Goat Yogurt - I Like It

My second attempt at making yogurt turned out pretty well. When I saw powdered goat milk at Whole Foods I was inspired to make some yogurt from just goat milk products.

As with my first attempt at yogurt making I took 2 qrt of milk (in this case whole goat milk) and heated it up to 120 degrees, but this time I also added 1 cup of dried milk. My honey didn't look too good, so in its place I opted to add 2 tbls of agave nectar (left over from my second sugar experiment). After the powdered milk dissolved I poured the mixture into my plastic container and put the heating pad on high for the night. By the next morning I had a nice big batch of goat milk yogurt.

The results were very smooth and creamy compared to my first attempt (probably as a result of more fat both in the milk and from the dried milk). I thought the flavor was good with a nice flavor/aroma reminiscent of a nice American Chèvre (not too much barnyard). The texture was still a bit loose, but this time instead of a lack of protein, I'd blame it on an excess of fat (fat molecules can get in the way of proteins trying to bond to one another). I thought this yogurt worked particularly well in savory applications like sauces for fish and roasted meat.

Next up I'll go for a more traditional recipe, in my attempt to get closer to the firmer texture of commercial yogurt.

DC Homebrewers

Happy to report that I attended the first meeting of the DC Homebrewers club. Seemed like a really good group of people. I enjoy going to BURP meetings, but it was nice to attend a club meeting within walking distance of my apartment and with so many new people to talk beer with. If you are in the DC area come out for a meeting and meet some other local homebrewers.

Sour Beer Update

During my Christmas week in Massachusetts I had a chance to inspect and taste several of my long aging sour beers.

This was my first real taste of my Flanders Pale Ale (left), which was coming along nicely with a mild funky Brett aroma, but not much sourness yet.

My lambic had a rather strong fruity flavor and a nicely developing sourness, although nowhere near as strong as a commercial lambic. This beer is still in primary to take advantage of the autolysing yeast cake and looks about the same as it did the last time I saw it (bits of detached pellicle).

I bottled the second half of my Flanders Red which had been aging on 4 lbs of blackberries (left). I was pleasantly surprised that the fruit flavor was not as intense as I expected. The acids from the berries and the extra fermentation time with the fruit sugars added a good deal more sourness, with the fruit giving a nice winey complexity. Look for a full review in a couple of weeks when the beer is fully carbonated.





I also dropped off my Cable Car clone (left) for its year of souring. As you can see I got a full 5 gallons out of the 6 gallons I put into the three primary fermenters. The flavor going into secondary was excellent, a fruity combination of peaches, apricots, and oranges. I can't wait to see how this one tastes in 12 months after the Russian River bugs have their way with it.

Not crying over sour milk - Yogurt

My first foray into the world of fermented dairy. This is one the most diverse areas of fermentation including such standard items as sour cream, and buttermilk, gourmet items such as crème fraîche, cultured butter, and kefir, not to mention the literally hundreds of varieties of cheese.

My basic method was stolen from Good Eats, but it is pretty much the same method everyone else seems to use (except for the genius use of a heating pad to maintain the correct temperature).

I took 1/2 gallon of 2% milk (you can use use milk from any animal and with any percentage of fat you want) and heated it to 120 degrees. I then poured all of it except 1 cup into a cylindrical plastic container, the rest was blended with two 6 oz containers of store bought yogurt with live cultures (make sure the back says it "contains live cultures"). I poured the thinned yogurt into the container with the warm milk. I placed the container with lid on into a pot and wrapped it with a a heating pad set to high.

You would have to test out your heating pad to determine the correct setting to keep a liquid at 115 degrees and make sure that your heating pad doesn't have an auto-shutoff timer like the one I bought (luckily my mother was willing to swap).

I then went to sleep, when I woke up in the morning (8 hours later) I had a thick tangy yogurt like substance. I took a temperature reading and it was 114, pretty good for my first try. I opted not to add any powdered milk, which many recipes call for to add additional protein to enhance coagulation (acid coagulates protein, the same reaction gives the citrus juice marinated seafood in ceviche its "cooked" texture). The longer you leave the yogurt before putting into the refrigerator the more acid will be produced by the various lactic acid bacteria (including our beer souring friend lactobacillus), and the firmer the resulting yogurt will be.

After a few hours in the fridge to cool down (115 degree yogurt wasn't that appealing to me) the homemade yogurt had a creamy mouthfeel with a nice lingering tangy flavor. I thought it had a fresher "milky" flavor and aroma than commercial yogurt, which could be the result of the organic milk I used or just the fact that I have no experience critically evaluating yogurt. The yogurt kept well in the fridge until it was all gone (after 5 days).

I plan to add some dried milk to see how much of a thickening difference it makes. I also plan on playing with different brands of yogurt to inoculate. Much like sourdough you could continually save a cup of yogurt to inoculate your next batch, but I doubt I have the commitment for that.

Home Grown Pale Ale - Recipe and First Tasting

In September I used the Cascades that I grew at my parents' house and then dried in the microwave in a simple American pale ale. I used Simcoe to bitter since I didn't have enough of my home grown Cascades to make that much beer, and I don't know what their alpha acid % is so it would be impossible to figure out how much I would need to use as the bittering addition.

I used Golden Promise from Scotland as the basemalt, I think it adds some mildly toasty notes without being as biscuity as some other British pale malts. CaraHell and CaraVienna are both pale crystal/cara malts which add some sweetness, body, and a mild caramel flavor. Victory contributes toastiness as well reinforcing the flavor from the Golden Promise. Melanoidin (similar to Aromatic Malt) is like a really dark Munich malt which adds a powerful "malt" flavor, melanoidins are byproducts of the Maillard reactions which add depth of flavor (they are also created in a decoction mash).

1st tasting: Homegrown Hop APA 12/18/07

Aroma – Slight caramel, with some clean citrus hops. The hops have faded pretty quickly, but are still rather nice. There is a floral complexity that I can't figure out, either hops or mild yeast esters.

Appearance – Light honey-amber, with just a bit of hoppy haze. The white head last the entire time leaving patchy lacing on the sides of the glass.

Taste – Nice and toasty, with a clean hop bitterness. The beer is nice a dry, with just enough hoppiness to give it some bite. The bitterness is not as aggressive as even a Sierra Nevada, the balance is closer to an English Pale Ale. Certainly not really complex, and there are no discernible off flavors.

Mouthfeel – Medium body with firm carbonation. This is exactly what a easy drinking pale ale should feel like.

Drinkability/Notes – A solid APA, that is a bit lacking in the hop aroma. At the least this proves that microwave drying hops is a reasonable idea. It is hard to tell if the lower than expected hop aroma can be traced to my drying method, or simply the growing conditions of my second year cascade plant.

Home Grown Pale Ale Recipe

Recipe Specifics
----------------
Batch Size (Gal): 2.75
Total Grain (Lbs): 6.38
Anticipated OG: 1.053
Anticipated SRM: 8.3
Anticipated IBU: 35.3
Brewhouse Efficiency: 61 %
Wort Boil Time: 95 Minutes

Grain
------
5.50 lbs. Golden Promise
0.25 lbs. Carahell Malt
0.25 lbs. CaraVienne Malt
0.25 lbs. Victory Malt
0.13 lbs. Melanoidin Malt

Hops
-----
0.38 oz. Whole Simcoe @ 90 min.
0.50 oz. Whole Cascade @ 9 min.
0.75 oz. Whole Cascade @ Flame Out

Extras
------
.50 Unit Whirlfloc 15 Min.(boil)
.50 Tsp Yeast Nutrient 15 Min.(boil)

Yeast
-----
WYeast 1056 American Ale/Chico

Water Profile
-------------
Profile: Washington DC
Profile known for: Where I live

Calcium(Ca): 45.2 ppm
Magnesium(Mg): 8.0 ppm
Sodium(Na): 13.8 ppm
Sulfate(SO4): 49.0 ppm
Chloride(Cl): 28.0 ppm
biCarbonate(HCO3): 86.3 ppm

Mash Schedule
-------------
50 min @ 153

Notes
-----
Brewed 9/16/07 by myself

Added 1 gram of gypsum to the mash. 1 tsp phosphoric acid to the sparge. 1 gram gypsum to the boil. Cascades were home grown and dried in the microwave. Simcoe were about a year old, AA% adjusted down from 13%.

4.5 gallons @ 1.038 collected.

Good strong boil, added flame out hops after 1 minute of cooling. Got the beer down to around 80 before straining and putting into the temp controlled freezer.

Yeast pitched straight from the pack after the beer cooled overnight.

Fermentation chugging along nicely by 18 hours at an ambient temperature of 60 degrees.

After 48 hours fermentation seemed to be slowing so I boosted the temp to 65, that got fermentation going so strong within 24 hours that I decided to drop back to 60, after another 24 hours fermentation seemed to be about done so I raised the temp back to 65 to make sure it ferments out. Not optimal, but it should be fine.

9/23/07 Transferred to secondary, pretty good flavor, yeasty and a bit weak on the hops.

10/02/07 Bottled the 2.5 gallons with 2 1/8 oz of corn sugar, aiming for 2.5 volumes. FG = 1.010. Tastes almost tropical with a solid toasty malt backbone. I'm surprised how well attenuated it is.

10/16/07 Good carbonation, nice hop character.

11 Differnet Sugars, 1 Great Tasting

Last weekend I got a bunch of my friends together to do a big tasting of my sugar experiments. The 1st experiment was brewed in the summer of 2006, so some of the bottles were starting to show some oxidation, but the amount of oxidation ranged significantly. I am not sure if this variation can be traced to the sugar, or if it was a result of bottle to bottle variation. The 2nd experiment was more than a year younger, certainly closer to its prime, but probably still a bit young.

We tasted the beers blind and in a random order that wasn't revealed until we finished the last beer. I asked every participant to write down three words or short phrases that they thought captured each of the beers. Here is a list of the general sentiments on each batch.

1. Homemade Candi Syrup (White Sugar held at 285 for 3 hours) (New)
-Drinkable, fruity, well balanced

2. Muscovado (Old)
-Mild Oxidation, tropical, mead-like

3. Lyle's Golden Syrup (New)
- Smoky, long finish, amber, syrupy, alcohol

4. Dark Candi Syrup (Old)
- Strong oxidation, pineapple, faint cherry

5. Homemade Caramel (Corn Syrup and DAP) (Old)
- Tart, caramel, thin, apple cider vinegar

6. Agave (New)
- Spicy, fusel, more bitterness, like Delirium, grapefruit in nose

7. Dark Soft Candi Sugar (Old)
- Cider, aromatic, strong, orange in the nose, smooth

8. White Sugar (Fermented hotter than the rest) (Old)
- Apple, flat, watery

9. Date Sugar (New)
-Very dry, bubblegum, very Belgian

10. Gur (New)
- Alcohol, fruity, smooth, a bit thick, light bubblegum

11. Amber Rock Candi (Old)
- Grape/wine , Farmhouse, dry