Burger Tasting: Too many burgers and too little time

Without really trying we've hit a bunch of burger joints in the past few weeks. They sure put McDonald's to shame. Why can't we see these places everywhere?


Five Guys
http://www.fiveguys.com/home.aspx
Happily, these are cropping up everywhere these days. Not quite In and Out Burger, but a damn close second.


The Counter
www.thecounterburger.com
There are only a few of these worldwide, but one is in Connecticut. Scott turned us on to this place and it's well worth stopping by if you're ever in the area. They have interesting local and seasonal ingredients, as well as non-standard meat choices like buffalo and ostrich.


Rare Bar and Grill
www.rarebarandgrill.com
Rare is a little pricey, but their Murray's Cheese burger is amazing. And the three burger sampler is a fantastic deal. You will be full.


The Shake Shack
http://shakeshack.com/
Ask Whitney how good Shake Shack is and she loses the ability to communicate in any language I know. I think the shakes are actually better than the burgers, if that's possible.


In and Out Burger
http://www.in-n-out.com/
We miss you, In and Out Burger. Come to the East Coast!


Up Next:


www.metbarandgrill.com
We hear good things.


http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/07/le-pigeon-burger-review-portland-or.html
For our next trip to Portlandia.

The former Adventures of a Stranded Business Traveler

Well, Olivia and I already changed the URL for the blog and now it's time to change the name. Olivia doesn't have the same crazy travel schedule as before and this blog has always been more about our adventures at home than on the road. So a new name is on its way, but this post is here a memorial to the name that was.

My wife loves sour beers

Handily, a glass milk bottle has the same diameter top as a glass carboy. I stuck a spare cork and airlock on the wort I'd used to test the initial gravity and pitched a tablespoon of bread yeast in there.  After a day of furious bubbling I got a theoretical final gravity of over 8%. The final gravity of my actual brew is about 7.5% ABV.  Not too shabby. (Thanks to Evan for the idea of testing for the theoretical final gravity.)

If you browse the sour section of the brewing threads you'll find quite a few brewers agreeing that women tend to like sour beers. My wife is among those sour-loving women. I don't know why, but it's a happy truth. Sour beers are definitely an acquired taste, but I find myself more and more interested in tasting new sours and leaving the standard beer categories behind. Sour beers, even those brewed with no fruit, tend to have fruity qualities and a broad range of flavors on the palate. Tasting sours is fun because you can pick out quite surprising flavors, just like people do with wines—sour cherry, sherry vinegar, damp basement, sour patch kids, banana peel, pixie sticks, brussels sprouts...I got all of those from one pour of Monk's Cafe. 

So for a few years now I've been wanting to brew a sour for Olivia, but I shied away for the following reasons:

1. Sour yeast strains are notoriously difficult to kill and can sometimes render pieces of your equipment serviceable only for sours.
2. Despite being difficult to kill, sour yeast strains are also difficult to use well because they tend to require a higher sustained temperature to ferment fully, meaning you can't just tuck the carboy away in the basement for a few days and come back when it's done.
3. Sour beers are not ready to drink as soon as fermentation is complete. All beers need to age at least a few weeks before they taste really good (in my experience they start to taste decent about a month out and stop improving much after two to three months' time). Sours can take anywhere from 6 months to 3 years to achieve the proper sourness.

After some further research I've learned that the first two reasons were not that great. Most people have no issues steriling equipment that's been used for sours and brewing other styles with them, so it's a small risk. And what's the worst that can happen? Buying some more rubber hose? Deal with the disappointment of one spoiled batch and a lesson learned? It's a poor reason not to start brewing sours. 

The second reason is also not that big of a deal. We're only talking about 4-14 days of primary fermentation where the temperature needs to be higher. Here are some great ways to make it work:

• Brew in the summer. Surprise! It's a lot hotter everywhere in my house in the summer. Not quite the 80 degrees that the Roselaire strain is proported to need, but damn close at times. Just find the hottest room in the house and see how it goes.
• Use a heating pad. This can be tricky because they tend to have an auto shut-off feature and they're a bit of a fire hazard to leave unattended. But it can be done.
• Try it at room temperature and pitch more yeast if you need to. Sometimes you just need to throw more yeast at the problem and it can finish off the rest of the unfermented sugars. (Part of my solution to the problem.)
• Leave the primary fermenter near the stove. The extra heat generated by the pilot light on a gas stove might be enough to keep the yeast comfortable and feeding merrily away. (The other part of my solution.)

This is a long-winded way of saying:  I should have done this sooner. If I'd started brewing sours when I first had the incling they would have been done by now! I bought the ingredients to make a Rodenbach clone, which is one of my favorite examples of the Flanders red style. I needn't have worried about the yeast so much, because just letting it ferment next to the stove helped the yeast ferment fully. I also used two yeast activator packs at the start, just to increase my odds of success. 

And I can say without question that it's the best-tasting beer to come out of primary fermentation to date. Check back with me in 18 months and I'll tell you how it came out in the end.

Now we wait.

Wicket Ties the Knot!

Whitney and Evan are married!

We'll do another post about the actual wedding, but this part is about Todd's role. In looking for a way to include all the people that were important to them in the wedding Whitney and Evan asked me and Melissa to be bridesmaids, Scott to be a groomsmen, and Todd to be the officiant. It was a clever way to get everyone involved without adding even more bridesmaids and groomsmen. Luckily in Massachusetts you can apply to be an officiant for one day.

Asking Todd to be involved by performing the ceremony was both exciting and daunting.  The paperwork was the straightforward piece, and special thanks to Jess for writing a character reference.  We sent the application in and then six weeks later got an official certificate with a seal and the governor's signature.  Then the harder part was to decide what to say during the ceremony.  For our own wedding we'd poured over the RRUUC Wedding & Commitment Ceremony Workbook so we started there.  Unfortunately they don't seem to have the workbook posted so I was glad that I'd saved and printed it out because it had really great stuff.  Whitney and Evan faced a similar problem to us:  they wanted a serious ceremony, but not an overtly religious ceremony.  Todd worked with them to get a feel for what they wanted to include and then took it from there, adding a modified wine ceremony at Wicket's request.

Although Todd was nervous and was tweaking things up until the weekend of the wedding, he did a wonderful job performing the ceremony, with a serious and attentive audience - until he accidentally knocked over a wine glass (it didn't break).  Not that I'm not biased or anything, both having helped write the ceremony and being married to the officiant, but I thought the ceremony was wonderful and a perfect fit for Whitney and Evan.

Home from PDX 2010

Our PDX 2010 trip was a great success and we can hardly wait to go back. In fact the more time we spend there the more we wish we could move there.
As always we brought back loads of great stuff.  In fact we actually ended up buying a new suitcase to fit it all.  From the left to right starting at the bottom: a myrtle spurtle from Bob's Red Mill country store, samples from Bob's Red Mill, a free bag clip and measuring scoop from Bob's Red Mill, chia seed purchased at Bob's Red Mill country store, a Bob's Red Mill magnet, books from Powell's, nail polish without formaldehyde, assorted chocolates from Moonstruck Chocolate, candy and a brochure from Ponzi winery, lovely purple sock yarn from Twisted, bright green yarn for a cedar leaf shawlette from Make One, tasty pastries from Two Tarts Bakery,  a DIY cheese kit from Powell's, linzer tart tea set cookie cutters from a pastry supply store, beer from Belmont Station‎, three cones of custom yarn from Yarnia, black and white yarn for a Jollyfish hat, and a sample of yarn soak from Yarnia.
What didn't make it into the picture is an assortment of wine from two wine tasting jaunts.  The wineries we visited included the Ponzi winery which produced a really fantastic bottle of wine we had once at The Tasting Room.  The reason they didn't make it into the picture is because Continental didn't manage to include the box we packed them in on our actual flight.