It’s Beer Thirty FReepers! Time For The Homebrewing/Wine Making Thread #11 August 10, 2012

Free Republic | 8/10/2012 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!

Happiness is a bubbling airlock!

 

BEER

Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. Last week one of our members mentioned an article by Steve Bader “Boil the hops, not the malt extract”. This method is known as Late Extract Addition. In this method you add 75-85% malt extract at the end of the boil. There are several reasons to use the late extract brewing method. One is reducing over-caramelization. The beer will turn out lighter, which can be difficult to do otherwise with extract beers. It can also reduce scorched malt flavors that can result from brewing high-gravity beers, or boiling the wort in a small brewpot, where the wort is more concentrated and susceptible to scorching. This method also increases hop utilization and many brewers choose to use about 20% less bittering hops to compensate for the increased hop utilization. This saves you hops!

1)   Steep the crushed grains in 2-3 gallons of 150º F water for 30 minutes. 

2)   Remove the grain from the water (Wort)

3)   Heat wort to boiling.

4)   Add Irish moss and bittering (or boiling) hops, 1 cup of your malt extract (syrup or powder) and boil for 45 minutes to 60 minutes. Wait until the end of the boil to add the remainder of the malt sugar.

5)   Add any other hops during the boil as per your beer recipe.

6)   Remove your pot from your heat source, and add your malt sugars to the wort. Stir the sugars to dissolve into the beer. The temperature of your wort will drop to about 170º F.

7)   Let the beer sit at this high temperature for 10 minutes to sanitize the malt sugars you just added to the beer.

8)   Cool your wort with a wort chiller or by adding it to cold water. 

9)   Add yeast when the temperature of your beer is 80º F or less.

10)   Ferment your beer as you normally would from this point on.

[Silentgypsy]

Oops. I apologize for tardiness.

Pan sear chicken breasts. Remove from pan.

Hearty Brown Ale Sauce

1 tbsp. vegetable oil
1/2 onion, sliced thin
Salt
3/4 cup low-soldium chicken broth
1/2 cup brown ale
1 tsp. dried thyme (2 tsp. fresh)
1 tsp. brown sugar
1 bay leaf
3 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into 3 pieces and chilled
1/2 tsp. cider vinegar
Pepper

Add oil to skillet; heat at medium high until shimmering. Add onion and 1/4 tsp. salt and cook until softened (about 3 min.). Stir in broth, ale, thyme, brown sugar, and bay leaf, scraping up any browned bits. Simmer until thickened, about 8 min. Stir in any accumulated chicken juice. Turn heat to low, and stir in butter, one piece at a time. Off heat, remove bay leaf and stir in salt and pepper to taste.

Source: America’s Test Kitchen Family Cookbook, Revised Edition, 2006 (My husband’s go-to cookbook—an incredible resource—highly recommended!).