Bubonic Brewery

Wow, playing with my carbonation kit has been a lot of fun!

The Carbonater caps I got from Liquid Bread have been a real blast, along with the CO2 tank and regulator set from Keystone Brewing.  I can carbonate pretty much any cold liquid in a 2-liter or 1-liter bottle, and have been experimenting with all sorts of stuff.

Of course, homemade seltzer is easy — fill up a bottle with filtered water, headspace it, and carbonate.  Bam!  Seltzer!   They charge 75 cents for a liter of the stuff at the store, but it costs me about four, if that.  And it’s better stuff, because I filter it myself.  And flavored seltzer is just as easy.  Just add a little flavored syrup, and there it is.  My favorite is Pom Seltzer, using the same pomegranate syrup I use for the Pomegranate Bubonicola.  A tablespoon is enough for a liter of seltzer, and doesn’t add significant sugar to the drink.  But it does add nice flavor and a great tartness.

Iced tea, with a little Splenda added, makes a very different carbonated beverage.  The flavor is decidedly odd, but not bad.  With a little pom syrup, it’s quite tasty.  Lemon in the tea just tasted weird.

But the best drink so far has to be Alacer’s Emergen-C energy drink!  I’ve tried several flavors so far, Raspberry, cranberry, and tangerine.  They’re all a little flat-flavored by themselves, as they have very little sweetness of their own, so a little pom syrup with the raspberry and cranberry, and a little lemon juice with the tangerine makes the flavors pop.  For a 1-liter bottle, two packets of Emergen-C is enough for a remarkably tasty and incredibly healthy energy soda.   I’ve got a box of Super Orange in the cupboard I haven’t opened yet — I want to try that, with a touch of orange juice to make the flavor snap.

Maybe I’ll try a quarter teaspoon of Kola Nut extract in some, for a buzz of caffeine along with the charge of vitamins C and B in the tangy energy drink.  But that’s later.  Right now, I’m going to finish my glass of Tangerine-Lemon Air Raid Zinger!

I revisited the Skeleton Key Lime Soda formula I had before…it bugged me. It tasted okay, but it just wasn’t…right. It was too limey, and didn’t elicit the mental image of pie, just of limeade that knew somebody…

So, back to the drawing board. What makes a good Key Lime Pie what it is? Part of it is definitely the wonderfully tart filling, made with the juice of the Key Lime, which can’t be compared with any other flavor. But the rest is the mellow, smooth, cinnamon-brown sugar-vanilla flavor of the graham-cracker crust. Without that crust flavor, it’s just lime soda, it isn’t pie.

Off to the Bubonic Brewhaus…okay, the kitchen. I whip up a simple syrup base, then add cinnamon sticks, brown sugar, a dollop of table syrup, and real vanilla extract. I let the syrup simmer for a good twenty minutes, to extract a lot of good cinnamon flavor from the sticks. Then I remove them, and add to a half-gallon of cool water in my mixing keg. (Cleaned and sanitized, of course!) I seal it and shake to dissolve the syrup in the water, then taste. Mmmmm, it definitely elicits the warm, buttery graham-cracker flavor! In goes the rest of the water, warm this time, up to the four liter mark. Another taste, still good flavor, a good cinnamon/brown sugar cream soda base in itself.

Now for the Key Lime filling! We’re back to the same juice I used before, 5 oz. of it this time, tasting between each ounce for acid balance, tartness, and flavor. At the 5 oz. point, it matched well, but lacked a bottom note, so I added 1/4 tsp of Cream of Tartar, which rounded out the bottom of the acidic note. After agitation, I pitched 1/2 tsp of bloomed Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne yeast, let it sit for two hours so the yeast could get a good, solid grip, then decanted into two sterilized 2L PET bottles.

After 48 hours of room-temperature natural fermentation, the bottles were rock-hard, so they went into the fridge. I let them condition for another 3 days before tasting, and was pleasantly surprised!

The first flavor was that of the Key Lime “filling”, tart and refreshing. But once that had been swallowed, the taste of the graham-cracker “crust” lingered on for a long while afterward, rounding out the whole pie taste metaphor.

Winner! Now to see if it’ll repeat with a force-carbonated diet version!

Skeleton Key Lime Pie Soda

• 2C Cane Sugar
• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tblsp table syrup (or dark corn syrup)
• 2 2-inch cinnamon sticks
• 1 cup water for simple syrup
• 5 oz. Key Lime juice
• 1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
• 1/2 tsp. Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne yeast (or desired equivalent), bloomed in 4oz warm water with 1/2 tsp sugar for 1/2 hour
• 4 liters water to fill brewing container

Combine sugar, brown sugar, table syrup, cinnamon, and 1C water in saucepan over low heat and stir constantly until sugar is all dissolved. Simmer for 20-30 minutes to extract flavor and aroma from cinnamon. Remove cinnamon sticks.

Add half the 4 liters of water to the brewing container, add hot syrup. Close container and agitate to dissolve syrup. Add remaining water, agitate again. Taste cream soda base to make sure it meets approval. Add key lime juice and cream of tartar, mix thoroughly.

Pitch bloomed yeast, let sit for 1 to 2 hours to allow yeast to get over pitching shock, then decant into sanitized 2-liter plastic bottles. Allow to ferment at room temperature until bottles are rock-hard, then chill thoroughly before opening.

If using CO2 system to force-carbonate, omit yeast and fermentation steps, and follow carbonation system instructions.

My latest foray into sodafication (hmmm…neat word) was after acquiring a bottle of pomegranate juice concentrate. This juice is a dietary supplement, very sweet and flavorful, intended to be mixed with water or other beverages — so I decided to try incorporating it as a flavoring.

I made a 4-liter batch of cola, using my standard Rainbow cola extract, available at practically any brewing supply house or online. I like to add a small amount of Cream of Tartar, to improve acid balance and aid in carbonation retention. The first batch used sugar and Lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast, with no other additives. It carbonated quickly, and made a very tasty drink.

Then I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, and decided it was time to try a sugar-free soda. I can’t tolerate aspartame, so Splenda was the next option to try. I know there are other options, including Stevia, but those will have to wait for another batch, and a trip to the specialty store. I can get Splenda at the grocery store.

I made another batch, slightly smaller (I had a handy 3-liter bottle I wanted to use, though I did add another half-liter for a 500ml test bottle) than the sugared batch. In this batch, I substituted 1 1/2 cups of Splenda for the cane sugar in the recipe, except for 3 tablespoons for yeast carbonation. Between that and the small amount of sugar from the pomegranate syrup, the actual sugar in the beverage should be negligible after the yeast has gotten done with it. The base, prior to carbonation, tasted quite good, and I’m pleased with it. We’ll see how it turns out in a few days.

Pomegranate Bubonicola, Regular

• 2 1/4 cups cane sugar
• 1 tbsp Rainbow Brand Cola Extract (adjust to taste)
• 1 oz. Jarrow Formulas’ Pomegranate Juice Concentrate
• 1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar
• 1/2 tsp Lalvin EC-1118 Champagne yeast, bloomed in 1/2 tsp cane sugar and 1/2 cup warm water

My water presents some slight difficulties for yeast, so I use a slightly larger quantity than usual. Adjust for your conditions. If you use bottled water, aeration is highly recommended, or oxygen infusion if possible. I don’t like the results I’ve had with bottled water, so I use my tap water, and adjust the yeast.

The sugar is dissolved in 1 qt hot water in a 1 1/4 gallon spigot-tapped container. Both extracts and cream of tartar are added. Combine thoroughly. Warm water is added to the 4 liter level, then the vessel is closed tightly and agitated for complete combination and aeration. I drew a small amount from the spigot to a disposable cup to taste, adjusted acid and extract levels to taste.

Yeast should be “bloomed” in warm water. I use a small amount of sugar to kick it into high gear. I use Premier Cuvee during the winter because it has a lower fermentation temperature, but in the warmer months, Lalvin EC-1118 or Red Star Champagne is acceptable.

Then add, or “pitch” the yeast, and agitate to combine thoroughly. I let the entire vessel sit for an hour or so, for the yeast to get a good “grip” on the mix, then use the spigot to dispense into clean, sterilized 2 liter bottles.

The Diet version is made precisely the same, except:

Substitute Splenda sweetener for all but 3 tablespoons of the cane sugar. A small amount of real sugar is necessary for the yeast to eat in order to carbonate the liquid. If no sugar is used at all, the yeast will die and the soda will be flat. Of course, if you have a CO2 tank, regulators, and appropriate valves, you can force-carbonate, and do without yeast — and sugar — completely.

The diet version is carbonating nicely, if a tad slowly, on my kitchen table. I will post the results later.

Update: The diet version was flat as a strap. I even put it in the fermenter box — a styrofoam cooler with a Brew Pad heater inside, with a Controller II thermostat keeping it at 75 degrees for 3 days, and it still didn’t get more than a gasp of gas in it. So…

Off to Keystone Homebrew I went, to finally knuckle under and get the force-carbonation system I’ve been procrastinating about. It’s actually a full beer kegging system, including a used 5-gallon Cornelius keg and a picnic tap, but I didn’t need those for this stage. Instead, I needed a couple of Carbonator Caps, a wonderful gadget that lets you carbonate directly in a 2-liter PET bottle (or one that uses the same size cap) by clicking on a Cornelius-style ball-lock quick-disconnect. It included a 5-lb tank of CO2 (the weight of the liquefied gas, not the tank), regulator, hoses, disconnects, even replacement O-rings for the corny-keg…which I will eventually use, but not right now.

After assembly, I tested it with cold tap water and quickly made some fresh seltzer. It works! Huzzah! So I funnelled my soda into a 2-liter bottle (and a handy 1-liter bottle), spun on the carbonator caps, purged out the air, and cranked in 35 psi of CO2. Shake well for a couple of minutes, close the pressure, then shake some more to “scour” the headspace of residual gas. Then I let it sit for a while to settle, whipped off the carbonators, and spun on regular caps. Then let sit some more.

Then pour over ice. OOooooohhhh! Thick, foamy head, lots of fizz, a winner! And the flavor is delightful, even with Splenda sweetener. So two wins — a force-carbonation system and a diet version of Pomegranate Bubonicola!

Now this was a great success!

I’ve made two batches of this wonderful ginger beer, and both turned out to be a gingery, spicy delight. I tweaked the recipe the second time, and it only improved. Aging the brew makes it get better and better with time, resulting in fine, strong carbonation and a good, natural head of foam. It clears nicely in the bottle, and stays that way if you pour carefully and don’t rile the sediment at the bottom. It reminds me of Vernor’s in its heyday, with a even a tad more bite.

Used approx 8 oz. fresh ginger, peeled. Rough grated, about a cup or so.

Extract:

• 8 oz grated fresh ginger
• 3 cups tap water or bottled spring water
• 2 cinnamon stick, 2″ long
• 1/2 tsp cream of tartar (approx)
• 3 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp table syrup

Simmered with ONE cinnamon stick for 1/2 hour, strained once, rinsed pulp multiple times and squeezed with 1 cup of clear water. Strained a second time.

Added 4 1/2 cups cane sugar

Brought to boil, Simmered 1/2 hour to reduce by 1/4. Added second cinnamon stick in last 15 minutes of simmer for added aroma and flavor. Removed cinnamon stick. Cooled in water bath to safe temperature for incorporating. Made 4 1/2 cups of extract.

Yeast: Premier Cuvee, 1/4 tsp in 1/2 cup warm water, bloomed with 1 tsp cane sugar for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Divided Extract in half in 1 1/4 gallon spigot container, added 1 gallon Pure American spring water, stirred yeast and pitched half. Closed container and agitated to dissolve extract, aerate, and distribute yeast. Aeration is especially important if using bottled water. If you have an oxygen or aeration system available, use it. Your efforts will be rewarded.

Decanted first gallon into 9 empty, sanitized 500ml PET bottles. Mixed remaining extract exactly the same way, decanted into 2 sanitized 2-liter PET bottles.

Allowed all bottles to ferment in fermentation chamber on 25W pad. 2 liter bottles achieved desired hardness in approx 30 hours. Allowed 500ml bottles to remain extra 8 hours for extra fermentation. Removed all bottles to refrigerator.

Tested 2 Liter bottle contents after refrigerating for 6 hours. Effervescence is nearly completely contained in liquid, rather subdued. Perhaps further fermentation would be beneficial, approaching 48 hours, risking explosion. Bouquet was remarkable, having elements of fruit, wood, and slight alcohol tinge. Taste is sweeter than previous batches, with smokier bite due to cinnamon, lingering slight burn from the ginger. Sweetness is not cloying, fading without an unpleasant aftertaste. Effervescence is acceptable, but could be stronger on the tongue. Yeast taste is unremarkable, merging in bouquet and flavor of cinnamon, in contrast to prior attempts. Addition of brown sugar and table syrup to extract in second batch improved finish remarkably, and added to complex flavors by adding different sugars to extract.

One thing I found very useful when using gallon containers of spring water was to store them on top of the kitchen radiator until ready to use. This kept them at the proper temperature at all times, so they did not shock the yeast when it was pitched, yet did not require special heating.

Brigid’s Blessing Cinnamon Ginger Beer is a winner.

According to new reports, government tests have been unable to verify the presence of rat poison in pet foods that have allegedly been linked to scads of pet deaths nationwide, and a whole lot of petfood recalls. However, they have found something interesting.

Melamine.

Hey, wait a minute, you say. I have dishes made of that stuff! How can the crappy plastic they make cheap dishes from kill my kitty?

Well, I’m sure they’re going to hemm and haw and investigate this and that, and send in Grissom and Warrick to do their CSI magic to try to ferret out the evil plot to K. O. the felines, and someday we’ll see a bunch of shrugging and a theory that it was in some random batch of wheat. But here’s my theory.

AHEM… this is my theory. It is mine.

Ever seen the equipment they use to make petfood? Okay, neither have I, except on an episode of “Unwrapped”, and I read a description once. Mostly, there’s a lot of metal augers and grinding and stuff. Well, I wonder how the hell you clean stuff like that. I’m sure there’s a specified procedure, probably using steam, or some appropriate sanitary tool and appropriate cleanser approved for food service, or at least for pet food service.

And I’m sure there’s some guy that has to use these tools, and they probably don’t work all that damned well. They work well enough, if you work hard enough, and they get the grinders and augers squeaky clean and don’t leave any kind of contaminants behind. But it’s a lot of damned work, and poor George, or Matilda, or whoever it is that has to clean this blasted machine has to spend hour after hour scrubbing. Then they make some pet food. Then George, or Matilda has to do it again. And they get paid what some yutz gets paid to park cars, read porn, and scratch himself.

It just ain’t fair.

So George, or Matilda, brings in one of those Magic Sponge thingies from home — you know, it’s one of those white sponges you can use to take magic marker off the stainless steel countertop, or rust off the car’s bumper. Hell, if you just scrub a little harder, it’ll take paint off a car or stain off a bannister. Hell, if it’ll take little Bobby’s doodles off the refrigerator door, it’ll take that catfood off that auger real easy! And George…or Matilda…scrubs that auger clean with that white sponge thing, and damn, if it doesn’t clean that caked-on gunge off in nothing flat! Wow, fantastic! Made George or Matilda’s life a hell of a lot easier! Bring in a whole BOX of those white sponge doojies, keep ’em in the ol’ locker, save hours a week!

Maybe even have some time to read some porn.

Except…

Those white sponges clean so well because they’re made of a micro-abrasive foam of melamine plastic. It doesn’t just wipe at the stains, it chews them away, the foam breaking away, exposing new, sharp edges as it wears off, to create what amounts to a soft, microscopic knife that shears the crud off the surface. The melamine that breaks off is left behind on the surface being cleaned. If you use one of those sponges a lot, you can see “crumbs” of soiled sponge falling off and away, as it wears. And the rinsing and cleaning protocols set by the company don’t take these little pieces into account. They don’t get properly flushed away. They stay in the equipment, and get into the pet food.

I’m sure the pet food company didn’t plan on having razor-sharp, microscopic pieces of plastic left behind on their grinding equipment. It wouldn’t take a lot. Get that stuff into an animal’s liver, and who knows how badly it might chew up the microscopic tubules?

I have no idea if this is actually what happened to these animals. It is pure conjecture. But I don’t use these melamine sponges on my brew equipment because they are abrasive, and because they leave a residue I can’t be sure is removed because I can’t see it properly. I know it leaves microscopic scratches on the surfaces it cleans — this is bad for brew equipment, because bacteria love tiny scratches. Perhaps this is what happened to the renal systems of the animals? Tiny scratches, little places for bacteria to grow — blam! — septicemia from ten thousand tiny places too small to see.

It’d ruin the heck out of a batch of beer. I’d hate to see what it’d do to a pet’s liver.

Update: Turns out that the melamine in our pet food is coming from cheap Chinese feedstocks, where melamine made from coal is being used as “fake protein” to stretch profits by stretching the volume of animal feed. It is extremely profitable in China, where just a few percent savings in protein cost can boost profits astronomically. It looks for all the world like the Chinese have discovered the benefit of the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition, as several of them would seem to apply to this situation perfectly.

I was watching Food Network (if I’m not watching Cops or something on Sci-Fi, I‘m watching Food Network) and saw some show about Key Lime stuff with a funny little guy named Kermit, who makes Key Lime pies, and stands outside the shop like a mannequin as the tour buses go by, then leaps forward, as if he’s going to throw the pie at the passengers. He never does, but for a second there…

Well, here I am, watching them make these scrumptious, slightly-greenish, slightly-yellow pies, and I’m tasting that tart, mouth-puckering flavor as they’re describing the basic recipe. And the thought runs through my mind…Key Lime Soda.

Well, why the hell not? It’s so crazy, it just might work! So off I go to the grocery store, and find a bottle of Key Lime Juice (sorry, Kermit, it wasn’t yours ) and zip home.

I didn’t try for a large batch at once, in case it didn’t work out well. I only did a quart or so, enough for a couple of 500ml bottles. So here was the basic recipe:

All utensils, containers, etc. are all fully sanitized prior to use, and inbetween uses.

• 1 qt. hot tap water in large glass beaker with pour spout
• 1 1/4 c. cane sugar
• 10 tbsp. Key Lime Juice (approx. 2 1/2 limes)
• 1 tbsp. Lemon juice
• 1/4 tsp. Cream of Tartar

Depending on the tartness of the particular juices you get, and how tart or sweet you like your soda, you may wish to adjust these quantities.

Set aside to activate was the carbonating yeast:

• 1/4 tsp. Red Star Premier Cuvée Champagne yeast, dissolved in 1/4 cup warm water with 1 tsp. sugar

Any good champagne yeast will serve here, but during the winter I prefer Premier Cuvée because it works better at lower temperatures, and my kitchen tends to be chilly at night. But a Red Star champagne, or Lalvin 1118, or anything like that will work fine. Bread yeast will work, but it will taste incredibly yeasty, like drinking unbaked bread.

I dissolved the sugar in the water first, then added the juices to taste. Cream of Tartar adds a pleasing, tart aftertaste and helps stabilize carbonation. Then the whole thing had to be cooled down to around 85 degrees before pitching (adding) the yeast. If you add the yeast too soon, it’ll get cooked to death!

After that, I shook it up real good, to mix everything well and to get some oxygen into the liquid, then used a sanitized funnel to decant into sanitized 500ml brown PET plastic bottles. There was a bit left, so I filled a third bottle about half way as a test bottle. Then on went the screw caps, nice and tight, and I stuck them on my electric brew pad to ferment for a couple of days.

After a day and a half, the test bottle was rock-hard, so I refrigerated it. A half bottle has more oxygen for the yeast and will usually ferment faster. When cold, I stuck it in my handy-dandy insulated lunchbag with a chill-pak and took it to Keystone Homebrew for a ritual uncapping. I shared it around the store, and we pronounced it good.

My thoughts on the recipe were that it could use a bit more sugar, perhaps a touch of an adjunct sugar like table syrup (corn syrup) or a tablespoon or so of light brown sugar to give it some complex sweetness and caramel notes that the yeast and the tartness wouldn’t overpower. I also thought maybe a touch of cinnamon and vanilla, just a tiny touch, to try to get a hint of graham-cracker into it for the crust of a key lime pie might be worth an experiment. Jason at Keystone also thought some bottle conditioning might help it mellow a bit over a few days or a week or so.

SUCCESS: Skeleton Key Lime Pie Soda

Gee, that doesn’t sound very tasty…

Why on Earth would I name my luscious, delicious, and vitamin-packed creations after the Black Death?

Well..um…er… I don’t really have a good reason. I’m big on hyperbole. I get a kick out of the goofy beer labels with incongruous, funny company names and joke beer brands. One of my favorites has to be Schmaltz Brewing Company, and their He’Brew line of “chosen” beers.  I also like to come up with my own oddball beers — my favorites were my Howling Black Death Dark, and my Old Maidenhead Cherry Stout.

There’s been a bit of a hiatus in BB’s brewing, a number of years, but I’ve had some time lately and a resurgence in my interest in zymurgy in general. I’ve been working my way back into beer using naturally-carbonated soda, something that lets me practice a bit, get used to the whole “sanitize everything” drill, gather equipment and supplies, that sort of thing.  Most of the tools for building a good beer are the same you use for building a good soda, and a lot of the techniques are the same. Of course, there are specialized techniques for each, just like there are for winemaking, for mead making, for cider making…you name it.  But when you come down to it, there’s just making a sweet base for yeast to eat, letting it ferment to alcohol or not, and either letting it carbonate the result or not.

I looked at my other websites, and what I have already built isn’t really suited to my brewing efforts, so I bought Yet Another Domain Name and set up WordPress (it was available on Fantastico, so I didn’t have to go to any effort), and whammo, blammo, I have a blog for my brewing.  Who knows?  I hope it’ll be interesting!