Raspberry Wine (2019 Version) - Tasting Notes

This was my first attempt at a raspberry wine - made back in 2019.  I used 40lbs of raspberries and 10 lbs of sugar to make 5 gal of this raspberry wine.  It was fermented with wine yearst and got up to 13% ABV.  I then backsweetened this up to 1.022 prior to killing the yeast with Campden Tablets

This has been aging down in my cellar for almost 5 years now.  I had missed that I didn't a do a tasting of this version long ago - better late than never.  This version made me excited about making more of these - which I have done in the years since.  Time to capture some notes

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Strong, concentrated, raspberry character along with a boozy and yeasty note
• Appearance:
• Dark red pretty clear
• Flavor:
• Concentrated raspberry flavor up front.  It is slightly tart up front and then a bit of a sour bite.  There is a mild sweetness to it.  There is fairly firm alcohol presence in the finish along with some yeast ester character.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied with a slightly sticky character on the pallet.  It's got some astringency
• Overall:
• This has a strong flavor.  It is quite a bit different than the experience of easting a raspberry in that the flavor is quite a bit more intense.  I'd say it's of a similar level of fruit character to a grape-based wine.  It has a nice level of sweetness that counters the acidity and the alcohol character.  I think this works nicely as a desert wine

Chicken Salad From Scratch

This is a recipe that my mother has been making me since I was a kid (and was also made by her mother) for a Chicken Salad I very much enjoy.  I have trying to cut down on the sodium in my diet and so I'm converting this into a scratch recipe for better control.  I've tried a couple variations on this now and feel like I have something worth capturing for posterity.

We use the chicken salad for sandwiches typically.  It stays good for about a week so it make sense to make many sandwich's worth (continues to improve with a bit of aging as the flavors meld better).  I think this recipe I'm about to lay out is enough for a couple people to have a sandwiches several times over the week - I've tried making larger amounts which are tough to finish.  This was just about enough

As you'll see below the main actions being taken here to reduce the salt are cooking my own chicken breast (as canned chicken has quite a bit of salt for preservation) and making my own mayonnaise which is actually pretty easy.  Other than this, it is basically my mother's recipe.

Ingredients:

• 2 Chicken Breasts (about 800g)
• 2 Celery stalks
• 6 Green Onion
• 1/2 Yellow Onion
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1 tsp Celery salt
• 1.5 Cups Mayonnaise
• 1 large egg
• 4 tsp white wine vinegar
• 1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp sugar
• 1.5 cup vegetable oil

Process:

• Cooked the chicken breast with a Sous Vide water bath to 142 F.  This makes for a moist chicken breast.  Let this cool before chopping into one half to quarter inch squares
• Finely chopped the vegetable ingredients and mixed the meat and chicken well

• Mixed the mayonnaise in my blender.  Added all ingredients other than the oil.  Turned on the blender and slowly drizzled in all the oil.  The mayonnaise comes together very well.  Used the whole batch for this

• Mixed the mayonnaise and spices into the meat and vegetables 

Oak Preparation Experiment - Part II

Over the last several years I have been making attempts to replicate the Bourbon Character of Goose Island's Bourbon County Brand Stout on a small scale using oak cubes rather than a second use Bourbon Barrel (which are difficult to come by).  I have felt like my results have continued to improve as I've refined my process.  Some details on how I proceed with this:  

• I buy my own White Oak lumber for this and age it outside for a year or two to allow the wood flavor to be "softened" - this is traditional in barrel making but I have not tested this claim myself.
• I believe that a critical part of the bold Bourbon Character in BCBS is due to bourbon remaining in the barrel which is Cask Strength (58-63% alcohol).  To get a white spirit at this strength I have been using 95% ABV Everclear which I water down to 62% ABV.  I age the oak in this spirit (this also creates a product that I find worth drinking as a Bourbon Substitute)
• Bourbon makers toast and then char their barrels to make Bourbon.  The exact process is a guarded trade secret.  I did an experiment a couple years ago where I assessed various levels of Toasting and Charing of oak cubes to get a Bourbon-like character (more vanilla forward than caramel).  I found that a particular level of toasting followed by charring to "alligator" char levels was necessary to get close to the flavor profile (not toasting enough or over toasting produced flavor profiles wide of the mark).  This was a very helpful discovery.  Check out this experiment for the details
• Aging the beer with enough oak to approximate the surface area exposure from a barrel (56 sqin per gal) is critical for getting the flavor profile right in terms of intense Bourbon Character.  For 5 gal of beer this is 280 sq inches of oak (11 sticks of 1x1x6 inches).  In preparing the oak, I have been aging at a 3x higher oak to spirit ratio than is the case in a Bourbon Barrel in an attempt to not use as much Everclear.  This creates a spirit with a different flavor profile than real Bourbon and that this contributes to the beer tasting unlike a real Barrel Aged Beer.  I believe this is an area where I might improve my process and is the reason for this new round of experimentation
  

I hypothesize that doing a pre-boil of prepared oak could reduce the flavor intensity of aging the oak with 3x higher amount of oak as is used in real Bourbon Making.  How much of a boil would need to be performed is the variable I would like to test.  Additionally, I will test whether dehydrating the boiled oak (assuming the oak absorbs a meaningful amount of water during the boil) makes any difference.

So, I will test as fallows (all prepared per the results of the previous experiment's winning method):

1. Age 1 piece of oak (1x1x1.5 inches) with 16 oz of 62% white spirit (Everlear) - 56 sqin per gal ratio of oak to spirit.  This is to repeat the previous experiment's results hopefully
2. Age 3 pieces of oak with 16 oz of the spirit.  This is the method that I used to create the oak in my last Bourbon County Clone which is not bottled yet but which I feel the Bourbon Character is a bit off the mark still
3. Boiled 3 pieces of oak for 5 min before aging them in the spirit
4. Boiled 3 pieces of oak twice, for 5 min each time, before aging them in spirit
5. Boiled 3 pieces of oak for 5 min and then dehydrated them for 1 hr before aging them in spirit
6. Boiled 3 pieces of oak twice, for 5 min each time and dehydrating them after each boil for 1 hr before aging them in spirit

I will age these samples in a cold place in the house which is also near a heater that will cycle off and on through the day.  This will help the spirit travel in and out of the wood and speed up the maturation of both.  I expect it will take a couple months for the samples to be worth tasting

Experiment Notes:

• 12-28-24
• Cut up 16 pieces of aged White Oak for the test (all about the same size but with a bit of variability)
• Toasted the oak for 5 min on each side on a cast iron pan at 2/3 of the way towards medium
• Charred the oak in three passes to get an alligator char
• Did the first boil in 1 gal pot with 12 wood samples.  I waited until a rolling boil was achieved before adding the wood and then boiled for 5 min.  The liquid has a fairly dark yellow color after this
• Dehydrated 6 of the samples for 1 hr
• Did the second boil with 6 of the samples following the previous process.  The liquid wasn't as dark this time but it still had a fair amount of color left
• Did a final round of dehydrating on the remaining 3 samples for 1 hr
• Added spring water to Everclear at a ratio of 10.5 oz of spirit to 5.5 oz of spring water to get the 62% ABV spirit for aging.  The amount of spirit was approximately the same for each sample but I didn't go to the trouble of accounting for the wood volume differences between the sample with the 1 piece of oak and the others

Sample 1-6 L to R - Boiled sample 3 and 4 are all sunk (interesting)

• 12-31-24 - I have been aging the spirit on the kitchen counter the last few days.  Moved them into their final aging place.  The samples are already getting a fair amount of color.  The differences in the samples are interesting:

Sample 1-6 L to R - sample 2 and samples 5 & 6 a bit darker

Bacon

My recent success in making cured meats has given me confidence and excitement about the prospects of trying new things.  One of the most delicious cured products is smoked pork belly cooked in slices as bacon.  Store bought bacon is delicious but it contains quite a bit of salt (which I'm trying to limit in my diet) as well as sodium nitrate which has flavor contribution that I think is to the detriment of product.  I believe I can make a product that is cheaper, more convenient, and more in line with my dietary needs/tastes.

Costco sells full pork belly at what seems like a very good price (3.99 per lb).  This is a skin on belly.  The skin is edible and, although I've never had skin on bacon, it is reported as producing a nice bit of crispness when left on for bacon.  I intend to leave it on for this first attempt.  I picked up a 13 lb belly and will be preparing half of it for this first attempt (and will freeze the remainder for later).

My plan is to salt the belly with 1% salt (equilibrium method) and store it in the fridge for a week for the salt to absorb.  I will then add spices (will do 2 different spice mixes to evaluate the differences) and then wrap and dry them in my temperature controlled curing chamber/cheese cave until they have lost 15-20% of their water weight.  This drying will help protect the meat from pathogens (like Listeria).  I will then cold smoke the meat for 10-12 hrs.  There is much discussion about nitrates being needed to ward off botulism pinioning.  Botulism requires an anaerobic environment to create spores - I have confirmed that my smoker does not create an anaerobic environment by setting up candles in the smoker - the candles have enough oxygen to continually burn during smoking.  So, based on this, I feel comfortable that I am not creating a botulism risk by smoking the bacon.

My intention will be to cook the bacon up crispy in small batches and then use it on my nightly salad (goes very nicely with avocado and blue cheese)

Ingredients:

• Version 1:
• 1333g of pork belly
• 14g of salt (1%)
• 2 tsp Black Pepper
• 1 tsp Garlic Powder
• 1 tsp Chipotle Pepper Powder
• Version 2:
• 1310g of pork belly
• 14 g of salt (1%)
• Splash of Balsamic Vinegar
• 2 tsp Brown Sugar
• 1 tsp Paprika
• 1 tsp Black Pepper

Process Details:

• 11/1/24
• Got a large pork belly from costco and cut it into 4 pieces of roughly equal size.  I am going to use two of these today

• Measured the weights of the belly and salted the meat side at 1% by weight

• Put these in 1 gal zip-lock bags and stored them in the fridge for the salt to absorb.  I evaluated the progress every couple days after this
• 11/9/24
• The meat surface was fairly dry after a week in the fride which indicated to me that the salt had been drawn in

• I spiced the meat, wrapped it up in muslin sacks and trussed it up with string to hang in the curing chamber

• Collected the starting weight for the drying (I'm looking to lose 15-20% of the water weight).  Version 1 was 1360g and Version 2 was 1340g
• Moved to the curing chamber set between 50 and 60 F.  It is sitting at about 60-80% humidity with the meat in it
• 11/15/24
• One week later the meat had dried to within my target:  Version 1 was down to 1133g (17% weight loss) and Version 2 was 1119g (17% weight loss)

• I moved them back to the fridge over night to smoke them the next day
• 11/16/24
• Set the bacon up on a rack in my trash can smoker.  I used hickory wood chips in my soldering iron based cold-smoke generator.  I started at 6 PM anticipating a night in the low 40 to high 30 F range

• Added a temperature monitor just for curiosity
• I smoke with a lid on, of course, but it is slightly ajar.  The smoke generator produces a good amount of very nicely smelling smoke
• 11/17/24
• The smoker was still producing smoke when I checked on it at 6 AM so I let it peter out on it's own which took until 8 AM
• The max temperature achieved was 79 F (it was at that point when I opened the lid at 6 AM).  The meat had no signs of being cooked (no drippings).
• I brought the bacon in the house and cut off 2 sample strips from each.  It is a a bit difficult to cut with the tough skin so you need a sharp knife
• I fried it in a pan.  It tastes very smoky and the lower salt content is very apparent.  I am quite happy with this first tasting.
• Between the smoke, salt, and bold meat flavor, I can't say there was a meaningful difference between the two version of bacon.  The spice flavors don't really come through much at all here actually.  I think I would skip the spices in the next version
• 11/29/24 - Baked up some bacon on a sheet pan and collected some nice pictures of it.  This was fairly thick cut and turned out very nice and crispy - it is very good tasting bacon.  I' really happy with this project

Faro

A Faro is a Lambic beer that had dark candi sugar added.  The one example I've had (Lindeman's) was quite sweet but still had a fair amount of sour beer character along with some interesting cooked sugar notes (some fruitiness).  I've decided to give one a shot this year to go along with my Raspberry and Cherry versions.

I'm going to make an invert syrup for this.  These have a fruity character although are not quite like Belgian Candi Sugar.  I'm going fairly dark on it - maybe and Invert #3 (a dark brown color).  I found a good reference for sugar to beer ratio of 40 L of beer to 1 Kg of sugar.  I am making a 5 gal batch of this which amounts to 17 oz of sugar

My plan is to use up some of the unused fermenters of my Sour Blonde Beer - choosing some of the less interesting ones for this purpose (based on tasting notes).  I'll let this sit with the sugar for a short time (maybe just a few days) before bottling with some Champagne yeast.  I'll monitor the carbonation and bottle pasteurize to maintain some sweetness

For the blend of beers I'm going with:

• 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:
• 1 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:
• 1 gal
• Fermenter #10:
• Overview:
• Aged with Omega Yeast OYL-212 Brett Blend #3:  Bring on Da Funk
• Soured a portion of the batch with Omega Yeast OYL-605 Lactobacillus Blend (L. Plantarum and L. Brevis)
• Mix of Pilsner and Raw Wheat
• No hops
• Aged in a bucket fermenter with a vented silicone bung
• Tasting Notes:
• Aroma:  Musty with a fruity and slightly spicy character
• Appearance:  Straw colored and a little murky
• Flavor:  Light sourness and some bready flavor.  Slight mineral character with some bready flavor
• Mouthfeel:  Light bodied with only a slight prickliness
• Overview:  Fairly mild in flavor and not all that complex
• Volume:
• 3 gal

Blending Notes:

• 10/30/24:
• Made my invert sugar as follows:
• Mixed 17 oz of table sugar, 1/4 tsp of Citric Acid, and 2 cups of water in a pot
• Set the pot over medium low heat and stirred all the sugar until it was desolved
• The mixture achieved a very slow boil and, over the course of 4 hrs, evaporated the excess water and developed a darkening color and some very nice aroma (fruit and toasted marshmallow)

•  Once I judged it complete I added some boiling water to it (a few cups) which makes the mixture into a thinner liquid that I can pour off once it cools
• Let it cool to room temperature over night
• Blended the beers:
• 3 gal fermenter #10

• 1 gal each of from fermenter's 1 and 2 (which have been temporarily combined into fermenter #2)
• 10/31/24 - Added the Invert syrup to the beer this morning

Pale Ale with Citra and Mosaic - Tasting Notes

This is the first hoppy beer I've brewed up in quite site time:  Pale Ale with Citra and Mosaic.  I decided to try a very simple and light malt bill (10 lbs of grain with 9 of that being pale ale and 1 lb being wheat).  I was hoping it would top out at about 4% ABV for easy drinking and I hit my numbers very closely here.

The star of the show of this beer was to be powerful American hops:  Citra and Mosaic.  I've had these sitting in my freezer for a couple years now and decided I should attempt to use up a large portion of them.  I went with 5 oz Citra in the whirl-pool and then 6 oz of Mosaic in the Dry hop.  These created very bold hop aroma and flavor in the beer.  I also bittered it aggressively with 3.3 oz of Chinook and Columbus.

I have had the beer in  a keg for a couple weeks now and it's tasting very good and is well carbonated so it's time for a tasting:

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Bold hop character in the nose.  I would say it is primarily pine with a citrus character.  I don't really get any malt or yeast character through the hops.  I would say it is as hoppy as Pliny the Elder
• Appearance:
• Light gold and fairly clear.  It pours from the keg with a 1 finger head that lingers for several minutes.  It leaves lacing on the glass
• Flavor:
• Very light malt and some grassy, herbal and slightly citrusy hop flavors up front.  This is followed by a fairly firm bitterness which lingers into the finish.  The bitterness is definitely the dominant character in the finish but there is a slight bready sweetness in there that offers some semblance of a balance to it.  I think the bitterness is nice - not a harsh character
• Mouthfeel:
• Light bodied and pretty smooth drinking.
• Overall:
• This beer packs a lot of hop character into a light package.  It's a pretty agressive beer with the level of bitterness here and the balance strongly towards the bitterness - I'd say it's much more like an IPA than a American Pale Ale.  I think this is the beer I would have expected to get with the simple malt bill. 

Pale Ale with Citra and Mosaic

This will be a new Hoppy beer to have on tap - I have been very busy recently and have had to buy commercial beer.  I'm hoping this will be a bit more flavorful than the typical commercial Pale Ale and I'll brew it to be a a low alcohol one at 4%ish

I have a lot of hops from a couple years ago which I'll attempt to start using up.  I'll generously hop this beer to that end.  I have some very nice smelling Citra which I'll use for a large charge of Flame out hops as well as a big dose of dry hops (using 6 oz of Mosaic.  I'll give the beer 1 week with these before kegging

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 9 lbs Golden Promise
• 1 lb Flaked Wheat
• Hops:
• 1.4 oz Chinook (Leaf, 12.2% AA) at 60 min
• 1.9 oz Columbus (Leaf, 14.6% AA) at 60 min
• 5 oz Citra (Leaf, 13.1% AA) at 0 min
• 6 oz Mosaic (Leaf, 11.4% AA) Dry Hop
• Yeast:
• US-05 American Ale Yeast
• Water:
• 13 gal spring water
• 0.25 tsp Citric Acid
• 1 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp Gypsum
• 1 tsp Irish Moss at 15 min

Process Details:

• Batch Size:
• 6(Target 6 gay)
• Mash:
• 150 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 60 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• 65 F
• Primary Duration:
• 3 Weeks
• Secondary Duration:
• 2 Weeks in the Keg

Results:

• OG:
• 1.046 (Target 1.045)
• Efficiency:
• 75% (Target 74%)
• FG:
• 1.016 (Target 1.015)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 64% (Target 66%)
• ABV:
• 3.8% (3.9%)

Brewing Notes:

• 8/18/24 - Brewday - 10 AM to 3 PM- Including Setup and Cleanup
• Heated 13 gal of spring water to 175 F
• Milled my grain.  Added CaCl, Gypsum, and Citric Acid to the malt

• Moved 7 gal of spring water to the Mash Tun and cycled through the grant and RIMS until the temperature had settled at 160 F
• Added the grain and stirred well to eliminate dough balls.  Let the Mash settle for 10 min
• Cycled the RIMS at 150 F for 60 min
• Heated 5 gal of spring water to 185 F
• Did a slow fly sparge until I'd collect 8.5 gal of wart.  Started to heat the brew kettle after collecting 4 gal.  Had it at a boil around the time the sparge finished
• Boiled for 60 min - added the bittering hops shortly after the start of the boil
• Put the yeast in a cup of room temp spring water to hydrate
• Added Irish Moss with 15 min left
• Added the wort chiller with 5 min left
• Added whirl pool hops at the end of the boil.  Ran the burner on low setting with a slow flow of cooling water to keep the wort at 180 F.  Let the hops steep at this temperature for 20 min

• Cooled the wort down to around 80 F
• Transferred to the fermenter, letting it fall a couple feet to aerate, and pitched the yeast

• Moved the beer to my fermentation chamber set to 65 F
• Collected 6 gal and measured the gravity as 1.046
• 8/19/24 - Fermentation was active by the next afternoon
• 9/1/24 - Added the dry hops to the beer
• 9/14/24 - Cold crashed the beer down to 36 F and fined with gelatin.  My schedule was delayed by a week due to unexpected hospital visit.  Hope to be drinking it soon now though.
• 9/15/24 - Transferred to keg and will carbonate over the next week or so before trying it  The FG as 1.016
• 9/30/24 - Tasting Notes - This beer packs a lot of hop character into a light package.  It's a pretty agressive beer with the level of bitterness here and the balance strongly towards the bitterness - I'd say it's much more like an IPA than a American Pale Ale.  I think this is the beer I would have expected to get with the simple malt bill.