FOODIES MEET HERE.

[eerockk]

I see I see 

Being an artist I am drawn towards the aesthetics...paint peeler...for example.

I like the painters tape idea, but I would have been tempted to layer paint too create the flaking paint effect.

A stencil with white letters...seal...dry...spray with hairspray and sprinkle the flake areas with sand...paint again with another color...dry...rough up with a toothbrush (the paint covering the sand will flake off revealing the white underneath)

It sounds all crazy but once you do it, the process will be easy peasy.

That would be neat for a commemorative edition of one of my beers, but there's also the de-labeling process which has to be done with the empties. I suppose I could fill the empties with the same brew, but I've never made the same batch twice in a row. This would be good to do with a 12 gal batch and with glass bottles that I would not expect to be returned to me. Man that would look sharp though, though it never affects the contents of the bottles! (Sadly). 

[Master Rel]

That would be neat for a commemorative edition of one of my beers, but there's also the de-labeling process which has to be done with the empties. I suppose I could fill the empties with the same brew, but I've never made the same batch twice in a row. This would be good to do with a 12 gal batch and with glass bottles that I would not expect to be returned to me. Man that would look sharp though, though it never affects the contents of the bottles! (Sadly). 

Use wide clear tape first, then stencil on this.  Once done peel off and Bob's your uncle 

[eerockk]

Use wide clear tape first, then stencil on this.  Once done peel off and Bob's your uncle 

Well, now I need to do this for at least a few bottles... Hmmm, I just bottled that Bo-SMaSH... 

[eerockk]

Double post! 

Well, two batches of beer on the go at once is kind of rare for me, (though I wish it wasn't), but I was successful in going on another batch this past weekend. It's another SMaSH (Single Malt and Single Hop) recipe, but this time, I used 12lbs of Canadian 2-row malted barley, and New Zealand's Green Bullet hops. I also pitched Cooper's Ale yeast with this brew, so what I will end up with is an American style (American Pale Ale) powered by Canadian, Kiwi, and Aussie ingredients. Go fig!

Brewpr0n ahoy, bos'un!

The ingredients: Barley malt, hops, yeast, London Ontario tap water


Mashing the grains into usefulness:


Rinsing said grains (the sparge)



Starting the boil



The Green Bullet hops are like nothing I've ever used before, and I'm happy that I have 4/5th of a pound of this stuff left in my chest freezer. This recipe will be repeated!

Specs: OG = 1.052 (should finish at around 5%), and the IBUs will be calculated once I figure out how much 1/2 a cup and 1/4 cup of these hops weigh. It wasn't terribly bitter though, and might be one of my more-balanced beers - balance is rare in my brewing repertoire as I am a shameless hop head. I wonder if my love of Consular green truly comes from Luke or Qui-Gon, or if it's from my love of the cones that this plant produces?

[Rina Ascura]

Hi, Ascura here with a new portion of Russian cuisine! Today we'll talk about kvass. Kvass is a very mild and low-alcohol beer that was used in Russia as a carbonated beverage before there were carbonated beverages. That is, people drink kvass to quench thirst (which is what it's good for), not to get hammered (which is very hard to to with this drink).

Kvass is brewed from fermented rye. Homemade kvass is usually made from rye bread, such as black bread, pumpernickel or borodinsky (the best). Other than that, you'll need cool boiled water, sugar, yeast and some extra flavor ingredients (such as lemon zest, raisins, ginger, etc) to your taste. You'll need 750 grams of rye bread croutons, 4 liters of water, 125 grams of sugar and 7 grams of active dry yeast per 5-liter jar.

First, you need to wet-crush the croutons in water. Put them in water for some hours, and when the croutons are ready to form a suspension in water, you should crush them, mix and shake that suspension, and filter it from any remaining hard bits of bread through cheesecloth.

After that, you add sugar, yeast and flavor ingredients, stopper the jar and let it ferment. One night is usually enough for the fermentation to happen and any suspended bits to settle on the bottom. You'll get a jar full of fizzy brown liquid. That's kvass.

[eerockk]

Hi, Ascura here with a new portion of Russian cuisine! Today we'll talk about kvass. Kvass is a very mild and low-alcohol beer that was used in Russia as a carbonated beverage before there were carbonated beverages. That is, people drink kvass to quench thirst (which is what it's good for), not to get hammered (which is very hard to to with this drink).

Kvass is brewed from fermented rye. Homemade kvass is usually made from rye bread, such as black bread, pumpernickel or borodinsky (the best). Other than that, you'll need cool boiled water, sugar, yeast and some extra flavor ingredients (such as lemon zest, raisins, ginger, etc) to your taste. You'll need 750 grams of rye bread croutons, 4 liters of water, 125 grams of sugar and 7 grams of active dry yeast per 5-liter jar.

First, you need to wet-crush the croutons in water. Put them in water for some hours, and when the croutons are ready to form a suspension in water, you should crush them, mix and shake that suspension, and filter it from any remaining hard bits of bread through cheesecloth.

After that, you add sugar, yeast and flavor ingredients, stopper the jar and let it ferment. One night is usually enough for the fermentation to happen and any suspended bits to settle on the bottom. You'll get a jar full of fizzy brown liquid. That's kvass.

My friend has already provided me the recipe for the Georgian Kvass, and I'm looking to get my arse to the Russian bakery in town just to pick up some Kvass-grade rye bread (light and dark - going mixed malt on this one - they sell it for kvass specifically), and try a 13L batch of this stuff. 5 pounds of Pasteurized cherries ought to make this a very nice summer sipper. Can't wait for the volcanoes Kvass bottles make due to the extreme carbonation!

Kvass is a great alternative to the sugary soda pop that dominates the North American markets, and I think Kvass would get pretty popular in this country. The one issue? It has a tiny bit of alcohol in it, and thus needs to sold through our heavily-regulated liquor control boards, and thus it would be taxed at 40% Yay Ontario... that's why I make my own, by the way.

Рина мой друг. Вызов принят.

[Master Rel]

Very cool cultural share, points all around!

[Rina Ascura]

It has a tiny bit of alcohol in it, and thus needs to sold through our heavily-regulated liquor control boards, and thus it would be taxed at 40% Yay Ontario... that's why I make my own, by the way.

There's also a way to make kvass stronger than usual, for those of a more epicurean persuasion.

[eerockk]

There's also a way to make kvass stronger than usual, for those of a more epicurean persuasion.

I can ferment it for a week, develop a less-sweet product, and raise the alcohol to around 5%. I might as well do a secondary fermentation in bottle and clear it up. This is going to as fun as it is interesting. I love projects like these. Thanks for the great idea! I had plans for this two years ago, and it slipped through the cracks of time, I suppose!

And if you'll excuse a double post, here's some more culture:

[Rina Ascura]

I'm currently making kvass, and found out that I'm out of yeast. I'm trying some substitutes, such as spoons of various Grandma's old half-fermented jams and some dried briar berries.

[eerockk]

The Japanese Feast!

Tuesday was my mom's birthday, and my wife and I hatched a plan to make a feast for her big day based on some of our favorite cuisine in the world: Japan's. 

The only thing that we didn't make for this dinner was the sake - everything was home made and prepped over three days. The menu:

Orange sesame ginger salad and coconut curry explosion soup started off the show. The main course was a mix of shrimp, crab, and vegetable tempura, ponzu chicken satays, and my awesome wife successfully rolled her first four crab/avocado rolls after finally nailing a perfect pot of sushi rice - (I will be taking a few lessons from her and expanding this sushi racket - itamae, here I come!

To finish the meal, we served homemade green tea ice cream made in an ice cream maker that I got for Christmas. (Scalding cream and tempering the mixture was not as easy as it seemed!)

The verdict: My mom was blown away by her birthday dinner so it was a raving success! Those are always worth the effort!

The dinner


From the birthday girl's's perspective


Sofa King proud of my wife!


My next project is going to be a hickory smoked prime rib - 8 hours over coals! The weather is ready for it, anyway!

[eerockk]

I'm currently making kvass, and found out that I'm out of yeast. I'm trying some substitutes, such as spoons of various Grandma's old half-fermented jams and some dried briar berries.

Do you have a bakery nearby? Violent Kvass explosions happen due to the use of the aggressive bread yeast that's used, (and why I'm interested in making some - I love things that go BOOM; I won't lie).

There may be enough natural yeast on the berries to start the reaction. If you had a bottle of beer that was conditioned in bottle, you could pour the beer into the sweet mixture, wait a day or two more, and the yeast in the unfiltered bottle of beer should reactivate and get the fermentation process going. It just won't happen right away like we'd be used to seeing.

[Rina Ascura]

If I wake up tomorrow and find that kvass is not yet ready, I'll go to the shop and buy some proper yeast. If it's ready, lucky me. No, I don't have a bakery nearby. Moscow, the city I live in currently, is a spacious city: the closest tall building I can see from my window is 300 meters away. And the little town where I grew up and where I'll be living in soon has no working bakery; it was closed because of the fall of the Soviet Union and not recovered since then. There are black gaping windows and tall wild grasses where it once was. I remember, when I was little, the times I was sent to fetch some bread from the bakery. The black bread was warm and delicious, and I ate half of it before I carried it back home. And currently I visit my old hometown; the bakery is deserted. Now you feel less good winning the Cold War, eh?

[eerockk]

If I wake up tomorrow and find that kvass is not yet ready, I'll go to the shop and buy some proper yeast. If it's ready, lucky me. No, I don't have a bakery nearby. Moscow, the city I live in currently, is a spacious city: the closest tall building I can see from my window is 300 meters away. And the little town where I grew up and where I'll be living in soon has no working bakery; it was closed because of the fall of the Soviet Union and not recovered since then. There are black gaping windows and tall wild grasses where it once was. I remember, when I was little, the times I was sent to fetch some bread from the bakery. The black bread was warm and delicious, and I ate half of it before I carried it back home. And currently I visit my old hometown; the bakery is deserted. Now you feel less good winning the Cold War, eh?

I think we all won the Cold War. Nobody pushed the button! 

In the case of your Kvass, let's hope for some gassy berry yeast!

[Master Rel]

If I wake up tomorrow and find that kvass is not yet ready, I'll go to the shop and buy some proper yeast. If it's ready, lucky me. No, I don't have a bakery nearby. Moscow, the city I live in currently, is a spacious city: the closest tall building I can see from my window is 300 meters away. And the little town where I grew up and where I'll be living in soon has no working bakery; it was closed because of the fall of the Soviet Union and not recovered since then. There are black gaping windows and tall wild grasses where it once was. I remember, when I was little, the times I was sent to fetch some bread from the bakery. The black bread was warm and delicious, and I ate half of it before I carried it back home. And currently I visit my old hometown; the bakery is deserted. Now you feel less good winning the Cold War, eh?

Will you still have Internet?