Archive for the ‘From the Cellar’ Category

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a friend about apple-booze-making, something near and dear to my heart, and I learned that he had out-produced me in volume this past year. And I made a lot. It was immediately clear to me that we would have to get together to do a tasting of our products to check them all out, compare notes, etc. So we did. That was last week. And I made a discovery.

Last year, on apple crush day one of many, I opened a bottle of the 2009 vintage, then a year old. I had kept a half case back, tucked it in a top corner of my wine cellar, and was resolved to test one a year to track its evolution. So pulled the cork, and besides some light bubbliness, it was very austere and boring. The newer vintage was better by far. I was really disappointed, and had built a lot of capacity to properly age wine. Looked like this stuff was going to be like most white wines – lose its bright fruit after a year or so and tank steadily after that. It was so disappointing that I wondered what to do with the remaining bottles.

So at last week’s mega-tasting among other things we tried a 3-4 bubbly ciders, and 3-4 apple wines, including a vertical of the 2009 and 2010 vintages from my tree. And lo and behold, the 2009 knocked the socks off the 2010. It was unquestionably more concentrated on the nose and palate, and had a far better flavor profile. Lovely stuff. I enjoyed every last bit of that bottle. So what happened?!?! It shut down after a year [it was good young], and then perked up after 2? Not sure, but I can tell you that I’m extremely glad I have a few more bottles tucked away in the cellar for future years, and am relieved that I have space to age more of the 2010 and 2011 vintages. Clearly more research required.

The day we butchered this year’s bull elk, we started curing a couple pieces of eye of round whose fate was to dry in my cellar. Outside the loin and tenderloin – which I’m so not going to dry cure – eye of round is about as uniform a shape as comes out of an animal. That makes it handy for dry curing as it dries evenly and ready all at the same time as  opposed to having a dry end of a piece and an end that needs time. It’s also a bit of a boring and not particularly tender cut on a big animal, so adding some interest via dry curing is now my default use rather than having an uninspiring steak or roast from the cut. It cured in the fridge for 17 days simply in salt, instacure #2, and black pepper. I gave the pieces a quick rinse today and dusted them with some dry summer savory and maldon organic black pepper. Tied them up like a roast, wrote up the tag, and hung them.

Below you can see the tags I’m now using. They’re little shipping tags from an office supply store, and they happen to slip perfectly onto my S hook hanging setup. They also happen to be very easy to read hanging on the hook, as opposed to tied to the string – you can stand in the middle of my cellar and easily read all the tags of what’s up there without mucking about. Handy. This is the first time I’m actually tracking start weight, a step I should have taken long ago to track progress – you can measure moisture loss by loss in weight. The waiting begins.

Interesting question came up this week on Twitter in response to my writing about the economics around butchering your own beef. The question was, how is somebody with limited space supposed to go about butchering and storing an animal?? Fantastic question. And I get it. I show pictures of quarters hanging in my cellar [convenient, but unnecessary], butchering in my garage [did elk and beef in my kitchen this fall], etc. What it boils down to is butchering an animal doesn’t have to take much space, and can be tackled by the downtown condo dweller with the gumption to do it. Here’s an example.

In this rubbermaid bin is a side of pork I cut last night. Started at 7pm, was done by 9ish [hey, that's not much time commitment, is it?]. It was all cut on a counter space the size of a dining room table. That entire side of pig, albeit not the hugest of pigs, resides in the bin you see right there. Doesn’t even fill it. Having lived in an apartment condo a few years ago, I’m rather kicking myself for not knowing this before, because I’m quite sure I could have dealt with a side of pig with a standard fridge freezer and some planning. For example: rather than freeze the fat, simply render it the next day and toss it in the fridge. Rather than do large bone-in cuts, de-bone it. Plan to make a batch of sausage the day after butchering, which would relieve the freezer of a 5 lb bag of trim. Partake in our new family tradition of doing a pig head roast the day of [most pigs come sans-head anyway if that grosses you out]. And if all that failed, I could have easily found a friend to split it with, in which case I’d have had loads of room for a 1/4 pig. Our next door neighbours had a small apartment sized deep freeze, solving their storage constraint.

Turns out this pig was raised by a friend of a friend of a friend, who happened to have too many pigs for their winter barn. Figured I’d grab a side to do some charcuterie experimenting with. This pig side cost me $80, and it wasn’t the first opportunity I’ve had at an extremely inexpensive pig. $80/roughly 60 lbs = about $1.33/lb. I challenge you to compare that to Walmart’s pricing. Not suggesting cheap is king, just that if cheap’s your barrier to local food – or space – there are solutions.

Pulled this piece of dry cured pork from the cellar this morning as it was feeling decently firm after 1 month of hanging, still showing a bit of give. Kicking myself for not weighing these so I could measure by % weight loss – I’ve purchased some tags that neatly fit on my cellar hooks to label my charcuterie now, so weights will go on there in the future. Wrote about cure day here. Wrote about mold-innoculation day here. Some thoughts:

I’m thinking this could have stayed in the cure longer pre-hanging. It could stand a bit more salt. It’s extremely delicate in flavour, super-clean overall – almost so much so that I was wanting a lick of smoke or something else in there to pick it up a bit. The texture’s fine, albeit a little uneven – you can see the harder dry edges vs the softer interior. I’m guessing a few days in the fridge would help even that gradient out. I noticed too that when cut, the piece showed air pockets within the muscle. Rather counterintuitive as you’d think the muscle would firm up uniformly, but makes the case for me for why these pieces are normally tied tight. The collagen casing worked fine – clung to the meat well, allowed things to dry well [another counterintuitive item - wrap something tight in order to dry it..], and was easy to peel back pre-slicing.

I think my P. Nalgionvense mold struggled in the cold environment that is my winter cellar – a mere 6C at the moment. I’m guessing if it were up around 10C or higher, the mold would have had a better time. I’ve recently cut a 4″ vent hole through my cellar wall into the adjacent room to hopefully be able to warm it up a bit in the winter, and add some ventilation in general. I haven’t found it’s impacted my humidity or temp greatly which was a bit of a surprise, as on the warm side you can feel the cold air drawing through: evidence that it is indeed exchanging air.

I’ve hung this piece back in the cellar to dry up just a bit more, and it’s time to go take out another piece to try. I’m going to be going on a rather extensive run of experiments over the next while, as there’s a very good chance our local culinary school will be building a first-of-its-kind-in-Canada charcuterie program in the near future, which I’ll be involved in. The more projects and learning and I can cram into the next few months before the first intake of students, the better. In fact, I’ve got a very inexpensive side of local pig arriving here in the next few days to play around with, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that leads.

I had been thinking of cold smoking my piece of curing elk heart, and then ‘Meat Smoking and Smokehouse Design‘ arrived from the library. Inspiring book. No question I was going to give it a go after reading all kinds of cool ideas on how to cold smoke. It’d only been curing a couple days, but I had some bacon that was ready to get smoked, and I figured  I’d take care of them both at the same time. I wasn’t looking for a heavy smoke on the heart – just enough of a touch that when it’s shaved thin, you can detect traces of smoke. We’ll see if I got it right in a few weeks post hanging.

So I improvised a setup – one of the things I love about cooking with fire: it’s adaptable and conducive to use of ingenuity. It’s -2C outside, and the books I’ve been reading say cold smoke’s upper limit is 32C, with a desirable range of 12-22C. I figured that so long as I could get the piece in the smoke well above the fire, I’d be good. So I grabbed an old rack from my formerly employed bbq, plopped it atop my fire’s brick wall, and weighted it down with a couple bricks. Surprisingly solid. So the bacon would get a warm-ish smoke, and the heart a cold smoke. I ended up placing my bbq lid atop the bacon to contain more heat and smoke, and it still leaked plenty of smoke onto the heart piece. After an hour or two, the elk heart was still cool to touch.

You’ll see in the photos below that my setup allows for a separate fire/heat source to the right. This allows me to generate embers to keep apple branches smoking away. I found today that the best results came from simply pulling the sticks from under the bacon, placing them atop the fire for a minute until re-lit, then shaking/blowing the flame out and throwing them back under the bacon to smoke away again. Success. Heart goes back into the fridge for the smoke to even out and cure for a couple more days, and the bacon will meet its usual fate.

Heart is a misunderstood piece of offal. Like the tongue, and unlike the liver or kidneys for example, it’s a muscle rather than an organ. Like pig heads and other butcher-shop wastage that makes me cringe, the heart often ends up left in the gut-pile of a hunted wild animal, or tossed in the bin at the local meat processor. My guess is the big meat processors have figured out how to make some use of it by burying it in a processed meat of some kind. Which brings me to a story.

Last year, as I contemplated cutting the testicles out of a recently harvested bull elk, my dad expressed concern that I’d gone crazy. He dislikes wine too. My joking rebuttal at the time was that he eats hotdogs and drinks brandy, so he essentially eats testicles and drinks wine, in one form or another. In his defence, heart [and tenderloin] traditionally doesn’t leave moose camp, as it’s enjoyed first. My point here is that heart is meat. Not working with it is a waste.

As I cleaned up the fresh heart from my recent bull elk adventure [great video here re: cleaning one], I contemplated what its culinary fate might be. It then occurred to me that there was a nice thick slab, not too different in shape and size to a small pork jowl, that might be suitable to dry curing. A quick google of ‘dry cured heart’ turned up virtually nothing. Will it work out? No idea. But it’s worth a shot. For those interested: 356g bull elk heart, 1g instacure #2, 11g kosher salt, 1.5g black pepper. Into a bag, into the fridge, to cure for a week or so. It’ll then be rinsed, and I’m thinking lightly cold-smoked, maybe with a light dusting of ground dried herbs, then hung in the cellar to dry. I’m pretty curious to see where this goes – most of the dry curing I’ve tried have been variations on well beaten paths. This, not so much.

I started the cure on these ham cuts here. They were cut from the rear side of the ham, and post cure I decided that rather than stuff it into a bladder as is traditional with Italian Fiocco, I’d cut it in half and stuff it into some 61mm protein-lined clear casing I had on hand for making saucisson sec. They both fit into a single 24″ casing, which I cut into two pieces. I seemed to recall someone online mentioning soaking the casings pre-stuffing, and I can attest to it making stuffing far easier. Tied the casings with kitchen string, wishing I had splurged on a pair of pliers to put wire clips on the ends.

They were hung overnight in the cellar at 8.3C and 50% RH, which is both too cold and too dry. The humidity’s on its way up though, as I’ve reintroduced the bucket of water with wick for the winter. The hanging meats will also help bring it up. Last winter it was up in the 70% range.

This morning, I got to play with Penicillium Nalgionvense for the first time. Frustratingly, it’s yet another charcuterie product that is locally unavailable, so I had to buy it from the US. I’ve had a concerning lack of healthy white molds in my cellar over the past few months, so I’m reintroducing some desirable molds to see how it works out. The photo below shows how much [1/8 tsp in a ramekin of tepid water] I used, let it soak overnight, then applied it in the morning in a fashion similar to basting meats in a fry pan with the cooking fat. Spooned it on, coating the whole thing a couple times over. I’m extremely curious to see how long it takes to bloom and do it’s thing. I’ll post an update on the mold development and finished product over the coming weeks.

Harvesting root veg demarcates the border between fall and winter for me. Since September I’ve been watching the weather, waiting for the cold to come that would force my hand and make me get the produce into the cellar. It was an especially fun game this year with a remarkably temperate fall. I feel like I got away with something harvesting in early November, when many pulled their root crops back in September.

I have to focus on that for a minute, as it’s important. If you pulled root veg to cellar in September, you’ve already got 1-2 months more of storage on your crops than I do. That matters. Vegetables will only store so long. And if a vegetable will survive storage for 4 months, say, I’d rather start that 4 month clock ticking in November than September.

Which brings me to point #2. At the moment, my cellar is 6-8C. With the coming cold, it will soon be close to 3-5C. The veg I did harvest and put up in the cellar [a farm glean] in September got to enjoy some balmy 10-12C temps for a month or more. Not ideal. So the longer I can wait, the colder the cellar is when they go to their winter home, the better it is for the quality and longevity. A rare moment where procrastination pays dividends.

Although I haven’t weighed it, my potato harvest has to be about 3-4 times what it was last year. We have lots for the winter for the first time. Mostly a function of developing more annual veg beds where lawn once stood, partly due to better soil health as time goes on. My fall carrot, rutabaga, and parsnips [photo below] probably add up to 2-3 times what I had last year. Beets are about the same, maybe a bit more. My back’s done with forking. Time for a brandy.

Abstinence. As I get older I find the concept more and more intriguing.

I went through a stage of enjoying posh wines quite frequently. After some time, it took more and more to impress as posh wines became the norm. I found my enjoyment of them decreased, and it took more and more awesomeness to impress. Having noticed this taking place, I majorly backed away from posh wines, and now I find I enjoy them more when they do make an appearance. They’re special again. They’re not the norm. They make a moment special as a nice wine should.

Eating seasonally is forced abstinence, and I’m increasing grateful for it. Today’s example is lard. I haven’t had lard in the house since last year’s was all used up. That means that I haven’t had a tart, fruit pie, meat pie, in some time. Which makes having one again far more enjoyable than were I to always have it available. It’s a treat, rather than the norm.

The garden provides far better examples – we eat asparagus in May/June, and that’s it. Some people think that’s hardcore. I see it as sensible – eating the item when it’s fresh and local, then abstaining until it’s in season again. It’s an awfully good thing there are other lovely things to eat than just asparagus, and I’ve found that the year is a slow evolution of palette of foods coming into their own. When asparagus season returns, we’re eating it at its best which makes it tasty, but we’ve also not had it in ages which makes it that much more of an event. It’s not ‘everyday’. This forced abstinence seems to inject my life with loads more ‘special moments’ with food than before, that end up tied to time and place. In a sense, it’s largely what I set out to achieve in changing our family’s food culture.

Absence [and abstinence] does make the heart grow fonder. I’m convinced.

Success, right out of the gates. I’m pleased. It’s probably worth mentioning that I wouldn’t call myself a big cider lover. I haven’t minded the stuff, but it’s taken a while to take a shine to it. So why bother then? I’ve been making apple wines, and although I enjoy them, some variety in the form of carbonation would be appreciated, especially on hot summer days. I also wanted to make a product with fewer inputs. Apple wines requires chaptilization, which means adding sugar to get the 12% or so alcohol content vs the 5-8% that the juice would naturally ferment to. I was using sulphites, pectic enzyme, acid products in some cases, oak. Then my recent visit to France inspired me to shed it all. To simply take juice, let the yeasts present in the juice and air ferment it, and leave it at that.

I wrote about the making of it here and here. You can watch the stuff ferment here. You can even back way up and check out the flower blossom stage here.

At bottling, it wasn’t terribly exciting. No carbonation at that point, just a semi-dry flat cider. But then, as it was supposed to, it gradually picked up carbonation from the remaining sugar in the fermenting must. Although not evident in the photos, it now gets a 2-3″ head of foam on it when decanted – which is sensible to keep the lees out of the glass. As the bottle fermentation continues, it keeps getting foamier, which is pretty darn cool if you ask me. No CO2 products. No priming bottles with sugar. Just plain old juice fermenting in bottle. Neat.

It now tastes lovely – far better than I’d expected, as cider can be pretty funky from fermentation smells that aren’t always pleasant. Since discovering that the austere acidity of apple wines benefited from back-sweetening with elderflower syrup – which softens the texture and gives it gewurztraminer/ehrenfelser type notes on the nose – we’ve been doing the same to the cider at times, and it’s damn good. Highly recommended. Ends up coming across like a nice white wine aromatically, with the refreshing carbonation of a light beer or bubbly wine. I find I prefer it as-is, dry, with food – and picked up with the elderflower as aperitif. At this stage, it’s not just me that likes it – others who don’t normally dig cider are also loving it. Success. Here’s hoping that bursting bottles don’t burst my bubble.