Bacon, part deux

While not directly related to this post, I did have some bacon steak at Oceanaire a while back...

So my first attempt at bacon bourbon (for a maple bacon bourbon stout) wasn’t so great. I left the bacon in the bourbon for over a week, filtered it, froze it, filtered it, and tried it.

And almost passed out from dehydration on the spot. It was so salty! Ever take a big gulp of water in the ocean? Add salt.

However, after the Dead Sea-esque salinity dissipated, I did feel great. I felt like I’d just had some bacon. So there’s that.

Here are some pictures from the first attempt:

The tin foil apparatus - keeps the bacon somewhat vertical, and the oil drips through holes in the foil

Baked the bacon at 350˚ until the oil starting foaming. That was the signal.

The bacon is almost oil free. And crispy! Hard not to eat it.

The bacon is in 16 oz of bourbon.

Bacon Drip - filtered through a coffee filter

My next attempt will be different. This was fun, and made the condo smell awesome, but the result wasn’t great. I asked my buddy James, who’s getting his PhD in Chemistry, how to dilute the salt flavor. He said lots of water (probably more than the 5 gallons of wort) or to use dialysis. Not gonna do that.

I then came across a video (sorry – forget who sent this to me) about a bartender who makes a bacon-infused old-fashioned. I like this method, and might try it.

Whatever method I try next, I’m thinking uncured bacon is the way to go.

I’m also thinking about where the bacon flavor we all love comes from. Is it from the meat itself, or from the grease? I might, rather than soaking bacon in bourbon, just dump grease in, and fat wash it after a few hours. Meaning, freeze it, skim off the grease, filter, repeat as necessary.

As has been the trend for the past year or so, Brew Your Own and Zymurgy magazines come out with issues directly related to what I’m working on. Seriously, this happens every issue. When I’m thinking about reusing yeast, they come out with articles about it. Building my own equipment? Article. Bacon beer, and breakfast in beer in general? Article.

I’m relatively sure they’re bugging my condo, and I’m totally cool with that. It does feel good to know that Kell and I are thinking of things that the industry is interested in, before it is written in the publications.

That’s it for now. I still have a pint of the bourbon if you want to try it…

Read Full Post »

Bacon.

I’m going to make a maple bacon bourbon stout.

You heard me.

Maple bacon bourbon stout.

I don’t need to explain myself. You know why.

The problem is getting the bacon flavor in the beer. There has been discussion on various forums, and some breweries (Garret Oliver of Brooklyn Brewery) have even made commercial examples. The main options tend to be smoking your own malt with bacon, using bacon bits, etc etc blah blah I WANT TO USE REAL BACON.

So, here’s my plan.

I’m going to put a slotted baking sheet over a regular flat baking sheet. I’m going to make some sort of awesome contraption of tin foil that will keep the bacon somewhat vertical. Like seats, for the bacon. I’ll take a picture when I get this going so that that makes sense. Then I’m going to bake the bacon at 400˚ (random choice of temperature) until it is super crispy. The hope is that this will cause the least amount of grease possible, while still making awesome bacon. For this first attempt, I’ll get normal bacon, not flavored with anything (like maple, pepper, whatever). I’ll also hope for thin bacon for this first attempt. Science!

Once it is super crispy, but NOT BURNT, I’ll break it up into smaller pieces, and soak it in some bourbon. Not sure what kind yet. I’m open to suggestions. The amount of bourbon will be determined by my stout recipe, which I haven’t written yet.

This vat, or at least jar of bourbon with bacon will sit in the fridge for a few weeks. I’m thinking I’ll do this tomorrow (Saturday, March 6th), and let it soak for 2-3 weeks. Hopefully any excess grease and fat will congeal and float to the top in the fridge. This will be skimmed away.

When the soaking is done, I’ll pour the liquid through a coffee filter. Probably two coffee filters. Twice. No fat, no chunks.

Then I’ll add this to the secondary fermentation.

Lastly, I will win.

Thoughts?

Read Full Post »