In looking for brew recipes, I came across this website, The Homebrew Chef.  There’s some great food recipes on here, using beer, which is something I appreciate in cooking.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have any appropriate homebrews to use in these recipes, but I’m really happy about the food I made, as well as the one coup de grace that is in the works.  Here’s the recipes, as written:

Chocolate Ancho Rub:

Makes 3 Cups

Ingredients:

1 Cup Cocoa Powder, like Valhrona
1/2 Cup Ancho Chili, ground
1/2 Cup Sugar, organic
1/2 Cup Kosher Salt
1/4 Cup Black Pepper, freshly ground
1/4 Cup Cumin, ground

Directions:

In a medium size bowl, add all the ingredients and mix with a whisk, until you have a uniform mixture. Add to a quart size jar and seal, until ready to use.

**My changes:
Ancho specific chile wasn’t available at the local shop, so I just used their general chile powder.
Also, there wasn’t anything that said ‘Valhrona’, so I used an unsweetened Cocoa Powder, non alkalai

Chocolate Stout BBQ Sauce:
Makes 4 Cups

Ingredients:
2 TBSP Olive Oil
1 Yellow Onion, peeled and minced
1 TSP Kosher Salt
2 TBSP Chocolate Ancho Rub
1/4 Cup Molasses, Black Strap if available
1 Stout Beer, 12 oz. of your choice
1/4    Cup Malt or Apple Cider Vinegar
1 Can Tomato Sauce, preferably organic
1 Shot Espresso

In a medium sized pan add olive oil, minced onion and salt.  Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally until the onions are caramelized.  Add the Chocolate Ancho Rub and stir for about 30 seconds, to toast the spices.  Add the molasses and stir another 15 seconds to combine, deglazing with the stout beer; stir well, helping lift off any of the fond on the bottom of the pan.  Add malt or cider vinegar and tomato sauce, keeping the heat to medium, stirring while cooking for about 25 minutes.

The sauce should be thick, dark brown, but not burnt. Add the shot of espresso and transfer the sauce to the pitcher of a blender and puree for about 1 minute or until smooth.

**My changes:
I assumed that the lack of garlic and peppers were an oversight, so I added:
5 garlic cloves
1 Jalepeno pepper, seeded
1 Poblano Chile pepper, seeded
- All with the onions, at the beginning
I used 2 x Bison’s Chocolate Stout as the beer. It’s a tasty stout!

All of these are just lead-ins to the main course:

Garlic IPA Brine for Pork Shoulder

1 Cup Kosher Salt
1/2 Cup Sugar
2TBSP Black Peppercorns
4 Bay Leaves, torn
2 Cups Garlic, peeled
1 Quart Water
1 Quart IPA, or Beer of choice
2 Quarts Ice

1 Pork Shoulder/butt, rinsed

Directions:

In the pitcher of a blender, add salt, sugar, peppercorns, bay leaves and garlic. Add 2-3 cups of water and blend, until the garlic is pureed.

In a large stock pot or dutch oven, add remaining water (5-6 cups) and IPA along with the contains of the blender. Over medium high heat, bring mixture to a boil for 3-5 minutes; making sure the sugar and salt have completely dissolved. Remove from heat and add ice. Mix well and check temperature; should be about 36°F. Chill if the temp is warm. Once cool, add the pork shoulder and use a plate to weigh down the pork, so that it is full submerged. Let sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 days; allowing the meat to cure in the brine.

Cooking Directions:

Preheat the oven to 225°

Take a sheet pan with sides and line with aluminum foil. Place a wire rack on top of the foil and add the brined pork shoulder/butt. Place in the center of the oven and cook for 8 hours. Check the meat the last hour, seeing if the meat has dried out at all (if the meat was smaller, it will take less time to cook and will dry out if overcooked). This low and slow method of cooking will render some of the fat out of the meat, break down the collogen causing the meat to be soft, tender and slightly sticky.

Remove from the oven and let rest for 15-30 minutes. Using a fork, pull on the meat, to flake it out into small strains of meat. Serve as is with tortillas or add Stout BBQ Sauce for Pulled Pork Sandwiches

**My Changes:
No Changes to the recipe. I used 1 x Bridgeport IPA and 2 x Fish Tale IPA for the beer in the brine

Tasting:
I used the Rub on some Turkey legs, which I grilled. Those came out great, with a nice crisp skin (the sugar in the rub maybe). It’s sort of a Chocolate Mole taste.

The BBQ sauce tasted good, but the Pork is still under brine, probably to be cooked this weekend, so I haven’t tried either of those in real eating situations.

I did, however, make enough Sauce to have my first canning experience.

I’m a big fan of the book, The Homebrewer’s Garden, we’ve been using it as our reference this summer for a lot of our hop garden questions, and hopefully will end up using it if/when we move on to grain growing also. There’s also some fun recipes included, for some unusual sounding beers.  I know Bison makes a yummy Honey Basil Ale, which there was also a recipe for in the book, but the Oregano Pale recipe caught my eye.

The recipe, as written:

1/4 lb Toasted Malt
1/4 lb Carapils Malt
1/2 lb Crystal 60L
1/2 lb Crystal 40L
6.6 lb Northwest Gold LME
1 1/4 lb Dutch Extra Light DME
2oz East Kent Goldings, 60 min
1oz Fuggles, 60 min
1/2 oz Fuggles (homegrown), 15 min
1/2 oz Willamete (homegrown), 0 min
1 oz Fresh Oregano

Yeastlab A02, American Ale

My changes:

- Grain:
7lbs Light LME (this is the easiest qty for me to purchase)
1lb Light DME
There was no 40L available, so I used 20L instead
Also, there was nothing at the shop just called ‘toasted malt’, so I used a bit of smoked malt, I thought it would go well with the earthy oregano flavor
I ended up using less oregano than the recipe called for, closer to 3/4oz
- Hops:
I should have taken better notes, but I mostly used leftover hops from other recipes. At this point, I’d guess that my mix was probably Cascade for bittering, then Willamette for Flavor and aroma.
- Yeast:
All that was available for yeast was Wyeast #1332, Northwest Ale. This was the first time we used a Wyeast smack-pack, and were really pleased with the results.

Brewing:
Standard Brew instructions – Steeped the grains at 150-160F for 30 min or so in 2 gal, sparged with about the same amount of volume and temp, then added water for the full wort boil, with the LME and bittering hops. At 15 min left, I added the DME, Oregano, and Flavor hop addition. Forgot the whirlfloc tablets this time, but our brew has looked different in the pot since the first brew we did using whirlfloc. I’m not sure if that’s my imagination, or if there’s some way for the pot to hold on to the residue, even through multiple washes. Aroma hops at the end, quick cool with the chiller, and then off to the races!

Fermentation:
The wyeast took off fast, and we lucked out with a pretty steady warm temperature in the house for 2 weeks. OG was around 1.060, and it finished with an FG of around 1.008 or so – probably my lowest FG since the move to Portland, which is something I’ve got to work on with the rest of my brews in general – I think investing in a temp control will be key, along with better aeration. And, of course, I can’t discount the smack-pack, since I don’t normally do starters. We kegged this brew (Andy’s first kegging), and force- carbonated at 30lb psi for 2 days, then 20lb for 2 days.

Tasting:
It was a good pale. The oregano was noticeable, though not overwhelming – I’m glad I went easy there, and also went pretty easy on the hops, staying away from the high AA varieties. It gave a very earthy aroma and taste to the brew, without making it too herby. It wasn’t a ‘pizza beer’, though it did pair well with Italian food. I use a lot of oregano in general in the kitchen, so really it went well with most of the stuff I cooked, as well as being a satisfying quencher on it’s own.

There’s a good chance I’ll make this one again.

A couple of pics-

Coming soon, technical issues

Well it looks like it will have been 2 months since the last thing was posted on here unless I do something about it.  Imagine that… guess I’ve been doing way to much drinking and not enough brewing.

So without further delay, I present what I initially wanted to call Hop Head Red, until I realized that beer already exists.  Damn sub-conscious bullshit.  So it’s called, simply, The Hopped Red Ale.

Enjoy!

Recipe for 5 gallons

Grain Bill:
5 oz Flaked Barley
5 oz Crystal 10
5 oz Crystal 60
4 oz Roasted Barley

Sugars
6 lb Pale Extract

Hops
1 oz Willamette @ 60 min
.20 oz Willamette @ 15 min
.40 oz Willamette @ 0 min

Yeast
White Labs WLP004-Irish Ale

Clarifying Agent
1 tablet Whirfloc

Alright so, I can’t remember what the date was, but to put it into perspective (of sorts), whenever it was, I’m down to the last bomber… and that makes me sad.
Oh I guess this is where the instructions would go huh?  Sorry, been a while.

Um, its a basic extract recipe.  I can say that if I make it again I will up the aroma hop amount, possibly do some dry-hopping too, as I really wanted a much hoppier brew.  Considering this was only my second hand-crafted recipe though, I was happy enough with the results.  If someone out there on the interwebs really wants to know the procedure they can check any of my other recipe posts.  The only variation is that this is the first brew where I used the Whirfloc tablets.  Oh and the first that called for Flaked Barley, for head retention.  A note on each…

Whirfloc:  Did I pretty good job with clarifying.  However, the addition of Flaked Barley made for a much “trub-ier” fermentation, which may explain why I didn’t get as great of results as I had expected.  Nevertheless, I haven’t had a cleaner looking beer in the bottle.  Definitely going to use it again.

Flaked Barley:  Momma! This little addition really helped get the head I’ve been waiting for in my homebrewing.  I can’t say enough about it.  Again, this one seems like a no-brainer in many future recipes.  Like a foam sandcastle sitting on top of the glass, without filling the rest of the glass too.  Nice!

Well there you have it.  Maybe I can get the other dudes to put something up now.  I mean, if the lonely brewer in so-cal can do it, it should be a piece of cake for the pdx’ers to tag-team something, right?

Gentlemen, the ball is your court.