Jonathan Piper » Food

Homebrew batches #0001 & #0002, 27 months later

Jonathan — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:52:48 +0000

Last night at a little dinner party, William and I cracked open the last remaining bottles of our very first forays into homebrewing, from July and August of 2007. Batch #0001 was called “West Coast Pale Ale,” a HomeBrewMart starter recipe. At the time we noted the beer was very “safe,” that is to say very boring. Very little alcohol, with very mild flavor (at least it was a balanced mild!). #0002 was our first “recipe,” “Continual Surveillance,” a pretty good West Coast-style IPA complete with dry hopping. Decent alcohol (~6.5%), good IBUs, and all around good flavor.

Fast forward 27 months, and these beers were vastly different. Extremely different from when we tasted them at one year of aging. Both took on a darker color and gained an interested maple syrup-like flavor. #0002 was a little brighter from the original hops, but in terms of obviously recognizable hop flavor they were more or less the same. Alcohol flavor was there, but almost as a component of the maple syrup-ness. Really, really weird.

As for new beer, we also opened up a few bottles of the new xoconostle brew, a Belgian golden flavored with xoconostle fruit. Very light body, nice yeasty funk, nice sugary sweetness and nice fruity tartness. I think we did a pretty good job with this one.

I also made a couple of new salsas last night: a serrano/lime salsa that was delicious, and a tomato/pequin salsa that came out much milder than I had anticipated. I guess I overestimated the impact that the little suckers would have on a whole batch.

Chiles!: Pequin

Jonathan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 18:13:09 +0000

I’ve just about recovered fully from a pequin chile. This little thing, barely the size of my pinky nail, packed a mighty wallop. It had a very nice bright, herbal and somewhat citrus-like flavor for about 3 seconds before the heat kicked in. And, probably owing to the minuscule size of the chile, it was an intensely focused heat. Not like a serrano or something where the sheer amount of fruit means that the capsaicin gets everywhere. I can still feel the pain localized on about a quarter of my tongue, one side of my throat, and barely into one ear canal. Good stuff!

Chiles!

Jonathan — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 07:00:49 +0000

Beautiful, beautiful chiles! Given to me by a friend of my dad’s, probably the best part about this particular Thanksgiving. And I only know the bookends: the far left chile is a pequin, a tiny sucker about 5 times spicier than a japaleño; the far right chile is a bhut jolokia, aka the spiciest mofuckin’ chile on the planet. As for the insides, I’m not sure – the long skinny one is some kind of bird’s eye, whether it’s Thai or African I have no idea. And the more bulbous chile, I’m completely unsure. All I know at this point is that it’s probably very spicy. Any ideas?

As for how to use these – I have no clue. I’m sure the three on the left will work well in the food I make normally, albeit in much smaller portions than I would normally use with, say, jalapeños or serranos. I’d love some suggestions about how to use the bhut jolokia in particular, though of course I’m always up for food suggestions in general.

To be honest, I can’t wait to try making something with them. Chiles are one of my favorite things ever. It can be such a cathartic experience to consume massive quantities of capsaicin, to the point of inducing a sort of spiritual experience. One of the first times I made salsa was a catastrophic culinary failure but caused such intense pain that all I could do was sit down and accept it, think about it, feel it moving through my head and indeed entire body. On another occasion I ate a piece of habanero, mostly to prove something to my father-in-law, and was quite surprised to feel the pain move very (even painfully) slowly from my mouth to my throat and finally into my ears. It was an amazing experience of my own body, in a way that other foods don’t normally induce. I just hope I can have many more such experiences before the capsaicin finally tears a whole in my stomach lining and gives me a horrible ulcer.

Yay chiles!