Pasta Carbonara

This is another recipe (like Wednesday's risotto) that I can't believe I haven't posted to the blog yet.  This is easily my favorite pasta dish to make at home.  It's quick, it's easy, it's made out of common pantry ingredients AND it has bacon in it.  What's not to love?

Pasta Carbonara is always a fallback option for us since we always have bacon in the freezer.  It just takes twenty minutes or so under cold water and it's defrosted and ready to go.  It's definitely a comfort food option for us as well.  The creamy sauce made when the egg is gently warmed and combines with the cheese is so deliciously salty from the parmesan and the smokiness from the bacon, there's no horrible day that this pasta won't improve.  Do make sure you temper the egg and cheese sauce slowly and carefully.  I've done it too fast before and you end up with a sauce made of scrambled egg bits and that's not good.  I've been making it from this base recipe for over five years now, maybe even longer.  I changed up the recipe a bit, always adding in onions and have added in either spinach or mushrooms in the past as well.  I hope that you find that this recipe becomes a staple in your kitchen as well.

Pasta Carbonara

serves 4, adapted from Rachael Ray/The Food Network

Ingredients:
Salt
1 pound pasta, I usually use spaghetti
1/3 pound bacon, chopped

1 medium onion, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
1/2 cup dry white wine
2 large egg yolks
3 tablespoons grated Parmigiano Reggiano, plus more, for topping
black pepper

Directions:

• Place a large pot of water on the stove to boil. When water is boiling, add salt and pasta and cook to al dente.  When pasta is done don't forget to save 1/2 cup pasta water.
• While pasta cooks, heat large skillet over medium heat. Saute bacon until brown and crispy, 3 to 5 minutes. 
• Add onion and cook until softened, about 5 minutes.  
• Add garlic and crushed pepper flake, saute 2 minutes. 
• Add wine to the pan and reduce liquid by half, 2 minutes.
• Beat together egg yolks, cheese, and while whisking vigorously, stir in a ladle of the boiling pasta water.
• Drain pasta -- don't forget to reserve about 1/2 cup of pasta water (I usually forget this, hence my repeated reminders!).  Add pasta to pan with bacon mixture.  Toss pasta with bacon mixture, then add egg mixture and toss 1 minute, then remove from heat. Continue to toss, and adding reserved pasta water as necessary to loosen sauce, until sauce is coating the pasta. Add pepper to taste and salt, if necessary.  
• Serve with extra cheese, for topping.

Parmesan Risotto with Roasted Vegetables

This is one of our standard recipes, it makes an appearance on our menu at least once a month, if not every other week.  I can't believe I haven't posted it to the blog before now, but we're about to fix that!  This recipe is from The Best Light Recipe by America's Test Kitchen/Cook's Illustrated.  It never fails us and it's incredibly versatile.  We typically make up the base parmesan recipe, but we will throw in other cheeses if we have those lying around.  One of our favorite variations is to add in some of our homemade mozzarella cheese at the end instead of the parmesan.  Another great version is saffron risotto, which turns out a beautiful golden color (second picture), and I've included the directions for it as well.

We top this with any number of toppings -- seen here is roasted brussel sprouts, but any roasted veggie works just as well, asparagus, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, butternut squash.  Sauteed zucchini or summer squash make a great summer meal as does grilled shrimp or chicken.  Halved cherry tomatoes or diced regular sized tomatoes, and chopped basil fresh from the garden with mozzarella makes a great caprese version.  Risotto can be a great vehicle for leftovers as well.  Mix in some leftover steak cut into bite-sized pieces, veggies, pork chops, really anything!

Parmesan Risotto

from The Best Light Recipe

serves 6

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken broth

3 cups water

1 medium onion, chopped

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt

2 cups arborio rice

1 cup dry white wine

2 ounces grated parmesan cheese (about 1 cup)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

ground black pepper

Directions:

• In an electric kettle heat the chicken broth and water to boiling.
• In a medium saucepan, heat the olive oil and add the onion and 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Cook over medium heat until the onion is softened.
• Add the rice, stirring to coat all pieces with the oil.  Toast the grains until the edges start to turn transparent, about 4 minutes.  Stir in the wine and cook until completely absorbed, about 2 minutes.
• Stir in 3 cups of the broth/water mixture.  Stir occasionally, until the liquid is absorbed, 10 to 12 minutes.
• Continue to cook the rice, adding 1/2 cup of the broth/water mixture at a time and cooking until completely absorbed, about every 4 minutes.  Taste the rice starting after 10 minutes, cooking until al dente, with just some bite in the center.
• Add in the butter, cheese and then season with salt and pepper to taste.  

Variation:  Saffron Risotto

• Follow the recipe but omit the parmesan and add 1/8 teaspoon of saffron threads when you add the rice to the onions/oil.  

Cheesy Potato Soup with Mini Ham Sandwiches

This seems like a perfect recipe for a day like today.  The weather forecast calls for day of drenching rain and this is a soup and sandwich pairing that is warm and comforting.  It comes together quick enough for a weeknight and tastes great.  The soup is creamy and cheesy, while still being low fat -- you can't get much better than that!  Definitely use small red potatoes in this dish; they are waxier and won't turn to mush in the soup.  


The mini ham sandwiches that pair with it are cute (who doesn't like a mini sandwich?!?) and tasty.  The chive mayo is the element that really takes them to the next level.  It's a simple step that adds a ton of flavor and makes them not just a typical-thrown-together-with-stuff-in-the-fridge-kind-of sandwich.  I didn't really make any changes to the recipe and the only thing I might change in the future is throwing in a bit of smoked paprika, both in the soup and in the mayo for the sandwiches.  I think it would give a nice smoky hit to both elements and tie them together a bit more. 

Cheesy Potato Soup with Mini Ham Sandwiches
from Cooking Light, January 2012
serves 4


Ingredients:

1 tablespoon butter
1 cup chopped onion
2 1/2 tablespoons flour
3 cups chopped red potato (about 1 pound)
1 1/4 cups 1% milk
1 1/4 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup shredded 2% cheddar cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
2 tablespoons chopped green onion
1 tablespoon minced chives
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
8 slider rolls
4 ounces thinly sliced ham

Directions:

• Melt butter in a medium pot over medium-high heat. Add onion and sauté 5 minutes or until onion is tender. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• Sprinkle onion with flour; cook 1 minute, stirring constantly. 
• Add potato, milk and broth to pan; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes. 
• While soup is simmering, start on the sandwiches.  Combine chives, mayo and dijon mustard.  Place the slider rolls, cut sides up, on a baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes, until toasty and golden brown.  
• When the soup has finished simmering, add the shredded cheese and ground red pepper; cook 2 minutes or until cheese melts, stirring frequently. 
• Once the rolls come out of the ove, spread cut sides with the mayo mixture.  Divide ham even among rolls.
• Top each serving of soup with 1 1/2 teaspoons chopped green onions, serve.  

Christmas Spiced Beer

This is a write up of an old beer I made way back when I was a novice brewer. The kit, like most of my kits, came from Northern Brewer. I actually brewed this way back in 2010, so the bottles I still have are well aged. The brewing instructions can be found here.

Ingredients:
1 lb English Dark Crystal
6.3 lbs Gold LME
1 oz US Goldings Hops
0.5 oz Mulling spices

Yeast:
Wyest 1728 Scottish Ale

As you can see, the beer pours a deep amber color. The beer is a decent 6.5% ABV. An off-white head forms, but it dissipates quickly.  Initially the flavor of the beer was heavily skewed towards clove. The kit came with a pre-mixed spice package that was basically a tbsp or so of mulling spices. I have always found the clove to be overpowering, and sampling the beer after almost 2 years of resting in bottles it still has a very strong clove aroma and taste. Amy loves it, but it is not one of my favorite brews. In the future I'd make my own spice mixture, and skew towards cinnamon, some nutmeg, allspice berries, orange peel, dried cranberries, and maybe a clove or two. I also think testing the spice mixture out by making a batch of mulled cider with it beforehand would be beneficial. I've never done it, but basically you can just make a tincture using a tea infuser and a base beer, then use that to scale up to the full 5 gallon batch of beer.

In short, the beer is good as made directly from the kit if you like clove. If not, I would order a basic Scotch Ale kit and add in your own spice mixture at the end of the boil. Definitely a good base for playing around and trying out your own spice mixtures.

Cheers!

Spanish Shrimp with Sunset Orzo

Shrimp is showing up more and more in our weekly menu plan.  I've talked about my new-ness to seafood before, but shrimp has broken through and made themselves a staple in our house.  There's always a bag in the freezer and since they are quick to defrost, they make for great weeknight meals.  I will eat them, but I'm not comfortable enough with them yet to peel and devein them.  I don't like seeing their legs, that still makes me feel weird, so I leave that up to Zach.  ;-)


This meal was a great weeknight meal -- fast and flavorful.  It also made good leftovers for lunches the next day.  I left out the peas since I don't like them, but I did double up on the red pepper, using one large one instead of a small.  I think it would be great with some frozen diced carrots thrown in in place of the peas as well, or frozen corn too.  Both would work well with the 'color scheme' of the dish too, matching the 'sunset' theme.  I loved the use of chorizo in the dish, it gave a nice warm and spicy flavor to each bite.  


I made a few other changes as well, either with the aim of cutting fat/calories or in simplifying the steps/decreasing the dishes needed.  I love Rachael Ray's recipes but man does she use a lot of pots, pans and dishes!  I guess it's because she doesn't have to wash them up herself, and although neither do I (Zach is the main dishwasher in our house), I still cut out steps when I can.  I decreased the chorizo from 1/3 pound to 1/4 pound and also cut out the oil altogether.  I didn't find that that a fatty sausage like chorizo needs oil to brown, as soon as it gets warmed up and cooking it starts rendering fat into the pan, so why start with oil if you don't need to?  I also changed the steeping method for the saffron and chicken broth (why get another pot dirty when the microwave works just as well) and the cooking method for the shrimp (again, why get out another skillet, just throw them in with the veggies!).  I have a feeling this meal will be one more reason for shrimp to keep popping up on our weekly menus!

Spanish Shrimp with Spanish Orzo
serves 4
adapted from EveryDay with Rachael Ray, April 2009

Ingredients:
Salt
8 ounces orzo pasta
2 pinches saffron threads
1 cup chicken broth
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/4 pound Spanish chorizo, chopped
1 onion, chopped
1 large red bell pepper, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 pound medium shrimp, peeled and deveined

1 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/4 cup parsley, chopped
Juice of 1/2 lemon

Directions:

• Bring a large pot of water to a boil, salt it, add the orzo and cook until just al dente. Drain and cover.
• While the water comes to a boil, steep the saffron in the chicken broth.  Pour the chicken broth into a glass measuring up and add the saffron.  Heat in the microwave for 1-2 minutes and let steep until needed.  
• Heat a large non-stick skillet over medium heat. Add the chorizo and cook until browned, about 2 minutes. Add the onion, bell pepper, garlic and turmeric and cook for 5 minutes. 
• Add the shrimp to the vegetable/chorizo mixture and cook until pink and firm, 2 to 3 minutes. 
• Pour the saffron broth over the shrimp, chorizo and vegetables. Add the paprika and cooked orzo and toss for 2 minutes. 
• Serve in bowls, topping with the parsley and lemon juice. 

Coconut Shrimp: Secret Recipe Club

It's time for another Secret Recipe Club post!  This month I was super excited when I started browsing through the blog I was assigned.  I got Savor the Senses, a blog written by Jenny who is a chef at a Morimoto restaurant in Hawaii!  How cool is that!  There were so many great recipes that piqued my interest.  Mahi Mahi in Green Chili Coconut Broth, Mojo Pork and Shrimp Baked Onions are all on my list of recipe ideas for upcoming menus.  And, with cinnamon being one of my favorite spices, Snickerdoodle Cupcakes will certainly show up in my future baking projects -- how cute are they?!?


After narrowing it down to 6 or so options, I left the final choice up to Zach.  He chose the Coconut Shrimp with Curry Dipping Sauce, and boy am I glad he did!  This was a fantastic, easy dinner that was also delicious.  I can't wait to make it again.  The coconut crisped up beautifully and gave a great crunchiness to the shrimp, without having to be fried.  The curry sauce was super, it is definitely spicy, depending on your curry powder and preferences, I would start with half the amount and taste as you go, adding more to meet your personal taste level.  Ours turned out spicy, but I thought it was just right -- a hit of spice complemented the sweetness of the coconut and shrimp and balanced out nicely.  We already want this dish back on the menu, and next time we will probably defrost the shrimp overnight, then peel in the morning and let them sit in the coconut milk all day.  The 30 minute marinating time was a tight fit for a weeknight meal for us, especially since the rest of the dish is fairly labor intensive -- triple coating of the breading layers, so we thought it would be nice to save some time and make it that much easier to get on the table before we are starving.  We served it alongside red pepper couscous and steamed broccoli to turn it into a main course dish instead of an appetizer.

Coconut Shrimp with Curry Dipping Sauce
from Savor the Senses
serves 6 as an appetizer, 4 as a main course


Ingredients:


1 lb shrimp (peeled & deveined)
1 can light coconut milk
1 cup flour, divided
3 eggs
1 cup panko breadcrumbs
1 cup flaked coconut, unsweetened
6 tablespoons light mayonnaise
2 tablespoons light sour cream
1 tablespoon curry powder
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper


Directions:

• Add the peeled and deveined shrimp and the coconut milk in a bowl.  Stir to coat all shrimp with coconut milk and then refrigerate for 30 minutes.  
• Drain the milk from the shrimp and pat the shrimp dry with paper towels.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  
• Set up three bowls for breading the shrimp -- one with 1/2 cup flour, one with the 3 eggs, beaten and the last bowl with the panko, remaining 1/2 cup flour and coconut mixed together.  Working one at a time, dip the shrimp in the plain flour, then egg wash and finally the coconut and breadcrumb mixture.  Once breaded, arrange the shrimp in a single layer on a sheet pan.  
• Bake shrimp until crispy and the coconut flakes start to turn golden brown, 15-20 minutes.  
• While the shrimp are baking combine the mayo, sour cream, curry powder and cayenne pepper to make the dipping sauce.  

Saison de Noel

Today's brew is a limited edition kit from Northern Brewer. The kit is essentially a dark saison and uses a yeast blend that is only available for three months in the early winter. Brewing of the kit was fairly straightforward, with the only problem I had being that the original gravity of the beer was a little below what the kit indicated it would be.

Ingredients:
0.5 lbs Belgian Aromatic malt
0.25 lbs Weyermann Carafa III
0.25 lbs Weyermann CaraAroma
6 lbs Pilsen LME
1 lbs D-90 Candi syrup
1 lbs Briess Pilsen DME
1 lbs Corn sugar
1 oz US Magnum hops

Yeast:
Wyeast 3726 Farmhouse Ale

The brewing process is similar to other kits, with the addition of the D-90 syrup and Corn sugar to provide flavor and fermentables in the case of the former, and fermentable sugar in the case of the latter.

Since I have given brewing instructions before, for this I am only going to note steps that were not taken in previous brews. For complete instructions, refer here. Note that this kit has steeping grains in addition to liquid and dried malt extract. The steeping grains are placed in a muslin bag with the water during initial heating for 20 minutes or 170 F, whichever occurs first.

Another step I have not written about before is the use of a yeast starter culture for fermentation. Yeast starters are generally a good idea for any beer with an O.G. <1.060, and I pretty much use them for all beers I brew. Essentially you are providing billions and billions of active, healthy yeast cells that should be able to withstand the high sugar environment of fresh wort, and give a quick and active primary fermentation. In this case, I broke the inner nutrient pack in the yeast package, and let it inflate for a few hours. When the bag was inflated, I boiled 1/2 C of Pilsen or Light DME in 650 mL of water for 15 minutes. I poured the wort into a 1 L flask with a magnetic stir bar (both sterilized), and covered the top with tinfoil. This flask was cooled in a ice/water bath in the sink until it was cool to the touch. I then poured the Wyeast package into the wort, and resealed with the foil. You can create a starter without a stir plate, but the constant movement and resuspension of the yeast cells helps to promote better growth. If you don't have a stir plate, simply give the flask a good swirl every time you walk by. Anywhere from 24-4 hrs seems to be a good range for a starter culture. After fermentation, you are left with billions of healthy, active yeast cells that will ensure a quick, vigorous and full fermentation of your actual beer. For very strong beers with O.G. in the 1.080 or higher range, you can make a larger starter or feed the cells more than once with boiled wort.

Yeast starters (for two batches), sitting on the stir plates.

The final issue I had to consider was temperature control. Saison yeasts ferment at higher temperatures (70-95 F) than most ale yeasts (56-72 F), and the ambient temperature in my basement wasn't going to cut it this time, even considering that the fermentation will add 2-3 degrees of heat to the beer beyond ambient temperatures. I planned on starting at 70 and ramping up the temperature by 2 degrees each day. Reading online, I had seen suggestions to use a heating blanket combined with towels, or to buy an aquarium heater and place that in a large bucket filled with water and then submerge your carboy in that assembly. Instead of buying supplies, I found a circulating water heater in lab that I borrowed for a few days to achieve a more consistent result. I filled a large styrofoam box with water, then placed my carboy with the Saison inside. The water came about halfway up the carboy, which should be sufficient for heating. I then had to jury-rig a stand for the water circulator to sit on. After that, I just switched on the pump and set my temperature. Periodically I had to add more water to ensure the pump didn't get dried out, but I had very vigorous fermentation after 6 hours of pitching the yeast into the wort. I'll probably use this setup in the future for winter fermentation.

The homemade water bath/heating apparatus. 

The setup is shown above. The beige/yellow device at the left supported by the weighed-down baking sheets is the water circulator/heater. Obviously, the carboy with the wort is in the center, and I have placed a thermometer probe in it to monitor the temperature of the fermentation. Sadly this probe was broken, as it told me later in the day that the liquid was at 140 F! Not shown is a later assembly of a blow-off tube from the top of the carboy, as I was afraid the rising yeast foam would clog up my airlock. The tube from the blowoff assembly went into a plastic bucket filled with water and serves the same function as the airlock does, mainly preventing bacteria and other microorganisms from getting into the carboy. For several days air bubbled out like crazy and filled the area directly above with a delicious, estery beer smell.

At less than 1 week in primary, the gravity had settled to 1.012 (about a 78% attenuation of the yeast). I racked into a secondary fermentation vessel and rested the beer for two weeks. Following that, I bottled using standard procedures and allowed the beer to condition for at least a week before drinking.

The final beer is fantastic. It has pepper, spicy notes from the saison yeasts used. From the color, you'd think you'd get lots of dark, roasted flavors but in fact they are very subtle. The 7.5% alcohol is strong, but not too noticeable. Overall, this was a great beer and I'd definitely make it again.

Spiced Roasted Nuts: Secret Recipe Club

Welcome to another Secret Recipe Club post!  I've covered the basics of the club before, but a quick overview is that you join, get randomly assigned a blog and then have a few weeks to read the blog and chose a recipe to recreate and post about on a given day and time.  This month I got Sarah's blog biking and baking.  It was an interesting blog for me to read since there were a lot of recipes way outside my comfort zone.  She has many vegan recipes, lots of smoothies and some ingredients that just never really enter my kitchen, or cross my mind for that matter!  Tempeh, vegan cheeses, tofu aren't on my typical grocery lists.  I really did enjoy reading about 'another side' of the food world, so to speak.  I strongly considered making these sweet potato enchiladas, but left the final choice of two recipes up to Zach and he chose the roasted nuts.  I'm holding on to the enchiladas though, and hope they make an appearance on one of our menus soon!


These nuts were perfect for a party.  They are sweet, just a little spicy and have an addictive smell and flavor thanks to the curry powder.  I made a few changes to the recipe.  First, I added in pepitas, or shelled pumpkin seeds, since we had some on hand.  Second, I chose to roast the nuts in the oven instead of toast them in a skillet.  I had the oven going for a few other recipes and decided just to throw them in there and let the oven do the work!  Both of these changes worked out quite well!  I love when I can take a base recipe, make a few adaptations and still end up with a great product, it always gives my kitchen confidence a little boost, so thanks for that Sarah!  Read about my slightly adapted version of Spiced Roasted Nuts here then head on over to the Secret Recipe Club page to see what everyone else has cooked up!

Spiced Roasted Nuts
slightly adapted from baking and biking


Ingredients:
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 tablespoon curry powder
2 teaspoons ground coriander
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 cup shelled pistachios

1 cup almonds, roasted but not salted

1 cup pepitas

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a large bowl mix together the oil and spices. 
• Add the nuts to the spice mixture and stir until they are evenly coated.  Spread the nuts into a single layer on a sheet pan.
• Roast the nuts for 15-20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so.  Remove from oven and let cool.  

Bed and Brew: A visit to the Inn at Cooperstown and Brewery Ommegang

For my 30th birthday Amy presented me with a trip up to Cooperstown, NY to visit my favorite brewery, Brewery Ommegang. As many of our friends know, we base our travels basically around fine dining options and local beers. This combined the best of both worlds.

Bed and breakfast room are always fun!

The Inn at Cooperstown offers a bed and brew package for visitors to the area once a month from October to May. The package includes a two night stay, a jeroboam of Ommegang Abbey Ale (a rich dubbel), two chalices, a sweatshirt or two t-shirts from Ommegang, a brewer-led tour of the brewery, a full tasting of Ommegang's beers, and a five-course dinner paired with the Ommegang beers. Your liver gets a good workout from the weekend. In case you were wondering, what is a jeroboam?, it's a 3 liter bottle (one step up from a magnum or 1.5 L bottle). Here's the jeroboam so you can get an idea of how enormous a bottle of beer is provided.

Jeroboam of Abbey ale and chalices

After checking in on Friday, we walked through downtown Cooperstown and grabbed some dinner at Alex and Ika's on the recommendation of one of Amy's Facebook friends who happens to work for Duvel, Ommegang's parent company. We had a nice dinner and got our bellies full for what came next: craft/homebrew beer night. Starting at 8, we went to town. All the guests brought some kind of beer, and it was all excellent. The owner of the Inn, Marc, brought over two growlers of his own beer, and a bunch of Ommegang employees came over along with special brews. We got to sample a bourbon barrel aged Three Philosophers that made me insanely jealous it's no longer available. We also tried out a brand new Ommegang beer, Seduction, a cherry stout brewed with cocoa. Other memorable beers included a cherry beer from New Glarus, the 2010 Christmas Ale I brought from Anchor Brewing, and several good Belgian beers from La Chouffe.

Part of the homebrew/craft beer night extravaganza

The next day we went around to continue our beerstravaganza. We joined up with a great couple we met from Philadelphia, Beth and Andy, and visited a few places. Our first stop was Fly Creek Cider Mill. They had just about anything you could think of there. Regular cider, hard cider, cider barbeque sauce, cheese, apples, candy, coffee, etc. We left with a regular cider and a bottle of raspberry apple cider. Next stop was Butternuts Beer and Ale. There we found one of the Ommegang staff from the previous night on hand to serve us all kinds of samples. They had some nice canned beer, and we got a cool tour of their production facility within an old barn. We ended up buying a six pack of their wheat beer, as it was delicious. Their pumpkin ale was also fantastic, but not in cans sadly. From there we pressed on to our final stop, Cooperstown Brewing. At the brewery, we went through another tour and sampled all of their beers. The styles were more English in nature, and we enjoyed several. My personal favorite was the Pride of Milford, a reddish fruity ale.

Saturday night was the big one: the trip up to Ommegang. We all gathered and were taken up to the brewery in a trolley. Upon our arrival we were taken into the brewery for our tour. We've been to a lot of breweries, but I've never seen a facility that was so bright and clean. The brewhouse smelled amazing, and from the looks of things Ommegang is thankfully expanding significantly in terms of space and production capability. From what we were told, production right now is around 400,000 barrels a year, which is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.7 million gallons of beer. All right!

The cleanest brewery I've ever seen

The brew kettle and mash tun

The bottling line

Awesome keg washer/filler

After the tour we headed back to the visitors center and cafe and proceeded to sample all of what Ommegang had on hand that night. We started with BPA, or Belgian Pale Ale, a spicy, hoppy and effervescent ale. From there we move to Witte (we learned pronounced Wit-ah), a refreshing, light and estery Belgian style wheat beer. The next beer was Hennepin, a traditional Saison-style beer that is slightly hoppy but full of spiciness from both the hops and the yeasts used for fermentation. Next was Rare Vos, a amber ale that is malty and a little sweet. The next to last beer was Abbey Ale, a Belgian-style dubbel that is dark, sweet, fruity and delicious. The final beer served to us was Three Philosophers, a super-strong quadrupel blended during the brewing with a cherry kriek, or sour cherry ale.

Sampling glass rack, with the regular beers on top (pictured with their corresponding glasses)

The various ingredients that go into the Ommegang beers. Besides grains and hops, there was also bitter orange peel, licorice root, grains of paradise, star anise, ginger, and candi sugar.

Following all that beer, it was time to eat! As I said before, each course was paired with a specific Ommegang beer. We started with a potato pancake served on cooked apples and some pulled pork, which was paired with Witte.

Witte- a traditional wheat beer with tons of clove and banana flavors

The potato pancake and pork goodness

The second course was a cheese-bacon soup paired with Hennepin.

Hennepin, a traditional farmhouse ale-spicy, a little hoppy and delicious

Bacon, cheese and beer in soup form? Yes please!

The salad was a frisee salad with goat cheese and roasted beets in a Rare Vos dressing.

Rare Vos- a very flavorful amber ale. 

Beets=yuck

For our entree, we were served a giant sausage plate, featuring three types of sausage (I believe a fresh kielbasa, a bratwurst, and a weisswurst), served over beer-infused sauerkraut and spaetzel. The rich food in this course was paired with Abbey Ale.

Abbey Ale- a traditional dubbel, full of dried fruit and tons of malt flavors

Can't go wrong with delicious sausages

Our dessert was a dark fruit-cake style cake paired with Three Philosophers

Three Philosophers- dark, somewhat sweet, with a great cherry flavor from the kriek blended in during brewing. Awesome with chocolate, most desserts, or by itself. Just be careful at 9% ABV.

I loved the cake, Amy wasn't as big of a fan

Overall the food was great. We had plenty of beer at each course, and ended up taking about six leftover bottles back with us to the Inn. Plus we bought plenty of great stuff in the giftshop and added to our glass collection with four Duvel tulip glasses. We shared the rest of our opened bottles with Beth and Andy back in their fabulous suite and went to bed full and satisfied.

Each table had four sets of these beers!

Our trip back was subdued compared to all the drinking that went on the previous few days. We did stop by Iron Hill Brewery in Lancaster, PA to meet up with my brother. They had some great beers on tap, including a dubbel, a great English brown ale, and a harvest Belgian ale. We walked out with another four bottles to add to my growing collection, but life's tough sometimes.

Overall it was a great weekend! I'd highly recommend it to any beer afficionados, especially if you like Beglian-style ales.

Homebrewing: Honey Weizen

Today’s brew is a honey weizen, or wheat beer, and was made as a Christmas gift for Amy’s parents to keep on hand at their lake house. Essentially this is a hefeweizen made with American wheat yeast. It should ferment dry and clean and not produce the banana and clove flavors typically associated with a wheat beer. The kit comes from Northern Brewer. For this first description of brewing I'll provide detailed instructions, but in the future I'll provide links to the kit instructions for reference.

Ingredients:

6 lbs. Liquid wheat extract

1 oz. Tettnang hops

1 lb honey

The ingredients-L to R: Wheat LME, Honey, Hops

Tettnang Hop Pellets

Yeast:
Wyeast 1010 American Wheat 


Notes:
Liquid extract is sticky and viscous, so I usually heat the containers in a pot of hot water for a while before brewing to make it easier to deal with. Be careful with boil-overs if you are using a smaller sized kettle. My kettle is barely half full with the 2.5 gallons of water, so boil-overs haven’t been an issue but my old 20-quart pot gave me ample opportunities to clean up spilled beer. Trust me in that it's not a fun exercise in scrubbing.

Instructions:

1.     If using liquid yeast (Wyeast), break the inner nutrient bag and incubate the package at room temperature for 3 hours or more, until the bag is swelling. Other yeast makers (White Labs) provide vials that merely need to be warmed to room temperature and mixed prior to use. If you are using dry yeast, it can simply be sprinkled on top of the final wort in your fermentation bucket.

2.     Heat 2.5 gallons of water. If steeping grains came with your kit, add them to the cheesecloth bag and submerge until the water reaches 170 F (Nothing additional came with this particular kit).

3.     When the water is near boiling, add the 6 lbs Wheat extract.

4.     Stir to mix completely.

5.     Return to a boil. If using a gas stove or burner, some people like to use diffusers to prevent scorching the wort. I tried one on the electric stove and pretty much destroyed it in one brew.

6.     Start a timer for 60 minutes when the mixture comes to a boil. The liquid is now called Wort (unfermented beer).

Boiling wort (after addition of LME). Note that this is only 2.5 gallons total.

7.     Add 1 oz Tettnang hops. Stir vigorously, as this can help prevent boil-over. If using a smaller kettle, be sure to keep a very close eye on the boil as cleanup of wort that has boiled over is a gigantic pain.

8.     At the end of the 60-minute boil, add 1 lb honey and stir.

9.     Cool the wort as rapidly as possible to <80 F. This can be done by placing the kettle in a bath of ice water, or by using an immersion chiller. If brewing in the winter, you can also put your kettle in a big snow pile. Chillers are somewhat expensive, but they get the job done quickly (about 10-15 minutes depending on how cold the water is) and easily.

10. Clean and sanitize the fermentation equipment (bucket, hydrometer, airlock, lid) while cooling the wort. This step can be also be done while you are boiling the wort.

11. Pour the cooled wort into the bucket.

12. Fill the bucket with cool water up to the 5-gallon mark.

13. Stir vigorously for 5 minutes, or place the lid on and shake vigorously for 5 minutes. The wort is oxygen deprived from boiling, and you need to reintroduce oxygen for the yeast to ferment properly. I started using an aquarium pump hooked up to a diffusion stone to aerate for 30 minutes after cooling.

14. Pour the yeast into the bucket and mix thoroughly. Be sure the wort is below 76 F or you risk either killing off lots of your yeast, or producing undesirable flavors in the final beer.

15. Measure the Original Gravity and Alcohol Potential of the wort using the hydrometer. Refer to the instructions with your kit to learn how to use the hydrometer. Write down the O.G., Alc. Pot., and brew date.

16. Place the lid and airlock on the bucket. Fill the airlock to the indicated line with tap water or neutral spirit like vodka.

17. Keep the fermenter in a cool, dark place for 1-2 weeks (60-75 F). I place it in a bathtub to help in case of blowouts. Fermentation should start within 24 hours (indicated by bubbling through the airlock).

18. After bubbling subsides, measure the gravity and alcohol potential of the beer. This can take 1 week up to a month for a very strong beer. Typically yeasts will ferment 70-80% of the available sugars, so your final gravity reading should be 20-30% of your original reading. For example, if your initial reading was 1.040, then your final should be in the range of 1.008-1.012. Record the Final Gravity (F.G.) and Alcohol Potential. To determine your final ABV, subtract the final Alcohol Potential from the original Alcohol Potential. For example, if you first reading on brew day was 7% and your final reading is 2%, you have a 5% ABV beer.

19. At this point, the beer can be bottled if desired. The preferred method after primary fermentation is to transfer the beer to a carboy to rest for 2 weeks to several months of secondary fermentation where the beer settles and clarifies. When transferring to a carboy, try to leave as much of the sediment at the bottom of the primary fermentation vessel as possible.

20. After secondary fermentation (2 weeks in this case), clean and sterilize 2 cases of pry-off bottles. I use a weak bleach solution and let them sit for 30 minutes in the bleach, but there are a number of no-rinse sanitizers available for bottle cleaning. Just be sure your bottles are clean.

21. Dissolve 2/3 C of corn sugar in 16 oz clean water. Boil this solution for 15 minutes.

22. Boil ~60 bottle caps in tap water for 15 minutes. This is more than you will need.

23. Sanitize a bottling bucket, two pieces of tubing, a siphon, and the bottling wand.

24. Transfer the beer from the secondary fermenter to the bottling bucket. Refer to your kit on how to use the siphon to transfer the beer. Be sure the spigot in the bottling bucket is closed. Try to leave as much of the sediment on the bottom of the carboy as possible. Mix in the cooled sugar solution. This will provide enough food for the yeast to reactivate and carbonate the beer in the bottle.

25. Attach the bottling wand to the other piece of tubing, and then connect the free end to the spigot on the bottling bucket. It's important to keep the wand and tubing as clean as possible prior to bottling so you don't spoil the delicious beer you have made.

26. Open the spigot and fill each bottle, leaving an ~1 inch air pocket at the top of each bottle. Again, refer to the instructions with your kit as to how to use the bottling wand.

27. Cap the bottles using the sterilized bottle caps.

28. Leave the bottles in a cool, dark place for 1-2 weeks. During this period the yeast will reactivate and carbonate the beer. Sometimes carbonation will take longer depending on how long the beer has sat in secondary fermentation. If the beer has sat in secondary for more than 4-5 months, you probably need to add fresh yeast to get the carbonation going.

29. Occasionally bottles can and do explode. If this happens, it’s best to let the explosions just go on for 1-2 weeks, then go in to clean up the mess. The alternative is potentially having a bottle explode in your hand.

30.  Enjoy the beer! A thin layer of sediment will form at the bottom of your bottle. Leave this behind (unless you have a weizen, Belgian beer, etc where you do want yeast in the final beer).

While fermenting, this beer did give off a noticeable sulfurous aroma. I thought there was an infection with some other bacteria/yeast, but after reading literature online, it seems that this aroma is very characteristic of the yeast included with the kit. The sulfur settles down after a long primary fermentation, and disappeared after secondary fermentation and bottle conditioning. Some fermentation also seemed to start up when I moved the beer into a secondary fermentor and died down shortly thereafter.

I gave all of this beer to my in-laws as a Christmas gift, since they typically go for styles like this while I go for much stronger and bigger beers for my own consumption. As a result, I don't have a picture of the final beer, but from what they poured, it was pale, golden and straw-like in color. The beer was fairly light on the palate, but definitely an improvement over their normal Bud Light or Coors Light. A bit of honey came through, but the beer was pretty dry in the end. Overall, I would say it would be a good lawnmower/summer beer. Again, it's not my particular style, but I can see how it would appeal to a diverse crowd and feedback from their friends was pretty good. Next time I'll try to include more pictures of the steps in the brewing process, or perhaps we'll post about a brewery trip.

Cheers!