Kitchen Craft

John Novella has been tending bar in Bergen County since the age of 21, and it is in this occupation that he discovered his newest and most profound passion; beer. In his time tending bar, he has been able to sample and serve many different styles of beer. Beer has become a staple in modern cultures just as it has always has been throughout history. The act of brewing beer is an art and a craft that many great figures throughout history have attempted to wrap their minds around, even including the minds of America’s founding fathers. It is the art of brewing beer that John has developed this intense passion for. To him brewing beer is therapeutic in the same way that playing music is for musicians or painting a canvas is for artists, because to him, brewing is an art. In his home, he routinely puts together recipes for different styles of craft beer that he brews with his closest friends. Brewing beer has become such a shared passion for John and his two good buddies, that they have been working admirably to open up a brewpub in Bergen County, which would be the first of its kind within the county. Together, John and his friends(or future business associates), Ryan, and Jeremy would like to combine their passion for brewing beer with their knowledge of the restaurant and service industry that they all have been a part of for so many years. This a goal that they share and hope to soon reach so that they can turn what they love into a sustainable business within the community in which they live and share their passion with their friends, families, and the local community. Kitchen Craft I would like to describe an event that so often places me in the kitchen of my apartment. There are many things I can whip up in that kitchen, but I’d have to say that my favorite and most passionate use of the stove top is for brewing beer. When I brew a well-crafted beer, I take my time to create something special just as I would if I were crafting a gourmet meal. I attempt to create a distinct balance of bitter hop and malty sweet flavors, while not forgetting to produce a seductive hop aroma that gives the beer a satisfying finish. Sometimes when I brew I use flavors that Danner Kline says “defy tradition,” and my definition of a craft beer mirrors his, because to me “brewing is an art and a craft first, but also something that I would like to use to create a sustainable business,” (Kline). Brewing is a process that does take some time and patience. In the following passages I would like to describe the process that I take to brew a batch of beer by breaking it down to each individual phase; the preparation, the mash, the boil, and fermentation. After I describe the details of each phase of brewing beer, I will stay in the kitchen, but go beyond brewing and describe how I concoct a delectable gourmet meal, and I will even pair that meal with a specialty craft beer. To me brewing is just another way to use the stove top. It is really as simple as boiling water, yet at the same time, it is as complex as any form of chemistry can be. To prepare for brewing I gather all of the equipment and raw materials like water, grains, hops, and yeast, and the first and arguably the most important aspect of beer is water and so when I brew, I use a charcoal filter that I attach to the faucet, because “it is a good way to remove most odors and bad tastes that could be in the water, due to dissolved gases and organic substances like nitrates, and a charcoal filter is both inexpensive and easy to attach,” (Palmer 38). Another piece of equipment that I use to brew is a mill, and this is important to finely grind down all of the malts, grains, and barleys. I use a five gallon boiling pot for the water. A thermometer is important because a brewer has to pay close attention to the temperature of the water at all times, and a hydrometer is crucial to figure out the amount of alcohol content by volume. The batch of beer also needs a bucket to sit in and ferment, and that bucket must be able to seal and prohibit air from getting into the beer, but it must also be able to allow the carbon dioxide, produced from the yeast, to escape. This feat is accomplished by a plastic piece, called an airlock, that is attached to the lid and has a water reservoir so that the carbon dioxide bubbles up through the water and escapes, and oxygen never gets into the bucket. The most intricate apparatus that I use is the mashing and sparging equipment. This consists of two five gallon igloo containers that maintain heat, and they both have modified spigots at the bottom. One of these containers also has a false bottom that prevents the grains from getting to the spigot, but it still allows the liquid to drain through. All of this equipment, as well as any spoons or ladles that I might use to brew, must be thoroughly washed and sanitized before and after each batch of brewing so that I do not contaminate the beer in any way. The first phase of brewing is the mash. This phase requires me to heat up water in the boiling pot and while the water is rising in temperature I grind the grains down into very fine particles with the mill. When the water reaches about 160 degrees and all of the grains have been milled I create a big tea bag effect with the water and grains in the igloo container. The mash sits in the igloo container with the false bottom for one hour, and during this hour, the hot water extracts all of the sugars from the grains into the water in order to give the beer its flavor and color. While the mash is resting, I heat more water to about 160 degrees. At the end of the hour that the mash is resting, I pour this water into the other igloo container, and use that water to sparge the mash and drain the liquid with the extracted sugars back into the boiling pot, and after the liquid has been separated from the grains of the mash and drained back into the boiling pot, it is then called the wort. While brewing, the actual cooking begins when the wort is back on the stove. Once I get the wort to a slow, rolling boil, I cut the flame, and add my bittering hops, turn the burner back on high, and set the timer for an hour while letting the wort continue to boil. There are two elements within hops that contribute to the flavor or aroma of the beer; alpha acids and aromatic oils. The alpha acids contribute to the bitterness of the flavor and the aromatic oils in the hops give the beer its aroma. “The aromatic oils of hops used in bittering addition(s) tend to boil away leaving little hop flavor and no aroma,” (Palmer 43). For this reason, hops that I use to produce certain aromas are added toward the end, and they are called finishing hops. For a chocolate stout, I also add hops a third time in the middle of the boil to enrich both the bitterness and the aroma, and I add chocolate flavorings with the finishing hops. When the hour boil has finished, I pitch the yeast into a separate fermenting bucket, and before I can add the wort to the bucket with the yeast, I need to chill the wort down to about 75 degrees or room temperature. A simple way to do this is by putting the boiling pot into the sink and giving it an ice bath, but I use a device called a wort chiller that attaches to the sink faucet and rapidly runs cold water through the wort in order to cool it down very quickly. As soon as the wort drops to room temperature, I pour it into the bucket, mix in the yeast, and seal it closed. Once I seal the bucket, the final phase of brewing, fermentation, begins. As the yeast eats the sugars during fermentation, alcohol is produced, and as a result the yeast releases carbon dioxide that needs to escape. The water reservoir in the airlock is what allows the carbon dioxide to be released. As the water in the reservoir bubbles, the carbon dioxide is on its way through the airlock, and for this reason fermentation is actually visible as it takes place. The bubbles usually begin after the beer has been sitting for a few hours at the proper temperature, and they are very abundant. As time goes on the bubbles begin to slow down, and when they diminish, generally after a couple of weeks, the beer is ready for bottling. Just as a good craft beer takes time and care to make, a good craft meal is no different. I like to take my time when I prepare a nice steak. I like to let mine sit and marinade overnight or throughout the day if I get up early. On an online blog website, I found a great recipe for a steak marinade and rub. The author of the website is a self-taught cook that also brews beer at home with her husband. She adapted a recipe from The Tailgator’s Cookbook by David Joachim. The recipe calls for a boneless strip steak to be cooled overnight in a marinade of dark beer, Worcestershire, and a little bit of Tabasco Sauce. Instead of a boneless strip steak, I used a boneless sirloin, and for the dark beer I used a chocolate stout that I have already brewed at home. Stouts are dark, and they naturally have a hint of coffee flavor from the barley used to brew them so this beer complements the rub very well. The rub is a mixture of “pure chili powder, ground cumin, sugar, salt, cayenne, black pepper, and ground coffee,” (Joachim). When I pulled the steak out of the marinade, I followed the directions precisely as I patted the sirloin dry with a paper towel, and then, I scattered the mixture of coffee and spices over both sides of the steak. Finally, I tweaked the recipe one last time by throwing the sirloin in the broiler, instead of cooking it on the grill. I crafted this dish with a beer marinade and coffee rubbed sirloin, and a few things on the side to complement the steak. I baked potatoes, in which I melted sharp cheddar cheese on top and drizzled real bacon bits on top of the cheese. I filled the rest of the plate with a side of asparagus and mushrooms roasted with olive oil and garlic. I garnished the dish with a slab of butter that I spread across the sirloin and a slab of sour cream on top of the potato. Before indulging, I cracked open a bottle of Hawaiian craft beer that I picked up from the local store; a dark brown ale brewed with toasted coconut. The last measure I took before taking a bite, was lift my glass and toast to the craft meal that I had just created. Works Cited Joachim, David. The Tailgater’s Cookbook. Epicurious. 2006. Web. 6 March 2012. Kline, Danner. “What is Craft Beer?.” Birmingham Weekly. n.p. 4 Nov. 2010. Web. 6 March 2012 Palmer, John J. How to Brew: Everything you need to know to brew beer right the first time. Boulder: Brewers Publications, 2006. Print.