A burger for that beer

The grill is on fire, and I’ve got that American brown ale on the brain. How to make ‘em taste just right together? Here’s what I do.

Bleu Cheese Burgers:

Right simple, it hardly seems a recipe. Basically, stuff a piece (about the size of  a pat of butter) of bleu cheese inside the hamburger patty as you’re forming it. A little salt and freshly cracked black pepper on both sides. Drizzle a little balsamic vinegar on that patties and let them soak in a touch just before tossing on your grill.

This is great with a brown ale, not to be scoffed at with a pale ale, and as I sit here and realize that I just used Maytag Bleu Cheese, it’s probably a nice touch for an Anchor Steam.

Liver Dumpling Memories

Sometimes you just get hungry for something from long, long ago. I’m not sure what the trigger was, but recently I found myself craving this liver dumpling soup from The Bohemian Cafe in Omaha, Nebraska. I haven’t been there since probably elementary school.

A cup of intense broth with one giant dumpling saturated with flavor. I had to figure out this taste from so long ago. After consulting a number of recipes, here’s what I came up with:

Liver Dumpling Soup

 

Ingredients

½ # ground beef liver

2 eggs

1 cup breadcrumbs

2 T flour

2 T butter

1 clove garlic, minced

½ tsp lemon zest

½ tsp salt

Dash of black pepper

Dash of marjoram

Dash of mace

2 quarts beef broth

 

Process

1. Combine liver, butter, garlic, lemon zest, marjoram and mace.
2. Beat in eggs and breadcrumbs, flour, salt and pepper. Cover and let stand at room temperature for one hour.
3. Shape into small balls (golf ball size)
4. Bring beef broth to boil, then drop in dumplings. Cover and simmer for 15 minutes.

I went to a number of different groceries for the liver, and found that no one would grind it for me. Against the law? I had to chop it as fine as I could. Shoulda stuck it in the food processor. I washed that cutting board and have eaten plenty food prepared from it since. Fear not, you must try this.

Come to think of it, I could go for a good Pils right about now.

If you’re in Omaha, Czech out The Bohemian Cafe. It’s family-owned and still around, and sits tidily on my to-do list. Find it at 1406 South 13th Street.

A hankering for Berliner Weisse

For the past few weeks, maybe months, I’ve been plotting a stab at a Berliner Weisse. Light, sour, refreshing and low in alcohol, this is a brew not widely available and a hassle to put together.

I’ve read nightmarish mash schedules and the concern over contaminating equipment. But the grainbill is simple and very few hops. To boil, or not to boil. Will a sour mash impart sufficient sour character, or will I have to add lactobacillus to the fermenter? Or should I try yogurt?

After much deliberation, I came up with my plan and invited over my beer-inquisitive brother-in-law, Kyle. This good guy is working on getting converted to good beer. Here’s what I came up with:

With a grainbill of 4 pounds of Pils and 2 pounds malted wheat, I started by mashing 10% of the grainbill in a small container at 150F for one hour.

Next, I added a heavy handful of uncrushed grain to this mini-mash and dropped the temperature to 120F. Sealed tight, I placed this container in a bath of hot water inside my Igloo mash tun. This mashed for 18 hours, and required a little heat boost every so often. I’d pull a pint or so of water out of the tun and heat it to boil to help maintain my temperature.

Following this rest, which lasted through my own slumber and the brewing of a batch of milk stout, I added this sour mash to the full mash. Rest at 150F for an hour.

One element of this beer I contemplated a good deal was the hops. Traditionally, I’ve read that Berliner Weisses are not boiled. Even with a subdued level of hops in this style, I need to isomerize the rascals, don’t I? While some homebrewed versions boil the wort, I elected to skip the full hour. For the hops, I boiled them in my sparge water.

Concerned about contamination in such an affair, I did bring to a boil for 5 minutes. Next came my wort chiller and the pitching of the yeast. I’d intended to use a Kolsch yeast, but my local homebrew shop was fresh out, so I went with Wyeast 1338, Eurpoean Ale. With much excitement, I placed my fermenter in MY NEW CELLAR! As I take a look at the thermometer on the Ides of July, it’s a comfortable 71F. And my cooling bill’s not through the roof to achieve it.

I expected that the sour nature after the overnight mash would be more assertive, so I’ll be curious to see how it develops as the fermentation commences. If it doesn’t funkify a good deal more, I may need to mail order some lacto to add and wait it out. Time will tell.

The particulars, in short:

As-yet-unnamed Berliner Weisse

4# Pils

2# Wheat malt

1 oz. Halletauer (4.2% alpha)–boiled one hour in sparge water

Wyeast 1338

OG: 1.029

Milk Stout Ice Cream

With the approach of Independence Day, I find myself making plans for a little grilling-out shindig. One of those people with a serious sweet tooth, ideas about doctoring up a mean burger quickly shift to what I’ll do for dessert. The beer geek in me comes forward with milk stout ice cream, something that I sorted out a year or so ago, with raging success. I urge you to give it a try.

 

Milk Stout Ice Cream

 

Ingredients

2 cups heavy cream

4 cups whole milk

1 ½ cups sugar + 2 T sugar for candied pecans

1 T vanilla

12 egg yolks, gently whisked

 ½ cup honey

2 bottles milk stout, reduced to 1 cup

2 cups pecans, roughly chopped

 

Process

1. Pour milk stout into small pot and simmer until reduced to 1 cup. Set aside.
2. Gently whisk egg yolks, honey and vanilla in medium bowl.
3. Combine cream, milk, and 1 ½ cups sugar in pot, then bring slowly to a boil, stirring constantly.
4. Temper egg mixture into milk mixture, then whisk over low heat constantly for one minute.
5. Strain into ice cream machine container. Stir in milk stout reduction, then cover surface with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until cold. Preparing this mixture the morning of your ice cream-eating evening is a good idea. The day before works, too.
6. Heat pan to medium-low and add pecans and 2 T sugar. Stir constantly until sugar melts and coats pecans nicely. Spread on waxed paper and allow to cool.
7. When ready for the ice cream shindig, stir candied pecans into ice cream container and freeze.

Thirsty Thursday–Renegade Belgian Stout

Back in the college days, we referred to Thursday as Thirsty Thursday for reasons I’m sure you might imagine. We imbibed to celebrate most of the week’s completion and the almost-here weekend (which we’d celebrate separately). As I take a look at my own week, Thursday seems a little more pivotal than Hump Day, so I’ve decided to make this the day that I take a look at and review a beer. Oft-times, this will be the debut tasting of my latest homebrew. So welcome to brewvana’s Thirsty Thursday. With any luck, I’ll be able to keep up, and you’ll be able to look forward to it.

Renegade Belgian Stout (newly tapped homebrew)

If you’ve taken a look at the BJCP style guidelines recently, you’ll have noticed that this style doesn’t exactly exist. How wonderfully Belgian! That’s right, I made it up. I like Belgians and I like stouts, so we’re putting this one in 16E, Belgian Specialty Ale. My intent was simply to fool around with flavors I enjoy, and to get away from some of the higher gravity libations I’ve been brewing lately (RIS, Belgian Dark Strong). Maybe I had De Dolle’s Extra Export Stout in the back of my mind, but this is NOT a big beer. I wanted these flavors in a more drinkable beer for the warming weather. Come to think of it, it might be fun to try this one next to New Belgium’s 1554. It’s more like that, but I didn’t set out to do a clone. Just a little independent, Belgian creativity. I also wanted to try Carafa, which I’ve never used.

Aroma:  Roasty, toasty, earthy, spicy phenols

Appearance: Opaque black, with a healthy, caramel-colored head that retains nicely

Flavor: Roasty, toasty, much like the aroma, blended with yeast driven phenols of the spicy, peppery variety. The roast and phenols project a dueling tartness that is nice. This is geared toward roast and yeast, and the Styrian Goldings used as bittering seem to meld earth with roast unnoticeably.

Mouthfeel: There’s that roasted tartness, again, in a dry mouth. Nicely attenuated, no sweetness.

I like this beer, and it went where I wanted it to. In the fall, it would be fun to kick up the alcohol to about 8.5% and brew again. I would like that beer, too. Wanna try it? Here’s what I did:

3# American Pale Malt

3# Light Munich

1# Caramel Wheat

1# Carafa II

1# Caramunich

.5# Special B

2 oz. Styrian Goldings (4.2% alpha) for 60 minutes

White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast

Mashed at 154F

Boiled 60 minutes

OG: 1.045

FG: 1.017

Cheers!

Cinco de National Home Cerveza Day

It’s just one of those cool weekends where my interests, scheduling and lousy Spanglish meld together into one. As I mentioned the other day, Saturday, May 5 was National Homebrew Day, celebrated by brewers everywhere with Big Brew X, organized by the American Homebrewers Association.

Perhaps more Americans are familiar with the “other” May 5: Cinco de Mayo. Huge fans of Mexican food, my family always celebrates this holiday, an excuse to add margaritas to our already Mexican-heavy menu. Alas, the two days in one became two days in one weekend due to scheduling conflicts. Cinco this year is Seis de Mayo.

My ten-year-old is currently at the store buying lard for his tortillas (how many kids that age want a tortilla press for Christmas?). My key lime pie tempts me with its aroma just across the room, and in a couple of hours we’ll head over to our friends’ house for our day-late fiesta. I cannot wait, as Heather makes the best guacamole and Pauly has the margarita knowledge. With the utmost sorrow, this will be one of our last meals together. In just over a month, my family moves to the Great Plains, far away from the pavement in Raleigh.

So how did I spend the real Cinco de Mayo? That definitely involved brewing, though I didn’t Big Brew with my club or utilize any of the three recipes that some 3000 other homebrewers had in their hands. Instead, I did 10 gallons of Belgian Wit, five of which I have fermenting with mangoes (which I bought at my local Mexican market, thank you very much).

Today, I offer you the opportunity to share in the fiesta in my mouth. One, I say go out and buy The Best Recipe, by the editors of Cook’s Illustrated. This cookbook (and their magazine) is indispensible. Open it up to page 495, and make this Key Lime Pie recipe. It’s the best by far. Two, I’ll post my Mango Wit recipe, in case you’re up for that sort of delight, as well.

Mango Wit

4.5# Pils malt

4# unmalted wheat

.5# flaked wheat

1.5 oz. Tettnanger hops (6.4% alpha, for 60 minutes)

.75 oz. Curacau

.5 oz. coriander

4 cardamom pods

Wyeast 3944

4 mangoes

I boiled the unmalted wheat for about 10 minutes, then added to the mash, settling out at about 152F. Mashed 60 minutes, boiled 60 minutes, adding the spices and orange peel with 3 minutes remaining. While cooling the wort, I blanched the chopped fruit of 4 mangoes before cooling and adding to the fermenter. Pitched the yeast about 72F

OG: 1.044

Fermenting happily as I type. If you try it, let me know how it comes out.

Arriba, abajo, al centro, para adentro!

National Homebrew Day 2007

Saturday, May 5, 2007 is National Homebrew Day, a day organized by the American Homebrewers Association. On the first Saturday of May, homebrewers across the country celebrate their hobby by participating in Big Brew, gathering and simultaneously brewing the same recipe. In some cases, clubs manage opportunities to brew as a group in a commercial brewery.

This year’s recipe choices are Griffin Spit IPA, Striking Gold Belgian Strong Ale or Hailbrau Doppelbock. As yet, I’m unsure what I’m going to do this fine day. I’m sure that I won’t be participating in a brew-in with my club. It’s possible that I’ll be brewing quietly at home. It’s possible that I’ll raise a glass to the day. There’s just so much going on these days. If I do brew, I won’t be using one of the Big Brew recipes, as I don’t have the means at present to ferment a lager (the doppelbock) or the inclination for the other two beers.

Maybe a Scottish of some shilling or another. Or maybe a wit for the warming weather. Or both?

For more information on Big Brew X, click here. For a look at the recipes, click here.

Cheers!

A pairing for kriek

P. Dizzy posted a comment asking about food pairings, so I’ll labor to be nothing if not responsive. He asked about krieks (Belgian lambic with cherries) specifically. I suggested that this would work well as an apertif, as well as with dessert. Whatever you do, enjoy it with someone you care about, as it’s a special treat of a beer.

Chocolate and cherries, anyone? It would be great leaning against its own flavors served alongside a cherry cheese cake. And I said I’d track down a recipe…

The fact is recipes are a lot like the Blues. They’re rooted in history, and pretty heavily adapted, springboarded or downright stolen. I do a lot of adapting to my available ingredients and personal tastes. I try not to do much stealing. This recipe’s origins start in Mollie Katzen’s The New Moosewood Cookbook. Generally, I haven’t liked too much of her stuff, but my wife and a food geek friend of mine like Katzen. I do like this recipe, though what I’m listing here is what my wife does. We toast the almonds. Molly does not. Ours has to be better.

 Danish Cherries

4 cups pitted cherries

1 1/2 T cornstarch

4 T sugar

1/4 c lemon juice

1/2 tsp. lemon zest

3/4 tsp. almond extract

1/2 cup slivered almonds, toasted (reserve a few for garnish)

1. Toast almonds on stove top and set aside.

2. Cook cherries over medium heat, covered, for 10 minutes.

3. Combine cornstarch and sugar in a small boil, then whisk in lemon juice. Stir into hot cherries and cook until thick, stirring frequently (5-8 minutes).

4. Off heat, stir in lemon rind, almond extract and toasted almonds. Top with whipped cream and garnish each serving with toasted almonds.

For the last two years, this has become our Valentine’s Day dessert, and great with a good kriek. En-freakin’-joy!