Raspberry Crop - 2024

This will be my eighth season for my backyard Raspberry Beds (read about 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023).  I have 4 varieties (Prelude, Joan J, TulaMagic, and Nova) each in a 2x30 foot bed.  I'm coming off of a bit of a decline year for the raspberries where I got 25 lbs of fruit and not starting with that many canes from last year.  I get busy on other projects and the beds end up getting overgrown with weeds which then stifle next year's growth.  I'm going to work to keep the weeds a bit more contained this year.  If this year doesn't help regain the strength then I may have to purchase some new stock for next year to replenish the beds.

Even so, 25 lbs of fruit is still a lot and I still have much of the fruit from previous years around to use in my brewing and cooking.  I will track the status of the fruit over the year for the record

Sour Cherry Crop - 2024

This will be the fifth season for my 4 North Star Sour Cherry trees (read about Season 1, Season 2, Season 3 and Season 4).  The trees are probably about 9 feet tall now and 6 feet in diameter.  I got 39 lbs of fruit last year which more than has met my needs for brewing.  I expect we'll get a similar amount this year based on the flowering so far.

These are a dark fleshed variety of Sour Cherries which, although sour, also have a pretty strong cherry flavor like the sweeter cherry varieties.  I've just made my first Sour Beer with them and look forward to backfilling my stock of fruit to make some more.

It will be interesting to watch how they grow thicker and stronger this year

4-18-24

Bresaola - Dry Cured Meat

I've very much enjoyed my previous two attempts at Dry Curing Meat (Spanish Lomo and Capicola).  I don't have any special equipment or drying chamber but, in the case of the Capicola, was able to make something as good as the commercially available product.

My previous two projects were pork but this one, Bresaola, is beef Eye of Round.  It's not a cut of meat I cook with typically but it's very inexpensive ($5/lb for a 6 lb roast) and I expect to appreciate this use of it.  Like the last two I will be curing it using the equilibrium method where you apply a specific amount of salt (3% by weight in my case) and give it as much time as needed to absorb it (this is as opposed to providing much more salt than is needed and then properly timing the salting time which can over-salt the meat).  I'm using salt only here which is okay for whole muscle curing.

Post curing, I'll cover the meat with Pepper, garlic, and spicy paprika.

I will wrap the meat in dry aging wraps like last time and hang it in my basement which is in the mid 50s and fairly dry.  The drying was fairly gentle in these conditions and I didn't get much of a dry ring on the outside (we'll see how that goes now that we're in spring).  I'll plan on a 40% reduction in weight on the meat which should take something like 6 weeks.

I finished up my Capicola this week and am missing having it to snack on.  I'll need to find a better way to time the availability of these projects going forward.

Ingredients:

• 2359 g Eye of Round Beef Roast (with most fat trimmed
• 71 g of Salt
• Spice mix of equal parts covering the meat:
• Spicy Paprika
• Black Pepper\
• Garlic Powder

Process Details:

• 3/16/24 - Initial Preparation
• Trimmed my roast - removed some of the thick hard fat.  Left on a thin layer in a few places.  This is a big roast (nearly 6 lbs)

• Weighed the meat in grams and then calculated 3% salt.
• Moved to a 1 gal bag and added the salt as evenly as I could.  Sealed the bag with as little air as possible and moved to the back of the fridge

• The meat expelled juices and then reabsorbed them over the next couple weeks.  I flipped the meat every day for the most part.  Still has some free juices after 2 weeks so I'll plan to give it 3 or 4.
• 4/5/24 - Drying preparation:
• The meat had re-absorbed most of the moisture so I decided to proceed to drying

• Covered the meat with 2 tsp each of Black Pepper, Garlic Powder, and Spicy Paprika.  It took it all with a medium level of coverage

• Wrapped the meat in a dry curing wrap
• Trussed up the meat to hold it's shape
• Put this in a few muslin sacks and tied a few more times including with a place for hanging

• Hung the meat down in the basement where it is now about 60 F and 50% humidity
• It weighs 2454 g after the salting and with the wrapping.  I am shooting for a 40% weight loss which would be a loss of about 950g from the original weight - this is a target weight of 1500g
• 4/18/24 - The meat has been air drying almost 2 weeks now and is down to 1846g (25%).  This is consistent with the percentage of weight loss for my Capicola at this stage

Sour Cherry Blonde (2024)

This will be Sour Blonde Beer using home grown Sour Cherries from my crop last year.  These are a dark fleshed variety like those used for Kreik Lambic in Belgium.  They are sour but also have a fairly rich cherry flavor to go along with that (unlike the ligher fleshed Montmorency variety).  I am using about 3.5 lbs of fruit in this batch (they've been frozen which will help them expel their juice better).

I'll use about 5 gal of beer in this batch.  I'm shooting for a blend with a fairly mild flavor and light sourness as the fruit will likely dominate at this ratio.  I'll choose beers based on a recent tasting of my 13 fermenters

I have chosen the following beers:

• Fermenter #5:
• Overview:
• Aged with ECY01 Bug Farm
• Includes beer fermented with lacto
• Mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat malt bill
• Lightly hopped
• Aged in glass carboy with silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Strong overripe fruit and a bit of almost medicine smelling brett character
• Appearance:  Light gold and very clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a fruity character.  Get a bit of earthy and mineral like flavors as well.  The finish is a balance of acidity and fruit flavors.  I also get a bit of bready character in there.
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and very dry.  Had a mild bit of prickliness on the back of the throat as well
• Overview:  This a boldly flavored beer with a pretty nice level of complexity.  The acidity is at a nice balanced level in this one as well
• Volume:
• 2 gal
• Fermenter #9:
• Overview:
• Aged with ECY 34 Dirty Dozen.  This is the second pitch
• Includes beer that has been lacto fermented
• Grainbill is a mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat
• No hops in this batch
• Aged in a bucket fermenter with a vented silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Musty and earthy along with a bit of fruit
• Appearance:  Light gold and a little bit cloudy
• Flavor:  Lightly sour up front.  Has a fruity flavor (citrus like) and a bit of a musty character.  Also get a bready like character and some mineral flavor. 
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and dry.  Has a fairly sharp acid bite on the back of the throat on the swallow
• Overview:  Pretty bold with a nice fruity character.  Not the most complex beer but it has enough other things going on to make for an interesting beer to drink
• Volume:
• 2 gal
• Fermenter #12:
• Overview:
• Brewed with Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #3
• Grainbill was a mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat.  To attempt to better simulate a cereal mash I drew off a quart of very starchy wort from the cereal mash and added this to the boil
• Includes beer which fermented with lacto
• No hops in this batch
• Aged in a bucket with a solid bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Fruity and slightly musty smelling
• Appearance:  Golden and quite cloudy
• Flavor:  Very lightly sour with a citrus like character and a bit of mineral flavor
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied with a light prickliness
• Overview:  Fairly mild in flavor without a whole lot in the way of complexity
• Volume:
• 1 gal

I plan to let this beer sit on the cherries for a few months before bottling

Blending Notes:

• 2/25/24:
• Added the cherries to the fermenter
• Siphoned the 3 beers onto the cherries

• Setup the fermenter with an airlock

Sour Blonde (2024)

I am sitting a large stockpile of aged Soured Blonde Beer (roughly modeled after a Belgian Lambic.  It has been about 4 years since I used any of this for a blend which I blame on being busy.  I've finally gotten my motivation to mix another one of these based on my most recent tasting (see tasting notes)

I have 13 fermenters of beer to choose from.  I've experimented with different ingredients and different blends of yeast and bacteria over the years to get a variety of flavor profiles in my beers.  For this Plain Blend I've decided to go for a mildly sour and richly flavored beer so I've chosen the most flavorful beers as inputs to the blend.  

I've chosen as follows:

• Fermenter #1:
• Overview:
• Aged with Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Includes beer that has undergone a lacto fermentation
• Mix of beers brewed with Pilsner Malt and Wheat
• Very lightly hopped beers
• Aged in a very full glass carboy with a vented silicon bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Earthy with a bit of overripe fruit (peach maybe) and a bit of a mineral character
• Appearance:  Light gold and very clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour with a bit of fruity character.  Has some earthy character in there as well as mineral.  It also has a bit of bready character in the finish.  The finish is mostly acidity and this lingers.
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and very dry.  There is a bit of prickling on the palate from the acidity but not at all unpleasant to drink
• Overview:  The fruity character is nice and fairly bold.  It has pretty good complexity as well although the Brett is fairly restrained.  I think it has a pleasant level of acidity.
• Volume:
• 2.5 gal
• Fermenter #2:
• Overview:
• Aged with Bootleg Biology Funk Weapon #1 and a bit of Wyeast 3278 Belgian Lambic Blend
• Includes beer that has undergone a lacto fermentation
• Grain bill of Pilsner and Raw Wheat
• Very little hops in this batch
• Aged in a mostly full glass carboy with a vented silicon bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  A bit fruity (overripe peach maybe) along with an earthy and leathery character.  Also get a faintly mineral character from it
• Appearance:  Light gold in color and pretty clear
• Flavor:  Lightly sour (very pleasant) mild brett flavors and a bit of overripe fruit.  The finish is a balance of acidity and mineral character.
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied and fairly dry.  It has only a slight bit of alcohol prickling.
• Overview:  Flavors are fairly mild but are quite pleasant.  I think it has a fairly nice level of complexity.  Level of sourness is very nice
• Volume:
• 2.5 gal
• Fermenter #13:
• Overview:
• Spontaneously Fermented after cooling off in my side yard next to Raspberry Plants
• Mix of Pilsner and Raw wheat malt
• Hopped with high AA hops for 15 min of boil.  Left these in the beer while it naturally cooled which was a mistake I think.
• Aged with 3 piece airlock which has run dry several times in a better bottle
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Musty with aged beer character.  A bit of skunkiness - interesting.
• Appearance:  Golden and a little cloudy
• Flavor:  A bit of harshness up front - solvent flavor.  Once you get past that there is fruitiness on the finish along with a bready character.  Maybe a slight hop bitterness but very faint.
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied but a bit harsh on the palate
• Overview:  An interestingly flavored beer.  Not very good on it's own but it could be an interesting blending component in small amounts.
• Volume:
• 1 gal

Blending Notes:

• Blending day - 1/21/24:
• Moved 2.5 gal from Fermenter #1 to a bucket fermenter
• Transferred 2.5 gal from Fermenter #2 to the bucket
• Then transferred 1 gal of fermenter 13 over to the bucket
• Set this up to age together for a month or two

Blue Cheese

This will be my first attempt at making a Blue Cheese. I've chosen a recipe from CheeseMaking.com called "Spanish Blue Cheese". This is intended to replicate a famous cheese I've never had called "
Picón Bejes-Tresviso".  There are a lot of steps involved including a few months of aging at high humidity so it is a pretty good investment in time to make them.  I really enjoy a blue cheese with salad but it is quite expensive - hoping I can find some success here and make some more of these.

The mold that gives blue cheese it's name requires oxygen to grow.  In order to get mold that spreads through the interior of the cheese it is necessary to have the curds come together in a way that leaves air pockets (which are later exposed to the outside by skewering the cheese).  To form the air pockets it is necessary to dry out the curds to a certain extent before adding them to the form.  You still want the curds to have a good amount of moisture as well so, apparently, there is a delicate balance to be achieved.  This being my first time making the recipe I tried not to stress too much about it - I believe I was likely fairly successful in drying the curds out and creating air gaps but will just have to wait a few months to see for sure.

Anyhow, I'll be aging the cheese in my temperature and humidity controlled cheese cave (converted dorm fridge) - the temperature in the basement is pretty good in the high 50s but the humidity is down in the 30% range which is too dry to make this cheese.

At the time of this posting I think I'm off to a pretty good start.  Excited to report on how it goes and hoping it increases my confidence to try some other more complicated cheeses

Recipe Details:

• 3 gal Pasteurized Cow Milk
• 1/8 tsp MA 4002 Mesophilic and Thermophilic Starter Culture
• 1/16 tsp Pencillium Roqueforti (PJ)
• 3/4 tsp Cacl
• 1/2 tsp Rennet mixed with 1/2 cup of spring water
• 3% weight of the cheese in Salt (I used Kosher Salt) - cheese was 1643 g so 49 g of salt

Process Notes:

• 12/23/23:
• Heated the milk in a 5 gal pot in a water bath to 80 F using my Sous Vide circulator

• Added the CaCl and Mesophilic and Thermophilic Starter Culture while the milk heated
• Reyhdrated the mold while the milk came to temperature.  Added this in once at 80 F and stirred to mix everything

• Let the milk sit at 80 F for 90 min to let the cultures start to do their work
• Added the rennet and stirred it in.  Let the milk coagulate for 90 more minutes
• Sliced the curd into a 1 inch grid on the virtical.  Let it sit for 5 min and then sliced on the horizontal
• Stirred the curds over the next 15 min and broke them up a bit

• Gradually transferred the curds to a colander and to a mat to drain in small batches.  I then added them to a separate pan to dry out a bit more before adding them to the form.  This ended up taking a couple hours since I didn't have a mat big enough to handle the amount of curd.  This is the tricky step I noted before and was a real pain.  I need a better approach for this next time.

• Added the curds to the form and let this settle in the basement over night in my utility sink above a pan full of hot water to help keep it warm

• 12/24/23 
• Measured out salt and added 1/3 of it to the top of the cheese
• Moved the cheese to my cheese cave at 88% humidity and 13-15 C

• Flipped the cheese a couple times but kept it in the form.
• 12/25/23 - Added salt to the other side and flipped a couple more times
• 12/26/23 - Salted the sides of the cheese and flipped
• 12/27/23 - Removed from the form and am flipping 1 time a day now.  Waiting to see signs of green mold forming now
• 1/1/24 - The cheese has started to form the blue/green mold.  I have poked holes about 2/3 of the wheel deep on the top and bottom of the cheese.  I'd been keeping the cheese in the high 50s F and at 88% humidity when the recipe recommends 52 F and 80% - I'm adjusting my controllers to this effect

• 1/13/24 - The blue mold has covered the whole cheese now.  I was a but concerned that the holes plugged up so I pierced the cheese again.  The cheese is getting a little slimy which the recipe warned of

• 1/21/24 - Lowered the temperature of the mini-fridge to 43 F and increased humidity to 90% for final aging - maybe a couple more months
• 1/26/24:
• The cheese is starting to develop some orange colored spots (which is expected for this type of cheese

• I've decided to proceed to wrapping the cheese (in parchment paper and foil) which is supposed to cause the blue mold to slow down and work on the internal part of the cheese to create a creamy texture and sweet flavor as it ages for several more months.  I still have it in the mini-fridge

• 4/5/24 - The blue cheese has been aging for a bit over 2 months now at about 5 C and in the high 90% humidity range.  I've got it in a ripening box which is doing a good job keeping the humidity high at this temperature (my attempts to keep the whole chamber in the 90% humidity range resulted in the humidifier running constantly).  I plan to give it another couple of months to ripen.  The cheese is looking about the same

Sour Blonde 9.1.1 - Spontaneously Fermented

I have been brewing Sour Blonde beer semi-inspired by Belgian Lambic for the last 9 years or so.  This is my latest iteration on the project.  I will be doing a spontaneous fermentation for this batch which involves letting the beer be inoculated by whatever organisms are naturally floating in the air.  This is a practice used by the Belgian Lambic producers and has a long history of producing beers with a strong and complex flavor profile.  I have used this practice once before (Sour Blonde 5.1.1) with mixed results.

These beers are made during cool weather which has been found to be important to limiting the amount of spoilage microbes get into the beer.  They also leverage fairly high hopping rates with aged hops to limit the impacts lactobacillus can have on the beer (as this is hindered by hops and would create acidity too quickly which would hinder the effects of the other microbes) but also not impart high levels of bitterness.  I have waited until December to make the beer to wait for a cold period (although I've chosen an unseasonably warm and damp day for brewing - low 60s and foggy) and have used 3 oz of aged hops for the beer.  My previous attempt at spontaneous fermentation used a small amount of high Alpha Acid hops which I had thought were sufficiently aged but ended up adding quite a bit of bitterness that is only now fading (beer was made in 2017)

The beer is leveraging a small cereal mash with raw wheat in addition to some additional flaked wheat to be used in the main mash.  These beers traditionally use wheat and feature a wort rich in unconverted starches which allow for nutrients to remain in the wort after the simple sugars have been consumed by the wild yeasts and bacteria active early in the fermentation

This was intended to be a 10 gal batch but my efficiency was better than expected so it's going to be more like a 12 gal batch.  I'm shooting for a 1.045 gravity in anticipation of high attenuation which would give me about 5% ABV.  My other beers are a bit higher alcohol so a lower alcohol beer like this could make a valuable blending ingredient.

Anyhow, I plan to blend up some new Lambic style beers here in the next month or so and intent to empty one fermenter in the process which I'll use for this beer and then I'll use the other half to top up the others and add some fresher yeast and nutrients to the mix.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10 lb Pilsner
• 4 lb Flaked Wheat
• 1 lb Munich
• 4 oz Acid Malt
• Cereal Mash:
• 4 lb raw wheat
• 1 lb Pilsner
• Hops:
• 3 oz of Homegrown Aged Cascade at 60 min
• Yeast:
• Spontaneous Fermentation
• Water:
• 13 gal spring water
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 11 gal (Target 10 gal)
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temperature
• Primary Duration:
• 1 month
• Secondary Duration:
• 1-3 years

Results:

• OG:
• 1.047 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 78% (Target 69%)
• FG:
• TBD (Target 1.04)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• TBD (Target 91%)
• ABV:
• TBD (Target 5.38%)

Brewing Notes:

• 12/2/23 - Did an appreciated cereal mash on the stove top by slowly ramping the mash up to a light boil over the course of a couple hrs.  Then left it sitting over night to cool down
• 12/3/23 - Brewday - 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM- including setup and cleanup
• Heated 10 gal of spring water up to 175 F
• Heated the cereal mash back up to near boiling
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl and Gypsum to it at this point so I wouldn't forget

• Added 6 gal to the Mash Tun and cycled through the RIMS until the temperature had settled to 160 F
•   Added grain to the mash and stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  Added the cereal mash
• Let the mash sit for 10 min to settle
• Cycled the mash at 152 F for 50 min min
• Heated 8 gal of spring water up to 180 F for sparge
• Drained the mash into the boil kettle doing a manual fly sparge until I'd collected 12 gal
• Started heating the kettle after collecting about 3 gal.  Had it at a boil about 10 min after then end of the sparge
• Added the bittering hops as soon as the hot break subsided a bit

• Boiled for 60 min (boiled off 2 gal as expected)
• At the very end of the boil I removed the hops and transported the 10 gal of boiling wort to my raspberry beds  to cool.  I spilled a quart or two during this move.  I'm going to leave the beer out overnight to cool.
• Measured the gravity of the beer at 1.060.  I really want it to be at 1.045 so I'm going to have to add some water (will figure out how much tomorrow)

• 12/4/23
• Carried the boil kettle into the garage (didn't spill any on this trip)
• Transferred the contents into 2 fermenters.  Got 8 gal

• The kettle loses some water cooling like this with the time to steam so the gravity is now at 1.064.  So, I got about 78% efficiency on this batch
• Added 3 gal of spring water to get to 1.047 which is close enough to my target.  This is 11 gal of wort.
• Setup the fermenters with mostly covered lids in my sour beer room which, I assume, is full of microbes that might aid in this process

• 12/8/23 - There is a bit of foam forming on the beer this morning which is a good sign of initial fermentation

• 12/11/23 - The beer has a fruity aroma and the foam hasn't really progressed very much
• 12/14/23 - Growing some mold and a bit of a pellicle.  I've scooped out the mold.  It has some aroma that I'm familiar with from past beers so I'm not that concerned.  Tasted a bit and it is still pretty sweet

• 12/25/23 - Not much change to the beers.  Still growing this yellow slimy mold.  They still smell pretty good so I'm going to let it continue.

• 12/29/23 - One of them is forming some foam which I'm hoping is a sign of some active fermentation

• 2/25/24 - Transferred Fermenter #2 into fermenter #1 (which were each about half full.  Transferred 6 gal of this batch into fermenter 2 which had the yeast cake in it still