Yeast... Patience Yields Great Things

One of the absolute joys of having free time and a CSA which brings me a surprise basket every week is that I can spend an inordinate amount of time looking up recipes and creative ways to use up whatever it is I have in my pantry and fridge. This is purely selfish joy of food, food that tastes like real actual food. Tomatos that taste like spring, strawberries that explode in your mouth and don't leave a sour aftertaste from being picked too early, fresh oregano snipped from a windowbox... I was actually discussing this at work today with a co-worker of mine from Spain who commented that when she was a child and went to the market, you only got what was in season, and that moving to the U.S. has made her realize that people need to be re-educated about food, where it comes from, how it is grown, what food actually is. But I digress.

But the real joy of free time, time to scheme, time to plan is that I can make the foods where time is required to create the best things. I present exhibit A: Garlic Tomato Asiago-Parmesan Foccaccia. Its a basic bread. I had all of the ingredients for it on hand. Probably one of the easiest ones you can make. In fact, I didn't even really measure things, just proofed half a packet of yeast in about 3/4 cup warm water and 1 tbsp raw honey. I added 1/2 tsp salt, 1 TBSP olive oil, 1/2 cup of whole wheat flour, and then enough bread flour to get it to the right consistency. That is, the dough is springy and comes off the side of the bowl, but still sticks a little to the bottom of the bowl. I greased my hands with olive oil, then stuck the dough in a bowl coated in olive oil to rise for an hour. I punched the dough down and then put it in the fridge to slow rise for a couple more hours.

Okay, I admit, I didn't do this for flavor, even though I do believe that a slow rise develops flavors better... I had to transport said dough through Washington DC's finest metro and bus system out to Northern Virginia-land to feed the great white giant (aka the boyfriend). The hour that trip takes was the perfect amount of time for this dough to come up to proper temperature from being in the fridge so I could almost throw it in the oven at 350 F when I got there. Ahhh, but wait, first, this needs to go down on a piece of parchment paper dusted with cornmeal, flattened out a bit with your fingers, brushed with olive oil, and then topped with your choice of toppings. For me, loads of minced garlic, thinly sliced CSA tomatos, and a generous sprinkling of shaved parmesan and asiago. Then poke your fingers all over the bread to create that infamous dimpled look and to allow the olive oil to pool a bit. 15-20 minutes later, yay, warm foccaccia! I also sprinkled with some rough chopped oregano from my windowsill.

Now bread, bread is a child in comparison to my next project, which isn't even quite done yet. I present you with Exhibit B: Irish Red Ale. One of my friends had an illustrious birthday, the decade of youth gone, and so, in the way that we are, I clearly had to gift her a beer brewing class for her birthday. And take the class with her. Completely unselfishly taking this beer brewing class, taking one for the team. She introduced me to The Brooklyn Kitchen (http://www.thebrooklynkitchen.com/) which makes me want to move to NYC just so I can take classes there all the time. They bring the hip edge back into preserving, canning, baking bread, and generally, do-it-yourself kind o' folk like us. The thought of being able to make beer myself was dizzying, I mean, I could have beer ALL THE TIME! Not just when I went to the store! The possibilities seemed endless. And then I went to the class... you mean I have to wait a whole month for my beer? What!? Where is the instant gratification? Pout.

Anyway, my first batch of beer was anxiously done, with lots and lots of mistakes. But I think, despite all that, its going to turn out okay. And if it is okay, my future plans of buying a B&B in the Shenandoah with my kitchen garden have suddenly expanded to include home brew for my guests...

The first thing I did when I came back was to raid Borders Bookstore for the recommended beer brewing book by John Palmer. Its supposed to be the bible for home brewers. So I bought it. And then I saw the other 3 million brewing books and the little voice in my head won, and I bought another one which provides a bazillion (yes, a bazillion!) recipes for beer that I could probably find online. Doh. After reading through it four or five times, and changing my mind about 20 times, I finally picked a beer for my first batch. And then off to our local beer brewing store (yes, they exist, and they are amazing...). The guy there was pretty much my hero. We marched in with our recipes and listed off what we needed. He had everything on hand, had useful tips, and knew what substitutions to make for certain products which had been discontinued. And so we marched off with our malt extract, specialty brewing grains, hops, and yeast....


Now, brewing should be a social event. Mostly because there is a lot of waiting that goes on. Also, because there's a lot of stuff to remember and if distracted (damn you Comcast guy!) you do things like leave your yeast next to the hot stove and almost kill it. Good thing I know how to proof yeast and make sure its still alive. Bread experience to the rescue! Beer can easily be broken down into these steps:

1. Steep specialty grains in a mesh bag as filtered water comes up to almost boiling, then remove.
2. Boil and add (stirring quickly so it doesn't burn) malt extract.
3. Boil for an hour.
4. Add hops when recipe tells you.
5. Add different hops when recipe tells you.
6. If you have an IPA, then you add hops all the freaking time.
7. Add sugar if the recipe calls for it.
8. The brown liquid is called wort.
9. You cool the wort as fast as possible, using an ice bath and changing the water frequently.
10. Once it gets to 65 F, you put into a fermenting bucket (basically, a huge food grade plastic bucket), slosh it around so it gets oxygen in it, and pitch the yeast you have previously hydrated.
11. Then you seal it up and let it ferment for about 2 weeks.

After 2 weeks, the fermentation has stopped. Now you have alcoholic brown liquid which tastes what your final beer will taste like. Except there no carbonation. Interestingly, it still tastes better than flat beer the day after. Not that I've ever had that. *Cough*. So you add some more sugar and then bottle up the beer and wait for the yeast to do its magic and create carbonation.


So in about two weeks, this will be ready to drink. Patience my friend. Beer gets better with age, so you can't drink the two cases this makes too fast. Ha. Anyway, this recipe came from the book The Brewmasters Bible by Stephen Snyder and is technically called the Erin-go-Braugh Pale Ale, which falls under the Irish Red Ale umbrella of beers. 

Original gravity: 1.046
Final gravity: 1.013
Potential alcohol: 4.3%

1/2 pound toasted Victory malt
1/2 pound Crystal malt
6.6 pounds Northwestern Gold Unhopped malt extract
1 oz Centennial hops
1/2 oz Cascade hops, 20-minute boil
1 package Sahale S04 yeast
3/4 cups priming sugar

Update!

After waiting 11 days, I decided to pop a beer open to see how the carbonation was coming.  It was pretty good, still young tasting, but almost fully carbonated.  My guru brewing co-worker told me that the flavor and intensity should change drastically in the next two to three weeks.  I'm going to taste it every week to see how the flavor evolves over time.  But, it looks and tastes like a pretty damn fine beer.  Wooooohoooo!