Written by Damon on December 20, 2008
I posted most of the details for this recipe in my Belgian Witbier Roundup a few days back, but I really wasn’t feeling very generous in my evaluation and I left out a few minor details that make it more difficult to copy.
I only post recipes because they are interesting or excellent. The roundup’s comparison was interesting, but the Almost Heaven Belgian Wheat Beer is excellent. I not only nailed the style, but I’d say it is as good as
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Written by Damon on December 19, 2008
Reading about The Mad Fermentationist’s account of making duck breast prosciutto inspired me to try to make some on my own for Christmas.
Duck Breast Prosciutto
Making Duck Breast Prosciutto
After checking a number of different recipes online and also consulting at the local salumeria, I made a few adjustments to the Mad Fermentationist’s recipe:
salted for 28 hours
washed salt off with wine
coated with white pepper, garlic powder, fresh thyme and rosemary
aired for 13 days at °37 F (°3 C).
I followed the Mad Fermentationst’s
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Written by Damon on December 17, 2008
I’ve learned brewing mostly from books, the Internet, and Dan, mentor and vendor to Vancouver’s homebrewers. On top of what I’ve read and been told, there are a few things that I do because they make sense to me. One of those things just made sense was leaving freshly bottled beer in a heated area of the house for the first few days. You know, to quicky awaken dormant yeast to carbonate my beer.
Well today, for reasons that will be
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Written by Damon on December 14, 2008
The last of my Belgian Wits is now ready so I’d like to do a little roundup of the whole project.
I wanted to do at least three large batches and three small batches, but, because the yeast (Wyeast 3944 Belgian Wit) was so slow, I only did 2 large batches and 3 small batches. Of the 3 small batches, 2 were very experimental (Chanterelle and Burnt Orange) and can’t really be called Witbier. So that leaves me with three batches
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Written by Damon on December 6, 2008
There’s nothing like large quantities of beer at lunch time after sleeping late for sucking all motivation to accomplish anything with your day. I’m back from the Dix Winter Caskival (actually they call it the X-mas Xtreme beer festival, but whatever) and in condition to write about it. Thank God for notes, and beer.
The glass is all empty now.
The local brewing dons had a mix of their best, most interesting, and surprising beers on tap. There were 25 beers
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Written by Damon on December 5, 2008
Photo Credit: sashafatcat
Tomorrow (December 6th) is the 2008 edition of Dix Winter Caskival. If you’re in Vancouver and like good beer, then you’d better go.
All of the local brewers take a break from making boring commercial beers and put together a couple of dozen casks of fun and experimental beers for people who like fun and to experiment. Whoah, I’m not sure I said what I meant, but you get the idea.
Tomorrow’s line up is as follows:
Big Ridge IPA
Central City
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Written by Damon on December 4, 2008
My very limited edition Peated Matsutake Porter (note the Matsutake is also known as Pine Mushroom) came to an abrupt end last night. I only made three bottles worth from Peated Porter leftovers after racking an over-filled primary fermenter to the secondary.
Photo Credit: soggydan
String of Setbacks
At first I thought the beer was ruined by some sort of infection. It was actually the inspiration for my Halloween Fermentation Friday post which is actually a piece of fiction because still
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Written by Damon on November 22, 2008
I finally bottled the last of my Belgian wheat beers. I had planned on doing 6 different beers (I often mash 20% more and then do a mini-batch on the side) but the Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier took forever to stop bubbling.
In retrospect, I recommend that you use gravity measurements rather than cessation of visible activity to decide when fermentation has stopped with this yeast. It kept bubbling lightly, but its attenuation didn’t change much.
In addition to the basic Belgian
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Written by Damon on November 19, 2008
I’m very new to the beer blogging scene, so if this idea is to go anywhere I’ll need to trust the more long-standing beer bloggers to promote the idea if it is to fly. But I think it is a good idea, so it just might.
Fermentation Friday is fun because it helps us homebrewers connect and it makes us write about topics we might not have thought of on our own. I think we can do better.
While writing yesterday’s Scottish
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Written by Damon on November 19, 2008
Scottish Ales
Not every beer that I make is a masterpiece, but even the ones that I consider failures are usually quite quaffable. In the interest of making better beer, I decided to try tasting my beers next to some commercial varieties of a similar style.
I brewed a clone of Storm’s Highland Scottish Ale mostly because I’d never brewed a Scottish ale before and because I wanted to get a culture of Wyeast’s 1728 Scottish Ale yeast up to
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