My Funked-Up Cider

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Making hard cider is stupid-easy. My 1-gallon experiment included pre-pressed cider, a 200ml slurry of my house “bug” culture, and a small addition of nutrients. The up-front investment of time was approximately 30 minutes.

Update 8/2/14: Full Review

Fall in New York. A chill in the air, leaves on the ground, and a butt-ton of apples at the green market. During a recent trip to the Grand Army Plaza market, nearly every purveyor of produce was selling a variety of apples. Along with these apples came the real prize — jugs of apple cider. The trick is finding minimally processed juice unadulterated with Potassium Sorbate. Sorbates create a stable product by inhibiting the yeast’s ability to reproduce. This works great at preventing cider from inadvertently fermenting and becoming alcoholic, but also makes the juice tough, if not impossible, to use for the production of hard cider. After talking to five different stands selling sorbated juice, I found Tree-Licious Orchards out of Warren County, NJ. Their juice was not only sorbate-free, but had already begun to show the tell-tale signs of early fermentation.

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This past NHC, Chris Baker gave a talk about cider and suggested that juice should be supplemented with Fermaid-K and DAP to help ensure a healthy and complete fermentation. His suggested rate was 1/2 tsp. Fermaid-K and 1/4 tsp. DAP per five gallons. After measuring and weighing out the nutrients, this works out to 0.54 grams Fermaid-K and 0.31 grams DAP per gallon of juice.

There is a good amount of precedence for making funky ciders. The Spanish have a knack for making tart, dry, complex, Brett-bombs; a naturally occurring event if the native yeast and bacteria residing on apple skins are left to their own devices.

My goal with this experiment is to produce a cider with a healthy dose of bacteria-derived acidity to make up for the fact that the juice I used was likely comprised of primarily culinary apples containing little balancing acid and tannin. With some luck, the acidity will help balance out the cider while preventing the cider from becoming too watery or austere.

Recipe:

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One gallon of funked-up cider ready to start fermenting.

Juice:
1-Gallon Non-Sorbated Cider
My juice had a starting gravity of 1.050. If this ferments out completely, it should leave me with a 6.5% ABV cider.

Nutrients:
0.54 grams Fermaid-K, dissolved in water
0.31 grams DAP, dissolved in water

Yeast:
200ml House Bug Culture
My culture started with microbes obtained from commercial beers including Cantillon Rose de Gambrinus, Russian River Beatification, and Tilquin Gueuze.

Process:

  1. Sanitize 1-gallon jug, stopper, and airlock.
  2. Pour in juice, nutrients, and yeast.
  3. Let cider ferment.

Bourbon County Brand Barleywine Review

Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Barleywine‘Tis the season for Goose Island’s annual release of their Bourbon County line of beers. With this year’s release, the product line has grown to include a barrel-aged English-style barleywine in addition to their very tasty imperial stout offerings. Beer geeks around the country are giddy at the thought that this beer could be of the same lineage as King Henry — many a beer geek’s White Whale. It’s been over a year since I’ve sampled King Henry, but if my memory serves me correctly, this is a relatively similar beer.

Beer Data:

Purchased: 12/5/13 – $24.99 per 12 oz. 4-pack
Availability: Annually
Alcohol: 12.1% ABV

Commercial Description from Website:

Aged in the third-use barrels that were once home to Kentucky bourbon and then our renowned Bourbon County Stout, this traditional English-style barleywine possesses the subtlety of flavor that only comes from a barrel that’s gone through many seasons of ritual care. The intricacies of the previous barrel denizens – oak, charcoal, hints of tobacco and vanilla, and that signature bourbon heat – are all present in this beer. Hearty and complex, Bourbon County Brand Barleywine is a titan and a timeline; a bold, flavorful journey through the craft of barrel aging.

Tasting Notes:

Reviewed as a BJCP Category 22C. Wood-Aged Beer (English Barleywine base).

Aroma: (10/12)
Lots of big, sticky malt dominates the aroma. Most apparent on the malt side is a rich and luscious deep caramel as well as some molasses. There is a ton of pleasant oxidized malt character reminiscent of dark fruit and tart cherry — likely a consequence of the micro-oxidation that occurred while in the barrel. There is a surprisingly light oak character that has hints of vanilla and toasted coconut, which blend well with the base beer. Some hot alcohol is apparent, but it is minimal considering the high ABV. No hop aroma.

Appearance: (2/3)
Very deep mahogany — almost black. The beer is clear with a minimal tan head. This is an attractive beer, but a few shades too dark for the style.

Flavor: (16/20)
There is a richness to the malt that fills the palate with flavors of dark caramel upfront and toasty biscuit and bread crust on the back end. Again, there is lots of oxidized malt that comes off as raisin-like in the flavor. There is some definite boozy hot alcohol, which actually helps balance the heavy-handed malt sweetness. The hop bitterness is barely enough to balance the large amount of sweet malt. The bourbon flavor is definitely present, but not nearly as intense as other beers in the Bourbon County line.

Mouth Feel: (2/3)
“Chewy” is a fitting description of the mouthfeel. The beer is slightly slick and leaves the mouth a bit tacky and sticky. The carbonation is very soft, which serves to enhance the full-bodied nature of this beer. The beer is a bit syrupy on the finish, which detracts from the overall impression of the beer.

Overall Impression: (8/10)
This is a big and intensely complex malt-bomb. If that’s what you’re in the mood for, this beer will greatly exceed your expectations. A touch more attenuation seems like it would help the beer out in terms of drinkability (if there is such a thing for a 12.1% beer). There are some prominent oxidized notes in this beer that are pleasant, but not something I’d want to enhance by aging the beer any further. This would work well as a dessert beer or replacement for something like a Sauternes paired with a Roquefort cheese.

Score: 38 / 50 (Excellent)

Making Duck Confit Rillettes

Like most Americans growing up in the 80’s and 90’s, duck was not something my family or I ever ate. Huey, Dewey and Louie were entertaining TV characters that never found their way to my dinner table. As my food experiences expanded and I began seeking out new foods, I was quickly indoctrinated into the Church of Duck. In many ways, duck is the perfect poultry—far superior to the mass-produced manufactured chickens most people eat. Modern chickens have been bred to be lean with massive breasts (insert joke here). The duck’s beauty is much more Rubenesque; a thick layer of fat underneath their skin keeps them warm in the water and succulent on our plates — something simply not found in most poultry. This high ratio of fat is easily rendered to cook all sorts of things in. One of my favorite things to do is confit duck legs in the fat and then make rillettes out of the cooked meat.

Note: This recipe was adopted from Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s book Charcuterie. This book goes into great detail about confit, rillettes, and the broader world of charcuterie.

Duck rillette smeared on freshly baked spent grain sourdough bread. Pairs well with Duvel, Saison Dupont, or other dry and effervescent Belgian ale that can cut through the fatty richness of the duck while complementing the light gamey qualities of the rillette.

Duck rillette smeared on freshly baked spent grain sourdough bread. Pairs well with Duvel or other dry and effervescent Belgian ales that can cut through the fatty richness of the duck while complementing the light gamey qualities of the rillette.

Step 1: Make Duck Confit

Confit sounds much more complicated and haute cuisine than it really is. Like a lot of ‘gourmet’ food, it has modest roots as a food preservation technique used to help even out seasonal surplus and shortages of food. Confit is simply the process of poaching meat in a bath of fat at a low temperature over a long period of time. The fat is cooled and solidified, encasing the meat in a fatty tomb free of oxygen, allowing it to be preserved for long periods of time.

Confit techniques can be used with all sorts of proteins and fats. In this case, I used duck legs with duck fat as the cooking medium. The first step is to take duck legs (I used four) and dry cure them with a mixture of salt and herbs (garlic, clove, bay, and pepper all work well). This is then refrigerated overnight, drawing moisture from the meat, deeply seasoning it, and imparting a preservative quality.

The next day, the meat is thoroughly rinsed and then gently cooked at the lowest setting your oven can manage — generally around 200°F — submerged in the duck fat (I used about 1.5 pounds). It is important to do this uncovered so that any moisture can evaporate. Once the duck legs sink to the bottom of the pan and the meat begins to fall off the bone (about 6-8 hours), it is done. From there the dish is allowed to cool. The fat solidifies, encasing the meat. At this point I like to refrigerate the entire thing allowing the meat to ‘ripen’ anywhere from a week to a month during which the flavor will improve.

Step 2: Create the Rillette

Duck confit is a wonderfully versatile ingredient to have on hand for use in a variety of dishes. Reheating the legs in a frying pan and crisping up the skin makes an absolutely succulent and delicious main course. Another option is using the confit as an ingredient for another dish such as cassoulet. With this iteration, I opted instead to pick the meat off the bones (setting the skin aside) to make rillettes.

A rillette is essentially a creamed paste consisting of confit meat, a touch of duck fat, and a portion of the gelatinous ‘confit jelly’ that settles to the bottom of the confit pan. These ingredients are blended to taste with an appropriate level of seasoning (a word of warning, confit jelly can be extremely salty) and then capped with a layer of melted duck fat which solidifies and gives the rillettes a great shelf life.

Once complete, the rillettes are stored in the fridge and can last months. They are delicious with some crusty bread!

The Village Voice’s Holiday Spirits Tasting Event

Outside of bourbon, I’m a neophyte when it comes to the world of distilled spirits. With that in mind, I jumped at the opportunity to attend this Thursday’s Village Voice Holiday Spirits tasting event. This event is a great opportunity to try a spectrum of spirits (31 at last count), listen to some live music, and nosh on a sampling of hors d’oeuvres. The tasting will be held December 5th from 7:30-10:30pm at Studio Square in Long Island City. Tickets are still available and can be purchased here. Make sure to enter the coupon code THANKS for 50% off general admission prices.

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