Cider with boozy

My fermenter has been empty for a few weeks, and worse still so have my demijohns. There's been nothing brewing at Chez Dykes (as it were) and that's not good. A combination of end of Financial Year work stress and busy weekends have meant that I haven't had the chance to get another partial mash brew on and whilst my extract brew was fairly quick and easy, it's a bit unsatisfying.

One of the rides I've been on was a preliminary Southside pub-crawl (watch this space) and at one of the pubs we sampled a very tasty whiskey-aged cider. It got me thinking - cider is quick and easy to brew from juice, I have a half-bottle of Dewars that I'm never going to drink along with some wood chips left over from previous brews and there's an Aldi down the road from the office that sells cheap & plentiful preservative-free apple juice.

So here are the ingredients - 22 litres of apple juice, 1.3kg honey, 1 kg brown sugar, 3 limes, 3 big-arse lemons and a hand of ginger

Oh and a half-bottle of Dewars mixed with a combination of oak chips from the homebrew shop and hickory chips from the barbecue box (I ran out of oak chips)

Heat one bottle of juice and mix in the sugar & honey. I juiced most of the citrus and poured it in but also sectioned one of the lemons and sliced up the ginger. Leave to simmer for 40 minutes or so.

Whilst that is bubbling mix the whiskey and wood chips in another pan and bring to the boil. Smells great!

After that it's a question of straining the apple juice into the fermenter, mixing in the other 20-odd litres of apple juice, adding the yeast (I used Safale S-05 American ale yeast) and waiting for a month or so. I've also tipped the whiskey soaked wood in a jar and am leaving it to soak for a week or so, then I'll add it to the brew in a hop sock for the remainder of the initial fermentation. Here's hoping it works out OK - expect tasters in around 6 weeks...

Long, slow & smokey

There seems to be a few different styles of barbecue which depend on the country of origin -

British barbecuing tends to be small and easily cooked items such as burgers, steak and the occasional chicken drumstick. This is probably because it's generally cold & raining, so you need to minimise the time you spend outside. I remember shivering under an open garage door whilst my Dad "finished off the steaks to perfection" (perfection to my Dad was 'a little over well done') as the rain teemed down outside.

Australians tend to use barbecues as an extension to their kitchen and consider that it can be used to cook anything and everything. I've got a barbecue book at home which suggests using a kettle barbecue (which needs about 30 minutes of preheating to bring the heat beads / charcoal to a temperature which they will continue to burn at for the next four hours) to do everything from frying eggs on a hot plate,  grilling grapefruit or whipping up a soufflé. The recipes include comments like 'Once your fire has reached temperature simply fry each side for 3 minutes and serve'.

In my view Americans do it the right way. They developed a way of using barbecues to take low-value cuts of meat and find ways of making them succulent & tasty. As most cheaper cuts have a fair degree of fat, connective tissue and other less appetising things then a long slow cooking process helped melt everything together and some smoke (which was initially just a side effect of the cooking process) helped season the meat &vary the flavours. Of course being Americans they also cook huge chunks of meat, slather the resulting feed in sugar-laden sauces and run week long competitions to find 'who can produce the best barbecue'. Each State has its own sauce style and its own way of cooking the meat, and woe betide someone who tries to use tomatoes in a South Carolina sauce. When I was in Texas we'd drive for 40 minutes to a favoured 'barbecue pit' and often we were the only guys not wearing soiled flouro workwear and a beard in the joint, but despite my stand-out accent no-one seemed to care and damn the food was good!

Ironically the American style is so successful that the supposedly 'low value' cuts of meat like baby-back ribs ('USA style ribs' in Australia) can sometimes cost as much as the more refined cuts. But not always - I tried to find a 'Boston Butt' at the weekend (which I think is a shoulder joint with the bone in) and I'm not sure I got the right cut, but the principal is still the same.

Initially after a rub was applied the joint looked like this

and after 6 hrs at 220F (I lapse into American for temperatures as all the decent BBQ websites I've found use them), plentiful hickory smoke and some shredding / pulling with a fork it looks like this - whilst it was beautifully cooked it could have done with another hour I reckon

We were so hungry by that time that we kept it simple - pulled pork, home made guacamole, home made hot sauce, artisan pumpkin bread and some supermarket tortillas (they're on the list of things to make). Washed down with homebrew. It was a good evening.

It seemed a shame to not use the spare space on the BBQ grill so I also whipped up some bacon from a slab of pork belly 

Generally one of the good points about making your own foods is that it brings you closer to your food and you know exactly what went into it. Although for us squeamish city dwellers that can go a little too far at times...

 If you have a kettle Weber or similar, grab some hickory chips and give it a go!   

Short cuts make long delays - but great rides

We decided we'd try a shortcut to get back from the markets - I'd been studying google maps and it looked like there was a path that ran through a park and then through bushland under the powerlines. We started off in the local skatepark, much to the bemusement of the local kids

After we picked up the powerlines it looked like plain sailing along a dirt track as bellbirds sang in the bushes

Until we hit a boggy cow paddock scattered with creeks, barbed wire & electric fences. No photos as standing still meant that you sank into the mud, but after zig-zagging around trying to find a dry route we struggled to high ground (up a slope that was somehow as wet at the top as it was at the bottom) and ended up riding along a narrow path between a tree-lined slope and the freeway sound reduction wall

Before negotiating a slippery hill down to the road

Looking back it may not have been the best shortcut

But I guess you never know until you try!

  

Kuraby Markets

For a change we rode out to Kuraby markets for breakfast this morning

We arrived and as we started to lock the bikes up an official in a flouro vest approached. We expected the worst but instead he asked how far we'd ridden and said that he would suggest they install a bike rack to try to get more people riding in. A welcome change from the common anti-cyclist view! 

 The market itself its set on a carpark ringed on one side by trees

and along with the usual fruit & veg and bric-a-brac stalls has a wide range of international foods. The Kiwi stall looked like a good choice, bro

But I succumbed to a hot chicken biryani with a freshly cooked (and beautifully layered) paratha and a cup of chai tea. A spicy but great day to start the way, although one that meant I had to ride at the back on the way home.  

There was also plenty of coffee vendors, including one selling cold-pressed coffee in a stubbie that was both tasty and had the added advantage of making you look like a derro

They're on every Saturday, so if you fancy some fresh local produce and tasty food served by very friendly people then give them a go!

Debearding the rat

Last year I started to set up the Roadrat with a wierdy-beardy touring setup

It rode well but it never felt truly comfortable, and there were little things that niggled whenever I rode it or looked at it. Plus I never got round to putting gears on it and the combination of narrow-ish drop bars, flat pedals and a single gear meant that it was hard to manhandle up hills. So this week I decided it was time to make some changes and return it to being a joy to ride

The touring bars and klutzy-looking front disk brake are gone, instead it has swept back riser bars    and v-brakes front & back. It needs a pannier rack to make it a true urban runabout, but I'm enjoying the clean lines at the minute.

I don't deliberately use British components but I find they tend to work for me - it's a Cotic frame with On-one bars, seatpost & rear hub, a Thompson stem and a Hope front skewer. Should probably have a Brooks saddle too, but I'm saving that for another build.

The bars look and feel a bit odd but they're comfortable, at least over the short distance I've been riding since the rebuild. They feel very upright though - it makes you want to wear a flat cap, smoke a roll-up and carry a ferret.  I'll see how I get on with them.

 I haven't given up on the idea of touring though - don't panic guys, this still rings true for me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmFnarFSj_U

Orica Green Wedge

The Tour De France didn't start well for the Australian team, with their bus getting stuck under the timing sign at the end of the first stage

Luckily they managed to move the bus before they had to cut the race short, but it was an unusually chaotic first day.

Things have picked up for the team now, with Simon Gerrans gaining their first stage win on stage 3 and then the whole team backing it up with another win on the team time trial on stage 4. Gerrans is in yellow, and will probably stay in yellow for the next couple of days. Good work lads!

It's always easy to spot a cycling fan at this time of year - they're the bleary-eyed ones trying not to doze off in front of their desk.....

Far from the mudding crowd

The Qld cyclocross championships were on at Ipswich this weekend, and for once the weather gods smiled. Smiled in a kind of evil malicious way that said 'you always talk up cyclocross as a muddy sport, so I'll give you mud'. Grinned in a way that said 'every time anyone writes about cyclocross they always put in a weak pun on the word 'mud', so here you go'. Smirked in a way that said 'this is a far better sport to be lurking in the stands drinking beer watching than out there doing' (actually scratch that last one, when it comes to competitive bike racing that's a given for me).

We wanted mud and there was mud..,.

 We wanted water crossings, and hepatitis creek was running deep

We wanted air, and some were happy to oblige

some even gave it in the drops



we wanted barriers to be hurdled

we wanted steely determination, and everyone racing gave us that in spades

and of course we wanted beer & cowbells

 

 Thanks Ipswich Cx club and everyone that raced, it was a great way to spend a rainy afternoon....