We’re prepping to smoke a 12lb brisket tomorrow. I went looking for my copy of Beer Advocate, where I pulled the rub recipe from, to freshen up my addled mind. I couldn’t find it. This made me annoyed with me. Why can’t I put stuff back where it’s supposed to go? Seriously, this would make life easier.

By adding this post here, now I don’t need to put the magazine back where it’s supposed to. Problem solved.

1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup paprika
1 tsp cheyenne
1 tbsp cocoa powder (I added this as an experiment this time. We’ll see if it makes any difference, better or worse)

I use all that on the brisket. Makum some good bark. 12ish hours at 225* later and you’ve got carnal carnivore delight.

That is all.

Summer is officially in full swing which means barbecue season. We here at OA love our BBQ, in fact my doctor would argue that I love it too much. Unfortunately, this summer the price of beef is through the roof, not just because of the BBQ demand but also because of a shortage of animals being killed in other parts of the world.  This means it’s up to American Beef producers to fill the void and American consumers to dig deeper into their wallets. That being the case I thought it a good time to share the bit of knowledge I’ve ran across over the years in hopes of helping people save some money and dine deliciously.

Now for starters, the cow pictured above, that’s a dairy cow. (See the size of the udder.)  The only thing you’ll get out of her once she’s through milking is hamburger.  The anatomy, however, is the same as a beef cow and thusly the picture will work for our purposes.

Let us begin by just walking around the beast a bit and then we’ll get to some money saving tips.

The first thing to think about when looking at the animal is where certain cuts come from and why they produce the meat they do.  It stands to reason of course that the portion of the animal extending from its legs would tend to be less tender.  These are, after all, the muscles used most by the animal.  Which is why the brisket, which lays at the top of the front leg, is best when prepared slow and low as in BBQ or salted as in Corned Beef.  Above the brisket lies the chuck, this part of the animal can be a bit confusing as the names of the cuts can vary a lot and from time to time and change as slaughterhouses process the animals differently  in an attempt produce cuts that better serve customer demands.  Commonly this area produces many roasts, the kind one likes to place in a pot, but it also can be cut to produce beef chuck shoulder tender, neck off chuck roll or clods.  All of which are commonly used by restaurants in producing steak dishes that are not steaks.  Think stir fry’s, burritos and the like.  The shoulder is also home, perhaps most deliciously, to the short ribs.  A cut that is not a rib at all but rather a fatty deliciousness that has in recent years become quite popular and surprisingly expensive.

Moving to the middle of the animal we start to see cuts that are more familiar.  The rib, of course, gives us the ribs.  Which while perhaps less delicious than those given us by barnyard brethren, the pig, are still quite popular.  This area also gives us the rib roast, which in its state of platonic perfection becomes the Prime Rib.  A phrase,  I must admit, just caused my eyes to tear up a bit.  Below the rib is the plate, the plate provides the skirt steak, very popular throughout Mexico and down through Central and South America.  Certainly it’sd a staple of the new wave of Brazilian steakhouses.

Next to the plate lies the flank, which surprisingly enough gives us the flank steak.  A widely seen cut of meet, largely because of its low price.  It can be very flavorful and while I’d gladly dine on it at a friends house it will never find its way to my table.  Above the flank and into the back we enter the blessed zone.  This is the short loin, Uncle Sam territory, the place where all of the great steakhouse steaks are produced.  Here you will find the Porterhouse or T-Bone as well as its constituent parts the Strip and Tenderloin.  These, along with the sirloin, which sits next to it, are the biggies and man are they good.  You’ll notice that this is not a very large part of the animal,  the main reason for the high price and demand, particularly if it grades prime.  The sirloin, as I said, sits next to the short loin and produces both top and bottom sirloin.  If you’re picking, pick the top.  The sirloin also holds a variety of  tender roasts and the ball tip, another commonly employed cut in cheaper steak dishes.

After the loins it’s similar to  what’s in the front of the animal only often with less fat.  I have made some delicious beef sandwiches and beef bourguignon using bottom round but this area generally requires heavy manipulation and does not stand on it’s own two feet.  To be honest I’m rather exhausted after the paroxysm that was the short loin.  Let’s move on shall we.

Here some money saving tips:

1) Buy in bulk.
That means getting away from your local supermarket and enjoying a trip to a butcher or wholesale processor with a factory store.  There are several of these in Chicago, particularly in the Fulton Market district. I’ve had good luck at Peoria Packing or if you have a hook up Restaurant Depot, just don’t go on a weekend it gets a bit busy. If you don’t live near anyplace like this some things can be found at Sam’s club but don’t give those bastards any dime you don’t have to. By buying in bulk I don’t mean purchasing a whole animal, which while it can be a good and cost efficient option requires a lot of freezer space and a deep and abiding love of hamburger and roasts. What I’m speaking about specifically is buying whole loins or rib roasts and cutting your own steaks.   If you happen to find the loins in cryovac packaging it also provides you an opportunity for wet aging which while perhaps not as good as http://www.goodcooking.com/steak/dry_aging.htm can really help enhance the flavor and tenderness of your steaks.

2) Know what to look for and what you like.
When buying in bulk the meat will not only appear different than what you are used to seeing in the grocery store but it may also have a slightly different name. For example the New York Strip steak you’re used to seeing is actually a cross section of a strip loin which will be a long sort of parabola and weigh probably 8 to 12 lbs. While the Filet Mignon you love so much will either be called  Tenderloin or PSMO (peeled side muscle on) Tenderloin and will be a long cylinder weighing 5 to 8 lbs. Regardless of what you buy engage your butcher, they can help you to better understand what it is your looking at and may even have preparation ideas. Also, it is best to stick to USDA choice or prime beef. Always steer clear of select product and only buy ungraded meat if you’ve had it and know it to be of good quality.

3) Get creative, have fun.
A great way to save money and feed lots of people is to find ways to make cheaper cuts delicious. There are three primary methods of doing this. 1) Cook it slow and low. 2) Tenderize – either with marinade or by pounding. 3) Cook it light and slice it right.
- Number one is obvious enough and has been practiced and perfected the world over. We can’t all be kings but learn how to slow cook a brisket or slowly braise a roast and you can eat like one.
- Number two works great for those steaks that aren’t quite the steaks you wish they we’re. A good marinade can not only add flavor but help to break down the connective tissue. Maybe you remember mom pounding steaks as a kid, I know I do. Well the theory is simple, beat it until it breaks down maybe toss some flour on it and drop it in a pan. If your really feeling gluttonous batter that thing, fry it, whip up some country gravy you’ve got a chicken fried steak. Further proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
- Number three is real fun but not always practical. The best example that I can think of is the Tri-tip . It’s a cut that comes from the bottom part of the sirloin and when cooked medium rare to rare is delicious. That is assuming of course that you cut it against the grain, cut it with the grain and you get the sort of thing a cobbler would throw away. Sliced properly this meat will melt in your mouth and provide all the wonderful flavor that comes with high fat content.

Last weekend was remarkable, one for the record books. Friday I got up at 6 in the morning and dawn patrolled with Trevor. We came home around 9:30am and toured through several New Glarus brews in honor of his *cough* 43rd birthday. We hit the Enigma, the Old English Porter, the Two Women Lager and the Golden Ale. We wrapped up our impromptu celebration with Dark Horse’s Perkulator, their dopplebock with coffee which seemed the proper elixir to get my head back in the working game for a while. Alas, the Perkulator’s power to inspire work is not as powerful as the brews wicked ass label would have you believe.

Like any good morning of drinks, this one inspired us to eat steaks for dinner. Trevor went home to wrangle his daughter for the afternoon and I hopped on my motorcycle for a visit to the Paulina Meat Market to pick up 4 prime new york strip steaks. Nobody gets cuts in Chicago like Paulina and nobody is as eager to charge you as Paulina either. Honestly though, if I’m going to get jacked for my meat (heh heh) I’d prefer to get jacked at Paulina. Their staff are consummate professionals, butchers with a great understanding of their product that are always willing to share that wisdom with their customers. And they’ve got the mustaches to prove it.

It’s hard for a fat alcoholic to stay focused in Paulina, the place is wall to wall of the finest cuts of meat you’re bound to find anywhere. Packaged in all kinds delicious manner. Someone needs to create a religion where Paulina is the reward for a life well lived. Of course, that “life well lived” would require plenty of time spent at Paulina in proper preparation for that sweet, sweet after life as well. So to help bide my time waiting for my number to be called I developed my shopping list into a respectable effort. In addition to the 4 new york strips, I would pick up 6 of their Jumbo Grilling Wieners, some bisquits to go with our dinner and, at Matt’s recommendation, a package of 6 veal cheeks.

The Jumbo Grilling Wieners were transcendental. The wiener is about the size of a baby’s arm, which is to say slightly smaller that John Holmes’ private collection. I shit you not, these wieners were at least 10″ long with about 3.5″ of girth. The flavor was of the finest beef I’ve had in a dog and the snap was audible. I don’t know who the wizard was that developed these Jumbo Grilling Wieners, but when I start my religion with Paulina as the after life that guy is probably going to have to be the first pope or at least get some kind of sainthood or a holy day or something.

I dropped off the steaks at Trevor’s and we each had a Jumbo Grilling Wiener (I just enjoy hearing that combination of words). Did I mention the snap on these things? Later that evening we enjoyed all the beauty that is a new york strip with our lovely brides under the fantastic summer night with a sultry soundtrack of Tejano music oompa-paing from Trevor’s neighbors.

Saturday I was up again with the sun to spend a lovely day of relaxation in the blistering summer heat smoking a pork shoulder. Something we’ve learned with these pork shoulders is that you definitely want to get boneless pork shoulders. The bone-in pork shoulder has too many layers of fat and other junk that makes it more challenging to pull. There’s enough fat in a boneless shoulder to keep your meat plenty juicy.

Sunday was a banner 4th of July as a bunch of us headed out to Winnemac Park for the best 4th of July celebration in the city. Amateur pyrotechnicians flooded the baseball diamonds to assault the skies with professional fireworks. There was nothing planned about this assault on the neighborhood and nothing regulated about it either. I can’t think of a better way to celebrate freedom than to stroll through a city park while literally hundreds of people indulge in illicit fireworks displays without any bother from police.

Monday I awoke from my long night of yelling at explosions to drop into the Wilson pool for the first time. 1 year of work and daydreaming finally paid off. I did eat some shit a couple times, but I managed to stay up at least as much as I fell. After we finished Dawn Patrolling Trevor dropped me off at the Fireside Lounge in Ravenswood to enjoy some delicious Arrogant Bastard Ale and a sandwich with our crew of delinquents. We spent a few hours putting sobriety in it’s place before hitting the Foster Street Beach. After a couple hours drinking delicious Daisy Cutter from cans and playing catch in the water we packed up our goodies and headed back to the Fireside for some more cocktails. After a few more beers we made a bee-line for Chicago’s best pizza, Pequod’s, and indulged our sun-satiated selves on a couple large pan pizzas (garlic, basil, onion and pepperoni on one and sausage, mushroom, giardinara on the other… definitely with a side of ranch, sucka).

Still not quite finished, we retired to Matt’s for some 12 Year Macallan with an ice cream chaser.

It was a banner weekend, my friends, the kind that reminds you just why you built that nervous system in the first place.

Wow, holy shit, all this was just a preamble to talk about the amazing meal we had last night. Remember those veal cheeks I picked up at Paulina on Friday? Me neither. Well, I finally got around to cooking those buggers Thursday night. And what an amazing treat it was. You could literally eat these these without teeth, you certainly didn’t need a knife.

Strange thing these veal cheeks. They’re about the size of a pancake when you get them, or, more specifically, the size of a 6 month old calf’s cheek. When you cook them they puff up into something more the size and shape of a small hamburger patty. At first they tend to get very hard, but over the 3 hours that you cook them they eventually turn into the most tender piece of meat your liable to come by.

Here’s the recipe I basically used courtesy of Ron Eade and the Ottowa Citizen. I skipped the juniper berries and replaced the veal stock with reduced chicken broth for no other reason than I didn’t have those ingredients. Essentially, it’s a beef bourgingon that’s a bit easier to make and much more tender. Imagine a pot roast that literally dissolves across your tongue and you’ve got a fairly close approximation of what this majestic little monster tastes like.

– Six veal cheeks, each about the size of a closed fist

– 1/3 cup (75 mL) olive oil

– Salt and pepper, to taste

– 3 1/2 cups (875 mL) of robust low-salt veal stock

– One small piece dark chocolate, about 7 grams

For the marinade:

– 1/2 large carrot chopped

– 1 medium onion, chopped

– 1 teaspoon (5 mL) dry thyme

– 1 large clove of good garlic, chopped

– 1 bay leaf

– 10 sprigs of Italian parsley, chopped

– One 750-mL bottle dry chardonnay

– 6 juniper berries

1. Place all marinade ingredients in a stainless steel saucepan; bring to boil and simmer 5 to 7 minutes to evaporate the alcohol. Cool to room tremperature, then immerse veal cheeks in marinate. Cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. At noon the next day, preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Remove meat from marinade and strain to separate liquid and solids; reserve both. In a saucepan, bring liquid to boil and simmer until reduced to 1 cup (250 mL). Set aside.

3. Pat cheeks dry with paper towels, season lightly with salt, pepper, then lightly dust with all-purpose flour. Heat about 1/3 cup (75 mL) canola oil in a heavy cast-iron Dutch oven and brown cheeks well on both sides, working in batches if necessary to not overcrowd the pot. When browned, transfer cheeks to a plate and, in the same Dutch oven, saute reserved vegetables from the marinate for about 4 minutes.

4. In a large saucepan, warm veal stock to almost-boiling and toss in chocolate to melt; stir to combine. Return cheeks to the Dutch oven and nestle over the bottom, trying to not overlap. Add reduced marinade and veal stock just to cover and bake, covered, until meat is very tender when pierced with the tip of a paring knife, about 3 hours.

5. When done, carefully transfer intact cheeks to an ovenproof casserole with a lid, and set aside. Strain liquid into a clean saucepan (discard solids) and simmer to reduce to gravy consistency, stirring as necessary to avoid scorching.

6. About 40 minutes before serving, pour thickened sauce over cheeks to cover, and return to oven to reheat. Serve with side dishes that will take best advantage of rich sauce.

I’m sitting here with a particularly acute case of the Mondays. Brains broken, nails filthy, my work clothes smell of that finest of hillbilly cologne – hickory smoke. It was a long journey into the heart of flavor country, and not without it’s perils, but, like any good journey, I can now sit satisfied on the other side of the conquest, comfortable in the knowledge that we properly courted and slayed the dragon presented to us.

Here’s the situation: two friends were getting married and asked that Matt and I prepare the food for the gathering. Estimates were about 150 people. So we picked up 3 briskets about 11lbs a piece, 4 10lb pork butts, and about 30lbs of breasts and thighs. Knowing that pulled meat is always tastier the second day we made the pork and chicken on Friday, leaving Saturday for cooking the brisket and serving the hungry masses. And, because we’re gluttons for punishment and I’ve got a germanic penchant for over-committing, we offered to brew a souvenir beer for all the attendees. We brewed up about 10 gallons of IPA and 5 gallons of a Mai Bock. That picture above is a point of pride for me, it’s our IPA with the custom labels adorned which had, over the course of the evening, become a very real part of Chicago’s weekending landscape. What more affirmation can a hack brewer desire than to have their precious beer rest upon a throne of concrete, cigarettes and industry? None I say.

What did we learn? If what can be considered learned is what can be expected to be practiced in the future, then we probably learned very little. But, at least at this point, so soon after the event, there were a few things that stick out as worth remembering for the future.

First off, those thermometers that come in the consumer level smokers are a joke. They don’t reflect any kind of accurate reading. Fortunately, Matt’s dad, Jim Shirley, who you might recall from an early OA post, bought us a Redichek Maverik Remote Smoker Thermometer to use. It was awesome. Not only did we get an actual temperature read from inside our grill, but we could also monitor our meat’s temperature as well. And when the Cubs/Sox came on on Friday we could retreat from the blistering summer humidity, sit in the AC and watch the Cubs embarrass themselves all keeping an eye on our project. The downside of the Redichek Maverik Remote Smoker Thermometer is that it just isn’t built to handle the brutality of the OA team. The food probe lasted only through one smoking session before we thoroughly wrecked it. Disappointing to be sure.

I think I’m going to try and pick up another remote temperature probe and try it out as the convenience is really hard to beat. The guys over at Salt & Fat recommended the OXO Good Grips Digital Leave-In Meat Thermometer though that doesn’t have the ambient temperature probe that is really a godsend when you’re smoking. There’s a few other on Amazon I’m going to check out, hopefully something that is built a bit better than the Maverick.

Of course, I could always do the right thing. And you know what the right thing is, don’t you? Spend a bunch of money on a sweet new gadget. Let’s say, a gadget like The Stoker!

The Stoker allows you to monitor your ambient temperature, your meat temperature and also is connected to a PID that are hooked up to blowers to automatically stoke your coals when your heat drops. But that’s not really the craziest part. It also has a web interface that allows you to automate your settings and thriving development community building new apps for the Stoker, apps that help you take diagnostics of your smoking session. Oh yeah, and it also interfaces with Twitter and Facebook to send you a message when your temperature goes high or your meat reaches it’s optimum temperature. Holy nerd balls, Batman! A smoking aparatus that you can run from your smart phone!! This is probably the coolest and nerdiest thing I’ve come across in a long while. I want! I want! The only thing that’s holding me back right now is that a) I don’t have a smart phone (come on Verizon and release that HTC Incredible) and b) the Stoker costs twice what our smoker actually cost us. There’s not much to it really, a couple thermocouples, a blower and a PID, I may just go ahead and build one for myself rather than spend the $280 on it. Though slothfulness is enticing as well…

But you know what we used to replace the broken probe on our Redicheck so that we could monitor the ambient temperature on our second smoker? A $5 liquid thermometer from Menards. That there is something for you gear heads to chew on.

Another thing we learned this weekend, pulling pork and chicken by hand is a job reserved solely for sucks. Fortunately, we had AJ and JohnnyK to help us out, but, even still, four people pulling 70lbs of meat took us over 3 hours. That shit was not fun. But, those 3 hours gave us plenty of time to discuss the design of a machine that would automate the meat pulling process should there not already be one in existence. Fortunately, however, there is a machine that automatically pulls meat already in existence. Oddly enough, it’s a concrete mixer that you can buy at Home Depot for just a few hundred dollars.

For those of you a bit more budget minded apparently the Bear Paws are supposed to be pretty effective as well.

As far as the beer goes we took our first pass at custom labels. I got turned onto the Beer Labelizer, a helpful app built to allow you to apply custom text to 4 different labels. Unfortunately, my favorite label they offer was ovular and I was not about to cut out 150 oval labels by hand. So I borrowed the labelizers color scheme and just built my own label with an image that one of the bride & groom’s friend had drawn of them. The labels were 3.5″x4″ and fit real nice on the bottle and, being rectangular, were real easy for AJ to cut out (thanks, pig!). I was able to get 30 full color sheets of sticker paper bought and printed at Kinko’s (or whatever it is now) for under $15 – awesome.

What else did I learn? Hmm, I learned, at least 5 times on Friday that when metal is close to heat it seems to actually absorb the heat and get hot itself and if you touch that metal your nerves send impulses to your brain that force you to make a face like your a retard getting a prostate exam. I learned I really like spending long days working on improbable projects with my friends, getting little sleep and waking up early again to keep working on them. I learned that it’s awesome to smoke cigarettes in the rain under a small shelter. And that there’s no better way to spend a Saturday night than eating meat, drinking beer, and celebrating two people falling in love.

While the brew master is away the minions must work and occasionally make important decisions. This past weekend I took Brian’s usual spot as captain of our brew team and brewed a couple fresh batches of IPA. As usual there was some good, some bad and some real weird. The good and the bad were directly correlative to the level of intoxication affecting the ersatz brew master.
The weird was the new yeast I tried. My hand was forced because our local brew supply store was out of the Rogue Pac Man that we had been using for our IPA’s. On the advice of a fellow brewer I gave – American Ale Yeast – 1272 a shot, and man was that wild. I made a starter a couple of days before hand, so it had been sitting for about 48 hours before I pitched it. After pitching it I cleaned up the brew shop and headed home to sleep it off.
What I returned to the next morning was the aftermath of a yeast bomb. The yeast had popped up through the airlock, covered everything in a yeasty, beery mixture and left about a quarter inch of beer in the bottom of the kettle that the carboy was resting in. Certainly we expect some overflow. As a rule it happens with the Pac – Man but nothing like this. This was a different animal all together and it made a damn mess.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens with the beer. I moved it to the secondary fermenter yesterday and it attenuated perfectly although it was not as clear as I would have liked. Time will tell but I think we’ll likely play around with this yeast some more.

Here’s what Wyeast Labs has to say about it:

With many of the best qualities that brewers look for when brewing American styles of beer, this strain’s performance is consistent and it makes great beer. Fruitier and more flocculent than Wyeast 1056 American Ale yeast, slightly nutty, soft, clean with a slightly tart finish. Ferment at warmer temperatures to accentuate hop character with intense fruitiness, or ferment cool for clean, light citrus character. Expect good attenuation, but this will vary with grist makeup, mashing protocol, or other wort characteristics. Reliably flocculent, producing bright beer without filtration.

My roommate, Mr. King, recently cooked some steaks using the method detailed in the video above and claims to have achieved the best results he’s ever had with steak. Listening to the theory it certainly makes sense, but strikes me as strange, that of all the ways I’ve cooked steak and all the people I’ve talked to about cooking steak, I have never run across this method. Of particular interest to me is the accelerated dry aging process. If this actually helps to make a lower grade steak more tender not only could it save a bit of cash, but also help deal with the eternally inconsistent quality of cuts in Chicago supermarkets. Certainly it’s worth trying as Cooks Illustrated and America’s Test Kitchen (even though the dude, below, is real creepy and likely into some deviant food sex shit) rarely steer you wrong.

I made a meatloaf yesterday for the USA v. Canada game. The meatloaf turned out better than the game.

I used New Holland’s Dragon Milk Oak Barrel Ale to flavor up the sauce. I kind of realized it wasn’t the best choice while I was buying it, but I was tired of looking and wanted to get started cooking. In retrospect I think a smoked beer like Schlenkerla or maybe even New Holland’s Charkoota Rye would have been a much better solution. Doppelbocks always seem to work well when cooking with red meat.

Anyhoo, here’s the recipe:

1lb 85% Ground Beer
1lb Jimmy Dean spicy breakfast sausage (I will use 3/4lb next time)
1 cup Ritz crackers crushed up
1 small white onion diced
1/2 a green pepper diced
1/2 a red pepper diced
7 garlic cloves diced
1 tsp Worsteschire sauce
2 eggs
1 tbsp paprika
1 tbsp cayenne
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tbsp black pepper
2 tbsp Baldridge’s

Mix all that together and put into a loaf pan. Cook at 375* for 45 minutes. Then cover with this sauce and cook for another 15 minutes.

1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup Captain Curt’s BBQ Sauce
8 ounces of Dragon’s Milk
1/2 cup of diced onions
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cayenne

Reduce the sauce until it’s nice and thick.

After the meatloaf is done, transfer that bad boy to a plate and let it sit for about 15 minutes or so. While it’s doing that why not crumble up some bacon on the top of it?

Delicious.

So we made our 3rd and what appears to be our most successful batch of our IPA on Monday evening. The entire process went incredibly smoothly, from mash to sparge to pitching and it seems the few variables we shifted were the right ones producing a yield we were hoping for.

Our 2nd batch of IPA was decent in flavor though the yield fell about 2.5 gallons short producing just around 3 gallons. We underestimated how much the industrial burners we use would boil down our wort and came up short. The malt character was very nice, but frankly it just wasn’t quite as hoppy as I felt it should be. So we adjusted two things to solve these issues.

First, we added more water to the mashing process to bring our yield up, as opposed to adding more water for the sparge. I got the idea off the AHA forum where someone was inspired by some papers they read on BrauKaiser.com that more water at mash will yield an extraction with a larger amount of fermentable sugars. So instead of a 1qt/lb mash we upped it to a 1.5qt/lb mash, and reduced our sparge water equally.

The first time I noticed a significant difference was in the boil over. Our wort went crazy with it’s frothy head that seemed to not want to relent no mater how much I stirred it down. This cappucino like head continued for probably 10 minutes where in the past the boil over threatens for little more than 3 or 4 minutes.

Our second indication that something was quite different – an insanely active initial fermentation – was probably a result of two variables: the higher extraction of fermentable sugars from the diastatic activity in the mash and the fact that we used a dry yeast instead of a liquid yeast.

I was forced to use a dry yeast when I rolled up to Brew & Grow and found they were out of their American Pale Ale slap packs. I initially thought I would make a yeast starter but after some research I found that not only is a starter unnecessary with dry yeast you don’t even need to rehydrate the dry yeast to make it active. In addition, dry yeasts contain over twice the amount of yeast cells that liquid yeast packs do making the party that much more active.

About 30 minutes into the brewing I pulled a couple cups of wort out and put them in an erlenmeyer flask, let that cool and pitched in the 11.5g pack of yeast. In about 20 minutes there was a frothy head and it was clear my yeast was hungry. After chilling the rest of the wort I pitched this tastyness in and let those bad yeasties rape and pillage the beer like they so want to do. After one day our beer was in a frenzy, with a several inch kreausen on there and CO2 spitting out every second.

I added a bit more hops on the bittering end this time around in hopes of balancing out some of the maltiness, but other than that I think we should be good to go. One thing I screwed up was forgetting to take the OG, which, especially in this case of a such a strong and different reaction, is pretty disappointing.

I don’t know if I’ll use dry yeast again, but my interest is definitely piqued. It couldn’t have been easier and it’s been a ton of fun to watch the beer really lose it’s mind a bit. I feel like we’ve finally found out how to tickle the demons inside that brew and get them to bloom more of the secrets they’ve got inside them. I shouldn’t speak too soon or claim success too early, but it certainly is enjoyable to see some new and strong reactions in the lab.

Bacon, bacon, bacon, blah, blah, blah. Blirrr, blam, blatz. Farb, harr, flim, flim, flim. Bacon, bacon… Oh, what’s this? Bourbon? Cookies?

The New York Times of all places has a recipe for a bacon infused Old Fashion.

Here’s a few other ideas on how to use that delicious porky effluvia.

As I mentioned in a post last week, I start my 7 Day Detox today. 2 days of fasting followed by at least 5 days of macrobiotic foods and increased supplementation working together to flush my system, re-establish positive bacteria in my guts, and recalibrate my appetites. I’m pretty excited, these fasts are typically an amazing means of starting a new chapter of creative output and general sanity.

In the interim I’ve been trying to find a piece of software that would help me more thoughtfully track my diet – what nutrients I’m getting, their relative balance to one another – and also my exercise while setting goals for both losing weight and also getting more mileage out of the foods and exercises I do. After a bit of research I came across a piece of software that actually has met my stated goals and far exceeded them.

Diet Controller combines a calendar, customizable food and exercise logs preloaded with a ton of info, analytical tools allowing for more metrics than any person could ever need, graphing methodologies allowing you to visualize and speculate and get the most out of your meals and set goals for the future and run reports on your progress, and a journal to keep track of day to day changes.

I wouldn’t be exagerating by saying that this elegant tool, with versions for Windows, Macs and Linux, has really revolutionized the way I structure my diet and the way I get my caloric intake. I’m able to meter out my daily intake to not only lose weight, but keep eating all the food and beer I normally like to while also maximizing the nutritional content of my meals for better over all physical and cognitive performance.

You can download a 10 day free trial of Diet Controller here. After the initial 10 days the software is a one-time cost of $40 which, in my opinion, is a total steal when considering the tools you are receiving in return.

I can’t recommend Diet Controller enough to anyone who is trying to lose weight, increase their physical performance or trying to understand how to best utilize their food intake for it’s greatest nutritional potential.