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.

Don’t lose hope dear internetting ones, we still have every intention of launching the full Outsider’s Almanac website in the near future, it just won’t be quite as soon as we had hoped. We’re pretty insanely busy these days, between writing projects, client needs, body/mind/spirit rehabbing and the pursuit of winter in it’s many splendered and distracting forms, but you should expect to see the site live by around April 1st, 2010.

We’ve got our sites on making Outsider’s Almanac the most exhaustive and user friendly site for all Outsider activities by combining tutorials with expert articles, videos, web based and mobile communication apps, up-to-the-minute live and critical information on sites and conditions, gear reviews, site reviews, events, and so much more.

Like you, we love the Outside, it’s beautiful out here, and boy is it easy to get distracted. We wouldn’t want it any other way.

One of the first posts on this blog was about the 7 Day Detox Miracle, the book that has become my escape route from my lifestyle, a formidable counterpoint to the excesses I typically enjoy… excessively.

A wiser toad would probably attempt to attain some kind of temperance in their path, delicately balancing on the pinhead of the good life while never chasing too far the demons that serve that delicious table. But I’m a sucker for a well read demon and I love the company of wolves. I would trade a dozen well reasoned gentleman for an hour with a charming criminal because, believe me, I’ve searched and I’ve found for certain that a serious laugh can only be shared in the shadows of what is explicitly not permitted. Frankly, who but someone willing to bend the law to sate their desires could truly understand what it means to be properly full?

But anyone who runs with demons and theives knows that, no matter how attentive you might be or how smart you might think you are, the thief will always walk away with your wallet and the demon will inevitably and eventually win. Make no mistake, gambling is the high art of the Devil and you are only renting time at his table.

A dedicated sensualist knows this and will always stick around long enough for a seasoned whooping from the old beast, another welting reminder of who collects the taxes and who makes the rules. Like a good dog always running back for another boot from his vicious master, the sensualist will stick around until just before that tank runs to vapor but never so long as to lose the wind all together.

All this is a long way of saying it’s reckoning time. The Holidays came along, once again, filling us full of strange cocktails and seared meats, with lightbulbs and culdesacs, pedantic movies and beautiful songs, chance meetings, cold nights, bonfires, shotgun shells, hillarious headaches and comfortable couches from which to spectate on the whole roman glut. Like a good con man the Holidays gave us every idle wish we thought we ever wanted and then beat us back down to earth with the invoice of our ascension.

Now it’s time for this fat shaman to put Humpty back together again.

I start my detox tomorrow. 2 days of fasting, followed by several weeks of macrobiotic foods, daily exercise, daily meditation and easy living. I will keep close to a daily record on this blog of the foods I eat, the exercise I do and a cursory examination of how this is affecting my mood, my dreams, my weight, my cognition and my creative output.

I’ve performed this detox many times previously and after every one I feel so good that I swear up and down that I will integrate a more sensible regimen into my everyday life. But this is a fool’s errand and not how I can live. I love living loud and painting in broad strokes so this time I will not fool myself with false promises but attempt to settle into the more vibrant rhythms of my style of life: 2 months of strict living – healthy eating, no alcohol, steady exercise – followed by 2 months of reintegration.

We’ll start there and see how long it takes me to drag myself away from that beautiful Devil’s Banquet once again.

A friend gave me a bottle of the infamous 3 Floyd’s Dark Lord Russian Imperial Stout a few weeks ago. I decided to use it punch up a pot roast I was making. Here’s the recipe:

* 3 1/2 lb of beef shoulder or boneless chuck roast
* 1 Tbsp olive or grapeseed oil
* Salt, pepper, Baldridge’s to taste
* 1 large yellow onion, chopped or sliced
* Mushrooms
* 8 cloves of garlic, peeled
* 1 cup of 3 Floyd’s Dark Lord
* Several carrots, peeled and cut lengthwise
Cover your beef thoroughly on all sides with the salt, pepper and Baldridge’s. Take a stove friendly slow cooker and add some olive oil to the bottom, bring it up to heat. Brown every side of your roast. Once browned pull out the roast and scrape the carmelized fat off the sides and bottom of the slow cooker and mix around in the oil. Add in your Dark Lord and onions and garlic and mushrooms.
Bring the heat down low and put your roast back in there. Leave cooking for at least 3.5 hours. About 30 minutes before serving put in your carrots. Eat.

In other Imperial Stout news, it looks like Half Acre’s Big Hugs Imperial Stout is now available at their store. I’m leaving to pick up a couple growlers right now.

So I tried our IPA (a very loose Bell’s Two Hearted Clone) and it’s just OK. It’s not fully carbonated yet so I’m sure that will improve it’s flavor a bit, but the real issue is that it’s real thin, way too bitter (even for me), and there’s a similar, very subtle flavor in there that I don’t care for, to what is in our Bitter (and works better in the Bitter).

Based on my present understanding of this stuff I’m assuming that flavor is most likely from the yeast we’ve been using or, possibly, that we’ve been using Chicago tap water. So for our next attempt at the Two Hearted Clone, I’m going to do a few things different:

1. Use distilled water
2. Use Centennial hops for the bittering (what Bell’s uses), though I’m going to stay with Cascade for the dry hopping as I really prefer it’s aroma and I’m pretty sure it’s what Half Acre uses, at least for aroma, on their Daisy Cutter.
3. Try a new kind of yeast, White Labs wlp051 California Ale yeast.

The use of the new yeast will hopefully help give our beer more body and help the taste a bit.  But, with using White Labs instead of the wyeast activator, I’ll now have to do a yeast starter in order to get the most from my vial of liquid yeast.  I poked around the internet a bit and found plenty of decent instructions on how to make a yeast starter.  I thought the nice folks over at AllGrainAles.com had one of the better and clearer instructions on how to do this.

Here’s how to make a yeast starter from your wort compliments of AllGrainAles.com:

Equipment Checklist:

- Clean glass bottle / jug (a growler works great)
- Bottle stopper
- Airlock
- 1/2 gallon spring water
- dry packaged brewing yeast or liquid yeast culture
- Funnel
- Medium-sized sauce pan
- 1/2 lb dry malt extract

As with all brewing procedures, it is crucial to maintain very sanitary conditions when handling yeast and all starting wort and equipment.

# Remove your yeast from refrigeration before beginning your mash on brew day.
# Draw off some wort during the sparging process (maybe a quart) and place in a medium-sized sauce pan. Check the gravity of this liqid and dilute to 1.020 – 1.030, if necessary. You’ll need about 1.75 quarts total.
# Boil this wort for 10-15 min. Reduce temperature (let it sit for 45 min. covered) and pour it (slowly) into a sterile 1/2-gallon jug (using a sterile funnel). Cap this with a stopper and airlock to maintain optimal conditions.
# Reduce and monitor temperature (running cold water against the jug) until it reaches 72°-74° F.
# Aerate this wort and add the room-temperature yeast.
# Mix and maintain temperature above 70° until it is added to the finished wort.

Here is a vague approximation of the wicked ass egg nog I seem to remember making for SantaKong for a few years (I scale up to use a bottle of each of the liquors). It is best served in a gas can. It pairs well with jackassery.

You will have regrets, but you will have lived. Or at least that is what the people will tell you.

Amen.

2 quarts milk
4 cinnamon sticks
2 vanilla beans, split
10 cloves
20 blades of mace
24 egg yolks
3 cups sugar
2.5 cups dark rum
2.5 cups brandy
2.5 cups whiskey
2 tablespoon vanilla
2 quart of “half-and-half”*
freshly grated nutmeg to taste

1) Combine milk and spices including vanilla bean in a heavy saucepan and let them infuse over lowest possible heat for 5 minutes. Meanwhile, combine yolks and sugar in a large bowl and whisk until mixed.

2) Bring milk to just below a boil and gradually whisk it into the yolk mixture. Return the mixture to the saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring steadily with a wooden spoon, for 2 to 3 minutes, or until foam subsides and mixture thickens to consistency of heavy cream. (Mixture should thickly coat the back of a wooden spoon.) Do not boil, or mixture will curdle.

3) Strain mixture into a large bowl and let cool to room temperature. Stir in rum, brandy, half-and-half, vanilla and nutmeg.

4) Refrigerate eggnog overnight. Just before serving, dust top of eggnog with additional nutmeg.

I pulled this recipe from part of another recipe in issue #33 of BeerAdvocate. It’s super easy and real effective.

1 cup raw nuts
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tsp IPA

Whisk the sugar, salt and IPA together into an opaque syrup. Add the nuts and stir well. Place the nuts on a parchment paper covered cookie tray and put in the over at 350* for about 20 minutes. The syrup will be bubbling and the nuts nicely browned. Remove and let cool.

I bet this would be tasty made in a smoker, too.