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Back of the Door Wine
So you have a couple of special bottles you’ve been hiding for that perfect dinner. Dinner is served and you break out this gem you’ve been so patiently waiting for. The wine was great, but went really fast. People are enjoying the food, conversation and the wine. Next your guests shout “Grab another bottle, that first one was great!”. This is a critical moment for your little collection you’ve been selectively building for the last couple of months. Go ahead and grab something good, but not your best. After having a meal and the first bottle of wine most people can’t differentiate between good and great wine. Every collection, no matter the size should have Back of the Door bottles. These are the bottles that are the 3rd and 4th soldiers in line after the first great bottle of wine. You don’t want to wake up the next morning and realize your 4 bottles down and $80 went with it. In the end, no one really remembered the great subsequent bottles. Just make sure the first one really counts.
Chuck’s Pizza Dough Recipe
Version as of 2021
Ingredients
Yield: 2 medium pizza. serves 4 hungry adults
-500g Robin Hood unbleached all purpose BREAD flour
-325g cool filtered tap water
-4 tsp sugar
-4 tsp sugar
-2 tsp olive oil
-2 tsp active dry yeast
Mix the above with a dough hook, 7 mins on speed 2. Then add:
-2 tsp non-iodized salt (then mix another 2 minutes)
Step by Step Directions:
- Cut & shape dough into 2 balls
- Oil dough ball, cover top of bowl with plastic wrap, place in fridge.
- wait 24-36 hours. For pizza Saturday night, make the dough Wednesday night.
- 1 hour before baking, remove from fridge & turn on the oven with pizza stone.
Baking Instructions:
- Pizza stone on the 2nd highest oven rack.
- Convection roast 450F for 1 hour to heat the stone up.
- Before stretching and topping the pizza. Put your broiler on high.
- Stretch out dough. Avoid squishing the crust. Thinner is tastier. If it springs back, let it rest for 10 mins.
- I use a 50/50 mix of all purpose flour and coarse semolina to dust with.
- Before putting the pizza in the oven, turn off the broiler and reset the oven to convection roast 450F.
- Pizza will be done in 6-8 minutes. I often turn the brolier back on for the last 3 or so minutes.
- The trick is to balance the cook on the top and bottom.
Chuck’s Pizza Sauce Recipe
Version as of Dec 2018
Ingredients
Yield: Sauce for 2 medium-large pizzas.
1x750mL bottle pureed tomatos (passata) I usually use Molisana.
1.5 tsp sugar
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp dried basil
Directions:
- Mix the above and re-season to taste.
- Sauce will cook while on the pizza but simmering for 1 hr can improve taste.
- Spread over dough at room temperature
Note: Freezes well for at least 1 month
Whey Protein Cookie Recipe
This is a pretty flexible whey protein cookie recipe I’ve developed over a few iterations. Change it up swapping 1 scoop of chocolate whey for 1 scoop of coffee flavoured whey. The best part is you only dirty one bowl to combine all of the ingredients at once.
Ingredients:
2 scoops chocolate whey (1 scoop is roughly 35 grams)
1 c. peanut butter (crunchy is best)
1/2 c. brown sugar
1 egg
1/4 c oats
splash of milk if needed
Instructions:
roll into 12 balls (each slightly smaller than golf balls)
lightly press with a fork (cross fashion)
use parchment paper or sprayed foil on top of the cookie sheet
Cooking Directions:
350F for 13 Min, Middle Rack, Slide off sheet onto cooling rack
Notes:
6 grams of Protein per cookie
American Yeast Comparison: WLP001 vs US-05 vs WLP090 vs Conan
Experiment Date: October 2015
White Labs: WLP090 San Diego Super
Will use in future batches where a more malt forward profile is required. Rye Pale Ales, RIS, Stouts, Some mellow ales. Middle of the road, less hop presence than WLP001, maltier, had the most head.
White Labs: WLP001 California Ale
Will use in future batches where hops are featured. IPA, Pales, Blonde. Needs whirlfloc more that WLP090. Very clean, no yeast or malt character. Bright and slightly fruity.
Safale US-05
Will not use in future batches if liquid is available. Not as clean as WLP001 with more malty and more body. Was overall lacking and much darker than others.
The Yeast Bay: Vermont Ale (Conan)
Will not use in future batches. Overpowering and makes itself a big part of the recipe. Peachy, malty, full mouthfeel, lingering finish. The yeast works faster than the others.
Recipe Used for an American Blonde Ale (4 gallon batch):
100% Pale Malt (2 Row)
Centennial [11.60 %] – Boil 10.0 min for 20 IBU
2oz Centennial [11.60 %] – Hopstand for 45 min
2oz Simcoe [13.00 %] – Hopstand for 45 min
SG 1.043 (~4.4%)
20 IBU
White Labs: WLP090 San Diego Super
The Yeast Bay: Vermont Ale (Conan)
White Labs: WLP001 California Ale
Safale US-05
Video of Fermentation
Beer Malt Taste Test
After a handful of odd recipes, I’ve decided to taste test a bunch of malted barley in order to get a sense of what each style contributes to a finished recipe. Below are my results. More to come! Have an addition? Please leave a comment!
Method:
1 oz of crushed grain in 250ml 150 degF water for 10 minutes.
| Base Malts | ||
| Malt (Maltster) | Grain Characteristics | Rating out of 3 |
| 2-Row ( OiO aka Gilbertson & Page ) |
grassy, hay | ♥ |
| Pale Ale Malt ( Weyermann ) |
light malt, slight nut, touch of grass Overall: light sweet malt |
♥♥.5 |
| Golden Promise ( Thomas Fawcett ) |
Between 2-Row & Pale Ale Malt ( Weyermann ) |
♥♥♥ |
| Vienna (Weyermann) |
straw, light toast |
♥♥.5 |
| Light Malts | ||
| Malt (Maltster) | Grain Characteristics | Rating out of 3 |
| Munich 10 | malty, no grass, golden hay | ♥♥ |
| Aromatic | medium done white toast | ♥♥ |
| Melanoidin | barley soup, very plain, flat | ♥ |
| Honey | honey, butterscotch, bit fruity | ♥ |
| Victory | woody, nutty (hazel/walnut) | ♥♥ |
| Carabelge (Weyermann) 11-15.5°L |
light leather, malty | ♥ |
| CaraHell (Weyermann) 8.1 – 11.8L |
malty v.light chocolate, tangy, c15-20 like | ♥ |
| Crystal / Caramel Malts | ||
| Malt (Maltster) | Grain Characteristics | Rating out of 3 |
| Caravienne 20 | light-med caramel, slightly sweet | ♥♥♥ |
| Caramel 20 | darker than Caravienne 20, med-dark caramel, nutty | ♥♥♥ |
| Crystal 40 | solid medium caramel | ♥♥♥ |
| Crystal 60 | toffee, sweet dark-med caramel, light tannins | ♥♥♥ |
| Caramel Munich 60 (Briess) | sweet malty caramel, slight coffee | ♥♥ |
| Crystal 90 | molasses | ♥♥ |
| Crystal 120 | burnt raisins, dark toffee, light coffee | ♥♥ |
| Roasted Malts | ||
| Malt (Maltster) | Grain Characteristics | Rating out of 3 |
| Special B | weak coffee, slight toffee, raisin | ♥♥ |
| Brown | mocha | ♥♥ |
| Pale Chocolate | medium astringency, old coffee, burnt toffee | ♥♥ |
| Chocolate | bitter dark chocolate, coffee | ♥ |
| Roasted Barley | tar, ultra roasted coffee, guinness like | ♥ |
| Black Patent | burnt plastic, ashy | .5 |
| Other | ||
| Malt (Maltster) | Grain Characteristics | Rating out of 3 |
| Rye (Weyermann) | watered down whiskey | ♥♥ |
How to keep fruit flies out of your airlock
A common issue I’ve seen in homebrew forums is regarding fruit flies getting into the airlock. Most airlocks have caps with tiny holes to let gas escape but large enough to let fruit flies in (then they drown in the sanitizer)
I’d prefer they not get in at all so here’s my air lock hack: Simply twist a napkin around the top portion of the cap!
Make Your Own Hard Cider
In a nutshell: making decent homemade hard cider is very possible!!!
Here’s the story:
When going to restaurants and pubs, I occasionally find myself ordering hard cider. BlackThorn and Strongbow are personal favourites as I find Perrys too mild for my tastes.
It doesn’t take a wine connoisseur’s palette to quickly realize that Hard Cider is 99.9999% apple juice (or fresh pressed sweet apple cider)
Me being the guy who can’t leave well enough alone, I decide to make some and share the experience with everyone here … good or bad result.
First begin by sanitizing everything that will come into contact with the juice. I used boiling water but you can also use a home brewing sanitizer.
Begin with 1 gallon of Preservative Free sweet apple cider or juice. The only additive allowed here is ascorbic acid (vitamin c). I used 70% cider and topped off with canned apple juice.
Using a hydrometer, take a Specific Gravity reading (SG) so you can tell the amount of sugar in your juice and thus the alcohol potential in your final product. My reading was 1.043 which should yield a final product of around 4.5%. Add sugar if you need to, I went without.
Re-hydrate 1/2 pkg of wine champagne yeast (Lalvin EC-1118) in 3 oz of lukewarm water for 10 minutes.
Pitch the yeast into your 1 Gallon primary fermentation vessel (glass carboy in my case). Plug with a bung/stopper and install the airlock which allows gasses out but not in. Put it in a cool corner of your basement and add time.
Day 0 – 3 Hours after adding yeast: 1 bubble through the airlock every 60 seconds
Day 1 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 5 seconds
Day 2 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 3 seconds
Day 3 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 3 seconds
Day 4 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 3 seconds
Day 5 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 5 seconds
Day 6 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 11 seconds
Day 7 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 22 seconds
Day 8 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 30 seconds
Day 9 – 1 bubble through the airlock every 40 seconds
Specific Gravity is now 1.001 ( Very Dry )
Add 1/2 tsp. of sugar per 500ml bottle and fill with your cider (at this point it’s called still cider and can be bottled as-is without the sugar which will induce bottle carbonation) and store at room temperature for 2.5 weeks. After that, put it in the fridge for a few days. Enjoy.
Final Notes:
–Next time I would use Ale Yeast for beer and hope it doesn’t turn out as dry.
–When pouring, I first add 2 tsp of white sugar to the pint glass to back sweeten.
–From juice to pint glass takes 5 weeks (conditioning time included)