{"id":1731,"date":"2010-02-14T14:44:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T19:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/?p=1731"},"modified":"2020-04-12T18:56:42","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T22:56:42","slug":"dorchesters-best","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/2010\/02\/14\/dorchesters-best\/","title":{"rendered":"Dorchester’s Best"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

We\u2019re back to something approximating \u201cnormal,\u201d here at the family compound just south of Boston proper. Valentine\u2019s day is proceeding smoothly, with flowers, cupcakes, and all that. Partying was had last night with simianpower<\/a> et al. Tomorrow evening, I depart for a week in Hampton, VA \u2013 doing the bidding of our government overlords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Life as usual. So I thought: \u201cWhat\u2019s more romantic than brewing a batch of beer on valentine\u2019s day?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing. That\u2019s what. There\u2019s nothing more romantic than that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve got just about the simplest beer recipe I\u2019ve ever made. I\u2019m doing a two gallon boil with four pounds (one can) of pale malt extract, plus a pound of sugar. Couple of pounds of darker specialty grains, cracked and steeped. With just that, prior to getting it back to boiling, the wort tasted damn fine. Malty and sweet with slight toasted overtones. I\u2019ve got a few ounces of Northern Brewer hops, split 2\/3 and 1\/3 for bittering and aroma, respectively. The aromatic hops are going to go in with 15 minutes left in the boil \u2013 which ought to give me a very, very mildly hopped beer. I\u2019ll clarify it with Irish Moss, bring it up to five gallons, and toss in the British Ale yeast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a relative of the Bass Ale clone that I made last year for art weekend \u2013 but with less control freak measurement and tuning. Instead, I\u2019m tasting as I go \u2013 and keeping an eye on things. This is not entirely by choice. Because of the way I bought my ingredients \u2013 I\u2019ve had to do more weighing and measuring than I usually do (bought decent sized bags of each component and measured them out for this recipe). Also, my thermometer is broken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the plus side \u2013 I\u2019ve got an awesome new stainless steel brew pot. tells me that it can also be used for soup \u2013 but that\u2019s just crazy talk. This is a four gallon stainless steel pot. What else<\/strong> could it be for except for beer?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes it \u201cDorchester\u2019s Best,\u201d you may ask? Historically, I\u2019ve bought spring water from the grocery store for my beer. This time, I took it right out of the tap. Let\u2019s see how much it matters. My guess is that this process will yield an absolutely fine and tasty beer that will once again be a hit with the non beer-o-philes at art weekend. For the beer-o-philes, I\u2019ll make something next weekend. Something dark. Something strong. Something hoppy and bitter and complex. Oh yes. I laugh maniacally and pet my cat, just thinking about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like I said \u2013 back to normal around these parts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re back to something approximating \u201cnormal,\u201d here at the family compound just south of Boston proper. Valentine\u2019s day is proceeding smoothly, with flowers, cupcakes, and all that. Partying was had last night with simianpower et al. Tomorrow evening, I depart for a week in Hampton,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,57,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-brewing","category-just-bloggin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1731"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1732,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1731\/revisions\/1732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwan.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}