FOOLCiRCLE

Yes, you read that correctly, and yes the Oatmeal Cookie Stout has been brewed.

Above: Mash tun full of broken cookie bits, oh Jebus!

So on Friday 06.19.09 I brewed a batch of Oatmeal Cookie Stout. The idea being this would be a beer that would cross the flavor profile of an Oatmeal Stout with that of an oatmeal cookie – seems like it would have potential to be tasty. So first I had to figure out how I wanted to go about getting that cookie profile into my beer. Originally I had thought about adding the cookie type spices during the brewing process at some point. Then I thought that I really wanted that baked type flavor a cookie has so maybe it would be better if I toasted my oatmeal in an oven. Finally I decided that actually baking cookies and putting them in the mash would be the best idea. So I had to create a cookie recipe that I was comfortable with putting in my beer, so no oil, butter, eggs, milk – none of that stuff. So I kind of created a recipe (see post below for the recipe) that came out consistency-wise very similar to granola but in the shape of a cookie. The first trial batch of cookies turned out pretty well and were eaten right up, a good sign.

So when it was brew day I went to bake the batch of cookies for the beer which was twice the size of the original trial batch. I then realized we only own one cookie sheet and I didn’t want to have to wait. So essentially I packed the entire sheet with the cookie batter in sort of the style you would bake cookie bars. Then after it was finished baking I kind of just broke the pieces up into cookie type sizes to help cool, and then after they cooled broke those pieces up into smaller chunks to help them break down in the mash tun. It was kind of a funny little process, but I hoped it was all worth it in the long run and the profile comes through in the beer.

So to try and help compensate for the additional ingredients into the mash tun and not to trow off all of my numbers for strike water and estimated original gravity and such I weighed all of the ingredients going into the cookies to be put into the mash tun to enter into Pro-Mash to see what the differences were. The cookies had the strike water volume adjust a couple quarts up and the estimated OG went up a few points too. I have added the weights to the original recipe below also. Once I actually mashed in and threw a batch of cookies in the tun I was kind of weirded out. I just felt like I sealed my fate to a very long stuck mash and was preparing for an epic battle against oatmeal. Ironically enough the entire sparge went off with out a hitch. I am concerned there was some minor channeling just because the remaining liquid from the mash tun still tasted sweet, but the numbers in the long run didn’t disappoint, so I’m sure it was fine.

After the brew day is finished I always taste the wort to try and understand what this beer could develop into. Almost all wort tastes similar, especially for specific styles. It tasted as expected, stout-y, a lot of sweetness and roasted barley, but in the finish was a really cool baked cookie flavor with a little bit of cinnamon too. I really am not sure if this will translate to the finished product, and I am really tempted to not add any additional flavor to the seconday just to see what the results will be. Anyway, I think this will be ready to go by the end of July, so we’ll see if it goes on line then, or if I hold onto it for four months of more for the cooler weather to arrive.

On a side note, this was the last recipe I had ingredients prepared for, so that means I’ll be thinking recipes and ordering ingredients soon, so if you have any suggestions of things you’d like to see speak now or, well you know.

That’s good enough for me!

Tonight I baked an experimental / trial batch of cookies for an upcoming beer. Yup, a batch of cookies for a batch of beer. For a while now I have had the idea of an Oatmeal Cookie Stout stuck in my head. All the creamy love of an Oatmeal Stout but with some of the characteristics of an oatmeal cookie: toasty, chewy, raisiny, cinnamony, a touch of vanilla – you know. So originally I was just going to add the flavorings to the boil or fermenter or something, but I wanted that baked cookie flavor. So I thought for a while about toasting the oatmeal before the mash, and just recently I thought why not mash with cookies! So that’s what I am going to do, mash oatmeal cookies – I know I am begging for a stuck mash!

Anyway, I’m going to keep my base Oatmeal Stout recipe the same and then mash in additionally about 30 oatmeal raisin pecan cookies. The reason I did the trial run tonight was because I had to modify the cookie recipe to take out all the milk and oils/fats – I only wanted to use things that I was OK putting into my beer. The funny thing is I am not really sure how to compensate for the extra sugars and oatmeal stickiness in the mash, maybe just some extra hot water – I’ll figure all that out later, right?

Anyway, here’s the cookie recipe, I made a half batch tonight and it made 15 cookies:

Fool Circle’s Oatmeal Cookie Stout Oatmeal Cookie Recipe

1 cup raisins soaked in 2 oz of Cognac for 24 hours

1 TBSP vanilla extract

1 cup dark brown sugar (5oz by weight)

1 cup light dried malt extract (DME) (3.5oz by weight)

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

3 cups oatmeal (9oz by weight)

3/4 cup chopped pecans (3oz by weight)

1 cup water

Mix all ingredients together. Let stand for 5 minutes so oatmeal can help mixture set-up. Spoon globs of goo onto an ungreased baking sheet, about golf ball size, around 15 per sheet, should yield 30 cookies. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 375′F or until desired doneness is a achieved. Remove promptly from sheet and cool. I think that’s it. (*Marris Otter two-row barley ground to flour consistency, hint: use a coffee grinder.)

I thought the cookies turned out pretty well, will definitely try them warmed up in the microwave for breakfast this week. We’ll see how they hold up. I’ll let you know how the stout turns out, whenever that is!

So tonight I did a little maintenance and transferred the Irish Red.

So, this was the beer I pitched “expired” yeast into, though it fermented out in like 48 hours. So I transferred it to secondary tonight to help clarify it a bit. Theoretically I will be brewing on Sunday and whistling in the dark. On Sunday there is the potential to keg the Irish Red and to brew an Oatmeal Cookie Stout, we’ll see what happens between now and then, be like yourself.

I also earlier this week made more ice cream, this time coffee flavor ice cream and it is sick! I kind of went from past experience, the Ben & Jerry’s coffee ice cream recipe, and gut. Here is what I cam up with if anyone cares:

Ingredients:

2 Large Eggs

3/4 cup plus 2 TBSP Sugar

2 cups heavy cream

1 cup half & half

8 TBSP fresh ground Kenya AA coffee

Process:

- Heat cream and half & half to 180′ F

- Add coffee and heated cream mixture to a french press, mix, and let sit 10 minutes, then press

- Whisk the eggs in a mixing bowl until light and fluffy, 1 to 2 minutes. Whisk in the sugar, a little at a time, then continue whisking until completely blended, about 1 minute.

- SLOWLY add hot cream/coffee to egg/sugar mixture to temper eggs and avoid lumps

- Heat entire mixture back to 170′ F

- Chill overnight and then follow ice cream maker instructions

For me both ice creams I have made so far have been very flavorful, the Vanilla was very vanillay and the Coffee was very coffeey – but the coffee, the second ice cream, had a much better consistency. The difference? I’m guessing eggs versus pectin, the eggs were a much better emulsifier.

Well, I just recently got back from my first Phish shows in almost five years, and, well, Oh My God!

FYI, this picture is ridiculous! From left to right: Dan Woolard, Erik Mitchell, Brian Moore, Craig Mummert, Frank Maier, Keith Collins, and Mike Kavanagh. I had the ultimate pleasure of enjoying a Sunday afternoon with these guys prior to a Phish show in Camden on Sunday. I have know these guys for going on 20 years (!), I met them all between 1989 and 1994 – crazy, crazy, crazy!!

Anyway, back to Phish, last time I talked about this guys I was more than disappointed with the way things ended, and I was very sceptical for the way things were going to re-star, again. I was very broken-hearted back in 2004 and I was scared to let Phish back in, it was very much like an old girlfriend. But, they did good, they did real good! I was lucky enough to go to three show this summer tour, Thursday 6/4 at Jones Beach, NY, Friday 6/5 at Jones Beach, NY, and Sunday 6/6 at Camden, NJ. If everything the band is putting out there to the public is true, this is a very clean Phish that is rocking like it is the mid-nineties again! I had so much fun at the two Jones Beach shows and Camden was off the charts for me, probably top five favorite shows I’ve been to. Between the people I got to hang with in the lots, to the vibe inside, to the music Phish cranked out it was one amazing time.

Without further ado, and if you are interested, here are the setlists from the three nights:

June 4, 2009
Nikon At Jones Beach Theatre, Wantagh, NY
Set One
* Grind
* The Divided Sky
* Ocelot
* The Squirming Coil
* Punch You in the Eye
* Dirt
* NICU
* Ghost
* Run Like An Antelope
Set Two
* Water In The Sky
* Birds Of A Feather
* Drowned
* Meatstick
* Time Turns Elastic
* Waste
* You Enjoy Myself
Encore
* Rock and Roll

June 5, 2009
Jones Beach, Wantagh, NY
Set One
* Wilson
* Buried Alive
* Kill Devil Falls
* AC/DC Bag
* I Didn’t Know
* My Friend, My Friend
* Ya Mar
* Theme From The Bottom
* Boogie On Reggae Woman
* Split Open and Melt
Set Two
* Down With Disease
* Twist >
* Piper >
* Backwards Down the Number Line >
* Free
* Twenty Years Later
* 2001
* Slave To The Traffic Light
Encore
* A Day in the Life

June 7, 2009
Susquehanna Bank Center, Camden, NJ
Set One
* Chalk Dust Torture
* Fee
* Wolfman’s Brother
* Guyute
* My Sweet One
* 46 Days
* The Lizards
* The Wedge
* Strange Design
* Tube
* First Tube
Set Two
* Sand
* Suzy Greenberg
* Limb By Limb
* The Horse >
* Silent in the Morning
* Sugar Shack (debut)
* Character Zero >
* Tweezer
Encore
* Joy (debut)
* Bouncing Around The Room
* Run Like An Antelope >
* Tweezer Reprise

I noticed that I had done a couple fun things that I hadn’t talked about, probably because most of them weren’t beer related, well like it or not, here’s some of the stuff I’ve been up to.

I suppose I am kind of going to try and go in order, though I really don’t think it matters and you’ll probably be able to tell which picture goes with which detail, and if you can’t . . . well, just look at the “pretty” pictures. Anyway, about a month ago was the annual Trail Dawgs half marathon that Robert and I run every year. This year was actually our fifth year participating and our second and third best times overall, all right! Also, this was the first time since I was in sixth grade, like 19 or 20 years ago (!), that I visited and enjoyed St. Mary Magdalen’s Medieval Festival that my mom puts on as part of her history class. It was so much fun and the kids seem to love it as much as I remember it, I’m sure I’ll be going back again. Got introduced to a new game too, Sloshball! The basic idea to Slosh Ball is very similar to kick ball except in order to proceed from second base you have to finish a can of beer and you have to field with a beer in hand at all times. Tons of fun to say the least. Got to go to my last show at The Spectrum and the last time I’ll see The Dead. It was nice to take in the Spectrum one last time, I’ve seen lots of great shows there and have always felt like it was Philly to me, The Dead was fun, but hopefully this will be it. Also got to enjoy one of my favorite beer festivals of the year the Goat Races up at Sly Fox Brewery. Even in the rain it was a good time and a large crowd, and the Maibock was excellent. My favorite TV show LOST had its season finale for season five, only one more season to go and the show is all wrapped up. This was a good season, but not my favorite, and I feel about the same for the finale, good, but not my favorite. Went up to the Keswick Theater for the first time and checked out the Spinal Tap Unwigged and Unplugged performance. Very chill atmosphere, good crowd, good performance, shitty ticket prices ($75). Picked up another show at Homegrown Cafe with the Erik Mitchell Band, fun times per usual. Though it is basically a restaurant, they do a good job hosting bands there, and they have good beer, and they JIMP. Karen and I went up to the Media Iron Hill location and checked out the Brandywine Craft Brewer’s Festival. Not sure why we’ve never been before, always remember being busy, but it was a good time none the less, all local boys. And finally got to have a fun weekend down at the beach for Memorial Day weekend. We stayed with our friends Dave and Jody on Friday and with my dad on Saturday. Wish there were more beach weekends on the schedule.

So there’s the last month in a nut shell. I think since some weren’t beer related they got bumped, and I think sometimes I was busy so the beer ones didn’t get posted, not sure, maybe Facebook and Twitter and stuff have just ruined “Blogs”, seems like people are actually talking less and less these days . . . you never know.

So tonight was a brew night, and things went smashing.

I planned to brew an Irish Red Ale tonight, which I did, but about half way through I questioned myself, is this the Red Card Ale 4? Maybe. It is a different recipe, though still a very traditional Irish Red, AND I did “give” the recipe of the Red Card to Mikey, so . . .

Anyway, I got out of work today at 3PM and rushed home anticipating a brew night, the yeast starter was ready and looking good, the grains were all measured out, and I think I had things trimmed and ready to go. By 4PM there was flame to kettle (always my official starting point) heating up the strike water and I was on my way. Things went fairly easy, I didn’t over heat my strike water (for once), I hit my mash in and almost my mash out temperatures, the estimated original gravity was exactly as I expected, not too bad. Oh, except for that one thing, cooling the wort in the “summer time”, which it isn’t even yet. The ground water gets so warm that cooler the wort with an immersion chiller is almost pointless. This was only a five gallon batch and in one hour I could only get it down to 70 degrees, ugh. I know there are solutions, whirlpool immersion chillers, plate chillers, counter-flow chillers, and pre-chiller – BUT those are all investments and I have about ten other things (per usual) that I’d like to buy brewing equipment wise. I’ve discover the longer I brew the less I need things but the more I want things and the more expensive they become. Oh, and things rapped up by 9PM, so a nice tight 5 hour brew day/night.

So hopefully by the end of June we’ll be sipping on a nice crispy Irish Red, until then!

Since I haven’t cried in over two months about dumb stuff, I figured I might as well give it a try.

Yup, bitch work time again. Why on this fine Memorial Day weekend did I find time to hide in my basement and clean a bunch of crap, you got me!? So for a couple of hours I blasted my iPod and cleaned and sanitized. First I did the 6 carboys, which really weren’t that bad, but playing with glass and chemicals and moving heavy stuff gets shady after a while. Three were secondaries, one was a transfer vessel for lack of a better term, and two were primaries that had been soaking for at least two weeks. After that came the kegs, which again weren’t horrible. When I released the pressure valve on the Imperial Amber keg it still smelt so hoppy good, yum.

One of the kegs was the keg from the Gnome Root Beer. I have heard horror stories about how everything will smell like root beer forever and how it is the hardest smell in the world to make completely go away. And sure, the keg smelt overwhelmingly like root beer at first, but after everything was busted down and cleaned up the root beer smell was pretty hard to detect. Well, actually the seal on the lid still smelt of root beer. But it makes me wonder, if just that one seal, or maybe all the seals were replaced, could the keg be used as a normal beer keg and then swap in the root beer seals when a root beer was wanted – I think so.

After everything was cleaned and I took a break for dinner I had the lovely chore of making a yeast starter. Garrett has the equipment to use a pressure cooker to properly can starter wort and has offered me the opportunity to use it, but some how time is not on my side . . . until I make a yeast starter and then I have little visions of canned starter wort dancing in my head. Honestly, it’s just time consuming and boring, not hard. I used the starter on a vial of WLP004 Irish Ale Yeast. It was unfortunately 3+ months past its best before date. It really should be fine since it was stored properly and I am building it up with a starter, but I will have some dry yeast on hand as an insurance policy. I am planning on brewing an Irish Red tomorrow. The good news is, I really want to brew and am looking forward to it, the other news is it is an after work in the evening/night brew session with a 30% chance of showers. Of course I’ll try to make the best of it. If all goes well I’ll have flame to kettle before 5PM and be tiding up janitorial duties before 11PM.

So I just kegged the APA with Wheat ale and ir sure tasted good so far.

Things went basically fine with the kegging of the beer, but I still have issues kegging after dry hopping with pellet hops. Twice I have transferred over enough debris to clog a keg, so I am uber paranoid about doing that every time. To the point that this time I transferred from secondary to a tetrary for only about 30 minutes and then to a keg. Hopefully there wasn’t any additional oxidation. I think about 5% of the original dry hops carried over to the tetrary and about 5% of that to the keg, so about what like 1/4 of a percent from the original dry hops . . . ? Better than nothing.

I also learned an important lesson for my kegging set-up. I already can barely squeeze in three corny kegs into my kegerator, but I realized tonight that if on the modified keg (see picture above), if the lid is facing the incorrect direction, it doesn’t matter any longer if it’s modified, it won’t all fit. So I had to do some fancy floppin’ if you catch my drift. Lesson learned.

Also, last night the last keg in the kegerator and the first keg of three of the Scottish 70/- kicked last night. So in addition to kegging the APA I also cleaned and sanitized my lines and put three new kegs on. On tap currently are the Hop Scottish, the Simcoe ABA, and the Scotch Scottish. With both the Hop Scottish and the Scotch Scottish on tap there are blending opportunities for a Hop Scotch – nice! I pulled samples of all three, and they were small and warm, but they seemed OK – the Hop Scottish was more mild than anticipated, the Simcoe ABA was a little catty (go figure), and the Scotch Scottish was more oakey than I realized.

So other than that it was a pretty chill night, though I realized I have mad bitch work to do, six carboys and three kegs waiting to be cleaned, ugh. Hopefully on Monday I’ll brew, but I think a lot of it will depend on what time I get home from the beach on Sunday in order to get my stuff situated. Oh, and BTW, I am enjoying a 16 month old Palo Santo right now, smooth with a capital SMOOTH!

This may not look like your traditional root beer float, but that’s OK, this ISN’T your traditional root beer float!

THIS is a root beer float made with homemade root beer AND homemade vanilla ice cream – sweet! About a month or two ago I finally got around to making a batch of Gnome homemade root beer inspired by the success Garrett had with his root beer. I discovered a few things: I don’t drink enough root beer/soda to make a keg (5 gallons) without having a plan to get rid of a lot of it, I need to over-carbonate my soda to run on my system since I only have one dispensing pressure which is below typical soda carbonation levels, and I need to tweak the recipe to help with head-retention. I am actually looking forward to making it again, I just still have to make it through this first batch. The batch was on tap pretty long, so I decided to bottle it to make room for real beer. Even after being on tap for as long as it was I got almost a case and a half of bottles, which means I only drank just more than a 1/4 of the keg, sheesh.

But, after making root beer I had to make a root beer float! I was going to go out and buy a pint of some premium vanilla, like Haagen-Dazs or Ben & Jerry’s or something else I like that I never get, but then I remembered that I had an ice cream maker at my mom’s house which I never use. So after getting everything ready with the maker I followed a recipe and went for it. The first time I made ice cream (like 5+ years ago) I remember it tasting like eggs (yuck!), which is kind of what turned me off of homemade ice cream, so I searched for a recipe with no egg (normal ice cream base contains milk, cream, sugar, egg yolk, plus flavoring). I found a recipe on the Food Network website from Alton Brown, who is one of my favorites, that didn’t use egg, so I went for it. Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

* 2 cups half-and-half
* 1 cup whipping cream
* 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 tablespoons peach preserves (not jelly)
* 1 vanilla bean, split and scraped

Directions

Combine all ingredients (including the bean and its pulp) in a large saucepan and place over medium heat. Attach a frying or candy thermometer to inside of pan. Stirring occasionally, bring the mixture to 170 degrees F. Remove from heat and allow to cool slightly. Remove the hull of the vanilla bean, pour mixture into lidded container and refrigerate mixture overnight to mellow flavors and texture.

Freeze mixture in ice cream freezer according to unit’s instructions. The mixture will not freeze hard in the machine. Once the volume has increased by 1/2 to 3/4 times, and reached a soft serve consistency, spoon the mixture back into a lidded container and harden in the freezer at least 1 hour before serving.

Looks kind of weird, right – peach preserves in vanilla ice cream? I poked around online and it appears as if the preserves substitute the action of the egg yolks through the pectin in the preserves. I’m not sure how it all works, but I do know that the vanilla ice cream did NOT taste like peach or eggs – bonus. Actually, the ice cream was very vanilla flavored and quite good for my “first” attempt at home made ice cream. It was a little bit grainier than I like my ice cream and our freezer kept it a little bit softer than I like mine, but all in all – major success.

So, thus the true homemade root beer float. No I didn’t use all crazy roots and suck to make my root beer, but I also didn’t milk my own cows or make my own preserves. And on that note, the homemade root beer float got me thinking what else I could make “from scratch”. I think I will try to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich all from scratch, I think that would be cool. Make my own peanut butter (have done it), make my own jelly (have done it), and make my own bread (have done it) all together and see how MY sandwich compares to what I would make from the store. I have a sneaky suspicion that this is going to be a lot more work with lack-luster results, we shall see.

This has been EVERYWHERE on the interwebs, but I thought I’d share too – and yes, I am a craft brewer too!

I Am A Craft Brewer

“I Am A Craft Brewer” is a collaborative video representing the camaraderie, character and integrity of the American Craft Brewing movement. Created by Greg Koch, CEO of the Stone Brewing Co. and Chris & Jared of Redtail Media…and more than 35 amazing craft brewers from all over the country. The video was shown to a packed audience of 1700 craft brewers and industry members at the 2009 Craft Brewers Conference as an introduction to Greg’s Keynote Speech entitled “Be Remarkable: Collaboration Ethics Camaraderie Passion.” As is tradition for the CBC Keynote, a toast to the audience was offered. This time, the beers offered for the toast were all collaboratively brewed craft beers including Isabella Proximus, Collaboration Not Litigation, AleSmith/Mikkeller/Stone Belgian Style Triple, Jolly Pumpkin/Nøgne-Ø/Stone Special Holiday Ale, and 2009 Symposium Ale “Audacity of Hops.”

I am a craft brewer!