I like this time at night on HBT

[BobbiLynn]

Hello, old B&W guys!! Que tal? I'd jump on the band wagon but, alas, I am avartarless.

There is a little restaurant across the street from the local hospital that uses all local ingredients, down to local brews. I love that place. The mother of the guy who runs the restaurant is someone I work with through the local farmer's alliance. Called the Root Cellar if you are ever in Tallahassee, FL. You won't be disappointed by the beer selection or food. You can go in, order a beer and a bread platter, or have a full dinner cooked with locally grown ingredients. The bread platter is a mix of different homemade breads and butters. You dip and mix and match the breads with the butters, yumm! Wash it down with a wonderful micro-brew.

Hubby has surgery later this month. My daughter just moved to the same college that my son attends so I am going to visit with them the week before Bill's surgery. So I have a week to stabilize the farm, getting the compost piles cleaned up and getting seed down. I just love the way a nasty pile of stuff can be turned into such beautiful soil. People often ask me, how to know when the compost is finished and ready to use. It's the smell, when it smells like fresh, clean earth, it's ready. Goes from a nasty pile of stinky stuff to something glorious. Okay, I'm rambling. Everyone wants to pray for hubby or pray for us, but I think that any God figure that might be out there knows where we stand. We are straight forward people who try to live right. To me, prayers people offer are like them just sending me good vibes. It certainly won't hurt.

 

[beaksnbeer]

Vibes rolling north for you and yours, prayers offered to the sky and may the wind carry them where they'll do the most good.

Water is heating hopefully I can get this BiaB class started before 11 am. If I was brewing a lone I would be chilling about now.

 

[Melana]

Hello, old B&W guys!! Que tal? I'd jump on the band wagon but, alas, I am avartarless.

There is a little restaurant across the street from the local hospital that uses all local ingredients, down to local brews. I love that place. The mother of the guy who runs the restaurant is someone I work with through the local farmer's alliance. Called the Root Cellar if you are ever in Tallahassee, FL. You won't be disappointed by the beer selection or food. You can go in, order a beer and a bread platter, or have a full dinner cooked with locally grown ingredients. The bread platter is a mix of different homemade breads and butters. You dip and mix and match the breads with the butters, yumm! Wash it down with a wonderful micro-brew.

Hubby has surgery later this month. My daughter just moved to the same college that my son attends so I am going to visit with them the week before Bill's surgery. So I have a week to stabilize the farm, getting the compost piles cleaned up and getting seed down. I just love the way a nasty pile of stuff can be turned into such beautiful soil. People often ask me, how to know when the compost is finished and ready to use. It's the smell, when it smells like fresh, clean earth, it's ready. Goes from a nasty pile of stinky stuff to something glorious. Okay, I'm rambling. Everyone wants to pray for hubby or pray for us, but I think that any God figure that might be out there knows where we stand. We are straight forward people who try to live right. To me, prayers people offer are like them just sending me good vibes. It certainly won't hurt.

Good vibes to you.

 

[SharonaZamboni]

Hope all goes well with the surgery, and that you have a great visit with your kids, BobbiLynn.

 

[TNGabe]

I can't send you our Pontiac BL, we need it! What, wrong kinda vibes?

I hope you know all your HBT pals will be thinking of during what's sure to be another difficult time.

I bravely google image searched vibes for you.

 

[Stauffbier]

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday to you!

Bobbi, sending good vibes for your hubby and yourself!

LG, it sounds like you did a good amount of stuff yesterday. I certainly would be tired after those tasks. It doesn't take much to make me tired these days, though. A honest day of typical chores makes me tired, and a hard day of installing floors/doing construction just completely beats me down these days! I'm fairly certain it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm heavier than when I was younger....

Speaking of getting heavier.... Since it's Fall It's that time of year for me to make a batch of red sauce. Enchiladas for dinner tonight! I can tell by the smell that this batch is HOT!

 

[TNGabe]

Looks good Stauff. I promised my wife fish for dinner and then completely spaced on going to Asian market and grocery. I was tired from my run and starving from not eating before hand, then stopped by my LHBS to ask about ordering some grain for a friend which took about 2 hrs because the owner was there and we tend to ramble on a bit. Going to have to make something vegetarian again with all the goodies from the farmers market. One of our local farmers market is so cheap, that I didn't even bother planting a garden this year. Should have got our thanksgiving turkey there yesterday, but didn't have the extra cash with all the malt I'm buying this week. The guy there with pork sells tenderloin for $4.79/lb, but after getting one the last two weeks, I figured with all of our pork still in the freezer, I should skip a week.

 

[Thunder_Chicken]

Dying to try my English IPA. I really think this is going to be a fabulous beer. It's probably ready now, but I'm going to give it one more week.

 

[emjay]

About 20 turkeys run around the yard here. My dog loves to chase them.

I should probably get myself a shotgun. Never had a wild turkey before. Well, not that wild turkey.

 

[Melana]

Wild turkey is awesome!

 

[Leadgolem]

Eh, I don't care for whiskey much myself.

Hello everyone! Happy Sunday to you!

Bobbi, sending good vibes for your hubby and yourself!

LG, it sounds like you did a good amount of stuff yesterday. I certainly would be tired after those tasks. It doesn't take much to make me tired these days, though. A honest day of typical chores makes me tired, and a hard day of installing floors/doing construction just completely beats me down these days! I'm fairly certain it has a lot to do with the fact that I'm heavier than when I was younger....

Speaking of getting heavier.... Since it's Fall It's that time of year for me to make a batch of red sauce. Enchiladas for dinner tonight! I can tell by the smell that this batch is HOT!

That looks yummy.

Thanks Stauff, but I know myself well enough to be confused by the lack of energy. I should be able to do 6 hours of moderate labor and bounce back to 90% energy after 45 minutes to an hour of rest. I'm not really worried, I've not been sleeping that well, but I am annoyed.

Lets see, today I made banana syrup. I simmered about 3lb of bananas in 1 gallon of water and lemon juice. You can tell when they are done, because most of them will sink to the bottom of the pot. Then I fished the banana pulp out. It was pretty much flavorless at that point. I ended up with a little more liquid then I anticipated, so I had to move to my 5 gallon pot before adding the sugar. I was disappointed by the lack of banana flavor in the syrup after adding the sugar. It was about 12lb of sugar again. So, I added 2 tbs banana flavoring. That and a tsp of vanilla extract got the flavor into acceptable territory. 15 drops of yellow food coloring gave it a nice yellow color. I could care less, but so many people eat with their eyes first. It ended up being sort of a partial mash syrup. Not bad, but I think this is another one that could use cooking down for flavor concentration before being thickened with sugar.

While I was doing that I was listening to my faucet drip. So, once I was done with the syrup, I took apart the faucet. I couldn't find the phillips head screwdriver I was looking for. I thought it might be in my truck, so I ended up cleaning out my truck looking for it. Found two rolls of paper towels, put one in the garage. Found 4 one quart bottles of motor oil. Hmm, ok. Put three in the garage. Some trash, some ancient protein bars. The usual nonsense. No screwdriver.

Decided it was a nice day. Mowed the front and back lawn. I filled the mower gas tank when I started. Emptied the tank I keep for the mower. Started on the back lot, ran out of gas about halfway through. Decided that I would pick that up later when I'd put some gas in that tank.

Laid the landscaping fabric. Got that all stapled down. Decided to go ahead and drive the posts for the trellis. I'm using those metal posts that you use if you are putting up a barbed wire fence for the trellis. Realized I needed to buy a smaller sledge after I started. Trying to drive those things with a 10lb sledge is hard. It's really to heavy for the job, hard to hit the posts square. I'll put that on the home depot list, along with some long screwdrivers.

I found a longer screwdriver bit that's supposed to go in a drill. Ok, that'll work. Finished taking the faucet apart... Nothing appears to be wrong. No worn out O-rings, etc. I did notice that the nut that holds the valve stem on was kinda loose. Reassemble with reasonable tension on that nut. No more drip. Ok, cool.

That's the kind of day that should make me a little tired. It did a little. None of that work is actually that hard though. I just finished having dinner and I'll be good in 20 minutes or so when I've digested some of that.

A little later tonight I'm going to start the black cherry wine. I'm going to hold off on the brett batch for a while. That wine was so good I'd like to just make it the same way again for a while. Oh, and I need to harvest the latest batches of experimental rice wine tonight.

 

[Leadgolem]

Ok, well maybe not exactly the way I made it last time. It turned out I had 3lb of dried malt extract. I went ahead and used the whole thing. OG of 1.090 with the enormous champagne starter I put together a few days ago. I can tell that this batch will definitely have better head retention then the last.

 

[Leadgolem]

Ok, rice wine experiment results posted. I'm off to bed now.

 

[Leadgolem]

Anybody have a recipe for some slightly spongy bread dough? My mother loves the pizza hut bread sticks, but I think there food is way to greasy.

Here's what I'm planning on cooking in a couple of day.
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
3 tbs canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup instant powdered milk
1 1/2 tsp DADY

I've got a double batch of that in the bottom of my fridge now. It's loosely based off of a bread recipe we make all the time. More water, more sugar, more powdered milk. Distillers yeast instead of bakers yeast. I don't want it to rise to much in the fridge over the next couple of days.

 

[Melana]

I'd add an egg to that. Instead of looking to develop gluten lightly press into a baking sheet then let it rise. Liberally coat it with olive oil, grated cheese and Italian seasoning. Might be close. If you don't let it rise much it won't be spongy it'll come out dense.

 

[beaksnbeer]

Anybody have a recipe for some slightly spongy bread dough? My mother loves the pizza hut bread sticks, but I think there food is way to greasy.

Here's what I'm planning on cooking in a couple of day.
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups water
1 tsp salt
3 tbs canola oil
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup instant powdered milk
1 1/2 tsp DADY

I've got a double batch of that in the bottom of my fridge now. It's loosely based off of a bread recipe we make all the time. More water, more sugar, more powdered milk. Distillers yeast instead of bakers yeast. I don't want it to rise to much in the fridge over the next couple of days.

Vital wheat gluten allows for a a smaller bubble which will keep the bread softer and moister.

 

[Leadgolem]

Finished mowing the back lot. Cut down a mini-jungle that grows behind my garage every year again. Realized my machete is even more of a piece of junk then I thought it was. I'm beginning to look at it more as a large chunk of recyclable material. It is stainless steel, but there isn't enough carbon in it for it to hold an edge very well. Mixed up some sugar free chocolate ice cream mix I got as an end of season item for cheap. That's chilling now. I hope it makes decent ice cream. Got all my empty bottles washed. Tried the sassafras tea extract with some tonic water and the black cherry syrup. Sort of a quick and dirty way to get an idea how the flavors will mix. I think that is one of the missing components to Dr Pepper, but not the only one.

Huh, I actually have most of the things I wanted to get done on my vacation done now. Not everything, but most of it. I still need to find someplace to fill that co2 tank. I want to get a batch of cider started. I was hoping for some nice seasonal cider, but it's running $7 a gallon and the difference in the finished cider isn't worth the markup from apple juice.

Some things I could do, but hadn't actually planned to do... Actually finish cleaning out the spare room. Clean a few rooms up a bit. Get all the components for the minimal keezer setup hooked up. I can't test for leaks until I have gas of course.

I'm not sure if running out of things I had planned to do is good or bad. That hasn't happened to me for a very long time...

 

[brewingmeister]

Powered milk and eggs...wtf kind of screwed up pizza are you guys making?

 

[Melana]

Powered milk and eggs...wtf kind of screwed up pizza are you guys making?

The question was about softening the dough to fit a profile.

 

[TNGabe]

Alright LG, I know I give you a hard time, but I don't share my bread recipes so you better know that I love you brotha. I've had a licensed 'farmhouse kitchen' for three years and put my wife through nursing school selling bread at farmers markets. If getting paid for something makes one a professional, than I'm a professional baker, though I about killed myself the first two years and cut back to one market this year and it's been more of a hobby job. Anywho, here is my focaccia recipe which should more than meet your needs.

I'm giving you the recipe scaled down to one half sheet. You need a cookie sheet with sides and if you don't have one you can get one for about $5 at a restaurant supply store.

First you need to make a poolish with 265g ea of unbleached bread flour (King Arthur for example) and water with 1/8 tsp - 1/4 tsp of dry yeast. Use 1/8 if you want to leave overnight, 1/4 if you've got less time. Not like it's got to be at high krausen or anything, but you should be able to tell when it's ready. If your house is 65 it will take much longer than if it's 85. If poolish is ready before you want to make dough, just throw it in the fridge, bread is much less picky than fermented beverages.

When you are ready to make dough add about 360g water to poolish and integrate the two. Add 40-45g ea olive oil and honey. Mix. Add 625g bread flour, 9g diastatic malt (if on the off chance you have it, I think DME would work), 18g sea salt (or other non-iodized salt), and 4 grams (1tsp) IDY (instant dry yeast).

Don't worry about mixing too much. Look up stretch and fold. Basically you just want to integrate dry with with wet and then keep stretching and folding with wet hands or a bowl scraper.

When it starts to look like dough, put it in an oiled 1/2 sheet. As it relaxes, keep stretching to fill pan. If you can cover with a second pan great, if not use oiled plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight up to 48 hrs to develop flavor. You can top with garlic, basil, and oregano etc, best to do before refrigerating so the dried herds rehydrate from bread and won't burn. Very thin tomatoes are good, I really like parboiled red potatoes. Bake around 450 for 30-40 minutes depending on ove.]\n.

 

[Melana]

Alright LG, I know I give you a hard time, but I don't share my bread recipes so you better know that I love you brotha. I've had a licensed 'farmhouse kitchen' for three years and put my wife through nursing school selling bread at farmers markets. If getting paid for something makes one a professional, than I'm a professional baker, though I about killed myself the first two years and cut back to one market this year and it's been more of a hobby job. Anywho, here is my focaccia recipe which should more than meet your needs.

I'm giving you the recipe scaled down to one half sheet. You need a cookie sheet with sides and if you don't have one you can get one for about $5 at a restaurant supply store.

First you need to make a poolish with 265g ea of unbleached bread flour (King Arthur for example) and water with 1/8 tsp - 1/4 tsp of dry yeast. Use 1/8 if you want to leave overnight, 1/4 if you've got less time. Not like it's got to be at high krausen or anything, but you should be able to tell when it's ready. If your house is 65 it will take much longer than if it's 85. If poolish is ready before you want to make dough, just throw it in the fridge, bread is much less picky than fermented beverages.

When you are ready to make dough add about 360g water to poolish and integrate the two. Add 40-45g ea olive oil and honey. Mix. Add 625g bread flour, 9g diastatic malt (if on the off chance you have it, I think DME would work), 18g sea salt (or other non-iodized salt), and 4 grams (1tsp) IDY (instant dry yeast).

Don't worry about mixing too much. Look up stretch and fold. Basically you just want to integrate dry with with wet and then keep stretching and folding with wet hands or a bowl scraper.

When it starts to look like dough, put it in an oiled 1/2 sheet. As it relaxes, keep stretching to fill pan. If you can cover with a second pan great, if not use oiled plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight up to 48 hrs to develop flavor. You can top with garlic, basil, and oregano etc, best to do before refrigerating so the dried herds rehydrate from bread and won't burn. Very thin tomatoes are good, I really like parboiled red potatoes. Bake around 450 for 30-40 minutes depending on ove.]\n.

Ok, do you teach bread school? I'm good but not at your master level.

 

[TNGabe]

Ok, do you teach bread school? I'm good but not at your master level.

I've thought about it.

 

[Melana]

I've thought about it.

Where did you learn?

 

[TNGabe]

Where did you learn?

Self taught. I'm pretty close to unstoppable when I set my mind to something. I taught myself to make what other people tell me are amazing croissants watching YouTube in French. I don't speak French.

Realized I could work less for more money and hoping to get nano/taproom open by May. Fingers crossed.

 

[Melana]

That's where I learned most of my culinary skills as well.

 

[emjay]

Vital wheat gluten allows for a a smaller bubble which will keep the bread softer and moister.

I'm almost positive you have that backwards. Gluten makes big, chewy bubbles ideal for pizza. Low-gluten flour makes fine, soft bubbles ideal for, say, cake.

 

[brewingmeister]

Realized I could work less for more money and hoping to get nano/taproom open by May. Fingers crossed.

Hope you still enjoy brewing after making it a business.

Didn't notice any eggs or milk powder in your recipe btw.

 

[Leadgolem]

Alright LG, I know I give you a hard time, but I don't share my bread recipes so you better know that I love you brotha. I've had a licensed 'farmhouse kitchen' for three years and put my wife through nursing school selling bread at farmers markets. If getting paid for something makes one a professional, than I'm a professional baker, though I about killed myself the first two years and cut back to one market this year and it's been more of a hobby job. Anywho, here is my focaccia recipe which should more than meet your needs...

That sounds perfect! Thank you! I am so making this while I'm off. I'm glad I bought a food scale.

 

[Leadgolem]

Oh, the sugar free chocolate ice cream mix is horrible.

 

[brewingmeister]

Oh, the sugar free chocolate ice cream mix is horrible.

I'm not really a sweet tooth but anything with sugar free and chocolate in the title doesn't really sound all that great to begin with.