Author: OVHA

I seem to find myself always starting these posts with “If missed the meeting you missed a good one.” but I have to say the Oct Cooking with Beer meeting was awesome. Amiee Blume, Courier Food Editor, showed up to the meeting with both barrels loaded. She prepared a pulled pork dish and some rye bread ahead of time and then cooked up some carrots during the presentation. All the dishes included some form of Carson’s beer. 

This meeting was also a can drive for the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church food pantry. Everyone did an excellent job remembering to bring a can as Sky’s car was loaded down!

For those interested in reproducing the dishes that Amiee prepared we have post the recipes below.

Pulled Pork with Blackberry Beer-B-Q Sauce
Serves 15 – 20 as an entree
INGREDIENTS
20 pounds pork butt, in 5-6 pieces
½ cup mustard
1 cup mild chili powder
Sauce:
¼ cup fat drippings from smoked or roasted pork shoulder
½ cup chopped onion
¾ cup ketchup
1 quart or all de-fatted drippings from pork
1 tablespoon garlic powder
2 bottles Carson’s Brown Cow Brown Ale
2 bottles Carson’ Harlot Honey Blond
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
½ small bottle Louisiana hot sauce (Franks, Crystal, Louisiana brand. Not Tabasco unless you want it really hot.)
9 ounces malt vinegar
1 ½ 12-ounce jars Smucker’s seedless Blackberry jam
1# light brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1 tablespoon applewood smoked salt
Additional smoked salt and black pepper to taste
DIRECTIONS
1. Rub the pork shoulder with the mustard and then sprinkle liberally on all sides with chili powder. Arrange on a rack over a baking pan, pour 1 cup water into the pan and bake for 4-5 hours in a preheated 375 degree oven. Occasionally add more water to keep drippings from burning. Alternatively, smoke the pork the way you like to smoke, using a drip pan to catch drippings.
2. Cool the pork and pull the meat. Toss fat scraps in a wide skillet and render, if you like. You can add these “cracklings” back to the pulled pork, and save the rendered lard to add flavor to Mexican or Cajun dishes later.
3. Remove the fat from the pork drippings. Heat ¼ cup of the fat in a large sauce pot and add the onion. Cook 10 – 15 minutes, or until the onion is soft and golden. Push the onion to one side and add the ketchup. Cook the ketchup, stirring occasionally, until it has caramelized and is dark reddish-brown and clumpy. Pour off all the oil you can.
4. Add the defatted drippings, beer, Worcestershire sauce, hot sauce, and vinegar and bring to a busy simmer. Cook for 1 hour, stirring occasionally, or until sauce has reduced a bit. Add the blackberry jam, brown sugar, molasses, salt and pepper to taste. Cook another 30 minutes to reduce and blend flavors. Taste again for salt.
5. Pour sauce over pulled pork and reheat. If you rendered the fat into cracklings, chop them finely and add to the pork and sauce.
6. Feel free to play with the flavors of this sauce. This is a dark sauce. For a lighter version, use all light beer, leave out the molasses, and change the blackberry preserves to apple, apricot or strawberry.


Honey Blond Rye Bread
(Modified from a rye bread recipe from Martha Stewart)
Makes 2 loaves
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast (two 1/4-ounce envelopes)
2 1/4 cups warm Carson’s Honey Blond beer (110 degrees)
3 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons honey
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus more for bowl, pans, and brushing
2 1/2 cups rye flour
4 1/2 cups bread flour, plus more for surface and dusting
1 cup spent pale malt
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons caraway seeds
1 egg white
DIRECTIONS
1. Sprinkle yeast over 1/2 cup beer. Add 2 teaspoons honey. Whisk until yeast dissolves. Let stand until foamy, about 5 minutes. Transfer to the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle or dough-hook attachment. Add butter and remaining 1 3/4 cups beerr and 3 tablespoons honey.
2. Whisk flour with salt; add 3 cups to yeast. Mix on low speed until smooth. Mix in 2 tablespoons caraway seeds. Add remaining 4 cups flour, 1 cup at a time, mixing until dough comes away from sides of bowl and forms a ragged, slightly sticky ball. Add spent grain and mix until incorporated. Butter a large bowl.
3. Knead dough on a floured surface until smooth and elastic but still slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. Shape into a ball. Transfer to prepared bowl; cover with plastic wrap.
4. Let dough stand in a warm place until it doubles in volume (it should not spring back when pressed), about 1 hour. Butter two 4 1/2-by-8 1/2-inch loaf pans. Punch down dough; divide in half.
5. Shape 1 dough half into an 8 1/2-inch-long rectangle (about 1/2 inch thick). Fold long sides of dough in to middle, overlapping slightly. Press seam to seal. Transfer dough, seam side down, to pan. Repeat with remaining dough. Brush tops of loaves with egg wash (beaten egg white mixed with water), not butter, and sprinkle with caraway seeds. Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Drape loaves with plastic. Let stand until dough rises about 1 inch above tops of pans, 45 minutes to 1 hour. Reduce oven temperature to 400 degrees. Bake, rotating pans after 20 minutes, until tops are golden brown, about 45 minutes. Transfer to wire racks. Let cool slightly; turn out loaves. Let cool completely before slicing.

Red Dawn Glazed Carrots
Serves 4
INGREDIENTS
1 pound baby carrots
Salt to taste
3 tablespoons butter
½ cup Carson’s Red Dawn Red Ale
¼ cup dark brown sugar
DIRECTIONS
1. Heat a large pot of water to a boil and add salt. Blanch carrots until just tender. Drain and rinse under cold running water to stop the cooking.
2. In a wide skillet, add the butter and melt. Add the carrots and cook until beginning to caramelize. Add the red dawn and cook 5 minutes to reduce. Add the sugar and continue to boil until the sauce is thick and clingy.

Fellow Homebrewers,

As I was going through my morning routine, besides thinking, “man, I wish today was a bank holiday”, I thought to myself, “oh yeah, BYO magazines come out monthly this time of year” and “it must be time to turn up the temp on my water heater”. What do these two seemingly random thoughts have in common? IT’S BREWING SEASON!! That’s right; no more lame excuses like, “it’s too hot in my garage” or “the water’s too warm to chill the wort”. So, those of you who stowed away your equipment in May, it’s time get down to some serious brewing. Learn to Homebrew Day on Saturday, November 1, would be a great time to rinse off the cobwebs. So, please join me in the Liquor Locker parking lot (Morgan and Stockwell) at around 9:00 AM. With this in mind, please consider the following cautionary tale…

Dear Zymurgy, I never thought this would happen to me. This year’s pumpkin ale brew session ended up being particularly challenging. The brew day started like most others, I fired up the mash tun (having remembered to collect and treat my water the evening before), pulled up the recipe on my iPad, and set about measuring out my grains. This is where my day started going downhill. I thought I had plenty of pale malt, so much so that I had sold a bag to another brewer just days before. “Not a problem”, I told myself, “I’ll just make it a wheat beer”. Genius! So, I simply substituted half of my barley for wheat. Keep in mind that, unlike barley, wheat has no husk, so a grain bill high in wheat may not filter as effectively. Add six pounds of pumpkin and you essentially create cement! Oh, why didn’t I throw in a couple pounds of rice hulls! Idiot! So, after dealing with channels in the grain bed, a stuck sparge, and clogged values and pumps, I finally got the wort in the kettle. Turns out, my efficiency suffered. Of course, I didn’t make this observations until after the wort was in the fermenter. No big deal, right? It’ll just be a bit more “sessionable”? Well, without proper balance, adding two pounds of maple syrup and two pounds of honey can really dry out a beer. Bottom line, remember the eight “P’s” of effective brewing – Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Potent Potables!

Thanks to all of you who volunteered at the Evansville Museum’s Brew Ha Ha and the Wesselman’s Wandering Owl events. In terms of attendees, these events are the two smallest on our calendar, but both host organizations are treasures in our community. I expect these events will be held around the same times next year, so plan (there’s the p-word again) your brew schedules accordingly.

So then there was one! The 2014 beer festival season is coming to a close.   The last scheduled event is Tap & Cork at Holy Redeemer on Mill Road. The event runs from 6 PM to 9 PM on Saturday, November 8. As we have been doing recently, a donation of beer AND labor will gain you complimentary admittance to this event. John Mills, the event organizer, may need additional volunteers, so keep an eye on the OVHA chat room. Of course, the purchase of a ticket is always greatly appreciated.

Carson’s Brewery continues to collect the hardware. At the annual Great American Beer Festival held earlier this month, Carson’s Red Dawn, an amber wheat beer, took the gold medal in the American wheat beer category. To my knowledge, this is the third prestigious award that Red Dawn has earned this year following silver medals in the World Beer Cup and the Indiana Brewers Cup. Congratulations (again!) to John Mills and Jason Carson!

This month’s meeting promises to be very memorable. The topic for the meeting is Cooking with Beer. John Mills has managed to wrangle Aimee Blume as our guest presenter. For those of you who don’t know, Aimee is a trained chef, culinary instructor, and food correspondent for the Evansville Courier and Press. I believe that Aimee’s recipes will feature several of the beers from Carson’s lineup including the aforementioned Red Dawn. Yum!

Please remember that this month is the last canned food drive of the year. In order to gain a door prize ticket, you will need to donate a canned good. We will probably also accept monetary donations. With the Thanksgiving holiday just around the corner, please give generously. Sky will deliver the donations directly to St. Paul’s Episcopal Church. St. Paul’s runs one of the largest soup kitchens and food pantries in the Evansville downtown area. Thank you!

Well, that’s all for now. See you Wednesday, October 29. Pumpkin Wheat anyone?

Just Brew It!

Jeff

Fellow Home-brewers,

As I write this entry, I’m reminded of the opening monologue in the Star Trek shows.  However, rather than being on a starship headed for a galaxy “far, far, away”, I’m aboard  a 737 bound for Las Vegas.   Unlike many travelers to “Lost Wages”, I eschew the strip (unless traveling with my wife) in favor of downtown and the Fremont Street experience.  Besides a lot of free entertainment, there are three breweries/brewpubs in the Fremont district within walking distance – Triple Seven Brewery, the Chicago Brewing Company, and Banger Brewery, the newest of the three.  Although Chicago Brewing Company doesn’t brew on site, their brewery is in the Vegas area.  All three establishments offer quality suds, so next time you’re in the area, venture off the beaten path.  You’ll be glad you did.

Last month I mentioned a DIY project I hoped to complete by the September meeting.  Well….I got busy (I.e., lazy) and I’ve not completed the bucket air conditioner.  However, with the arrival of somewhat cooler air, I don’t have the same sense of urgency.  Also, good luck finding a 7 inch fan this time of year.  I’ll have to let my fingers do the walking to find one.  Anyway, I ended up buying six styrofoam bucket liners, so if anyone needs one, I can hook you up.

Lest you think I’ve been a total couch potato, I have spent some time since our last meeting putting together a electric nano-homebrewery in my basement.  The system is built around an induction cooktop.  So far, I’ve brewed two small batches and I’ve quite enjoyed the experience.  Chris Norrick has built a similar system.  At this month’s meeting, Chris and I will share our experiences and showcase some of our equipment (WARNING, WARNING…a bag may be involved).

Thanks in advance for those of you who have committed beer and your time to the Evansville Museum’s Brew Ha Ha which takes place September 27.  I believe we have enough beer to occupy all 12 taps on the OVHA brew cart and enough volunteers to set up, serve and tear down.  I know Dwayne Delaney, OVHA’s event coordinator, appreciates your help.   Also, please show your support for Wesselman’s Wandering Owl in October and Tap & Cork at Holy Redeemer the following month.

I’d like to remind everyone that the November meeting has been moved to Wednesday, November 19.  That will be an especially eventful meeting.  Besides conducting the final calibration tasting/judging for the year (Caesar’s Munich Dunkel), it will also be time to drop off your Big Turkey contest entry.  In case you’re unaware, the style for this year’s contest is Category 9, Scottish Ales (includes Irish ales).  Isn’t it ironic that the selection of this style coincides with the referendum for Scottish independence.  Coincidence or fate?  Anyway, if you haven’t already done so, get brewing!

Well, I just finished a Fat Tire (amazing how good it tastes when your only other premium selection is Heinekin) and my flight is entering Denver airspace.  In just a couple weeks the Great American Beer Festival will be taking place in the Mile High City.  If you haven’t been to the GABF, put it on your bucket list.  I know that several of our members and other familiar faces in the Evansville craft beer scene will be venturing to this year’s event.  Safe travels!

That’s all for now.  See you Wednesday, September 24!

Jeff