Baking time at 350 degrees was close to an hour. Because the dough contains brown sugar and buttermilk it's important to bake at a lower temperature or the crust will scorch.

This is a good way to use leftover rice. I'd like to try it with a wild rice blend to see how it differs, but the red jasmine rice is also very flavorful, nutty, and firm. I wonder how the recipe would take to a doubling of the rice.

purple gusto pepper pico de gallo

2010-09-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

Although the gardening has been wretched this year there are now a few usable purple gusto peppers among all the lovely blossoms on the plants I grew from Territorial seed. Since I'm now also harvesting a reasonable number of tomatoes it seemed like Salsa Night!

I've had one plant in the greenhouse and one outside. The peppers in the greenhouse are slightly but consistently larger.

They are fairly zippy. The flesh is thin and firm and I minced it very finely; any sizable piece would be fiery enough to incur significant displeasure in some of the household salsa eaters. Three of them went into a basic pico de gallo: peppers, tomatoes, onion, cilantro, lime, salt, and pepper.

It's very good, but I'd like it better with heftier chunks of pepper. Something meatier like a jalapeño would be preferable. But it's sure nice to be eating something new from the garden.

second biltong

2010-09-20T16:09:00.000-07:00

It's been nearly a year since the first satisfying biltong venture, and while I still have a bit in the freezer it feels like time to try again. I did receive a slight prodding from the sight of the disassembled components of my homemade drying rig during a recent garage cleanup operation.

Biltong does freeze quite well, although my wrapping wasn't ideal and I can detect a bit of freezer flavor. We last enjoyed it during World Cup while watching one of South Africa's games. Our respectful gesture did not seem to help them any.

The interior of the first biltong is still pretty pink. It oxidizes in a matter of seconds after being sliced. I think this is probably on the rare side for biltong but there doesn't seem to be any problem with it spoiling in this state.

This time I thought I'd try flank steak. QFC had it on sale so I picked up a little under nine pounds at $5/pound. I used something pretty close to the same recipe, doubling it and also adding a teaspoon of red pepper flakes. I did not double the salt, however, sticking with two tablespoons.

The steaks were sliced in half with the grain, yielding eight long slabs. These should all fit in the dryer just fine despite the doubling of quantity.

It went into ziplock bags. I later noticed that the marinade dregs included perhaps a teaspoon of salt, so this recipe is using considerably less than the last. It is very tasty and I should come up with some other use for it.

After marinating for more than 24 hours they went into the Meat Wardrobe on Monday evening. I ran it it a little cooler than last time, probably averaging less than 100 degrees. Since the fan runs only when the heating element is on there's less air flow as well.

Friday evening I took a sample. It was still quite rare inside.

The flavor was good and I liked the texture at that point, although it will certainly become a little less pliant after a few more days. The sheen on the sliced surfaces is fat, not water. It's not nearly as moist as it looks.

Saturday morning I pulled one out to take to Matt's pig roast, wrapped it, and forgot it. The rest came out Monday morning, for a total of 6.5 days in the dryer. The final weight was 63 ounces.

I'm very pleased with it. It strikes me as more flavorful than the first one. There's no detectable heat from the red pepper flakes, so next time I might crank that up. It certainly doesn't need more salt for flavor. I wonder to what extent the salinity affects the transfer of marinade flavors into the meat, though. Too little salt may be detrimental in that regard.

I think the slices at an angle across the grain of the flank steak produce a better texture than either the tri-tip or sirloin.

So, good result. If I didn't keep poking at it and taking pictures it would be an entirely hands-free operation between hanging and harvesting, so probably only about an hour of active time is required. It works out to a little more than $11/pound, while I see it advertised for more like $25 - $40/pound. It's much tastier than any beef jerky I've ever had. Definitely a worthy undertaking

homemade biltong dryer AKA the meat wardrobe

2010-09-13T15:29:00.000-07:00

Biltong is a cured, air-dried meat. Some people dry it outdoors for a little extra tree and insect flavor, some hang it in a closet for a hint of cedar and lint, and some use a low oven and live without baked potatoes for a whole week. An artificial heat source is optional, although temperature and humidity obviously have a large effect on the drying time.

For my first attempt last year I wanted a somewhat controlled and sanitary environment for drying the biltong, as well as one that wouldn't conflict with other household activities. I ruled out the garage, oven, and my sock drawer and figured I'd build something.

My thoughts quickly turned to the wardrobe moving boxes we purchased several years ago. They were so expensive that I just couldn't bear to throw them out. They have over 10 cubic feet of volume, a shirt and meat hanging rod, several cutouts for carrying and venting, and a convenient access panel. I also had a small thermostatically controlled forced air heater with a safety shutoff. Perfect!

I cut a piece of scrap plexiglas, probably left over from the construction of some reptile enclosure, for a viewing window.

This spare oven thermometer goes down to 100 degrees F, which seems fine for the low end. The heater, pretty close to its lowest power and thermostat settings, holds the temperature just fine at 100 to 120 degrees.

I lined the bottom of the box with aluminum foil for sanitation. At least initially the meat does drip a bit. Here's my five pound first batch hanging.

And here it is all done.

One reasonable modification would be to raise the height of the bar. There's plenty of room to go up with it, and very long cuts of meat might hang low enough to be undesirably close to the heater.

Overall it ends up being a convenient and multitasking tool. The box breaks down for flat storage, and the heater keeps the garage smelling meaty fresh when I'm out there in cold weather.

first homemade kvas, part 2 (the sour!)

2010-09-11T21:23:00.000-07:00

While the first bottle of my first homemade kvas was disappointing, I wasn't entirely surprised. The second bottle made up for it by being something completely unexpected and quite good! The third was the same. The difference? Months of conditioning.

It has been nearly nine months since I bottled it. I opened the third and final bottle tonight, having opened the second several months ago. I don't think there was much difference between those two. But the difference between them and the first was stunning. An aged kvas can apparently be a delightful thing.

It has become something akin to a sour Belgian beer. It's not a beverage I'd want to drink in any great quantity, but a small glass is delicious and refreshing. The molasses flavor, for which I don't much care, is basically gone. There's a slight dark fruitiness, perhaps in part from the few raisins or perhaps as a byproduct of the fermentation. The tartness combined with a medium body and robust mouthfeel is really pleasant. As far as I know bread-based kvas is intended for fresh consumption so this result was a complete surprise.

I've been wanting to brew a sour beer ever since tasting the fantastic Flanders red ale that Zach brought to a homebrew club meeting last summer. Maybe I'll do one of those next.

testing the $3 popover pan

2010-09-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

While dropping of some stuff at a thrift store I made my usual book and electronics scavenging run and found a nearly mint condition "professional quality" black steel popover pan in the original box for $3! (I was looking at more than books and bits, obviously.) The heavy black steel is supposed to lower the baking temperature by 25 degrees and decrease the baking time by 10% or more.

For starters I tried the recipe on the front of the box. At the time I didn't have any all-purpose flour so I figured I'd experiment with what I had: whole wheat pastry flour and white whole wheat flour. I also added the "speck of soda" penned in by the previous owner. I wasn't surprised when this didn't produce the ideal result. Probably any significant proportion of whole wheat with its jagged shards of bran is going to prevent the batter from capturing the steam that makes the popover pop. They did puff to a degree, but the interior was fairly solid. Still, they were light and tasty, like a whole wheat German pancake.

After restocking the cupboard with unbleached AP flour I tried again, omitting the soda speck. Now that I think about it, the author of that modification surely meant baking powder, not soda. Perfect results this time.

Alton Brown's popover recipe in I'm Just Here For More Food is a little different, adding some butter, using some water and less milk, and using one less egg. I'll have to try that next.

first coffee roast in modified Popcorn Pumper

2010-09-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

I cleaned off my work bench the other day, organizing and storing the bazillion fasteners, tools, scraps, instruction manuals, and spare household pets. It was a beautiful blank slate for the first time since we moved in, what, five years ago? And it was literally crying out for projects!

While cleaning up the rest of the garage I found the Popcorn Pumper, which I haven't used for roasting coffee since finding the Poppery II. Seemed like a good time to toy with a few modifications. I started small, simply bypassing the thermal switch (and thereby creating a magnificent fire hazard). This is just a matter of soldering a wire between the terminals on either end of the thermostat and fuse, more or less according to this Engadget how-to. This keeps the heating coil on constantly, delivering significantly greater heat. (This great article has more explanation of the circuitry in these things.)

I also made an aluminum chimney to replace the bulky plastic hood, which really does not care for these temperatures. This was just some leftover aluminum roof flashing, rolled and fastened with J-B Weld.

The first trial run was excellent! I took it outside, preheated for a minute, and added enough beans for there to be some agitation but no swirling. I stirred occasionally with a wooden spoon, which is now possible since I can get straight into the chamber. The difference in heat was obvious. Roasting time was greatly reduced, and it's clear that any desired roast can be achieved without baking the beans. The chaff was all blasted directly out the chimney.

I didn't take any measurements but the results are clear. This is an enormous improvement over the original machine and the Poppery II as well. This was Sweet Maria's Classic Italian espresso blend and I took it to a very dark roast with a speed and consistency I've never seen.

2010-09-13 update: Tried again, this time shooting for a lighter roast. 4.65 ounces for five minutes produced this:

It was just entering second crack. That may be a little faster than is desirable. The roaster could have handled more beans. Adding beans generally speeds things up but I'm not sure that would be true in this case where I'm doing some manual agitation until the beans are light enough to fluidize. I guess the best approach will be to vary the supply voltage.

Naturally Preferred Organic Whole Wheat Rotini one word review: yech

2010-08-16T17:22:00.000-07:00

In a few more words it's flavorless, roughly textured, and has no elasticity (and not as a result of overcooking). It may be a step up from the cardboard box it comes in, but only because that little plastic window would get stuck in your throat.

This is a Kroger house brand. I won't buy the stuff again.

homemade ciabatta bruschetta with tomato salad

2010-08-15T20:05:00.000-07:00

Leafing through the Sunday paper I saw a recipe for tomato salad on grilled bruschetta. (I think "grilled bruschetta" is redundant, but this was that stellar food journal Parade, after all.) Sounded like an excellent appetizer for a day that was predicted to reach 95 degrees in Seattle. It called for ciabatta bread, and I recalled the one minute ciabatta recipe I'd enjoyed before. But it was already 1:30... could it be done?

I threw it together, experimentally using white whole wheat for one third of the flour, and set the bowl outside to rise. By 5:00 I figured I'd better get moving if this was going to end up on the dinner table. It had risen adequately, it seemed, although if I'd been thinking I would have increased the yeast. I certainly did not want to use the oven, so I fired up the grill and baked it at about 425 for 25+ minutes on a hollow cookie sheet.

The tomato salad was a basic combination of fresh tomatoes, red onion, basil, garlic, red wine vinegar, extra-virgin olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pretty standard, but there is simply no bad way to combine those ingredients. Sadly, only the basil was from the garden. Mid-August and I've had two ripe tomatoes. And don't even get me started on the peppers. This has been a stonkingly unproductive gardening year so far.

Verdict: Not bad. The bread was certainly a bit rushed. It didn't really open up like a ciabatta should, and I'm sure flavor would be better if the yeast had more time to do its thing. The whole wheat probably interfered with the usual texture, too. But once grilled and topped, totally satisfactory for the wall time and level of effort.

potato towers take 2

2010-05-22T22:06:00.000-07:00

After the somewhat disappointing yield of the potato boxes last year I was sure I'd done something wrong. A little searching makes it clear that a lot of people have had similar results. (Actually, my results of 29 pounds in one box and 18 in the other seem quite good compared to most, but what I did not get was potatoes above the bottom layer.)

Today I happened across some good stuff at http://mudsongs.org/how-a-potato-tower-might-work/ which refers to http://farming.freecellz.com/archives/46, http://onestraw.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/tech/, and http://www.ciscoe.com/garden/topics/potatoes.html. The right way to do it may be to keep only the top inch of vine uncovered, which is definitely not what I did last year.

According to Ciscoe's instructions I was already behind, with some plants at 12 inches and more, so I did some hasty shoveling. I also tossed in three tablespoons of Osmocote 14-14-14 per bin. I'll continue using soil for the bins, I think.

In this tower I have German butterballs.

And this one has All Blue.

For the potato bed, which had already been fed with bone meal and an organic vegetable fertilizer, I began mounding with rough mulch from some recent shredding. I'll see how that goes in comparison. This isn't an extremely sunny area so yield may be limited for that reason.

The bed has Russian banana fingerlings, Desiree, Yellow Finn, All Blue, and German butterball. These are all late season varieties. The Desiree and Yellow Finn were from last year's harvest. I know there's a chance they won't produce well, but I'm curious to see what happens. They weren't suffering from any diseases as far as I could tell.

gutter planter update

2010-05-22T21:30:00.000-07:00

The gutter planter I built and planted back in March is now producing. We had a nice bunch of mesclun and baby bibb lettuce at dinner as a result of the afternoon's thinning efforts.

As I should have anticipated, the squirrels were disruptive and messed up a lot of the early seedlings. Since then I've put up a system for draping bird netting. The aesthetics are annoying but not egregious.

seventh brew (Belgian witbier), part 1

2010-04-19T21:28:00.000-07:00

Brewing my first witbier was a lengthy and educational venture. More educational than fun, as a recall. I've wanted to brew another for many months, both because I love the style and because I was so thoroughly tormented by the first. Everything has been in the garage just waiting since last June!

In my witbier tastings I've certainly encountered great variety in the implementation of the style. I don't know that it's my very favorite but Hoegaarden is surely a benchmark and I like it very much. I would be thrilled to come close to the great original, even if it has suffered at the hands of InBev.

After scouting around online I settled on this recipe for a Hoegaarden clone.

So, I finally got things together on 2010-03-27. First order of business on brew day: follow the sage advice of Charlie Papazian. Relax and have a homebrew! One of the few remaining witbiers from last March seemed appropriate. Not bad. The phenolic notes have quieted a little, but are still dominant. Nice body and carbonation. I do like it; it's just not the result I'm after.

The ingredients and recipe for what I guess I'll have to call Clonegaarden ended up like this:

2 cans Muntons wheat liquid malt extract, 3.3 pounds (unhopped)
4 ounces flaked oats
8 ounces flaked wheat
8 ounces aromatic malt
1 ounce Kent Golding hops pellets, 5.0% AA (60 minutes)
.5 ounce Saaz plugs, 7.7% AA (15 minutes)
.5 ounce Saaz plugs, 7.7% AA (5 minutes)
1 ounce coriander seed (15 minutes)
1 ounce coriander seed (5 minutes)
1 ounce bitter orange peel (15 minutes)
1 ounce bitter orange peel (5 minutes...but I forgot it)
White Labs Belgian Wit Ale Yeast (WLP400)

All the ingredients except the coriander came from Brewmasters Warehouse. Good site and good prices. No complaints at all for my first order.

The grains in separate bags went into 1.5 gallons of tap water at 157 degrees. I kept the heat at 3, and the temperature actually climbed to 170 after 30 minutes. Research: what is optimal, and what about thermometer calibration?

This wort ended up surprisingly dark. Gravity at 170 degrees (77 C) was 1.00. Correcting for temperature, that's 1.025. Research: How much of that is fermentable? All three grains need mashing. According to Palmer, temperatures above 158 inhibit starch conversion, so I was running pretty hot. Palmer's typical malt yields table (Table 27) says PPG for steeping these grains is negligible. So what does that gravity mean, exactly, considering that the final gravity was 1.014? Some significant fraction ended up being fermentable, right? Ah, but on other hand this is the boil gravity, so 1.5 gallons of wort at 1.025 becomes only 1.007 at 5.25 gallons. So I guess it's quite possible that none of that is fermentable.

Added a gallon of water, probably splashing a bit too much. The wort was tasty with lots of body. Brought to boil and added Golding hops.

Based on my earlier research I've pretty well decided to add malt extract near the end of the boil. Added extract at 45 minutes. This knocked the temperature down to 160 and it took maybe 15 minutes to come back to boiling. That's something to think about with respect to the boiling hops. Also added first half of Saaz hops, coriander (coarsely ground), and orange peel in a nylon hop bag.

At 55 minutes added the rest of the hops and coriander, but forgot the second half of the orange peel. Grr. I wonder whether I shouldn't make a strong tea and add it during fermentation. (I didn't.)

Cooled, aerated heartily, and added 60 degree tap water to get about 5.25 gallons at 75 degrees according to the bucket fermometer. However, the base of the bucket felt much warmer than the top. I was startled to discover just how ineffectual the delivery of water from the faucet is at blending, even from a height of a foot over the bucket. I'd pulled my original gravity sample already from the spigot and realized that it was useless. Mixed by pouring between kettle and bucket, by which time I'd reduced the temperature to about 66 degrees. And, I also discovered that the kettle thermometer may be high by 8 or 10 degrees. Nice. So, the above temperatures for the steeping are probably erroneous.

The upshot of this latest temperature fiasco is that I really need to mark the kettle so I know exactly volume I'm trying to cool, and I need a new floating thermometer.

Pulled another sample to measure an original gravity of about 1.066. The recipe says OG is 1.055 (and is based on 7 pounds of extract). That's a pretty big difference. The 6.6 pounds of LME at 36 PPG would account for 1.045. I'm not sure whether that's the right figure for wheat malt or not; it may well be lower.

Comparing the two samples...wow. The first one was like syrup compared to the second. I'm shocked at how poor the blending is even when adding that much water. I really need to get the water into the bucket first and then pour in the wort.

The yeast was a bit past its "best-by" date of 2009-10-30. Pitched and and plumbed a small diameter blowoff tube.

Just for fun, I poured the gravity samples into a jar with a sprinkle of Red Star dry champagne yeast I had in the fridge.

Fermentation took a couple of days to get going. I put the bucket in the downstairs bathroom and ran the heater, keeping it in the 70s. During my tussles with the last witbier I had my know your yeast epiphany, so I made sure to keep this at a happy temperature. A week later was still blowing bubbles every several seconds, down from a peak of every second or less. The blowoff tube worked beautifully.

The champagne yeast sample seemed to finish up in a few days. Tasty, but none of the Belgian goodness that the wit yeast should deliver.

By 2010-04-12, or two weeks after visible fermentation started, it had pretty much stopped. The gravity was about 1.017, getting pretty close to the recipe's final of 1.014.

There was just a thin layer of krausen. This one never went berserk -- no crap gunking up the blowoff tube, no cranky stopping and starting.

The flavor at this point was dramatically different from the first witbier. There was no harshness, no phenolic band-aid character. It's good! The bittering hops are detectable and it is considerably more hoppy than the first one, although no hop aroma, really. There's some fruitiness and slight tartness. It's lively on the tongue, almost as if it were already lightly carbonated. There's some bitterness on the finish, and I think that's where I pick up the coriander. Maybe a hint of yeastiness. This is a low-flocculation yeast and it is quite cloudy. From my limited experience I'd say it tastes green, expectedly, and with some time I think it may become quite fine. I am pleased.

Bottled on 2010-04-18, at a final gravity of 1.014. Oh, it's very tasty! No question about its Belgian lineage. It has smoothed out a little in the last week. I think I'm going to be happy with this one aside from the color, which certainly is not possible to achieve using the the Muntons wheat LME.

Bottle count was 25 twelves and 21 sixteens.

hop twine mystery solved

2010-04-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

This year I wanted to increase the linear travel potential of the hops, so I ran a very clever intersecting zigzag of jute twine between the base of the fence and the cable strung between poles atop it. I was quite pleased. It looked cool bare, and I figured would be quite lovely covered in hop bines. And, it would increase their growth potential by a few feet.

Imagine my annoyance when I discovered a few days later that several of the stout strings were broken. Was it friction? An irritated neighbor? I effected a repair. A few days later, more were broken. Crazed birds? Whipping winds? By the third time I was pretty sure I knew what it was, and today I caught the little rotter in the act.

The hops are growing rapidly, so I'll have to figure something out soon. It's a complete wreck.

Flippin' squirrels. I liked them a lot more before I began gardening, just like I liked raccoons and blue herons before having ponds.

potato garlic white bread

2010-04-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

This morning I thought I'd try a bread experiment and hit upon potato and garlic as possible contributors. I love potato bread, and sometimes buy a roasted garlic bread at Costco that is one of my favorites.

Ingredients:

1 packet active yeast
18 grams Morton's kosher salt
2 cups water
150 grams baked russet potato with skin, cut into 1/4 inch dice
12 grams minced (pressed) garlic (a few cloves)
650 grams unbleached bread flour

In the KitchenAid mixing bowl I proofed the yeast in 1/4 cup of the water. Added all other ingredients then mixed on 2 for a couple of minutes. Let rest, covered, for 30 minutes. Kneaded on 2 for 10 minutes. The dough migrated downward into a more spherical form in the last couple of minutes.

It was a fairly wet dough but not too tough to work into shape. Let rise for an hour, punched down, reshaped. It was sticky enough that it suffered some damage as I tore off parchment paper and plastic. Should have let rise on a heavily floured counter, and heavily floured the top before covering.

It proofed for 2.25 hours, and was very pillowy but resilient. I was getting worried about having not let it rise long enough, and proofing too long, so I rushed it into a 500 degree oven onto a stone that had preheated for only 30 minutes. Added .5 cup water for steam and turned down to 450.

I tried a new slash shape and technique, using an X and a shallow cut at 45 degrees. The dough did not deflate, to my relief, so if it was overproofed it wasn't by much. It had good oven spring and the grigne opened pretty nicely.

Baked for 30 minutes and removed at about 195 degrees internal temperature, after which it coasted to 199.

The crust was just slightly reddish, perhaps indicative of overproofing and too much conversion of starches to sugars on the skin. It deflated a bit as it cooled and felt very soft beneath the leathery crust.

As bread, it's great. Superb texture, stretchy and tender, moist, and solid white bread flavor. As far as realizing my vision, it's kind of a miss. The potato flavor is present but subtle. I was hoping for noticeable tidbits of potato, too. And the garlic got lost somewhere along the way. The crust has a slight burnt note that I'd try to lose, perhaps by baking at a lower temperature but on a very hot stone, or proofing for a shorter time.

Next time I'd probably double the amount of potato and at least triple the garlic. The garlic might work better if it were coarsely chopped rather than pressed. Potato should also be a larger dice. Doubling the potato might call for reducing the water slightly. I think it should perhaps have a longer first rise and shorter proofing. Need to do some reading about this.

Bottom line, it's a keeper as a basic idea but needs some tweaking to achieve the desired result.

first try at a ginger beer

2010-03-28T16:14:00.000-07:00

Based on this ginger beer how-to I set out to make my first ginger beer. I simplified and modified the recipe a bit, and also doubled it to produce two gallons.

In three quarts of water I boiled for 30 minutes a cup of shredded/pulped ginger, 16 tablespoons of lemon and orange juice, and a cup of white sugar. It should have been two cups, I realized later.

I strained into five quarts of cold water, cooled in an ice bath to 80 degrees, and pitched half a teaspoon of Muntons ale yeast proofed in 3/4 cup of water.

It went into four two liter bottles. Upon sampling I was surprised by its lack of sweetness. That is when I realized that I forgot to double the sugar. I added 1/4 cup of corn sugar to each bottle, but did not taste again or take any gravity readings.

I think the flavor has more lemon than ginger character. It could just be that my ginger sensor is a little blown out right now since I was nibbling on it raw.

It's now resting at room temperature. I think I'll probably test one, two, three, and four days of fermentation.

2010-03-30 update:

All bottles were rock-hard in less than a day. The first bottle went into the refrigerator after 24 hours at room temperature. The second went in after 48.

The first two are pretty comparable. Carbonation is stronger in the second, and it may be just slightly more dry. I think I pick up the slightest hint of yeast and a touch more ginger bite in number two. All of those differences could be the effect of the effervescence, but they result in number two being more successful.

It's really pretty good. I don't detect any of the orange juice. The lemon is strong; I'd actually dial it back a bit and try the lime of the original recipe. It's far, far less sweet than the commercial ginger beer I have had most recently, Reed's Ginger Beer, which is so cloying as to make me queasy.

I don't think the degree of carbonation can actually increase much, so the next two bottles should give me a pretty good read on how the sweetness changes.

I wouldn't say that I can detect any amount of alcohol. A half cup of table sugar and a half cup of corn sugar per gallon gives an original gravity of only about [(3.5 oz 46 ppg + 3.5 oz x 42 ppg) x 1 lb / 16 oz], or 1.019. Even if it attenuated completely it would be less than 2.5% ABV, and I'm sure it will be less in actuality. This stuff should be only 80 - 90 calories per pint -- that's compared to 145 in 12 ounces of Reed's. This is quite a nice light summer drink.

2010-03-31 update:

Added number three to the tasting tonight. Absolutely massive carbonation, demanding several minutes of bottle opening ministrations. It wasn't quite chilled. One effect of this is that it kicks up all of the sediment, which probably affects the result.

That said, I don't actually notice much difference between two and three. Possibly a bit more dry. I'll have to try again tomorrow when both are equally cold. Number one is not entirely flat, but it's close to lifeless. Definitely dominated by the others.

I bought a bottle of Reed's Extra Ginger Brew. Bleah. It's like syrup compared to mine.

2010-04-02 update:

Tasting number four completed the flight. I compared to number two and it is assuredly drier. I measured the gravity of both. With temperature adjustment, number two was 1.014 and number four was 1.011. I don't know that I have a preference. Assuming that my original gravity estimate is correct, that would be about 1% ABV, or nothing to worry about if the boys want some.

I think it's pretty easy to experiment with the recipe in very small amounts. Unlike beer, I don't think that any yeast strain I'm likely to use is going to make much of a difference. Starting with a base of ginger and sugar it should be easy to incrementally add ingredients until reaching something that seems worth upscaling and bottling.

fruit trees in the ground

2010-03-19T20:56:00.000-07:00

After weeks of front yard digging, tree removal, Japanese maple relocation, leveling, backfilling, and rock hauling I finally reached the point where I could plant the fruit trees that had been heeled in for three weeks.

Looking out from the front porch they are, left to right, a 4x1 apple (Queen Cox, Belmac, Rubinette, Pristine), a 4x1 Asian pear (Shinseiki, Yinashi, Hamese, Mishirasu), a 4x1 European pear (Orcas, Rescue, Highland, Harrow Delight), and a self-fertile Mount Royal plum. They went in on about the 7th of March.

I got them all as bare root trees from Raintree on a visit to the nursery. They look pretty good but could use some pruning to clean out some inward growth and to get some of the grafts in better balance. Unfortunately they are already budding so I may need to wait for the new growth to reach a few inches. I don't know very much about pruning yet.

I have pulled so many rocks out of the ground while digging holes in Seattle that I could personally reconstruct a glacier's ass. It looks like the Japanese maple is going to survive, at least.

simple crusty beer bread

2010-03-18T22:55:00.000-07:00

I saw this recipe for a partial whole wheat modification of this no-knead simple crusty bread from the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day book. I thought I'd touch it up a bit with some beer and vinegar, along the lines of the Cook's Illustrated almost no-knead modification.

Here are the goods:

1.5 tablespoons Morton kosher salt
1.5 tablespoons active yeast
2.5 cups warm water
.5 cup beer (Cerveza Caguama)
2 tablespoons white distilled vinegar
340 grams white whole wheat flour
635 grams all purpose flour

Stirred the yeast and salt into the liquids in the KitchenAid mixing bowl. Added the flour. Mixed on 1 for about a minute. Left to rise for 2.5 hours, then refrigerated.

Baked a loaf the next day. Let the dough ball rise for a little under an hour, slashed fairly deeply, then baked on a stone at 450 degrees for 30 minutes, with a steam tray.

Wonderful! The oven spring was proportionally greater than I've ever seen. The small loaf remained dense, at nearly 20 ounces, but with a tender crumb and good crust. We had it for dinner while still warm and it was excellent. I would try 35 minutes next time. Should try slashing in a way that lets it open up even more, too. And I'll bet the fraction of whole wheat could be increased.

The presence of beer was more evident than in any bread I've made, contributing a superb yeasty flavor without any of the cloying sweetness that I think I've detected the times I've used Budweiser. The Cerveza Caguama, a light lager from El Salvador, is something I bought for a party where I suspected Corona drinkers to be present. It looks and tastes about the same, although notably skunkier. It is paradoxically tolerable when intolerably cold, but this bread is a much better use for it.

2010-03-19 update: I baked another loaf today and gave it a central slash and about four more curving ones on each side. It worked even better, and looked like an armadillo! I may have to do something with that theme.

one-minute ciabatta bread

2010-03-15T20:22:00.000-07:00

How could I possibly pass up a one-minute ciabatta bread hack?

Before leaving for work:

1/4 teaspoon active yeast stirred into
two cups warm water
600 grams (about 4 cups) all-purpose flour
1 mounded teaspoon Morton kosher salt

Came together with perhaps 15 seconds of hand mixing. Poured into a very large greased bowl and let it rise all day (temperature mostly in the low sixties, probably).

Baked it in the evening for 25 minutes at 425 degrees on a baking stone, sprinkled top and bottom with a Tuscan herb mix. I also used a steam tray. The large greased bowl made pouring this wet dough onto a prepped pizza peel easy, so I achieved a pretty good shape and easily snapped it onto the stone.

Oven spring and crust formation were nice. It ended up nearly semicircular in profile.

It does take more than a minute, but taking all prep and cleanup into account it's probably no more than five, and that's quite excellent for this very palatable result. Really tender but chewy crumb, nice flavor, great with butter.

It probably could have baked for another five minutes. I'll try it with a higher protein flour next time, which I think would make the texture closer to other ciabattas (ciabatti?) I've had. As-is, though, it is quite worthy and would be an admirable sandwich bread.

evergreen huckleberries in the ground

2010-03-10T23:35:00.000-08:00

Around the end of February I planted five one-gallon evergreen huckleberries (Vaccinium ovatum) from Raintree. They have quite a few blossoms and a good bit of new growth. Within a day the squirrels were at them so I rigged a temporary cage from bird netting.

According to Raintree:

The best fruiting plant for the shade. A native of the Pacific Northwest. This evergreen bush is beautiful throughout the year. In the spring and the fall the foliage turns from green to a striking bronze color. The late summer ripening berries are a dark blue; tart and flavorful. The fruit is a little smaller than a blueberry. The shrub grows best in the shade where it can reach 6-8 feet without pruning. In the sun it only grows to 3 feet tall. It has a compact, full growth habit and spaced about 3 feet apart makes a beautiful evergreen hedge.

I was thrilled to find something that was both evergreen and fruiting to put along this shady fence.

I did some searching for information on propagation. It's pretty interesting how many sites contain exactly the same text, with no indication of the original source! The upshot is that propagation from cuttings can be sporadic. Growing from seeds works well.

Propagation questions came to mind both because I might like to put more along the fence, and because the squirrel attack resulted in one broken branch, which I immediately stuck into a pot of wet dirt and have been watering. It seems to be doing fine, showing new growth, and a slight tug seems to offer resistance that suggests root formation. We'll see!

References:

hops growing vigorously

2010-03-08T17:48:00.000-08:00

The Cascade and Centennial hops have been up for at least a month. The Centennials in particular are growing rapidly. I'll need to get the twine strung pretty soon.

The Goldings are just now making an appearance but look very stout.

These are all from the rhizomes I planted last year. They didn't go in until May 9, and didn't sprout until May 17. The difference in vigor is enormous. I think in just a few more weeks they'll be about where they were in June. Perhaps I'll have a real crop this year!

remnants of last year's garden

2010-03-08T17:38:00.000-08:00

Pulled the next-to-last square of beets yesterday. Roasted the roots, and used all of the greens in a beef barley stew. The greens were lovely, having been growing nicely for weeks.

The chard has continued to produce steadily, surviving both dry soil and a complete waterlogging. It's definitely been happier in the greenhouse.

The curly parsley in the greenhouse has been growing vigorously for a few weeks.

Italian parsley that I planted late in the year and didn't ever do much has begun growing, too.

The carrots both indoors and out have stayed small but I imagine will take off soon.

The fennel in the greenhouse mostly survived but has a lot of aphids on it already. I don't think it liked the period of terribly high humidity, either.

The parsnips in a bucket paused, but have begun growing again. I planted these really late and also left them in small pots for too long.

Small lettuces also seemed to idle away the winter, growing slowly but doing fine.

In general it seems that all these biennials did OK.

a gutter planter

2010-03-08T17:28:00.000-08:00

I've toyed with vertical gardening ideas for a long time. Before I decided to build the greenhouse last year my thoughts were largely of going vertically up the back wall of the house. It still seems to me that with the right approach a big south-facing wall could be enormously productive without being a ton of work. But, that's not what I did.

The other night I happened across this article about using rain gutters as planters. It mentions people using gutters around deck railing, too. My deck is perfect for this, and I've always meant to build planters to run along that sunny rail. A trip to Home Depot and a couple of hours of work and I now have nearly 19 feet of seeded planter in a supremely convenient location.

It's worth mentioning that the gutter itself is dirt cheap at $5 per 10 foot segment, but man do they put the screws to you on every other bit you need. I was about $40 by the time I had the end caps, connecting segment, and supports every two feet. But compared to the wooden planters I've built and hung in other places it's less expensive, rock solid on the railing, and should last forever.

It's a bit of an experiment, but I'm pretty confident that I'll find something that works in it really well.

2010-05-22 update: It's working nicely.

carrots from the square foot beds

2010-03-08T17:20:00.000-08:00

Several weeks ago the boys and I finally pulled the two squares of Nantes carrots they planted last spring. We never thinned them adequately, so had quite a few smallish ones. We got 38 ounces in all.

They were pretty good. Some were a little ragged for having spent the entire winter outdoors. They were not as sweet as I'd expected. I'm going to try a couple of other varieties this year, plant less heavily, and thin more thoroughly.

getting started with Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day

2010-01-31T20:34:00.000-08:00

For Christmas Tracey gave me Healthy Bread in Five Minutes a Day. I don't have the authors' first book, Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day, but I was familiar with the basic technique: make a large batch of a wet dough, store it in the refrigerator, and use it as needed for the next couple of weeks. A wet dough is the basic alternative to kneading because it gives the flour's gluten strands a way to align on their own rather than through laborious manual intervention. The downside is that wet doughs must be handled pretty carefully and are hard to shape.

I started with the first recipe, for the whole grain artisan free form loaf:

720 grams (5.5 cups) whole wheat flour
270 grams (2 cups) unbleached AP flour
15 grams (1.5 tablespoons) granulated yeast
15 grams (1 tablespoon) Kosher salt (calibrated for Morton's)
35 grams (1/4 cup) vital wheat gluten
900 grams (4 cups) lukewarm water

I went by weight rather than volume and was surprised to see how inaccurate the equivalencies were for water: 4 cups or 2 pounds or 900 grams. Four cups of water is more like 33.5 ounces and 946 grams. The ratios of flour to water by weight in both the supplied standard and metric units are very close, though, so I guess what this really comes down to is that measuring flour by volume is pretty haphazard. I used a white whole wheat flour.

It rapidly doubled or tripled in size, at which point it refrigerated it. The next day I made two small loaves, one plain and one sprinkled with a dry Tuscan herb mix. I need a new and less broken pizza stone so this time I baked on a greased hollow-core cookie sheet.

This is the first time I've tried steam baking. Between two and three cups of ice cubes on a broiler pan provided steam for perhaps 25 minutes, but took a few minutes to get going. It would be better to give the ice a head start before inserting the loaves. I also tried hot tap water for subsequent loaves; I think this is superior as it produces steam almost immediately and is easier to quantify.

This dough spreads out quite a bit after being formed and resting for 90 minutes. I think my technique could have been better, resulting in a tighter loaf. However, oven spring was significant, as promised.

They baked at 460 for 30 minutes, which seemed about right. The crust is nicely crispy. Crumb was tender and not too dense. Flavor was a bit bland and undersalted, to my taste. This dough should develop sourdough characteristics over time, so a comparison in a few days will be interesting.

At five days I made another loaf. The refrigerated dough was weeping a bit, which is not a problem. This one came out pretty flat; I did not do a good job of shaping it or tucking the sides under. After 90 minutes of rising it was very wide and squat. The flavor was somewhat improved, I thought. Definitely needs salt.

The dough was six days old when I used the last of it. This time I floured the dough and my hands better and took more care in shaping the loaf while still doing it in under 20 seconds. More flour is a big help, and I think also helps the dough hold its shape while rising.

This time I baked for 20 minutes on the cookie sheet, then 10 minutes on the rack. The top crusts so far had been great, but with pallid bottoms. This helped a little, but what I really need is a new stone. In the meantime I should try rising on parchment paper and baking in the dutch oven.

The last loaf turned out the best although it was still irregularly shaped and proportioned. Tucking the sides completely and evenly may be the key to avoiding this, for even though the loaf initially looks perfectly symmetrical the manner in which it rises and springs reveals the internal inconsistencies. I'll have to try the letter-fold technique, too. Also, this loaf was a little larger (17 ounces after baking) and perhaps that causes it to collapse a bit under its own weight.

For the second dough I chose the 100% whole wheat with olive oil:

910 grams whole wheat flour
15 grams granulated yeast
15 grams kosher salt
35 grams vital wheat gluten
790 grams lukewarm water
110 grams olive oil

I mixed this right in the dough bucket with the leftover bits from the previous batch, which is supposed to provide a jump on developing sourdough flavor. This can be done with up to two cups of the old dough. I increased the salt by eight grams from the prescribed 15.

By this time I was getting a little better at shaping the loaves.

Because the loaf is supposed to be formed in only 20 to 40 seconds if there is a major malformation it's probably unwise to try to correct it.

The second loaf was better shaped and also small, at only 11 ounces baked. I baked it on parchment paper in a preheated dutch oven, uncovered. Oven spring was quite good. For a loaf that fits this is far better than a cookie sheet.

The third loaf was considerably larger at over 17 ounces baked and also fairly well shaped. And, my new baking stone had arrived. Oven spring was good, but I think the stone needed more preheating. It's much thicker than my old pizza stone.

For the fourth loaf I tried the garlic-studded baguette recipe. It was my first attempt at the letter-fold method and it did not go very well. For one thing, I should have made a smaller loaf; this one suffered quite a bit of abuse. For another, I tried using a pizza peel and even though it was liberally cornmealed the loaf offered considerable resistance to my dislodgement efforts. The result was unattractively irregular, to say the least. Also, I did not shove the garlic down deeply enough to keep it from popping out.

As for flavor, pretty uninspired. The garlic doesn't really contribute anything to any slice that doesn't have a piece.

So, what is my assessment at this point? The method is definitely low-effort. I can produce a pretty decent basic loaf and it really does require but five minutes of active effort on baking day. On the day it's baked the crust is excellent; after that it loses its crispness. (This may be a sign of slight underbaking, actually.) It has a relatively dense crumb. It keeps well for a couple of days or more. Flavor from these two basic recipes is underwhelming. I didn't think any sourdough flavors ever developed to a meaningful degree. It makes pretty tasty toast.

Will I keep doing this? Yes, I think I will. I'll keep working my way through the book and I'm sure some of the recipes will be more interesting. And at the very least this is a way to have fresh bread on any given day with very little effort and not too much wall time either.

bottle conditioning hard cider with raisins

2010-01-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

At the same time I bottled the raspberry-pomegranate cider I added some priming corn sugar to the last bit of cider number 3 hoping that I'd get some carbonation. Even after several weeks the plastic liter bottle (laden with deadly bisphenol A, no doubt) had developed no pressure. I figured that whatever yeast it still contained after being racked twice and filtered once was either dead or fast asleep.

Thinking back to the kvas recipe I tossed in three raisins and put it in a dark cupboard to think about what it had done. I gave it a friendly squeeze after a couple of weeks, and sure enough the bottle was quite firm. Another week or two and it was rock hard so I opened 'er up.

Well, very very nice! The raisins made no undesirable flavor contribution as far as I could tell, and the moderate carbonation was an excellent enhancement.

As a further bonus the raisins provide live entertainment as they accumulate carbon dioxide, lazily climb to the surface, release their cargo, then drift back to the bottom.

I don't know if there's any particular reason to carbonate this way instead of using priming sugar and residual yeast when bottling, but it seems to be a handy trick for circumstances like this.

first year garden retrospective

2009-12-31T12:56:00.000-08:00

Here are my retrospective notes on the first year of gardening. I'll keep it updated as more things occur to me.

Started way too late this year. This was a significant factor.

The drip irrigation system was a huge time saver and worked well with this quick-drying soil mix. However, it's also very easy to overwater. Need to be sure that the right drippers are used and properly dialed in.

Swiss chard in the greenhouse did very well. Five per square is a little tight but works. Even after our days-long hard freeze, which knocked down most of the stalks, it came right back and started producing new growth.

The low bird netting fence around the outdoor beds kept squirrels out. It's fragile, though. I saw some other types of net fencing at Home Depot that would work better.

Nylon net trellises worked great for vertical support of tomatoes and cucumbers.

The strawberry box moved into the greenhouse did pretty well compared to the box that stayed outside. Didn't get much production from these scrawny plants, though.

Transplanted basil did fine in the greenhouse.

Potato vine growth in the boxes was vigorous but the yield was good only near the bottom of the boxes, despite using late-harvest varieties. Were they overplanted? Should I have covered the vines to a greater or lesser degree as they grew? I think there's conflicting information about this technique. Need to do more research.

There were some rotten potatoes, probably due to overwatering and poor drainage beneath the boxes.

Dill is an aphid magnet. I suspect it may have kept aphids off some of the nearly plants. Can this be exploited?

Some of the hops had a lot more aphids than others. Why?

I started out pruning tomatoes to a single main stalk, but got out of the habit. At the end of August the cherry and Roma grape vines went berserk, especially after I got the irrigation system installed. I think I would have had better and earlier yield if I'd managed this carefully.

Lots of blossom end rot on tomatoes, particularly the Roma grapes. I think this improved once I fertilized but it was a little late.

Lots of blossom end rot on zucchini. It was much worse on one vine than another, and nearly total on the yellow zucchini.

Not have a single acorn squash grew beyond the size of a golf ball before falling off. Is this a nutrition problem?

Very heavy blossoming and initial fruiting on the lemon cucumbers, particularly the one I started in the greenhouse, but the vast majority fell off. Do these need hand pollination indoors? Is this a nutrition problem?

Some of the bell peppers, both indoors and out, produced a lot of flowers and small fruits that fell off. Do these need hand pollination indoors? Is this a nutrition problem?

Japanese eggplants kept falling off. I think fertilization fixed this.

Japanese eggplants were attacked by sow bugs or pill bugs.

Strawberries were attacked by sow bugs or pill bugs. Need to try to get them off the ground. Maybe use metal legs beneath the boxes?

Squirrels constantly harassed the strawberries and dug in the beds until I fenced them.

Beds to the west of the greenhouse do not get much sun, partly due to the bedroom balcony.

By the time of winter solstice the greenhouse is getting very little sun because of the house behind us. Permanent glazing should keep it pretty bright, though.

Very low pea production. Not only were they started late, I think they were way too sparsely planted. They did not grow vigorously even out front where they had a lot of sun, so I think there was a nutrition problem too.

Heavy and tall plants like peppers and dill tend to fall over in this loose soil mix.

Very high failure rate for strawberries from Irish Eyes.

Many of the blueberries and grapes Raintree sent were disappointing.

Radishes bolted immediately. We had very hot weather at the time.

Planted carrots much too heavily. They all seemed to germinate and it's hard to thin such a forest.

Oregano died quickly in the greenhouse. May have overwatered.

Looks like curly parsley can grow all winter in the greenhouse.

Leeks and green onions took a very long time to sprout in the greenhouse and never grew well.

I did not do a good job of thinning in general. In cases where I failed to thin beets they did not grow well. Same with lettuce mixes. Need to consistently use Mel's method of just snipping with scissors.

Basil started from seed in the greenhouse either never sprouted or took forever to grow.

It's pretty hard to train squash vines to climb the nylon netting, particularly against a wall.

Neither one of the Fuggle hop rhizomes sprouted. Lame.

I think the geraniums inside the greenhouse would have kept going for a long time if I'd continued watering. One still looks halfway decent, in fact.

Overwatering in the greenhouse led to a great deal of condensation, which dramatically affects light transmission. Humidity was probably much higher than it should have been on a lot of occasions. By the time the weather cooled I had serious mold problems, particularly on the tomatoes.

Despite the soccer net mounted in front of the grape arbor the grapes really took a beating. Think about putting up something larger.

Cilantro did not do well in the greenhouse. Not sure why; seems like the right conditions.

Parsleys planted from seed did not flourish in the greenhouse.

The collard greens and zucchini had quite a bit of powdery mildew.

Growing greens in the side bed beneath evergreens is problematic because of the sap that drips or mists from above. They either need to be covered or grown elsewhere.

The attempt to grow collards inverted in hanging planters was a failure. They want desperately to turn upward and grow right back where they came from. I think for anything to work this way it has to hang heavily.

Green beans never germinated. I think we had heavy rains after I planted them. Would have been better to transplant.

Had very mixed results with peppers, both indoors and out. Some were productive, some died. I think soil temperature is a big issue for getting peppers established.

Many of the Tall Telegraph cucumbers in the greenhouse fell off while small. Why?

Bok choi never grew large before bolting, both indoors and out.

The hops didn't produce anywhere near enough to be useful this first year, but hopefully they have built good root systems.

Potted mint in the greenhouse does well. Leaves stay compact. It's fairly dormant but still green at the end of December.

Things to research:

Potato box methods.
Companion plantings.
Do peppers need hand pollination in the greenhouse?
Do cucumbers need hand pollination in the greenhouse?
Gardening When It Counts has a lot of information on compost quality. Read it.
Growing oregano, cilantro, flat leaf parsley in the greenhouse.
...

Things to do and do differently:

Try Coleman's idea (Four Season Harvest) of a twice-tempered climate.
Set up drip irrigation for hanging baskets.
Do some soil testing and proper fertilization. I don't think the Mel's Mix in fact had nearly everything that some of the plants wanted.
Don't buy strawberries from that Irish Eyes place again. Very high failure rate.
Think twice about buying by mail, generally, even when it's cheaper. Would have done better to pay a little more at Sky or Fred Meyer.
Choose plants that require less light for the beds west of the greenhouse.
Pay more attention to plant height and light requirements otherwise unwanted shading occurs.
The tomatoes in the center of the greenhouse took up a lot of space. Maybe use only the beds at the back? That's where the vines can use the most vertical space, too.
Manage water in the greenhouse more carefully.
Convert to permanent greenhouse glazing.
Use more vertical space in the greenhouse with hanging baskets.
Try diluted milk as a remedy for powdery mildew. See articles at http://planetgreen.discovery.com/home-garden/powdery-milk-mildew.html, http://growagreenplanet.com/dealing-with-powdery-mildew-7-home-made-remedies-that-really-work/, and http://www.gardenguides.com/pests/tips/powderymildew.asp.
Cut the butterfly bush back hard to let more light into the side bed.
Need to do a lot of indoor planting for transplantation this year. Think about whether to try this in the greenhouse with some supplemental heat.
Pay closer attention to temperature requirements when putting plants outdoors. Just because they are available at the nursery doesn't mean they should go in the ground.
Need to do a much better job of incremental planting so that crops are available continuously. Examples are radishes, carrots, lettuce.
Try a zig-zag climbing arrangement for the hops like Andy did on his garage.
...

no-knead cranberry-walnut bread

2009-12-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

I used the Cooks Illustrated no-knead bread 2.0 recipe with the cranberry-pecan variant, substituting walnuts for pecans and adding a tablespoon of wheat gluten. The vinegar was a 7.0% white wine vinegar and the beer was my light ale. I used the bottom of the bottle thinking I might pick up some additional yeastiness.

The starter was in the bowl for about 16 hours, then spent the night in the refrigerator. I kneaded it while cold and then it rose for a few hours.

Turned out fine, and it's very pretty inside.

It seems a touch dry to me and I think I'd increase the cranberries and decrease the nuts next time. It makes very good toast.

excellent no-knead olive rosemary bread

2009-12-22T13:46:00.000-08:00

I thought an olive rosemary bread would be nice for Christmas Eve so I looked back over some previous efforts. (Hey, a year into this blogging business and it gratifying to find that it's as helpful a reference as I'd hoped.)

This almost no-knead loaf using the Cooks Illustrated method was great aside from the flattish shape. I went with something close to it, but drier in keeping with the original CI recipe:

3 cups all purpose flour less 3 tablespoons
3 tablespoons wheat gluten
1.5 teaspoons salt
rounded 1/4 teaspoon rapid rise yeast
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon water
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon goldenflower ale (homemade)
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar (homemade)
1/2 cup chopped kalamata olives
1 tablespoon dried rosemary, lightly crushed

Mixed this into a shaggy ball and covered at 13:00. Kneaded for 30 seconds at 8:30 the next morning, formed into a loaf, and put it onto parchment paper in a small skillet. It was easy to work and very resilient. Looked promising, though I should have used more flour to get a smoother exterior and permit more symmetric shaping. I was thinking that this one would be, shall we say, rustic.

It rose well over the next two hours, then went into the covered dutch oven preheated on the bottom rack to 500 degrees. Lowered to 425 and baked for 30 minutes covered and 20 uncovered to 206 degrees internal.

Holy guacamole señors y señoritas, it's gorgeous. I can see that the technique of forming the loaf by pulling the dough from several directions into the middle and then using that seam as the base worked perfectly. That has been too difficult to do with other no-knead doughs. Letting it rise in a smaller skillet also worked well. And it bounced or sprang or whatever you call it in the oven better than any other bread I've baked.

Now, two hours of sweet torment listening to it softly crackle into coolness.

GOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!

It's superb. This is the closest thing to perfection to ever come out of my oven. The crust is spectacularly flaky and crisp, the crumb is chewy and stretchy and soft, and the flavor is heavenly. I'm about to dislocate one shoulder patting myself on the back and the other lunging for another piece.

I can tell that I used dried rosemary. There's no textural problem, but the flavor is clearly that of the dried herb. I'll use fresh next time. I wouldn't mind more olives, either.

Other than that I don't know how it could be any better. Well, I suppose it could be, but I am totally satisfied with this outcome. Outstanding ROI. I'll probably make another.

meat grades and quality at various stores

2009-12-20T23:28:00.000-08:00

While contemplating my Christmas dinner menu and looking at ad sheets I began wondering about quality differences between the beef sold under various store brands.

There's a thread at Chowhound in which someone states that Safeway as a corporation sells USDA Select, not Choice, and that the Rancher's Reserve label is ungraded but falls between Select and Choice. According to the Safeway site, "With Rancher's Reserve, you can feel confident you're serving the most premium, tender beef available anywhere". Here's an article in BEEF Magazine about the patented tenderness measurement and intervention processes used. It's quite interesting and makes a pretty convincing case for why you can indeed rely on this brand for tenderness. However, I'm not at all sure that the focus group results indicating tenderness to be the most important aspect of beef-eating satisfaction are representative of my views. If that electro-stimulated and mechanically-stretched strip steak is tender but lacks enough intramuscular fat to be juicy and flavorful, I'm not going to be satisfied. The USDA quality grading system may be unreliable with respect to tenderness but I suspect it's better for assuring flavor.

TOP Food & Drug carries the Five Star brand. The TOP web site says "Our USDA Choice Natural beef is tender, flavorful, and mouth-wateringly juicy. It is natural with no additives and skillfully crafted by our meat experts". I can't find anything else about it online. I haven't purchased much beef there.

QFC sells the Certified Angus Beef brand. It does not appear to be USDA graded but here's an explanation of where the brand fits in to the USDA scheme and the additional quality specifications they use. It looks like they use their own Prime label. I very rarely shop at QFC and don't think I've ever purchased it.

Costco carries USDA Choice at a minimum, and some Prime. I've generally been pleased with the Choice grade New York strips and ribeyes. Filet mignon and sirloin have been kind of hit-or-miss for me.

Whatever Fred Meyer sells is generally pretty crummy. I discover this anew every time I stupidly buy a steak there. I see that the "tender, juicy and oh, so savory" rib eye roast they are advertising is USDA Select. Mmm.

Central Market has a real butcher shop in the store. I haven't purchased much meat there. It looks like one of their brands is Country Natural Beef. This is an Oregon cooperative that, from the web site, appears to not suffer from some of the "natural" and "organic" nonsense described in The Omnivore's Dilemma.

I should undertake a more deliberate study of the options. I'm pretty pleased with Costco but shopping there is generally far too inconvenient for me to just run out and pick something up for dinner.

second rye sourdough bread

2009-12-19T19:35:00.000-08:00

I pulled the rye sourdough starter out of the refrigerator yesterday and fed it. Today I tried another rye sourdough recipe, at http://www.recipezaar.com/Crusty-Sourdough-Rye-Bread-170558. It uses yeast as well as sourdough, at least in the less-than-a-day variant.

It starts with a cup of starter, a cup and a half of rye flour, and a cup of water. This can be used immediately or allowed to do its thing and develop some sourness. I let it stand for six hours. It was lively and the volume increased significantly, but it wasn't particularly sour.

A cup of whole wheat flour, a cup and three fourths of all-purpose flour, salt, sugar, caraway seeds, and proofed yeast go in next. I kneaded for nine minutes. This dough was quite manageable; far less sticky and easier to handle than the previous attempt. As instructed, I added flour whenever it felt like it was reaching the point of adherence to something other than itself.

It rose for an hour and a half. I then punched it down, lightly kneaded, let it rise for another half hour.

This is the first time I've used the spray technique. For the first nine minutes at 425 degrees I sprayed every three minutes. It then spent another 25 minutes at 400.

Looked great! It rested for about half an hour while we had dinner. It was still warm, but irresistible. The boys and I sampled it.

Very nice, though not sour at all. In fact, I thought it had a faint sweetness from the whole wheat. Pillowy soft crumb, thin but crispy crust, and good rye and caraway flavors. I think this recipe is a winner. Next time I think I'll give the chef a good 24 hours and see if I can get some sourness.

2009-12-21 update: It's holding up really well. Made great sandwiches yesterday. Very nice with gruyere today.

stovetop versus hot air roasting test 1

2009-12-18T18:05:00.000-08:00

I'm finally getting around to doing some controlled tests between hot air coffee roasting and stovetop popper roasting. For this test I used Sweet Maria's Moka Kadir blend.

Stovetop roasting was outdoors at about 50 degrees, high humidity, no wind. Hot air using the Poppery II was indoors at about 68 degrees. Beans started at room temperature in both cases.

I roasted 10 ounces in the stovtop roaster, ending up with 8.43 ounces. Temperature was 550+ at bean drop. I ran it hotter than usual, staying above 350 for the duration and climbing to around 450 at the end. It came out at 4:20 with heavy smoke and some beans well into second crack. This was a fast and uneven roast.

I roasted 5 ounces in the hot air popper, ending up with 4.2 ounces. I preheated the popper for a few minutes and agitated the beans for the first few minutes as well. By three minute it was fluidizing unassisted, with a few already very dark and others barely colored. It came out at 8:00 with moderate smoke, when I judged the color to be comparable. It was even, as usual for hot air.

The closeness of the final (proportionate) weights may be a good indicator of the average darkness being nearly identical.

Toss-cooled both outdoors. There's a nonlinear relationship between mass and cooling time; the smaller batch takes perhaps one fourth as long. I don't have a way to measure the internal bean temperature so don't know whether that's also a factor.

Stovetop results:

Hot air results:

Tasted after resting for a day, pulling single shots. The grind was a little fine (30+ seconds). The hot air beans were a touch slower.

The stovetop-roasted coffee's initial moderate acidity mellows into sweetness, some fruit. Can detect both the very dark and bright tones, probably due to variability in bean doneness. It has both a slightly underdone and a slightly overdone quality, but it's quite good. I think it will be better in a day but it's totally drinkable.

The air-roasted coffee produced much more crema and the espresso had a much stronger coffee aroma. The acidity stays on the tongue considerably longer, with the sweetness blending into it. There is less complexity in the flavors and it's just not as lively. More body. Also good, but I think I slightly prefer the stovetop variant.

For the next test I should slow down the stovetop roast and try to reduce the variability in darkness. This can be done by starting at a lower initial temperature, running at a lower gas setting, or using more beans. Weather is a factor, too. While my opinion is that some variation is actually desirable, being responsible for the more interesting flavors, a better comparison can be made if it is limited.

Overall, a pretty successful test. I'll happily drink both of these roasts straight, with milk, and as Americano.

hard raspberry-pomegranate-apple cider, part 3

2009-12-16T16:02:00.000-08:00

The raspberry-pomegranate-apple cider, bottled back in November, is really good. It has clarified beautifully, is nicely carbonated, and has lost its yeastiness. The flavors are well balanced. I didn't take any gravity measurements so I don't know the ABV but it has a surprising kick. I'd say it's in the 6% to 7% range.

I don't know that I'd be able to identify the non-apple fruit flavors without knowing the ingredients, but it definitely has a detectable touch of something different.

I should make something like this again. A puree of a couple of whole pomegranates per gallon of apple cider would probably be sufficient to dramatically affect both color and flavor.

I bottled this in the clear EZ-cap bottles that did not seal well when used for a previous ale. That must have been a usage error, as I've not had any trouble since then.

book wish list

2009-12-16T12:48:00.000-08:00

This reference entry tracks the set of cooking, roasting, and brewing related books I'm interested in acquiring at any given time.

Preserving Food without Freezing or Canning: Traditional Techniques Using Salt, Oil, Sugar, Alcohol, Vinegar, Drying, Cold Storage, and Lactic Fermentation

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

Root Cellaring: Natural Cold Storage of Fruits and Vegetables

The Encyclopedia of Country Living: An Old Fashioned Recipe Book

Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: The Discovery That Revolutionizes Home Baking

The Flavor Bible: The Essential Guide to Culinary Creativity, Based on the Wisdom of America's Most Imaginative Chefs

The Homebrewer's Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs

Secret Ingredients: The New Yorker Book of Food and Drink

Roast Chicken And Other Stories

Kitchen Mysteries: Revealing the Science of Cooking

Molecular Gastronomy: Exploring the Science of Flavor

Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Pure Flavor: 125 Fresh All-American Recipes from the Pacific Northwest

Cracking the Coconut: Classic Thai Home Cooking

I'm Just Here for More Food

Healthy Bread in Just Five Minutes a Day

The Complete Chile Pepper Book

Wild Fermentation: The Flavor, Nutrition, and Craft of Live-Culture Foods

first rye sourdough a whacking great failure

2009-12-16T12:44:00.000-08:00

Wanting to do something else with the home-grown rye sourdough starter I made for the kvas, I turned to this recipe for sourdough rye bread. Man, what a train wreck. I probably erred in not using bread flour, but I had none on hand.

The dough was unbelievably sticky. It was like trying to knead Liquid Nails. I don't think it reached the desired texture but I just couldn't spend more time on it. It remained kind of grainy. Cleaning my hands and the cutting board took nearly as long as kneading. I'm not sure whether I should have just kept plowing flour into it to achieve something workable.

It rose moderately, and for about six hours overall. However, because of the very slack dough the small loaves did not develop much height, and when I slashed them they instantly deflated, leaving me with two football-shaped hamburger buns. I baked on a hollow cookie sheet with corn meal rather than oil.

The crust was rough and decidedly ugly.

I figured I might as well try it hot, so I did. The strong rye and caraway flavors were pretty good, actually. It's about like a rye crisp cracker in flavor, with that kind of crackle when biting the crust, and a soft interior that combines nicely with the crunchiness. It is not terribly dense, defying my expectations for loaves that are less than two inches in height. There's no stretchiness to the crumb. It has no sourness when warm. It made really good toast the next morning, dressed with butter and peach jam. Still no sourness, though. I think the starter may be too young.

I guess it's tasty enough, aside from the aesthetics and awkward dimensions, that I'd try it again. If the dough can be made more manageable and the shape corrected then doubling or tripling the recipe might be worthwhile.

book list

2009-12-15T21:55:00.000-08:00

This reference entry will be maintained as a list of cooking, roasting, brewing, and general gastronomy books that I've either read or use as references. This initial partial post is so I can get it linked for future updating.

cooking

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee is the cook's indispensable reference for food science. This is the 2004 update to the original 1984 edition. It describes the history and nature of all types of foods, as well as the transformation of those raw materials into finished products ranging from cheeses to breads to sauces to fermented drinks. It contains a chemistry primer.

I have not yet read it completely. It's a good random access book and every page delivers fascinating reading.

The Curious Cook: More Kitchen Science and Lore by Harold McGee...

The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen offers BBQ techniques and recipes from around the world. It's not the only BBQ book you might want, but if you were limited to one this might be it. It is well organized and has the excellent feature of calling out in obvious fashion the prep time. I often find that I draw ideas from various regional recipes and end up with a fusion of some kind.

I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking by Alton Brown was my introduction to cooking as a science. As anyone who has seen Good Eats knows, Alton is entertaining and the book is loaded with techniques, food science, and some decent recipes. It's pretty poorly edited, though. Certainly a gateway to the works of McGee, whose works are much more technical but still quite accessible.

The New Best Recipe Cookbook from Cooks Illustrated magazine is an immense collection of recipes developed in the Cooks Illustrated test kitchens. It also includes much of the explanatory content that is found in the magazine.

Last Thanksgiving I got excellent results with the large turkey roasting technique (but used an Alton Brown brine rather than a Butterball). The discussion of how to make a good stuffing was also useful, and I liked the apple, onion, and bacon variation (though I overcooked mine).

The Gourmet Cookbook edited by Ruth Reichl is a huge collection of recipes from the late great Gourmet magazine. I've had good results. I do have a major usability complaint in that all of the titles are in a low-contrast shade of yellow that is very difficult to see.

French Cooking in Ten Minutes: Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life by Edouard de Pomiane is a fantastic little book. I've written a bit more about it here.

The Short-Cut Cook by Jacques Pepin has many elegant recipes that can be prepared quite quickly. The cold cucumber yogurt soup is one of my favorites. I've never been disappointed by a recipe in this book. (The Amazon link goes to a newer edition than mine.)

roasting

Home Coffee Roasting by Kenneth Davids is a good introduction to roasting. It covers roast styles, bean varieties, equipment, methods, and the like. It provides a sufficiently detailed look at the alternatives for home roasting that one can readily decide which to pursue. However, one then quickly discovers that there is much more to learn about that particular method than was exposed in the text, and that the author's experiences with a particular method may not be representative.

brewing

How To Brew: Everything You Need to Know to Brew Beer Right the First Time by John J Palmer was my first brewing book. I purchased it after reading online the writings that eventually grew to become this text. I think it is very good. It has a friendly organization that gets you started brewing right away, then in subsequent chapters delves into quite a bit of science and technique. I turn to it frequently as a reference. I have not tried any of the recipes.

general gastronomy

The Man Who Ate Everything by Jeffrey Steingarten is one of the most entertaining books I've ever read. Steingarten is so funny, clever, and tenacious that when he turns his attention to a gastronomical pursuit the results are both hilarious and tremendously educational. It's worth rereading any time.

The introduction, in which he describes his personal program for overcoming a large number of food aversions, is fascinating.

It Must Have Been Something I Ate by Jeffrey Steingarten is essentially a second volume of The Man Who Ate Everything. Brilliant.

Are You Really Going to Eat That?: Reflections of a Culinary Thrill Seeker by Robb Walsh is a selection of essays on food and culture from around the world. It is part travelogue, part natural history, and part cookbook. Fascinating stuff.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan is a slightly uneven look at foods derived from industrial corn, pastoral grass, and the forest. It drags in places, but the basic idea is interesting and Pollan is a good writer. I find his thinking and the depth of his fact checking suspect in a couple of places, but I appreciate his willingness to express uncertainty as well.

The role of industrial corn in the American (and, increasingly, global) diet is probably the most politically and scientifically charged section. The degree to which human and livestock food should be engineered is a question laden with ecological, societal, and nutritional controversy. Even without contemplating those issues, the picture Pollan paints of our huge food industry being built almost entirely on commodity corn is startling (and a little long).

The section on grass farming is really interesting. It's largely about a farmer in Virginia who operates on the principle that if you manage your pastures and other natural resources properly you can produce impressive yields of beef, chicken, pork, rabbit, eggs, and just about anything else organically and without the use of factory farming methods. It also explores "big organic" and the reality that most organic produce is now being produced using industrial-scale methods that may not violate some set of organic standards but definitely violate the ill-defined notions most people have about how their organic produce, milk, meat, and eggs were made and delivered.

Hunting, gathering, and the ethics of eating meat are addressed in the final section. This part of the book covers some interesting material but aside from the ethical questions doesn't offer as deep or relevant an exploration of food as the earlier pages.

Overall, definitely worth reading.

The Pedant in the Kitchen by Julian Barnes is a brief and amusing biography of "a late-onset cook" who in the kitchen is "an anxious pedant" rather than an inspired free spirit. "I adhere," he says, "to gas marks and cooking times. I trust instruments rather than myself. I doubt I shall ever test whether a chunk of meat is done by prodding it with my forefinger. The only liberty I take with a recipe is to increase the quantity of an ingredient of which I particularly approve. That this is not an infallible precept was confirmed by an epically filthy dish I once made involving mackerel, Martini and breadcrumbs: the guests were more drunk than sated."

It is very funny stuff, and an intriguing look into the mind of someone with whom I may share some pedantic tendencies, thought generally not in the kitchen. Still, in the case of Nigel Slater's recipes I could appreciate some of the author's frustration. His discussion of various cookbook authors and what he finds objectionable or sublime is wonderful, and introduced me to Edouard de Pomiane (see above).

His rants are drily comical. "Being a great cook is one thing; being a decent cookery writer is quite another, ... 'Artists should have their tongues cut out,' Matisse once said, and the same - if even more metaphorically - applies to many chefs."

The Unprejudiced Palate: Classic Thoughts on Food and the Good Life by Angelo Pellegrini describes the author's childhood in Italy, his emigration to the United States, and his thoughts on growing, preparing, and eating food. Pellegrini settled in Seattle and was an English professor at the University of Washington. As he died in 1991 the majority of his time in this country was during what I suppose was the low ebb of American culinary culture. The love and respect for wholesome and simple food that was his heritage and avocation was desperately out of place in space and time. His writing is a reminder of how fortunate I am to have had my values develop in the context of home-grown and healthy food as a child, the abundant resources of the Pacific Northwest, and this period of culinary reawakening.

The Amazon link is to a newer edition. Mine has a great afterword by M.F.K. Fisher.

Gastronaut: Adventures in Food for the Romantic, the Foolhardy, and the Brave by Stefan Gates...

french cooking in ten minutes

2009-12-15T18:33:00.000-08:00

Edouard de Pomiane and his 1930 book French Cooking in Ten Minutes OR Adapting to the Rhythm of Modern Life are mentioned by Julian Barnes in The Pedant in the Kitchen. It's discussed at some length, actually, and sounded delightful to me. I have now read the translation by Philip and Mary Hyman and have been trying some recipes. It is indeed a wonderful little book.

Pomiane was an eminent medical doctor and researcher at the Pasteur Institute, not a professional chef. He was very much a food scientist, though, referring to this field as gastrotechnology. He was a renowned cooking lecturer, teacher, and radio host. He wrote twenty-two books on the art. Judging from this brief volume he was as entertaining as he was concise, and as philosophical as he was scientific.

And it's not just a collection of ten minute dishes. He has entire multi-course luncheon and dinner menus that can be prepared in ten minutes or so by a well-organized cook. (Of course he does not include the time it takes to boil water or heat oil, and allows for one dish to be finishing while its predecessor is being consumed.)

Here's how it begins:

I dedicate this book to Madame X, asking for ten minutes of her kind attention.

Heh.

Barnes mentions Tomato Soup as a dish that failed for him. It's the first one I tried. This is my paraphrase:

bring two cups of water to a boil
stir in a heaping tablespoon of tomato paste
stir in two tablespoons of finely ground semolina
salt the soup
boil for six minutes
stir in four tablespoons of heavy cream

I also added a sprinkle of tarragon. I didn't have any semolina so I ground couscous made of durum wheat. I suspect it wasn't ground finely enough, as the soup had the distinct texture of very small couscous. However, it was not an objectionable texture, it stayed in suspension, and the flavor was just fine. Just as good as any canned tomato soup I've ever had, really, and it probably cost ten cents!

I've also made the Alsatian Dumplings and Whiting Boiled in Court Bouillon. Rather than whiting fish I used striped pangasius fillets. The court bouillon was made with a bay leaf, white vinegar, curry power, ground nutmeg, black pepper, and salt. Topped with lemon butter and bread crumbs the fish was excellent. The boys loved the dumplings, which I finished with just butter, salt, and pepper.

This book is a treasure trove of simple recipes and efficient methods. Great fun.

first homemade kvas, part 1

2009-12-15T17:02:00.000-08:00

For my first kvas I used the recipe that calls for rye sourdough starter that I found at http://ask.metafilter.com/64513/Kvas-recipe:

Here is a simple recipe for kvas in every way except time (preparation takes at least 5 days, though you don't have to be paying attention the whole time) but I imagine it will be very good. My wife just got a great cookbook called "Bread Matters" and I noticed the kvas recipe in it just a few days ago.

The (five) days before, prepare a rye production sourdough (recipe below).

450 grams rye bread
4 1/2 litres water
300 grams molasses
150 grams rye production sourdough
2 raisins per bottle

Cut the bread into small pieces and dry them out thoroughly, either in a warm place or in a low oven. Put them in a bucket of at least 5 litres capacity. Boil the water and pour in over the bread. Cover and leave until the temperature has dropped to about 35 degrees. Pour the mixture through a fine sieve into another bucket. Press the crumbly sludge very gently to release the last of the liquid, but do not squeeze it hard or too much sediment will fall in. Add the molasses to the warm liquid and mix thoroughly. Then mix in the rye sourdough and leave it in a warm place for twelve hours. In the morning, strain and pour into sterilized bottles, adding the two raisins per bottle. Seal the bottles and leave them in a cool place.

If after two days, the bottles have not carbonated, give them a shake and move them to a warm place to carbonate. Drink chilled, or use as the liquid for making soup such as borshch.

In order to make rye production sourdough, you first have to make rye sourdough starter.

To make a rye sourdough starter, start by mixing together 25 grams of rye flour and 50 grams of warm water; keep these in a warm place. The next day, add another 25 grams of rye flour and 50 grams of warm water. Again on day three, and again on day four; same proportions. Leave the mixture for one more day; now you have your rye sourdough starter.

Now, take 50 grams of the starter. Add 150 grams rye flour and 300 grams water. Mix together to form a sloppy mixture and leave for 12-24 hours. Now you have your rye production sourdough.

I started with 485 grams of fresh bread.

The bread dried to 371g. Broken open it was not really fully dry inside, but close. I failed to break it into small pieces to start with.

I combined the boiling water and bread and five hours later poured, strained, and added the molasses and starter.

The water tastes just like liquid rye bread. With molasses, the flavor is just what you'd expect.

The rye sourdough starter tastes startlingly like a Belgian ale! It's crazy!

I did not do anything to avoid aeration and didn't take any sanitization steps up to this point.

The next day I bottled, ending up with three full Martinelli's bottles (25 ounces, I think), plus maybe eight ounces of dregs. I cleaned and sanitized the bottles, funnel, and filter, but did not use any gear to prevent aeration during pouring.

It had certainly fermented and was quite lively on the tongue. The molasses is the predominant flavor and it's rather sweet. I would try making this with a different adjunct, and unless it becomes dryer in the bottle I would use less.

About an inch of sediment settled in the bottles. Two days later, I opened one. Ooooooh. Aaaaaah. All but about three ounces blasted forth like foam from a fire hose. It was quite magnificent in a dancing about the sink trying to keep the walls and ceiling dry sort of way. Needless to say, what remained was murky. It wasn't all that different in flavor or carbonation from when it went into the bottle. The boys didn't really like it. I thought it was OK for sipping but it's not what I'd call a refreshing beverage.

About a week ago I bought a two liter bottle of homemade kvas at European Foods. The proprietor told me to exercise caution when opening it. It was quite explosive, all right. Even the third and fourth openings caused it to release mighty blasts of CO2 and completely stir up the sediment. Hmm.

Well, crud. I'm going to leave the other two bottles alone for a while and think about how to better extract their contents. Mayhap extreme cold would help. At the very least I'll have to capture it and if it's not drinkable use it as a soup base or something.

auriferous espresso in the Poppery II

2009-12-15T14:14:00.000-08:00

I tried five ounces of Sweet Maria's Auriferous Espresso blend in the Poppery II. This was an amount that I thought would work well, based on the first attempt at four and the second attempt at six ounces.

I let the popper preheat for a few minutes, and gave it a shake now and then during the early going since it was not fluidizing. The beans in this blend are generally larger than the beans in Moka Kadir; perhaps that's a factor. At ten minutes I pulled the plug, with it very audibly in second crack. Color is even. Final weight was 4.13 ounces.

There was enough smoke to set off the alarm, even though I was running the fan on the range hood. That did not happen last time; I was surprised.

After a couple of days rest, I'm pretty pleased. It's a touch dark but I don't detect any other flaws. I think I'm ready (on a day with slightly less revolting weather) to do some head-to-head comparisons between the Poppery II and the stovetop popper.

second use of Poppery II

2009-12-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

The Poppery II does work better with more beans. The first attempt was with four ounces of Moka Kadir; the second was with six. In eight and a half minutes it produced a glossy dark roast with plenty of smoke and cracking. Final weight was 4.87 ounces, or 86% of original weight. That's an interesting result. I usually see something closer to 80%.

The main problem is that while the beans are heaviest they aren't getting much agitation. It takes a few minutes before any degree of fluidization is evident. Some of the beans at the bottom were done very quickly. Giving it a shake now and then seems to help.

Tipping it back doesn't appear to be a good idea. It seems to interfere with the fluidization. A few beans do pop out when it's level, but not as many as I'd feared.

This roast ended up slightly uneven, but I think it will be better next time. Things to try:

no tilting
occasional manual agitation
five ounces

The immediately-pulled shots were an improvement. Lots of crema, though not the foaming torrent from the last roast. The under-roasted flavor is gone and the solvent notes are faint. It's still pretty bad, as experience suggests will be the case before resting for a couple of days, but I think it may turn out all right.

After resting for a day there was some improvement. It's darker than I usually take Moka Kadir, with a bit of char. Aroma is nice, with chocolate dominant.

Update: It's not improving. It's not producing good espresso at all, in fact. I wonder whether I just need to clean the espresso machine.

Update: Indeed. That thing was disgusting. It's now decalcified and every user-accessible component is spotless. Whisked out the grinder, too. Pulled shots pretty close to the ideal time/volume. The result is a much cleaner-tasting cup. My main objection is probably the darkness of the roast, which I think has destroyed some of the fruitiness that I've tasted in Moka Kadir in previous roasts.

drying hot peppers

2009-12-06T17:31:00.000-08:00

I don't know what variety of hot pepper this is. Super chili said the tag at the nursery. Cone-shaped, green fruit turn orange then ripen to red. I pulled the plant from the greenhouse a week ago and the peppers have been drying since.

They are quite hot! Probably destined for my sole consumption.

discovery of kvas

2009-12-04T18:04:00.000-08:00

Woot! It's bread in a glass! I was at the highly multicultural HT Oaktree Market and strolled past a pallet of big plastic bottles covered with Cyrillic letters, barley stalks, and a big bearded dude holding a wicker mug. There was some English, too: CLASSIC KVAS and UNIQUE OLD RECIPES. For $1.50 I wasn't about to pass that up, though I hadn't the faintest idea what it was.

Turns out that Kvas is an ancient fermented beverage made of black or rye bread, and sometimes flavored with fruit. It has long been popular in eastern European countries. The alcohol content is very low.

The recent history of Kvas is that the big soft drink makers have been trying to horn in on the action, leading to Kvas-like things that are mass produced and don't use traditional methods. What I bought is made in Ukraine by Danilo. The ingredients make it clear that this is one of those cola-like products: water, sugar, glucose-fructose syrup (I think that's high-fructose corn syrup, or perhaps derived from beets), carbon dioxide, and kvas concentrate based on rye malt. It is non-alcoholic.

While it's surely not authentic, it perhaps gives me a reasonable idea of what a kvas might be like. It has a malty aroma, is moderately sweet, and is moderately carbonated. I quite like it. It's pretty highly caloric, at 86 calories per 8 ounces. That's basically like any sugary soda.

I'm going to have to visit a European foods market and try to find a real kvas. And it looks easy enough to make it at home. Here are some recipes:

ginger beef wu-mu noodles

2009-12-02T20:16:00.000-08:00

I was scouting for interesting Asian stuff at the 99 Ranch and picked up a four pound box of Wu-Mu dry noodles for a few bucks. According to the ingredients list they are made of wheat flour, ice water, and salt. I couldn't find the ice water but perhaps I stored them incorrectly.

Engrish is my third favorite language!

Choiceness Grocery Nation Affirmation
We are the first company in Taiwan producing dried instant noodles meeting the GMP standard and its quality management system is ISO approved. It is non-fried and no preservatives. The quality is health and satisfaction. You can set your mind at ease, because we can safeguard you expenditure.

I love it. Seriously, I greatly appreciate localization efforts. I hope the enstructured word usement of my software offers the same level of entertainment to its international users.

The noodles are great and cook in three minutes. I threw together a quick stir fry with leftover medium-rare strip steak, lots of fresh ginger, king oyster mushrooms, onion, sesame oil, soy sauce, fish sauce, and black vinegar. Worthy of being made again.

last of the tomatoes, for real this time

2009-11-28T12:34:00.000-08:00

I cleaned out the greenhouse today, removing all the dead vines, fallen tomatoes, and other detritus. I'm running fans with the vents open to try to dry it out inside.

I kept all of the tomatoes that weren't split or moldy. Plus, a surprise cucumber. Several pounds in all.

I've been cooking with green tomatoes lately. For Thanksgiving I made a dish of sweet corn sauteed with green tomatoes, fresh jalapeño (still doing fine in the greenhouse), and roasted red peppers. Quite good!

first attempt at roasting with a Poppery II

2009-11-22T21:47:00.000-08:00

I discovered another hot air popcorn popper at the thrift store and felt it worthy of the $3 investment. It's a Poppery II and is compact and quiet compared to the Popcorn Pumper.

I immediately roasted four ounces of Moka Kadir. Interestingly, my results were almost identical to the first time I roasted in the Popcorn Pumper. After 15 minutes I shut it down, having produced almost no smoke, no sustained cracking, and at a much lighter roast than I would normally use.

The result for the first shots I pulled were about as originally described. Under-roasted, solvent aftertaste, very little fruit or sweetness, and low aroma. After a day of rest the only change was that the sweetness may have developed a bit and the aroma was improved.

An interesting effect was that the espresso was produced very quickly and with an absolute torrent of foaming crema. This behavior lessened slightly on the second day. I didn't experiment to see how far I'd have to reduce the grind in order to mitigate it, since four ounces (3.2 after roasting) is not much to play with. There may be some underextraction that would account for a bit of the flavor, but I don't think that's the main factor.

I will try again with six ounces to see whether I can get results more like these. However, that quantity is going to be pretty close to jumping out of the top of the roasting chamber. I may need to tip it back slightly. This is a nicer piece of equipment to use, but at this point I don't know whether it can get the job done.

Update: After a few days, no real change. It is not going to improve with age. This is just a bad roast.

garbanzos con chorizo

2009-11-16T21:09:00.000-08:00

I bought some dried chickpeas the other day. I've always used canned garbanzos and was curious to see how dried might differ. Coincidentally, I ran across Spain, in 5 ingredients, which happened to use dried garbanzos (plus chicken stock, chorizo, paprika, and kale).

I pulled out my sole book on Spanish cuisine to find out whether a bit of rosemary might be appropriate (it is) and discovered this entertaining tidbit:

Chickpeas (garbanzos) are the potatoes of Spain, growing well through the hot summers. In ancient times, the Romans mocked the chickpea-eating Spanish, suggesting that their enormous consumption of the legume not only indicated stupidity but also induced it.

It also mentioned that garbanzos con chorizo is a classic dish. The five ingredient recipe is clearly a simple rendition. Many recipes, generally with several more ingredients, can be found online (and, oddly, not in my cookbook).

I served it over chard from the garden, which I had, rather than kale, which I did not. The chard is still doing quite well in the greenhouse.

It really does take two hours, and even after that the garbanzos were bordering on water chestnut crunchiness. I'd guess that they could have easily stood another 45 minutes of simmering. It's a low-effort recipe and the results are satisfying, but another 10 minutes to incorporate onions, peppers, maybe some cumin would be time well spent in developing a heartier complexity.

boiled new potatoes with parsley and butter

2009-11-14T20:05:00.000-08:00

Hardly an innovation in the preparation of the humble spud. But when you have spectacularly fresh and flavorful new potatoes this is the right thing to do. The butter and parsley may even be pushing it; steamed with a sprinkle of sea salt would be a perfect treatment too.

Wolfgang Puck said,

My motto is always, and has always been, "buy the best ingredients, no matter the price, and then don't screw them up."

Impeding the free speech of the finest, freshest ingredients is surely one way to screw them up.

Delicious!

potato harvest

2009-11-14T17:41:00.000-08:00

The boys and I emptied the potato boxes today. I was a bit disappointed, as the promise of the boxes being stuffed from top to bottom turned out to be rather fanciful.

The vines were sufficiently dead, I thought. Off to the compost bin with them.

For harvesting it's sufficient to remove most of one side. I obviously didn't use the top six inches of the box, not that it mattered in this case.

We had 29 pounds of beautiful Desiree reds. There were also a few rotten ones, generally small.

The other box contained 18 pounds of Yellow Finns.

5 pounds of those had a bit of rot at one end, but were easily pared for fresh eating.

I also dug 1.5 pounds of both varieties from the plants beneath the forsythia. These were the leftovers after planting the boxes, and between the constant battering of soccer balls and the almost full-time shade once the forsythia leafed out this yield is hardly a surprise.

Almost all of the potatoes were from the bottom of the bins, although there were a few big ones in the upper parts of both bins. I suspect that my technique for covering the vines as they grew was not correct and I ended up almost entirely with stems rather than roots. However, that also means that the yield, where it existed, was not too bad.

The rot surely is from overwatering and poor drainage beneath the bins. That's not a surprise, now that I think about it. I don't think the growing technique had anything to do with it.

There's no doubt that grocery store potatoes can't touch fresh ones for flavor or quality, but as far as production is concerned this was probably not very economical. I'm sure I can get at least a couple more years out of these boxes, but the method demands more effort and cost than is justified without a significant yield improvement.

hard raspberry-pomegranate-apple cider, part 2

2009-11-14T15:46:00.000-08:00

I bottled the cider today, drinking what didn't quite fit.

Clarification after adding the pectic enzyme has proceeded reasonably well. It has a nice translucence, if not total clarity. It's a lovely peachy color.

Flavor is dry and pleasantly tart with a nice balance between the apple and the other fruits. It has a faintly yeasty aroma, but I don't detect that as a flavor. I'd probably identify this as a rather fruity white wine if I tasted it blind.

It may be a little early to bottle, but I'd love to have it sparkling by Thanksgiving. I filled six 16 oz bottles, using about a teaspoon of corn sugar per bottle (boiled with cider). I just poured from the jug into the bottling bucket, figuring that it will be consumed before any problematic oxidation occurs.

last of the cucumbers and tomatoes

2009-11-10T20:05:00.000-08:00

Last week I plucked the final Tall Telegraph greenhouse cucumbers. We had the last one tonight in a green salad. These had a sweeter, milder flavor than most of the others, perhaps simply because they weren't as large.

Tonight I picked what will probably be the final tomatoes. There are still plenty of greenies, but I don't think they're going to ripen on the vine. Some of the cherry and grape tomatoes were pretty good, though.

Cucumbers and tomatoes in mid-November! I guess that makes the greenhouse successful in extending my season a bit.

There would be a lot more if I hadn't had humidity and mold problems. I've probably been overwatering, and once the rains came the inside of the greenhouse was extremely humid. The massive amount of tomato foliage didn't help, and I began seeing mold. I did a lot of pruning and did what I could to dry things out, but I lost many pounds of tomatoes. Next year I need to prune aggressively, avoid overwatering, and figure out other ways to limit humidity. Between that and going to a permanent glazing I think I'll have pretty good results.

hard raspberry-pomegranate-apple cider, part 1

2009-11-10T19:44:00.000-08:00

Saw a gallon of flash pasteurized cider with no preservatives on sale (only one jug left, unfortunately) which reminded me that I hadn't made a hard cider in six months.

I wanted to try something different, but I hadn't exactly planned this. A bit of kitchen scavenging turned up a few raspberries, part of a pomegranate, and some honey. I still had additives and champagne yeast from last time. Sounded fine!

Some of these quantities are a little approximate:

2/3 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1/3 pomegranate
3 oz red raspberries
2 oz clover honey
1/3 packet Red Star champagne yeast
1 gallon Ryan's orchard blend flash pasteurized cider, unfiltered, no preservatives

Pureed the pomegranate and raspberries. Simmered for 10 minutes with honey and yeast nutrient. Tasted like basic raspberry jam with just a hint of the pomegranate. It darkened while cooking; perhaps if I'd used an acid blend it would have stayed bright. I don't think this quantity is going to make much difference in final color, but once all the apple particles have settled perhaps I'll be proven wrong.

Warmed the refrigerated cider in a hot water bath to just above room temperature, then poured cider and jam into the glass jug with splashing. Pitched dry yeast directly into the cider and jam mix and rocked it for a while. Very murky, as expected.

Is cooking the yeast nutrient a problem? I guessed not based on the fact that you boil wort.

At the November meeting of the North Seattle homebrew club I was told by Eric that it is best to add acid blend after primary fermentation is complete. Adding it prior to fermentation may create conditions that don't appeal to the yeast. He said that it should be added on the basis of sampling and tasting.

Primary fermentation was done within a week. It was explosively vigorous for the first hour; I should have just left it uncorked. I racked to a new jug, where more sediment settled quickly, but unlike the previous ciders it has not really clarified. Perhaps the pectic enzyme I used in those was really effective. I've read that it's best to add it before primary fermentation, but that it may still help if added later. I may or may not.

I sampled when racking. Nice! The raspberry is subtle. The pomegranate I would never identify in a blind tasting, but I think I can detect it. There is certainly a hint of pink, which I think might be more apparent after clarification. I don't think I need additional tartness.

2009-11-12 update: I sprinkled in about a teaspoon of pectic enzyme yesterday afternoon. Within a few hours I thought there was more sediment at the bottom, and after a day it's considerably clearer. I doubt that it will approach the clarity of the pure apple ciders but it's prettier.

boycott Hansen Beverage

2009-10-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

Hansen Beverage, the manufacturer of Monster "energy" drink, is unleashing a trademark infringement attack on Rock Art Brewery over its Vermonster barley wine. What a pack of unscrupulous wankers. I ordered some swag at the Rock Art Brewery store to show support for their principle-based defense.

Update: Victory for Rock Art!

rising coffee prices

2009-09-26T09:41:00.000-07:00

There was an article in yesterday's Seattle Times about rising coffee prices and the retail effect. I thought it was interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it quoted Maria at Sweet Maria's:

"People who are interested in home roasting are not necessarily interested in the price," she said. "They're interested in having the best coffee they can have. People who are interested in price go to Costco and buy cheap coffee."

Second, it had a supposed price breakdown of the cost components of a $3 latte: $2.23 for the 300% markup, 32 cents for two shots of espresso, 20 cents for milk, 15 cents for cup, lid, sleeve, and stirrer, and 5 to 10 cents for rent, labor, and utilities.

That last number seems absurd. A single operator would have to produce between 85 and 171 of these an hour just to make Washington state's minimum wage, even if rent and utilities are ignored! When have you ever seen an espresso stand put a car through in 30 seconds, let alone do it all day? The busiest coffee shop I've ever seen is a Starbucks outside the Moscone Convention Center in the morning before an event starts, and I'm sure it doesn't come close to serving that many items per employee per hour. Hmm.

a return to delicious normality

2009-09-26T09:02:00.000-07:00

I hadn't roasted coffee for many weeks until yesterday. Tracey won several packages of various Starbucks beans at some event and I've been using those. This morning I made lattes with yesterday's Moka Kadir. Oh, my. What a stunning reminder of why I roast my own! It was like replacing a mud pie with a chocolate soufflé.

first attempt at making biltong

2009-09-20T14:47:00.000-07:00

Biltong is a South African cured meat, originating with Dutch settlers who needed a way to preserve big slabs of game. It's marinated in vinegar and spices then hung to dry for several days. There are many recipes and techniques varying quite a bit in the type of vinegar, quantity of salt and sugar, presence of other spices, stages of application and marination, curing method, and curing time.

For my first attempt I drew upon three main sources and concocted my own amalgamation of the three.

I used about five pounds of beef top sirloin and tri-tip steaks.

Rather than separating the wet and dry marination processes I went with the simpler approach of producing a single wet marinade. I used:

1 cup white vinegar
generous 1/2 cup Balsamic vinegar
2 heaping tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
scant 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt
1/3 cup crushed coriander seeds (Indian)

I left the steaks whole aside from one, since they were already about an inch thick and judging by the photos in the chowhound article the shrinkage will be considerable. The tri-tips were already fairly elongate.

They went straight into a zip lock bag with the marinade where I massaged them and sucked out all the air.

They marinated for about 19 hours. I rinsed them in a solution of vinegar and water, taking off most of the coriander seeds.

I boiled and threaded wire through each piece and hung them in my hacked together biltong dryer. The dryer maintains a temperature of 110 to 140 degrees. After 22 hours this is how they looked.

After 24 hours I took a sample from the bottom of a tri-tip and a sirloin. The thin piece of tri-tip was fairly dry and firm and very chewy, although not difficult like a rock hard piece of jerky. The flavor was a really nice tang complemented well by the coriander. The sirloin, obviously much less thoroughly cured and extremely tender, also had a strong beefy flavor. I don't think the sirloin is quite ready, and probably the tri-tip isn't either in the thicker parts.

I'm not sure yet how long I'll let these go. Another day, for sure. This article, which I found only later after looking for photos of sliced biltong to gauge the color, notes that the moisture content is a matter of personal preference. I don't know if there are spoilage concerns with more moisture but that seems like a possibility. They aren't like a cured ham with a thick layer of protective gunk.

first tall telegraph greenhouse cucumber

2009-09-09T22:31:00.000-07:00

Picked the first Tall Telegraph greenhouse cucumber at the end of August. It's interesting that while the vine is laden with tiny cucumbers this one was full size. I've seen the same thing with lemon cucumbers. I wonder what causes that. Also interesting is that another vine, same variety and inches away, has a large one that is smooth skinned.

Flavor was fine. Bitter at the peel, not as sweet as I prefer, and young enough that there were scarcely any seeds. I'll have to let the next ones go longer and see how the flavor changes.

Made it into a nice salad with tomatoes and basil from the garden, with a drizzle of olive oil and splashes of white and seasoned rice vinegars.

Definitely need to get these started earlier next season.

zucchini refrigerator pickles

2009-09-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

Like probably just about everyone who plants zucchini, at some point I begin looking about for new uses. It occurred to me that they'd probably make fine refrigerator pickles -- perhaps not quite as crisp as cucumbers, but good enough. There are plenty of recipes online, but I went with an LA Times article containing the Zuni Café recipe.

I roughly tripled the recipe, using a few pounds of zucchini.

I decided to slice them about 3/16 inch thick instead of 1/8 in order to give them a little more crunch.

About a third of the vinegar was red wine rather than cider (ran out). I neglected to crush the mustard seeds, using that portion whole, but freshly ground the rest of it.

This quantity of brine takes some time to cool, so I got it started while the zucchini was in the salt water. It was ready at the same time as the zucchini. I didn't quite get the point of the "pat dry" step so in a fit of madness I simply added the brine to the drained squash.

The taste test the next day met with universal approval. I actually found a slight bitterness that I'd prefer weren't present, probably from the turmeric. The turmeric does impart that great color, but perhaps it could be dialed down a bit. The onions are really good -- I'd slice them thick next time so they are more substantial.

Overall, well worth the effort. Next time I'd look for ways to increase the complexity of the flavors, reduce the bitterness, and include more and thicker onion slices.

mom's Ukrainian-style borscht

2009-09-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

While the boys were visiting my parents, mom made borscht and the boys found it appealing. When I received the news I realized that I probably haven't had it since I was a boy myself! I recall liking it very much. I thought it would be a fun dish to make with the first beets from the garden.

Courtesy of Ukraine Trek comes this description of borscht:

But especially known and most favorite dish all over the world is famous Ukrainian borsch. Borsch is cooked of the fresh vegetables: cabbage, beet, tomato with the addition of pounded lard with garlic and parsley. The combination of all these groceries give the borsch its piquancy, aroma and unforgettable taste. There are about 30 types of Ukrainian borsch (Poltava borsch, Chernigov borsch, Kiev borsch, Volyn borsch, Lviv borsch and others).

Here's mom's recipe. It lacks a few things like lard, goose fat, and garlic that I've seen in some recipes. I made the beef stock from scratch. I chose to omit the carrots because I just don't like them that much in soup. I added minced garlic near the end per this recipe, as well as fresh dill. I served it with parsley and sour cream.

Simmer 30 minutes, covered:

1 pound beef chuck
8 cups beef broth
salt, pepper, bay leaf

Melt 2 tablespoons butter in a 6 quart kettle. Add and saute 5 minutes:

1 medium onion, chopped
2 carrots, sliced
1 stalk celery, diced
4 medium raw beets, in strips
1/2 medium cabbage, shredded
4 medium potatoes, cubed

Add 1 6 ounce can tomato paste and 1 tablespoon vinegar. Simmer 10 minutes. Add meat and broth. Simmer 1 1/2 hours. Serve with sour cream, lemon slices, parsley or dill.

For the stock I referred to the recipe in The New Best Recipe cookbook. I had two pounds of soup bones but had only a pound of chuck rather than the four it calls for. I also didn't have any red wine on hand to reduce so I used a bit of Worcestershire sauce.

As with all Cook's Illustrated recipes the experimentation and food science behind the final recipe is interesting. It takes far more beef to produce a meaty stock than chicken for several reasons: chicken flavor compounds are very strong, it's the Maillard reactions that deliver a lot of what we think of as the beefy flavor (contrast boiled beef), chicken skin and fat taste like chicken while beef fat is rich but not beefy, and chicken bones and marrow contribute chicken flavor while beef marrow contributes body but not much flavor and beef bones taste like bones.

So, my stock ended up being not as rich as it should have been but I wasn't disappointed.

A less starchy potato than would have held up a little better, but the Yukon Golds were fine. The beets were fresh from the garden and very nice.

The result was great! I suppose this must be one of my comfort foods. The boys and I enjoyed several steaming bowls while watching football on a drizzly, dreary evening. I thought the beef flavor was perfectly adequate. The beet flavor was prominent. Overall it's a magnificent combination of sweet and savory with enough richness from the stock and sour cream to be satisfyingly filling.

Cold the next day it was just as good, and perhaps even better. It was apparent, though, that I could have skimmed the fat from the stock more thoroughly. The texture wasn't ideal due to the small fat granules. Letting the stock cool enough to skim it well would have added quite a bit of time to the preparation. Maybe a solution is to let it sit for 15 minutes or so, skim enough liquid to get the fat along with some stock, and pop that into the freezer. The hot stock could be used immediately then reunited with the small amount of cold stock after the fat had been removed.

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 3

2009-09-07T13:43:00.000-07:00

Finally bottled the goldenflower ale on September 1. I realized that if I didn't get it into bottles I wouldn't have anything to bring to the next homebrew meeting!

It was in the secondary fermenter, dry hopping, for 6 weeks. As far as I can tell, all that dry hopping added no hop aroma at all. The flavor is OK, still plenty of honey, slightly phenolic. Nothing to jump up and down about.

Gravity was 1.007. Original gravity was 1.043, so ABV is about 3.75%.

giant zucchini oddity

2009-09-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

Upon returning from a week's vacation recently we were greeted by an enormous zucchini, four inches in diameter and perhaps 15 inches in length. That wasn't a surprise; everyone has seen and fled from much larger.

Two things did get my attention. First, when we left all the squash on this vine were a few inches in length. The others grew slowly, while this one went all Attack of the 50 Foot Woman on us. Second, it was of excellent quality! Unlike other bloated zucchini monsters with their spongy flesh and unpleasant seeds, this one was firm, mild, and had seeds no more developed than you'd typically find in one a fifth the size. Huh?

Age must be as significant a factor as size in the quality of the squash. I wonder what causes one to go berserk while the others bide their time? I've seen the same with cucumbers.

delicious blanched spinach and tomatoes

2009-09-07T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've been experimenting with boiling ribs before grilling them, after talking to brother Matt about his technique. I did this the other day with a rack of pork ribs and plain water. Upon removing the ribs I cast about for something to do with what I suspected to be a rather tasty pot of liquid.

The solution was to pack a steamer basket with baby spinach and blanch it for 15 or 20 seconds. I drained the spinach and tossed it with halved Roma grape tomatoes from the garden and a few twists of sea salt and cracked black pepper. Not overly greasy, but with just enough pork fat and succulent pig flavor to be startlingly delicious. It's very pretty, too. I'll have to take a photo next time.

marrow bones with basil and chive gremolata

2009-08-14T19:40:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've had beef marrow more than once or twice since I was a kid. I bought four marrow bones the other day and roasted them tonight after reading this Chowhound thread.

I swept through the greenhouse and noticed that I had some spicy globe basil that needed pinching back so nabbed some of that along with chives and parsley. This made for something gremolata-like when combined with minced garlic, sea salt, cracked pepper, and lemon zest and juice.

I roasted the bones at 350 degrees for 24 minutes then ate the marrow on toasted whole wheat bread with the gremolata. Wow! Rich and delicious, and perfectly balanced by the citrusy zing. The slight sweetness of the whole wheat was excellent. I found myself utterly sated well before it was gone, which I have to say is unusual.

Definitely something to continue exploring.

greenhouse update

2009-07-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

Things seem to be going pretty well in the greenhouse. I have quite a few idle squares and need to look into appropriate plantings.

Some of the beet roots are big enough to eat now. The basil has done well with some pinching. I think it would work to put four per square. The green onions seem very slow. The romaine has done well considering the heat.

The lemon cucumber was started from seed and has really taken off lately. It has fruit on it. I don't think I'm supposed to have it in the greenhouse with another cucumber, but they are far apart so I guess I'll take my chances. If either one starts producing something horribly mutated I guess I'll know why. This one has done far better than the one I put on the deck.

The chrysanthemum was flowering when I put it in, finished, and started again a few weeks ago. I need to get the parsnips into a permanent home. Planted more carrots, green onions, and leeks several weeks ago. Next time I should put the tomatoes behind the netting. The strawberries never did well, and most died both indoors and out. I am really displeased with that supplier.

The peppers are doing well aside from a recent blossom die-off. I think it was water stress.

I brought these strawberries indoors recently and they have been really happy. They are more vigorous than the ones I left outside. I've been picking a few now and then but until I brought them in the berries were always eaten by critters. Maybe starting them outside and bringing them in is a good approach, although I did think it would be too warm.

After fertilizing and watering more frequently it looks like the blossom end rot may not be affecting more tomatoes. We'll see.

It was already over 90 degrees outside when I took this photo so the chard is wilted, but it has been doing great. The greenhouse cucumbers have taken off and are setting fruit.

This beefsteak tomato broke in half a few weeks ago, I think from wind when both doors were open. I splinted and wrapped it and it is surviving so far.

The aphids went to town on this eggplant but it seems healthy enough.

These pots dry out completely in a single hot day.

Next time I plant nasturtiums I'll have to give them something better to climb. They seem to do it well.

Compare to the greenhouse update from four weeks ago.

edible flowers

2009-07-29T21:15:00.000-07:00

My mom sent this list of edible flowers that she clipped from a magazine years ago:

flower	color	flavor
Begonia, tuberous	orange, pink, red, yellow, white	lemon
Borage	blue, lavender	cucumber
Calendula	orange, yellow	spicy, pepper
Carnation	lavender, pink, red	pepper, cloves
Chive	lavender	onion
Chrysanthemum	many colors	faint to distinct bitterness
Daisy, English	pastels, white	tangy lettuce
Dianthus	many colors	cloves
Fuchsia	many colors	tart
Geranium	pink, peach, red, white	differs with variety
Hollyhock	lavender, pink, red, white	mild lettuce
Johnny-jump-up	purple, white, yellow	mild lettuce
Lavender	purple	floral, pungent
Marigold	orange, yellow	spicy, mildly bitter
Nasturtium	orange, red, yellow	horseradish
Pansy	many colors	sweet, mild
Rose	many colors	floral, delicate
Rosemary	light blue	pine resin
Sage	many colors	sage, differs with variety
Squash blossom	yellow	faintly sweet, mild lettuce
Stock	pink, purple, white, yellow	spicy, sweet
Thyme	purple, white	thyme
Viola	many colors	mild lettuce

I just wandered outside and tried:

Chrysanthemum, purple, which was indeed bitter. It also had an interesting chloroform flavor and slightly numbed my tongue.
Dianthus, and didn't really detect a clove flavor. Bitter, mostly. Perhaps it's old; certainly it's baked after today's 102 degree heat. There was something more than bitterness present, to be sure.
Fuchsia, which is both tart and somewhat bitter.
Geranium, a dark pink zonal and a bright pink ivy. Quite tart.
Marigold, which I thought was more than mildly bitter. I ate it after the chrysanthemum, though, with a decidedly prejudiced palate.
Nasturtium, which is sweet as well as spicy. The stems are delicious.
Rose, species unknown. Small open blossoms, not big ruffly ones. Surprisingly tart and not delicate. I've had others that fit the description better.
Squash, yellow zucchini. Lettuce is a good description.

I'll have to wait on rosemary and thyme. Earlier in the season I had radish, lettuce, and bok choi flowers, all of which are good.

bolted green salad

2009-07-20T21:21:00.000-07:00

I figured I should make what use I could of some greens that had bolted or were on the verge. That included bok choi, spinach, bibb lettuce, and something from a mesclun mix that I can't identify. The unknown green had a bit of heat. For some additional zip I added shredded basil, nasturtium blossoms, and bok choi flowers. A few fuchsia petals finished it off. 100% home grown!

I made a vinaigrette with fresh thyme and a peach vinegar. Quite a good salad. I love nasturtiums and they contributed greatly to the overall effect.

roma grape tomato

2009-07-17T21:43:00.000-07:00

Plucked and ate the first roma grape tomato today. It was a bit early, but had really nice flavor. Slightly tart but the impending sweetness was evident.

This plant has serious blossom end rot problems. I hope the fertilizing and more vigilant watering will prevent it from happening to the fruits that are currently unscathed.

I'm not sure whether these will end up being partially edible or whether I should take them off now.

hops progress

2009-07-17T21:36:00.000-07:00

The three hops that sprouted are doing pretty well. They aren't yet putting out much in the way of side shoots but they're all at six feet or more and climbing happily. I've continued to crush aphids on occasion but they don't seem to be a huge problem.

Here's the Cascade:

And the Centennial:

And the Golding:

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 2

2009-07-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

By the morning of the 17th there was no more airlock action from the goldenflower ale. I figured I'd rack to a secondary for dry-hopping with a half ounce of Fuggles. Having done so, I now think it was a stupid thing to do. I was thinking that attenuation was complete and that I'd leave most of the yeast behind, ending up with a clearer final product. Halfway through the transfer I took a sample and measured the gravity at about 1.023. I then decided I'd better make sure to move as much yeast as possible into the secondary after all. So the net result of the whole operation is that I have a bunch of equipment that needs cleaning and a batch of beer that has had one more chance to pick up something unwanted.

I really should have waited for the krausen to disappear, but after my last batch with this American Ale yeast I didn't think it would happen. Impatient and stupid. I guess I'll let it dry-hop for at least several days and take another reading. Bah.

The Fuggles are pellets at 4% AA. I put them in a hop-boiling bag, which I hope will contain most of the goo. I'm probably not going to be in the mood to rack to another bottling bucket so will likely do it right from the secondary.

As for flavor, it is very sweet and the honey is strong. There is some bitterness, although I'm not sure I can isolate the hop contribution from the yeast, and no hop aroma. I didn't detect it when it was at room temperature, but after chilling there seemed to be a bit of phenolic flavor.

It began bubbling again almost immediately.

2009-07-20 update: It blew bubbles for a day and then stopped. As with the previous light ale, it still has a big layer of krausen. I'll give it a couple more days and check the gravity.

2009-07-24 update: Krausen dropped and gravity is 1.010. The sweetness has diminished greatly. Hint of honey still there. Phenolic flavor definitely present. Despite the dry hopping, no hop aroma. It doesn't do much for me at this point. I guess I can bottle any time.

first bok choi

2009-07-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

I think the bok choi all bolted the instant they sprouted. Rather than producing big heads with heavy stalks they are leggy and now adorned with pretty little yellow flowers. Tonight I figured I'd try them out anyhow and snipped a couple.

The leaf flavor is about normal. The lower part of the stalk is tough, but toward the top it is startlingly sweet. And the flowers are surprisingly tasty, not bitter as I expected.

I stir fried them, flowers and all, with a few other vegetables in sesame oil and a bit of butter, including king oyster mushrooms. I discovered those recently and can't get enough of them.

Tossed with miki noodles, and finished with seasoned rice vinegar and soy sauce. Not bad at all.

grilled curried swai

2009-07-16T21:15:00.000-07:00

I had an itch for grilled fish so I swung by the HT Oak Tree Asian market to see what looked interesting. They had really big fat fillets of basa catfish at the counter, but when I asked for a couple I was directed toward the frozen packages in a nearby cooler. English is not the first language of any HT employee I've ever spoken with, but I think the deal was that she was doing me a favor by steering me toward some that were still frozen and were two to a package. They may also have been less expensive.

Well, they weren't as nice and thick as the ones that caught my eye, but looked like they'd do fine so I grabbed them. At home, upon closer inspection, I noticed that they weren't labeled basa after all. They were swai, or Pangasius hypophthalmus. Swai is also a southeast Asian catfish, and is frequently sold as basa. Those two wikipedia links, as well as this Basa buyer's guide, have some interesting history about the "catfish wars" and fish counterfeiting.

In any event, I cut up the fillets, marinated them for 90 minutes in a curry sauce, and skewered them.

The grill wasn't as clean as it should have been so I lost some tasty bits, but they turned out decently. It's a very mild fish, of course, and I thought the combination overall was excellent.

I used a similar marinade for grilled chicken thighs the other night. Very, very good. The ingredients are:

mayonnaise
enough olive oil to thin it a bit
mild curry powder
ground cumin seed
minced garlic
cracked black pepper
salt

I just wing the proportions. It's good with powdered ginger, too. It doesn't have much heat, so cayenne or another hot pepper can be added for that. It stands up really well to grilling, even at high heats. I think it would be great on lamb, too.

first collard greens

2009-07-16T20:04:00.000-07:00

I snipped a few collard greens the other night. They were considerably smaller, brighter, and less leathery than the ones I typically see in the grocery store.

Sauteed with butter, then salted and peppered. Quite nice! Just a bit of zip; I expect that the heat develops with age.

Just for fun I recently put a couple of plants in the old inverted tomato pots, since I've given up on that idea. I might try some upside-down brussels sprouts too.

potato box inspection

2009-07-16T19:54:00.000-07:00

I took a lower board off one of the potato boxes to see whether there were any potatoes. There were plenty of fine roots, but no visible spuds. I didn't dig into the soil to be certain, though. These are late harvest varieties (Desiree and Yellow Finn), so perhaps it's not unexpected that they haven't produced anything yet. I suppose that what's happening at this point, with the vines being continually covered with more dirt as they grow, is that a continuous root system is being built and it's only later that the tubers appear.

blossom end rot on tomatoes and zucchini

2009-07-14T17:45:00.000-07:00

All of the tomatoes except the cherries seem to be struggling with this product of calcium deficiency. I fertilized the tomatoes with a Whitney Gardens organic product, as well as the peppers. I may add some lime as well. Here are a few references:

The deficiency can be due to inadequate calcium in the soil, insufficient water, excessive vegetative growth, competitive cations in the soil, or moisture fluctuations. I don't think it's a watering problem, but I haven't actually tested the soil. I'm not seeing inordinate foliar growth so I doubt it's a nitrogen imbalance. They are growing in the shallow square foot beds, though, so perhaps they are experiencing too much moisture variability even though I usually water every couple of days. I need to get an automatic irrigation system set up in there.

A few zucchini have shown the problem as well. I'll fertilize those. Should hit the eggplants, too.

I don't yet have any sense of what the latency is with respect to calcium availability and uptake.

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 1

2009-07-12T22:14:00.000-07:00

My starter recipe for this simple summertime pale ale was Peter Berger's Goldenflower Ale. His description:

This is an extremely estery beer...heavy on the pear and raspberry. If you want to understand the difference between ale and lager, brew this one. It is the epitome of "fruity." The slight hop aroma and very mild bitterness, tied with the lightness of the beer, really allow the esters to shine through; I suspect the honey aided them strongly.

Ingredients:

3.5 pounds Laaglander dry extra light malt
1 pound fragrant clover honey
8 grams Galena hops (8% alpha) (boil)
1/2 ounce Fuggles hops (dry hop)
Wyeast American Ale yeast

The choice of American Ale yeast for something that's "extremely estery" and the "epitome of fruity" seems odd, since Wyeast's description is "Low fruitiness and mild ester production".

This is the first time I've brewed with honey.

The Laaglander malt is no longer available, as far as I can tell. It seems to have had a questionable reputation. I decided to give Brewmasters Warehouse a try for ingredients for this and my next brew. They carry Munton's extra light DME, $3.99/pound, so that's what I got.

The Galena plug hops were 14.2% AA. According to Palmer, Galena is a U.S.-grown strong, clean, bittering hop with a citrusy aroma and AA range of 12 - 14%. That makes me wonder whether the 8 grams or 8% in the recipe isn't a typo: 0.028 ounces, for 2.2 alpha acid units? (And what's with mixing metric and standard units?) I decided to use half an ounce; I don't mind if it's hoppy.

I wanted a light color, so decided to boil just a pound of the DME for the full hour and add the remainder and the honey for the final 10 minutes. Per my earlier research, having some sugars and enzymes helps with hop utilization, so you don't want to boil the hops in only water. DME yields about 44 points per pound per gallon, so the initial boil gravity was 1.015. According to this utilization calculator, that's about 33 IBUs per the Tinseth method. Adding the rest of the DME and the honey (38 PPG) brings the gravity up to 1.064, so 10 minutes of boiling at the higher gravity might reduce the IBUs by about 5. I doubt it works quite that simply, though.

The Wyeast 1056 American Ale smack pack did not inflate per my expectations. It took a cross-country trip with cold packs that had completely melted by arrival, so I wonder whether it isn't in poor health. It puffed slightly, but nothing like it usually does after four hours. This is the yeast I just used for the light ale so I am making a recent comparison.

Pitched the yeast at 76 degrees. Once again I couldn't cool the wort as quickly as I wanted. I keep forgetting how long those cold packs take to freeze. They really need to go into the freezer the day before, at the latest. I ended up using a gallon of cold water to aid in cooling from 90 degrees, and may have aerated more than desirable at that temperature. I need to turn that copper coil Joe gave me into a chiller some time soon.

There was some conversation at the last homebrew club meeting about whether hot-side aeration isn't actually a somewhat mythical effect, though. People seem to have plenty of personal experience with aerating hot wort and not experiencing any off flavors due to oxidation. Someone described an experiment in which the wort was split, with the test portion being aerated likely crazy while hot. There was apparently no difference when compared to the control. Unconvincing in a single experiment, but perhaps it's not an effect that's as likely to occur as we've been led to believe.

Original gravity is about 1.043, adjusted for temperature. The wort has is moderately bitter, quite sweet, and the honey is evident. Not much maltiness, as one would expect.

Update: Visible fermentation was a little slow to start, but by the morning of the 14th it was bubbling pretty vigorously. By evening it was continuous. Temperature was 67 degrees. I have the fermenter downstairs, where the temperature should be consistent within a couple of degrees.

Update: Still bubbling every 5 seconds the evening of the 16th.

first swiss chard

2009-07-12T22:06:00.000-07:00

Chard seems to do very well in the greenhouse. I cut a few stalks this evening and cooked them with canned tomatoes, chickpeas, garlic, scallions, olive oil, cracked black pepper, and fines herbes. Superb!

I harvested the outermost leaves of two or three plants. I'm hoping that they will keep producing.

North Seattle Homebrew Club meeting

2009-07-12T15:21:00.000-07:00

I attended my second North Seattle Homebrew Club meeting the other night. Good bunch of people. These meetings are great fun. Next month there probably won't be a meeting, due to Beerstock 5060 being held at Mark and Alison's place.

Andy, who was hosting, had some healthy-looking hops in their second year. He's growing them zig-zag fashion in order to maximize his vertical space at the back of the house. Looks like a workable idea. Might make sense to do that against the fence where I'm growing mine now.

I brought the light ale. I didn't catch much feedback, though Paul said he liked it a lot. It was kind of a raucous point in the meeting so I'm not sure whether it didn't get much attention or whether people were politely withholding comment. I do recall some discussion of the interesting color.

Kevin from The Cellar had a ginger molasses porter that I really liked. Some people thought it needed more body (that would make it more similar to other porters, in my experience), and more alcohol in order to better carry the spice notes, but I'm pretty sure I'd prefer it the way it was. I don't usually like a porter as a warm weather beer but this one would do. It was like an adult root beer or ginger beer.

There were a couple of strawberry wheats. One used a flavor extract and the other used fresh and frozen berries. The tartness of the real berries came through, which I enjoyed, but there was also a flavor that I associate with frozen berries and don't like much. It would be fun to make one of these, though.

beer judge certification program

2009-07-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

While surveying the local beer clubs I saw that the Cascade Brewers Guild had a beer judge certification program (BJCP) study group last fall. Judging would be fun, but learning enough about beer characteristics to be a judge would be great. This study guide and style guidelines look like a good place to start.

radish green soup

2009-07-12T13:30:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, I composted four of the six radish squares that were all top, no radish, thinking that they weren't a palatable green. Turns out that there are quite a few recipes out there. The flavor and spiciness are compared to watercress.

I found several recipes online for radish green soup. I considered two in particular: radish top soup, and radish greens soup. Both use stock, potatoes, and some dairy. I ended up using a very meaty homemade chicken stock, potatoes, onions, half-and-half, butter, and lots of greens. I used a hand blender to smooth it out.

It turned out fine, though the dominant flavors were the stock and the potatoes. Whenever I make a creamy potato soup I'm always struck by how strongly it triggers a clam chowder association. If I were tasting blind I'm not sure I'd even know the radish greens were there. In the future I think I'd probably use them as stir fry or salad greens instead.

I discovered that some of the tops had small seed pods. Now those are tasty! They are like crisp edible pod peas but with a radish flavor. I wonder how close to maturity they can get before they lose their appeal. They made a nice garnish.

Bruce Frankel's grilled bread

2009-07-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

After the success of the grilled foccacia I wanted to try another one of the grilled breads in The Barbecue Bible. This was Bruce Frankel's Grilled Bread, from his Panache restaurant.

It's one third whole wheat and has a bit of molasses, for a lightly sweet and nutty flavor. Takes a couple of hours to rise and each small bread is done in just a minute or two per side, so it can be done with little planning and is easily grilled after something else comes off and is resting.

It's topped with olive oil, cracked pepper, and fresh thyme. It was excellent with chevre. Next time I might make a smaller number of larger breads, and perhaps try for something a little thicker and softer.

Seattle International Beerfest

2009-07-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

I spent Friday afternoon and evening at the Seattle International Beerfest at the Seattle Center. There were 153 beers available, plus quite good music, and unbelievable weather for the first week of July in Seattle. I spoke to a few volunteers who seemed to be having a fine time. I might think about volunteering next year.

I tried:

Weinhenstephaner Hefe-Weissbier.
Reissdorf Kolsch.
Great Divide Double Wit.
Cascade Gold Yeller Belgian Ale. This sour ale aged in French oak wine barrels was my favorite. Totally loved it. Too bad there's no way to get it without going to the Raccoon Lodge brewpub in Beaverton. It looks like it may be a one-time creation, too. I will definitely undertake an exploration of sour ales.
Henney's Vintage Cider. Excellent. Really smooth, low carbonation, slightly bitter finish.
Ace Joker Strong Cider. Not bad. Dry and incredibly pale. I wonder how they get that color.
JW Lees Lagavulin. This was 6 tickets. It's an English barleywine aged in Lagavulin whisky casks. Very rich, sweet, smooth, and with a subtle Scotch flavor. I liked it but would not pay what I think the 9 ounce bottles cost.
Dupont Avril Table Bier. I probably should have done some palate scrubbing after the barleywine before trying this saison. Not much to it.
Alagash FOUR.
Urthel Hop-It. This is supposed to be a hoppy strong Belgian pale, but I didn't find it to be all that hoppy. I wouldn't have guessed the claimed 80 IBUs, perhaps because of the overall balance.
Old Lompoc LSD.
Cascade Jellyroll. This chick beer seemed to be very popular so I tried it. It's a raspberry wheat, deliciously pink, super clean, and probably the best fruit beer I've had.

Plus the biergarten had Peroni and Pilsner Urquell on tap, so I had a few of those. I'm not wild about either, but it was nice to have full pints while listening to the bands. And I rather enjoy rolling the many Rs in Perrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrroni.

There were many others I'd have liked to try but it was getting late, I ran out of cash, and I'd had plenty of beer for one day. I could easily spend all three days tasting.

I ran into Zach, a guy I met at my first North Seattle Homebrew club meeting (his first, too), and hung out with him and his wife, Jackie, for a while. He brought a Flanders Red sour beer to the club meeting, the first I'd ever had, and I loved it. I meant to try the Duchesse de Bourgogne Flanders Red for comparison but didn't get to it.

Of the four bands I saw, I really enjoyed Curtains For You, and Knut Bell & the Blue Collars.

broiled spice-rubbed quail

2009-07-01T21:12:00.000-07:00

I picked up a package of quail (frozen, sadly) at the same market where I bought the rabbit. I've never eaten or cooked quail so I don't have a good basis for comparison, but I was fairly pleased with the way they turned out.

I used a recipe from The Gourmet Cookbook. I really like that book. The quail are given a rub of salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and allspice.

After marinating, they are brushed with olive oil and broiled for about four or five minutes per side.

The sauce is interesting, made from chicken stock, lime juice, molasses, scallions, and butter. It's described as a contemporary version of the classic French gastrique, a reduction of sugar and red wine vinegar. I thought it was excellent. I would reduce it well beyond what the recipe called for, though, if I made it again. "Slightly thickened" did not result in something that adheres well to the birds.

The flesh was tasty if unremarkable. Perhaps a bit sweeter than chicken, and a little more robust. Isaac was much more interested in the anatomy than he ever has been about a whole chicken. I think he felt a bit of sadness for what he envisioned as a cute little bird. But it was a good chance to talk about whether it had a rib cage, whether all vertebrates have rib cages (I couldn't think of one that didn't), what kinds of internal organs had been removed from the cavity, and what had become of its head.

I'd try to crisp the skin more next time. I do suspect that fresh birds would be more flavorful and juicy. I'm pretty sure I've seen them at Central Market; I should do a comparison with the same recipe.

I also made a red lentil soup using a sturdy homemade chicken stock as a base. Nothing else but lentils, salt, and pepper, and it was very satisfying.

A side dish was zucchini sautéed in butter and garlic with wilted spinach. Excellent. Nice crunch from the squash to complement the smoothness of the baby spinach. And I'd eat my flip flops with enough butter and garlic.

first zucchini

2009-07-01T21:05:00.000-07:00

We had our first zucchini the other night.

Tracey isn't a huge fan, but I love it and the boys like it fine. I did a pretty standard sauté of zucchini, tomato, onion, and garlic, with fresh basil from the garden. Very nice! Freshness sure counts for a lot.

At the current rate of production it's looking like we'll have two or three small ones (6 - 8 inches) every few days. I'll probably have to get creative before long.

greenhouse update

2009-07-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm still getting a feel for what works in the greenhouse and what doesn't. It's pretty clear that a number of plants would like more light. I think once I install the permanent glazing, and get closer to 90% transmission, much of that problem will be addressed. There are some areas that do get less light, so I also need to make sure that plants with the highest light requirements don't go there. The nasturtiums in the chimney corner are extremely leggy, for example.

I'm very pleased with the tomatoes. The first cherry tomatoes are showing some color (photos from 6/29) and all varieties are flowering and producing well. I've been tapping the flowers every day or two for pollination.

I lost a few peppers both indoors and out but the survivors are becoming robust and setting fruit.

The Tall Telegraph greenhouse cucumbers are beginning to accelerate. They took a very long time to get started. This is one of the darker areas of the greenhouse because of a shadow from the balcony. It may turn out that cucumbers are a bad choice for this spot.

This Japanese eggplant start is doing nicely. In the last couple of days it has grown noticeably and has at least one fruit. It was a purchased start; there are lots of others that I planted from seed that are still small.

I have lots of bok choi in various locations. They are all doing about the same, and some are beginning to flower.

Swiss chard is a little wilted in the heat here, but it perks back up when it cools and is growing rapidly.

Beets are very vigorous. I haven't checked a root yet, but the greens look great.

All geraniums are happy.

This little fuchsia is beginning to produce nicely, too.

In general the lettuces I've planted seem to think it's too hot. The romaine might be doing OK, but the mesclun is very sparse. Bibbs might be doing OK too. The supposedly heat-tolerant spinach is growing slowly but at least it hasn't bolted.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased. I'm sure that I should have waited longer to buy peppers, and of course I should grow greens mainly in the cool months. Cilantro has been a total bust, usually sprouting but dying at a small size. Outdoors it has done better. Lots of basil hasn't even germinated, and what has is growing unbelievably slowly. Leeks haven't done very well either indoors, but the he-shi-ko green onions have.

grilled focaccia and Brazilian pork rollatini

2009-06-27T21:28:00.000-07:00

It was definitely a grilling evening so I pulled out the BBQ Bible and looked for something interesting and that didn't require hours of marinating. I hadn't baked bread in a while so the grilled focaccia caught my eye. The Brazilian pork rollatini looked fun, too. A few garden herbs for a green salad and the menu was set.

This focaccia is unusual in that it's very thin, as it needs to be in order to be grilled. It's a simple and fairly dry yeast dough that rises for an hour or two. It has a touch of olive oil, and the yeast was proofed with some sugar. Other than that, just flour and salt.

After rising it's divided into eight balls, rolled into disks, and dusted with cornmeal.

Before grilling each bread is brushed with olive oil and a bit of kosher salt. I did not use the recipe's sesame seeds. At high heat it takes just a couple of minutes per side.

It turned out really nice. Stretchy and chewy, with good flavor. It almost tastes like a pancake, perhaps because of the very slight sweetness. Well received, and pretty quick and easy as breads go.

The Brazilian pork rollatini recipe comes from a restaurant chain in Rio, with the addition of Dijon mustard and cornichons by Raichlen. Slices of pork loin are rolled around ham, onion, pickle, Gruyere, mustard, salt, and pepper. I can't imagine how he manages to coat the pork in grated cheese and then successfully spread mustard on it, so I departed a bit from the construction instructions.

Before grilling the rolls are brushed with olive oil and topped with a bit more cheese. I rotated by 90 degrees every few minutes until done. I was afraid they would dry out, but they stayed tender and juicy.

Quite good! Not a super sophisticated or intriguing flavor combination, but tasty. Really similar to a Cuban sandwich, actually.

Mojitos made with mint from the garden (but not home-grown limes, sadly) were the final touch. I'm rather pleased to welcome Mojito season!

Alpine rabbit stew

2009-06-22T22:21:00.000-07:00

I was shopping at one of my favorite Asian markets the other day and happened across frozen whole rabbit. I have had rabbit only once or twice and probably not for decades, so I picked one up.

By far the most impressive treatment I found online was a recipe for Alpine rabbit stew. I did something similar. I added mushrooms and did not have juniper berries, but otherwise it was pretty close.

My rabbit was well dressed but did not have any internal organs.

The bacon was uncured Hormel product, with no nitrates or nitrites. I probably should have had more onion in my mirepoix.

I used an Italian Malbec wine, which was fairly dry and plenty fine for drinking. We had a chianti with dinner, though.

These Italian tomatoes were $4, or about three times what I usually pay. I imagine Central Market has canned San Marzanos, but I didn't go there. Flavor was very nice, with none of the tinny character that I find even in the ones that are supposedly in cans with non-reactive liners. Ooh! Fat free!

Rosemary, oregano, and thyme were all fresh from the garden.

I mixed about a cup of grated parmigiano reggiano into the polenta, as well as about a half cup of basil from the garden.

Everyone liked both stew and polenta. I do have to say that if I made the same dish with chicken thighs it would have been nearly identical and a lot cheaper. From what I've read, that may not be unexpected from a young farm-raised rabbit. A wild hare might impart a more uniquely rabbity flavor. I guess I'll have to visit Green Lake some morning.

I probably could have browned these a little more.

One element that I would not have thought to include, but that I think was a critical component, is the cinnamon stick. I don't particularly care for cinnamon when it is a dominant flavor, but it contributed a very pleasant depth to the overall experience. I find the same to be true of some Moroccan dishes.

So...very tasty. I'd try it again with chicken, and I'd try it again with a different sort of rabbit.

white radish check

2009-06-22T21:53:00.000-07:00

All of the radishes, indoors and out, have magnificent foliage. I wanted to check the meaningful progress, meaning the edible portion, so I pulled a white one in the greenhouse. Hmm. No radish.

The Greenhouse Gardener's Companion notes that radishes like moist, friable soil (check) but cool temperatures, and that a common problem is producing all tops and no edible radish. I seem to have that in abundance. The causes are prolonged warm temperatures (45 - 50 degrees F at night is optimal) or too much manure or nitrogen. We did have a hot spell a couple of weeks ago, but I don't know if it was too much. I wouldn't think that it would be a problem outdoors, compared to in the greenhouse; I'll have to have one of the boys wrench out one of his to compare. Perhaps my interpretation Mel's mix is not idea for radishes.

They are actually beginning to flower now, too. I do think something has gone awry. Bummer.

Update: All six radish squares, indoors and out, white and red, behaved like this. I lean toward it being a soil problem.

despumating tammied fecula

2009-06-20T11:16:00.000-07:00

While exploring rabbit recipes I found one for Coulis de Lapereau au Currie in Escoffier's Guide to Modern Cookery. An excerpt:

...besprinkle with one-half tablespoon of fecula and a sufficient quantity of curry, moisten with the strained cooking-liquor of the pieces of rabbit, bring to the boil, and set to simmer for seven or eight minutes. Rub through tammy and then despumate for twenty minutes...

Well, that left me mystified three ways: fecula, tammy, and despumate? It mystifies my system's dictionary three ways too, unless you think the august Auguste sensed the future unique lamenting voice of one Ms Wynette. Online dictionaries were a little more helpful, though.

Fecula is a powdered starch made by grating roots and stems, and may be tapioca, potato, arrowroot, or many others.

Tammy, or tamis, is a rough woolen cloth used for straining.

Despumation is the process of clarifying a liquid by skimming the scum from the surface.

Feculent was already one of my favorite words, but today it was elbowed aside by fecula.

hops are starting to climb

2009-06-16T21:53:00.000-07:00

The hops growth is accelerating, I think. I started training them on strings recently and they have taken to them nicely. Here are the Centennial and Golding bines. Need to do some weeding!

The Cascades are doing well, but are a little smaller. The Fuggles never came up. I haven't cut any of the shoots.

The other day I spotted a few aphids. I know hops are aphid magnets. I've been crushing them by hand, but that's not a sustainable method of control. Ladybugs never seem to stay around. I'll have to do some research.

grape arbor

2009-06-16T21:45:00.000-07:00

After building the grape arbor it was immediately apparent that two enthusiastic young soccer players would be unable to see it as anything but a goal. This was delaying the planting of the grape vines, so I added a couple of posts and a net.

The net was from Seattle Marine & Fishing Supply. What a fantastic store! They do a good business in sports nets, apparently, in addition to selling terrifying large fish hooks and just about everything else you can imagine for life at sea. I went to the store rather than ordering online, and found the service to be fantastic, even for a $20 custom-cut piece of net. Great place, and prices that are way better than any other soccer net supplier I've seen.

I had to go up to the Cenex farm supply store in Everett to find posts like this. If I go back I'll get two more of the smaller diameter posts to replace the 2x4s. I wish I could have found some heavy round posts in a 12 foot length for the horizontal members instead of using the 2x8 beams. I didn't want the arbor to have another set of posts at the time, but now I think I'd do it differently, with six posts and round main beams. Oh well.

cherry-smoked steelhead and salmon

2009-06-16T17:47:00.000-07:00

I can now report that cherry smoke applied to salmon is excellent. Same for steelhead.

Since I'm without a smoker box at the moment I have been using the foil pouch method. The chips dry out in just a couple of days once hacked from their trunky home, so I've rehydrated them for 20 minutes before pouching and placing.

The smoke is voluminous from a handful of chips and I've been pleasantly surprised to see it last for half an hour. I'm grilling over indirect heat on foil, with fish at the back and the pouch on the drip shield over the front burner on fairly high heat. The temperature is low enough to easily achieve medium-rare to medium for almost the entire thickness of a fillet.