Sour Cherry Crop - 2025

I can't believe it but this is the sixth season for my sour cherry trees.  They have grown up to 10 feet high and close to 10 feet wide and produced a lot of fruit for me this year.  Read about previous seasons (Season 1, Season 2, Season 3, Season 4 and Season 5) 

These are North Star Cherries which have a dark fleshed fruit which have a flavor similar to a sweet cherry but with a higher level of acidity and lower levels of sweetness.  I enjoy eating them but will use most of them in my beer

6/28/25

6/4/25

5/3/25

4/20/25

Growing Notes:

• 6/3/25 - I have a large amount of fruit that is ripening.  I wait until the fruit is a purple color before picking

• 6/20/25 - I have been picking for the last couple weeks, twice a day, and even though there is some fruit high up in the branches I am calling it good. I've gotten 37 lbs of fruit this year
• 6/22/25 - I did some pruning of the lower branches which were making it difficult to mow under the tree
  

English Barleywine (2024 Version) - Tasting Notes

This was my Eleventh attempt at the English Barleywine style.  I brewed this on Memorial Day in 2024, fermented for a month or so and then let it bulk age for what turned out to be close to 10 months.  I would like to think that a high alcohol beer like this one can benefit quite a bit from that kind of mellowing time (but maybe I'm just justifying my own laziness)

I am going do drink half the batch this year and then will leave the remaining 24 bottles to be consumed once a year in a vertical tasting with my growing collection of Barleywine.  This is a big, sweet beer (10% ABV and finished at 1.034) so I believe it will age very nicely (I'm lucky enough to have a cool and dark basement in which to store it).  It already has a great complexity and I expect some age will add to that

Tasting Notes:

• Aroma:
• Fruity ester character (apple) along with caramel and toasted bread.  I get an oak aroma along with a wine like character along with a mild alcohol aroma. 
• Appearance:
• Light brown and quite cloudy.  It pours with virtually no foam (just a flurry of bubbles which is soon gone.
• Flavor:
• Caramel and lightly toasted bread up front which then fades into some fruity character.  It has a fairly strong oak flavor in the mix as well.  The finish has a bit of bitterness and then is mostly rich and sweet malt flavor - I think I get something like chocolate in the finish as well.  The alcohol is slightly present in the flavor but well in the background
• Mouthfeel:
• Full bodied and pretty sticky on the palate.  It drinks with a slight bit of astringency with some alcohol warming character.
• Overall:
• This is a boldly flavored and very complex beer.  It has very nice malt and yeast derived flavors.  I oaked it generously and it contributes a nice element to the overall flavor - gives it an extra bit of richness which melds well with the other flavors

English Barleywine XII

As per my yearly Memorial Day tradition, I will be making an English Barleywine today.  I haven't brewed in something like 10 months so very good to be getting back to it.

I have brewed one of these every year since 2014 (read about 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024).  It is a complex style of beer that features a combination of malt, hop, yeast, and alcohol flavors in varying degrees and it ages well with it's high ABV, high hopping rates, and residual sweetness

I brew a different recipe each year for the most part.  This year I'll be making one based on a historical recipe from the Shut Up About Barclay Perkins Blog:  1879 William Younger No. 1.  It is an interesting recipe as it uses all base malt.  It also has a heavy dose of bittering hops and quite a bit of flavoring hops.  I like the simplicity and weirdness of these old recipes and they typically make a really nice beer

These beers would have been aged historically before consumption and Brettanomyces would likely have been present.  I am going to try to replicate a historical Brett character in this beer through the use of Orval Dregs in Secondary (a beer that is reported to contain a couple strains of wild yeast).  I will age the beer at least through December before bottling.

Recipe Details:

• Grain:
• 10 lb 12 oz Pilsner
• 7 lbs 4 oz Golden Promise
• 4 lb Munich
• Hops:
• 6 oz Cluster (Pellet, 7.4% AA) at 180 min
• 2 oz Hallertauer Mittelfruher (Pellet, 2% AA) at 30 min
• 1 oz East Kent Golding (Pellet, 4.3% AA) at 0 min
• 1 oz East Kent Golding (Pellet, 4.3% AA) as Dryhop
• Yeast:
• 2 packets Windsor
• Orval Brett Culture in Secondary
• Water:
• 10 gal spring water
• 5 gal tap water
• 2 tsp Gypsum
• 2 tsp CaCl
• 1 tsp citric acid
• 1 tsp Irish Moss (15 min)

Process details:

• Batch Size:
• 6 gal (Target 6 gal)
• Mash:
• 156 F for 60 min
• Boil:
• 180 min
• Fermentation Temperature:
• Ambient Basement Temps
• Primary Duration:
• 1 month
• Secondary Duration:
• 6 months

Results:

•     OG:
• 1.106 (Target 1.100)
• Efficiency:
• 78% (Target 74%)
• FG:
• 1.024 (Target 1.025)
• Apparent Attenuation:
• 76% (Target 73%)
• ABV:
• 10.9% (Target 10.9%)

Brewing Notes:

• 5-26-25 - Brewday - 12 PM to 6:30 PM - including setup and cleanup
• Measured and milled my grain.  Added half the CaCl and gypsum to the grain and the other half to the boil kettle just so I wouldn't forget.  Also added the Citric Acid to the malt
• Heated 8 gal of strike water to 185 F
• Moved 7 gal of strike water to the mash tun and cycled it through the RIMS until the temperature had settled at 166 F
• Added the grain to the mash tun and stirred well to eliminate doughballs.  Let the mash sit for 10 min prior to starting the RIMS cycle
• Cycled the RIMS for 60 more minutes
• Heated 10 gal of sparge water up to 185 F
• Slowly fly sparged - started heating the kettle after collecting 3 gal.  Had it near a boil after collecting 8 gal or so.  I ended up collecting 12 gal of wort which will make this a 3 hr boil

• Added the bittering hops once the hot break had cleared
• Boiled for 3 hrs

• Rehydraded my yeast in room temperature spring water
• Added flavoring hops at 30 min
• Added Irish Moss at 15 min
• Put in the wort chiller with 5 min to go to sanitize
• Added the flame out hops
• Chilled to 75 F
• Drained into the fermenter - let the wort fall a foot or so to aerate.  Pitched the yeast during this transfer

• Got 6 gal and measured gravity as 1.106 which is a little high but close enough
• Set the fermenter in my utility sink in anticipation of a mess
• 5-27-25 - The beer was fermenting agressively by the next morning and pushing krausen up and out of the airlock
• 5-30-25 - I cleaned up the airlock a couple days ago.  No more airlock activity today
• 7-26-25 - Transferred the beer to secondary.  Added the 1 oz of dry hops and 2 cups of a malt starter I inoculated with Orval dregs a couple months ago - this beer is sour and quite fruity which should be very interesting.  I measured the gravity of the beer as 1.044 at transfer
• 1-4-26 - Bottled today using a pack of Red Star Premier Cuvee champagne yeast and 5 oz of priming sugar.  Measured the FG at 1.024.  The beer has a bready malt character along with a subtle fruity character.  It is a little sweet and has a medium bitterness along with a alcohol flavor.  I think it's going to be a good one.  I ended up with about 5 gal of beer which got me 49 bottles.
• 2-28-26 - Tasting Notes: It's an interesting beer with it's fruit forward character - I think the Brett delivers a character very much in line with what you might expect from an English Barleywine.  The malt is nice but is pretty much overshadowed.  I like the level of bitterness in it.  I think it's a reasonably complex beer and it's pretty light and easy drinking for a ~10% ABV beer - hides the alcohol well and is a bit dryer than many I've made in the past.  Also, appearance is the least concern but I think the color is very nice on this beer - I don't think I got the priming sugar evenly distributed when bottling this batch so this one had little carbonation and I may have some surprises opening the later ones 

Smoked Corned Beef

I purchased some inexpensive corned beef at the supermarket after St Patrick's Day and thought it might be fun to experiment some more with Cold Smoking.  This is a technique where meat is smoked at a temperature low enough where the meat isn't cooked (below 90 F is the typical limit).  My hope is that this makes a nice meat for use in sandwiches

I have purchased 2 corned beefs for this.  They are about 3 lbs each.  It is very high in salt so I will plan to limit my consumption of it - I will package it in 4 pieces after the smoke but before braising.

I think I will try doing the salting of the meat myself when I try this again

Process details:

• 4/6/25:
• Removed the meat from the package and rinsed with cold water to wash away excess salt
• Covered the meat with pepper and garlic powder

• Moved the meat to the fridge on a wire rack to dry out a bit before the smoking
• 4/8/25 - Smoking the meat - this was a night where it was supposed to get to freezing so the meat should stay relatively cold through the cooking process which helps keep pathogens at bay.  Setup the smoker with hickory chips and smoked the meat for 10 hrs over night

• 4/9/25 - Cut the meat into 4 pieces.  Froze 3 and let one chill in the fridge for a near term meal

• 4/10/25 - Braised one of the pieces over night in beer

• 4/11/25 - Cooled the meat the next day and had a nice sandwich.  The meat is very tender and has a pretty firm smokey flavor even after the braising.  It doesn't have an overly salty flavor - I think the braise ends up pulling a lot of salt out of the meet.  I got 3 sandwiches out of this piece of meat

Raspberry Wine (2020 Version) Tasting Notes

This was my second attempt at a Raspberry Wine.  This time I increased to 52 lbs of raspberries and 10 lbs of sugar which got me 5.5 gal of wine at 12.5% ABV.  I oaked this version lightly (2 sticks of oak I had soaked in port).  I back sweetened it to 1.021 and then killed the yeast with campden tablets before bottling.  This was successful as the wine has been stable in the bottle for over 3 years now

I don't drink these very often but they are quite tasty.  It is high time I captures some notes on it

Tasting Notes:

•  Aroma:
• Rich and strong raspberry character.  Quite pungent.  I has a bit of a yeast character to it as well and you can smell the alcohol in it.  It smells quite a bit like a typical grape-based wine
• Appearance:
• Dark red and a little murky (got some of the junk from the bottle into the glass)
• Flavor:
• Rich fruity character with a very light sweetness.  Quite different than eating a fruit as the flavors seem so much more concentrated.  A little tart on the finish.  Has a fairly firm but nice booze character to it - alcohol is in the background compared with the fruit character.  I feel like there is some yeast character in this as well - a bit of a estery and slightly funky note.
• Mouthfeel:
• Medium bodied and a little sticky on the palate.  It has a bit of astringency.
• Overall:
• Very tasty.  The fruit character is very nice, it has a pleasant level of sweetness and booziness to it, and the balance is quite pleasant.  I think it is quite complex to sip and actually is fairly refreshing with the tartness.

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