A Fabulous Brewers Night

See?

Brewers Night at Grizzly Peak is the 1st Tuesday of each month, 6-9 in the evening, when Brewmaster Duncan Williams hangs out and talks beer with interested parties, gives tours of the brewery, and pours a special cask of beer. (This last one was on the second Tuesday, owing to New Years Day.) Though it's my day off, I made the trip out with Mrs. C., and made it just a bit more fabulous with my erm, spiffy new shirt gifted to me by Skip and Cat, who KNOW I will have my revenge....

Brew Day, Batch 381: Buster 2012 (Delayed Post)

Today, I am racking 2012's Buster, which was brewed 2 weeks ago. I skinned out a typical "Brew Day" post, but with all of the brewing, noshing, and drinking I and co-conspirator Skip were doing, it kinda fell by the wayside. This year's Buster took a while to gel as a concept; I started with the idea of something on a line between English-y barleywines such as Thos. Hardy's, and Scottish wee heavy, and then thought maybe some non-traditional or archaic seasonings might be in order. Earthy herbs like sage and thyme were considered but ultimately left behind. As well, we thought that some heat-bearing spices like various kinds of peppers such as cayenne and Sichuan peppercorn might be interesting. After a bunch of tasting, smelling, and cogitating, we settled on these things:

Mashed 55# Hugh Baird Pale Ale malt at 153-155F for 90 minutes, with 1 quart/lb. of liquor, collected about 13-1/2 gallons of sweet wort in the kettle, boiling well as the kettle filled. When the kettle volume reached 12 gallons, we started timing; after 30 minutes, the kettle hops were added. We used 2.4 oz. of Northern Brewer at 10% alpha, selected for its notes of wood, mint, and tea. With 20 minutes left, we added 2 oz. of Fuggle, and 1t of dried ground ginger; Fuggle for its simple woody, earthy spice, and ginger for some earthiness and heat/zing. With 5 minutes left, we added 3 oz. of crushed Sichuan peppercorn for its subtle zing, and its exotic, sweet aroma. Our target BU level was 50, compensating for the high gravity wort.

Everything went fine until we chilled down and tried to drain the kettle into the fermenters. It seems that despite using low protein British malt and thus having a quite moderate kettle break, and using plenty of whole hops in the boil, the kettle simply would not drain faster than a trickle unless someone dredged a spoon across the drain strainer the whole time. Tiring, to say the least. Our leading hypothesis is that the cracked peppercorns were just the right size to evade the hop filter bed and lodge in the drain. Eventually, all the wort was in the fermenters at an impressive 1.113 density, and given over to a hefty slurry of Grizzly Peak's house ale yeast. After two weeks, it is still at 1.044, but steadily bubbling away; if it hasn't attenuated significantly more in a week I'm bringing in a 'relief pitcher.'

Having not yet had enough, I added 1-1/2 lbs. of British 60L crystal malt to the top of the mash, and sparged to collect another 12 gallons of sweet wort. This was bittered to an estimated 35BU with US Goldings in the kettle, plus 2 more oz. at 20 minutes. This yielded 11 gallons of wort at 1.042. At racking today, it is clear and clean at 1.011; we will be drinking this as soon as it is carbonated.

Not Exactly Beer Related

I should oughta have my head examined. About a month ago, my buddy Joe at Liberty Street Brewing Co asked me if I would be willing to participate at a storytelling event planned for November at the brewery. Given the many (0) times I've got up on a stage and told a 10 minute story to a crowd of pubgoers, I of course said yes. I now am envisioning a version of this famous movie scene. More info about the event is at the Midwestern Gentleman website....

I was going to make pasta anyway.....

So, why not these?

Beer Brunch 2012

THE MENU......
PIZZICATO
A plethora of olives, pickled quail eggs with Jolly Pumpkin La Roja
Skip's pickled green tomatoes with Jolly Pumpkin Weizen Bam*
CHIAROSCURO
Kiss Yo' Mama Soup (corn & crab) with Mr Cicerone's Robust Porter
BLUDGEON
Garlic shrimp and grits with Mr Cicerone's (famous) Rye Peppercorn Pale Ale
CATERPILLAR
Bitter greens, tangerine, blood orange, walnuts, lemon-ginger vinaigrette, hop candy crunch with Mr Cicerone's Dynamomium IPA
ANIMALS
Duck, pork, veal & pistachio terrine, La Roja pickled cherries with Mr Cicerone's Buster 2010
INTERMEZZO
Spooky Trail Farm wildflower honey with Mr Cicerone's Atmospherium Saison


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Brew Day, Batch 377: Pumpkin Ale

It's been a few years since I've gone to the trouble to make pumpkin ale for Thanksgiving, and Mrs. C. has decreed that we shall have some this year. My idea of pumpkin ale is an amber to brown malty ale, (with a distinct orange tint from said pumpkins,) with just enough spice to round out the flavors a bit. This year I decided to roast the pumpkins whole in my barbecue, which is a) easy, and b) might add a subtle smoky nuance to further round out the pumpkin and spice flavors. Here's how it went down:


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A smarter person would have just bought a jar of pickled beets....

....and used the juice. (It's for a Beer Brunch dish). (We also boiled and peeled 36 quail eggs.)

Oh! But then we wouldn't have been able to make a meal of those delicious beet greens! A small glass of Mr Cicerone's awesome porter while I was squeezing made it all worthwhile. In my He'Brew glass of course, as it's Rosh Hashanah. Shana Tova!

Critter Update

Despite the baited cage,  motion detectors and video surveillance, we have seen, and caught NOTHING. Until this, a few days ago....

  

 

Another half-eaten tomato! In the same place! However.....it seems that the tomatoes are not from our yard. Good for us, I guess. Sorry tomato-robbed neighbour, whoever you are!

This is awesome!

(Guess who??)

Here yesterday, gone today.

Our precious tomatoes, that is! Our friend has come back, and has successfully, over the past few days, managed to deprive us of our much-looked-forward-to fresh, succulent, umami-packed daily tomato treat.

Stolen tomato #3, half eaten on the ground.

Remnants of Lost Tomato # 4, on top of the fence.

Mother fucker! When we came down this morning, there were the remnants of Lost Tomato # 5!

Mr Cicerone, getting serious. (Nice shoes!)

Possum trap, well  baited, and relocated from our garage where it had been for a few days, to the current scene of the crime.

As I type, Mr Cicerone is setting up both a motion detector, and video surveillance camera. Stay tuned!!

So sayeth Mr Cicerone, recently....

"This isn't a beer that should be $6 for 11.2oz  (Editorial by Mrs C "But O! It IS worth it!"): everybody needs buckets of this to drink, and pour over their heads! Or swim in it. It's 100 degrees outside, and this beer is PERFECT."
Sadly, this is our only bottle. The beer? It's Bayerischer Bahnhof, Brettanomyces Lambicus Berliner Weisse Special Edition. Retired. Wish we had buckets of it!!

Note gorgeous glass! You can have one too. Hand made by Furnace glass studios, Dearborn.

I Must Have Your Recipe!

Note: I originally wrote this 15 years or so ago for my homebrew club's newsletter. I thought I'd freshen it up a bit and post it here, as it's still pretty relevant for both brewing and cooking. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, the authors of the recommended books are friends of mine. Yes, I have friends that can write....

Remember this plot from cartoons and movies?

1. Kindly, pure-hearted explorer/scientist, working doggedly in isolation for many years, discovers amazing secret formula for world peace / cold fusion / lead-to-gold conversion, etc. Said formula is typically recorded on tattered piece of paper and kept in a briefcase.
2. Evil, avaricious, criminal mastermind or hostile foreign country attempts to steal the secret formula. This usually involves kidnapping an attractive female relative or associate of the kindly savant.
3. A hero, possibly wearing a garish costume, prevents the valuable tatter from falling into / remaining in the hands of the dastardly criminals.

I’ve always wondered: how would someone like Simon bar Sinister, assisted by his henchman, Cad, fare if let alone with the magical piece of paper? Wouldn’t his laboratory be somewhat different than that of the inventor? Would all his available ingredients be exactly the same? Same shape flasks? Same size Bunsen burners? Same diameter hoses? And how would bar Sinister know which of these mattered to the outcome, lacking the years of specialized experiences of the originator of the formula?


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Of Interest To Homebrewers Only

It's been freakin' hot hereabouts since, like March, and I've been ineffectively trying to manage fermentation temps in the basement while simultaneously not running the A/C all the damn time. Also, I just want it to be consistently cool in the basement, and not see my breath upstairs. Finally, it occurred to my thick self that maybe I should control the thing I am concerned about directly, and not worry about the rest unless I need to. So I put a thermostat in the granny cell, and let that run the A/C.

Wuht?

This is a granny cell:

That's the whole room. It's in the corner of our basement, and was built so Mrs. C's mum would have someplace to sleep when she stayed with us for a month at a time. (She likes purple.) Since that time, the little Cicerones have grown up and gone on their ways, and we have a spare bedroom above ground for mothers-in-law and other travelers to use.

So, anyways, it has a door, and one of the three HVAC diffusers in the basement within its bounds. So, if I put a "granny thermostat" in there and put my fermenters in there, I could control their ambient temp, and thus fermentation temp. Thermostats are really simple gizmos, and you can just parallel them as long as you only turn one on at a time. Right now, the only diffuser register that is open is the one in the "cell," because temps outside are fairly livable. The rest of the house will track along, depending on whether the registers are open. When the temps inevitably approach 100F again, I will close windows and open registers again. The important thing is that while Mrs. C. and I can easily tolerate some extreme temperature swings, the yeast doesn't have to. After all, brewers make wort, but yeast makes beer! Current granny cell conditions:

Room for plenty more... especially once the bed goes!

Brew Day, Batch 364: Dynamomium

OK, the name of this beer came first. Clearly, it's an Imperial IPA, though. As to the question of what exactly Dynamomium is, well, only my brothers and I know. And even then, it's not all that clear. It's a reference to one of our childhood tropes, anyway, and we are amused. For everyone else, it's a beer of mid-high 70s gravity, well attenuated, with 80 BU from a blend of Cluster, Magnum (20.5% alpha!) Crystal, Mt. Hood, Citra, Willamette, and Nugget, added frequently throughout the boil. Said hop addition amounts and times were arrived at via precise frantic calculations conducted minutes before each dose was tipped into the kettle. Also, Uncle Dave threw a couple of unscripted small handfuls of Nugget in at the end of the boil, for good measure. The specific hop varieties used were selected mostly for their flavor and aroma characteristics, though the Magnum was included also because of its monster alpha content- where else can you use more than a pinch of the stuff? As it happens, the Magnum also has a very bright, citrus-candy aroma when rubbed fresh. Speaking of handling this stuff: another way of stating 20% alpha is that this stuff is over 1/5 lupulin. You can pick this sticky stuff up, but putting it down is something else entirely! Check it out:

 

 Yeah, buddy!

I don't think there's much point in posting a 'recipe' for this, as it was a pretty seat-of-the-pants type brew day. We basically took the grist from here, added a couple of pounds of Dynamomium (which bears a remarkable similarity of appearance and flavor to dextrose,) and hopped it up as described above. The resulting wort was served up to a bit more than a quart of fresh 1056 slurry, which set upon it like a hungry wolverine on a nice, juicy hamster. Stay tuned for results....

O! How we love New Orleans!

 We just spent 5 glorious days enjoying The City That Is The Happiest Place On Earth. Yes, we did everything we set out to do, including eating fried chicken at Willie Mae's Scotch House, dancing in the sun to Hot Club of New Orleans, slurping oysters, drinking Guinni at Monagahan's (Erin Rose), drinking pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, eating crawfish in every way imaginable, discovering The Bulldog multi-tap in Uptown, throwing down to Bonerama and Evan Christopher, waving to Ignatius J Reilly, buying the weirdest thing we could find for Mr Cicerone's daughter's birthday, eating turtle soup at Court of Two Sisters and Beignets at Cafe Du Monde, drinking Sazeracs at The Roosevelt Hotel, and, in general, eating, drinking and laughing until we fell down. Uncle Dave, and our friend Nicole of Eat It Detroit, came along on our adventures, and I just know we would not have had quite as much fun if they had not been there with us.

Highlights- the food! Everything we ate!

Here's what Mr Cicerone had to say about Cochon.....

The Green Goddess can only be described as SUPERB, AND I WANT TO MOVE IN THERE. Jacques-Imo's was, as usual, fantastic. Platters of fresh oysters at Felix's were worthy of the king's proverbial ransom. The turtle soup at The Court Of Two Sisters was unrivaled. Jambalaya at Coops, the crawfish boils everywhere one looked, the cheese at St James Cheese Company, fried green tomatoes and etouffee at various places. Groan, groan, groan. And....the fried chicken at Wilie Mae's Scotch House made Mr Cicerone weep tears of joy.

The beer!
There's a really nice pilsner at Crescent City Brewery, good Guinness at Erin Rose, and a few really good beer bars if you know where to look. There's DBA in the Marigny, Cooter Brown's at the end of the St Charles street car line 30 minutes from The French Quarter, The Bulldog in Uptown (awesome!), and The Avenue in The Garden District, where I was stunned by the diversity of the draft beer list (Tilquin Gueuze on tap!), but a little dismayed at being served line cleaner in my glass instead of beer. (Note- I'm sure this was a "once-off". There are two Certified Cicerones on staff, and it was not they that did this.) Most of the bars and restaurants carry Abita, and beers from NOLA Brewing (Flambeau Red, Blonde & Hopitoulas were all good), as well as newcomers Bayou Teche   (LA-31 Bière Pâle & Biere Noire were excellent).
Note: The "International Beer House" (of which there are more than one) on Bourbon Street are sad, smelly watering holes that are to be avoided for the most part, though we did enjoy a pint of Paulaner Helles purchased there.

Pictures? Here's a bunch

I'll stop now, and just add that YOU JUST HAVE TO GO THERE. NOW.

Les Bon Temps, They Will Roulez

We are heading down to New Orleans on the morn, meeting up with Uncle Dave, and Ms. Rupersberg, for to spend five days in The City That Care Forgot. The French Quarter Festival will be going on, and that will be grand, but there is really no bad time to be in N'awlins. People there know how to live- music, food, drink, conviviality are important there. And it shows in every respect, but, arguably, most in the food. (This keeping in mind uh, JAZZ!) I have yet to visit Paris or anyplace in France, but if there's a better place to eat, I don't know if I could survive it. (Uncle Sean, having been to all three, rates them thus: #1 Seoul, #2 New Orleans, #3 Paris.)

We travelers have been corresponding and plotting for the last weeks, getting more excited by the day. Nicole came forth with mention of many of the things friends had suggested she must do, and I was compelled to respond with a sort of a manifesto:

Coops is mandatory. Good food, good atmosphere. The lamb ribs are mighty fine, and their jambalaya is really good. Sorry, bro, it's got bunny in it....

I will eat fried chicken from Willie Mae's Scotch House, or die trying. I will eat many, many oysters. Ditto mudbugs. Ditto ditto mudbugs. I will have a pils or two at Crescent City. I will eat beignets. (My spellcheck helpfully suggests 'signets' instead.)(Cygnets, maybe...) I will down Guinni at Monaghan's. I will be thrown out of Avenue Pub for drinking all of their beer. I will down more Guinni at Monaghan's. I will throw down to Bonerama. And Evan Christopher. I will eat too much at Jacques-Imo, Cochon, and elsewhere. I will sing inappropriately at odd hours and places. I will buy cookies from the dessert guy on Frenchman Street at 2AM. I will discover many more new and glorious things, mostly by chance. I will be very, very happy. Furiously happy.

Many, many mudbugs.

Seriously, if you've never been to NOLA, put it on your 'to do' list. You can thank us later. With beer.

(Apologies to Jenny Lawson for appropriating "furiously happy;" I think she would approve of my furious pursuit of happiness.)

Brew Day, Batch 358: Gluten Free Ale

This'd be another example of "the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry." Excepting, perhaps, just how well my plans were laid. In my position as royal consort to the Queen of Beer, I have sampled many a gluten free "beer." The quotes are because some of the samples just flat-out didn't qualify as beer. I've had a few decent ones, ones that I've actually ordered multiple pints of- My buddy Doug periodically makes a "CPA," or Celiac Pale Ale, that is quite nice. The Belipago at Jolly Pumpkin Cafe is also quite a good beer. And the Green's beers are perhaps the most impressive of all. So naturally, finding out that my friend Terry, and possibly his brother Brian are experiencing gluten intolerance, I felt the need to reinvent the wheel.

So far, I think the new wheel may have some flat spots.

I had this idea to use sorghum syrup from Briess as the base, and augment it with a small amount of oats, half of which I toasted in the oven. I also planned to continue the oatmeal cookie theme by harnessing the curranty nature of Nugget and Goldings hops. The oat part was predicated on using a powdered amylase enzyme to convert the starchy oats into a sugary solution. This is where I didn't plan things out so well- the powdered amylase doesn't seem to be up to the task. I tried a wide range of temperatures over about 12 hours, and got a moderately sweet pot of oatmeal. Before I jettisoned the oats entirely, I had gooped up around 10 pots and strainers of various size and shape here at Chez Cicerone. (Nothing new....) Thus the entire fermentable part of the wort came from the sorghum syrup with a bit of dark candi sugar syrup for a little bit of color. I ended up going with Goldings, Goldings, and Goldings for the three hop additions, to a calculated 40 BU. The very dependable and neutral 1056 was given the job of fermenting.

By itself, the extract syrup resembles and tastes like pale malt extract. The wort was definitely a bit different than a malt based one, though I couldn't put my finger on a suitable descriptor(s) to explain in what way(s.)

Here's where we're at:

We'll see how we do. If this one doesn't do the trick, we'll figure out how to get the job done. The goal is not, "pretty good for gluten free," but "I'll have another!"

Dai Nippon Jin...ger

Every two weeks or so we "treat" our friends to "Movie Night At The New Burton Theatre". This past weekend we screened a favourite, Dai Nippon Jin  (Big Man Japan).

9 of our friends (who *used* to love us) came by for dinner and the movie. Taking advantage of the Japanese theme, we dined on such delicacies as vinegared squid, seaweed-wrapped rice crackers, shrimp-flavoured chips,  edamame, oshinko, peanut milk soup (nobody actually tried this), and for the main course, udon noodle bowls with "add your own" chicken, "shabu-shabu" pork slices, shitakes, lotus root, baby bok choy, fried tofu and some very strange-looking mutant mushrooms that were delicious, wok-cooked with garlic and ginger.

Beers were plentiful; taking advantage, again, of the Japanese theme, we indulged in the wonderfully innovative beers from the Kiuchi brewery in Japan, enjoying JCA, Red Rice Ale, 3 Days Sour, and their Yuzu wine. (Plus some Karatamba sake, a favourite of mine).......

.....and, Mr Cicerone's titular Dai Nippon Jinger, and Smelly Monster IPA (We'd forgotten that the creature was actually called "Stink Monster").

Hai!

Happy Australia Day!

"This here's the wattle, symbol of our land. You can stick it in a bottle, you can hold it in your hand."

It's Australia Day. January 26. It commemorates the arrival at Botany Bay, Sydney Cove, of the First Fleet, led by Captain Arthur Phillip, declaring "here we are", in 1788.

For us it means another excuse to cook, eat and drink beer. Shame on me, but due to poor forward planning on my part I failed to secure the ingredients to make such Aussie delicacies as sausage rolls, pavlova, or a favourite, rabbit and prunes braised in Cooper's Stout. So, we ended up eating a pork tenderloin sauteed in a chipotle salsa, with Mexican rice. Delicious, but hardly Australian fare! (Beers to go with were Mikkeller Chipotle Porter, Mmmmm!, and Mr Cicerone's big, malty Citra IPA, which was a perfect malty contrast to the spicy salsa.). Post dinner Sam Adams Vixen proved to be lovely; but I couldn't find much chili flavour.. Chocolate- yes, slightly, and this beer DID taste like bock (malt forward, rich, pruney notes like Celebrator), and maybe just a HINT of cinnamon. (I wonder, if at a couple of months old, the chili notes have died already.) Regardless, it's quite lovely, and a nice follow up to dinner.

Here's to all things Dinki Di!

A belated New year's Eve post....

....in pictures.
 The evening started with  Bell's Q. Falls with cheese, and a great brown ale from Cisco of Nantucket.

Whiteout Wit from Anchorage, fermented wit Bret. Wow.

Say no more....(as good as ever.)

It's back after an absence, though this was an older bottle that held up really well.

When I looked at the pictures the next day I found this one.....Huh? When? Who?