Brewing Beer and Weekly Menu 1/23 - 1/27/12

We are certainly happy to be done with the latest round of construction on our house and back home. Getting new doors and windows in the middle of a Minnesota January cold snap is a lot of fun, but the house is toastier. A good thing with the nasty, icy cold weather we're having. But it is the perfect weather to spend a few hours in the kitchen brewing beer.

Matt got the Brooklyn Brew Shop's Beer Making Book for Christmas. He wanted it because this book is all about brewing beer one gallon at a time.

Until now we've been brewing five gallon batches, which is really a lot of two of us and makes it harder to experiment. The other thing this book has done is introduce us to whole grain brewing (up until now we'd used syrups to create our wort). It's a little bit more work and a little messier, but it's fun messing with flavor. Our first batch was a New Year's Ale straight out of the book that is flavored with Clementines. We are learning a lot, like how useful grain bags and hop socks are!

Matt's simple hop sock holder. Using the hop sock meant there was almost nothing to strain out of the beer before adding it to the fermenter.

Yesterday, I made a batch of Stout using a basic recipe from the book, but added a few additions of my own. First I added coffee beans from our favorite breakfast place, Blackbird and then some Hersey's Special Dark Cocoa.

I'm calling it my Blackbird Mocha Stout. Can't wait to taste it in four weeks. Since we'll only end up with nine or ten bottles we can started dreaming up our next flavor right away.

On to Menu Planning Monday...

Matt's Hawaiian Stir-Fry

Barbecued Korean Pizza at Pizzeria Lola

Roast Chicken with Squash

Hawaiian Pizza - Using the leftover sausage and pineapple from the stir-fry

Chicken Enchiladas - Using the leftover roast chicken and our homemade chile verde sauce.

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