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Armador CarmenereFebruary 14, 2010

I don’t seem to be able to keep from posting food related items.

Here’s a great wine value available in Duncan!

2005 Armador Carmenere by Odfjell Vineyards . The scent is full, fresh, and deceptively sweet. Fruit and fresh mozzarella came to mind for me. The primary flavors are cedar, black cherry, and cocoa. I was most impressed by the contrast of sweetness on the nose and dryness on the mouth.

We just tried the 2004 and it is good, but not as good as the 2005.

Food

Social BeveragesNovember 22, 2009

The reason I love coffee, or beer, or desserts, is that consuming them seems to qualify as a social activity. This makes them a great excuse to sit around and just converse. Many people don’t seem to be able to do this without an excuse, I’ve noticed. I suppose it seems lazy, or high pressure unless there’s another focus to the meeting.

Espresso is a great justification for extensive interaction because after I’ve gone to the trouble to make you a cup with all the flourishes, you ought to share a few of your own thoughts with me, even if they are just upon the flavor of the coffee.

I love the machiatto. Forty percent of the time it is my favorite coffee drink. The other sixty percent is divided between pure espresso, drip coffee, and the latte. The picture above is my first machiatto that I’ve prepared myself, which means it is naturally more delicious. It is a cocoa machiatto.

Above is my latest brew, Plastic Paddy Red. I’m very proud of it. The aroma has a primary scent of brandy, and the flavor is buttery with a toasty, hoppy finish. I used a traditional Irish Red approach, but I used Yakima hops. I also discovered a few tricks for head retention, lace, and clarity, but I’ll only share them over a pint.

Beer is a social drink. Brewing it yourself makes it a good conversation starter, as well as giving you the ability to tailor it to your tastes. It’s also an ancient tradition to share it, which makes it even more enjoyable to people like me.

Oh, and if anyone says you can’t brew a clear brew in a single fermentor, I say… Blarney!

Food Interests

Cajun DinnerNovember 05, 2009

This dinner was haphazardly planned but turned out good anyways. I would have preferred collard greens to peas just for the cajun touch, but buttery peas go very well with fish.

The fish is blackened salmon and the potatoes are cajun-style home fries.

We certainly post a lot about food. I suppose it’s one of our favorite hobbies.

Food Interests

There's Kefir in My BeerOctober 08, 2009

Here’s my latest home-brew — first one without a recipe! It’s creamy and foamy, sweet and thick. Bo says you should name all your beers, so I christen this one Grendel Brindle Stout. The hops are very present, but the dark and chocolate malt stands up to them, in my opinion.

This brew is unique in that I used Kefir grains instead of regular yeast. They worked really well, though I can’t see that they stand any real advantage. I was hoping to see if they could help kill other bacteria or help speed the fermentation process, but I don’t think they helped all that much. They also purportedly add health benefits, so there’s that.

I brewed two gallon jugs and bottled one at a week of fermentation and the second at two weeks. I opened the first batch a few times during the process to test killing bacteria and the other as a control. Strangely, the first batch had matured to optimum drinkability at about two weeks in the bottle, and was really delicious, but the second jug is the one that took on harmful bacteria. It has a very slight off taste that the first one didn’t have. This could possibly be because the Kefir was still more active at bottling of the first batch, but I tend to think that it just took that long for the off taste to really manifest.

I’ll probably brew more with Kefir since I have quite a few of the grains in my fridge and I can keep them growing from batch to batch, but I’ll probably stick to commercial yeast for my large batches.

Here’s the recipe. I boiled the mixture for about 50 minutes. It should also be noted that this is very low alcohol content. It’s probably somewhere below 3.0.
2 gallons of spring water
3.3lb Dark Malt Extract
4oz Chocolate Malt
.75oz Kent Golding hops (all bittering, full boil — this is a backbone to the malt)
2tbsp Kefir grains per gallon jug

Food

1968 Impala FastbackAugust 13, 2009

Here are some pictures of my new ride. Happy birthday to me!

I’ve got to do some interior work on it and get a new paint job, but I’m planning on getting it as good as new. The body is in great shape and it runs like a charm.

Interests