Ginger Beer

I have well and truly caught the brewers bug, I’ve just bottled the fourth batch, three of which were traditional ales, for the fourth I decided to try my hand at a dry boozy ginger beer, perfect for a hot day, well it threw me a few curveballs along the way, mainly that I think the yeast I chose was a wee bit too efficient and my nice mellow 4-5% plan ran rampant to a killer dry spicy 8%, fortunately it doesn’t have that ‘alcohol’ taste you can get when with some higher percentage beverages.

The below recipe is for a 20 litre batch and for those interested in giving it ago but lack the equipment (fermenter, hydrometer and sterilizer) I’d advise to skip the $100 starter kits you can get at supermarkets and brew shops and buy the components separately it’ll save you a considerable amount of money, a fermenter (with airlock, thermometer and tap) will cost about $30 and hydrometer will set you back about $10. Go chat to your local brew shop and I’m sure the staff will be happy to set you up, if you’re in Wellington The Brew House in Newtown is excellent.

You should be able to buy all of the ingredients for this in a supermarket, the only iffy one is dextrose, but most larger stores usually have a little brew section near the wine and beer these days. Dextrose is used instead of common sugar (Sucrose) as yeast can convert it more efficiently.

10 Litres of Water for the boil
2 Kg Dextrose
1 Kg Brown Sugar
500 ml Lemon juice (and the rinds from the lemons)
Yeast (I used Vintner's Harvest CL23 Wine Yeast)


I imagine if you had a juicer it may be easier to tackle the ginger but I don’t, so in a blender with water in batches whiz up the ginger to make a coarse paste and dump the contents into a large pot (16 litre or bigger). Add the remaining water along with the lemon rind and bring to a simmer, let it bubble away for an hour or so until you have a very strong ginger tea and the pulverised ginger has given up its flavour.


Pour the liquid into the fermenter, using some cheesecloth to strain out the solids. Give the pot a quick rinse out and pour the liquid back into the pot and put on the heat. While stirring add the lemon juice, dextrose and brown sugar, bring to the boil. Let it boil for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile wash and sterilise the fermenter (follow the instructions on of whichever type of steriliser you have).


When the 15 minutes is up pour the liquid into the fermenter and top up to 20 litres with cold water. It needs to cool down to about 20°C before its gravity can be tested. When it’s finally cooled down, take enough liquid to fill up the hydrometer testing tube three quarters of the way up and test, it should read about 1.054, take a note of the result as this is the Original Gravity (OG) and will be used later to figure out the ABV (Alcohol By Volume). Stir in the yeast and put it in a not too cool dark spot for 2-3 weeks, I keep mine under the stairs and it’s a pretty constant 15°C.

The brew will be ready to bottle once the hydrometer reading has been constant for 2-3 days, which means the fermentation has stopped. I expected this brew to be ready after 10-14 days and have a Final Gravity (FG) reading of 1.014, I was very very wrong and it ended up taking 22 days at ended up at 0.992. To figure out what the ABV of your brew is use this formula: (OG-FG) x 131.25, so (1.054 - 0.992) x 131.25 = ABV of 8.14%.

When it finally stops fermenting it’s time to bottle, now you can syphon the brew off to another bucket with 130 grams of dextrose and then bottle from there, or if you want the quick easy method, use carbonation drops (most supermarkets will have in the same section as the dextrose, or get from a brew shop) which are essentially dextrose tablets, use 2 per 750ml bottle. Once you’ve had the pleasure of cleaning, sterilising and filling 25 bottles, store them in the same place you kept the fermenter and leave for 2 weeks, at which point the they should've carbonated and be ready to drink, if not don’t panic and just wait another week, it will happen it sometimes just takes a little extra time.

Distracted Chicken Stew

I’ve been a little slack getting a new post up on here, perhaps it’s because I’m a little preoccupied with all things brewing at the moment. I’ve got a third brew on, and bought a second fermenter, and have finally got to taste the fruits of my labour, brew one got a little taste, not too bad for a first go and kit beer, brew 2 got a taste when I measured its gravity, coming along very nicely and am looking forward to adding even more hops to it in a secondary fermenter. The third brew is a kit cider for the other half, and I’m doing far too much reading on kit I can buy/make and what brew four and five should be, as I’ll end up with two empty fermenters very soon, contemplating the scary thought of an all mash brew.

So with distractions in mind here is one of my main go to meals, something easy to throw together, usually have most of the ingredients in the larder, and is adaptable enough to not suffer if I’m missing a few.

6 Chicken drumsticks, or a whole chicken broken down to 6 or 8 pieces.
Water, stock if you have it.
Tomatoes, a good quality can, or 4 or 5 diced fresh.
Onion, finely diced.
3 Garlic cloves, minced.
1 Lemon, juice and zest.
1 tbsp Cumin, toasted and ground.
1 Red chilli, diced, dried is good in a pinch.
Black Olives, remove stone (I always have a can Pelion Greek black olives on hand).
Capers, in salt please, rinsed.
Thyme.
Salt and pepper.
Pine nuts, if you have them, toasted

Generously brown the chicken over a high heat with a dash of olive oil in a pan big enough to hold all the chicken, I mean seriously get the bird crispy brown. Set the chicken aside and turn the heat down, sautée the onions until translucent, add the garlic, chili and cumin, cook until fragrant. Arrange the chicken in the pan, tuck in thyme sprigs, scatter over the tomatoes, olives, capers and lemon zest, drizzle over the lemon juice, add about a cup of water (or stock), season with pepper (hold off the salt till the end as olive and capers are salty). Cover and cook over a medium low heat until the chicken is almost done, uncover the pot and cook over a medium high heat until the chicken is cooked and the cooking liquid have reduced to a nice thick sauce, adjust the seasoning and serve.

Beer

I’ve been meaning to get into this beer brewing thing for quite a while, but always seem to put off getting the required kit, and the lack of a decent brew store in Wellington hasn’t helped much. But we now have The Brew House in Newtown a great little brew supply shop, determined to change the procrastination habit I made my way from Karori to Newtown and bought myself a starter kit, I figured if I started off with a beer for dummies kit it would be foolproof and build up a bit of brewers confidence setting me off to try more advanced brewing techniques.

I followed the instructions and all was going well until I started thinking about what my next brew could be, I found many homebrew forums, and they left me with severe doubts about the supplied kit instructions, there are so many pages and posts online about just how bad kit instructions are, which led me to throwing away the supplied instruction sheet, which advised the beer would be ready to bottle in 5–7 days, and ready to drink in a couple of weeks, I ended up brewing the beer in the fermenter for a total of 23 days, the last half the Gravity had been stable, but the flavours weren’t they were developing mellowing becoming something a lot more pleasant than what they were on day 7.


I finally got the brew in the bottle, possibly the most tedious thing in the world washing and sterilising 30 bottles, I still have 2 weeks before I can chuck a couple of bottles in the fridge to have a taste, and realistically I’m not expecting to really start drinking it for another 3 weeks (four in total).


Much research and thought has gone into the next brew, I was fortunate to find a The Brewers Friend website which has a recipe calculator, you put in what style of beer you want to make, and then the grains, malt, hops and it will tell you how far off the style you are. I’ve decided on making an APA (American pale ale), a not too strong (6%) hoppy ale. I’ve also decided to up technical difficulty, I’m going to do a partial mash, which is steeping milled grains in hot water (about 65ºC) converting the starch in the grain to fermentable sugars through an enzymatic reaction, I had contemplated doing a full mash but as it is my first go and I don’t know how successful or what at efficiency I’ll be converting starch to sugar¹, I’m also adding a dry or liquid malt extract to cover my arse a bit.


The batch after that, I’m not sure yet, the other half wants to try cider so that could be a goer, I’m already contemplating getting another fermenter barrel so I can do a secondary fermentation of the APA with hops, which will add a nice floral aroma and also help clarify the beer more. All going to plan once the first batch is ready to drink I should be brewing enough to keep us stocked up with beer and never have to buy it again, not that I won't, there are too many good artisan brewers in Wellington and too many good bars serving them on tap, I’m looking at you Hop Garden and Fork & Brewer.


1. I managed to get 60% conversion of starch

Beer bread

Whipped up a batch of no knead bread to cook on the pizza stone this weekend. It's so easy, all it takes is a little patience which is rewarded with extra flavour the long ferment brings.


I used a ratio of 10 parts flour to 8 parts liquid (which happened to be an opened and undrunk bottle of flat beer) with about a tablespoon of yeast and enough salt. Mix to incorporate the flour, cover and let sit for 24-36 hours (if you plan on leaving it longer you will need to 'feed' it with extra liquid and flour after 24 hours to keep the yeast going).


Knocked back after 36 hours, very fragrant, I think it almost smells like mashed bananas fermenting.


Shape it the best you can, it's very soft. I placed it on a sprinkling of fine semolina flour so it would slide easily on to the pizza stone.

While the dough is proving (30-60 min depending on how active the yeast is) preheat the oven with the stone in it, I set mine to 250°C and wait for it get up to temperature then drop the dial down to 200°C when the dough is ready to place in the oven.


Slide the bread on to the stone and cook for about 20 minutes, until the bread sounds hollow then tapped.

It had a nice subtle beer taste and hints of sour dough, made a great salami sandwich.

Shin & Stout

Another meal for one, tonight beef cooked in stout, rich and tasty. The ingredients used are thyme, mustard, stout, carrots, garlic, bay leaves, shallots, onions, beef shin, worcestershire sauce; and mashed potatoes made from sour cream, butter and potatoes(obviously).

Dice up the onion, garlic, and one of the carrots.


Brown the shin on both sides. Remove from the pot. Add the diced carrot and onion and cook until soft and beginning to colour.


Test that the beer is of a suitable quality.


Pour the quality tested beer in to the pot along with a spoon of mustard, the thyme and bay leaves. Reduce. Once it has reduced by half put the beef back in and cook on high pressure for about 20 minutes (or I guess a slow simmer for about 60? if conventional).

While it's cooking, chop the remaining carrot in to bite size pieces, and peel the shallots. Cook the potatoes.

After 20 minutes, and 10 minutes on natural pressure release (or about 5-10 min before the 60 is up) remove the beef and strain the liquid discarding the vegetables. Reduce the liquid (if needed). Add the carrots, shallots and beef back to the pot with the liquid and cook for 4 minutes under pressure.

While it's cooking, mash the potatoes with butter and sour cream, season well.


Serve.


My favorite bit of the shin is the marrow.