YooHoo In My Mouth?

(Milk Stout Recipe)

I like to try to brew beers that take me out of my comfort zone.  This time I made a milk stout.  

To be honest, I don't know much about milk stouts...or stouts in general.  It is by far my least favorite style of beer.  I'm sure it has to do with me not giving them a chance, so this is my experiment to find what I like and what I don't like.

When I brew beers that I'm not sure if I will like or not, I only brew one gallon batches.  That way I don't waste five gallons of beer that I really don't like (though I would still drink it).  

This is my one gallon milk stout experiment process.

Here are the ingredients ready for brewing.  I have never used chocolate malt, roasted barley, or lactose before.  I'm very interested in what flavors these will bring to the beer.

After milling the grain, the smell was very strong of chocolate.  I was very surprised.  It smelled like a Baby Ruth bar!

The mash was so dark.  I'm used to a mash that is amber in color or lighter.  The smell was wonderful!

After an hour, it was time for the grains to come out.  Once again, the wort was as dark as midnight,

The recipe called for Fuggle hops.  These give of a very earthy flavor and smell.

When doing only a one gallon batch, very little hops are needed.

I usually only use dry yeasts when doing one gallon batches.  US-05, a very general ale yeast used for many different style beers. 

The final result.  

I am very excited to bottle/try this one!  Sarah mentioned that it smelled like I was baking brownies during the boil.  That's got to be good right?  We will see.

Super-Amazing, Yummy Carrots

When I saw the recipe for roasted cumin-lime carrots on Pinterest, I literally drooled. Adam and I always struggle with side dishes...especially ones that don't involve cheese or baked beans. Adam loves really sweet, cooked carrots, but I prefer mine raw or in a soup/stew. These were nothing like anything we would ever make, and everything I wanted in my mouth. Lime. Mint. Honey. Get in my belly!

We couldn't find the baby carrots with fresh green tops in our grocery store, so we went with regular carrots and cut the bigger parts in half.  I was a little hesitant about not peeling the carrots, but Google told me it was fine, just to wash them first - so that's what I did! 

Seriously - you must try these carrots now! The mixture of lime, honey, and mint with the carrots, along with the amazing blend of spices made for a side dish that I wanted to last forever. This recipe landed a comfortable spot on my Delicious things I've made Pinterest board.  (Did I mention that I obsess about recipes on Pinterest? No? More about that another time.)

Roasted Cumin-Lime Carrots

- 1 pound baby carrots with fresh green tops (we used regular sized carrots, and cut them accordingly)

- 1 tablespoon olive oil

- Juice and fresh grated zest of 1 lime

- 1 teaspoon agave nectar or honey (we used honey)

- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

- 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

- 1/4 teaspoon ground coriander

- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika

- 2 green onions, thinly sliced

- Small handful fresh mint leaves, chopped

It's Been Too Long!!!

Well this comes after a long hiatus. We have not stopped cooking or brewing beer, but we have not had the time to post it to our blog. We have made the goal to start reinvigorating our blogging skills.

Since our last post, we have had our second child, Isaac. A little boy that has typical middle child syndrome without being the middle child. It's funny how much Lucy looks like her mother, and Isaac looks like his father. We couldn't be more blessed.

Back to the brewing...

I (Adam) took a long time off from brewing due to not having enough time to brew. I brewed a nice little American Wheat Beer ('Merican Wheat Beer) a few weeks ago. It came out...HOLY COW! It is fabulous. It has really gotten me back into brewing.

This weekend, I brewed a Hefeweizen.

Sarah loves wheat beers and Hefeweizens so I try to brew things that will make her happy.

What follows is my brew day.  (Note: I do brew in a bag, so it's not a typical brew day.)

Here is the recipe

I started by milling all the grain.

This is my strike water with my bag in the pot.  Ready to bring up to temp.

The temp that I needed to add my grains was 158° F.  I have found that I don't typically need it to be that hot to equal my mash temperature.  This time, it seemed to work perfectly.

At 158° F degrees, I poured my grains into my water.  This is called "mashing in".

After mashing in, I was shooting for a mash temp of 155° F.  My mash settled in at 154.2° F.  That was perfect for my 60 minute mash.

While I was mashing, I looked to see how my yeast starter was doing.  A yeast stater is when you take a packet of yeast, and brew up a "mini" beer.  When the yeast is added to the "mini" beer, the yeast cells multiply, thus making a lot more yeast cells to help ferment your beer. I made my yeast starter 24 hours before my brew day.

After sixty minutes, the mash was done.  My way of letting my grains drain is to set up a ladder with a pulley.  I hook the pulley up to the grain bag and it locks it in just high enough to drain into my brew kettle.

Here is a nice photo of the sugar being extracted from the grains into the brew kettle.

After we have the right amount of wort, it's time to start the boil.  I put the pot up on our patio table to help with the later processes of brewing.  (This will be shown later on).

While the sixty minute boil is going on, it's a perfect time to grab a glass of homebrew.  Pictured is my 'Merica Wheat Beer.

The saying is a brew kettle that is not watched, will ALWAYS boil over.  A brew kettle that is watched will NEVER boil over.  We can see what I did here.  What a mess.

We are at a nice rolling boil.

I like to do what's called a "whirlpool".  This takes all the junk from brewing and forces it to the center of the brew kettle.

After the 60 minute boil is done, it's time to chill the wort down so that I can add the yeast.  Yeast will be killed if added to wort that is too hot.  I have a plate chiller to help with this step.  It chills the wort down quickly and simply.

Here the temp is at 72° F.  It dropped even more, so that's perfect!

After getting the wort into the fermenter, it was time to aerate the wort. Aerating the wort adds O² for the yeast to eat.  This makes alcohol.

Now that there is plenty of O² for the yeast, it's time to add the yeast.

Finally, the brew day is done.

This is the final product in my insulated brew bag to help control fermentation temperatures.













This day was made easier by both kids and the wife napping!

-Adam