Vegetarian Vietnamese Cold Rolls.

Yes, you're right. It's not yeasty, it's just tasty goodness.

Fear not - I have not become of that strange fraternity - "The Vegtarians". I was just looking for a fast and tasty alternative while making dinner the other evening.

Alternative to what? Vegetables. I'm becoming a little bored with certain kinds of vegie dishes and wanted to mix it up.

In short, it's tasty, fast and fun.

If you're into serving food that is delicate and complete, you can assemble these prior to serving. Something that's more fun is for everyone to assemble their own at the table.

Sorry, no pics this time. My hands were wet and busy mostly as I was making the evening meal.

Here's the recipe to make only 8 pieces. You can scale it up quite easily as eight is really only enough for two people as part of a meal.

The roll and filling:

• 1 small carrot (15 x 2 m), peeled and julienned
• Bean shoots
• 1 medium Chinese Shallot
• 15 g finely chopped mint (Vietnamese mint is preferable, but spearmint or common mint can suffice)
• 30 g finely chopped coriander leaves (it's OK to leave the stems in if you like)
• 1 Lebanese cucumber, peeled, seeds removed, thinly sliced then chopped in thirds
• Vietnamese fish sauce to taste
• Packet of rice paper sheets.

The dipping sauce:

• 15 ml squid sauce (like fish sauce, but much milder)
• 5 ml line juice
• 10 ml Thai sweet chilli sauce.

Toss all ingredients together for the roll (except the rice paper you ninny!) and allow to sit for about thirty minutes in the fridge. This will help draw off some of the excess moisture.

While that is happening, make the dipping sauce. The recipe above is not hard and fast. You can adjust any or all of the ingredients to suit your own taste. I tend to increase the lime juice by 50% and add a freshly chopped peri-peri / bird eye chilli as I like a bit more bite

To assemble, pour some cool water into a wide shallow dish so that you can easily wet the whole paper in one go. Slide a paper in, wiggle it for a couple of seconds, remove and shake off the excess moisture. It will feel slightly firm as you being to fill and roll it, but trust me - it will be soft and limp and tasty in no time flat. Do it one at a time and assemble each one, one at a time. You can't pre-wet all the wraps or you will end up with a gooey mess. 

Add a spoonful of the mixture to the wet rice paper about one third in from the edge. Roll.

Dip.

Eat.

Repeat.

Enjoy.


And remember, "vegetarian" is Australian for "shitty hunter".


Cheers!!

Flour quality.

So many baking articles talk about the need for strong flour or special bread making flour. They cry out that you can't make bread without these special flours. Lies. Damned lies.

While it is more difficult and it does take a little more effort to get a decent loaf out if you're inexperienced, it can be done. In fact I can assure you that all the loaves shown in this blog to date do not use strong flour, special flour or anything more than yeast, salt, water, oil and occasionally extra grain left over from brewing or decorative grains that I use in other cooking anyway. The results have been pleasant, flavoursome and very inexpensive.

Think of it this way - 'Defiance' brand flour is up to $3.80 per kilo for plain flour. It's nothing special. It's just flour. Various brands of bread flour are north of $5 per kilo. If you're spending that much on flour then you're not saving any money by making bread at home.

What do I use? Generic plain flour. $0.96 per kilo.


Here's a quick price comparison for a loaf of bread including all ingredients and electricity:

Supermarket plain white loaf	$3.00 (can be as low as $2 or as high as $4)
Premium brand plain flour	$2.20
Bread flour mix	$2.80
Generic plain flour	$1.30

I think we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen!


While baking bread with plain old cheap flour can be done and has been done successfully, by making a small change you can improve the result dramatically.

Plain flour sold in the supermarket is very weak and low in gluten. It has been made as a 'one size fits all' product. After all, it's not just for making bread - it's for making cakes, biscuits, pastries, thickening, etc, etc. It needs to be softer. As a result, rather than getting a good rise, the dough can tend to spread more like cake batter than a firm dough.

Those special flours don't have that problem. They are higher in gluten which assists in giving the dough more structure and therefore more resistance to spreading. This is especially important for free-form loaves. In other words, if it's being baked on a stone or a sheet and doesn't have side-walls holding it up then gluten is the main key to a better result.

I don't like spending money needlessly and I'm sure you like to keep your hard-earned a while longer too. I can only see these flours as an expense which influences how I think about baking. My first priority is quality and less adulterated ingredients. This is achieved. The second priority is cost.

Here's the cheat you need to save money and still have 'strong flour': gluten. Go to the health food shop and buy gluten flour. If you add only 30 grams per loaf (i.e. 60 g per kilo) then you've improved the flour from a basic soft flour to something far closer to a flour made from hard wheat - the wheat which makes high gluten flours which are more prized for bread making. About $6 for 500 grams - enough for 16 loaves.

Experiment. Have fun and enjoy the smell of fresh bread baking in your home.

Cheers!!

Perfecting your extract brewing technique

Brewing your own beer, hand made beer, is one of the most rewarding and inexpensive creative hobbies you would ever hope to find and could ever hope to enjoy.

Using basic techniques derived from brewing K&K and K&B there's a big chance that you're going to develop a non-optimal work flow and tire yourself of the hobby. The reason for this is that between the hop boil, the steep and the malt boil it's quite possible to over-work yourself. I was guilty of it, but by taking a moment longer to think the process through it's possible to reduce your workload, reduce the total boil volume and therefore shorten the time to cool the concentrated wort to pitching temperature.

Here's a concise technique that will save you time and money:


The Hop Boil
Obviously, as an extract brewer (or a partial dude or an AG'er), hops are a critical part of the process. However, this is where time and effort can be trimmed and enhance your result.

First off, extracting the hops - the prime purpose of the hop boil - works better is they are boiled in a mini-wort of around SG=1040. The easiest way to achieve that is to put 100 grams per litre of liquid malt (or 80 gm per litre of dry malt) onto the boil and then commence your hopping schedule. Higher SG meads to less efficient extraction, lower is better but 1040 is a happy number that is proven to work. Adjust it to suit your preference through experience.

If you do this with say two litres of water (you could even use one litre if you're a watchful chap as the evaporation can be a bit severe at smaller volumes) and 200 gm of liquid malt, then it's a far smaller thermal mass to deal with and you have the chance to strain out the hops when you pour off the completed boil to your main boiling pot (the big one!).

It can take quite a while to get your malt to the boil. After all, 3.5 kg of liquid malt is quite a big job for small gas burner or an electric stove. So while your hop boil is in progress, weigh out your malt and start the heat under it gently. Strain off the hop boil result into the malt and increase to full heat to get it up to the boil.

Which brings us to...


The Steep
This is just the stage where you steep any specialty grains (Carapils, etc) and then sparge (rinse) those into your big pot.

Usually, this is about twenty to thirty minutes at around 70C. If you bring your water up to say 72C, add the grain, put the lid back on the pot and turn the flame off then you're on a winner.

Just like the hop boil, strain out the liquid into the big pot with the malt and then sparge with warm water to wash out any remaining sugars and desirable elements. Don't use boiling water for the sparge as you may introduce tannins to the wort. Tannins are that mouth-drying, puckering sensation you get from overbrewed tea and some some red wines. Not a good thing in beer.



The Boil
By now, the pot containing the malt, hop extract and the steep should be coming close to the boil. Keep a lid on it so that it can reach the boil sooner and so that you don't get caramelisation of the malt. Stay near by and check it often as when it hits the boil with the lid on it can and usually does try to exit the pot in a column of sticky, sticky foam. Let my mistake be your advantage.

Let the whole lot boil for fifteen minutes so that you can be certain that it's all nice and sterile.


At the end of the boil, you have somewhere between 7.5 and 12 litres of boiling, sticky liquid. Using some other methods, you could have more than 15!

You can either let it cool naturally or you can help it along. It's up to you. There are practical advantages and risks in both approaches, but we can talk about that another time.


Happy Brewing!!

Cheers!!

Proper drunk.

I've heard of a tale (as in the link below) where someone got so drunk that they required medical amputation of their legs.

It wasn't the drunkenness that did it. It was the immobilisation of the legs for an extended period while they slept it off.

In a UK motorcycle rag a few years ago, the tale of a fellow patient was related by one of the journos who, well, crashed a bike and ended up in hospital. The other patient, a Yorkshireman if I recall correctly, had been on a binge and had passed out with his legs tucked underneath him very reduced circulation. End result, amputation.

I had thought the tale to be made up, to put it mildly.

Well fear not! For what they can in northern England they can do in the USA too.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/strangebuttrue/woman-sues-over-drinkfuelled-leg-amputations-20091210-kkeq.html


So remember - enjoy your drinkies this Christmas, but consider lying down flat or stay standing (hah!) while you sober up. Drink, but not to excess.


Cheers!!

Those nutty Japs and their crazy beer.

I love beer. I kinda like Japanese beer. I'm really fond of Sapporo. And no, I'm not sponsored by Sapporo but I sure wish I was, especially at around $7 a tinnie!





Sapporo now sells 'space beer'. It's made from barley that was sent out to the International Space Station and stayed there for five months.

At around AUD$20 a bottle, it's a costly drop. Mmnnn - gamma irradiated goodness!


Check it out here: http://www.sapporobeer.jp/english/kenkyu/bio/space.html

and here: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/sapporo-breweries-reveals-space-barley-a-beer-grown-from-space-seeds/story-e6frfhix-1225807838417

Commercial beer coming in plastic soon.

As home brewers, we've all known about the use of plastic (PET) bottles for quite some time.

It's an obvious safe choice for us owing to over-priming risks when we're starting out. Not only that, but it's light weight and there's no danger of dropping or bumping one off the counter when we have a bench full of bottles.

However, there seems to be some perception in the commercial marketplace that beer in PET is a bad thing. People make all kinds of non-positive assertions about it, claiming taste difference among other gripes.

If we, the discerning hand made beer crowd can choose it as an economical and environmentally sound option, what's wrong with the average Joe drinking megaswill from it?

After all, it has been a very long time since soft drink and fruit juice were sold in glass bottles in the majority, isn't it?

So the same fools who swill a buddy of Coke with their fatburger with extra preservatives, chemicals and emulsifers for lunch are bitching about a beer in a PET bottle?

I don't know what the world and the hypocrisy of the people is coming to...

Check this out:

http://www.smh.com.au/executive-style/culture/brewery-gives-plastic-beer-bottles-another-shot-20091203-k879.html


Cheers!!

Yeast Comparison: S-04 and S-05 - Side by side.

Yes - it's more about yeasty goodness!

This time, we're doing a true side by side test of Fermentis' S-04 English Ale Yeast and their S-05 American Ale Yeast.

I've been brewing for a touch over a year now and have completed around forty or so brews successfully. They have included a wide range of English and European ales and ciders and some other experimental and speciality beers.

The character of how each yeast behaves in the fermenter, its influence on how fast or slow the ferment is, whether it's a top fermenting yeast or a bottom fermenting yeast, how fast it flocculates out and many other characteristics is very individual. Using the right ingredients with the wrong yeast can render a batch to be like ordinary homebrew made by a novice. I've used some very ordinary ones that came with the cans of goo when I was starting and I've used some delicious exotic White Labs vials that have made for some very surprising successes from some really crap ingredients.

Obviously, one of the first few things you can change when you're getting started is the yeast. That's why I'm taking a closer look at S-04 and S-05 and sharing the results with you.

Here's where you can find the data sheets on each type:

S-04: http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_S-04_HB.pdf

S-05: http://www.fermentis.com/FO/pdf/HB/EN/Safale_US-05_HB.pdf


>From my point of view, S-04 tends to be typical of an English Ale yeast. Fairly quick ferment, reasonably temperature tolerant (up to 24C according to the pack), willing and ready to make good ales, porters and stouts. As and English style yeast, it tends to accentuate the malt flavours and tends to be a medium to high flocculator, leaving a rather clean and clear product even at the end of primary fermentation.

S-05 is a bit different. As with a lot of global perception of all things American, this is definitely a bold and brassy yeast. It tends to favour the hops moreso than the malt, giving a sharper, cleaner finish to the taste and making the flavouring and aroma hops more pronounced. Sadly, it's not a big floccer so it leaves the beer rather cloudy by comparison to S-04. However, there are clarifying techniques that we can talk about another time to overcome this issue - the simplest of which I will tell you now: time. Leave it sit a few weeks or a couple of months and it will be reasonably clear, excellent tasting and better mellowed.


The yeast can be pitched either by rehydrating it into a cream or sprinkling the dry yeast onto the top of the wort. Either method is rather easy and in my experience equally effective.


So - on to the testing!


So that the comparison is completely fair, the wort and fermentation needed to happen at the same time so that every part of the process would be exactly equal. The style of ale had to be something reasonably 'normal' so that there were no additional complexities which would interfere with the yeast being compared fairly.

Here's the recipe for the wort:

400 g Cracked Carapils steeped @ 70C for 30 minutes
7.9 kg Liquid Light Malt Extract
30 g Pilgrim Hops (10.8% AA) @ 60 minutes
25 g Fuggles Hops (6.1% AA) @ 30 minutes
25 g Fuggles Hops (6.1% AA) @ 15 minutes
... made up to 50 litres.

This gives: OG = 1049, IBU = 34.3, EBC (est.) 14.9, IBU/SG = 0.719.

In plain English, that means an ale that will finish up around 5% alcohol, with a pleasant balance of bitterness and sweetness but leaning slightly toward the sweeter end of the spectrum.

The wort was made in one big batch, cooled to 20C, stirred to homogenise it, divided equally between two fermenters and topped off to 25 litres in each fermenter.

Yeast was pitched, one sachet of each yeast type into each fermenter. Rather than just allowing it to find its way into the wort, it was stirred in aggressively in order to introduce as much oxygen into the wort as possible.

Fermentation was four days at 22C.

FG = 1011.


Here is a pic of the beer drawn off from the fermenter prior to bottling:

Don't you love my high-tech laboratory glassware? :)

As you will notice, the beer on the left is very cloudy indeed. That's the S-05 yeast. The one on the right is S-04.

While this pic might cause you to leap to conclusions about which one you would choose, take a moment to ponder out a few more points:

• The nature of the S-05 tends to create a hoppier, more lively tasting beer which more of the market is accustomed to. It tends to have a slight bite to it. Even at this stage out of the fermenter without bottle conditioning, it's certainly the spicier of the two.
  
• S-04 tends to flocculate out faster and produce a cleaner beer sooner. However, as I've mentioned earlier in this article, it does tend to be more malt driven so you should take this into account and increase your first hopping accordingly to gain more bitterness and let the malt drive the flavour and aroma.
  
• As you notice, the two beers both have quite different colour profiles. The S-04 is a good copper colour and the S-05 is a brighter amber colour. I'm not one to care much about colour but about taste, especially in these beers at the lighter end of the spectrum.

So - what yeast to choose?

That depends on personal taste and your intended "grain to brain" schedule.  

S-04 If speed is your thing and you're OK with a young beer, then I would choose S-04 and a hops schedule to suit. The above hops schedule does not suit. If anything I would increase the first hops either by weight alone or by both weight and boil duration, depending on your taste. I prefer an ESB with an initial hoppy bite, mild aroma and let the sweetness be a lingering afterthought.

As far as speed goes, a fermentation around 18 - 22C would last around four days and after five days of secondary fermentation / bottle conditioning, you're pretty much good to go. Flocculation continues in the bottle and results in a rather bright and clear beer that only improves with time, out to about two months. If you keg, then this is the one to go for. Clean and clear in a hurry.


S-05 If you can spare a month for a rather good, modern style beer that is reminiscent of some of the west coast USA craft brews then S-05 is your yeast. It will take a couple of weeks at least for the yeast to drop out of suspension. Drinking too early while the yeast is still suspended tends to lead to bottom-ripping farts and runny poo. You have been warned.

Again, the fermentation time and temperature is much the same as S-04, but longer secondary fermentation / bottle conditioning will really reap rewards.


In both cases, if you allow a day or two in the fridge prior to drinking you will find the result much better than if you rapidly chill the beer in the freezer for an hour or so and then keep it in the fridge. The technical aspects of this have been explained to me, but I don't recall those in detail. Suffice to say, it works. Try it.


This article is already far too long and probably boring to anyone who isn't a beer nerd, so I will put the pics and tasting notes into another post in a few days.

Take care and happy brewing.


Cheers!!


EDIT (09/12/09): No pics of the finished product, sorry. Drank it. Yummy. :)

Tactical Nuclear Penguin

As with many brews before, the irreverent lads at Brewdog Brewery in Scotland have come up aces with another winning brew.

This one is called Tactical Nuclear Penguin and comes in at a whopping 32% ABV. That's thirty-two percent.



Tactical Nuclear Penguin from BrewDog on Vimeo.


Here's a link to their product blog posting: http://www.brewdog.com/blog-article.php?id=214

As far as I can tell, it was originally fermented as an Imperial Stout, albeit a strong one, which was then aged in wooden casks for around a year and a half to give it depth, mellowness and smoothness. Then, by freezing to remove more of the water content, the alcohol level was raised to the mighty 32% giving it the title of World's Strongest Beer.

First batch is already sold out but there is more on the way. Oh - and it's thirty-five pounds a bottle. Not a session beer at all.

Good on you fellas!

Three-tea twice cooked pork belly.

This isn't really brew or yeast related at all.

It's just a good recipe for something interesting to do with pork belly which uses a combination of Viet, Chinese and Malay styles to deliver a new and tasty dish.

Most people in Australia don't bother with pork belly because it's a very fat cut and therefore must be bad for you. Maybe it's not so good for you if you eat it every day, but with some judicious cooking you can reduce the fat a little and end up with a good and flavoursome dish for cheap.

This is a twice cooked dish. There is a boiling stage and a slow cooking stage. Generously feeds four.


Here's how:

* Pork belly - about 25 x 15 cm and about 5 or 6 cm thick, no bone.
* 2 tablespoons of Lapsang Souchong tea (smells like burnt wood, Twinings is a good cheap choice)
* 1 tablespoon of Kok Fa Cha (Chrysanthemum flower tea from an Asian supermarket or T2)
* 1 tablespoon of generic Ceylon tea
* 1 cm of cinnamon stick, smashed finely

In a large saucepan, put about 1.5 - 2 litres of water and all the tea and cinnamon. Bring it to the boil.
Cut the pork in half and immerse it into the boiling water.
Bring back to a slow boil and leave it for 20 minutes.

In the meanwhile:
* Soak ten to twelve dried shiitake mushrooms and four or five pieces of dried black fungus in water
* Heat a claypot or similar heavy ceramic dish safe for use on the stove top with a little oil
* Peel and smash four cloves of garlic and add to the oil - heating gently only as we're trying to get aroma and flavour, not garlic chips
* Chop four shallots into 40 mm sections, reserving the top 75 - 90 mm of each for garnish, adding the bottoms to the claypot now
* Add eight to ten dried red dates (Asian grocer's again)
* Add two star anise
* Smash a thumb sized piece of ginger - just pummel it to break open the fibres to let the flavour out
* Add a couple of generous dashes of dark soy sauce and one dash of kecap manis
* Give it a little stir now and then to make sure everything is being heated gently and the aroma and flavour is being extracted
* Rescue the pork from the boiling tea concoction and cut into 20 mm strips and then 20 mm sections, adding to the pot
* Give it a good stir and bring the heat up
* Make sure the meat is coloured all over by the dark soy
* By now the dried mushrooms should be rehydrated, so cut off and discard the stalks and cut each mushroom into three or four strips and toss into the pot
* After adding the mushrooms, add just enough of the mushroom water to almost cover the contents of the pot
* Add 50 - 100 ml more of the tea and fat from the pork boil
* Lid on!
* Bring it all to the boil and then reduce to a very low flame and keep it simmering for about 45 minutes to 90 minutes - whatever suits you - and stir occasionally to keep it all nicely combined.
* Garnish with finely chopped shallot and a chopped chilli or two and let sit for ten minutes after you turn off the flame, just to infuse the flavour a little more. Stir through. Serve.

Serve with steamed rice and a good strong stout, porter or other dark ale. Yummo!


If you don't have those teas at home, then you can try a normal 'red' tea like Pu Erh or whatever you have in your cupboard. Tea adds a little extra flavour to the meat and the tannic acid helps tenderise it and break down the fat somewhat. I wouldn't recommend green tea.

Also, if you have cooking caramel sauce, usually from Asian grocers, then add one or two tablespoons to the pot at the beginning to bring up the warm and toasty flavour. Don't be tempted to use the stuff they put on ice-cream - it's not the same and it might not work too well as it's too high in unconverted sugar.

Dried red dates are pretty healthy and are reputed good for the girls, if you know what I mean. To increase the health-giving properties of the dish, you could easily add a handful of dried wolf berries (or whatever fashionable name they're being called this week). Just get them from your Asian grocer and don't get ripped off by health food store or supermarket prices as they're mostly from the same place (China) and region and growers. Organic foodies: go knock yourselves out on the costly ones.


Cheers!!

Bread kills.

I'm preparing a pretty comprehensive comparo of S-04 vs S-05 brewing yeasts from Fermentis at the moment. It's taking a little time as the beers are presently maturing in the bottle so that we have a full grain-to-brain set of notes about these two yeasts. Good info for beginners moving up from kits and the rather ordinary yeasts they come with and refresher info for experienced brewers who might like to step back to something simpler for making some fast and easy brews for summer.

In the meanwhile, here's some humour I found some time ago:

Bread Kills!
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.

2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.

3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.

4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.

5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:

• 99.9% of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread.
  
• 100% of all soldiers have eaten bread.
  
• 96.9% of all Communist sympathizers have eaten bread.
  
• 99.7% of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident.
  
• 93.1% of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently.

6. Evidence points to the long-term effects of bread eating: Of all people born before 1839 who later dined on bread, there has been a 100% mortality rate. 7. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as a teaspoon of dough can be used to suffocate a lab rat. The average American eats more bread than that in one day! 8. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, and osteoporosis. 9. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and being fed only water begged for bread after as little as two days. 10. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to "harder" items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts. 11. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person. 12. Newborn babies can choke on bread. 13. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute. 14. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling. In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions: 1. No sale of bread to minors. 2. A nationwide "Just Say No To Toast" campaign, complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers. 3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread. 4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage. 5. The establishment of "Bread-free" zones around schools. So remember - beer kills weak brain cells and bread just kills. Drink more beer!

Cheers!!

The Hydrometer - Your Bestest Brewing Buddy.

The hydrometer is a pretty humble looking device, but it's seriously one of the most important items you can have as a brewer. It's so simple to use, yet it's one of the most important safety items you could ever possibly own.

Basically, a hydrometer is a weighted glass or plastic quasi-cylindrical device which has a calibrated scale on the upper end. There are many kinds of hydrometers for specific purposes, but we'll just stick to talking about the ones used in brewing.

It can tell you when fermentation is in progress or if it's complete and with a little simple mathematics you can even work out the alcohol percentage of your beer. Pretty awesome for a tool with no moving parts, isn't it?

Here's what it looks like:

The one in the pic is a slightly fancy one with some additional scales on the other side of it for approximate grammes of sugar per litre and alcohol percentage, as well as approximate OG and FG for beer and wine. We'll just focus on the scale which is most important to us as brewers: the specific gravity scale, as shown in the photograph.

There are three terms you need to know:
* SG - Specific Gravity: A measure of the density of the liquid comparative to water.
* OG - Opening Gravity or Original Gravity: The specific gravity of the wort prior to pitching the yeast.
* FG - Final Gravity: The specific gravity of the competed fermentation.


Each different brand of hydrometer may have slightly differing instructions as to how to read it. In the case of this one, the reading is taken at the upper end of the meniscus. It's calibrated to 20C which is usual for Australia. Other parts of the world use different calibration temperatures. Read the documents that came with yours so that you know.


Using it is very, very easy:
* Take a sample of the brew to be measured in a suitable container
* Insert hydrometer gently
* Twirl it a little to remove any gas bubbles which might be adhering to the bulb and let go
* Take reading and use the information wisely.

Take a look at this pic:

The pic is showing a reading of about 1011. This is the FG for a rather tasty English Ale - an ordinary bitter - which is in my fermenter at the moment, having completed fermentation and now being ready to bottle later today.


When you draw the sample, do it gently so that you don't put a head on it. If you put a head on it, you will need to wait for that to go away so you can get a good reading. Also purge the tap a little at first as there will usually be yeast and trub (waste by-product of the brewing process) in the tap, which would cause a false reading.


In the case of this brew, the OG was 1049 and the FG is 1011. From this, we can work out how much alcohol by volume as a percentage (ABV%) is present.

Here's the formula according to Coopers (www.coopers.com.au): (OG - FG)/7.46 = ABV%.

In this case, it would be:
(1049 - 1011) = 38
38 / 7.46 = 5.09%

Because you will be bottling it, you need to add 0.5% to account for the secondary fermentation from the priming sugar in the bottle.

Therefore, this beer will end up at 5.59% approximately after bottle conditioning.


There are different methods of calculating ABV%. 7.46 is sometimes replaced with a lower or higher number, depending on what method the person or company recommending that method used to arrive at that number. 7.46 seems to be a good reliable number and a reasonable comparative rule of thumb.


To be certain that your fermentation is complete, take two readings 24 hours apart. If there is any difference in the readings, the fermentation is not complete.

The danger of bottling a brew that hasn't finished fermenting is that it will continue to ferment in the bottle with possibly disastrous results. This is where the hydrometer is probably the best safety item you can own as a brewer.


If you're bottling in PET plastic bottles, it's not too bad.

The way to check is to give the bottles a squeeze. If they're slightly soft, then secondary bottle fermentation is underway and there is still a while to go before your beer is carbonated. If the bottle is quite firm and it's a week or so since you bottled, then all is well and it's quite alright to chill a bottle and do a taste and aesthetic test. If the bottle is rock hard and it's only a few days in, you may be in trouble.

If there is excess pressure when you check how the aging is going, you can release some of the CO2 gas build-up by unscrewing the lid a little and then re-tightening. However, if it goes unchecked the bottle may rupture and spill your precious, precious beer on the floor and make a sticky mess in the worst case or you may just end up with gushers, where the beer gushes out of the bottle as soon as you uncap it, much like a bottle of Coke that has been dropped or shaken.



However, bottling in glass is a different matter. You can't check if there is excess pressure except by opening a bottle and pouring a serve. If it is over-pressurised, you will have a gusher.

This is a serious and dangerous situation.

Check with your local home brew shop or an experienced brewer before attempting this. Get knowledgeable, experienced advice that is relevant to your situation. I accept no responsibility for your actions under any circumstances.

The usual procedure is to put on as much heavy protective cloting as possible: full face welding mask or helmet, motorcycling leather jacket and gauntlets and go outside with the entire batch to uncap it very gently one at a time, let it breathe for thirty seconds and then recap it. If this over-pressure condition is unchecked you quite probably will end up with what is referred to as 'bottle bombs'.

Bottle bombs are quite literally that. Shards of glass being propelled at high speed. Definitely a major safety issue. Potentially quite deadly. I've seen photos on a brewing forum where a longneck bottle, or at least half of it, was stuck in the ceiling having been driven through the Gyprock by the sheer force of the explosion. The brewer had bottled too early and there had been an explosion a little under a week later. It was in his laundry, so no one was hurt - just piles of broken glass and beer everywhere.

One of the worst parts of bottle bombs is that it can often cause a chain reaction. One explodes and then the rest also explode owing to the concussion of the first one's blast. My grandfather managed to do this once during WWII in his garage and then was banned from brewing by his wife. You have been warned.


My recommendation is to start off bottling in PET bottles. Do a few batches to gain confidence and competence. In the meanwhile, drink plenty of commercial brew that comes in good quality, thick, heavy glass bottles and good strong boxes which you can re-use for bottling and storage later. At least that was my excuse.


So, to recap:
* Hydrometer good. It's certainly your bestest buddy in brewing.
* Bottling early bad. You can become your own worst enemy and perhaps kill or maim others.


As with anything in life, be sensible, read the manual and get advice from someone with experience and everything will be sweet and easy.

Cheers!!

Airlocks... A necessary evil.

When people get into home brewing, craft brewing or hand made beer - what ever you would like to call it - the one piece of equipment that gets the most attention is the humble airlock.

After all - it's the only visible sign to someone new to brewing that something is actually happening in the fermenter.

If you haven't taken the steps into brewing, I had better explain what it is, what it does and what goes wrong.


Basically, it's an 'S' shaped tube that is inserted into the lid of your fermenter. It has two fat bits at the top and the bottom of the 'S' and narrow tube in between. Sterile water (or similar) goes in the fat bits.

Pic of an airlock in action.

It sole purpose in life is to keep nasties out of your brew while venting carbon dioxide and other brewing gases from the fermenter.

The kinds of things it's designed to keep out are airborne pathogens - wild yeast, bacterial, etc as well as dust, bugs, etc.

Carbon dioxide is one of the major by products of fermentation. There are some other gaseous by-products, but they are inconsequential at this level. All excess gas needs to be vented else the fermenter would pressurise and perhaps rupture, spraying beery sticky goodness all over the room in which the fermenter sits. So, when the gas is coming out, the water lets it out and makes a delightful bubbling or blopping sound.


What goes wrong is actually pretty simple. There is not a whole lot to go wrong. No moving parts. No magic. Medieval technology. It's a tube with water in it.

What people perceive to be 'wrong' is that there is no airlock activity. No bubbling, no noise - nothing. It's not actually a defect: it means the gas is getting out somewhere else. in the same way that 'nature abhors a vacuum' and 'electrons follow the easiest path' so does CO2 being vented from a fermenter - it will take the easiest way out: A leak.

The usual suspects for leaks are the o-ring (if you have an o-ringed carboy or similar style fermenting vessel) and the grommet through which the airlock is installed.

If your fermentation has already started (i.e. you have pitched the yeast), then leave it alone and mess around with it when you're cleaning before the next brew. Taking the lid off unnecessarily is an invitation to infect the brew and make it not fit for drinking. What you can do at this time is investigate a little to see where the leak is.

The simplest investigation is to see if the airlock grommet is leaking. Boil and cool some water - about 100 mls is more than enough. Pour a little around the airlock grommet on top of the lid. If there is gas escaping, you will see some bubbles. You've found your leak! I'll tell you two ways to fix it in just a moment. Don't be tempted to use the old trick for finding gas leaks using soapy water. If it makes its way into the brew, you may well stuff the brew.


After this brew has finished and you're cleaning the fermenter, you can check the o-ring. Before we get to that, remember - the way to check that the brew is finished and fermentation is complete is that you have a matching Specific Gravity reading (which becomes your Final Gravity or FG) on two or more consecutive days.

After bottling or kegging (Why the hell are you reading this if you're kegging? You're already experienced!) and disassembling the fermenter and cleaning it to make ready for the next batch, check the o-ring. Look for kinks, breaks, big scratches or something contaminating the surface. Check the groove it fits into in the lid for the same defects. Finally, check the lip of the fermenter which the o-ring mates for the same defects, including roughness around the moulding seams. If you spot any defects here, rectify those.

When you next are installing the lid, make the o-ring a little wet with some boiled and cooled water. It will aid in spinning the lid down tight and giving a good gas tight seal. You don't need to screw it in super tight like a sexually frustrated silver back gorilla. A good firm seal is quite adequate. It's easier to screw the lid on too tight than it is to unscrew it.

If you want to get fancy-schmansy about it, you can get some food grade lube and lubricate the o-ring before installing it into its groove and also wipe a little along the sealing face of the fermenter's lip. All very professional, but needless expense and extra things to clean even more thoroughly each batch. Recommended only for gluttons for punishment.


Now - on to fixing that airlock grommet leak!

There are three main things that can go wrong:
[1] The grommet is damaged or worn
[2] The grommet hole is too big or not a good fit
[3] The airlock's tube doesn't fit well with the grommet.

If the grommet is damaged, replace it. It's about fifty cents. It's worth keeping a spare grommet and a spare o-ring in case you have a disaster on brew day and your local home brew shop (LHBS) is closed - like mine is on Sundays.

Otherwise, improving the fit of the airlock and grommet to each other needs to be attended to. The easiest way is to use some teflon plumber's tape to increase the girth of the airlock. Wrap a few layers aound the part of the tube which goes into the airlock. Make a smooth job of it so that it can slide into the grommet easily but with a bit of resistance. This will give it a tighter fit in the grommet, at the same time forcing the grommet to fit the hole more tightly.

Detail pic of a teflon wrapped airlock.

So, overall, the airlock is a necessary evil and a source of needless worry for new members of the brewing world.


Please, remember - don't go to brewing forums and cry about 'my airlock isn't bubbling'. You will be told to 'RDWHAHB' (relax, don't worry and have a home brew) - which frankly a bit insensitive because that's what you want to be doing a few weeks after starting brewing. So instead, sit back, have a crap commercial and be patient for thine brew will be the sweet nectar of the gods.

Cheers!!

Brewing Equipment Part II - A little finesse.

In Part I of the brewing equipment article, you were shown what gear you need as basic kit to make your first hand-made beer.

Of course, as with any hobby, there are improvements you can make to your equipment that make the job easier, nicer and more fun. That's what this article is about.


Having been making beer and cider for a while, I thought I would share the list of extra gear that I have and how it works and why you should consider owning it too.


* Bottle Tree
* Bottle Rinser
* Bottle Brush
* Priming Scoop
* Side cutters
* Scales
* Thermometer
* Test vial / test tube with stand
* A big stainless steel stock pot


* Bottle Tree
This delightful lump of 1970's orange coloured plastic is worth its weight in gold, but certainly doesn't cost that much.

It has 63 positions for bottles. It's perfect for draining newly washed bottles and for draining freshly sanitised bottles prior to priming and bottling.

It's really a huge convenience.


* Bottle Rinser
Basically it's a bowl with a spring loaded squirty thing. You invert the bottle onto the nozzle and push down firmly, delivering a dose of no rinse sanitiser into the bottle and killing all those nasty bugs that would otherwise ruin your beer. It's better to give three squirts.

You remember we mentioned a sanitising agent (no, not the Pink) in the last article? This is one of the places where you use it. 30 ml in the bottom of the bowl, top up to one litre, insert the squirty thing and you're in business.

The only refinement I suggest you consider for this piece of equipment is a big galvanised or stainless steel washer to put on the bottle collar on the nozzle. It prevents the nozzle wearing and also assists accommodating a range of bottle neck sizes.

Usually, you can buy this item and the Bottle Tree as a kit for a lower price than buying them separately. Better yet, the Rinser has a storage place on top of the Tree. Clean, neat and tidy.


* Bottle Brush.
No matter how careful you are, sometime sooner or later there is going to be something stuck inside your bottles and you're going to need a way to clean it out. Enter the bottle brush.

There are nice fancy horsehair ones from brew shops. They're excellent. However in the spirit of being economical, I recommend the long handed ones for about $2 from $2 shops. They'll do just fine.


* Priming Scoop
This odd looking thing is actually a double ended spoon.

The larger end holds enough priming sugar for a 750 ml (tallie) and the smaller end holds enough priming sugar for a 330 ml (stubbie).

We can get into priming sugars in another ingredients oriented article.


* Side Cutters
Pretty normal stuff. Pliers that have an angled cutting blade.

Used to remove the tamper-evident collars from the PET bottle caps at the time of sanitising prior to bottling. After all, if the collar is still there, you can't put a new cap on, can you?


* Scales
Ideally, if you can find a low cost pair that measures up to 5 kg and has one or more decimal places (i.e. 500.2 grammes vs 500 grammes displayed weight) and you're happy with the price, you will be very happy.

However, one with no decimal places will do just fine.

Digital scales are the most preferable as they give you a plain number result rather than having to interpret as you do with the older dial type ones.

One feature that is very necessary as a convenience is Tare. In other words, the scale reads zero when you start. You put an empty container on the platform and it shows 106g, you press a button and it shows zero again. Now you can weigh your ingredients without having to remember that the container's weight. It's also great when you're making multiple additions of ingredients to be used at the same time, such as 10 g of this hop plus 15 g of that hop to be used in the boil.


* Thermometer
Any reasonably well calibrated thermometer will do fine so long as it reads reliably from say 5C to 110C. That's pretty easy these days.

A reasonably priced digital thermometer is the one from Ikea. It comes with a remote probe and functions both as a timer and a thermometer. The best feature on it is that you can set an alarm when the measured substance reaches a certain temperature. Need 70C for steeping grain? Preset 70C on the pot of water on the stove top and walk away until it beeps.

The time is great too, for obvious reasons: Set it for 30 minutes after your boil has started and you have made the first hop addition. Beep! Time for the second hop addition. Perfect if you don't want to spend your brew day staring at a clock and a pot and would prefer to do other things at the same time.

Simple, inexpensive creature comfort that will give you much pleasure for under $20.


* Test vial / tube with stand
When you take samples to read the specific gravity, you need something tall and skinny into which you take the sample so that you don't waste too much of the brew. Big containers equal big waste.

If you buy a good quality glass hydrometer from your brew shop, they almost invariably come in a plastic tube with foam in the ends to protect it. Some brew shops suggest just to use the storage tube for taking the sample. That works, but it's not elegant and the tube doesn't stand up very well on its own.

If you can a large plastic test vial / test tube with a base or stand, then you're at a whole new level of simple luxury. It stands up on its own, can be washed separately and the case for the hydrometer can remain clean and the hydrometer can remain safe.

For only a few bucks, it's worth it.


* A big stainless steel stock pot
Less than $25 at any of the mega-chain-stores like K-Mart and maybe even cheaper at the $2 shop. Ideally, you're looking for something around 18 - 30 litres.

Aluminium is cheaper, but stainless is easier to clean and is a wee bit better for your health.

If you're following the instructions that come with kit beers, then this isn't strictly necessary. However, kit beers are rather plain and as you progress and want to make better beer this will become a necessity.

When you get into steeping specialty grains (Carapils, Cararoma, etc) and progress to all malt brewing using either unhopped cans or unhopped bulk malt pails and creating your own hopping schedules, this stock pot is where all the action is.


So - that brings us to the end of the Basic equipment list and the Additional Equipment list. By now, you will have spent somewhere around $200 - $275 and you will be equipped to brew plenty of good quality beer for many years to come.


Next up - I'll talk you through kit brewing - methods and ingredients - using both the manufacturer's instructions and also improved methods to move you on to the next stage of enhancing their product into something akin to premium beers.


Cheers!!

Brewing Basics - The Equipment

Quite a while ago, I promised a series of articles about brewing equipment and how to get started.

The idea is that I would like to help you save time, money and some frustration in getting started the right way with the right tools and keep it reasonably simple while you learn the ropes. For the most part, these articles are aimed at Australian readers. There are differing opinions and techniques in USA and UK which have their reasons and purposes but are beyond the scope of this "Get Started Easy" series.


First up, let's talk about equipment - the basics. Then, I'll explain some add-ons which you will find makes the process less fussy, faster and more pleasurable.


You're going to need a few simple things to get going:
* A fermenting vessel with a tap and airlock
* Bottling wand
* Bottles and caps
* Hydrometer
* Sanitiser
* Cleaning agent

That's it - that's your basic equipment list. Easy, huh?

Here's what it all does:

* A fermenting vessel with a tap and airlock
This is where you put your fermentables so that they, um, ferment.

There are two main types in use in Australia - the pail and the carboy. The Pail is basically a big plastic bucket with a tight fitting lid. The Carboy is a big plastic container with a screw-on lid with an o-ring to assist the seal. What you choose is up to you, but the Carboy is superior in my experience.

The tap is to eventually release the beery goodness into bottles, obviously.

The airlock is a little piece of equipment that goes into the top of the fermenting vessel so that the CO2 produced by the fermentation process can escape (otherwise your well sealed fermenter could burst, or just eject your precious beer out through the seals), but stop normal atmosphere and all the fun microbes that travel in it from entering your ferment.


* Bottling wand
This is a semi-rigid pipe that inserts into the tap. It has a valve (either spring loaded or gravity operated) in the tip.

You insert the wand into the bottle, press up and beer flows down. Magic stuff, this gravity.

This method is the simplest way to fill the bottles without exposing the beer to excessive oxygen which would be detrimental.


* Bottles and caps
Obviously you need something to store the beer in while it undergoes conditioning, and of course to dispense it from.

You can re-use glass beer bottles. However, if you're starting out, I strongly recommend using PET bottles from a brew shop or one of the Coopers or similar kits from a big store such as K-Mart.

The bottles are re-usable and will last quite a number of years with simple care and cleaning. The caps can also be reused if you wish, but at only a few dollars for a pack you may as well get new ones each time at the beginning of your brewing hobby so that there is one less variable to contend with.

The reason for using PET instead of glass is because if you make a mistake in assessing the end of the fermentation or there is a contaminant in the bottle, a PET bottle exploding has much less danger than a glass bottle. These kinds of bottles are known as "bottle bombs" for a reason - high speed flying glass is deadly. When your experience and confidence are matched, then you could progress to glass.


* Hydrometer
This simple tool is used to measure the specific gravity of the liquid you put into the fermenter and to take measurements to make sure that the fermentation is complete.

The measurements you're going to make will be:
* OG - or Original Gravity. This is after you have added all your fermtentables to the vessell but before you add the yeast.
* FG - or Final Gravity. This is at the end of the fermentation. After it is stable (i.e. same reading) for two days, then it's time to bottle.


* Sanitiser
In brewing, we need to sanitise. Not sterilise. Sanitise.

Sanitising is killing most of the microbes and bugs that aren't beneficial to our process. Sterilising is killing all.

A good no rinse sanitiser is needed for all of your equipment that will come into contact with the wort (unfermented goodies that go into your fermenter) and the beer (the fermented result).

There are a few kinds on the market, but I would be inclined to recommend 'Sanitise' from Morgans. Simple, effective, but not the least expensive. It's reliable and a very good starting point. You can get fancy or cheap later when you know a little more about what you're doing.


* Cleaning Agent
The most common cleaning agent used is simply called "Pink Powder".

It's a strongly alkaline cleaning agent that is bright pink in colour. That way you won't sprinkle it on your cornflakes - it's a safety thing. Speaking of safety - read the safety warnings on the package. This material is caustic and can be dangerous if mishandled. If the safety precautions are followed, there is nothing to worry about.

Usually, you clean your fermenter with warm water and a non-scratch scourer, then add two teaspoons of Pink, three or four litres of very hot water and carefully agitate to ensure that every internal surface of the fermenter has been washed thoroughly. Then, rinse a few times to make sure any residue is removed.


Does it all make some sense so far?

It's simple, isn't it?


Next article? A few extra tools to make the process easier, quicker and more fun - all without spending a fortune.


Cheers!!

Quick loaf of bread...

It's been a while since I have been talking about the yeasty goodness side of life, as it has been very busy for the non-yeasty side of life for me. So, to atone for all of this ignoring you while I do the 9 to 5 grind, I'm going to post fast and furiously.

A new brewing season for those of us down under has started - warmer more stable temperatures for the time being and of course the desire for a good cold beer on a hot afternoon. We'll get into that side of things shortly.

In the meanwhile - here's a recipe for one of the fastest loaves of bread you're ever likely to make:

* 500 g white flour (any kind will do)
* 1 teaspoon of salt
* 2 level tablespoons of yeast
* 2 tablespoons olive oil
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 300 ml warmish water (say 25 - 30C).

Combine all the dry ingredients in your machine on low speed (refer to earlier articles about this point) or sift 'em together if you're still doing it manually. The idea is to combine them all rather well.

Add the oil and increase machine speed.

Add the water and increase machine speed to dough mixing speed.

Let the dough form!

In the meanwhile, line a loaf pan with baking paper.

Remove the dough from the chamber, shape it to suit your baking pan.

Insert into baking pan. Cover it loosely with cling wrap and allow to rise for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180C fan forced.

Brush oil on the loaf, decorate with seed, draw pretty pictures with a razor blade on top, etc... whatever you like to do to decorate your loaves.

Bake 25 minutes.

Done.


This produces a loaf with a reasonably fine crumb that is quite moist and good to eat with smoked salmon, Vegemite or whatever you prefer on freshly baked bread. Owing to the high moisture content, it's not too good for toast until day two or three.

Yes, it's quick and dirty and breaks all the rules about good bread making, but it works and it stops you being hungry. We can get artsy or artisan styled some other time.

Cheers!!

Green Beer

Green beer? Yes.

I'm not talking about that green-dyed swill that gets served on St Patricks' Day. I'm talking about ecologically sustainable and vegan beer.

Look here: http://www.mnn.com/food/beer/stories/green-beer-101


Oh - and by the way - all the beer recipes that are part of this blog are vegan. 100%. The ones in the little window at the bottom of the page may or may not be. Mostly they are, but if you're a vegan (tasteless bastard that you are - eat some meat - we're an omnivore species!), then you probably know what ingredients you shouldn't eat.

Me? I'm going to have a beer and a vegetarian for dinner. A cow.

Cheers!

Higher hydration bread techniques.

I've been a bit lax about updating this blog lately as there really haven't been any exciting new things that I thought worthy of sharing.

However, today I had a hankering for some Turkish Bread. Nice bread with an open crumb and huge air bubbles. I looked up some recipes and found that it's a bit more labour intensive than I really wanted to deal with this evening during making dinner, so here's the details of a high(er) hydration bread experiment.

High hydration doughs tend to make for those larger bubbles present in ciabatta and turkish bread. High hydration is increasing the water content to say 60% or 70% by weight compared to the flour weight in the recipe.

Generally, it's better to use a better quality bread flour rather than the low cost white flour from the supermarket. However, I didn't have any of the good stuff in stock so I have had to make do with regular white flour for the sake of this experiment.

Here's the ingredients and the technique:
500 gms flour
350 mls water
2 tablespoons of yeast
2 tablespoons of sugar
1 teaspoon of salt
1 tablespoon of olive oil.

It's better, in this case, to put the sugar and yeast into solution in tepid water so that it can be added in two stages during the creation of the dough.

The salt should be added to the flour prior to adding the liquid. If you're doing it manually, sift it in. If you're using a machine and being lazy, let the dry ingredients be combined at low blade speed for a minute or two before you add the water. Experiment! It's lots of fun.

Turn out the very sticky and shiny dough to an oiled bowl and let it rise in the usual manner for about thirty minutes.

Then stretch it and fold it back over itself twice and let it rise again.

And again.

And again.

Yes - that's right - four risings.

Divide the dough into as many 'loaves' as you wish, decorate and slash to suit your taste. If you split the dough in two and draw the halves each gently into two sort of rectangular shapes then you're about right. Be gentle handling the dough to prepare the loaves. You've worked hard for bigger bubbles so don't burst them by being ham-fisted. Sprinkle some flour lightly onto the formed loaves and allow to rise for the last time for about one hour.

Baking time is around 35 to 40 minutes at 220C conventional. Fan forced is not really a good idea.

Spray cool water every five to ten minutes for the first twenty minutes for a slightly crispier crust.

The resulting crust texture is firm and crunchy with bubbles of around 5 mm. Lovely taste. Good mouthfeel. Excellent for sandwiches owing to the crunch of the crust and the gently tender 'meat' of the bread.

I'll make another batch with a slightly different technique in a few days' time and report back.


Enjoy!

Bump that yeast baby!

Bump the yeast?

"WTF are you talking about?" you ask.


I mean to increase the yeast content in your bread.

Not orthodox but certainly it's going to be an advantage for you to make good bread, rolls and buns very quickly and with a minimum of fuss.


Here's the trick: increase the yeast to three level tablespoons. Three heaped if you're brave.

The first rising will be only twenty minutes and a very bloated second rising will be the same. It's best if you reduce the water / milk / moisture content by around 10 - 15 %.


Including baking for 16 minutes at 170C fan forced the whole project takes only a touch more than one hour. Fast enough for you, speedy?


The one extra thing you do need to do is a very aggressive second kneading.

If you are mechanically combining and kneading the ingredients for the first combining - in other words the dry ingredients and water or milk or beer - then it's only going to take about three minutes.

Rise it in a warm place for about twenty minutes and then knead it strongly. Knead it. Very firmly. Knead it so that it shears.

Shears? I mean really shears widely so that the crumb is exposed and torn and recombined. Do that for about five to seven minutes. Perfect!!

Bake at 170C fan-forced, brushed with a little milk beforehand and decorate with whatever seeds you prefer.

Tasty, fluffy, firm and bready.

Try it out and tell me how you go. Give it a shot and enjoy.

Cheers!! T.

Fast and Easy Hot Dog Buns.

I have this thing for buns at the moment. No idea why. It's just one of those "I want" kinda things.

Anyway, I have been having a real hankering for some fast food lately. Mickey D's, Kentucky Freud Chicken, etc - but I really don't like how unwell it makes one feel after eating it. Excessive salt, excessive fat and really - for what it's worth - limited flavour and huge prices.

How to get around this? Easy! Home made hot dogs!

I confess that commercial frankfurters (or what is passed off as a frank at supermarkets) are pretty tasteless, full of preservatives and overall, not that wholesome and healthy at all. However, as a hot dog with fried onions, cheese, hot mustard and some ketchup (real ketchup - not 'tomato sauce') they become a thing of yummy mysticism. Fast and easy feed on a winter afternoon.

You decide how you want your dogs - I'm just going to show you how to make the buns!

Quick'n'easy Hot Dog Buns:

First up, this is a back-to-front recipe when it comes to making the dough. This recipe is designed for people who use a dough-capable piece of machinery, but not a bread maker. If you already make bread by hand, then you know what to do and I won't waste time telling you.

This is a potato bread. Those lovely little buns that were praised so highly in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle are potato bread. You can go nuts with the recipe for that exact type if you want - use your Google-fu. This is something a bit different.


* 125 ml warm water in the machine chamber
* 2 tablespoons yeast
* 1 tablespoon white sugar
** Mix well on lowest speed for about two or three minutes to get some oxygen into the mix and help those yeasties reproduce.
* Allow this to sit while you peel a medium potato, boil it and mash it with a little milk to make a sloppy potato mash.
* Break two eggs into the yeast mixture.
* Add the quantity of potato mash
** Mix well on lowest speed for a couple of minutes. This evens out the temperature of the mix.
* Add flour. It will be somewhere over 550 grams. You will need to use your experience with your machine to be your guide here as to what is enough or too much. Being a wettish dough, it's easy to go too far either way. Experiment. Have fun.
* Lightly oiled bowl, warm place, cover with cling wrap, wait twenty minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.
* Don't knock it down! Just turn it out onto a well floured work surface and divide it into eight pieces.
* Shape those pieces into hot dog bun shape and place in a medium to tall sided baking pan, lined with lightly oiled greaseproof paper.
* Allow to rise twenty minutes more.
* Preheat your oven to 180C fan forced.
* Sprinkle a little olive oil on top, spray lightly with water, decorate with sesame seeds, spray a bit more heavily with water.
* Bake fifteen minutes or until nicely coloured up on top.
* Cool on a rack for around twenty minutes before separating for storage or eating.

This makes for a reasonably damp kind of bun. If you like them to be less wet, increase the cooking time to 18 or even twenty minutes. The lack of punching down and kneading ahead of shaping leaves a fairly coarse bubble structure in the bread which is great for soaking up all those yummy sauces.

Enjoy!!

Cheers!!

It's Cider-tastic!

Recently, we went for a bit of 4WD fun with some mates up through the Bells Line of Road, taking in Bilpin.

If you don't already know, Bilpin is pretty famous for apples. Many, many different varieties.

However, we were a bit late in the season so I expected less kinds to be available. In fact, there was only one kind and at the time of day we went through there was only one kind to be had. I don't even know what kind it is to be certain. However, at the price, the quality is excellent has made for some exceptional eating.

I bought the apples with a view to making cider. Delicious apple cider!

So, we grabbed about 12 kilos of apples which co-incidentally produced around 6 litres of premium grade juice, with the real ever-so-slightly golden-amber hue that was in real, fresh apple juice so long ago.


Here's the recipe:
** Common Cider
* 24 litres apple juice (6 litres freshly made, 18 litres Aldi)
* 1 x S-04 yeast
* Ferment until SG is stable
* Bottle, adjusting the priming dose to your preferred level of carbonation
* Cellar / mature for at least two weeks. Longer is better.
* OG = 1048


And here's some notes for you to consider for when you try this:

* Juice:
Apples nominally produce 40 - 55% juice by volume compared to weight. In other words, you will get about 4 - 5.5 litres of juice from ten kilos of apples. Smaller apples, less juice. These were fairly large eating apples just past their 'looks good' prime.

* Pasteurisation / anti-microbe warfare:
Apples, for the most part are reasonably clean. However, as with any fruit or vegetable they are likely to have been sprayed with some form of pesticide. You must wash them well to assist in removing any residue which may be on the skins.

Not all apples are picked from the trees. Some have fallen. Most orchards use some kind of fertiliser and often it's chook poo (chicken droppings for those of you who don't speak Australian). Chook poo is particularly nasty, biologically speaking, and can harbour some rather deadly bugs.

In addition, there may be wild yeasts living in or on the apple. These may be undesirable for your fermentation. In the case of this recipe, they're undesirable.

What to do? Pasteurise!

Cut and juice your apples as you would normally to make fruit juice to drink. Put the total amount of freshly made juice into a large pot and heat to only 75C. Allow it to cool with a well-fitting lid on the pot. Pasteurisation complete.

Prior to adding the juice to the fermenter, skim off the crud. There is a thick layer of foamy brown stuff on top. The crud won't make your cider taste or look good. Skim it reasonably well. The rest will either drop out in the fermenter or float to the top. Floc up or down, so to speak.

The other option which some people prefer is Campden tablets or sodium metabisuplhite. This has been a reasonably common way of achieving the same effect as pasteurisation and lends itself to some other production methods. However, I'm not a fan because sometimes a sulphur aroma remains for quite some months after bottling.

* Not enough apples?
Go buy some preservative free apple juice. Aldi sells two litre for around $1.80-something at the time of writing. You could even use 100% commercial juice. Think of it this way - you will make 30 x 750 ml cider for about $22 plus yeast. Bargain! Cost at a bottle shop? $195.00 for a rather good one or about $1.35 for something less special.

* Why S-04 yeast?
It's a matter of personal preference. I chose S-04 because I like a little bit of residual sweetness in my ales and cider. You could use S-05 which will give a dryer result. However, according to some folk who have used it, the S-05 can result in too dry a finish and in some cases ferment to SG=<1.000. YMMV, etc.

There are other speciality yeasts from White Labs and Wyeast. Choose what you would prefer to be drinking.


Best of luck on your cidery adventure!

Cheers!!

BBQ Pork Buns

As you know, I prepared a large pork belly and it has been very tasty so far.

Utterly delicious, to be quite frank. The chilli in the marinade has started to shine through more and there's still a mild cola taste to it. I wish that I had been able to take to to the BBQ - t'would indeed have been a favourite for most.

I wanted to make bread on Sunday but thought to try my hand at BBQ pork buns - Char Siu Pau/Bao (it can be written many ways, depending on dialect).

Here's how!

* Start with a standard bread dough:
- 500 gms plain flour
- 1 tablespoon dry yeast
- Around 350 ml water (adjust as necessary)
- Knead or machine it as per your choice to make a fine grained bread dough.
- Rise as normal (lightly oiled bowl, cling wrap, non-draughty location, etc).

* After the rising, don't punch it down.
* Cut the dough ball in half and roll into long thick ropes.
* Cut each one into rounds, about 40 - 50 mm thick.
* Roll each one flat but still around 3 mm thick.
* Fill with whatever meat, meat and beg, veg combo you like.
* Put each one on small square of baking / grease prooof paper.
* Commence second rising.
* Set up your steamer (a word on steamers follows)
* When the dough looks risen and plump but before it begins to collapse or leak, put the buns in the steamer for ten minutes.
* You can eat fresh or freeze for later.

Reheating these is easy. You need around one minute for two buns in a 1000W microwave. It's up to you to test and make the right decision. Time decreases to around 1:50 for four buns. If you lightly spray or drizzle a little water on the buns as you put them into the microwave, they will be almost as nice as freshly made. Good tasty breakfast stuff.


Just a word on steamers:

If you have a proper stainless steel double layer one like the one in the photo (being uploaded soon - sorry - am busy), you're more than well equipped.

However, if you're a bamboo steamer kind of person, you will probably need two in order to cook the whole lot at the same time.

If you're planning on cooking them in two batches, start boiling your water earlier so that the first batch will be almost perfectly risen and the second batch will be just past perfect rising.


Experiment and you will know your kitchen equipment well.


Cheers!!

Beer in North Korea

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8115677.stm

Now if only they could strike at the world outside their borders with a truly tasty brew instead of weapons, perhaps they would become beloved trade partners for all instead of sanctioned.

/politics.

Cheers!!

Fear not the beer belly!

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,25738481-2,00.html

Seems that it's weight gain related genetics, not drinking lots of yummy beer that puts on the paunch.

Eat, drink and be merry!

Cheers!!

BBQ Coca-cola pork belly - Asian Style!

There's nothing better than a beer and a BBQ - and a pork belly!

I know - this article has nothing to do with yeast - just with wholesome flavoursome tasty goodness.

Pork belly is one of those budget cuts of meat as it's rather fatty and doesn't really correspond much to 'standard' Aussie cooking. It was popular in traditional English and European cooking and it's still a major mainstay of Asian dishes as it's actually a really flexible ingredient and is utterly delicious if it's handled well.

I prepared this one for a BBQ at a mate's place, but regrettably didn't go owing to my wife coming down with regular flu / common cold and not wanting to infect everyone else there.

It's a twice-cooked dish - a guarantee of extra special tasty goodness. Once in the oven - once on the BBQ to pick up extra flavours.


Here's how you do it:
* A big piece of pork belly - say >2.5 and <3.5 kg - as long as it will fit your biggest baking dish. It's better if it has the skin on and the rib bones in. That way you get two yummy dishes from one slab of meat.
* A huge baking dish
* 2 - 3 litres of cola
* 1 cinnamon stick
* 2 star anise

- Preheat your oven to 180C fan forced
- Put the pork belly into the baking dish, cover it with the cola as deep as possible and slowly bring it to the boil on the stove top.
- Put the cinnamon stick and star anise into the liquid
- Cook for 2.5 hours or until it's nice and tender. The skin will toughen and may burn a little - it's not important as you will be discarding it.

In the meanwhile, make the marinade:
* 500 grams white sugar
* 200 ml Chinkiang Vinegar (brown vinegar from any Asian grocer - more if you want a sharper taste, up to 400 ml)
* 3 tablespoons crushed dried chilli (you may want to add up to eight or ten if you want more chilli flavour, or use four or five fresh strong chillies for more of a kick)
* 2 cinnamon sticks
* 150 gm Lee Kum Kee char siu sauce (any brand will be OK, but this one is very reliable)
* 80 gm Hoi Sin sauce
* 100 ml of a premium oyster sauce (cheap ones are too salty and not 'oystery' enough).

- Put the sugar into a heavy based saucepan and add enough water to make a thick paste
- Cook over a medium to high heat, stirring often, until it becomes a pale golden colour. If you add too much water, you will end up with sugar syrup and will need to boil it down until it thickens - and it won't go gold, so you will miss out on the caramel flavours.
- Remove from heat and let cool about five minutes.
- VERY carefully add the vinegar. If the sugar solution is too hot it may explode owing to the temperature difference. Be careful.
- Add the remaining ingredients, mix well, and return to the heat to reduce until it thickens to a similar viscosity as the original sugar syrup / caramel.
- Remove from heat and let cool.

-- When the pork is done, remove it from the oven, discard the cooking liquid and let the pork cool down a bit.
- If you are going to BBQ it the same day, now is a good time to remove the skin and place the pork skin side down into the dish. It should pretty much come off in one piece. If you're preparing this a day or more in advance, leave the skin on and put the pork in the dish, skin side down.
- Pour the marinade over the pork. Cover with cling wrap and allow it to rest in the fridge for a few hours.
- The final cooking stage is about ten minutes either side on the BBQ, basting frequently with the marinade. You may want to BBQ longer or shorter depending on your preference.
- With a large knife, cut the ribs away from the slab of meat and serve.
- Slice the meat slab thinly, plate it, drizzle a little extra marinade on top and garnish with green chilli. Yummo!

It is quite possible to not BBQ it and serve as above. Warm out of the oven it's almost irresistible. If there are leftovers, you can refrigerate and consume much the same as cold cuts. Microwaved until warm and then served in slices with a dipping sauce of soy sauce and freshly cut chilli it's a fast and tasty side dish.

You can also make BBQ Pork Buns with leftovers. Keep some marinade and some meat and I will show you how in the next posting!


Cheers and Beers!!

Otto-keg-cooler

It's a busy week here, so I won't have a chance to get into a useful article for a few days yet.

However, to keep you amused, check out this link:

http://blog.cooklikeyourgrandmother.com/2009/06/greatest-thing-to-happen-to-beer-since.html

If that's not the coolest use for a wheelie bin / Otto bin I've ever seen... cheap, practical, mobile, quirky. Just pray some smart ass at your next bbq doesn't empty the plates into it.

Cheers!!

Drink like a man...

Here's a fun blog entry which I just found...

Well worth a read... especially the bit about beer.

http://www.getfrank.co.nz/the-10-commandments-for-drinking-like-a-man/


Cheers!!

The joy of krausen.

Krausen? Yes, Krausen. Not the Kraken.

Krausen is a foam which forms on top of the wort once fermentation has commenced. It's usually white or creamy but sometimes is darker depending on the yeast or the wort colour (e.g. a stout can be quite a bit darker, etc). Being that tell-tale sign that fermentation has started, it's a grand assurance that everything is on the right track.

Usually, the signs of fermentation are visible between twelve and forty-eight hours after pitching the yeast. This all depends on the yeast and how you pitch it.

The main signs that fermentation have commenced are:
* krausen
* condensation inside the lid of the fermenter
* bubbling air lock.

Krausen? As above.

Condensation? Yes, because the process is exothermic. If the ambient temperature is say 17C, then there's a good chance that the fermenter will be about 20C.

Bubbling air lock? Yes, CO2 being released by the fermentation has to go somewhere, but atmosphere needs to be excluded. Oxygen at this stage is a bad thing for beer making, as is particulate (dust, etc) or biological (wild yeast, bacteria, insect, etc) contamination.. If it's not bubbling, don't worry - that's usually a sign that there is a leak. However, your fermentation chamber will remain pressure-positive until after you have achieved FG so there is a limited chance of oxidation or contamination. CO2 will still be coming out of solution, for the most part, after FG is achieved.

As long as you have at least one of the three conditions above, there's a very high chance that fermentation is underway.

If after three days from pitching there is limited or no sign of fermentation having commenced, draw off a sample and measure the SG. If there is no change from OG, it would be advisable to pitch a new batch of yeast. If there has been a decrease in SG, then fermentation is taking place albeit slowly.

In general, if your OG is <1080 then a standard pitching, single fermentation in the vessel is adequate. If you're working with higher SG wort, then some special rules come into play but I can tell you more about that another time.

Also, take into consideration the temperature of where your fermenter is sitting. The ideal temperature range for the yeast you're using should be on the packaging or at least available at the supplier's web site. If the temperature is too low, fermentation may either not commence or commence very slowly. If the temperature is too high then fermentation may kick off, perhaps violently, and be very short-lived. A hot fermentation has some negative side-effects, the least of which can be a brutal hangover.


So - why all the talk about the Joy of Krausen?

I feel joyous.

My new batch has krausen.


Cheers!!

Back in the brew.

Well, after a longish hiatus from brewing, I'm back into it and put down my first brew for June.

I hadn't been sure what to start with again as I've been hanging to make some apple cider but haven't been able to find a good, well priced source of apple juice. After all, apple cider is merely apple juice fermented in the same manner as beer, albeit with a different kind of yeast. One of my good friends is somewhat a cider fan, so thought to see what I could make which could tickle his tastebuds. If you happen to know of a good source of bulk, organic, preservative free apple juice then do let me know.

So what did I kick off with? A simple English Ale. ESB - Extra Special Bitter.

Here's the recipe:
* 500 g cracked Carapils steeped at 78C for 20 minutes
* 500 g wheat malt
* 4.5 kg liquid light malt extract (Coopers)
* 45 g Pilgrim hops @ 60 minutes
* 20 g Fuggles hopes @ 30 minutes
* 25 g Fuggles hopes @ 10 minutes
* US-05 yeast, dry sprinkled and stirred, pitched @ 17C, ambient 19C.
** OG = 1060

ESB? Hmmm - not quite. It doesn't completely match the statistical profile listed in some of the judging associations' guidebooks, but then again, quite a few favourite beers, ales, stouts and more don't match a given profile yet are well enjoyed world over. Just like cooking, some people prefer more or less something or another - it's just personal taste.

In this case, it wasn't taste. My stock of Pilgrim is about four or five months old so it's possible that it is no longer as strong. Thus, this brew is experimental.

There wasn't anything new or exciting to photograph during production, so I will make good with some pics as soon as it's in the glass.

Cheers!!

And the research continues...

Yes, still making decisions about what to make.

Brew day, I have decided is tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, I thought this article would amuse you for a little while.

http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/12-22-2008/How-to-Know-If-You-Are-a-Beer-Snob-92


Catch you on the flipside.


Cheers!!

Back to brewing...

Soon. Maybe this weekend.

It has been far too busy with work and some onsite upgrades for some of my major hardware clients. I haven't even had a chance to bake some bread for a week or so.

I'm missing brewing and drinking the fruits of my labour. It's time to get started again with something perhaps towards the Pilsener or maybe even Lager end of the spectrum. It's bitterly cold here in Sydney - only 12C at 11:40 am. The newspaper this morning said it was only 3C around the city this morning before the dawn.

As part of deciding what to make, research is in order. I'm looking at the various beers of the world which are flavoursome, quick to get finished so that the brewery re-start is quick.

Have a look at the following link - it's inspirational source material for the most part, and deterrent if nothing else in other parts. I mean - after all - they show VB as representative of Australian beer. WTF? Megaswill is not FTW.

http://www.sloshspot.com/blog/11-19-2008/Around-the-World-in-116-Beers-80


Time to go play with Beersmith this evening...


Cheers!!

Beer - a better rehydrator than water.

It has been far too busy for me lately, so sorry for the pack of posts. I'll be back soon with more beery and bready yeasty goodness.

In the meanwhile, check this out:

http://beerrunner.draftmag.com/2009/06/02/beer-now-scientifically-better-than-water/


Until soon! Cheers!!

And just in case you think it's all too serious...

...then cut and paste this link into your broswer and prepare for a giggle.

http://komplexify.com/epsilon/2009/05/12/the-science-of-the-suckpoint/

I'll be brewing something tasty again shortly...

Cheers!!

The Evils of Glass.

Just a short post this time. For once.

In normal roasting and baking, glass dishes are a Godsend. Nothing much sticks to them and even the most gooey, sticky, fast-and-hot baked dishes are easy to scrub clean. Pyrex is aweosome.

When it comes to baking bread and the like, forget glass.

I tried a new focaccia recipe last night that I want to fine tune before I give it to you. It was very late and I felt so lazy that I didn't reach for my big black baking pan and just used the big glass one which was nearest to hand. Big mistake. Despite oiling it well the focaccia stuck a little all over the place and was a pain to remove without some cracking and little bits being torn off during removal. Less than perfect effort I'm sad to say.

So, give the glass dishes a miss and stick to proper baking pans.

Your mouth will thank you.

Bakers Yeast.

When it comes to making bread, rolls and the like your choice of yeast could either make or break the result.

For many years, I've been using Tandaco packaged yeast. It's very convenient in little sealed individual foil packets and it's cheaper than a lot of other baker's yeasts on the market.

Or so I thought.

Recently in the supermarket, I looked at what other yeasts were available and only found one other than my trusty Tandaco. Lowans. I thought that I should chance it, after all it was a package of about 280 grams for about the same price as a dozen sachets of Tandaco - much more yeasty goodness for the money.

I started looking for another yeast as I'm looking for the ultimate soft fluffy white burger bun - similar to a Macdonalds bun but with more texture and slightly firmer - somewhat like a well made Vietnamese baker's bread roll... or at least the illegitimate offspring of the two. I don't like to use more preservatives than a little salt, sugar and olive oil - a vague attempt at healthy eating.

Fingers crossed!

I had a BIG surprise when I used Lowans yeast for the first time a couple of days ago.

Scientific method, simply put, is creating a repeatable set of circumstances - a benchmark if you will - where you alter one variable at a time so that you can see the effect. I used my standard white loaf recipe, but I wanted bread rolls. Prep was the same except that I cut the dough into six pieces for burger buns. The variable was the yeast. Lowans. Two level teaspoons.

What a surprise!

At the first rising, the result was a bit disappointing. The dough ball had risen only to two thirds the size of the Tandaco based recipes.

Undaunted, I punched it down, cut it into six and let the second rise take place.

Wow. All I can say is wow. At 45 minutes into the second rise, the 'buns' were more like giant panini and spreading fast across the baking sheet. I grabbed the lot, gave it a minor punchdown and cut and remade the buns so hopefully they would be taller and stiffer. I did an inverse Kaiserbroetchen fold (pics some other time).

Another 45 minutes rising later I had half a dozen panini maximus trying to escape the baking sheet.

Quick drizzle of olive oil, a spray of water, a sprinkle of sesame seeds and a final water spray then into the oven at 185C fan forced for 25 minutes. The result? Slightly crusty, yummy buns for far less than you can buy them from the baker, let alone the supermarket.

Take the time to look into what yeasts are available to you and don't be afraid to experiment.

Happy baking!

Cinnamon Rolls - without yeast!

Hello!

Sorry I haven't been around for a while but I've been busy with some other projects and haven't had a lot of time in the kitchen.

However, this morning the urge takes and I want to make something tasty to have with coffee this afternoon. Cinnamon rolls!

Rather than re-inventing the wheel, I want to show you a supreme recipe that looks to really be the business:
http://www.bigredkitchen.com/2009/04/quick-cinnamon-rolls.html All kudos and praise to the author for this one.

When you look at that recipe, it calls for optional 'cinnamon chips' and 'caramel cookie bits' which I don't think are available here in Australia. They look like a nice addition and could possibly be cloned by making a small batch of soft cookie dough, splitting it and flavouring it appropriately and making small pieces of it (kinda like spaetzle) and adding it into the roll-up.

The bad news? No yeast... but it looks yummy anyway.

Oh - and Happy Frickin' Mothers' Day.

Fluffy Buns.

OK - I showed you how to make some sturdy buns for a good BBQ and a juicy flame grilled burger - a good firm bun that will stand up to the punishment of a beer fuelled BBQ and lots of food stuffed into a decent bun.

Your next mission, should you decide to accept it, is to make a completely fluffy bun along the lines of a commercial bun.

The bad news? Can't be done. Unless you want to start adding chemistry to it. If that's your goal, I'm sorry to say I can't help you. However, I can get you along the way and still remain true to the goals of good food with few additions.

How?

Easy! Here's how:

• Use the basic bread recipe from a much earlier post.
• Double the yeast. Two packs of Tandaco or two spoons of your favourite bulk yeast.
• Reduce the water content a little.
• Allow more processing time in your machine. Allow the dough to knead until just before it becomes sticky and gooey. For a regular loaf, usually around two minutes is enough. If you allow perhaps five minutes you will observe the dough becoming stickier. That's about the time to stop, else it will become really gooey and barely movable by your machine's blades.
• Cut the dough into six or eight pieces, sprinkle with olive oil and sesame seeds, spray with water and bake at 180C fan forced for 25 minutes.

If the sweet smell of sesame and oil cooking hot doesn't make you hungry, nothing will.

The light fluffiness of Viet-na-bread and Maccas (Mickey D's, McDonalds, Golden Arches, etc) buns can't be done in a home kitchen as far as I can tell and have experienced.

Apologies for the lack of pics lately, but it's very busy here. I promise I will give you before during and after pics more often.

Take care and happy baking and brewing.

Cheers!!

Hamburger Buns.

You're going to love this one - real home made fluffy hamburger buns.


We're not talking the little hamburgers from White Castle. These mothers will beat even the worst munchies that Jay and Kumar could ever come up with.


You know how the buns from the shop become stodgy and collapse when you make a proper country style, man-sized hamburger barbecued with fresh premium mince, onions, pineapple, beetroot, lettuce, tomatoes, lots of sauce and all the good stuff? These ones certainly don't. They hold together under the stress of the biggest Aussie hamburger, let alone the 'I can haz cheezburger' lolcat crap from the multinational chains.


So enough telling you how goooood these are. Let's make 'em!


Here's the ingredients:

• 200 ml luke warm milk
• 30 grams unsalted butter (you can use margarine or olive-oil based spread if you like)
• 1 egg (small is OK, large is better, jumbo free range is best)
• 450 grams plain flour
• 30 grams castor sugar (more or less, depending on your taste)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 Packs of Tandaco dry yeast
• An egg yolk
• Sesame seeds

I use my trusty Braun Combimax because I'm a lazy guy and the instructions are based on using machinery. If you're one of the keen folk who like to do it by hand, then adapt the instructions to your method.


Here's what to do with the ingredients:

• Put the flour and butter into the Combimax and run it on the lowest speed for around one minute or until they're well combined.
• After that, add the salt, sugar and yeast allowing them to combine well for around one minute.
• Break the egg into the Combimax's chamber while it's still running. You may need to increase the speed to three so that the dry mix forms into crumbly little pieces. After that, increase the speed to six.
• Slowly add the milk as with other recipes in this blog until a good dough ball forms, then add just a touch more. You probably won't need to use all the milk. However, it depends on the flour you're using. Adjust the amount as you see fit.
• Roll the dough into a ball with olive oil lightly spread all over it in a bowl.
• Cover and allow to rise for around one hour to one and a half hours. It should more than double in size.
• Punch the dough down.
• Gently knead the dough, adding any whole grains or other additions you would like in the bread.
• Form the dough into a long cylinder and cut into eight equal sized pieces.
• Flatten the pieces to about half of the height of what would would like the finished buns to be.
• Allow to rise again, covered in a warm place, for about 30 - 45 minutes. Longer rising makes for fluffier buns.
• Preheat the over to 180C fan forced.
• Lightly beat the extra egg yolk with a teaspoon of water and brush onto the risen buns. This will make them brown to look like the buns you see in burger joint advertising but rarely, if ever, get when you buy.
• Decorate with sesame seeds for that authentic burger look.
• Bake for around 12 minutes.
• Switch your oven to either fan forced grill mode or switch to grill mode until the top baking tray of buns is browned to your liking. Move the bottom tray up to where the top tray was and repeat the browning procedure. Careful you don't put the buns too close to a non-fan forced grill else you will burn them instead of browning.
• Place the buns on a cooling rack.
• Ready to eat after about fifteen to twenty minutes.

As with all of my recipes, there are only limited preservatives used - small amounts of salt and sugar. These buns are best on the day they are baked and will become stale quite quickly. After day two, they make great toast, pain perdue, French toast or whatever it is you like to do with less-then-fresh bread. After day five they make great king-sized hockey pucks for you Canuck readers!


Happy Baking!!


PS - On Saturday 11 April 2009 I'm going to show you how to make Hot Cross Buns for Easter Sunday morning (12 April 2009). Guys - this is a way to win huge brownie points with your SWMBO especially with the prices they're charging for Hot Cross Buns this year! You're going to need some brown sugar, icing sugar and mixed peel as well as your usual baking ingredients. Oh - and butter - real butter because nothing else tastes better than oven fresh Hot Cross Buns with butter. Fresh from the oven they taste and smell awesome!