Been a long time...

This may not look like much now, but it will become bacon.  More specifically, The Meatfest Bacon (TM).  I use a brine cure, because the saltiness is easier to control.  This time I relented and added some brown sugar:

1 gallon of water

1 cup of Mexican sea salt

1/4 cup of brown sugar

6 lbs of pork belly

It just barely fits in the tub, so I'm going to turn it over ever other day or so to make an even cure.  I also leave the skin on, because it seems like too much work to get off.  I know, L2 knife skills.  Whatver.  You'd eat it.

Spiced Cider

Big beautiful bottles of delicious spiced cider.  Its sharp and clean, the spice is in there, but not like it is in the Winter Spice Ale that I put the exact same spices in.  The ale is sweet and gingerbready, this cider is more like a white wine with really spicy notes.  It's different and very good.

Peppery Goodness

Whether Peter Piper picked them, we'll never know.  It seems unlikely, since some of them came from an asian grocery and some from a Mexican grocery, but maybe...

Salted, weighted, and waiting.

Holiday Spices

So I put this New Year's Ale together back in September (now I'm calling it Winter Spice Ale) and it's time to add the spices.  I have a cider in an extended fermentation (I *always* have a cider in extended fermentation, because you never know) so I decided to do a little experiment and get two beers into the holiday spirit.  Both batches got the above spice blend: cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, whole cloves, and some nutmeg.  I think that's the "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" of Xmas.  I wasn't sure how much to add, so I looked in the joy of cooking under spiced apple pie and put in enough spices for a whole pie.  A good spiced beer is like a slice of pie, right?

If you want to taste them side by side, hit up ilbmke.com for the December 2014 tasting, they'll be there.

Hot Sauce Fever

Sometimes foods have indescribable tastes.  

That can be either a good taste or a bad taste, but there is a sensory X-factor that you can't put your finger on.  Good Barbecue has it.  Sometimes barbecue is just warm meat with sauce on it.  Sometimes its something else.  Something more.  Something that keeps you coming back and signals that everything important was done right.  

Every decision to add (or not add) an ingredient was made with the final product in mind.  Every opportunity to act or wait was taken or skipped based on the clock of the thing being made.

This hot sauce has that thing.  As soon as I whipped it up and tasted it, I thought, "Oh no, I'm almost out of hot sauce!" because I knew it was going on e'erythan'.

Thanks to Lou from 10ap.com who taught the Fermented Hot Sauce Class at Fermentation Fest, and let me take this pint of peppery perfection.  There's more coming.

Kimchi Out, Kraut In

This latest batch of kimchi was ready to go into jars.  The flavor is good, all the characteristic ginger, garlic, scallion, chili, etc tastes are there for kimchi, but it's a little weak, because I stretched the spice paste over too much cabbage, and it's a little salty, probably from the brine step.  Totally edible, don't get me wrong, and I think it will only get better.  There was a bunch of extra brine, which was delicious, and struck me as being very "meaty."  The whole process is getting smoother.

And this carboy-kraut was more than ready to hit the crock.  I fermented it in a carboy with an airlock, so while it was totally protected from all sources of oxygen, and did not grow any mold or fancy-colored bacteria for two weeks, it was not entirely submerged in brine.  Opening up the carboy for the first time there was a vaguely "off" smell, mostly carbon dioxide, which took me aback, and some sulfur-y smells, maybe a little like horseradish?  It was very soft, but not very sour, so I packed it into a crock.  There was also lots of extra brine in this one too, and it was strangely sweet.  I'm hoping it sours up nicely now that it's submerged and exposed to a *bit* of air.  I kinda like soft, pungent kraut.

Crocks of S#!*

Sauerkraut production is in full swing.  I went to the Fondy Food Center and picked up a ton of cabbage to start a new batch of kraut and a batch of kimchi.  The kraut above is an experiement in lacto-fermentation with an airlock.  That's a widemouthed carboy, and the contents are just salted cabbage.  I chopped it with a knife, which is pretty fast and doesn't require much cleanup, but the result is pretty coarse, especially once you get to the fifth cabbage.  You will notice that it is not weighted, which is a big no-no in the brining world, but it's been nearly a week with no sign of mold or discoloration.  More on that in another post.

To make room for the kimchi in my new stoneware crock, I first had to package the last batch of sauerkraut, which has turned that delicious pale yellow-green color and is pleasantly sour.  It is flavored with dill seed and some lemon juice was added, so it tastes pickle-y and fresh.  I'm looking forward to seeing how it continues to age and change in the fridge.

Then I chopped up 3 big Napa cabbages and a big bundle of scallions.  They spent 24 hours in a water brine, and then got drained and packed in with chili-ginger paste.  Bubbles have commenced.