Simply Strawberry Mead

Heloooo all I am back again with another mead. Summer is here and the fruit is ripe! Strawberries have recently plummeted in price so I decided to pick some up. 5lbs to be exact. This is another mead that is somewhat in real time as it has been in secondary less than a week. Lets start off with what you need. 

Ingredients

• 5Lbs of Strawberries not frozen
• 1 gallon of quality water
• 5lbs of Clover Honey

Nutrients

• Pectic Enzyme
• Yeast Nutrient
• Yeast energizer

Yeast 

• Lalvin K1-V116

First thing I did [that is not pictured] was take the strawberries and cut the tops off of them. I then put them in ziploc bags and smushed them up until they turned into a strawberry puree almost. I can hear what your brain is about to ask. "Why go through all the work of smushing them up? Why not just blend them?" The answer,like this mead, is simple. The seeds would impact unwanted flavors to the mead. After they were all squished up I put them in the freezer to let it freeze.[Freezing fruit helps the cell walls break down and the yeast can better extract color and flavor]

The next day I got my 2 gallon bucket and in it went the strawberries, summer berry honey,water and  nutrients. I took a gravity reading. I think it was off due to the strawberry particles. 

Once I got everything mixed in I whipped it up with a stick blender, [carefully so I wouldn't break the seeds] and got it nice and oxygenated, then I pitched my yeast. After a lag phase of almost a day, the yeast then took off!

These were once strawberries. This was like day 3 of it being in the bucket. 

Because the strawberry messed spread out like that, daily I had to break up the floating mass (aka a Cap in brewing circles) to keep the yeast from being unhappy/dead.

After about a week, she started to slow down so I decided to rack it as I did not want fermentation to be done all the way. 

You can see here how high it foamed up compared to where the actual liquid is. This is why I brew my melomels in a bucket. Pleeeenty of head space. 

I took another gravity at this stage. You can see here it is bone dry. I want you also to take noticed of the color. Noticed how it is a pale unattractive color? 

My astute readers will notice I said I bought 5lbs of strawberries and I only put 4lbs in the bucket. The extra pound is for secondary.

As you can see here, fresh strawberries will turn it from a pale, sickly color into a fantastic red. 

In the closeup you can see how the strawberries are barely even red anymore. All that color, and flavor will be going to the brew. 

And this is now where she sits. I must also clarify the photos of the carboys only show .5lbs of strawberries as there are two carboys. 

I plan to rack it soon at the time of this posting it has been in secondary for about a week. I might do a racking day post as I will have to rack The Midnight Cherry soon as well. 

Cheap Eats, A Wine Review

Greetings to all my readers who have been waited with baited breath for my glorious return! (What? I can dream)

I return with a review about wine. Wine that is cheap. I can hear buttholes clenching already. Fear not my lovelies, tis not what you think.

I was at a farmers market that is right by my job that has a ton of everything, produce, meats, bread, cheeses beer and wine. The wine section is so large they break it up by country, then type. Zomg.

I was prepping for a date night with the missus and we were having steak, so of course I had to have a wine, red to be exact. For those of you who are looking at your screen in confusion, wine is often paired with food.  Below is a handy chart I stole borrowed to show you.

Now we all know that for us non wine folk choosing red wine is like a guy going into the store to buy tampons for his lady (or a lady going to buy oil for a guy), lots of options with little to no real clue as to what is good and what is not. Thankfully for you all, I get to be the guinea pig.

I don't know a lot about wine, but I do know that American wine seems to fall flat compared to its French and Italian counter parts. So I went to the French and Italian sections to check out the reds to see what they were all about. I would love to say that I went though a rigours decision process to choose my wine.

I totally didn't. Almost all the french red was like $15 and up, the Italian started at like $6. So I went with Italian. Again with the butthole clenching, relax those sphincters, I did not choose the $6 wine. I went with a nice $10 bottom that had an intersting look to it and a label that gave it a 92 rating while mentioning it goes great with steak.

So I had this with a steak I made using my famous technique.

With full confidence I can say, we have a winner in this one. I am not going to attempt to use wine tasting words. This wine being a red is tannic but not overly so. It has a smooth flavor that flows over your tongue and goes down easy. I preferred it at a temp that is in the 60's. Colder than room temp but not yet chilled and for $10 it really is a good bargain 5/5 for sure.

Go try a bottle if you can find it.

Agree/Disagree with me? Leave me a comment, thank me, school me, teach me etc. its all good. 

Inexpensive Peach Vanilla Experiment Part 2 + Bottling Day

As some of you may recall I decided to do an experimental tossed together peach wine. TL:DR I made blended 3lbs of peaches with some sugar and tossed into a jug. Well after a while as wines do it started to clear. I added about a tablespoon of vanilla extract to it. It made the entire jug turn a darker color with a brown tint. As seen below. I almost went ahead and sorbated and sulfited it to kill off the yeast so I could backsweeten it later on.

 After I let it sit for another 2 weeks, I added enough sugar to it to sweeten it but not make it cloying sweet. No gravity readings as I still don't have a hydrometer due to an unfortunate tasting/measuring incident.

After The Wife and I moved to the new place and got settled in I figured I'd check on this and found it had cleared quite nicely. Faster than I expected honestly. I almost realized I have waaaaay too much head space and I risk oxidation if I tried to bulk age so I decided to bottle it.

See how clear she is?

 I could read the coffee pot numbers no problem. My phone would not focus on the numbers though. 

 Here is a sample in a glass

 I let The Wife's brother in law taste it and he said while it still had an alcohol bite to it, you could clearly taste the peach that was coming through. Sadly no vanilla though. I am hoping it comes out later as it ages. I will definitely make this one again, though next time it will be a proper mead with some good quality honey and secondary will have some vanilla sticks in it.

Those brown bottles are the wrap up to my quick cider. Honestly I don't know what to think of it. The taste has changed again though not for the better or worst, it just changed. The mouthfeel is still weird, like liquid glass. I decided to bottle it and forget about it for the next couple of years as I have heard that apple can take year to taste good. Hopefully so. If not, oh well its all in the game of brewing.

Comment, tell me what you think. Laters people!

How to Cook a Great Steak Part 1

I like meat. This should not come as surprise to anyone. I am not easy to please when it comes to my meats, steak in particular. I have found while a lot of people cook steak, very few cook it well. I found myself going to restaurants ordering and receiving steak that was either bland or overcooked. It was rare that I found myself truly enjoying a nice quality steak. In hindsight I realize now that was because I was going to restaurant chains like Longhorns, Ruby Tuesdays, Applebee's etc. when I should have went to a place that specializes in steak. Non the less I decided to master steak on my own. I have spent count less and ruined many a piece of meat to get where I am now, where I feel I can make a good steak at anytime. I have decided to share some of my techniques with you guys.

Now the first part of making a great steak has nothing to do with cooking. Yes that is right, now back away from the pan and turn that stove off.

First we need to talk about meat. Not all steak is the same. Sure it may look similar but what kind of steak it is can and will make a difference on how the final product. Steak is usually graded like this

From Wikipedia:

U.S. Prime – Highest in quality and intramuscular fat, limited supply. Currently, about 2.9% of carcasses grade as Prime.

U.S. Choice – High quality, widely available in foodservice industry and retail markets. Choice carcasses are 53.7% of the fed cattle total. The difference between Choice and Prime is largely due to the fat content in the beef. Prime typically has a higher fat content (more and well distributed intramuscular "marbling") than Choice.

U.S. Select (formerly Good) – lowest grade commonly sold at retail, acceptable quality, but is less juicy and tender due to leanness.

Now you may be wondering why fat  content matters. Trust me it matters a lot. You get a lot of the flavor from the fat. In addition to flavor prime and choice beef will be more tender than select as well.

I look at it kind of how I see alcohol.

Select= Mr. Boston/Budlight
Choice = Three olives/Shocktop
Prime = Grey Goose/ Special Made Craft Beer

Choice is what I buy. It is what you will find at most quality supermarkets and butchers. It is easier on the wallet and can still be cooked to a great steak. I bet you are ready to cook now aren't you?

NO YOU ARE NOT SIT DOWN AND KEEP READING!

You must first decide what type of steak you want to cook. There are a lot of pieces of meat with the word steak on it. It can be rather confusing. I like this chart to help keep track.

For this article let us ignore the tenderloin roast. Astute observers will notice the tenderloin and the porterhouse look very similar. Correct you are. There is much debate over this, but basically they are both a combo of two steak, the NY Strip on one side and the tenderloin on the other. The difference being the porterhouse has more tenderloin on it.

If fat were to equal flavor you would be able to easily guess which of those steak would have the most flavor. As you can see the rib eye [rib steak above] has much more marbling than the other ones and therefore can often times be more flavorful. In contrast you see the coveted filet mignon has next to no fat yet we all know how expensive it is. It has a lot to due with how tender that piece of meat is. This is a purely subjective matter, and really you should buy what you like. I prefer the Ny Strip and the ribeye.

Now that you have selected your steak, you are ready to cook right? Great! let's go turn on the heat..........................................
























And read Part II, which is coming soon....

Edit Part 2 is now up. Glad you didn't have wait huh?

Inexpensive Peach Vanilla Experiment

Sup yall! I'm back with another brew. This time it is not a mead, but still a wine. The local food dept had peaches on sale. I think it was like 93 cents a pound so I figured eh why not? I picked up three pounds of peaches along with a 4lb bag of sugar (more on that later) and figured I'd give it a go.

After I got home my bro, who was staying with us for a week, helped me de-pit the peaches. I think it was around 15 or 16. We cut them up and threw them into a bowl. Once they were all in there I got out the hand blender and turn them into peach soup.

Meanwhile I put the water on boil to get the sugar in there. Now you may wonder why I am using sugar instead of honey. The answer? I was broke and sugar is cheap. After I dumped almost a gallon into a pot I just poured the entire bag in there. Once it all dissolved I mixed it my bucket along with the peach soup and frappe'ed it again till it was nice and frothy.

I put the usual stuff in there, yeast energizer, nutrient, Lavlin k1v, pectic enzyme. From prior experience  I knew this would go off like a rocket so I setup a blow tube. I was not to be disappointed as when I came home from work the next day I found the blow off bottle which was 16oz had been filled with peach stuff. I dumped it out, cleaned it up and set it up again. I left it like that for three days and thankfully there were no more incidents. It looked like this on day 4. Total price on this is less than 10 bucks so far, so it it is good, it will be a good way to get smashed for cheap make a good wine that people can enjoy.

You can see the evidence of blow off up top. Currently it is in secondary.

"But wait, you didn't mention anything about vanilla"

Quite right my impatient friend. I will get to that............on part 2.

Laters!

My Coca Cherry Mead.

I love cherries. They are in my top 5 fruits. A mead had to happen.

Primary

2 weeks in the bucket 48 oz Tart Cherry Juice for lots of cherry flavor 5lbs of clover honey 36 oz of black cherries frozen Lavlin 71b-1112 re-hydrated with yeast energizer pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient Water to a gallon

I heated up the juice water and honey into a pot, brought to a simmer right below a boil and added in the honey bit by bit. While it was heating up I poured the cherries into my bag (seriously bag + bucket = so much win) the crushed then up with my hand. I poured the liquid on top. Added in the pectic enzyme, nutrient, energizer. Then whipped it up with my hand blender with whisk attachment. SG was between 1.27-1.32 the foam obscured it a bit.

With the yeast I rehydrated it with a bit of yeast engergizer. Didn't put the nutrient in as it has DAP in it. After it sat for a bit, I added a bit of must to it. Let it sit for 17 mins, it got a nice foam on top of it, so I added more must then let that sit for 20 mins. After the 20 min mark I dumped it into the bucket, stirred her up then sat the lid on top.

During the first three days I don't seal the bucket since I aerate three times a day. After the first three I sealed her up and let her blurp for two weeks.

Here is a photo of it in the bucket

Secondary 

2 weeks then racked onto 12 oz of black cherries 

After the two weeks was up I racked it off the fruit and onto more cherries and some coca nibs. The gravity was 1.001. At this gravity it was dry as a bone but it was wonderful! The taste of the cherries was thick without being cough syrup like. I let The Wife try some and even though she does not like dry wines she liked this one.

Tertiary

2-3 oz of cocoa nibs 

After sitting for another 2 weeks on the extra cherries I racked this off onto 2-3oz's of cocoa nibs just to give it a bit of extra flavor. I sample it again but did not take a gravity reading. The flavor had gotten even better. The cherry flavor was a bit more pronounced and it smelled wonderful.

Quaternary

(admit it, you just learned a new word)

I let it sit on the nibs for quite some time. I don't really remember how long. I think maybe a month or longer. The nibs did not impart as much flavor as I had hoped. Though it did add a bit of complexity to the mead. It was around this time I broke my hydrometer in the making of a future post (see what I did there?) so I could not take a gravity reading. After giving very small samples out to everyone we all agreed it needs to be backsweetened just a hair. If the gravity is still 1.001 then I would take it maybe to 1.010.

Personally I think the color on this is FANTASTIC. As of today's date it is still in the carboy bulk aging. It was sorbated and sulfited a week ago. I will backsweeten it this weekend when I trek up to the brew store to buy yet another hydrometer. I plan to let this one sit for a while before I open it up. Tell me what you think of the color. Any suggestions on additions? I will most definitely be making this one again. 

Bottling Time 2!!!!!

Sup ladies and gents. Time for a little mead update. After waiting for quite some time, the Cranberry Mead has finally been bottled. This by car has been my most popular mead from the samples I have given. The big bottle is all mine, the smaller ones will be gift bottles. I don't know why the corks look like that. Someone told me next time to soak them in water to reduce the mushroom effect. I think I will open the big bottle a year or so from now. I need to make some labels.

I did not take a final gravity reading as I broke my hydrometer. I am excited to give these out. I already want to make another batch. Comment, tell me what you think!

New Series of Post Starting, Good Food and Drink at Cheap price

Whoo time to blow the dust off of this. We are back again after a brief hiatus. We have lots of new stuff coming up. I have a few mead updates. A brew my brother and I started, beer reviews etc. We will begin the new content with what is going to become a series for the blog. Good food and good drinks that are cheap. Now normally cheap and good don't really go together (I'm looking at you Mcdonalds) but with carefully hunting it can be found. 

The Wife and I will scour markets and try stuff that is cheap just to see if it is good. Our first entry is a bottle of Moscato wine. 

The Wife was working late one night and I decided that I wanted to make some pasta. Shrimp alfredo for her, chicken for me. White wine is a great pair with these foods or so I've been told. I am far from a wine stop. I couldn't name more than 2 types of white wines. I know that moscato due to it's sweetness is easy on the tongue. We have had a few before and even have a favorite. I was at Walmart the haven of cheap food. After looking at the moscato I settled on this one. The marketing drew me in claiming to have one tons of awards. Upon further inspection I noticed it had a screw top. That is the hallmark for cheap wine. 

Looking at the price of $5.97 I decided to bite the bullet and go for it. 

Here is the table set with the plates.

My impression of the wine was it was decent. It was not a sparkling moscato just regular. I prefer sparkling. (As do I. I found it to be passable and good. The more you drank the better it tasted.-The Wife )

If you are in a pinch and need a cheap but decent wine this one will do. I give it 8/10 for value on the cheap scale.