Something for the foodies out there.

It’s a much appreciated burger recipe that I, your resident chef de cuisine, Chef David, have offered to share with all of our visitors.  This recipe is all about following the proper directions because any inconsistency will result in failure.  So, if you’re ready for the tastiest, JUICIEST, and most scrumptious burger you have ever had, please read on.

Serves 4.

1 1/2 lb. 80/20 ground beef.

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1-1 1/2 teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper (depending on your preference)

1 tablespoon paprika

1/4 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

2 oz. teriyaki sauce

Procedure:

Combine all ingredients just until mixed.  Divide into 4 equal portions.  Form tight 1 inch thick patties.  Now…take your thumb and create a crater into the center of one side of the burger about a 1/2 inch deep.  The burger will widen just a little.  Just tighten it up again by pressing the sides together with both hands.  You should have a nice plump burger, but be sure to keep it as even as possible on the sides surrounding the crater.  Refrigerate for at least 30 mins.

Heat your grill to around 400 degres-425 degrees.  Make sure your grill is clean and oiled.  The key to these burgers is a hot grill.  If using charcoal make sure to spread the coals evenly along the bottom of the grill.  There should only be one layer of coals.

After 30 minutes…time to cook.

Place the burgers evenly spread on the grill, try to avoid total direct heat, but be sure the grill is hot.  If these burgers do not sizzle when you set them on the grill, then it is not hot enough.  Close lid and cook for 5-6 minutes.  Lift lid and flip burgers.  Don’t play around with them.  Just flip and move on.  Close lid.  Cook for another 5-6 minutes for a good medium cooked burger. (add cheese if you want.  recommend muenster cheese or provolone.  these are good melting cheeses)

Now…be careful!  I am telling you.  These burgers have been known to retain all of their tasty juices and explode into your mouth when taking your bites.  I’m serious.  So delicious though. Yum.  Also…I know a lot of you love to put mustard and catsup or ketchup on your burgers.  Trust me…YOU DO NOT NEED TO.  But…to each his own.  I suggest trying the burger before adding any condiments.  Do what ya do partna!

Some beer recommendations:

Black Diamond Belgian Ale

Bridgeport Pintail Ale

Goose Island Blonde

Red Hook Blonde Ale

See the trend?  A nice refreshing ale will compliment this burger nicely and not overpower your pallet when devouring this meaty chunk of love.  Save your IPA’s and Porters for after your burger.

Hope you guys enjoy!

So long, suckers!

Why do multiple postings on what we do when I can be lazy for a month and just write one? Maybe so we don’t forget what we did. I will try my best to remember. After brewing the second Saison, we brewed a Pale Ale for an upcoming homebrew competiton, at the best BBQ restaurant in New York, Holy Smoke. This is our trial run, we’ll see if we need to make any adjustments for the actual competition. We will also be brewing a Hefeweizen, but haven’t done so yet. Heres the recipe for the Campfire Pale Ale, which Clubby wants to name Japanese Human. Why? I don’t know, I’ve tried to stop figuring him out years ago.

Campfire Pale Ale
10-A American Pale Ale

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 83.46%
Attenuation: 79.3%

Ingredients:
8.5 lb Maris Otter
12.0 oz American Caramel 20°L
.5 lb Honey Malt
0.5 oz Centennial (9.1%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.2 oz Centennial (9.1%) – added during boil, boiled 45 min
.46 oz Centennial (9.1%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
.3 oz Simcoe (11.9%) – added during boil, boiled 15 min
.2 oz Simcoe (11.9%) – added during boil, boiled 5 min
.5 oz Simcoe (11.9%) – added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 ea WYeast 1056 American Ale

00:34:38 Mash In – Liquor: 1.83 gal; Strike: 148.22 °F; Target: 122.0 °F
01:34:38 Infusion – Water: 2.44 gal; Temperature: 185.8 °F; Target: 152 °F
01:34:38 Sparge – Untitled Sparge: 3.5 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 0.0 min; Total Runoff: 6.14 gal

We just racked to secondary and dry hopped. We also have both Saison’s bottled. Sammy the Saison has a fruitier citrusy taste, while the No Name Saison has more of a spicy flavor. We’re excited about both. Umm, hmmm, I think that might be all that’s new. I’m sure you saw Dave’s post about him and clubby going off to the French Culinary Institute. Good for them. Good for me too, I get them making food for me from now on. Oh yeah, we got a bunch of hop rhizomes, which we will be planting in the next 2 weeks or so, stay tuned for our crazy looking hop trellis once it is done. Also, we will be entering some brews in the Sam Adams Longshot competition, which will definitely be a long shot, but we don’t care, we’re looking for some constructive criticism. So see ya in a month when I update on stuff. Piece out peeps.

So I’ve got today off and figured I might as well update you on the second Saison we brewed. I’ve yet to come up with a name for it, so until I do, it shall be known simply as Greg’s Saison. We brewed it 1 week after Sammy the Saison, and it was almost identical. Recipes were different, but all procedures for mashing went the same way, so I won’t bore you with those details all over again. Our efficiency dropped slightly to 77% but that might be because of the honey I used. I decided to use the old weird guy next door’s homemade honey, and although it is very good, I’m not sure how old it was because it started to crystalize in the jar. So we might not have dissolved it all, leaving us with a lower efficiency. Once again everything went smoothly, and I believe we are finally getting everything down to a science now. As it stands now, Sammy is fermenting in the Bastard Son of Fermentation Chiller wrapped with a brew belt, and Greg’s Saison is upstairs for now, then will be swapped with Sammy. So without further ado (Thanks “Mary”), here’s the recipe:

Greg’s Saison
16-C Saison
Author: Greg

Size: 5.5 gal
Efficiency: 77.4%
Attenuation: 80%
Calories: 191.71 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.058 (1.048 – 1.065)
Terminal Gravity: 1.012 (1.002 – 1.012)
Color: 5.65 (5.0 – 14.0)
Alcohol: 6.09% (5.0% – 7.0%)
Bitterness: 23.1 (20.0 – 35.0)

Ingredients:
8 lb Belgian Pils
1 lb Vienna Malt
.5 lb Belgian Aromatic
2.0 lb Honey added during boil, boiled 15 min
1 oz Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 oz Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
1 ea WYeast 3724 Belgian Saison Yeast

Schedule:
02:12:46 Infusion – Liquor: 4.0 gal; Strike: 164.32 °F; Target: 145.0 °F
02:42:46 Sparge – Untitled Sparge: 4 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 6.41 gal

Sammy the Saison. Born from Clubby’s retarded mind. The first of 2 saisons to be brewed by the Campfire Brewing Boys. We entered the day prepared, checking over everything that we’ve screwed up in the past. We went over all the calculations, double checked ingredients, made sure all equipment was ready to go. We were not going to be beat. We seized the day eventually, with very little resistance. Yeah, Mother Nature tried to intervene and spoil our plans, but we prevailed, using our quick wits and some duct tape. This is our tale.

So we started the brew day at 10:00AM. The sky was gray, with impending snow, rain, and sleet. Were we going to make it before the heavens fell down upon us? Alas, we were not going to make it, for the skies opened up,and it began to drizzle. Damn, what shall we do? “Let’s go old school” said our brains. So we grabbed our old brew pot, filled it with 4 gallons of water for our mash, and began boiling stove top. Ingenius, we will do all of our mashing and sparging indoors. Then, when the time comes, we shall venture outdoors and boil the wort. 1 hour and 5 minutes passed, and the mash water was at the appropriate strike temperature of 166 degrees. In it went with the 10.5 pounds of crushed grain. The target temperature of the mash was 145 degrees, but we settled for 148. We wished to mash for 2 hours, and a use a low mash temperature so the beer would be thinner bodied, and ferment nicely. With a little over 1 hour to go, we began to heat up the sparge water, which was to be around 168 degrees. When it attained it’s desired temperature, we drained the mash, resulting in around 2.25 gallons of wort. We batch sparged, and ended up with around 6.75 gallons of water. Boilage of the wort was to commence! We hauled the brew kettle outdoors to the burner. It was raining. And cold. Not good. So after approximately 20 seconds of thought, I ran into the house and emerged with the item that Was to save the day…An umbrella! Now who was going to hold it for 1 and a half hours while standing over the boiling wort? Neither of us. A roll of duct tape and 1 minute later, we had affixed the umbrella to the brew kettle. Now we can go and relax indoors with the MLB Network on. Our hop additions were to be as followed, Saaz at 60 minutes, Saaz again at 30 minutes, Kent Goldings at 5. Thrown in was also 1.5 lbs of honey with 15 minutes to go.

Chilling the beer took us about 20 minutes, thanks to the 40 degree water going through the immersion chiller and the 40 degree temperatire outside. We then aerated the hell out of it, pitched the starter, wrapped a brew belt around it, stuck it in our fermentation chiller, then we cleaned. We had won the day. We didn’t have a single issue, and our efficiency ended up at 80%, so we had a good day.

(I just realized that I started off writing like a sophisticated author, and ended up rushing the rest. Oh well, I keep getting distracted. Below you will find the entire recipe along with mash schedule. And if you go to the photos page, you can see some pictures from the day.)

Sammy the Saison
16-C Saison
Author: Clubby

Size: 5.75 gal
Efficiency: 80.95%

Original Gravity: 1.060 (1.048 – 1.065)
Terminal Gravity: 1.015 (1.002 – 1.012)
Color: 6.2 (5.0 – 14.0)
Alcohol: 5.91% (5.0% – 7.0%)
Bitterness: 31.3 (20.0 – 35.0)

Ingredients:
5 lb Belgian Pils
3.5 lb Vienna Malt
2.0 lb Wheat Malt Dark
1.5 lb Honey
1.0 oz Saaz (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 oz Saaz (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 30 min
1.0 oz East Kent Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 5 min
1.0 ea White Labs WLP568 Belgian Style Saison Ale Yeast Blend

02:12:38 MASH TIME! – Liquor: 4.0 gal; Strike: 163.17 °F; Target: 145 °F
02:42:38 Batch Time Bitch! – Sparge: 4 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 6.29 gal

We have completed our first try at making experimental batches and we think it went pretty well. First things first, we forgot how horrible it is to boil stovetop, and we were only brewing 2 gallons and 1 gallon at a time! We kept things simple, since we aren’t really trying to make a specific beer just yet, just experimenting with flavors. We chose cilantro and thyme for today. The cilantro was fresh, while the thyme was dried. Here are the 2 recipes we used:
Size: 0.96 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 142.37 kcal per 12.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.043 (1.026 – 1.120)
Terminal Gravity: 1.011 (0.995 – 1.035)
Color: 4.17 (1.0 – 50.0)
Alcohol: 4.21% (2.5% – 14.5%)
Bitterness: 0.0 (0.0 – 100.0)
Ingredients:
1 lb CBW® Golden Light Powder (Dry Malt Extract)
1 tbsp Thyme – added during boil, boiled 10 min
Size: 2.04 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 133.85 kcal per 12.0 fl oz
Original Gravity: 1.040 (1.026 – 1.120)
Terminal Gravity: 1.010 (0.995 – 1.035)
Color: 3.92 (1.0 – 50.0)
Alcohol: 3.96% (2.5% – 14.5%)
Bitterness: 0.0 (0.0 – 100.0)
Ingredients:
2 lb CBW® Golden Light Powder (Dry Malt Extract)
1.75 oz Cilantro – added during boil, boiled 0.0 min
1 oz Cilantro – added dry to secondary fermenter

Also, for both batches,  we just used Muntons Dry Ale Yeast, no special yeasts. With the cilantro beer, we split into 2 fermenters, so our goal is dry “hop” with one, and leave the other be. Obviously time will dictate how they both taste, but they actually smelled really good. The one with thyme really stood out, and the cilantro beer actually had an earthy, mushroomy smell. Stay tuned for updates as we try them.

Well, it happened. We brewed our last full batch of beer this year. Cold weather is coming, and since we must brew outside, we will be forced to beerbernate for the winter. Hopefully, this beer will be ready in time for Christmas, sice that was the point of it. We tried thinking of a good beer for the holiday seasons, and it was a little late to brew a pumpkin ale. So we thought of what is consumed around the holidays and how to make it into a beer. We settled on an egg nog inspired beer, because that sounded better than a mincemeat pie beer. We didn’t put any egg in the beer, or nog for that matter. What we did was take a basic egg nog recipe, and just used the spices to give our beer that holiday feel. The spices we chose were nutmeg and cinnamon, with some vanilla. And what makes egg nog better? Rum. So that will be going in also.

Now that we chose the spices, we tried to think of the “base” ale which it will be applied to. What we decided on is a stout that is somewhere between a Sweet Stout, and a Russian Imperial Stout. We wanted it sweet and malty, but also kind of high in alcohol to keep us warm in the winter. We have never added spice to a beer, so we took guesses on amounts, hoping that they would be enough to detect, but not overwhelm. Worst case scenario, we don’t know they are there. Now for the complete recipe:

Christmas Stout
13-F Russian Imperial Stout
Author: Greg & Chris

Size: 6.48 gal
Efficiency: 83.86%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 247.73 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.074 (1.075 – 1.115)
Terminal Gravity: 1.019 (1.018 – 1.030)
Color: 42.87 (30.0 – 40.0)
Alcohol: 7.32% (8.0% – 12.0%)
Bitterness: 28.9 (50.0 – 90.0)

Ingredients:
1 lb Black Malt
12 lb Pale Ale Malt
2 lb Chocolate Malt
2 lb Roasted Barley
2 oz Goldings (5.0%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 tsp Nutmeg (ground) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
1 tsp Cinnamon (ground) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.0 tsp Vanilla (extract) – added dry to secondary fermenter
1.0 oz Rum – added dry to secondary fermenter
1 ea WYeast 1028 London Ale

00:30:33 Mash In – Liquor: 3.19 gal; Strike: 118.97 °F; Target: 104.0 °F
01:30:33 Infusion – Water: 5.25 gal; Temperature: 194.6 °F; Target: 153 °F
02:00:33 Batch Sparge – First sparge: 6 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 12.06 gal

If you will notice, I also included the mash schedule, which we followed to a T. This is the first time we used Beer Tools to help develop a schedule, and it really helped. I think though next time I will scale back the ratio by .25 qts per pound of grain, since we had a little too much. The only snag we ran into with the mash was that our hose filter floated up and the grain got underneath it, giving us a stuck mash, so we had to resort to removing grain, straining, fixing tube, then putting the grain back in the mash tun. We then sparged with absolutely no problems after that. We didn’t use the full 6 gallons in the sparge, we took gravity readings until we were getting a 1.008 reading, then stopped. We probably sparged with 3-4 gallons bringing our total volume to approximately 9 gallons. We had a 2.5 hour boil to get the volume down to about 6.5 gallons, which is where we ended it.

We were surprised with our 83% efficiency, although we don’t know if we can reproduce that. We will keep trying though. We are really excited about this beer though. I have high hopes for it. Right now it is bubbling away violently, getting closer to that final product. Yummy.

It was a Saturday. The air was crisp. The tools, we had them. The brewers were there, ready to succeed. The grains waited patiently to be crushed. The hops awaited their bubble bath. And the water was…just not enough.

On an attempt to brew an English IPA, Saturday the 20th of September 2008 we ran into some dificulties. Although…we didn’t quite know until our first gravity reading. With ambitions to reach an efficiency at around 70%, we were incredibly puzzled as to why we were so off. Oh…and did I mention that after our boil we wound up with roughly 3.25 gallons of liquid when we started with 7 gallons? Crazy right?

So here we are. Standing around with a hydrometer, scratching our heads, and looking for holes in everything our liquid was in before, during, and after the entire process. We checked our schedule. Our notes. We even checked each other out! (wink) Moving on.

Here is the recipe:

8.0lbs. pale ale malt

2.0lbs. crystal malt 20L

1.0lb. caramunich (organic)

2oz. glacier (60 min)

2oz. willamette (10 min)

1.0lb clear candy sugar

1 London ale II (smack pack yeast)

2oz. Fuggles (dry, secondary)

(To salvage our brew we had to boil 1 gallon of water and add 1lb. f corn sugar to the beer before we set it up for fermentation. We ended up with about 4.25 gallons.)

After careful research and calibrations, Greg determined the problem. One was easily recognizable. The hops absorbed all the water! Why, even though our recipe called for just 7? I’ll tell you why. Greg had also determined that our equipment was faulty. It was not calibrated to our program. AND! To add some icing on top of this disaster, the buckets that were purchased through a commercial supplier were inaccurately calibrated!! How could they do such a thing? Especially when it comes down to brewing. Accuracy is top dog!

Greg has officially started calibrating all of our equipment and marking off water levels on our buckets so that we will have no future complications. Our goal now is precision. Treat it more as a science. Be aggressive, but careful. Most importantly, no matter what…we will always have fun.

Boy do we sure know how to pick them. I mean, what the hell? We can’t go through a brew day without some sort of incident. Last time it was a stuck mash because of a pretty crappy hose we used. Today, a thunderstorm with torrential downpours. So? We brew outside. Anyways, the picnic table umbrella came in handy. Here’s the recipe for our American Amber Ale:

Ingredients:
7 lbs American 2-row
1 lbs American Caramel 60°L
1 lbs Victory® Malt
1 lbs American Caramel 40°L
1 oz Cascade (4.6%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
1 oz Amarillo (8.5%) – added during boil, boiled 10 min
.5 oz Amarillo (8.5%) – added dry to secondary fermenter
1 ea White Labs WLP001 California Ale

We began by boiling 4 gallons of water for our mash. We got the water between 175 degrees and 180 degrees, then added it to the mash tun. We mixed in the grain (which we crushed with our barley crusher, only this time we used a drill instead of our arms, it was wonderful). We let it sit for an hour. While it sat there, we got another 2-3 gallons of water going to raise the temperature of the mash. We also got another 3.5-4 gallons of water going for sparge. We didn’t add the full 2-3 gallons of water to the mash, only about 1.5 gallons just get the temp back up to 170ish. We then batch sparged and got the boil going. All that, and holding umbrellas over the brew pot to keep the rain water out. An hour later we cooled down, aerated and pitched the yeast. And that was that. We made too much, ended up with 6 gallons instead of 5, but we got our best effeciency yet, 79%. So we were happy, the only thing is that for the style we are slightly low in OG, alcohol, and bitterness. But in the end, it should still be good.

G’day my dear chaps. Just Clubby here with a little update, to let you know we are still around and kicking and busting out beautiful brew after beautiful brew.

For our newest creation we decided to make a pale ale. The ingredients are…

7lbs. American 2-row

1lb. Vienna

2lbs. Crystal Malt 10L

1oz. Challenger (60 mins.)

1oz. Cascade (5 mins.)

1lb. Clear Candi Sugar

White Labs American Ale Yeast Blend WLP060

So we mashed at about 155 degrees for 1 hour and 20 minutes. It turned out to be a huge to-do because grains found their way into the drainage hose and clogged everything up. So we ended up with a 1.062 OG, overshot our target by 2 points. This has already been moved to secondary as we brewed this 2 weekends ago. and the FG ended up at 1.012. It will be amazing!

I know, it’s been a few weeks since I last posted. I’ve been sick, so I didn’t want to review beers and give false reviews because I couldn’t taste them. Also, baseball season has started, so I’ve been preoccupied with that, although I haven’t forgotten about the beer.

First things first, a public apology to my dear friend Clubby:

Hey Buddy,

I know I have been critical of the recipes you have come up with, and I am sorry. I had the “Munich Dunkel” situation all wrong. It isn’t watery. It is actually quite flavorful now. It took some time, and has become a very good beer. It’s carbonated too! Good job!

Your Greggy

PS I still think you should cut down on the honey, it’s damn expensive

OK, next: Our newest Belgian Witbier. Frickin’ A it’s good. Me and Clubs cracked one open yesterday after 2 weeks in the bottle, and dayum, it was good. It was slightly bitter, we aren’t sure if it was my odd choice of hops (Amarillo) or the pith from the lemon and orange peel. Either way, it isn’t an overpowering bitterness, and no one would probably say anything if we didn’t mention it.

Thirdly: We took a gravity reading of our Belgian Strong Dark, and it was at 1.030. It’s been 2 weeks, so we’ll give it 1 more to see if it goes down to our target of 1.023-1.024. Also tasted the sample. Almost knocked us on our asses. It could definitely use some time to mellow.

Fourthly: Yesterday we brewed a Hefeweizen. We wanted something simple and nice for spring/summer, so what’s better than a Hefeweizen? Here’s the recipe and then I’ll go into procedures.

Ingredients:
7 lbs German Wheat Malt light
3 lbs German Pilsner Malt
1 oz Tettnanger (3.9%) – added during boil, boiled 60 min
.5 oz Saaz (3.7%) – added during boil, boiled 1 min
1 ea WYeast 3068 Weihenstephan Weizen

I got the mash started while Clubby was working, so we didn’t have to be here until midnight, even though the weather was beautiful anyways. I got 3 gallons of water up to 170 for the mash, mixed it with the grain, and sealed her up. One and a half hours later I opened up and the ol’ girl stayed at a steady 158 degrees. I started on boiling the sparge water, 5 gallons to be exact, got it up to 170, dumped it in the mash tun. The one thing I was worried about was using the wheat, I was afraid I would got a stuck mash or sparge since I didn’t use rice hulls, but I actually didn’t have a problem, I guess the 3 lbs of Pilsner was enough to help filter it. After sparging we ended up with approximately 6 gallons of wort, maybe 5.5. Clubby then came over, we got the wort boiling, added the first ounce of hops, tossed our balls around (baseballs, get your mind out of the gutter) cracked open the Witbier, then added the last .5 oz of hops. We then used our nifty immersion chiller that looks like something out of Dr. Seuss, and chilled the wort in about 20 minutes. We transferred the wort to the carboy, almost forgetting to take a gravity reading, then pitched the yeast. Our target starting gravity reading was 1.053, we achieved a 1.052, but since we didn’t end up with a full 5 gallons in the end, it means we only got a 70% efficiency, which we consistently hit. That’s right ladies, we’re 70% efficient. So for next time, we will be changing out our drainage system in our mash tun. We are tossing out the braided hose, and replacing it with vinyl tubing with slits cut in it.

I’m sure I am forgetting something somewhere, so yeah, I hate you. No, I can’t end that way, Clubby has used that one already. Go Yankees, Mets suck, Red Sox are a bunch of homos. That’s much better.

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