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Homebrew from the hedgerow

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/06/30/homebrew-from-the-hedgerow

River Cottage forager and keen homebrewer John Wright explains how to make a quick, simple nettle beer. Nettle beer and homemade cider can help to keep costs down for the rural drinker. This article titled “Homebrew from the hedgerow” was written by John Wright, for guardian.co.uk on Wednesday 18th May 2011 13.15 UTCAs an enthusiastic forager who enjoys a tipple it was perhaps inevitable that I would become a homebrewer. Not that my path to alcoholic excellence has been a straight one. Back in the early 1980s, while living in a remote farmhouse surrounded by hedgerow delights of every kind, I became rather obsessive and brewed everything that would stand still for long enough. After a few disasters and the uncomfortable observation that friends (who had over the years been plied with various concoctions of questionable virtue) were finding imaginative reasons for not visiting me, I hung up my demijohns and retired hurt for many years. Then a huge haul of cherry plums one July tempted me to resume my chequered career and now the house is again filled with bottles and tubes and buckets and potions.There is a deep satisfaction to be gained from taking a plant from the garden or the hedgerow, exploring new tastes and making a palatable drink. The colourful demijohns, bubbling gently away on the shelf look lovely and, of course, homebrewing costs little.Well, it can be cheap but I’m a sucker for “kit” and now own every bit of equipment the home-brewing shop is prepared to sell me. From sugar refractometer to cider apple press, pH titration kit to thermostatically controlled brewing cabinet, I have the lot. I guess it’s a boy thing. But (despite what I have told my wife) you really don’t need all this stuff – just some buckets, demijohns, bubble-traps, plastic tubing and bottles. Below is a recipe which requires little more than can be found in the kitchen.Homebrewing was once, back in the 1970s and 80s, if not exactly fashionable then certainly popular. Then, I suspect, many people hit the roadblocks I encountered and it became a minority sport. Homebrewing kits, however, are still used by many and are generally very good, but there is little sense of “ownership” in brewing this way.I like the interesting recipes and novel tastes that can be enjoyed using the totally DIY approach. And do not be cowed by the notion that homemade wines, for example, are inferior to “proper” wine – they are just different. Over the next few weeks I will be relating my experiences, both good and bad, as a homebrewer. I hope you will join me in this little enterprise; perhaps suggesting plants and recipes I may not have tried, perhaps relating your triumphs and disasters. I trust you will enjoy the journey. Nettle beerI use nettles a lot. I have made nettle pasta, nettle pakoras and, best of all, nettle soup. But it will also make a good beer. Nettle hunting can be a painful experience unless you go equipped. Thick clothing, rubber gloves and good footwear are essential, but the blasted things will always get you somewhere. Last week, despite extensive precautions, one managed to go straight up my trouser-leg. I am thinking of buying some bee-keeper’s clothing for next time.It’s getting towards the end of the main nettle season but a shady area should still provide a good supply of young nettles tops (those that have not shown their dangling flower spikes) and a cut-down nettle patch will provide a second crop later in the year. The older leaves are rather bitter so just collect the half-dozen or so at the top.This simple brew is easy to make but rather treacherous. The flavour is pleasant, if unsophisticated, and a pint of the stuff has the same effect on one’s equilibrium as downing a pint of champagne would have.IngredientsA couple of the ingredients are worthy of note: “Copper finings” are not a scary as they sound. The name is a reference to a brewing vessel, not what they contain. The seaweed “caragheen”, also known as “Irish moss”, is the most commonly used – its purpose is to prevent the “haze” of protein that will otherwise spoil the beer’s appearance.1kg nettle tops (approximately one carrier bag stuffed to bursting) 5 litres water 450g sugar Juice of two lemons 50g cream of tartar Copper finings (Irish moss) Not absolutely essential. If used, follow the instructions on the packet A sachet of beer yeastBoil the nettles with the finings for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain through a colander or sieve into a sterilised (rinse with Campden tablet solution then boiled water) food-grade plastic bucket.Stir in the sugar until dissolved. Leave to cool to room temperature. Add the lemon juice and the yeast. You will probably need to “activate” the yeast first – it will tell you on the sachet. Cover and leave for three days.Siphon into sterilised swing-top bottles making sure not to disturb the sediment that will have accumulated at the bottom of the bucket. The beer will continue to ferment, gradually building up a head of steam, and is ready to drink in a week, though longer will be better.Gently release the pressure on one of the bottles every now and then to check that the “steam” isn’t building up too much. Despite the finings this beer can sometimes be a little cloudy – remember that this is a homebrew, so it is simply considered as character. And do not concern yourself about a little sediment at the bottom of the bottle – just pour carefully! guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogHomebrew from the hedgerowRelated posts:Free BeerNain’s bara brith recipeHow to make a log pile wildlife habitat

June 30 2011, 1:11pm | Comments »

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The red card for red meat?

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/05/25/the-red-card-for-red-meat

As National Vegetarian Week begins, a new study shows links between eating processed and red meat and an increased risk of bowel cancer. Will you still be bringing home the bacon? This article titled “The red card for red meat?” was written by Jay Rayner, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 23rd May 2011 11.30 UTCIn my fridge right now is: one pack streaky bacon, one pack pre-sliced chorizo, one pack mini chorizo sausages (half eaten), one pack Wiltshire cure ham. Hanging up near the fridge is a length of Iberico chorizo (the really good stuff) picked up on a recent trip to Spain. Naturally my freezer is also well-stocked: sausages, steaks, pork belly, beef mince, lamb fillet and so on. The question is, in light of today’s report on the relationship between the consumption of red and processed meat and bowel cancer, should I be chucking it all out?Let’s be clear: getting me to part with bits of salted, preserved, paprika-spiked piggy is a little like asking a toddler to give up a favourite soft toy. Then again, the statistics are pretty sobering. A number of comments on the original news report complain about a lack of hard figures so here they are, taken from the press release on the World Cancer Research Fund website: the consumption of an extra 100g of cooked red meat a day above the recommended 500g of cooked red meat a week leads to a 17% increase in the risk of bowel cancer, that’s roughly from five in 100 to six. An extra 100g of processed meat a day results in a rise in the risk of bowel cancers of 36%; roughly five in 100 to seven.There are a bunch of things to be said about this, not least that this extra 100g a day amounts to more than a doubling of the recommended amount of 70g. If I’ve got my sums right it means 170g of cooked red meat a day, which is 1190g or over 2.5lbs of red meat a week. Even I think that’s an awful lot. Add in a similar amount of processed meats – bacon, sausages, salamis and hams – and it’s a dead animal fiesta. It’s the kind of thing I muse on at night to help me get to sleep; a fantasy I would never (or almost never) try to realise in real life.But using that as a reason to dismiss the stats would be a false comfort. There is clearly a correlation between meat consumption and bowel cancer. So, putting aside the other serious issues – the environmental impact of meat production, the unreliability of animal welfare – is it time we (by which I mean I) changed my diet?Let’s be clear. It’s always time I changed my diet. And I know full well that the western dietary imperative that places meat protein at the centre of meals deserves to be challenged. We should eat more vegetables. But I do scratch my head when it comes to the health implications, not because I don’t get the argument, but because the very business of living is terminal.As a younger man I smoked, quite a lot actually. I was rather good at it. I still smoke three or four fags a month. Although I packed it in early, I did my fair share of recreational narcotics. I tell my doctor I drink 27 units of alcohol a week. Some weeks this is true. Some weeks it isn’t. I am overweight, albeit not quite as overweight as I once was. Given my job my diet is substantial. There’s so much of my diet that as well as all the dead cow, it also includes a lot of fibre, green vegetables and so on. And, for what it’s worth, I have a bit of gym habit. I get there four to six times a week. Somebody described me recently on twitter as looking like “a waxed Wookie on the cross-trainer, giving it stacks.” I wear a headband. I’m not proud.And so I am left bewildered. Which bits of this lifestyle of mine will kill me and which bits of it will save my life? Surely no single piece of dietary advice can be taken in isolation? Because if you listened to each and every bit of advice on healthy living you would quickly assume we were eating our way to an early grave. And yet that’s not true. For here is another statistic, one which rarely referred to. Our life expectancy is going up, not down.According to the Office for National Statistics the age at which we will die has risen from around 71 for men and 76 for women in 1980, to nearly 78 for men and 82 for women now. Of course that may mean we end up living with illness and infirmity for longer but the bald fact is this: modern life isn’t killing us. It’s helping us to live on.So does that mean I can keep frying up the bacon? I’m really not sure. It is very very hard to take these issues seriously when you are well. If you have developed bowel cancer, or have lost a loved one to it – 36,000 Britons develop the disease every year and over 16,000 die from it – then making a decision is probably much easier. For the rest of us it’s not so cut and dried.I will, of course, try to be a better person. I will try to eat a more balanced diet. Then again I am always trying to do this, and that’s not the same as succeeding. So what are you going to do? Cut out the pig or carry on as usual? guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogThe red card for red meat?Related posts:Cut red meat intake and don’t eat ham, say cancer researchersAngela Hartnett’s roasted pollack with crushed new potatoes and chorizo recipeTurkey Ham?

May 25 2011, 1:42pm | Comments »

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Consider pancakes

http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/03/08/consider-pancakes

Pancakes or galettes for Shrove Tuesday. Have you shriven yet? Thought not. March 8th this year 20110 is Mardi Gras or Shrove Tuesday, pancake day or jif lemon day.

This article titled “Consider pancakes” was written by Oliver Thring, for guardian.co.uk on Monday 7th March 2011 15.00 UTC To shrive is to gain absolution for your sins through grovelling penance and the tittle-tattle of confession. When a priest shrives you he listens open-mouthed to what you’ve done, and when you shrive you tell him the lurid details. Guilt and reward, the shifts and cycles of sin and forgiveness, of lean times and fat, are central to the Christian way of thinking. And Shrove Tuesday marks the end of shrovetide, the last fat hurrah before the gloom of Lent with its warnings of the evils of milk. Before then, though, we feast. The pancake is prehistoric. Grinding boring but nutritious grains into flour, blending them with protein-rich liquids such as milk or eggs and cooking the mixture made for an extremely palatable food, and it seems likely that pancakes were among the first things humans learned to cook. Once you’ve got fire in your caveman arsenal it’s easy to heat a piece of flint or slate to make a basic griddle. The Roman food writer Apicius describes a batter of eggs, milk, water and flour which was fried and served with honey and pepper. It sounds rather good. Shrove Tuesday is only around 1,000 years old, so people brought pancakes to it rather than the other way round. For once the old wives’ tale is true: the cakes were a useful way to use quick-spoiling foods such as milk and eggs that were forbidden in Lent. The earliest surviving English pancake recipe dates to 1430, but recipes don’t begin in earnest until the 1600s. This may be because the food had only then spread to the educated classes, or perhaps pancakes had only recently returned to general popularity. Either way, by the 18th century milk and occasionally cream had become the main liquids for the batter: before then, brandy and wine had been just as common. In Brittany people often still add beer to crêpe batter, and the drink remains a useful alternative for lactose intolerant pancake-eaters today. This being a country wedded to quaint eccentricities, a number of traditions have developed around pancake day. In Olney, Bucks, villagers have organised a now famous pancake race almost every year since 1445. Only women compete, wearing “the traditional costume of the housewife, including a skirt, apron and head covering”, and running 415 yards (380m) while flipping their pancakes to the peal of the shriving bells. The winner used to receive a prayer book but in these pinched and godless days the prize is a kiss from the verger. The largest pancake ever flipped was made in Rochdale in 1995. It measured 15m across and weighed three tons. Aldo Zilli is also a prize tosser, having flipped a pancake 117 times in a single minute in 2009 in a successful assault on the world record. The crêpe is probably the archetypal pancake; thin, wheat-based versions are by far the most common around the world. Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians have developed an extraordinary fondness for jam- and cream-filled crêpes, and many Swedes eat them every Thursday after the traditional pea soup. In Galicia, crêpes are called filloas and are made with pig’s blood instead of milk, which turns them the colour of black pudding. I love Ethiopian injera for its doughty determination to stretch the gastronomic limits of the crêpe: the food becomes an enormous and soggily impractical plate. The world is awash with pancakes, from the bao bing, those limp dry discs used for Peking duck, to bulging tortillas, pooris, boxties, latkes and blintzes. A breakfast of American pancakes, maple syrup, blueberries, bacon and fierce black coffee is about as fine a start to the day as I can think of, and it would be a fine thing if British high streets could welcome the American pancake chains as wholeheartedly as they’ve embraced their burger joints. I also have a special fondness for drop scones, those Scottish pancakes so delicious at teatime with butter and syrup. What kind of pancakes will you be enjoying, and what’s your favourite topping?

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March 8 2011, 7:36am | Comments »

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