SOURDOUGH!!

Also known as "nomnomnomnomnom"

Making rolls for Thanksgiving dinner made me realize that I love making bread almost as much as I love making beer.  And that I love sourdough bread.  Oh hey, and bread is way cheaper to make than beer!  I like money.  So I made a sourdough starter. (That's the gooey stuff you need to make the dough all sour and super tasty.)

The recipe is simple -- in fact, the one I used from Red Star Yeast was ever so slightly more complex than the bare minimum you need to make a sourdough starter.

Sourdough Starter!
The Start of YOUR Sourdough Empire!

• 2 cups water
• 3 1/2 cups bread flour
• 2 1/4 tsp RED STAR Active Dry Yeast
• 1 Tbsp sugar

You actually only need 1 part water to 1 part flour, and just let it hang for a few days, but the yeast helps kickstart the process, and the sugar helps kickstart the yeast.  You let this thing sit for around 5 days in a warm spot, loosely (not tightly!) covered, and natural bacteria and yeasts in the air will ferment the starter all on its own.  Then put the stuff in the fridge.  You'll need to feed it more flour/water mix occasionally to keep it alive.

The actual recipe for sourdough bread will vary, but in short, you basically make bread the way you normally would, but add around 1 cup of sourdough starter to the mix.  Then you add a cup of flour & water back to your starter mix, and let it sit for another day or so before putting it back in the fridge.

So long as you continue to occasionally feed it, you can literally keep sourdough starter alive for years.  Some of the more venerable starters have been around more than a century, and are passed down thru families!

Now that's some hooch

So yeah, I made this starter, and what's the big thing yeast does to sugars?  It ferments it!  I think adding the Red Star yeast in the mix helped jumpstart the fermentation process, because after 2 days I can really smell the alcohol.  Now, that will all cook out in a bread, but I can also use this stuff to make a beer!  There's a couple different ways, and you can read more about it here and here.  But basically, you can either use the liquid that appears at the top of your starter over time (just be sure to replenish the water so the starter stays alive), kind of prison hooch style (ready in a couple weeks, in theory), or you can add a scoop or three to your wort when brewing regular beer.  The second method will give you something similar to a cider or weissebeer, but you don't need to use quite as much malt as you'd normally use -- oh, and go easy on the hops.  This style needs to age, though, and most people recommend around 4 months or longer.  But it's so damn easy that I can't not try it!

They really make this stuff!

Most likely I'll be making an experimental gallon of this stuff very soon; probably before I start on the next Taihei batch.

More to come in the future!

More Taihei! Also, Weather too warm? How about a Trappist Ale?

Since moving here, I've been hampered in the kinds of brews I can make because most beers need to ferment somewhere between 40 and 65F, but I don't have a cool basement, and haven't had the funds to acquire a large fridge that I can temp tune specifically for beer fermentation.  I use a small storage space to ferment my beer in, as it generally stays a steady temperature (we keep the A/C on much of the time), but that temperature is usually 70-73F, so I've had to make some adjustments.

Back in March, I brewed Taihei Ale, a recipe I designed for fermenting in Hawaii's warmer climate. Taihei takes it's name from the Japanese word for the Pacific Ocean, named because many of the ingredients were sourced from around the Pacific Rim (Hops from Australia, New Zealand, and Japan), and brewed right smack in the middle, here in Hawaii.

The beer finished in May, and despite my predictions that it would be too light, or might have fermented at too unstable a temperature, it turned out to be rather tasty, and was very popular with the neighbors.  They keep asking when I'm going to brew again, so I'm going to go ahead and do it!

This time of year, temps are a little more stable, and tend to be in the mid-upper 70's during the day, so I should have a bit of an easier time keeping temps steady.  Taihei wasn't incredibly expensive, either, so it will be easier for me to start this one.

However, I don't want to be stuck brewing the same kind of beer all the time, so I've been scouring the web for more ideas for high-temp fermenting brews.  One that's stuck is the Belgian Trappist Ale, brewed by Trappist monks for around three centuries.  Like many Belgians, these are designed to tolerate -- or even thrive in -- warmer temperatures, so I'm gonna give these a whirl.  One big thing though, is that they need to age.  Possibly a year or longer!  So this will be a long-term project.  Meanwhile, I'll still have Taihei, and whatever else I can think up -- maybe a stout or two.  But I'm really excited about this opportunity to brew another age-able beer!

Not only does the beer sound amazing (oh, and they're real tasty too!), I love the story behind it.  Trappist monks historically brewed their beers to help provide food and drink to both themselves, and the local community.  Like most monasteries, they are non-profit, charitable organizations.  A few years ago, as the Trappist style became popular in the west, craft brewers started using their name on their own beers, so the remaining Trappist monasteries formed the International Trappists Alliance (ITA) to protect their brand and ensure quality on anything labeled, "Trappist."  True Trappist beer must be brewed in a Trappist monastery, and be subject to specific quality regulations.  But this wasn't just a protectionist move: the rules also stipulate that all funds from sale of Trappist beer, in excess of that required to actually produce, distribute, and sell it, must go to charitable causes.

  One of the most popular Trappist brewers out there, Chimay, brings in over $50 million a year, nearly 100% of which goes to local charities.

My beer doesn't go to charity.  Of course, I also give it away anyway (that which I don't drink myself).  But I'm really excited to make a beer style with such a benevolent tradition behind it.

So, back to the beer itself.

Again, the top reason I'm looking at a Trappist style ale is because it can ferment in the 70s.  But being delicious also helps.  The ingredients are pretty simple, but there's a key difference that helps the beer to stand out among other Belgians and warm-fermenters: candi sugar.  I found out how to make it here and its insanely easy.  Armed with that, the rest of the beer can be made simply with Pilsen malt, aromatic malt, a couple types of hops, and some Belgian style yeast.  (This yeast is a little more expensive than the normal stuff, but is the key to warm-temp fermentation).  I love simple; fewer ingredients cost less, and there's less opportunity for error.

Taihei will be the next batch, but after that gets good and going, I'll probably start on the Trappist ale and see where that goes.  Updates to come!