Sake Update II: Pressing Matters

The Sake Project continues.

The sake has been pressed! After three weeks of waiting I popped the lid off the bucket and got my first taste of it. Gravity reading of 1.000. We are go for pressing!

Of course I had to find a way to press several gallons of rice and proto-sake. Fortunately, I scored a couple nylon paint straining bags from Home Depot for about $3. They're designed to fit a 5 gallon bucket, and come with elastic bands around the opening. My only advice on this is once you get the bag secured around a sanitized bucket, secure it somehow. I started scooping the rice into it and it slipped off and made a bit of a mess. So just have someone hold it, or use some clamps or something while you scoop the rice into the bag.

Next you have to get the sake out of the mix somehow. My first thought was to let gravity do the work. You could just hang it and let it drip I suppose, like you would cheese. But it would take a long time and I'd worry about oxidization.

A word on contamination while we're at it. By my guess, the sake is at least 18% alcohol! So that in itself is protecting it. But on top of that it will be pasteurized, twice, before drinking. So I wasn't too worried about manic cleanliness. Just sterilize things and wash your hands really well. You're going to need them.

Next I tried using two cookie sheets to form a sort of press, using my body weight to push down on it. It worked fairly well, but was ultimately a bit ungainly. If I had a fruit press, or a proper cheese press, those options might work well. Ultimately what worked best was just holding it over the bucket and using one hand to squeeze handfulls of the bag. Eventually I managed to wring just over three gallons out of it.

I racked the sake from the bucket into a couple bottles, with the rest going into a carboy. These bottles would be nigori, or cloudy sake, bottled with the lees. This will make it a bit sweeter and more aromatic, and a bit chalky like rice milk.

Technically I guess it's Junmai Ginjo Nigori Genshu Sake.

• Junmai: only water, koji, and rice. Not pressed with grain neutral spirits.
• Ginjo: the rice was polished down to 60% of its original size.
• Nigori: it's bottled cloudy, with lees from the pressing in the bottle.
• Genshu: I didn't do a yodan addition of water to dilute the sake down to the normal commercial strength of 14-16%. It's full bore, 18% rocket fuel!

The carboy went into the fridge at 50, where it will sit for a few days while I get my Classic American Pilsners ready for lagering. It will then ramp slowly down to lager temp with them for a few days. Then I'll rack it off the lees, pasteurize it, bentonite it, and leave it to sit and bulk age for a couple months. Then filter it, bottle it, pasteurize it, and drink it!

This is proving to be a lot of work for not a lot of sake.

The bottles of nigorizake went straight into a pot of water on the stove. I slowly raised the water temp until the sake was 140 degrees, then capped it. This should pasteurize it and make its shelf life much longer. As I mentioned earlier, the sanitization isn't crazy important. But the lactic bacteria in the sake will still, somehow, find a way to make the sake sour. Also acetobacters could get in and vinegarize it. Finally, sake oxidizes really, really quickly. Heating it drives off the dissolved co2 and helps purge oxygen from the bottles.

In the straining bag I was left with a problem. Or, perhaps, an opportunity. There was nearly three pounds of sake lees, or kasu, in the bag. You could just throw it out, but why waste such a potentially delicious gift? Kasu is one of my favorite cooking ingredients. It's like miso, but with a very perfumey-sake aroma, and a bit of alcohol. The Japanese use it in place of miso in many dishes, including soups and pickles. However, the best use by far is as a marinade for grilled fish: kasuzuke. So I scooped it out, pressed it into a pyrex dish, and popped it in the freezer to help it set up.

So how is the nigorizake?

Pretty delicious! No real off flavors, though there is a bit of a lactic bite to it. Maybe next time I'll do the sokujo style starter, where you use straight lactic acid instead of bacteria in order to get a more controlled level of acidity. But iIt smells like sake, all the right ethereal perfuminess is there. It is strong though. I decided not to do a yodan dilution this time just to see what it's like at full volume. Next time I'll turn it down a bit, maybe 16%. Note: a side effect of dilution is that you make more total sake as well, so your effort goes farther. It's also pretty young, I think it will be better as it mellows in a couple months.

Can't wait to try the filtered version!

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Your Morning Data

Article in the NYT presents this lovely chart:Culled from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, watch as the prices for vegetables and fruits diverge from sodas, butter, and meat over the last 30 years. Go Soy, Corn and Dairy Subsidies! Also, notice that the price for fish is relatively the same? Despite increased demand and consumption? That's why we'll be the last people to enjoy wild Bluefin.

At least the price of Beer is relatively unchanged.

Ok, it's been a week of indolence and sloth. Time for some writing today!

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RIP Mark Linkous

Just found out that Sparklehorse front-man Mark Linkous shot himself Saturday. It's A Wonderful Life is one of the most bittersweet songs ever written, and I've been a fan of Linkous' work from the first time I heard it about eight years ago. So by way of tribute, here it is:



The whole album of the same name is one of my favorites and well worth a listen, as is his most recent collaboration with David Lynch and Danger Mouse, Dark Night of the Soul.

R.I.P.

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Bacon of Doom II

It was time for more bacon. Arguably, it is always time for more bacon but that's not the point. We were fresh out. It was time for more bacon. Bacon of Doom II.

(Maybe that's why the Cyber-Demon is so angry.... Someone stole his delicious belly.)

Since last Summer's Bacon of Doom had had come out so well I went ahead and ordered another pork belly from Sea Breeze, and a week later I showed up at the farmer's market to pick it up. This time around I didn't get the mighty proud iceberg of pork, it was a much more normal sized belly. It also happened that Liz, the farm manager, was at the market that day and so we all ended up having a chat about the pig. Turns out she'd named the pig Squeaker, since it was always so excited whenever food showed up. So I've come to think of this as Squeaker Bacon.

There may have also been a discussion of pig nipples (the skin was still on) but that's neither here nor there.

So here's the belly. As you can see, this time around 10lbs was pretty much a full belly.

The plan was to make three kinds of bacon. First would be five pounds of maple cured, smoked bacon. Next would be 2.5 lbs of dry cured spiced bacon. Finally, I'd go out on a limb and see what curing the remaining 2.5 lbs with honey would taste like.

So I divided the belly up as evenly as I could. One of the problems is that, depending on how you plan to use it, certain parts of the belly are better than others. For long strips, center cut is best. For lardons, cubes, etc you can use the ends and oddly shaped parts more effectively. Since that's how I use the dry cured bacon the wonky end ended up spiced.

The cure was 1/8 cup of the Ruhlman Dry Cure from Charcuterie, plenty of fresh cracked black pepper, some minced garlic, crushed juniper berries, crumbled bay leaves, dry thyme, some crushed grains of paradise, and dry marjoram.

For the maple cured bacon, the belly was coated with 1/4 cup of the dry cure and a half cup of maple syrup. For the honey bacon, 1/8 cup dry cure and 1/4 cup honey.

Each went into its own little bag and they went into the fridge. I'd recommend putting them in a 13x9 or on a cookie sheet in case they somehow leak a bit, which one did. Cleanup on Aisle 9.


They spent 8 days in the fridge, being flipped ("overhauled") every morning. Then I took them out, washed them off and left them to air dry while I prepped the smoker. Right before sticking it in the smoker, I decided to coat the honey bacon with a thick paste of honey and Dijon mustard.

I used a combo of about equal parts hickory, alder and maple to smoke the maple and the honey bacon. The problems began when I only had about 3/4 of a charcoal chimney full of charcoal. Being under-fueled I had a hard time holding 225-250, and as a result the bacon was, well, sort of cold smoked. But actually, I don't think it's a bad thing. It's salted and cured, and will be kept frozen until I need it. So the fact that it's not already cooked isn't a problem for me.

Otherwise, I trimmed off the skin and trimmed the bacon into more rectangular forms. Of course all the ends and scraps have their own bag, which is great for soups, chowders, etc. Then the bacon was sliced into about 4oz portions and all but one block was labeled and frozen.

The honey bacon gave me a chance to finally try out the deli meat slicer that I got for Christmas. The only problem was that it was a floor model and didn't come with instructions. So, as is natural whenever dangerous spinning blades are involved, I just winged it.

And shredded the heck out of my first few strips. So I threw the bacon in the freezer for about 45 minutes and tried again. This time it was much, much easier. So there you go, a tip.


The end result was pretty decent looking, minus the pile of shredded scraps in the corner. As for taste? The honey bacon is certainly good. No doubt about that. But was it particularly "honey" flavored? Not so much. Neither a failure, nor a wild success, just decent bacon from a local, happy, and apparently loud pig.

The dry cured bacon spent a few days in the fridge while I waited for an order to arrive from Butcher & Packer, then I hung it in the basement on my shiny new bacon hanger.


Unfortunately, a white mold seems to have taken up residence on it while it was in the fridge. It's not fuzzy, more the crusty kind like on a salami, so I'm not really worried. But I'd still prefer it not be there. So I gave the bacon a wipe down with some white wine vinegar and a coating of salt and pepper before I hung it. That basement room is holding a constant 58-60, and the humidity seems about right, but there's no airflow. Fortunately I've got a small fan that I can hopefully hook up to the light socket and get some air moving down there. Then we'll see. I've got some other dry cured things planned and I really hope this basement room works out. If the mold doesn't get under control soon, I'll wipe the bacon down again and then freeze it.

So there we go. 10 lbs of belly has made enough bacon to last me pretty well into the late Summer. Brilliant.

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Always Double Check Your Connections

Yep. Whole Pony Keg of stout gone, and most of a co2 cylinder.

My cloud of profanity is still hanging somewhere out over Puget Sound.

Can't wait to clean this up.

Tomorrow.

Firmly filed in the Don't Do This tag.

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Update: Schwarzweisse I

So after 10 days in the primary at 60 degrees the Schwarzweisse was finished.


It's been a while since I bottled a whole 5 gallon batch. It's a great feeling of accomplishment when you are finished, like you've just laid four dozen happy little alcohol eggs.

The big questions though: how was the color and did it end up too roasty/astringent?

Color: pretty good, as you can see definitely on the far far end of the style. Still, not quite as dark as I wanted. Next time I'll use a whole pound of Carafa II and cold steep it.

Taste: At first taste it was dry and lemony, which was disappointing. But that was more because it was too cold. As it warmed up a nice banana/clove thing came in. In the back there's some malty caramels, but they're quite low. There's just a hint of toasty, but no bitter burnt. Not too shabby. My only complaint is there is a bit too much lemon esther. The curse of every hefe I've ever made. I may try a different yeast next time, but I've got one packet left of the Saf-06 so I think I'll try it again, not muck up the mash, and see if it tastes any different.

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Brewday: The Great Classic American Pilsner Off

American Pilsner.

Could any beer be more loved, and loathed, than American Pilsner? Loved, because it makes up the vast, vast majority of beer sold in this country, and increasingly, the world. Loathed, because it has a reputation for being tasteless, bland, low-brow and unstoppable in its quest for total world beer domination.

It's hip to trash on American light lager beers when you're a homebrewer/beer snob. After all, we owe much of the current craft brewing movement to a rejection over the last 40 years of these mass-market lagers by small brewers and their supportive customers. Popular mass-market beers are bad, because they're popular and mass-market, while all the cool kids drink craft beer.

This contrarian stance seems a very human one to take. Many people start drinking fizzy yellow beer, then move on to more complicated styles as they get into brewing or are exposed to more craft beer. Your tastes grow up. "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways."

I was going to paraphrase that as "When I was a child, I drank as a child..." but that didn't seem quite right. The point is that these beers are something you move past as a regrettable proof of your earlier state of ignorance. Now you're a Big Boy and drink nothing but Double IPAs and Russian Imperial Stouts. You rebel, you.

Eventually though I think we come full circle. The fact is, American Light Lagers are very, very hard to brew. There is no room for error, nothing to hide behind. And it's a technological marvel that every can of Bud tastes the same the world over. Seriously, that's an achievement on par with the Moon Landing. So you begin to respect it, in a grudging kind of way.

But it's still, well, bland. But it is designed to be that way. The irony of American Lager is that the very height of the Brewing Arts is used to produce a beer that tastes as much like nothing as possible.

But it wasn't always like this. What if there was another way?

The Classic American Pilsner

The story of American Light Lager is the story of Railroads, Immigration, Prohibition, Class Warfare, Junk Science, Television, Advertising, War, Monopolization, Baby Boomers, the Growth of the Middle Class, Suburbia, and well, basically, the story of everything that happened in the last 150 years. In short, way too complicated for much discussion here. Suffice to say, many factors contributed to a race-to-the-bottom in terms of flavor. Bud-Lite today doesn't taste anything like Budweiser did, say, 120 years ago. In fact, the beer that built the fortunes of Messrs. Busch, Miller, Coors, and Pabst was a very different beast indeed.

So why not make one? After all, the joy of homebrewing is the ability to brew whatever strikes your fancy. Why not brew a Classic American Pilsner like Grandpa, or even Great-Grandpa might have drank when he was young?

Unfortunately, this beer is functionally extinct. What would such a beer look like? Much of the homebrewing revival of the style can be attributed to the writings of Jeff Renner, whose research and methods have been used for years by homebrewers resurrecting the style at home. (See The Revival of the Classic American Pilsner, Zymurgy, 2000; and Reviving the Classic American Pilsner - A Shamefully Neglected Style, Brewing Techniques, 1995.)

Traditionally, recently immigrated Continental brewers would have been faced with a challenge. Most barley grown in America back then was 6-row, meaning that the kernels grow in six vertical rows around the stalk, instead of just two as in 2-row barley. This created a problem, because 6-row has higher protein and thicker husks than 2-row, which means it could cause chill haze when used to brew the newly popular, and preferably clear, lager beers.

But 6-row had other tricks up its sleeve. Firstly, it was suited to a wider variety of growing conditions which meant that it was planted and thrives in many areas of the country. When malted, 6-row also had the benefit of increased enzyme levels over its 2-row brother, meaning it could easily convert high percentages of unmalted grain adjuncts. The higher percentage of husks also meant that lautering was fairly easy, even with gummy adjunct grains. Substituting in a percentage of corn or rice meant that the protein levels of the 6-row could be tempered a bit, resulting in a clearer beer, while the cheaper adjuncts and ready availability of the malt saved the brewer money. Consumers also enjoyed the mellow sweetness of corn, and the crispy dry quality of rice. It is a match made in heaven that continues in the American Light Lagers and Malt Liquors of today.

So what's the difference between those beers of yesteryear and today's beers? Well, there are several important technical differences in the industrial brewing process, but I think the most important difference is hops. The German and Czech brewers tended to hop these beers like a Continental Pilsner, making the hops noticeable not just as bitterness but also in taste and aroma. Traditionally they would have used Cluster, America's historic variety, but also possibly some of the Noble varieties, either imported or cultivated for the brewery. But over the years this hoppiness was slowly chipped away, until now most American Pilsners are about 1/3 as hoppy as their forebearers.

So in a nutshell, a Classic American Pilsner (or CAP, as they're often affectionately called) is a light lager, made with 6-row malt and high percentage of corn or rice, probably a bit stronger than modern lagers, and hopped at a level similar to a German or Czech Pilsner.

Well, I'm up for a challenge and my New Years Resolution was to brew lighter, more drinkable beers, so I figured I'd give it a try. I set out to write a recipe in BeerSmith, trying to use as many ingredients that I already had as possible. Most notably the beer would be based on 2-Row pale malt, because I had a 50# sack of it.

Another important step would be the use of First Wort Hopping. An ounce of my hops, normally destined for late addition for flavor and aroma, would instead go into the freshly run-off wort and kept hot (175-180) for the duration of the sparge. This results in a smoother bitterness, and retention of aromas and flavors that would normally be boiled away in a conventional hop addition. Why this works no one really knows. One theory is that the hop oils and acids attach somehow to other molecules in the wort prior to the boil, which helps them survive the process and emerge on the other side. Personally, I chalk it up to magic elves. Thank you magic elves.

Water is really important for pilsners, and Seattle's water is, big surprise, basically rain water. In the winter our water comes from rainfall, and in the summer it's melting snow. So it's well suited to brewing Pilsners. Just a little calcium chloride would be needed to drop the pH into the right area, and lactic acid to lower the pH of the sparge and knock-out water.

But as I worked on the recipe I quickly got in over my head, mostly due to mash schedule issues. Protein rest or no protein rest? Multi-step, or just infusion? Cereal mash or flaked corn? Decoctions? Argh...

So I sent a post out on AHA Techtalk to see what others thought and ended up kicking a beehive. I received a lot of advice, opinions, uppity snide comments, and well meaning suggestions, much of which was contradictory. Finally I even heard from Jeff Renner himself. Based on his suggestions I put a recipe together, but I was still somewhat attached to the first one I'd cooked up by myself.

The Project - A Tale of Two Pilsners

In the end I decided that I would brew two CAPs. One I would make as simply as possible. 2-row malt, flaked corn, single infusion. The other would more or less follow the recipe in Renner's 2000 Zymurgy article. 6-row malt, corn grits in a cereal mash, with multiple rests following the traditional American Double Mash schedule. Yeast will be the same. Hops the same. Water treatment the same. Fermentation temp the same. Carbonation levels, etc.

It was to be a battle of convenience vs. authenticity. Historical Perspective vs. Modern Sensibilities. At the end, I'll take a couple growlers to the club meeting and see what people think. Was it worth the extra effort? Is one more stylistically accurate, but the other tastes better? Well have to wait and see.

Brewday #1: CAP 'n Trade 2-Row Classic American Pilsner

This recipe was designed to use ingredients I already had, and to be a simple and easy as possible.

Classic American Pilsner, All grain, 5.25 gallons, 90 minute boil
Est. O.G.: 1.057
Est. F.G.: 1.015
Est. ABV: 5.6%
Act. O.G.: 1.060, overboiled so diluted down to 1.053 with distilled water
Act. F.G.: 1.011-1.012
Est Act ABV: 5.5%
32.5 IBU
3.7 SRM

Grain Bill:

• 8 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt (Great Western)
• 3 lbs Flaked Corn

Mash: Single Infusion Mash at 150, then infusion to 170 for mash-out. Added a couple handfulls of rice hulls with the mash-out infusion, and 0.1 ml lactic acid to the knock-out infusion water.

Mash Water treatment: 3 gm Calcium Chloride. Campden tablet to remove chloramines.

Sparge water treated with 0.5 ml lactic acid. Collected 7.5 gallons for the boil.

The Boil:

• 1 oz Domestic Hallertau, leaf, 4.7% AA. First wort hop.
  
• 1/4 tsp Calcium Chloride at 90 (to help buffer pH of boil)
  
• 1 oz Domestic Hallertau, at 60 minutes.
• 0.25 oz Domestic Hallertau, at 15 minutes.
• Whirlfloc tablet at 15 minutes.

After 90 minutes, cooled to 53 degrees using my plate chiller. Settled cold break in carboy for two hours in a chest freezer set at 40 degrees, which you can see in the image to the left. Racked off of cold break into another carboy and oxygenated wort. Pitched two packets dry SafLager-23, rehydrated in warm water with some GoFerm 15 minutes prior to pitching.

Fermenting in a fridge set to 48 degrees. I'll pull it out and give it a D-rest at 60 degrees for three to four days after 9 days fermenting cold. Then lager for 6 weeks at 34 and keg.

Notes:

Nearly flawless brewday and super easy. Had my first boilover in a long time though, too busy blogging... :) Minor mess, need to pay more attention! Vigorous boil to encourage protein break, actually overboiled wort and had to dilute with distilled water. My tap water is cold right now, on full blast it was chilling to 53. Not too shabby, was shooting for 48-50. Mash was easy, but flaked corn tends to float, which made seeing the sparge water level over the grain bed a bit difficult.

Procedure for first wort hopping: collected a gallon of wort in a 5-gallon bucket, then mixed in the 1 oz. of leaf Hallertauer First Wort Hops. Continued to collect wort until I had three gallons in the bucket. Transferred to the kettle and kept wort and hops around 175-180 degrees as best I could. As the rest of the wort continued to sparge I kept adding it to the kettle at 1 gallon intervals, keeping it hot, until I had the full boil volume and began the boil.

So there's the 2-row CAP. Two days later I invited some interested members of my homebrew club over and we brewed the 6-row CAP.

Brewday #2: CAP 'n Trade 6-Row Classic American Pilsner

This one is designed to be a far more traditional CAP than the 2-row version. The recipe is based on Jeff Renner's 2000 Zymurgy article. It utilizes a cereal mash, which gelatinizes the starches in the corn grits and acts as a sort of decoction to pull the main mash temperature up for an alpha rest at 158. Otherwise pretty much everything is the same: water, hops, boil time, minerals etc.

Classic American Pilsner, All grain, 5.25 gallons, 90 minute boil
Est. O.G.: 1.052 (6-row has less extract yield than 2-row)
Est. F.G.: 1.013
Est. ABV: 5%
Act. O.G.: 1.050 (Underboiled, ended up with closer to 5.75 gallons)
Act. F.G.: 1.010-1.012
Est Act ABV: 5.1-5.3%
33.8 IBU
3.7 SRM

Grain Bill:

• 8 lbs 6-row malt
• 3 lbs Corn grits (Two 20 oz. packages was only 2 1/2 lbs. It was like hot dogs and hot dog buns, I wasn't going to buy another box just to get that last half pound. So I used a half pound of coarse cornmeal instead.)

The Classic American Double Mash

This was the mash schedule I worked from. I printed it out and posted it in the kitchen so it was readily available.

• Prepped 3 gallons of water at 114 degrees with 3gm of Calc Chloride and some campden tablet.
  
• Time 00: In a large pot, mash in 3 lbs corn and 1 lb 6-row malt with 5 quarts of 166° prepared water to hit 153° F
  
• Time 15: Mash in main mash of 7 lbs 6-row with 1.4 gallons at 114° to hit 104° F
  
• Time 20: Bring cereal mash to boil
  
• Time 30: Cereal mash boiling
  
• Time 35: Add about 1 gallon boiling water to ramp main mash to 144-146° F
  
• Time 65: Add cereal mash to main mash, adjust temperature as needed to 158° F. Have boiling water and cold water ready for this.
  
• Time 95: Ramp to 170° F mashout. Should take about 1.5 gallons of boiling water. Include .1ml lactic acid in water.
  
• Time 105: Begin sparge and lauter

That was the plan anyway, and it went more or less like that. I had to use some boiling water to adjust temperatures here and there. Most notably, as the cereal mash got thicker I turned the heat down, and so when I added it to the main mash it wasn't as hot as it could have been. As a result I had a hard time hitting the 158 degree target and got closer to 154. Oh well. Iodine tests confirmed conversion at Time 95 so I mashed out and began the sparge. Included .5 ml lactic acid in the sparge water.

Sparge, boil, hopping, cooling, pitching and everything else was the same as the previous beer. As a result of the 6-row and a less rolling boil, I ended up with an O.G. of 1.050 and 5.75 gallons of wort. Oh well, at 5% ABV it's still stronger than Bud-Lite...

So there we have it. A tale of two pilsners. They are fermenting away, and the next post will be in two months or so when they've been lagered and kegged. Then comes the taste test. Will authenticity triumph? Will modern malts make a cleaner beer? Will both be good in their own different ways? Most importantly: did I brew a clean lager?

We'll find out.

UPDATE: The Results

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