Winter Fun!

Greetings from Santa Fe! My snowman and I are happy to see you!


For reference, I know it's a crappy snowman. It was pretty lousy packing snow, so I did the best I could. Anyway, while I've been out here, I indulged in a bit of a culinary experiment with a Russian winter drink called sbiten. Following the recipe listed there, I assembled all the necessary ingredients. While there is an option to make a non-alcoholic version of it, that just seemed silly to me, so I actually got a decent bottle of wine to throw into it.


It calls for a bottle of wine, ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, honey and blackberry jam. After putting the wine on to boil, I started getting the ginger and nutmeg ready, and I may have put in slightly more than the recipe required, but I figured subtlety could wait until my second batch.


After the wine was up to a good boil, I threw in all the ingredients, including a whole jar of blackberry jam, which may be a bit of overkill, but I was following the recipe. So, I let it simmer for a while, stirring occasionally.



And then it was time to serve it! At which point, several problems became apparent. One, I should have put the cloves in a tea-ball or some manner of spice-bag, as I kept picking them out of my teeth. Secondly, it was THICK. I mean, it was less a drink than it was a flavorful, alcoholic porridge. On the plus side, it tasted great. Sweet from the honey and jam, with all the appropriate kicks from the nutmeg, ginger and cloves. Almost a bit overwhelming, actually, so I may scale back next time. I will also definitely scale back on the jam, perhaps using half a jar next time, in addition to a larger portion of wine, as I wound up making approximately 5 mugs worth of it. Still, I killed my portion, as I did rather enjoy it.


In any case, happy New Years! Here's to more adventures in 2011, and more regular blogging as well!

Moo Cow Milk Stout

Several months ago, I noticed that my brewing crew, formally known as the Beat Attack Brew Shack, had not brewed anything in ages. Usually one of the other members would whip up a recipe and we'd all get together and brew it up, but since we'd run plumb out of ideas and enthusiasm, I opted to create a recipe of my own. Ever since I had Mackeson's Milk Stout, I'd always wanted to try my hand at a similar beer, as it's quite delicious. So I reviewed a number of recipes and cobbled together my own, as follows:

6.5 lb Two Row Pale Malt
1 lb of Crystal 20L Malt
0.25 lb Flaked Barley
0.75 lb Flaked Oat
1.5 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Victory Malt
With hop additions of Cascade and Goldings hops at 30 minutes and 45 minutes into the boil, respectively. I also threw in 8 ounces of lactose during bottling, hence making it a milk stout.


It's turned out rather well. There's a bit of chocolate and coffee in the flavor, and while it's not super smooth, the lactose gives it a great deal of body. The hops aren't very pronounced, but I didn't want them to be. In any case, I'm certainly happy with how it turned out, and will definitely be brewing this again.