I started out with the sourdough bread, and then to sauerkraut. Since then I’ve moved onto kombucha, kimchi, yogurt, and I’ve finally arrived at beer. I’ve had a few experiments that didn’t turn out so well. The kombucha was a bit scary to look at, so I couldn’t bring myself to drink it. The brusselkraut, while I’m sure it was perfectly edible, was not pleasant on the taste buds. But for the most part, things have been turning out well.

There are lot of misconceptions about homebrewing beer that I want to clear up:

• Brewing beer at home is completely legal. It’s not even a grey area. In 1979, President Carter signed a law allowing people to homebrew up to 200 gallons of beer a year without license or taxing. Unless you live in Alabama, Mississippi, or Oklahoma. Oh, and if you brew in Kentucky you aren’t allowed to share.
• Beer is not made in a bathtub. It’s a very clean and sanitary process, taking place in a simple 5 gallon glass jar much like the plastic jugs on office water coolers. I store it out of the way in a closet.
• Brewing beer does not smell. The smell of warm bread and grains goes away as soon as I’m done with the 1 to 2 hour brewing process. Once it’s fermenting, I can only pick up a mild beer scent if I sniff right at the airlock on the top of the jar. Otherwise, nada.
• Things don’t explode. The only part of the process that takes place under any sort of pressure is once the beer is in bottles and is carbonating. There is a small risk that a bottle will burst, but only if you don’t measure things properly or if they get hot.
• It’s not dangerous to drink. If the yeast takes over and starts converting sugars to alcohol, that alcohol prevents nearly anything that’s harmful from growing. If wild yeast or bacteria infects it, the alcohol will make things safe. It may, however, taste disgusting if it gets infected.

Homebrewing is surprisingly inexpensive. You can spend thousands of dollars on a setup, but to get going, you really only need about a $150 investment in equipment. Once you have that, the cost of a bottle seems to run around 75¢ to $1, depending on the style and not counting labor. I’ve calculated that if I switch from my current method of extract brewing (brewing using cans of reduced grain sugars) to all-grain brewing (soaking the grains myself) I might be able to get it down to about 30¢ per bottle. All-grain brewing is a little more involved and requires a bit more equipment, but the biggest problem with it is that I would really need a much bigger place than my condo to do this in.

I’m still learning my way around the terminology and technique of brewing beer. So far I’ve done a couple batches of a Belgian witbier, a chocolate porter, an Irish stout, an oatmeal stout, and a hefeweizen. I’m starting to get comfortable enough with the process to move onto getting creative with the recipes, emulating beers I’ve tasted or creating something entire new.

As it turns out, sourdough and San Francisco sourdough are entirely different things. Sourdough is simply the bread that has been made for years, before modern active dry yeast was produced. In the old days, if you wanted yeast, you would have to keep it alive yourself. It was known as “starter“. When you made bread, you would put some starter in your flour and water mixture, and your dough would rise. When making San Francisco sourdough, it’s basically the opposite: you make a bunch of starter and then put some flour into it to reach a bread dough consistency.

So I sent an envelope to an organization known as Carl’s Friends, who out of the kindness of their hearts will mail you some dried sourdough starter if you send them a pre-stamped envelope. Upon receiving an envelope full of white powder (which was unnerving having just read Demon in the Freezer a few weeks ago), I reactivated the yeast and bacteria mixture using flour and a little potato water. Within a few days I had a frothing, gummy mixture of living starter. It had the smell of beer and wet latex paint.

I made San Francisco sourdough bread last weekend from a recipe I found on the Internet. It turned out with an amazing aroma. I do not have any photos because it was gone too quickly. I’ll try making some more this weekend. Hopefully it will stick around a little longer.

Opening my sauerkraut. Photo credit: Preston

Next up I’m going to try green cabbage with carrots and caraway seeds. I need to slice it a little thinner though because it is a little too crispy.

The process of fermentation fascinates me, and since  refrigeration has come into common use, fermentation has waned in popularity. We still consume lots of beer, wine, soy sauce, chocolate, vanilla and yogurt, but I can’t imagine that our factory-produced food has the same taste and nutritional value. One of the great benefits of fermented foods is the live (good) bacteria culture, and the canning process destroys it.

I’d love to try making mead, yogurt, and sourdough bread.

For the evening, our hobo bag theme was lackluster blockbusters, or blockblunders, or just plain crappy box office hits: Titanic, Wild Wild West, Speed 2, Men in Black, Armageddon, The Phantom Menace, Waterworld, and Pearl Harbor.

We discovered that in general, Cabernet was a lighter, fruitier red wine, and ranged from extremely dry to nearly dessert wine sweet. In several wines, the alcohol taste came through rather obnoxiously.

Last place went to a $14 bottle of Avalon from Sonoma, California, 2004. In a near-tie for last place was a $9 bottle of Bolla from Italy, 2006. A few weeks ago, Bolla won first place for Chianti.

A $13 1-liter box of French Rabbit from France got second place. It was very sweet and light, but easy to drink and approachable. It had flavors of honey and strawberry.

When we pulled the first place winner out of the brown paper bag, the room was full of gasps and groans as we learned that it was Yellow Tail, Australia, 2007, $6.50. Much to our dismay, its rich christmas-like flavors of vanilla, licorice and cloves earned it the highest score we have given to any of the twenty-seven bottles we have tasted so far.

For dinner I made Emeril’s recipe for ratatouille as well as sage roasted potatoes. David made a dessert with poached meringue floated on a martini glass of custard and garnished with a wafer of caramel.

If we learned anything that night, it’s that consuming food at unnatural speeds and set to music is hysterical.

The longer I go without owning a car, the more I realize that personal transportation vehicles are a waste of money and other resources. The gasoline, the maintenance, the time missed from work getting your vehicle repaired, the amount of space they take up, the vehicle payments, etc., all are reasons we have decided to not purchase another car.  We are glad we live in a location where that is feasible.

With the increase of gas prices in recent years, most people I know have analyzed bus routes, bicycle commute times, carpooling options, looking for a way to get by without a car. So far, my suburban friends have been unsuccessful.

Developers around the metro area have finally started to see the merits of building residential and commercial within easy walking or very short drives. Today when people search for jobs their search radius has been shrinking.  People want to work closer to home.

Despite this push toward greener mobility, there are more and more vehicles on the road all the time, all fighting for valuable parking in downtown DC. The problem with trying to fix this solution, however, is that if you build more parking, that means more people will try to drive because the parking is available. I say the way to solve the traffic congestion in DC is to remove parking. Build a stadium, but let people metro in from their hotels and from their suburban parking lots. Build more office space, but save the money on the expensive underground parking garages. Spend that money on a bike rack or on metro passes.

Street parking is another congestion-creator. People will drive around for blocks and blocks, searching for a free parking space, burning gas and occupying space on the street. If we just had a few public garages, people would know exactly where to go. Remove the street parking in commercial areas, widen the sidewalks, and make people walk that extra two or three blocks. An added benefit to reducing street parking is reducing the second largest hazard to bicyclists: dooring.

I came across an interesting article about the different things that New York City is looking at for easing congestion and for converting streets from the domain of isolated vehicles into true public space. What is DC doing on this front?

Ironically, for Bike to Work Day, I’ll be driving a car for a change.

All the Shiraz(es?), even the lowest rated, still scored higher than any other class of wine we had before: Chianti, Zinfandel, and Merlot. The biggest surprise was that the box wine (which was classily strapped to the rack on the back of my bike for the trip home) scored the highest! Coming in at an extremely close second was the $45 bottle from Australia.

From my research, it appears that shiraz pairs well with spicy foods such as Mexican, Cajun, and barbecue. So some of our visitors prepared beans and enchiladas. For dessert, David made flan that turned out amazing!

Next week: Cabernet

For dinner we had pizza with homemade crust, fresh buffalo mozzarella cheese, and ridiculous amounts of fresh basil. For dessert David made zabaglione with fresh fruit.

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So I’m a little late with posting our review of red Zinfandel. About two weeks late.

Zinfandel is grown world-wide, but the vast majority of Zinfandel available in the US is from California. As a matter of fact, we were unable to find anything outside of California to taste.  Also difficult to find was any bottle over $20. It pairs well with barbecue and spicy food, so I made Emeril’s vegetarian chili.

We had five bottles, and not one scored well. The more we drank, the more we realized that Zinfandel did not sit well with us. They reminded us of the Argentinean wine from the previous week. The tastes were all tar, petroleum, and dirty socks.

At least the chili was a hit.

Last night was merlot, a grape native to France, but grown virtually worldwide. We served it with fresh red sauce on linguini, with an assortment of French-seasoned olives and robusto cheese, stella gorgonzola, and brie. For dessert David made chocolate mousse with whipped cream, shaved dark chocolate, and orange zest.

For kicks we started with a Sutter Home white merlot, $6. We did not rate it according to our rating system because it was entirely different. While not offensive in taste, the flavor was about as complex as Kool-Aid and finished quickly in a light Capri Sun taste. This drink was more of a punch or a sangría than a wine, and was better fit for a hot summer day with a few ice cubes and a slice of orange. I’m sure the glass bottle was a significant portion of the cost, and distributing it in a juice box with a straw to pierce the foil hole on top would certainly bring the cost down significantly.

Our least favorite was Trumpeter from Argentina, for $10, which was complex in a rotting chocolate sort of way. Coming in at nearly the same score was a $22 bottle of Château Marcadis from France which tasted as though it was aged in green wood barrels. Third place went to an $11 bottle from France called Red Bicyclette. While unremarkable, it would work well with a simple meal such as spaghetti. The light petroleum finish wasn’t enough for any of us to not consider this wine again considering its price class. In second place was Kendall-Jackson from California for $24. And first place goes to a 1997 Philippe Lorraine from California, $35. It was by far the most complex and interesting wine. Not that the taste was complex at any given point, but the taste always seemed to vary from sip to sip, with new flavors coming out throughout the glass.

Next week: Zinfandel.