excellent no-knead olive rosemary bread

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.

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 3

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%.

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 2

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.

sixth brew (goldenflower ale), part 1

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.