Month: August 2013

The kraut

stoutmakerLeave a comment

Making the kraut today. It is fermented so I guess it fits here just fine.

Its probably the easiest thing you will ever make. And almost no work. And so unbelievably better than the canned stuff. you’ll never want store bought again. So, lets do this..

Here is everything you need. Two ingredients. Cabbage and salt. I use pickling salt because I always have tons of it, but Kosher is great too. Table salt not so good, why? I dunno, just never used it and I dont know anyone that does. Cabbage was $2 and that whole bag of salt that will last you for a year or more was maybe $1.50.
That mini crock there is just one of those utensil caddies you can get anywhere. I think it was 4 bucks. It works great for a small batch like this. 
A plate or lid that fits in the crock,, anything will work. 
The rolling pin is just for packing the cabbage down, a potato masher works just fine too.
Thats all the equipment. Instead of the crock you can use a kool aid pitcher a bowl or whatever.. its not very fussy. For larger batches I use a 5 gallon bucket with the lid trimmed to fit inside.
Quarter and core your cabbage. Slice it into thin strips. I do a quarter at a time. you see why in next pic.
Make a layer off cabbage in crock 2-3 inches and sprinkle a little salt on top. This picture is almost too much salt.
Pack the layer down. just smash it down in there. Do the rest of the cabbage the same way. Cabbage, sprinkle of salt, smash it down.
The salt starts drawing out the water almost immediately. This is what you want. You want to keep the cabbage under this water. 
 Thats what the lid is for. Just to keep the cabbage from floating up
Put a small weight on the lid to keep it under the liquid. Dont need to squish it. Just keep from floating.
Put it somewhere normal room temp. Dont really matter too much. Basements are great. Kitchen cupboard. Its all good.
let sit 2-3 weeks. If it starts molding or anything, Dont panic! Its no big deal..Thats just the way it works.  just spoon it off. The stuff under water is perfectly fine.
A month is good 2 months is great. After a month its ready. Dont need to do anything to it. Just dig in there, take out what you need , put the plate and weight back on and its good to go.
If you wanna can it. Thats just about as easy. 
Drain and keep the juice maybe add a little water is needed. Bring to a boil. 
Pack your heated jars tight with the kraut, fill the jars with the hot liquid and water bath for 20. Done.
This size batch makes 4-6 pint jars of course depending on size of cabbage.
(oh and those jars next to the kraut? Fermenting limes. Thats another day.. but its exactly this process as well)

Changing History

stoutmakerLeave a comment

I mean really. Just take almost any category of beer and look up its history. Its real history, and there is usually nothing that resembles the modern description,, but yet the modern description goes out of its way to include a historical description of processes and ingredients.

Steam beer requiring Northern Brewer hops, yet those hops were not even in exsistance when this style was at the height of popularity.
Stouts requiring Roast Barley and/or black patent when at the time that stout were defining themselves roast barley was illegal and black patent again, was not invented. Not for about 100 years.

What is the reason that well known styles with well known histories that are so easily researched, have such inaccurate guidelines?

As with most every other part of beers history, it probably had some political implications. Both legitimate and back room.

Enough already!

stoutmakerLeave a comment
I am starting to see a trend in the influx of homebrewing blogs that is starting to get under my skin a little.
More people are starting to brew. For a lot of different reasons. And beer is so damn easy to make, I dont know why everyone dont make their own. But with that comes the eventual blogs we all are putting out. And as with all popular trends…

Enter, the Hipsters. Beer snobs from hell. Just regular beer snobs are bad enough, Hipster beer snobs are worse. You know the ones. The little crowds of craft brew drinkin dudes with just enough knowledge of beer to spew fancy terminology in a rant for this particular beer or against that particular brewery. All wrapped in a smug little veil of cynicism.

It is rather funny listening to most of the bable. Some of them are rather good at their craft of flash and persuasion. If you’re not careful, they can talk even the worst beer into a prize winning beer.
All of that is well and good, and easy to spot to avoid if nessessary. But now these annoying, but dangerously sneaky beard growing snarks are not only entering the homebrew scene, but posting the same style of far fetch-ed ness as their beer reviews.

Now I’m not against any one homebrewing (well maybe a few), but brewing for the sole sake of impressing one group of people or intentionally ruffling the feathers of another while purposely using false or misleading information is entirely a whole other story.

Us home brewers are always trying to get more people to brew. The more people who brew leads to many good things. More beer, more experienced information, more beer, better techniques, more beer….

But I do not see how one expects people to want to enter the homebrewing world, by making appear overly expensive, and as complicated as splicing DNA.

Now anyone reading this particular “blog” will know that none of this is true. For what you spend on a night out on the town you can be brewing far superior beer than what you had on that night out. And there really is almost nothing simpler to make.

There are 1000’s of sites out there now pertaining to homebrewing. 1000’s. A newcomer who doesnt know shit from shine-ola does not know what is right, wrong, truths, lies. And what usually happens in that situation? Thats right, the shiny object distracts them, or they notice a theme.
When all you see are sites claiming that the only way to brew decent beer is use $600 pots and $2000 conicals you get a little put off and walk away.

Today in fact I read a blog that aggressively reported that its only worth brewing if you spend over $500 in startup and only use extract. Using grain only makes bad beer with unpredictable results. And by going all grain you would be setting your self up for huge price jumps in equipment and cost per batch. I almost shit myself.

With this info you either dont even bother, or give up after a short stint, and then tell all your friends how bad it was.

I been brewing for close to 20 now, and I dont think I have half that amount into equipment all them years combined. And my beer dont suck. And going all grain? Sure it takes and hour or so longer,, but it uses basically the same equipment, and will drop your batch costs by 50% most of the time. (and it looks cool if you are into that)

So what can we do in this world of tight shirts and Buddy Holly glasses?
I say post your beers, post your photos, post your procedures. Post everything! Throw real info out there so its easy to find.

Beer is going to happen. How you choose to make it happen is entirely up to you.
In a jug? Fine. A homebrew store starter kit? awesome. a $3000 automated electric setup with no user interaction? No problem.

Like our club President says, “brewing is not rocket science, but it can be”
How ever you wanna do it is great,, but dont start with the highbrow beer snob “this is the only way, and if you dont it will fail” stuff. No matter how you choose, in the end everything happened the same way,, it just in a different covering.

Instead of scaring people off, get them in and get them brewing. Its hard to critique beers when there are no beers to critique.

May the force be with you.