Beer braised beef short ribs

Cooking with beer is the beautiful intersection of my interest in brewing with Bron's interest in cooking. A recipe for pomegranate and beer braised beef ribs was a great starting point that led to deliciousness.

2 onions
2 stalks of celery
3 cloves of garlic
1 chili
2 carrots
330 ml of my Imperial Stout
A splash of red wine vinegar
A splash of apple cider vinegar
A tablespoon of glucose syrup
1 cup of home made chicken stock
6 beef short ribs

We browned the meat and then fried the onions, garlic, chili and celery. The carrot went in next and then a dash of the stock to de-glaze the pan. Then the rest of the stock, the beer, vinegar and glucose syrup went into the pot and the ribs went back in. The whole lot went into the oven for 3 hours at 180'C.

Didn't get a picture of the finished product, too busy eating

After the meat was falling off the bone, it came out, we sieved the remaining liquid and simmered to thicken.

Served with veggies and the sauce drizzled over the beef. Delicious.

Re-brewday: Accidental Imperial Stout

Of the beers I've brewed so far, Bron's favourite is the Accidental Imperial Stout. I brewed it about 11 1/2 months ago and we're down to about 8 bottles. She's been wanting me to brew it again so that the supply is maintained. Also, it's Winter and there's no better time to be drinking a Stout than in the depths of a Tasmanian Winter.

Really imperial

I've made a few changes that should make it ready to drink sooner and better:

Using the Mr Malty calculator, I've realised that I pitched only about 1/3 of the yeast I should have last time. This year, I've got plenty of yeast ready to go. This should help the fermentation to be quicker and cleaner which should mean that the beer is ready to drink much sooner than the first time when it was more than 6 months before it became a pleasant drink.

ALL the yeast

Temperature control is now in my grasp. Last year it fermented a bit cool which didn't do the poor, under-pitched yeast any favours. This year, sitting at around 20'C, it should be much happier.

I added some more hops and changed the variety from East Kent Golding to Northern Brewer. The main reason was just to give it better balance. The first version is thick and syrupy and doesn't have much bitterness. I'd like the hops to cut through that a bit with this version.

Yeast gone wild!

The recipe is big and ugly, with almost 3/4 of a kilo of roasted barley and chocolate malt together and 640g of crystal malts. On top of that there's 5kg of light dried malt extract. It is the blackness. There's also a bunch of Northern Brewer hops. I've chucked in about 22g of S-04 yeast and it's gone bezerk.

Beef and Stout Stew

I had some stewing beef that needed to be used and my Imperial Stout to cook it with. It turned out pretty well so I thought I'd record it for future reference.


Ingredients:
750g cubed gravy beef
2 carrots cut into chunks
2 sliced onions
4 cloves of crushed garlic
330ml of my Imperial Stout
1 tsp cayenne pepper
1 handful of barley
Bunch of silverbeet
Salt and pepper

Method:
Brown the beef and set it aside, fry the onions in some oil, added the garlic and cayenne pepper. Then chuck in some beer to deglaze the bottom of the pot, give it a stir and add the rest. Chuck in the carrots and beef and put it into the oven on low heat for as long as it takes for the meat to get tender. Add barley with around 45 minutes to go. Chop the silverbeet and stir it in when it's ready to serve.

I enjoy cooking but haven't done much over the last couple of years. I'll have to learn more about cooking with beer and matching beer and food. Sadly the stocks of my Imperial Stout are running low. I'll have to get brewing again.

Export/RIS tasting then and now

I was sorting through some papers and discovered my initial tasting notes for my Export/Imperial Stout. I thought I'd put them up together to compare and see how the beer developed.

October 2011 Tasting:

Aroma: Chocolate, caramel, raisin-like aromas

Appearance: Black! Almost entirely opaque with a hint of red around the edges when held up to bright light. A dark tan head, thick and tight. Not great retention but a thin layer remains all the way down.

Taste: Roasty, chocolate, some alcohol flavours present. Mild hop bitterness. There's some astringency, not much sweetness. Unpleasant, vegetal aftertaste.

Mouthfeel: It has a dry feeling, a bit over-carbonated. The combination of carbonation, alcohol and astringency leave a sharp feeling on the tongue/throat.

Overall: A mistake in lots of ways, this beer almost pulls it off but the mouthfeel and aftertaste lets it down.

March 2012 Tasting:

Aroma: Not much of an aroma, a little of the roast and some alcohol. Nothing from the yeast that I can detect, I used US-05 so that's not surprising. 

Appearance: Utterly black with a two finger, dense, tan head. 

Taste: Big, roasty, chocolate, coffee. It has a dark fruity thing going on too. It's got an obvious sweetness to it, probably too much, or rather, there's not enough bitterness to balance it properly. You wouldn't sit and drink a few of these, but that's not really what you're aiming for with something this big anyway. The astringent notes I had a problem with earlier seem to be gone and the aftertaste is good. The flavour is so big that the alcohol isn't really detectable in the flavour until it warms up to room temperature. 

Mouthfeel: Syrupy and dense. The carbonation is a bit higher than I'd like but it's not too far off. Some warmth from the alcohol. 

Overall: This mistake turned out pretty well. I guess it's more of a Russian Imperial Stout than an Export Stout. If I was doing it again and intentionally aiming at a RIS I'd turn the bitterness up a notch or two and the carbonation down slightly. I'd probably also use a different yeast to get some fruity esters doing their thing. It'll be nice to have this on hand over the coming winter and I'm keen to follow Luke's lead and use it in cooking.

I'm glad that I found those notes. It's helpful to see how much the beer changed over time and a lesson to be more patient. I was surprised to read that I'd described the beer as being 'dry'. It's certainly far from dry now. I'm guessing that the astringency and mild hop bitterness contributed to that perception and as they've faded the sweetness is on the rise.

Tasting: Export Stout

Mistakes are becoming a theme here. Last June I brewed what I intended to be an Export Stout. I later found out that I'd stuffed up a calculation in converting the recipe and instead of 6.5% abv, my stout weighed in at just over 9%.

It wasn't nearly bitter enough, it had an astringent character and the aftertaste was not pleasant. I was disappointed and pretty much wrote it off. But it sat stored away, and as it sat it quietly improved.

One of my mates really enjoyed it, so I'd given him a few bottles of the stuff from time to time. He's been drinking it, cooking with it and having a good time. Anyway, he's been talking it up so the other day I cracked one and here are my notes:

Aroma: Not much of an aroma, a little of the roast and some alcohol. Nothing from the yeast that I can detect, I used US-05 so that's not surprising.

Appearance: Utterly black with a two finger, dense, tan head.

Taste: Big, roasty, chocolate, coffee. It has a dark fruity thing going on too. It's got an obvious sweetness to it, probably too much, or rather, there's not enough bitterness to balance it properly. You wouldn't sit and drink a few of these, but that's not really what you're aiming for with something this big anyway. The astringent notes I had a problem with earlier seem to be gone and the aftertaste is good. The flavour is so big that the alcohol isn't really detectable in the flavour until it warms up to room temperature.

Mouthfeel: Syrupy and dense. The carbonation is a bit higher than I'd like but it's not too far off. Some warmth from the alcohol.

Overall: This mistake turned out pretty well. I guess it's more of a Russian Imperial Stout than an Export Stout. If I was doing it again and intentionally aiming at a RIS I'd turn the bitterness up a notch or two and the carbonation down slightly. I'd probably also use a different yeast to get some fruity esters doing their thing. It'll be nice to have this on hand over the coming winter and I'm keen to follow Luke's lead and use it in cooking.