Columbus Brew Adventures: Downtown Tour

I stopped brewing beer some time ago.  It was like baking bread while living in France.  Columbus is home to many excellent breweries leaving the enthusiastic beer drinker with a desire to explore.  Columbus Brew Adventures is in business to help.  I decided to try their Downtown Tour to start my education.

 

Our flight at Seventh Son

The tour was a blast!  We had about 14 in our party including a couple from Cleveland, a business traveler from Chicago and a bunch of locals.  This tour was on Saturday afternoon from 2 - 5:30 pm and comprised 4 stops:

1. Columbus Brewing Co. We started with a tasty flight of their popular ales including Bodhi, which  has been crazy popular since its debut.  Bodhi is going to break some kind of record in Columbus for popularity, very hoppy with a not too bitter finish.  That's all I'm saying, go try it.  We also got to enjoy a liberal selection of tasty treats from the kitchen, it was a fantastic brewery to get started with.

2. Barley's Brewing Co.  A personal favorite of mine for years.  I was excited to learn a lot more during the tour than I had visiting and sampling beers on my own.  We showed up and were shuttled to the basement (itself a rare destination) to see their shiny fermenters and receive our tasting from Angelo Signorino.  Angelo is a dynamic guy who is passionate about his beer.  His discussion of yeast and beer styles was worth the price of the tour.  His combination of organoleptic and analytical evaluation of yeast over more than 20 years in the business is impressive.

3. Seventh Son Brewing Co.  Next, our most capable tour guide gently herded his (more relaxed) flock to Seventh Son.  I've sampled their  American Strong Ale at Crest a couple times and couldn't wait for this stop.  It is a raw facility with the fermenters and cooker shimmeringly clean and juxtaposed to a wide open space where happy people enjoyed their ale.  Colin, their master brewer, walked  us through the brewing process (including giving us a nibble of some malts) and providing a representative flight of their brews.

4. North High Brewing.  They currently brew on a smaller scale than the other breweries we toured, but the equipment is located in the center of the bar!  In my experience, that's unique.  They also allow individuals to visit and brew their own under their tutelage and using their equipment.  A few more samples and some history of the building in Short North made this stop quite special.

I hope I haven't said too much; these tours are new.  I had such a good time and wanted to share some of the experience.  Our tour guide was informed, the duration of the tour very good and the pace was perfect, plenty of samples and snacks, I loved it all and look forward to learning about and sampling more of the brew scene in Columbus via the other available tours.

Extracting sugar from corn, to malt or not

Let's say one wanted to extract fermentable sugar from corn.  Is it worth it to malt it first?

I took 300 g organic feed corn and covered it in water for two days, drained it, kept it moist by rinsing it a couple times a day and allowed it to sprout (see image below).  Then, I spread the sprouted corn on the concrete floor of my basement for a couple days until the kernels lost most of their moisture and looked like they did when started (only with sprouts hanging out of them, I couldn't determine residual moisture).  I did not pull off the rootlets and ground up each batch using a corona mill.  I then ground up some unmalted feed corn from the same bag and infused each of them in 1000 g of 170F water.  I stirred both suspensions several times during the hour and filtered off the solids via mesh paint strainer bag with no rinsing of the grain bed.

malted corn prior to drying

Results
Sugar determined by refractometer.
Malted: obtained 806 g of solution with 7.5% w/w dissolved sugar, 60 g sugar.
Unmalted: obtained 730 g of solution with 4.0% w/w dissolved sugar, 30 g sugar.

For some reason the unmalted absorbed more water resulting in a smaller filtrate volume.

Pretty big difference.  The malting takes a lot of time, but almost no effort.  If you need this kind of sugar for a project, I'd do the malting.  With unmalted corn, it could be cooked for a long time to get more starch out, but then it gets gummy and difficult to filter.  I simple infusion is operationally easier.

Carried through the streets with my soap on a rope medallion bathed in a ticker tape shower of CheezIts

 
Before the weight of the world came crushing down squarely on my shoulders, there was a time when I was fun and carefree.  High school in Summer,  I used to hang out at the beach from morning until 3ish - I worked 2nd shift at a greyhound racetrack.  All day long, a friend of mine, Rick Sanchez, and I would bask at the beach and bronze ourselves for the ladies.

Our precious stash of money was reserved for a Kelly's roast beef sandwich and if the opportunity was available, we'd steal more cash to get fries with that.  Mostly poor, our entertainment came from our own idle minds.  We'd crafted images of ourselves high atop the beach wall as sun gods wearing shiny gold medallions like kings.  In lieu of a gold medallion and perhaps fueled by a beverage we managed to find, or get someone to find, we believed soap on a rope would suffice.

Next to a Kelly's roast beef sandwich, CheezIts were our next favorite food on earth; we created scenarios in which the salty savory treat was society's currency.  We envisioned many poker games in Vegas and how we'd play our tasty chips.

Donned with soap on a rope, standing in the sun, elevated on the beach wall with a big  handful of CheezIts was an image we yearned for and reserved for only our most supreme accomplishments (getting into a bar under aged, conversing with the bikini-clad, etc.) and it's a vision I carry with me now that symbolizes a less burdensome time and a symbol of accomplishment.

Yesterday I baked, with intention, some crackly-surfaced breads: crisp, caramel colored, tasty, a work still very much in progress, but the result was worthy of celebration.

#KidLunch

Having recently been a chaperone for a fifth grade field trip, I was able to learn more about the complexities of the lunch period.  In kindergarten and 1st grade the kids still comply with the no sharing/trading of food from their lunch.  As they mature they discover their lunch has value greater than they realized; e.g., lunch items can be used to "buy" M&Ms (or as Frankie called them enimens)!!

Knowing the difference between absolute and relative value of your child's lunch items is they key to your success when preparing these meals.

General Guidelines for the Kid Lunch
1.  Small items are good.  If the item is good, they get to eat some and trade some.  Smaller items are even better.

2. The food better look good.  One speck of fat shows up on a piece of chicken and it'll be as popular as anthrax.

3. Lots of items in a lunch is good, it's a kid's version of tapas and it goes for appetizers, main part of the meal and dessert (see tradeability above).

4. I use portion containers a lot, 2 oz *capped* are convenient and about 9 cents each.

5. Plain old savory snack bags:  chips,  CheezIts, etc. are like gold on the trading table. Never know, they may trade for something healthier. 

Suggestions (in progress)
1. Celery sticks and individual peanut butter dipping cups.  Kids will eat the celery and share dips, so this is where colds come from.

2. Little slider buns are great for any kind of sandwich, again, the tradeability factor is high, fill with:

•  peanut butter and nutella (jelly will sog, so opt for a homemade uncrustable).
•  Oscar Mayer has a really good real roasted, not extruded turkey, been a big hit this year
•  FAT FREE ham, little bits of exposed fat are NOT good on kid ham

3. Biscuits with a honey to dip on the side. Biscuits have been a big hit this year.  I make them in the morning.  One for b'fast, two for lunch.

4. Chicken skewers.  This is easier than it sounds.  A few chunks of chicken breast (marinated/brined) on a short bamboo skewer, peanut sauce is available already made in an Asian market.  I make them the night before and fry them on the skewer in the morning.

5. Candy.  I often buy a couple boxes of theater sized candy at the supermarket and divide into portion cups (and hide them) for a small dessert.

6. Raw veggies and ranch is a great lunch.  Carrots, sugar snap peas, sliced jicama, celery, no cooking!

7. Beef / Pork / Turkey jerky!  My girl went through a big phase of this, but it didn't last long.  I think it inevitably became out of favor when the first kid said it looked like poo.

8. Rice rolls, or grocery store fish-free sushi.  These are a big deal with the more sophisticated kids.

9. Cheese!  A piece of cheese, some bread sticks, ham pieces and a raw veggie, not bad and easy to prepare.

10. Fried chicken drumsticks from the grocery store hot food section has been an intermittent success this year.  They get to room temp by the time they're eaten, yum!

11. I use cupcake papers to line a small container, and place cut meats, cheese and crackers in them to make a lunchable.

12. Nutella minis! These go with everything or they can eat them neat.

 

actual scene of an actual lunch in progress - it's crazy

fried flounder

I think I'm the only person in the world who likes Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives.  He finds some of the best from-scratch diner food ever.  Columbus has some supreme eats, but there are still too many bars serving expensive shit bar food, more locals should watch this show.

The only problem is the preps fly by too fast to take notes, but the other night I snagged a simple one: beer batter.  1 x 12 oz beer (I used Bud), 1C of flour and 2T salt and mix.  Coat the fish with a dusting of flour, dip in the batter,  let excess drain and pop it in the fryer.  I used peanut oil at about 375.  Really crisp and the coating was not too thick, a really nice save for some mediocre frozen fish.

And for some good local fried fish, catch @jarsloth's review today on Marino's in Grandview!

Biscuits, bacon and cheese, prepped night before

So school lunch season is upon us. A ham/bacon & cheese biscuit is a fun alternative to the traditional sammich. The night before, I prep: 210 g flour, 2t b pwdr, 4 g salt and cut in 70 g sweet butter and place in fridge. Tomorrow morning, I'll preheat the oven 450F, toss in shredded cheese (cheddar) and ham or bacon, add milk, barely mix and slam out a few biscuits. I can usually get them out in about 30 minutes after waking up. A good prep for the morning.

Here they are:

 Milk, bacon, cheese added and lightly formed into a rectangle and cut with a pizza cutter into little squares.

Final baked biscuits after 15 minutes at 450F.

pho

I don't often post about what I ate last night, but this is too easy and immediately became part of repertoire of fun, fast and excellent meals.  I can't believe it took me so long to make it.  I didn't do a thing different than what is explained in this recipe.  My only contribution in this post is I actually made it thus validating the prep.  Go make this, it's wicked good.

A couple action shots:

 I covered the braised pork for about an hour to make it pull easier.  Also in this image are all the fixins.  The assembly of the pho: -> noodles, meat, toppings (thai basil, cilantro, onions, carrots, peppers, soybean sprouts, etc) followed by broth makes the dinner especially fun.  It reminds me of the fun of assembling our own tacos.  Trish and I get to make ours hot and spicy and Frankie made hers mild.

Note that carrots were sliced extra thin.  The broth in this isn't so hot it could cook the carrot, but if slivered, it's not too tough for the soup raw.  What a meal!

Crackling crust experiment, failed.

Trying to make the elusive roll like the one on the right, and this baguette, I explored a boundary high humidity condition which was to be followed by dry baking.  I used the Baparoma which, in this case, is used like any poaching pan would be, and cooked a risen roll on top of the stove, much like bao would be made (catch that foreshadow).

Here's some images, 100 g dough balls, steamed 5 full minutes in heavy steam on the stove top (using a patch of parchment), then popping them into a 425F convection oven.  Although they came out nice and shiny, no crackling mosaic of a crust.  Still an interesting run.  Check out the middle image.  Pretty good rise of the steamed bun compared to the uncooked and proofed roll.

Click any of the images to enlarge.

 Dough balls, 100 g each, risen and ready for the stovetop steam tray.

 Steamed and shiny on the right, plumes of steam pouring off it.

After about 10 min in a convection oven at 425F.  Tasty, nice interior, but chewy crust like more like a bagel than a crackly roll.

Last night, I steamed a full 10 minutes with the same result. 

I'm trying this again with a lower temp dry oven.

crackly crust

(click to enlarge, CLICK!)

Bringing this post back to the top because it is one of my biggest obsessions in life.  I can't make it happen again.  Baparoma or not.  The right one is ethereal and elusive.  Damn you!  I'm returning to my philosophy MOOC to try to make sense of the world now.  Back in a while.


Original Post
Left derived from unbleached white 300 g, water 180 g, salt 5 g, Fleischmann's rapid 3 g.
Right is all that +7 g Crisco.  100 g dough balls cooked in a Baparoma with NO water in lower pan at 425F for 10 min covered and 10 min uncovered.  Pretty damn earth shattering wouldn't you agree?

The curious reader of this site will ask, why didn't I do this before?  The parameters at a glance: dough recipe (lean, but fat containing or not), bake on a sheet / tile / pan / steam pan / steam pan with or without  water in the reservoir, oven temp, convection or not, bake one loaf at a time or many, ingredient brands, etc.  It's more complicated than the several ingredients.  There are many combinations of the parameters to explore.

From here? repeat this, then baguette/batârd shape, try to move away from Baparoma steam tray given its limiting size (one small loaf at a time) - instead using a simple inverted dome moisture trap variant, evolve to sourdough-derived doughs baked like this, maybe explore other fats.

Mini lunch rolls/boules, the daily grind

I think it's in Silverton's La Brea book and plenty other places I've read about baking fully proofed formed loaves of dough right out of the fridge.  My fear was always the moisture built up inside while cooking would behave so differently than the exterior, a dense middle might result.

Time for some small risk taking.  We're in production mode: both off to work early, kid to school, and the city school lunch belched forth from whatever disgusting organization that sleeps with Columbus Public Schools is turning out disgraceful options.  So, we need good food prepared fast for lunches.

Little fresh breads, whether for sandwiches or dipping in nutella are versatile for Frankie (and for our dinners as well, the little round is a cool mini soup bowl).  So here's a quickie prelude to a series of posts on rapidly cooked breads with lots of flavor from slow fridge fermentation.

My first attempt made use of a typical lean dough, 65% hydration with a 2.5% oil enrichment, it's a versatile dough for us.  This dough happened to have aged in the fridge 3-4 days.  Last night I took it out, rounded 4 x 50 gram lumps and let them proof in the fridge overnight.  Next morning, I tossed them my Baparoma steam pan in a cold oven set for 425 F, 25 minutes covered and 10 uncovered and boom! Hot rolls.  A couple tossed in to the lunch bag loosely swaddled in a  paper towel so they could cool properly and I'm pretty sure they might be eaten first.

Some action shots: click to enlarge images:

dough balls rounded on the cover of a plastic container, the bowl gets affixed to the lid and dough can rise during the night with no contact, but still  prevented from drying out in the fridge.

The dough balls this morning.  A little flour dusted on them to prevent sticking to the pan.

 Note the dimpled surface of the bread.  Although I use a full yeast charge on this dough,  several days in the fridge result in a dough with some sourdough features.  The several day aging with full yeast is an interesting hybrid method between a straight, rapidly rising dough and a slow starter-derived dough.

Upcoming posts on this:  scale up, making about 16 of these at a time and using a regular half sheet aluminum pan for baking.  With more minis in at once, the overall humidity should be high enough to not have to use the Baparoma.  

Fire in the hole! A Firedome w chimney.

boules

This is a little something different.  I used a prep Trish uncovered from a French video.  It uses a full charge of yeast, no sourdough/poolish/starter/chef/levain or anything like that but does have a delayed fridge rise.

Here it is in short note form:

flour 1000 g

water 700 g

mix, knead briefly, let sit for an hour (autolyse)

add salt (17 g) and yeast (Fleischmann's rapid) (7 g) and knead (machine)

let rise in fridge 12+ hours

let warm a couple hours at RT

portion into loaf size (in this case 425 g x 4)

round the dough and let rise about 2h

dock and bake in 450 convection oven for 10 min

turn oven to 350F for additional half hour

focaccia or pizza

I'm not sure what differentiates a focaccia and pizza, especially in the states.  Ultimately, I don't care.  Here's a few shots of a focaccia I did recently and instead of a traditional salt and rosemary, I let my hair down and went nuts.

 About 1100 grams of 67% hydration dough (after a slow rise) enriched with milk, some olive oil and a little sugar.  Plopped in a 11 x 17" sheet liberally lubed with olive oil and allowed to ooze out to fill it.

 With wet fingers, I pushed it out the edges and dimpled the top.

 Some caremelized onions.

 A skim of tomato paste applied with an oil-moistened brush.  Then topped with shredded provolone, reggiano and a trace of coarse salt.  The top was drizzled liberally with olive oil.

Baked on a sheet at 375 for about 25 minutes.  Check out how cloud like the intereior is. Not sure if this a pizza, focaccia, sicilian style sheet pizza, but it's killer.  If you make one bread in your life, you need to make this.  It's a straight dough recipe (toss in everything at once).
Milk 100 g
Water 300 g
Olive oil 50 g
salt 10 g
sugar 10 g
unbleached white 600 g
Fleischmann's rapid yeast 7g
Spin it in a dough machine, let rise a couple hours, round it, plop it in a 11 x 17" sheet pan, proceed as above, add anything you want.  let rest about a half hour, top it, bake at 400 about 40 minutes.

burger buns, happy bday America

Don't let your choice 80/20 chuck lie atop a soggy carbohydrate mess. Make these.