Our good friends at the Austin Astronomical Society once more got their holiday party cake from us. It’s such a pleasure to get repeat customers like this, although it does mean we have to constantly strive to top last year’s cake!

As before, they had a butter cake with our English buttercream, a nice simple flavour that’s a crowd pleaser.

Before covering the cake we took a melon baller and an ice cream scoop to create some larger craters. Then once it was covered in fondant we added some smaller craters with a balling tool. We pinched the fondant up to create a ridge around a couple of the larger craters.

A blast with the airbrush filled in some shadows, and spread a thin sheen of luster over the entire cake.

.. I feel like I need to photoshop an alien into one of these photos!

Being a native of Southern Louisiana, naturally I have several staple recipes from that region that I cook semi-regularly, learned at my mother’s knee — one being chicken and sausage gumbo.  And much to my mother’s dismay, I’m going to give that recipe up at the end of this post.  *grins*

A gumbo is a stew or soup that is served over rice, and classically comes in two main varieties: “creole gumbo”, which is made with seafood, tomatoes and and a natural thickener — typically okra or filé powder (which branches off a sub-variety know as “filé gumbo”)  — and “cajun gumbo”, which cam be made with seafood or fowl, and is thickened with a roux made of flour and oil.  Gumbo, like most foods that have become fashionable restaurant staples over the long years, originated as a way to stretch either meager pickings or the least desirable bits left over from a beast… what better way to turn a single chicken into 15 servings?  Served over rice — rice being very inexpensive — you could extend a meal even further.

But in these enlightened and prosperous times, we can pick and choose what critters we put in our gumbo, and while I prize a seafood gumbo above all else, chicken and sausage gumbo wins out for affordability, and therefore it gets made more often.  You can substitute duck for the chicken (delicious!) and while I typically would use a nice smoked-cured spicy andouille, this go around we used a milder smoked turkey/beef/pork sausage that tasted nice.

Start by prepping all your ingredients… there is nothing more frustrating that trying to stir a pot while chopping vegetables.  Start with a pair of large onions (vidalia or “sweet” onions if you can get ‘em, yellow otherwise) and reduce them to small bits my the method of your choice.  Since I had a fair amount of veg to break down, I used my handy food processor.  The garlic gets the same treatment.

A note here about celery.  You should make a habit of removing the strands the grow through the ribbing on the back of the stalks as they are basically indigestible, and do not easily cook down.  Just crack the stalk by hand and peel it away in both directions.  Do not dispose of it in a garbage disposal as the strands wrap themselves around the blade spindle and cause no end of trouble — a hard learned lesson from days gone bye.  Compost them, and let nature break them down for you.

The “holy trinity” of vegetables in Southern cooking is typically celery, bell peppers and onion, but for some reason that omits garlic.  Any good Southern cook will try to work garlic and onion into everything except chocolate cake, and once somebody finds a way to do that gracefully, we’ll all be doing it.  *grins* My trinity will always be onions, garlic and celery — with bell pepper added as needed — and this recipe is no exception.

Slice up your sausage and set aside.

Next, the vital ingredient… chicken.  You can use boneless and skinless chicken parts if you choose, and you can pick dark or white meat if you like, but frankly there is definitely a discernible difference in taste between using pre-processed chicken and using a whole chicken (preferably very fresh) that’s been broken down right before cooking.  With a little practice, you can de-bone and de-skin a whole chicken in very little time, and frankly you don’t need a lot of finesse for this dish.  I won’t go into the process here, but there are several good tutorials on the web to be found with a little searching.

I’ve found that leaving a few bones in, namely the thigh, leg and wing bones, adds a little collagen as the gumbo cooks, and that helps thicken it up a bit naturally.  Break down your chicken into medium sized chunks and set aside.

Now onto the actual cooking part.  You’ll want to brown off the chicken, then the sausage first.  You can use any kind of fat you like — olive oil, canola oil, etc — but we happen to have a jar of chicken fat that was collected the last time we made chicken stock (you do save your chicken carcasses and make your own chicken stock, right? RIGHT?)  Two to three tablespoons should do the trick.

Add your chicken and stir occasionally while cooking to brown on all sides.  Remove the chicken from the pot, and keep any juices rendered off to add back in later.  Add your sausage and do the same, again keeping any oil or juices.

Next comes the roux, which is simply flour and oil in anywhere between a 2:1 and 1:1 ratio.  When making a roux, you are basically coating the flour granules individually in oil so that they absorb liquid more slowly, creating a smoother base for gravies, stews and the like (lumps=bad!).  A roux can range anywhere from “white”, which essentially uses no heat, to a very dark brown.  A brown roux is cooked so that the flour browns to the level desired, and the browning of the flour produces delicious roasty toasty flavors that enhance complexity and compliment meat and seafood based dishes and gravies.  I usually opt for a very brown roux.

Heat your empty pot to medium, add the oil and the flour and immediately stir to combine.  You should stir the roux constantly, or it will burn or scorch, and a burnt roux will ruin the entire dish (there is no disguising that distinctly awful flavor).  The oil and flour will eventually loosen up a bit, and depending on the amount of oil you used, will be a consistency anywhere between a thick puddle and a loose paste.  Chase the roux around the pot and keep a close eye on it.  Obtaining a good, dark roux is a staring contest… and if you blink first, you end up with a burnt mess to clean up.  When the roux starts to smoke a bit, you are very close indeed.

Once you finally chicken out (ha!) and decide it’s done (you’ll get better with practice… Southerners are taught to make a roux alongside learning their ABC’s), add the onion in and stir to combine.  This’ll stop the roux from browning further, and the liquid released by the onions will help you work free any flour that is stuck to the bottom of the pot.  I recommend using a wooden spatula with a nice flat edge to scrape as you stir, and you should stir frequently.  Once the onions have gone clear, add your garlic and celery and cook for several minutes more.  Add the chicken (and juices) and sausage (and juices) into the pot and stir to combine.  Top up with water — I use half water, half chicken stock (you do have homemade chicken stock, right? RIGHT?) as that enhances the overall chicken-y flavor.

Add the first course of salt and pepper, then bay leaves and parsley, stir well to combine.  Bring to a boil, then back the heat down to low and simmer with the lid on for 2-3 hours, stirring frequently.

Near the end of the cooking time, prepare your rice.  As a good Southern boy, I can make rice on the stove-top like nobody’s business (steamed, not boiled is the only true way).  But as a good geek I believe in better living though technology, and as a result I own a rice cooker that is smarter than I am.  A recipe for cooking short-grain white rice on the stove-top is included at the bottom of this post.  We favor white basmati rice in our household as it cooks up into nice loose grains, and has a pleasant mild fragrance.

Toward the end of cooking, the chicken should be fork tender, and in fact will start to break up shred nicely.  Check and add salt and pepper to taste.  If the gumbo is too thin, simmer with the lid off until it reaches the consistency desired.  If too thick, add water.  At this point you can also start to pick out the bay leaves, and any bones you can stir up… the meat should have fallen off by now.

Serve over rice.  Gumbo is always better the next day, and if you cooked in true Southern form, you made a whole lot of it… and you’ll be glad you did, as it’s too good to not have lots of leftovers.

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Chicken & Andouille Gumbo

5-7 LB baking hen (de-boned, cut into pieces with skin removed)
½-1 LB andouille sausage (sliced)
¼ C vegetable oil
½ C flour
1 large onion (chopped)
6-8 cloves garlic (minced)
½ C celery (chopped)
2 bay leaves
2 TBS dry parsley
Salt/pepper to taste

In a heavy 4-6 QT pot, brown chicken parts in 2-4 TBS oil or fat.  Set aside.  Brown sausage.  Set aside.  Make a roux in the same pot from ¼ C oil and ½ C flour.  Add onion to roux after it is brown.  Sauté until clear and soft.  Add garlic and celery and cook for 2 minutes.  Add the chicken and sausage back into the pot.  Add 2 QT liquid to start (water or water/chicken stock mix), adding more as needed during cooking to keep the right consistency.  Add bay leaves, parsley, salt (start with 1 TSP and increase to taste as it cooks) and pepper.  Cook for 2-3 hours until chicken is fork tender.

Steamed Rice

1 C white rice
2 C water
2 TBS butter or margarine
1 TSP salt

No real southern cook would ever boil rice.  We don’t wash it before cooking either as that takes away the nutrients added back when the factory washes it – a vicious cycle.  Butter or margarine will keep steamed rice from sticking together. If you get “gummy” rice, decrease the amount of water or use a different pot. Rice should fill a pot at least ¾ when it is done.  Bring water, margarine and salt to a rolling boil.  Add rice, stir once, bring back to a boil then cover and simmer on lowest heat for 15 minutes.  Turn off the heat and let stand covered for 20 minutes or until tender.  Fluff with a fork then serve.

Brown rice requires more water, 2¼ to 2½ C and slightly longer cooking time, 45 minutes.

Marshmallows don’t usually generate a lot of fuss.  They’re typically something most folks buy by the cheap bagful at the mega-mart, and never think twice about.  To these folks I say this: if you’ve never had a fresh, handmade marshmallow, you’ve never given your inner child a hug.

The texture is tremendously better, the flavors are fresher, and there is something that simply tickles the base of your brain whenever you have one.   They’re addictive, and once you’ve had them you’re spoiled for life.  What’s also good is that they are fairly easy to make… they just take a little time and some basic ingredients.

Traditional marshmallows are good, but something slightly more elaborate is even better — this time around I made mocha java marshmallows.

I started by blooming the gelatin in cooled espresso.  While that blooms, I bring the sugar, corn syrup and water to a boil, and just a tiny bit of kosher salt adds a more complex flavor down the line.

While the boiling sugar slowly reaches it’s destination temperature, prepare your pan.  A note here… marshmallows are one of the stickiest confections it has ever been my pleasure to work with, and it is inconceivable that you can over-prepare your work surfaces, tools, pans, etc.  I coat my pan with non-stick cooking spray, line it completely with parchment, coat the parchment with cooking spray, and dust thoroughly with a mixture of cornstarch and powdered sugar, and in this instance cocoa powder (Dutch process cocoa, please).  The first time I made marshmallows, I skipped the parchment step, and I tell you now that spraying and dusting alone are not sufficient.

Once the sugar mixture reaches temperature, set your mixer with the whisk attachment on low and slowly drizzle the sugar into the bowl.  Be sure to drizzle down the side of the bowl — and not through the whisk — to reduce the risk of flinging superheated droplets of molten sugar (a.k.a. “kitchen napalm”) in all directions.  Once all the sugar is in, advance the mixer to medium-high and let it run for 12-14 minutes.  Approximately halfway through slow the mixer and add a nice dose of vanilla extract, then resume high speed.

The goal is to incorporate a tremendous amount of air into the mix, and as the mixture cools the gelatin sets the air in place.  Your mixture will gradually increase in volume and the color will lighten dramatically.  Traditional marshmallows go from clear to bright snowy white, and as you can see in the progression of pictures below, the mocha java marshmallows that started out with gelatin bloomed in espresso that was a deep mahogany brown, end up a pale creamy white.

Once the mixing is done, pour/scoop the marshmallow into your prepared pan — be sure to coat all tools with cooking spray!  Spread the mixture evenly in the pan, taking care to get it into all the corners and obtain a smooth surface.  This is, I will add, a fight you will lose, as no matter how well coated your tools, the marshmallow with still stick to them somewhat.  The best you can hope for is to battle to a grudging draw.

Dust the top of the marshmallows in the pan with your cornstarch/powdered sugar/cocoa mixture, and set aside to cool and set for about 4 hours.  There is definitely a difference between these and traditional marshmallows, as you can see from the pans alone.

After the marshmallow has cooled, turn out the pan onto a cutting board and remove the parchment.  Give this surface another good dose of dusting powder.  I find the best tool for cutting up marshmallows is a well coated pizza cutter — you can work quickly and efficiently.  A standard metal ruler makes a good cutting guide, and gives me tidy 1¼” squares.  Cut in one direction, rotate your board, and cut in the other.

Have handy a deep bowl (or in my case, a clean 5 gallon bucket) with a generous amount of dusting powder in it, and pull apart your cut marshmallows and drop them in.  After a few rows, I like to give the bucket a shake to coat all the surfaces, then resume separating some more.  Once all have been divided, reach in and stir those little buggers up, separating any that may have stuck together and ensuring each one is dusted well.

Take a few handfuls of marshmallows and place them in a colander and shake it gently over your bucket to remove and reuse excess powder.

Once all of the marshmallows are out, share and enjoy them, and never look back at the store-bought aberrations.  They’ll keep just fine for about a month in a tightly sealed container… if they last that long.

Last week, I talked about the relative ease, enjoyment, and benefits of making your own sodas.  I also shared the process of making a dandelion and burdock soda (a relative stranger to these shores, but an old friend to the English), a combination of many ingredients that yields a delicious, mildly sarsaparilla flavor with citrus-y undertones.  This week, I’d like to share the process for making a much simpler concoction: ginger brew soda.  It’s lightly sweet, refreshing, with a mild ginger bite.

Ginger brew has precisely four, very simple ingredients (well, five including the yeast… but I consider the yeast a utilitarian element, much like the bottle the soda is contained in): water, sugar, ginger and lemon juice.  They’re all available form every grocery store year round.

The key to a good ginger brew is using fresh ginger, peeled, then rendered into small pieces — you can take a fine grater to it, or if you choose to work smarter, not harder, you can use a food processor.  The smaller the bits, the greater the extraction of the ginger flavor.

Once you have your ginger ready to go, dissolve your sugar in water over low heat in a large pot (6+ QT).  When the sugar has dissolved, add your ginger and bring the mixture to a boil.  After the mixture has reached a boil, put the lid on the pot, kill the heat and let it steep for one hour.

Next you need to strain out all the bits from the liquid.  Again, in order to make sure I get everything out, I have switched to the old-school trick of using a clean tea towel, as it is by far the best method I’ve found — better than a strainer alone, better than multiple layers of cheesecloth.  Once you’ve emptied the pot through the tea-towel, bring the corners together and twist while grasping the bottom with a pair of tongs (hot liquid!) and wring out all of the liquid you can.  You’ll be left with a compact crumbly ball of spent ginger that you can add to your compost, and a very concentrated base liquid.  Return your base liquid to the pot and top the pot with cool water to 4½ QT.

Divide your soda into bottles — I use plastic 32 OZ bottles saved from previous store soda purchases, but you can also use empty 2 liter bottles (which are just slightly larger than a half-gallon).  I’m using plastic bottles for a few very important reasons.  First, since we’re going to be carbonating the soda using yeast (and the naturally occurring CO2 they produce), there is no way of judging just how carbonated the soda is without being able to give the bottles a squeeze — the bottles will get firmer as more CO2 is produced.  Second, there is no way to halt the carbonation process except by placing the soda in the fridge and cooling it sufficiently to shut the yeast down… if not, the yeast will continue eating the sugar until it’s gone, producing CO2 the whole while.  Your bottles will burst long before the sugar runs out, and there is no way of telling when to put the bottles in the fridge unless you can give them a squeeze, and you can’t do that with a glass bottle.

Add a very small amount of yeast to each bottle, screw the caps on and give the bottles a shake.  Most homebrew soda recipes will call for you to use bread (or baker’s) yeast, primarily because it’s readily available in any grocery store.  I use champagne yeast purchased from the homebrew store for several reasons.  It’s inexpensive at $1 a packet (and one packet will make a lot of soda); as a brewer’s yeast it’s better suited to this task; champagne yeast contributes little to no additional flavors; you will end up with yeast sediment in the bottom of your bottles, and bread yeast produces a very fine sediment that is ridiculously easy to disturb, where champagne yeast produces a coarser sediment that stays more compact.

Leave the bottles at room temperature until they are as carbonated as you desire.  As stated before, this is judged subjectively by giving the bottles a bit of a squeeze.  The firmer the bottle, the more carbonation is contained within.  I typically aim for a firm bottle with little bit of give.  This process can take anywhere from 8 to 48 hours, depending on more factors than I care to name.  While they’re carbonating, give the bottles a gentle shake every so often to keep the yeast suspended… we leave them on the kitchen counter and shake them whenever we walk past, every hour or so.

Once carbonated, immediately move the bottles to the fridge and allow to chill for 24 hours before serving.  This will slow the yeast to a crawl — it will not stop them altogether, but it’s near enough to a full stop as you’re gong to get.  If you don’t drink your soda within a week, release a little pressure from each unopened bottle to prevent them from possibly bursting from too much pressure.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the carbonation process is a result of fermentation.  When yeast eat sugar, they produce CO2 and ethyl alcohol.  But… but! the amount of alcohol produced is in the neighborhood of 0.5% ABV or less — that’s one-half of a percent or less for those who like to have things spelled out — and falls within what the FDA classifies as “dealcoholised”.  You would have to drink a gallon or more to get the equivalent alcohol of a single average beer.  I personally do not consider this an issue.

As I’ve stated in the past, we at Curious Confections are “makers”.  We like creating many of the things we enjoy, using our own two hands, and possibly learning new things along the way.  It’s not always the quickest or simplest route, but more often than not the quality of our labors takes us by surprise, even with something as basic as a beverage.  This week I’m going to discuss how to make one of my favorites, and next week I’ll follow up with another.

I’ve been homebrewing beer for a while now, and decided to try my hand at something everyone can enjoy — soda.  Sure, the easier route to take would be to just wander to the store and buy what you want, but what if what you are looking for doesn’t exist, or isn’t widely available, or what is available doesn’t suit your tastes?  Maybe you just have a bit of a screw loose, and you want to make your own from scratch because you can (and for the record, I don’t make sodas as a way of taking a stance against the overwhelming presence of high-fructose corn syrup as a sweetener or the high percentage of ingredients that only exist in a chemistry lab rather than in nature — but trust me, these are very valid reasons to make your own).

One of the many wonderful aspects of being married to someone from a another country is the fact that I get introduced to concepts, language, and most importantly food that I wouldn’t have otherwise been exposed to.  One day Gemma started reminiscing about how she used to get dandelion and burdock soda when she was a kid, that she hadn’t had it in a very long time, and she was a little disappointed that it wasn’t something she could readily get here.  I set out on a mission to make it myself, learning some basics of making soda along the way.

Dandelion and burdock soda is, at it’s core, a “root beer”, being made from the roots of the dandelion and burdock plants.  It’s akin to a mild sarsaparilla, and delicious as well.  The hardest part is getting hold of the roots themselves.  They can be ordered online, or if you have a “New Age” style of store nearby, you can likely get them there too.  I opt for the dried root form.

The first step is to render the dried roots into a powdered form for improved infusion efficiency.  We keep a small, inexpensive coffee grinder on hand to grind spices, and it works a treat on reducing the small pieces of root to powder.  I’ve tried two sizes of food processor and a mortar and pestle, and trust me when I say that the coffee grinder is by far the best way.  The roots can also be ordered online in powdered form, if you want to save some trouble.

In addition to the roots, the recipe also calls for a bit of ginger (chopped or grated small), orange zest (a micro plane grater is definitely the way to go), star anise (pulverizing in a mortar and pestle breaks it down into moderately small bits and releases the essential oils from the seeds).  Having these prepped before starting is a good idea.

Bring your water to a boil and add the ingredients, cover, and simmer for 20 minutes.  Next you need to strain out all the bits from the liquid, and with those roots in powder form, this can be a challenge.  No strainer is going to be fine enough on its own, and cheesecloth is still not efficient enough.  The old-school trick of using a clean tea towel is by far the best method I’ve found — I’m a convert!  Once you’ve emptied the pot through the tea-towel, bring the corners together and twist while grasping the bottom with a pair of tongs (hot liquid!) and wring out all of the liquid you can.  You’ll be left with a compact crumbly ball of material that you can add to your compost, and a very concentrated base liquid.

In a large pot (6+ QT) dissolve your sugar in water over low heat.  Once dissolved, add in your base liquid and top the pot with cool water to 4½ QT.

Divide your soda into bottles — I use plastic 32 OZ bottles saved from previous store soda purchases, but you can also use empty 2 liter bottles (which are just slightly larger than a half-gallon).  I’m using plastic bottles for a few very important reasons.  First, since we’re going to be carbonating the soda using yeast (and the naturally occurring CO2 they produce), there is no way of judging just how carbonated the soda is without being able to give the bottles a squeeze — the bottles will get firmer as more CO2 is produced.  Second, there is no way to halt the carbonation process except by placing the soda in the fridge and cooling it sufficiently to shut the yeast down… if not, the yeast will continue eating the sugar until it’s gone, producing CO2 the whole while.  Your bottles will burst long before the sugar runs out, and there is no way of telling when to put the bottles in the fridge unless you can give them a squeeze, and you can’t do that with a glass bottle.

Add a very small amount of yeast to each bottle, screw the caps on and give the bottles a shake.  Most homebrew soda recipes will call for you to use bread (or baker’s) yeast, primarily because it’s readily available in any grocery store.  I use champagne yeast purchased from the homebrew store for several reasons.  It’s inexpensive at $1 a packet (and one packet will make a lot of soda); as a brewer’s yeast it’s better suited to this task; champagne yeast contributes little to no additional flavors; you will end up with yeast sediment in the bottom of your bottles, and bread yeast produces a very fine sediment that is ridiculously easy to disturb, where champagne yeast produces a coarser sediment that stays more compact.

Leave the bottles at room temperature until they are as carbonated as you desire.  As stated before, this is judged subjectively by giving the bottles a bit of a squeeze.  The firmer the bottle, the more carbonation is contained within.  I typically aim for a firm bottle with little bit of give.  This process can take anywhere from 8 to 48 hours, depending on more factors than I care to name.  While they’re carbonating, give the bottles a gentle shake every so often to keep the yeast suspended… we leave them on the kitchen counter and shake them whenever we walk past, every hour or so.

Once carbonated, immediately move the bottles to the fridge and allow to chill for 24 hours before serving.  This will slow the yeast to a crawl — it will not stop them altogether, but it’s near enough to a full stop as you’re gong to get.  If you don’t drink your soda within a week, release a little pressure from each unopened bottle to prevent them from possibly bursting from too much pressure.

In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that the carbonation process is a result of fermentation.  When yeast eat sugar, they produce CO2 and ethyl alcohol.  But… but! the amount of alcohol produced is in the neighborhood of 0.5% ABV or less — that’s one-half of a percent or less for those who like to have things spelled out — and falls within what the FDA classifies as “dealcoholised”.  You would have to drink a gallon or more to get the equivalent alcohol of a single average beer.  I personally do not consider this an issue.

In addition to a delicious soda, you get a bit of a show to go along with it.  As the yeast do their trick, they tend to float as they produce CO2, and sink back again as it is discharged.  It’s a bit like watching a lava lamp.  Check the video out below.

Jell-O shots — not just for Halloween, but typically part of our adult libations for the party every year — used to be a staple of college parties for decades, trays of little paper or plastic cups filled with candy-colored jewels of gelatin passed around the room.  To be honest, they still are a college go-to item… and it’s because they are sweet, easy and cheap to make and eat, and easy to store.  They get a bad reputation because they are typically made with el-cheapo grain alcohol in too high a ratio, making them a taste bud-searing and disgusting mouthful of funk — why do people insist that a pleasantly powerful adult “treat” must be unpalatable?

Well, the Jell-O shot has grown up.  There are more and better flavors of gelatin dessert to choose from, and the college era crowd of days-gone-by, that did — and still do! — take delight in this chilled concoction have come up with some dramatically delicious combinations of gelatin and spirits.  Two great sites to visit are HERE and HERE.

For our part, we’ve found a way to do away with sweeping up dozens of the little cups the morning after by simply doing away with them.  Many years back Jell-O developed a recipe for “jigglers”, basically a reduced water recipe that makes a stiff variant of their original dessert that can be cut into fun shapes and eaten by hand rather than with a spoon.  We take it a step further and use molds to make the jigglers into fun and event-appropriate shapes.

We are… well, to put it politely, we are obsessed with collecting silicone and other flexible molds of various shapes and sizes.  They are great for molding chocolates and other sweet substances, and they are perfect for making bite-size jigglers for parties.  We also have an unjustifiable number of skull-shaped molds — what can I say… we’re Halloween people.  *grins*

The first step is to gather up the molds you’re going to use, as well as getting together the Jell-O flavors and alcohol you desire.  We kept it simple this year and paired two tropical flavors with white rum (lime and “tropical fusion”) and two with vodka (grape and cranberry).  Not a bottle of grain alcohol in sight.

The jiggler recipe typically calls for 2½ C of water to 12 OZ of powdered gelatin (adjust your quantities as desired), and a good rule of thumb is to replace half the water with spirits.  You’ll get a nice balance of flavor with potency.

Boil the water and measure it out (1¼ C in this example).  Whisk in your powdered gelatin slowly to avoid clumps.  Continue whisking for a minute after all the powder has been added.  Add your spirits (1¼ C), and combine thoroughly.

Prepare your molds by spraying them lightly with non-stick cooking spray — this will ensure that you have an easy time demolding your jigglers later.  I suggest you place your molds onto a cookie sheet, or half-sheet pan for easy transport later.  Carefully fill your molds, giving the mixture an occasional whisk to keep any settled gelatin suspended in the liquid.  Refrigerate a minimum of 4 hours, overnight would be better.

Carefully demold your jigglers and keep refrigerated until you are ready to serve.  Enjoy!

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Jiggler Shots
12 OZ powdered gelatin dessert (flavor of your choice)
1¼ C boiling water
1¼ C spirits of your choice

If using molds, prepare them by spraying lightly with non-stick cooking spray.  If cutting shapes by hand, prepare a half-sheet baking pan or other wide shallow dish by spraying lightly with non-stick cooking spray.

Boil the water and measure it out to 1¼ C.  Whisk in your powdered gelatin slowly to avoid clumps.  Continue whisking for a minute after all the powder has been added.  Add your spirits and combine thoroughly.

If using molds, place them onto a cookie sheet, or half-sheet pan for easy transport later.  Carefully fill your molds, giving the mixture an occasional whisk to keep any settled gelatin suspended in the liquid.  If cutting shapes by hand, pour the gelatin into you prepared pan or dishes to the thickness you desire.  Refrigerate a minimum of 4 hours, overnight would be better.

Carefully demold your jigglers (or cut into shapes by hand or with cookie cutters) and keep refrigerated until you are ready to serve.

With a title like that you’d think I was shouting at people in traffic, but no, I’m just continuing with showing off some of our Halloween creations… a little after the fact.  *grins*

First up is a deliciously disturbing creation called a MeatHead, where sliced meats of your choice can be presented in a suitably disgusting fashion for build-your-own sandwiches.  Simply put, a styrofoam skull is first covered with a gelatinous layer of tomato aspic, then covered in strips of your selected sandwich meat.

This dish requires a little bit of forward thinking if you opt for the layer of tomato aspic — it’s optional, but it does bulk out the skull a little bit, and provides a fun bonus layer for your party guests to discover… and eat of they’re brave enough (recipe listed at the bottom of this post).  Sadly I have no pictures of the aspic-in-progress, but suffice to say that it requires unflavored gelatin and a tomato-based juice like V-8.  Once combined, the aspic is poured into a half-sheet pan to a thickness of approximately ¼” and allowed a minimum of 4 hours in the fridge to set up.

The aspic is sliced into appropriate shapes and “pinned” to the styrofoam skull with toothpicks.  Next, the sliced meat is layered and pinned to the skull with toothpicks as well — we made two skulls, ham and turkey, and I used between 1 and 1½ LB of sandwich meat per head.  Be creative and strive for full coverage.

Once you’ve finished covering the skull with meat, take two hard-boiled egg yolks and place them into the sockets for eyes.  I really grooved the jaundiced yellow “blind” look that this provides, and it’s the crowning touch.

Wrap the skulls tightly with cling-wrap until you’re ready to serve.  Plate according to your desired presentation.

WARNING: You may have to continually remind your guests to actually eat the MeatHeads.  It was our experience that few people wanted to dismantle the beautifully constructed monstrosities.

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Another delicious, but equally disturbing dish we prepared was the ShrimpBrain.  Essentially, it’s a shrimp dip cast into a brain-shaped mold.  Living in the Gulf South, a shrimp dip (or as it is commonly known: a “shrimp mold”… such an appetizing name, I know), was a staple at darn near every holiday or party, and everyone has their own recipe for it (our recipe listed at the bottom of this post).

First bloom the gelatin in cold water.  Chop your vegetables and shrimp very fine (minced in a food processor is the perfect way to go).  Gently heat the water/gelatin mixture while stirring until the gelatin has dissolved (staying below 130°F).  Bring the cream of shrimp soup to a boil then kill the heat.  Whisk in the cream cheese until smooth, then add all of the remaining ingredients, with the exception of the gelatin, and continue whisking until well combined.  Add the gelatin and whisk to combine thoroughly.

Spray your mold with non-stick cooking spray, then pour in your shrimp dip.  Cover with cling-wrap, then place in the fridge and allow to set for a minimum of 4 hours, overnight preferred.  De-mold directly onto your final plating surface, and decorate accordingly.  Enjoy with crackers.

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Tomato Aspic (à la MeatHead)
6 PKG KNOX Unflavored Gelatin
3 C Spicy V-8 vegetable juice, cold
2 C Spicy V-8 vegetable juice, cold in small pot
2 OZ  lemon juice

Sprinkle the gelatin over the V-8 vegetable juice in the pot and allow to “bloom” for 5 minutes.  Gently heat the juice while stirring until the gelatin has dissolved (staying below 130°F).  Add the remaining vegetable juice and lemon juice and combine well.  Spray a half-sheet pan (or other wide, shallow dishes) with cooking spray, then pour in the mixture to a thickness no more than ¼”.  Place in the fridge and allow to set for a minimum of 4 hours, overnight preferred.  Use a sharp knife to cut into the desired shapes.

Shrimp Dip
1 C cream of shrimp soup
6 OZ cream cheese (softened)
½ OZ unflavored gelatin
½ C cold water
¾ C mayonnaise
2 TBS ketchup
1 TBS Tabasco hot sauce
1 TBS Worcestershire sauce
1 C cooked shrimp (chopped fine)
¾ C celery (chopped fine)
½ C green onion (chopped fine)

In a small pot bloom the gelatin in the cold water for five minutes then gently heat the water/gelatin mixture while stirring until the gelatin has dissolved (staying below 130°F).  In another pot bring the cream of shrimp soup to a boil then remove from the fire.  Beat in the cream cheese.  Add the remaining ingredients except the gelatin to the cream cheese/soup mixture, blending well. Add the gelatin and mix thoroughly.

Either spray then wipe your mold with a non-stick cooking spray, or apply a light even coat of mayonnaise as a release agent.  Pour in your mixture and allow to chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours.

If you would like a smoother consistency you can process the chopped ingredients prior to adding to the mixture.

For the last time I’m back to continue the month-long series on homebrewing in honor of National Homebrew Day which was May 7th.  In previous posts we performed the actual brewing, and then after allowing the beer to complete its primary fermentation we transferred to to a secondary fermentation vessel to clean up after itself and begin the conditioning process.  We then bottled the beer and allowed it to finish conditioning for a suitable amount of time.

Now we can enjoy the product of all this work at last, and just in time for Memorial Day — a perfect pre-summer holiday to ignite the grill, visit with friends and family, and sit back and relax with a cold, delicious beer.

Certainly nobody needs to be instructed on how to drink a beer… that sort of process comes naturally.  But, since this particular brew was made at home rather than at a brewery, there are certain things to keep in mind regarding storage and serving.  Homebrew is a living product, and with that comes an extra step or two toward its enjoyment.

First, as instructed during bottling, store your beer in a dark, cool place — not the fridge, but not the garage — in a convenient closet, pantry or cabinet perhaps.  Even now that the beer is ready to consume, if allowed to remain at room temperatures, it will continue to condition and refine it’s character, so only chill what you intend to consume.

While the brew has been allowed to finish conditioning in the undisturbed bottles, the yeast have consumed the small amount of sugar we added at the end and produced enough CO2 to carbonate the beer.  They then expired, and along with many trace proteins that remained in suspension, have settled out to form a thin trub on the bottom of the bottles.  Refrigerating the beer for a minimum of 48 hours before serving will force more proteins to settle, and compact the trub into a denser mass, making it more difficult to disturb when pouring from the bottle.  This is not to say that it is impossible to disturb that trub, and in fact care should be taken when pouring to minimize how much you do.

Whenever possible, pour your brew into a glass to drink it.  First, by drinking from a glass rather than the bottle, you are engaging your sense of smell to contribute to the experience, and as any wine connoisseur will tell you being able to inhale the aroma of what you’re drinking will deliver a more rounded experience, expose more character and produce a slightly better taste.  Second, when you drink directly from the bottle, every time you tip it up and back to take a sip you swish the liquid back over the trub, disturbing it and mixing it back into the brew again.  This isn’t harmful in any way, but will contribute a yeasty taste to the beer.  There are some folks who rather enjoy the flavor of the yeast, but more often than not, that yeasty character is what has turned people off to homebrew in the past.

When pouring the beer into your glass, do so in one slow, smooth motion.  Avoid tipping the bottle back during the pour to prevent kicking up the yeast any more than is necessary.  Some yeast will inevitably be stirred up, but if you leave a little beer behind you should also leave that yeast behind as well — with practice you can get all but the last ¼” of beer out.  If you rinse your bottle out with a few vigorous shakes of clean water, you’ll have an easier time of cleaning and reusing it for the next batch.

Once your beer is poured… drink it!  Share with your friends and family while trying not to babble on and on about how it was made (a near-impossible task indeed for any homebrewer, as we’re all very excited and exceptionally proud of what we’ve made).  You can take this opportunity to try to recruit brewing partners from those who seem interested… interest in this case is displayed by not making excuses and escaping at a run.  *grins*

Cheers!

Once more I’m back to continue the month-long series on homebrewing in honor of National Homebrew Day which was May 7th.  In previous posts we performed the actual brewing, and then after allowing the beer to complete its primary fermentation we transferred to to a secondary fermentation vessel to clean up after itself and begin the conditioning process.

Now that those two processes are complete, we’re ready to divvy the beer up into individual bottles for future enjoyment.

We get started after the jump below…

Bottling isn’t the only method to condition and store the beer for serving.  Kegging is a great option, and kegs are available in a variety of sizes from 3 gallons on up.  With kegging you have the option to allow the beer to carbonate naturally, or you can “force carb” it with the same CO2 you’d serve with.  You’ll still want the beer to continue to condition further for several weeks as the same flavor changes must still take place no matter how it is stored prior to serving.  Unfortunately kegging requires additional equipment and expense, sometimes considerable.  As bottling is an easily accessible option for every brewer, I’ve chosen to demonstrate that process.

Now that we’ve given the beer two weeks to clear up a bit and allow the yeast to clean up behind themselves, we’re can transfer the beer into bottles to finish the conditioning process, carbonate, and let the flavors meld into a harmonious melody — all this is part of “bottle conditioning” the beer.  At this point the beer is still considered “green” and while likely tasting, well, like beer, there is still some aging left to do to mellow out.  There may be some residual harshness from the hops and the flavors produced by the grains and the yeast will definitely benefit from the extra time.  Just like some dishes may be tasty the evening you prepare it, it can be so much better the next day after it’s had time to let the ingredients mingle — a good gumbo is a prime example.

The time this takes depends on the type of beer, but prevailing practice is to wait a minimum of 3 weeks before serving.  One rule of thumb is the darker and maltier the beer, or the higher the alcohol, the longer to leave it to bottle condition.  A deep, rich stout should go 4 or 5 weeks before serving (and your patience will be rewarded), but a pale ale might be just right at the 3 week mark.

Before we get started, there is one very important thing to consider: the bottles.  Beer, when exposed to light — especially sunlight or fluorescent light — will develop a skunky character.  This is the result of a photo-chemical reaction with hop and sulfur compounds.  Brown bottles are best suited for storage, where clear and green bottles are completely ineffective at blocking much, if any, light.  Unless you are fanatical about storing your beer in absolute darkness, brown bottles will serve you best.  Beer bottles come in a variety of sizes, with 12 OZ being fairly standard, but if you’re particular selective, you can use 16 OZ (pint) bottles, or even 22 OZ.

As before, thorough cleaning and fastidious sanitization of everything that touches the beer is absolutely necessary to avoid contamination or bacterial growth.  I know, I’ve stated it at every part of this process, and I cannot reiterate enough just how important this is.

Start by moving your secondary fermenter to an elevated location anywhere from several hours, to a day, before you’re ready to bottle.  This will allow any of the sediment in the trub that stirs up from the move to settle back down again.  Be sure to cover or wrap the carboy to prevent light exposure until you’re ready.

Regardless of active fermentation being complete, and the 2 week rest in the secondary fermenter, there are still some residual yeast doing laps in the beer.  We’re going to press then into service one last time before they give up the ghost: we’re going to put them to work carbonating our beer.  By adding a small amount sugar (aka “priming sugar”) to the beer before bottling, we’re feeding those yeast and causing them to generate CO2 (and a small amount of alcohol, but the amount is minuscule and will not affect our overall ABV).  Adding an airtight cap to the bottle will trap that CO2, and once the pressure is great enough, the CO2 will have nowhere to escape to and it will dissolve back into the solution, carbonating the beer.

The amount of sugar used will vary based on on the level of carbonation you desire, how much residual CO2 remains in the beer from fermentation, and what volume of beer you have to bottle.  There are some great online tools to help determine how much sugar is needed, and generally what level of CO2 is standard for different styles of beer.

We’ll be using powdered dextrose as it ferments 100% leaving no residual sweetness or flavor behind, but any fermentable sugar will do — cane sugar, honey, etc — you just have to adjust the amount accordingly, and know that some may leave behind a trace flavor.  This can be desirable depending on what you are after.

We’re going to dissolve our sugar in boiling water.  Boiling the water sanitizes both the water itself and the sugar once it has been added, and also facilitates dissolution.  Dissolving the sugar will allow it to mix rapidly with the beer without excess agitation.  Agitation introduces oxygen, and that’s a bad thing at this stage.

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil, measure out out your sugar and add it to the water and boil for 2 minutes more.  Kill the heat and allow the mixture to cool below 100°F.  You can either employ an ice bath for this, or just do this first, prior to beginning the other bottling steps.

Gather up your clean bottles for sanitizing.  There are a number of great tools to assist with sanitizing bottles, and they are worth the few extra dollars to have.  Bottling seems to be the biggest thorn in any homebrewer’s paw, and any tool, shortcut, or process change that can help make it a more enjoyable process is worth consideration.

A bottle tree is one of the handiest of these tools.  It stores bottles upside down, allowing them to drain and preventing dust, wild yeast, and insects from drifting into the open neck on the bottles, contaminating them.  It’s a compact tower of rings, each ring having a number of posts that fit easily into the neck of the bottles.  At the bottom is a base that collects the drained out liquid.  The bottle tree is handy not just for sanitizing, but for drying bottles as you clean them between bottling days.

The second handiest tool is the Vinator.  Filled with sanitizing solution, it will squirt a strong stream into an inverted bottle with a downward push or two.  It’s a dream to use, compared with pouring sanitizer into a bottle, shaking it around, and pouring it out.  You can also toss your bottle caps into the Vinator to sanitize while you do the bottles themselves.  My particular bottle tree was designed to have the Vinator attached to its top, making a single compact unit.

The process is simple: take a bottle, give it a pump or two on the Vinator, and hang in on the tree to drain.  A 5 gallon batch of beer will use between 52 and 54 bottles, and my tree can accommodate all 54.  Once all the bottles are sanitized, move them to the side and prepare for the next step.

To dispense the beer to the bottles, I employ a bottling bucket, which is simply a plastic fermenting bucket fixed with a spigot at the bottom.  Pour your now-cooled priming sugar solution into the bucket and siphon the beer from the secondary fermenter into the bucket, just as you did when racking from primary to secondary.  The goals here are to move the beer into a vessel that is better suited to bottle from, and to get it off the last of the trub in the carboy.  Also as before, be sure to rack the beer “quietly” to avoid splashing and aeration.  Once the siphoning is complete, give the beer a gentle stir to make sure the priming sugar is well incorporated.

Move your bucket to a high surface — we’re going to be using gravity to our advantage to fill the bottles.  Typically I’ll place the bottling bucket atop another bucket (or my inverted brew pot) on the counter.

To fill the bottles in a controlled and “quiet” manner, I use a bottling wand, which is a thin acrylic tube with a spring-loaded nozzle on the end.  When the nozzle is inserted into a bottle and pushed against its bottom, liquid is allowed to flow.  Once you stop pushing, the flow is cut off.  Simple.  I attach the wand to the bucket’s spigot with a short length of tubing so I can keep my hands free.

Fill the bottle to the very top, and when the bottling wand is removed it will leave approximately 1″ of headspace in the bottle.  Place a bottle cap on top and set to the side.  If you have an assistant, they can crimp the cap down while you carry on, otherwise continue to fill a number of bottles before taking a break to seal them.

I use a bench-top capper to seal the bottles, but there are hand-held models available.  One advantage of the bench-top model is that is will cap any style of pop-top beer bottle, where the hand-held type can be stymied by the height of the collar at the top of a beer bottle, and that can restrict the types of bottle you use.

Simply adjust the capper to the height of the bottle and pull down the handle in one smooth motion.  You should end with a neatly crimped, and leak-proof cap on your bottle.  Carry on until you’ve capped all of the beer.

Once you have dispensed all the beer into bottles, store them in a dark, cool (not cold, as in refrigerated… just not in a 100°F garage — aim for 65°F – 75°F).  Practice your best zen-like patience while you wait the several weeks for the beer to finish carbonating and aging.  If you must, you can take a bottle at the 2 week mark, chill it for 48 hours, and test its progress.  In fact, if you’ve tasted the beer at every stage, including bottling time, it’s a great way to see just how the flavor is evolving.

What about the storage life of all this freshly bottled beer?  If your sanitary and bottling practices are sound, and you keep the bottles stored in a cool dark place, homebrewed beer should stay fresh and drinkable for up to a year… maybe more.  Of course some types of beer will benefit from being consumed young as some of the flavors dissipate rapidly (hops are the most notorious for this), and some will definitely age very gracefully (stouts, porters, etc), and some are specifically required to age a very long time before consumption — barleywines should age anywhere from 9 – 12 months for optimal conditioning before enjoying.

Next week we’ll conclude with the best part: properly enjoying the end product of all this hard work.

And I’m back, continuing the month-long series on homebrewing in honor of National Homebrew Day which was May 7th.  This is also American Craft Beer Week, so get out there and support the small and independent craft brewers that are bringing tradition, quality and passion back to an industry that got hijacked by gargantuan-batch manufacturers that cater more to frat-boys than to beer lovers.  A lot of the craft brewers got their start brewing 5 gallons at a time at home for their own enjoyment — you just never know where your dreams and interests will take you.

Last week we did all the hard work of brewing the actual beer, and we waited patiently while it fermented.  Patience is a virtue, and you’ll need plenty of it if you’re homebrewing.

We continue after the jump below…

As I stated before, secondary fermentation is a misnomer, and is more accurately a “conditioning” process.  Now that the yeasties have made pigs of themselves, gorging on all the lovely sugars, they’re ready to clean up behind themselves… as is only right for a dinner guest.  To quote John Palmer from his book How To Brew:

The conditioning process is a function of the yeast. The vigorous, primary stage is over, the majority of the wort sugars have been converted to alcohol, and a lot of the yeast are going dormant; but there is still yeast activity. During the earlier phases, many different compounds were produced by the yeast in addition to ethanol and CO2, e.g., acetaldehyde, esters, amino acids, ketones- diacetyl, pentanedione, dimethyl sulfide, etc. Once the easy food is gone, the yeast start re-processing these by-products. Diacetyl and pentanedione are two ketones that have buttery and honey-like flavors. These compounds are considered flaws when present in large amounts and can cause flavor stability problems during storage. Acetaldehyde is an aldehyde that has a pronounced green apple smell and taste. It is an intermediate compound in the production of ethanol. The yeast reduce these compounds during the later stages of fermentation.

The yeast also produce an array of fusel alcohols during primary fermentation in addition to ethanol. Fusels are higher molecular weight alcohols that often give harsh solvent-like tastes to beer. During secondary fermentation, the yeast convert these alcohols to more pleasant tasting fruity esters. Warmer temperatures encourage ester production.

Secondary fermentation can be done by either leaving the beer in the original fermenter, or by “racking” it off into a clean fermenter thus removing it from the “trub” that forms in the bottom of the primary.  The trub is composed of dead and settled yeast, settled proteins, grain and hop residue, and can range from ½” thick, to many inches.  There is a division in the homebrew community about the necessity to rack to a second vessel.  Some say that leaving the beer on the trub can cause an increase in off flavors, and that racking will prevent this.  Others say that the amount of time required for off flavors to occur far outdistances the time a brewer would leave a beer on the trub to complete secondary fermentation, and that racking introduces an unnecessary infection or oxygenation risk.  It’s up to the individual brewer to determine what is best for them.  Myself, I prefer to rack to a secondary vessel.

Leaving a beer in a fermenter to complete this second phase this is known as “bulk conditioning”, and is more efficient for the yeast than if the beer is put directly into bottles.  Additionally, since there is considerably less activity from the yeast, there is less turbulence in the beer, and this allows protein solids, and dead and dormant yeast to “flocculate”, or clump together and settle out of suspension.  This causes to beer to clear up considerably and will contribute to the overall taste and stability of the beer.

As before, thorough cleaning and fastidious sanitization of everything that touches the beer is absolutely necessary to avoid contamination or bacterial growth.  This is a long journey, and you don’t want to derail it by cutting corners.

Where, when we originally brewed the beer, we used a fermenter of a larger capacity than our brew to allow sufficient headspace, we want to avoid that extra headspace from here on out — in what seems like a contradiction, we’re avoiding the introduction of oxygen to the beer.  At the start, the yeast required that extra oxygen to reproduce, and it is consumed completely in those early stages.  Going forward, sufficient exposure to oxygen can cause staling in your beer, affecting its flavor and longevity.  Most commonly a 5 GAL carboy is used to secondary in, but a 5 GAL food grade plastic bucket is also sufficient.

Start by moving your primary fermenter to an elevated location anywhere from several hours, to a day, before you’re ready to make the transfer.  This will allow any of the sediment in the trub that stirs up from the move to settle back down again.  Be sure to cover or wrap the carboy to prevent light exposure until you’re ready.

There are several tools available to siphon the beer from one vessel to the other, but there are two very common ones to mention.  The first — and least expensive — is a racking cane, which is a rigid plastic or metal tube that typically has a 90° bend on one end, and a plastic cap on the other that helps reduce the transfer of material from the trub.   Flexible vinyl line is attached to the end with the bend, a siphon is started, and the other end of the tube is inserted into your empty fermenter.  It is worth noting here that you should not use your mouth to start the siphon as that will introduce contaminates.  The other tool is an auto-siphon, which is composed of a racking cane that fits inside of a larger tube, and uses a rubber seal between the two to create suction when they are slid apart, then back together — this is, in my opinion, worth the difference in price for the convenience and ease of use it provides.

Place your empty and sanitized fermenter on a surface lower than the primary.  If using a no-rinse sanitizer such as StarSan, you will be left, as before, with a white sudsy foam in your carboy after draining.  This foam is nothing to worry about, and in fact is beneficial to the yeasts during the fermentation stage… there is a phrase in the homebrew community: “don’t fear the foam”.  Insert the racking cane into the primary and hold it with the bottom tip approximately 3″ below the surface of the beer.  If you’re using an auto-siphon, simply put the other end in the empty fermenter, positioned so that when the liquid flows, it flows out smoothly without splashing, then start the siphon with a long, smooth stroke.  If using a standard racking cane, start your siphon as you prefer, then insert the tube into the empty fermenter, positioning it so that you minimize splashing as well.

The minimizing of splashing, in any context, is also known as doing so “quietly”, as in racking quietly, pouring quietly, etc.  This reduces the amount of oxygen that will be introduced into the liquid.

As the beer flows out of the primary, lower the tip of your racking cane to keep it below the surface.  As the surface approaches the bottom of the fermenter, you will need to be vigilant about keeping from drawing up too much of the trub from the bottom — remember, we’re doing this to remove the beer from as much of this material as possible — but it is impossible to avoid getting any of it without leaving a large proportion of beer behind, and we don’t want that.  *grins* A little bit won’t hurt.

When you reach the very bottom of the fermenter, you can gently tip it to concentrate the remaining liquid to one side, enabling you to siphon out as much as possible.  Once done, you should be left with the trub, and a little bit of beer.  The trub can be swirled around and added to a compost heap, or even poured directly into a garden as the dead yeast and proteins are a rich fertilizer.

Once you’re done, you should be left with just a few inches of headspace in the new fermenter.  Seal the fermenter and install a fresh, clean and sanitized airlock.  Return the fermenter to a dark, climate controlled space — and unless your environment is going to get above 75°F, you shouldn’t need the ice-chest water bath to keep it cool… the worst of the temperature sensitivity is past.  You may see some bubbling through the airlock for the first day or so, but it’s nothing to be alarmed about.  That’s just a bit of the CO2 that is dissolved in solution from fermentation being released by the agitation of racking.

Over the next two weeks, the yeast will do their job of cleaning up after themselves.  As they die or go dormant they will flocculate and settle to the bottom of the fermenter, as will more of the suspended proteins.  The beer will get clearer, and a small trub layer will form.  At the end of two weeks, we can bottle the beer, and prepare for the impossible wait before we can properly enjoy it.  *grins*

Shown below are three homebrews in secondary.  On the left is an “traditional”  orange-blossom mead (which will be racked from carboy to carboy over the course of several months as it clarifies), the center is an American pale ale (not looking very pale stored in bulk as it is), and the right is an oatmeal stout that is so dark that is borders on being black.

Next week we’ll tackle the next phase: bottling day.

Until then, I present you with a few links to small Austin (and neighboring) breweries and brew pubs of note.

• St. Arnold Brewing Company
  
• Live Oak Brewing Company
  
• Real Ale Brewing Company
• (512) Brewing Company
• Independence Brewing Company
• North by Northwest  Restaurant and Brewery
• The Draught House Pub & Brewery
• Uncle Billy’s Brew & Que