Geek, Garden and Cook

The Hightale AleI brewed a few weeks back is now ready for a drink. I believe it’s probably the best beer I’ve done to date and I wonder if that’s because of the extra steps in the brew process. No doubt – it has more flavour complexity and depth than some of the straight up coopers can brews I’ve done in the past.

What’s it taste like?

It’s a great example of an Amber Ale which is expected. Very subtle hops, a nice bitterness and a deep malty flavour and colour. I’ve not yet learnt the IBU’s and colour metrics so can’t comment on those specifically.

One thing I wasn’t sure of was the difference between a golden ale and an amber ale. Both are from the Pale Ale family but are slightly different. From what i’ve read and without getting into the ingredients:

• Golden Ale has a lighter colour (than amber ale) and stronger hop flavours.
• Amber Ale has a darker colour and a stronger malt flavour.

So if I take colour as the prime differentiator (which is as a result of the ingredients) – what is darker vs lighter?

There’s a colour measurement standard known as “Degrees Lovibond” developed by Joseph Williams Lovibond. Based on this scale a beer can be lighter or darker as shown by this image (not mine).

However – as with most “standards” some people have got their hands on it and adapted it somewhat. That’s where the Standard Reference Method comes in and is explained well by BrewWiki.com in the table below.

1.0 - 3.0 SRM - Pale yellow color
3.0 - 4.5 SRM - Medium yellow
4.5 - 7.5 SRM - Gold
7.5 - 9.0 SRM - Amber
9.0 - 11.0 SRM - Copper
11.0 - 14.0 SRM - Red/Brown
14.0 - 19.0 SRM - Brown
20.0   SRM - Black

So for our discussion the Golden Ale needs to sit between 4.5 and 7.5 while the Amber is a little darker at 7.5 – 9.0.

All this makes me want to brew a Golden Ale next. However, my next brew will have some specialty grains (Chocolate and Crystal) and some extra Malt so it’ll come out darker such as the Amber. It’ll be an Amber Draught Ale. Will let you know how it goes.

I’ve been pretty slack with my updates. A lot has been happening but will need to leave that for another post. For now though….

I have just put down a home-brew – my 6th. Ive tried some different styles and I’m a big fan of the extra malted ale that coopers call the “Unreal Ale”. I’ve tried the Little Creatures stye (American Pale Ale with cascade hops) so have a bunch of cascade hops left over which made it easy to try this recipe

The big difference in technique with this is that I boiled the wort for 60min and dropped the cascade hops is as per the schedule. Normally it’s just dump the extract and sugars in with some boiling water and top up with cold water.

Specific gravity on day 1 was 1.050 -much higher than 1.037 expected. Not sure if this means it’ll have a higher alcohol content or perhaps a sweeter flavour.

Update on this in 4 weeks or so.

Mountain Goat Hightail Ale 
Style: English Pale Ale/Strong Bitter

Ingredients:
————
Amount Item Type % or IBU
1.00 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) Dry Extract 35.09 %
1.70 kg Coopers Kit Real Ale (37.8 EBC) Extract 59.65 %

Hops –
15.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 7.4 IBU
15.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 4.8 IBU

15.00 gm Cascade [5.50 %] (Dry Hop 3 days)

I should say that this isn’t my recipe – it was taken from a HomeBrewAndBeer forums.

I’ve been thinking about a series of posts over the last few months all about “how life has changed!”. I like to think of myself as a fairly social “young man” and I certainly lived that life but with the introduction of my daughter 2 years ago Life Has Changed. In all reality it was an easy transition but every now and again something clicks and I realised that my life has changed. I’ll be the first to admit that it’s for the better but it’s still fascinating that I reminisce the differences.

Tonight is one such moment. First up I’ve left work early not to goto the pub but to go home and see the kids (and of course help my wife).

I’ve spent the night dancing to Katie Perry, reciting “new words” & admiring finger paintings.

Most telling though is I’ve watched Tinker Bell all the way through for probably the 20th time and I still laugh harder and louder that my 2yo. My favourite line …..”your mouse’s name is Cheese” says Tinka, “it must be because he always comes when we say cheese” says her tinker friend. And that’s just one of many!

While I love being at home with the girls I do however need to maintain some grip on my manlyhood. So Pizza and beer is on the menu while I watch Tinker bell with my lovely girl snuggled beside me. What more could you want?!?

Today I received a call from my wife that our microwave had started “sparking”. She had already called the manufacturer and explained that it’s taken a beating recently due to the seemingly endless 4min cycles of baby bottle sterilization. As expected they claim misuse while we claim faulty unit but at least they’ll supply a loan while they look to repair. But that leaves me with the dilemma of no microwave for 2 and a bit days! I’m sure many of you are probably thinking “Why are you using a microwave anyway” but truth be told I haven’t stopped using it since my pre-gardening / cooking / bachelor days.

Beyond baby bottle sterilization it’s used for defrosting (which is all reality should be called defreeze, the frost isn’t my problem, it’s that it’s frozen!) meat, cooking rice and even steaming vege’s (yes I know this is bad). However despite the inconvenience I’m taking this as an opportunity to move away from the (apparently – still need to research it properly) dreaded microwave.

Which brings me to day 1 – no microwave. What did we have for dinner. Quite simple really and on reflection it makes sense to do this more often:

• Pan fried pork loin chops – bought today so they weren’t frozen which is probably a good thing.
• Oven roasted root vege’s and capsicum – always a crowd favourite and we ended up with 2 lots of vegetable delivery from Aussie Farmers Direct (trialling them) and an accidental top up from the grocery store.
• Steamed broccoli and bok choy.

It’s the steamed vege’s that brings the a-ha moment for me. I pulled out my bamboo steamer and I’m pretty sure that with the help of boiled water from the kettle I had them steamed up in about the same time as a microwave would take. And assuming microwaves aren’t ideal I had the desired outcome without additional effort.

I’m still yet to boil up and sterilise the baby bottles old school like my parents did but it’s certainly an eye opening experiment to go without the microwave.

Do you use a microwave? If you’ve given it up why? and how have you found the transition.

Let’s see how day 2 goes. Stay tuned!