French Press and Randal Thread

[arren]

Read through go the thread. Lots of folks have included their details and recipes. And ingredients can range from toasted coconut to chocolates (I prefer cocoa powder) to course ground coffees to fruits to whole hops even. And use of ingredients heavily depends on the base beer. I've used marshmallow fluff to some degree of success... If the beer is on tap then pressing a beer to make a concentrate then recarb by blending is a nice way to go. Maybe we could get a spreadsheet going?

Or a TalkBeer cookbook

 

[Brubaker1]

Foreground: 1 bottle of BCBS 2013 + a bunch of toasted coconut + 2oz of four roses single barrel + Madagascar vanilla.

Background: Coconut double chocolate chip cookies.

2hrs later, filtered through a strainer.

Combine 50/50 with unaltered 2013 BCBS. Enjoy. Do this again ASAP.

2oz of booze for 12oz of beer? You are more man than I.

 

[Brubaker1]

I had way better results from frozen blackberries than I had with fresh. I upped it from 3 to 4 ounces. Just nowhere near as good. Oh, steeped with a bottle of BCBS.

 

[Trady]

Coconut sucks

 

[drbenzo1]

Coconut sucks

Take it to the "taboo and unpopular beliefs" thread. The wurst...

 

[drbenzo1]

Late edit:
Guilty Pleasures/Unpopular Beliefs

 

[arren]

Vanilla sucks

agree

 

[JulianB1]

Coconut-pressed BA Siberian Night. Very good but there's something magical about dat BCBS.

 

[Sheets3x]

1 Kiwi
2 Medium Strawberries (diced)
10 oz Westbrook Gose

French pressed for 20 minutes.

Re-carb'd with remaining 2 oz of WB Gose...

Overall - very tasty. Bit more carb loss than my usual sour presses (will post some more when time permits), but still plenty left. Even at 1 Kiwi, it came through at the forefront. Will give it another go with an attempt for a bit more balance (just personal preference) if I get any more WB Gose, or will mess with some of my standard bases... Probably do a 3 strawberries / 0.5 kiwi / 8 oz press + 4 oz recarb or something along those lines.

 

[Sheets3x]

1 of them there small baskety things of raspberries from the farmers market (muddled)
10 oz Cuvee des Jacobins Rouge

French pressed for 30 minutes.

Re-carb'd with remaining 2 oz of CdJ

Overall - bloody delicious. Raspberry bomb. Minimal carb loss... Would actually reduce the raspberry to half serving on next go... poor man's Rare Barrel Wise Guise. Will repeat.

 

[Sheets3x]

1 Plum (diced)
3 Medium Strawberries (diced)
10 oz Anderson Valley Kimmie Yonk Gose
French pressed for 30 minutes.

Re-carb'd with remaining 2 oz of AVBC Gose.

Overall - this one snuck up on me and before I knew it, I had drank the sh*t out of my glass in a few minutes.... and I should preface that by saying, I'm not necessarily a fan of the finish on the base beer, but at its price point and availability, it's plenty acceptable as a canvas to work on for the sake of science... My intent was to do a quasi-pluot trial using plums and apricots but I couldn't find any flippin' apricots easily... so figured f*ckit, add some strawberries leftover from the batch used in post #249 above. Carb was well retained, and this was delicious. Last image is a side by side of the pressed beer and a splash of the base beer.

 

[Sheets3x]

0.25 lb peaches (diced)
~ 18 oz Logsdon Seizoen Bretta
French pressed for 30 minutes

Add remaining ~ 4 oz of Seizoen Bretta

Had a go at Peche n Brett for poorsies... wish I could report better results, but this first attempt was pretty futile. Was flawed for a few reasons... (1) I used standard Seizoen Bretta and not the oak aged version - as this effort is for poorsies like me; (2) I did this while multitasking with dinner/unfocused, so lost a few oz when the bottle gushed, but whatevs; (3) got a little cute with the peach amount trying to stay similar to the advertised amount by Logsdon on a per oz basis, but in hindsight, eff that.

End result was pretty meh. Hardly undrinkable, but not a peach bomb by any means. The base beer is so stellar that it feels fairly blasphemous pumping the add-junks into it... Might give it another go with a buttload of peaches and a 375 mL bottle as base.

 

[rcubed1]

You'll get better extraction using puree and/or juice.

 

[Sheets3x]

You'll get better extraction using puree and/or juice.

Had real nice result with fresh peaches and Hottenroth previously, though that base lends itself to the infusion moreso than Seizoen Bretta...

Pressing notes are on a deaded hard drive, so alls I have is this image... was really fawking good though.
(I think it was ~ 10 oz base / 2 fresh peaches cut and smashed / 30 minutes / 2 oz base refill)

 

[kawilliams81]

If you could randall any ingredients for a BCBS keg what would you use?

 

[drbenzo1]

If you could randall any ingredients for a BCBS keg what would you use?

In the keg?
Or just multiple press uses of pours from the keg?

 

[Sage1]

The correct answer is always coconut.

 

[kawilliams81]

In the keg?
Or just multiple press uses of pours from the keg?

A randall from a keg of bcbs

 

[user 305963]

Forgot to post this last weekend. Pressed about a pint of fresh smashed blackberries into half a bottle of Hottenroth.
Let it sit for about 15 minutes. Split the pressed liquid into two glasses and finished off with the remaining beer. It was glorious. These berries were very ripe and sweet which added some berry sweetness, but didn't overpower the qualities of the base beer. And dat color

 

[Sheets3x]

Yup, have done raspberries in Hottenroth a few times. Many yums to be had...

 

[drbenzo1]

You know Rueze is getting to be very tart and acidic... So opened a 2013 and had a can of pineapples to blend up in a food processor... Pretty good ... Reblended for carb

 

[TheAbyss]

Recent 2015 parabola french press tasting. All ingredients were steeped in just enough Parabola to cover the ingredient and a 1/4 of a bottle minimum. Then let to steep for 30 minutes. They were then poured into tasting glasses and fresh fully carbonated Parabola was added until the glass was full (5.5oz glass). We also used wine bottle stoppers if needed to keep them fully carbonated, but this probably wasn't needed.

My order and I think the overall general consensus of the night:

1. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
2. Vanilla (Should of steeped longer than 30)
3. Toasted Coconut (Should of steeped longer than 30)
4. Coffee (Starbucks and a ton of it)
5. Regular
6. Raspberry

Pictures were fuzzy so I only have the Cinnamon toast crunch and coconut pics to share:

Overall this is a great idea and was quite the tasting event. Parabola was a great base for this experiment. I was actually supposed that I liked the majority of the french press variants more than the original. Surprised I beat tennispl to this, he was in attendance.

 

[Sheets3x]

Recent 2015 parabola french press tasting. All ingredients were steeped in just enough Parabola to cover the ingredient and a 1/4 of a bottle minimum. Then let to steep for 30 minutes. They were then poured into tasting glasses and fresh fully carbonated Parabola was added until the glass was full (5.5oz glass). We also used wine bottle stoppers if needed to keep them fully carbonated, but this probably wasn't needed.

My order and I think the overall general consensus of the night:

1. Cinnamon Toast Crunch
2. Vanilla (Should of steeped longer than 30)
3. Toasted Coconut (Should of steeped longer than 30)
4. Coffee (Starbucks and a ton of it)
5. Regular
6. Raspberry

Pictures were fuzzy so I only have the Cinnamon toast crunch and coconut pics to share:

Overall this is a great idea and was quite the tasting event. Parabola was a great base for this experiment. I was actually supposed that I liked the majority of the french press variants more than the original. Surprised I beat tennispl to this, he was in attendance.

Nice work. I've done that Cinnamon Toast Crunch previously but couldn't find my pics/notes. Sh*t is srsly good though!

Recently tried French Toast Crunch as well, but wasn't a fan. Was pretty potent even in relatively small amount. Might try it again with the amount dialed back a bit.

Cheers

 

[RayP]

Creature Comforts Athena french pressed with a handful of dried tart cherries.... ****, this is good. Real good. This might be my new go to for the next little while. Smells incredible, too.

 

[caaam]

Creature Comforts Athena french pressed with a handful of dried tart cherries.... ****, this is good. Real good. This might be my new go to for the next little while. Smells incredible, too.

Love those glasses so damn much. Gonna try this idea tomorrow just because of how great this looks in these glasses

 

[RayP]

Love those glasses so damn much. Gonna try this idea tomorrow just because of how great this looks in these glasses

Did a second batch where I added a handful of fresh raspberries, and it was even better. Maybe half a cup or so. Did that in one full Athena, let it sit for 45 minutes, then added a fresh Athena on top of that.

 

[caaam]

Did a second batch where I added a handful of fresh raspberries, and it was even better. Maybe half a cup or so. Did that in one full Athena, let it sit for 45 minutes, then added a fresh Athena on top of that.

Down to my last Athena though.

Not good.

 

[Johnnie Nepal]

Raspberries & Watermelon. The watermelon had been cut the day before, so all of the juice from the bottom of the container was added into the mix. The watermelon dominated the flavor and the berries added a nice tart kick.


And then tropical punch for science...

 

[RayP]

Just pressed a whole cucumber into a whole can of Athena, and will top off with another full can of Athena.... these 45 minutes can't go by fast enough.

 

[RayP]

9/10. Will bang again.