DIY Sous-Vide

I assembled my own sous-vide apparatus with pieces I already had lying around my kitchen and a dented crock pot my sister was about to throw away. I really love the versatility and convenience. I can vacuum seal a steak in the morning, pop it in the water bath when I get home from school, and take it out and sear it whenever I feel like eating. Once the commercial versions come down in price a bit (they hover around $450 now) and the general public gets wind of it, it's sure to change home cooking. I won't get into the particulars of sous-vide cooking, others have covered it much better. There are tons of resources on building your own and cooking with it.

So far I've only cooked one rib eye steak and a couple pieces of chicken, but I was pretty impressed. The steak was closer to medium than I intended (was aiming for medium-rare), but after fine tuning with my precision thermometer I think I got the temperatures dialed in a little better. I'm looking forward to experimenting with this little contraption. If I continue to get good results I may have to invest in a vacuum sealer. Right now I'm just using Ziploc bags and a straw to make the vacuum.

Bastogne Single

Bastogne Single

TGT OG 1.050 TGT FG 1.012 ABV 4.7% IBU 25.6 SRM 5.5

Assumed Efficiency: 73%
Target Volume: 5.94 gal
Target PBG: 1.041
Target OG: 1.050
Total Grain: 10.95 lbs.

90.0% - 9.85 lbs. Belgian Pale Malt
04.0% - 0.44 lbs. Vienna Malt
03.0% - 0.33 lbs. Weyermann White Wheat Malt
03.0% - 0.33 lbs. Acidulated Malt

1.77 oz. Czech Saaz (4.0% AA) @ 60 min.
0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (2.6% AA) @ 5 min.
0.50 oz. Styrian Goldings (2.6% AA) @ 1 min.

1 Whirlfloc Tablet @ 15 min.
0.25 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.

White Labs WLP510 - Bastogne Ale

50% Carbon Filtered Waco, 50% Distilled
6.0 g Calcium Sulphate
9.0 g Calcium Chloride

Mash at 154

Notes:
14 August 2011 (1700) - Made 2 l starter of WLP510 (prod. date 04 May 2011) w/ Wyeast Nutrient on stir plate.

16 August 2011 - Moved starter off of stir plate and into cellar.

18 August 2011 (1200) - Moved starter into refrigerator to floc more yeast out.

(2200) - Decanted starter wort, poured yeast slurry into sanitized mason jar covered with aluminum foil. Made 1.6 l starter on stir plate.

(2330) - Krausen already forming in starter(!). Added 2 drops of Foam Control to keep from blowing out of starter flask.

19 August 2011 (1830) - Removed starter from stir plate and moved into cellar.

(1950) - Moved starter into refrigerator.

20 August 2011 (1700) - Removed starter from refrigerator.

20 August 2011 - Brewed by myself. Doughed in with 4 gal water at 165. Mashed at 154 for 60 minutes. Sparged with 4.56 gal. Collected 7.5 gal 1.030 wort. Efficiency was way off. Added 1.33 lbs DME to compensate. Boiled for 90 minutes. Yielded 6 gal 1.050 wort.

Yeast pitched at 66 degrees. Set controller to 68. Visible activity in 8 hours.

22 August 2011 (1400) - Removed aluminum foil and replaced with airlock. Sucked a bunch of Star San into carboy when installing airlock. Should be fine. Very active airlock activity.

24 August 2011 - Turned off temperature controller. Rose to 72 degrees.

26 August 2011 - Moved out of freezer to fireplace. Ambient ~75 degrees.

29 August 2011 - Gravity 1.015 (69.1% AA).

08 September 2011 - Gravity 1.014 (71.0% AA). Kegged ~4.75 gal, set to 9.0 PSI for 2.00 vol CO2 at 45 degrees F.

Rood Hout Flemish Red

It took way longer than it should have to do the write up for this beer. I brewed this back in mid-May with Michelle. I thought that I lifted the grain bill from the NHC 2010 Category 17: Sour Ale winner "Zed's Dead Red" by Remi Bonnart, but I must have read it wrong and changed a few things or used what I had on hand (that's what happens when I put off doing the write up for 3 months).

Rood Hout Flemish Red

OG 1.056 FG ???? ABV ???? IBU ~13.5 SRM 3.0

Assumed Efficiency: ??%
Target Volume: 6.25 gal
Target PBG: 1.046
Target OG: 1.055
Total Grain: 12.56 lbs.

27.8% - 3.5 lbs. Castle Pilsener
27.8% - 3.5 lbs. US Vienna Malt
27.8% - 3.5 lbs. ?????
04.6% - 0.56 lbs. CaraMunich I
04.6% - 0.56 lbs. White Wheat Malt
04.6% - 0.45 lbs. Special B
04.6& - 0.45 lbs. Aromatic Malt

0.70 oz. East Kent Goldings (6.1% AA) @ 60 min.

0.25 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.
1.00 oz Medium Toast French Oak Cubes

East Coast Yeast ECY02 - Flemish Ale
Jolly Pumpkin "La Roja" Dregs
Wyeast 3711 - French Saison

Carbon Filtered Waco Water

Mash at 154

Notes:
15 May 2011 - Brewed with Michelle. Missed mash temp by a few degrees. Mashed at 152 for 20 minutes. Sparged and collected 6.75 gal of 1.051 wort (Efficiency 75.3%. Boiled for 90 minutes at evaporation rate of 12% and yielded 6.15 gal of 1.056 wort. Chilled to 69 degrees and pitched ECY02 and JP dregs.

30 May 2011 - Gravity 1.040. Should add an attenuative yeast to help finish it out.

31 May 2011 - Pitched smack pack of Wyeast 3711 to help finish primary fermentation. I probably shouldn't have used something so attenuative, but that's all I had on hand.

04 August 2011 - First look at beer in a few months. Healthy looking pellicle has formed.

29 August 2011 - Gravity 1.003.

A Little Dinner

Just a quick picture of my new favorite, a vegetable pizza that I lifted from the NXNW menu. I've noticed that I get really terrible heartburn from all of the tomato sauce on Chicago style pizza, so this thin crust pizza with pesto instead of traditional sauce is right up my alley. I used red and yellow bell peppers, mushrooms, onions, zucchini, eggplant, garlic, and feta and mozzarella cheese. I've made it two nights in a row. I'm seriously considering a third.

Anno Domini 2011

Since the beginning of the year I've been anxious to brew a batch of lambic. Actually, I've been anxious to brew a batch of lambic every year so that I can blend gueuze down the road, but I'm just going to take it one year at a time. However, because I'm an apartment dweller in Texas, undertaking a project like that wouldn't quite work. Luckily, about once or twice a year I tend to make it home to Illinois with a basement that stays under 70 degrees and an understanding and patient family. The plan is to brew a batch of lambic whenever I come home, and hopefully after two or three years I can blend gueuze.



Short of fermenting spontaneously and aging in a barrel (both of which I'd like to do in the future), I tried to stay as close to traditional techniques as I could. I used a grist of 66% pilsner malt and 34% raw white winter wheat and employed a turbid mash (thanks to The Mad Fermentationist, Biohazard Lambic, and Wild Brews for helping me understand the how's and why's of the process). It went much smoother and was more enjoyable than I thought it would be at the onset. All together, it only took about two hours longer than a normal brew day.



I mostly followed the instructions for the turbid mash on Mad Fermentationist and Biohazard Lambic to the letter. The only change I made was increasing the grist and water volumes by 25%. In the end, I'm glad I did because my preboil gravity was 1.034, which meant I only needed to boil for ~2 hours. By my estimation, if I didn't adjust the grist I would have ended up with a preboil gravity of 1.025 and had to boil for ~5 hours. I'll take a few more dollars in grain over a few hours of boil time any day. I used spring water for lack of a better option. I didn't bring my carbon filter home with me and I didn't want to have a little bit of chlorine ruin a lot of hard work.

Anno Domini 2011

OG 1.047 FG ???? ABV ???? IBU ~10.8 SRM 3.0

Assumed Efficiency: ??%
Target Volume: ??
Target PBG: ??
Target OG: 1.048
Total Grain: 10.0 lbs.

66.0% - 6.6 lbs. Castle Pilsener
34.0% - 3.4 lbs. Raw White Winter Wheat

0.75 oz. Willamette (5.2% AA) @ 30 min.

0.25 tsp Wyeast Yeast Nutrient @ 10 min.
1.00 oz Medium Toast French Oak Cubes

Wyeast 3278 - Belgian Lambic Blend
Wyeast 3763 - Roeselare Ale Blend
Various bottle dregs (See notes)

100% Spring Water

Turbid Mash

Notes:
29 July 2011 - Made .5 l starter wort with some yeast nutrient to dump dregs into (Jolly Pumpkin Bam Biere, Cantillon Gueuze, Drie Fonteinen Oude Geuze, Girardin Gueuze 1882, Boon Oude Gueuze).

01 August 2011 - Brewed by myself. Ran unmalted wheat through grain mill twice. Followed turbid mash from Biohazard pretty closely. Missed a few temperatures, notably the first 113 degree rest. Overshot by ~7 degrees.

Collected 8 gallons of 1.034 wort. Boiled for two hours yielding 5.76 gal of 1.047 wort (Evaporation rate 14%).

Chilled to 67 degrees, shook for aeration, and pitched both smack packs. Moved to basement with high 60s ambient temperature. Visible fermentation within 8 hours.

02 August 2011 - Boiled oak cubes in water for five minutes and added to fermenter.

03 August 2011 - Pitched .5 l of dregs.

Hoppyweizen Tasting

I brewed this hefeweizen/IPA hybrid in early June and finally got around to a proper tasting. The brew day for this beer was pretty rough (missed mash temp, low efficiency, off target on volume, ran out of DME to adjust gravity), but, all things considered, this beer turned out to be pretty decent.

Served at about 45 degrees in a Jolly Pumpkin tulip glass.

Appearance: Thin, loose white head falls quickly. Surprisingly poor head retention and lacing for a beer with 60 percent malted wheat and a pretty hefty amount of hops. Hazy brown with a muddy golden color when held to light. Not an attractive beer. Might have looked better in a proper weizen glass. Hopefully it tastes better than it looks.

Aroma: Bold fruity hop aroma with some banana from the hefeweizen yeast. Lots of grapefruit and lemon. None of the other classic yeast derived aromas like clove or vanilla came through. Just fresh, citrusy hops with a side of banana.

Flavor: Sweet malt backbone and assertive hop flavor mirroring the aroma. Citrus hop flavor takes the lead with banana in the background. Balance leans toward sweet but there is a lingering hop flavor.

Mouthfeel: Medium body. Full and creamy mouthfeel. Medium to high carbonation does a good job of bringing out the hop flavor and aroma. Could use a bit more carbonation, but ~3.00 volumes of CO2 is about as high as I'm willing to go with standard 12 oz bottles.

Overall: Aside from the appearance this is a pretty good beer. A wheat beer without a big pillowy head is just plain wrong to me. I've noticed head retention problems in several of my beers now. Time to start troubleshooting. I would have liked a more varied aroma and flavor (some clove and vanilla would have been nice). Pretty drinkable. Not the first beer I would reach for on a hot summer day, but certainly not the last. The appearance was really off putting for me, though. Next time I'll ditch the CaraMunich and dial down the hops a bit.

Summer Beer Dinner

Last summer I hosted a beer dinner for a few friends and I enjoyed doing it so much I decided to make it an annual event. Last year's dinner featured all homebrewed beers, but this year I used commercial beers because I didn't have enough time to brew prior to the dinner. With so many world class beers available, it's almost too easy to have a great dinner. I just wish I could eat like this everyday.

The idea of the dinner was to feature Belgian-style beers produced by American breweries. To ensure a bit more variety I decided that I wouldn't feature any brewery more than once. Even though the beers were pretty adventurous, I had to keep the food pretty simple because I'm no expert in the kitchen. Summer cooking is perfectly suited for the novice cook, who doesn't know how to grill some steak and vegetables?


Appetizer – French Fries with Aioli
with Fleur from Goose Island Brewing Company

Salad – Arugala Endive Salad with White Wine Vinaigrette
with Calabaza Blanca from Jolly Pumpkin Artisan Ales

Entree – Smoked Bacon Steak Kebabs with Wild Rice
with Abbey Ale from Brewery Ommegang

Cheese – Taleggio and Framboise Soaked Bellavitano cheeses
with Saison Rue from The Bruery
and La Folie from New Belgium Brewing Company

Intermission – Lemon Zest Sorbet

Dessert – Cheesecake with Raspberry Sauce
with Raspberry Tart from New Glarus Brewing Company

I think the cheesecake and Raspberry Tart was the clear favorite of the night. My favorite part about that pairing was how similar the cheesecake and Raspberry Tart were, and how well they complimented each other. Both are sweet and tart (the cheesecake more sweet, and the beer more tart) and the flavor of the raspberry sauce with the beer was just perfect.

The rest of the pairings were good. I was surprised with how well the french fries and aioli worked with the Fleur. I was also a little disappointed with the Abbey Ale and kebabs. For me, the spiciness of the kebabs clashed with the dark fruit flavors from the beer. I still enjoyed it, but next time I would just use a more moderate marinade on the steak (or buy better beef so I don't have to marinade it). However, the Abbey Ale tasted great with the grilled vegetables and wild rice.

I really enjoy hosting these dinners. Having people try beers like La Folie for the first time and liking them is really cool to see. It's hard to go wrong with good food, good beer, and good company. I'm already looking forward to next year's dinner.