Book Review: The Best Apples to Buy and Grow

I found The Best Apples to Buy and Grow at the library. It is a thin little book that is a Brooklyn Botanic Garden All-region Guide, first published in 2005 and updated in 2007. It has several people contributing to the book, which makes it a little inconsistent when you are used to a formula format.

The book opens with a history of apples in North America (too bad I forgot about that when I was writing up the history for this blog) and then moves on to heirloom apples. There is a small section about apples for cider and apples for pie before it starts going though “60 Great Apples.” This section is where you really notice the different authors, but they do try to give a description and a little bit of history before talking about culinary uses, harvest time, regions where grown, and growing tips. Some apples have pictures, but not all of them.

The last part of the book is dedicated to the home orchard, including a page on rootstock, grafting, planting, training, thinning apples, pruning, harvesting and storing apples, pest and disease control and including disease resistant apple breeds, deer, rabbit, and mouse control, and planting an apple hedge.

I did like this book enough to put it on my Christmas wish list, and my mother-in-law got it for me. Yes it is small, but I think I would take it with me to the next apple tasting I would go to, and it would be easy to do so because of its size. While it is not as local as Warren Manhart’s Apples for the Twenty-First Century, it does a pretty good job for North America, though there are times where you can see the New York bias, which is where the Geneva apple research center is located. This book also talks about what apples are suitable for cider, but only if they are also good for eating. Can’t have it all, but then again, having a multipurpose apple tree makes more people happy. I get apples for cider, and my husband gets apples for eating.

Cider Review: Crispin & Fox Barrel

My husband and I went to the Concordia Ale House in Portland, OR for the Crispin & Fox Barrel Cider tasting on April 8, 2010. Their northwest marketing agent Lauren Heine was there with five different samples of their product.

Heine started us off with the Classic Crispin. I found it very smooth and slightly sweet. This one is usually promoted by Crispin as being served over ice. I asked her why that was, since it sort of seems to cheapen the drink as the ice melts and dilutes the cider. She said they were trying to do something new and different with cider, as it is a relatively unchanged drink for so long. Heine said that she preferred the Crispin draft on ice, but usually did not do that to the bottled product, and also did not add ice if she was drinking it with her meal, as she did drink it slower then, and the ice would melt. I could see how the sweet drink would benefit from ice, as the serving recommendation is that the sweeter the cider, the colder it should be. After my tasting, I went ahead and followed her advice and ordered a draft Crispin on ice, but I think it was too cold, so it became very blah. Also, I had it with food, so the ice did melt a bit.

The next cider in the tasting was Fox Barrel’s Hard Apple Cider. This was a much sharper cider compared to the Crispin. This was followed by the pear cider and the black current cider, both made from apple cider and juice added in afterwards. The pear cider was sweeter, and the black current cider really didn’t taste much of berry, but it wasn’t apple, either. I asked Heine about the future of Fox Barrel Cider since it was bought by Crispin. She told us that the two companies really do not share marketing territory with the exception of the Pacific Northwest, so for now, more attention will be made to expand the Crispin market in the central US, and maybe some changes will happen to Fox Barrel in future years, but there are no plans as of yet.

The tasting finished with Crispin Honey Crisp. This is a cider that they stabilized and then added honey too and did not filter, so it is cloudy. The honey has not been allowed to ferment, so this is not a mead/cider blend, AKA cyser. Basically, this is their mellow and smooth cider with honey sweetness that comes to you at the end. Unfortunately, said Heine, the Honey Crisp will give her a hang over, while the other Crispin products will not.

I debated about attending the Belmont Station Crispin & Fox Barrel Cider Tasting tonight, April 29. They will have Bonnie and Clyde Ciders there, two of Crispin/Fox Barrel’s draft only limited release ciders. I tried figuring out if it is worth chasing down a cider that will be rare and hard to come by. Some could argue that is all the more reason to go try it, yet I wondered if I can’t get it on a regular basis if it is worth chasing after. In the end, I dedcided it was Crispin/Fox Barrel Cider, which I kind of hold on the upper end of the mass produced scale, but mass produced isn’t a good thing. The tastings I had at the Oregon Garden’s Brewfest kind of proved that.

Bell Pepper Peach Wine

Every once in a while, I mention that I have a bell pepper peach wine that I currently have bulk aging. I’m kind of proud of it, and I hope to enter it into the country fair. My husband was a bit spooked by the idea, but he has since then smelled it when I racked, and thinks it has great potential, too.

I have seen pepper and peach jam before, and I really like Newman’s Own All-Natural Bandito Chunky Peach Salsa. One day in December 2009, I was digging though my freezer and realized I had both frozen red bell peppers and frozen peaches that my mother had processed. While the jams and salsas used other peppers, I decided to give bell peppers and peaches a try.

I used a ratio of 2 lbs of bell peppers to 1 lb of peaches. My recipe was as follows:

2 lbs of frozen red bell peppers
1 lb of frozen peaches
1 gallon of water
2 lbs sugar
3 tsp acid blend
tannin
pectic enzyme
sulfites
Montrachet yeast

I boiled the water with sugar and poured over the frozen fruit, which pretty much got my temperature to room temp. The SG ended up being 1.072, and the acid blend forced it down to about 3.4 pH.

The color of this is the color of peaches, not the red from the peppers. The peaches made it cloudy at first, but the longer it has sat, the more it has cleared up. I’ll probably bottle it in July so that I can enter it into the fairs.

One thing I haven’t decided on is back sweetening or not. When it finished fermenting and was completely dry, I wasn’t too fond of it. The bell pepper was very strong and sharp, so I thought that it might need sugar to balance it out and make the peach perk up. However, the longer it has aged, the smoother it has gotten, so I’m not so sure anymore.

If one were to attempt this, since you would not have my mother’s frozen produce, I would recommended using fresh bell peppers and frozen peaches, or wait until late summer when peaches are good and ripe. I’m also debating about doing a truer 50/50 ratio of 1.5 lbs each.

Legislation to Know About

There are currently two pieces of legislation being pushed through that will have major impacts on me getting this project off the ground.

The first one isn’t so bad. I live in Washington State, which is a liquor control state which has state run liquor stores. During this recession, the state treasurer said that the state could save money if they got out of this business and instead allowed these stores to be privatized. There is now a group called Modernize Washington who is attempting to get this on the ballot this fall. It would create change, but I couldn’t tell you if it was a good thing or a bad thing.

The second piece of legislation is at the national level and much scarier, and is called HR 5034 (full text). It ends all direct shipping of alcohol in an effort to keep a three tiered system of producer-wholesaler-retailer and do away with online sales by the producers. As a result, the wholesalers gain a monopoly while making little producers at their mercy. Make them mad, and they won’t sell your product. Wine Reviewers would only be able to taste what the Wholesalers sell. Even wine retailers believe that there will be a huge impact on their sales.

See local new article Portland KGW – Oregon Wineries face more sales limits. April 19, 2010

Text of this video found here.

Additional reading:

• Wine Spectator – An End to Wine Direct Shipping?
• STOP HR 5034 , which has more links to more articles
• Background provided by STOP HR 5034

Overall, I dislike the three tier system, but believe it would somewhat exist in a free market because it helps to expand the territory in which a product is sold. However, I believe it should be a choice of the producer to use a wholesaler to gain access to this market or not, and should not be legislated.

Review of Oregon Gardens 6th Annual Brewfest

Last Saturday, my husband, a friend of his, and a lot of my mother’s family went to The Oregon Garden’s 6th Annual Brewfest in Silverton, OR. There were 43 different brewers represented with 81 beverages, one of which was a root beer. This year, they gave us a pretty sleek 8 oz beer glass as our tasting mug.

There were six ciders there – Wandering Aengus Ciderworks with their new Anthem line up of apple, cherry, and pear, Classic Crispin Cider, Fox Barrel Pear Cider, and Spire Mountain Cider Dark and Dry (this one has “a hint of molasses and brown sugar.”) I took three glasses and filled them with samples of Wandering Aengus Apple Anthem, Classic Crispin Cider, and Spire Mountain Cider Dark and Dry and had people in our party try them. Nobody cared for Crispin, claiming it was watery in taste. Compared to that, the Dark and Dry was much fuller bodied in the mouth and much more pleasant to drink, and thus was preferred out of the two. Wandering Aengus Apple Anthem was very different from the other two, in which people described as sour, but they liked it. I then put the Wandering Aengus Pear Anthem Cider up against the Fox Barrel Pear Cider, and people all agreed that Wanding Aengus was much better, as it had more flavor and was more dynamic. This was a good tasting panel for me to listen to to help me figure out what kind of products I want to be making.

As far as the beer goes, it was the complete opposite of the Winter Brew Fest we attended. At that festival, so many of the beers were brewed for just that event and would be impossible to fine again. At this brewfest, my husband estimated that we could find 70% of them in bottles or on tap, and I remember a good number of them from last year being there last year. My husband indicated that it was sort of a brewfest for the sake of being a brewfest, but that it didn’t inspire brewers to do new things, but to go with what they have.

This would be a good festival for new drinkers and casual drinkers who want to try a whole bunch of beers in little quantities rather than buy a whole bunch of six packs or 22 oz bottles and discover you don’t like it. For that reason, it also allows someone to try a beer style they might normally not drink. However, the serious beer drinker would be disappointed as they would find they have had much of what is available there, but it does allows for tasting them in one sitting or to try beers back to back or head to head. It might be a few years before we return.

Bonus, though, was that touring the Oregon Gardens was free, and we got some ideas for growing things. For instance, they set up some old ladders as bean poles, but I think they would be kind of neat for growing hops.

Book Review: The Homebrewer’s Garden

The first time I checked out The Homebrewer’s Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher from the library, I thumbed through it and realized most of it was about growing hops. Since I don’t like hop beer, I took it back. With my husband’s recent purchase of hop rhizomes, he suddenly wanted me to check the book out again. I guess it is all about timing, and the first time I had the book we weren’t ready for it.

Written in 1998, this book is broken down into three main sections – growing hops, growing herbs, and growing grains. It also contains some recipes and easy appendices on measurements and conversions and sources for supplies.

For the hops, it talks about various kinds, the ideal place to plant them and how, along with several trellis designs. It talks about hop pests and diseases along with cures, how to harvest the hops, and how to dry them for beer making use. It even contains a design for a hop drier.

The herb section is somewhat generalized, but it does have listed various ways to start herbs such as taking cuttings. Hardy perennial herbs (ones that survive year after year without reseeding) such as mint are easily started by taking cuttings. Again, it talks about harvesting and drying herbs for beer brewing use. It then dedicates a page to an herb, including a drawing of it, to describe the herb, its desired climate and site, along with propagation techniques, harvesting, and brewing. This is the largest section of the book with 42 plants and one page on herbs that were used in brewing in the past but have since then found to be poisonous.

The last section on growing grains and making malts is unfortunately difficult to do in my climate. It starts off with barely, describing it, talking about seed sources and its expected yield before launching into soil preparation, planting and care, harvesting, threshing and winnowing, storage, and how to malt barely. It includes diagrams on the equipment needed for malting with step by step instructions. It then talks about working with amaranth, corn, oats, quinoa, rye, sorghum, spelt, and wheat. Some of those varieties have little written about them, telling you to refer to another grain for instructions, or leaving that grain to the professionals due to difficulty and/or danger if not processed right.

The recipes included with this book are very unusual but they look easy enough to obtain the ingredients for, such as an oregano pale ale. I mentioned that my husband attempted to make a dandelion bitter ale from this book. There is even one recipe called Mumm, which is an ale that you select 6 different ingredients from a list of 18 to make. That means there are 13,366,080 different possibilities from just this one recipe!

Would I buy it? Personally, no.  I’m pretty good with growing herbs as it is, but I don’t know much about growing hops, but hops are not my thing. The recipes are not something you find in your average beer making book or beer cloning book, which lead my husband to declare to me last week that he wanted to buy this book. He said there were too many recipes in there that he wanted to copy, and I think he is also concerned with growing his hops. Different needs.

Oregon Gardens Bloom and Brew

This Friday and Saturday, April 23^rd & 24^th, is The Oregon Garden’s 6^th Annual Brewfest in Silverton, OR. I attended the 2nd Annual Brewfest, which was called Bloom and Brew at the time, and last year’s festival. I still tend to call it Bloom and Brew, as several places have a brew fest, but there is only one Bloom and Brew that I know of in this region. It makes it unique.

Admission this year is $15, but the price includes a mug and about 10 tasting tickets. My first year, the glasses were small eight ounces done up in a sleak beer style mug. I heard for awhile that they changed to plastic due to broken glass and a change of sponsors, but when I went back last year they gave us a nice clear coffee cup style mug that had a line on it. The line indicates a “tasting” of 1 ticket versus a full glass, which usually runs at least 3 tickets. My husband and I actually use these mugs as our official homebrew tasting mugs, even for my wines.

The tastings are done in a pavilion, and there are slated to be 39 different breweries or brew pubs represented (actual 40 – Wandering Aengus Ciderworks was a late addition), each one bringing two or three of their beers to try, most of which are bottled and distributed if one looks for it in stores. There is a little bit of food to be had, but this is most definitely a place where I have packed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for.

This is an event I go to with my aunt and uncle who do not live very far from Silverton. We get there early to avoid the crowds, as when we leave usually around 3pm, it is very packed. There is no seating, and very few small tall tables. It is also very warm at that point.

After leaving the pavilion, we wander around the gardens for a bit or ride the little tram they have. Thing is, it always seems to be a rainy blustery day, so trying not to overdress for inside, but being dressed enough for outside is very tricky.

The first time I went, I drank very little except for the Spire Mountain Apple and Pear Ciders there because I did not like beer at the time. I really had no interest in going back, but then I got engaged to a guy who loved beer, so I thought I should take him. Luckily, a few weeks prior, we finally found a beer I would drink an entire glass by myself, which was a honey orange wheat. The Bloom and Brew Fest last year had quite a number of other fruit wheat beers that I found to be decent and could drink the small samples and also a glass of one, while my fiancé (now husband) was quite happy that several dark stout type beers were still to be found. Spring is a season where you can find both without much hassle as they fade the darker winter beers out in favor of the pale summer beers.

This was a must return to beer festival on my husband’s list.

Growing Hops

I seem to be rubbing off on my husband with the idea of growing plants for use. He recently bought and planted some hop rhizomes. A rhizome is sort of like a flower bulb or tuber, and in fact, Irises grow from rhizomes.

Living in Washington State, hop rhizomes cannot be sold by mail order, but instead appear be done locally. Our local homebrew store was selling hop rhizomes from Yakima, WA, and my husband decided to buy three varieties: Cascade, Golding, and Fuggle.

Hops grow to be about 15-25 feet tall, and do well with some sort of guide to climb, such as twine or wire. At the SE intersection of NE 15^th Ave & Fremont St in Portland, OR, there are some hops growing up the metal grounding wire on a telephone pole. Admittedly, hops grow better on the other side of the Cascade Mountains, even wild at times.

The hop vines grow upwards, and eventually begin to put out vines growing sideways, which will bear flowers called hop cones. These cones will eventually be picked and dried for brewing beer.

Our local homebrew supply store provided a four page document on how to plant the rhizomes, grow and care for the hops, and harvest and dry the cones.

Dandelion Beer

My husband checked out from the library The Homebrewer’s Garden: How to Easily Grow, Prepare, and Use Your Own Hops, Malts, Brewing Herbs by Joe Fisher and Dennis Fisher. He got all excited when he realized there was a recipe in that book for a Dandelion Bitter Ale, which he attempted to make this last weekend.

I find it ironic that a plant that is almost 100% edible and puts off flowers is considered a weed and undesirable, while grass has no economic or resource value in suburbia, and even costs me money to mow which causes pollution. It is a little upside down in my thinking. I have an aunt who says it is because the dandelion propagates a little too easily that it is a weed. She might be right – if it was less common, people would actually recognize it for its valve.

So this book had a recipe to make dandelion bitter ale, which my husband decided to make only a 3 gallon batch of. He went outside and picked a bunch of dandelions, roots and all, and then cleaned them up for this beer. The recipe called for the leaves, blossoms, and roots, thought he found the roots to be a bit too bitter and eased up on them. I had been reading about making dandelion wine, which just uses the blossom. Most people who did this said not to use the stem, and since my husband’s recipe said roots, leaves, and blossoms, I talked him into removing the stems to make his beer.

He decided to do this batch using an all-grain beer brewing technique, so since he picked the dandelions first, they were left out on the counter while waiting for the beer wort to be ready for them, which was several hours, and not all of it required his attention. There would have been plenty of time for him to start it and then go pick the dandelions and prepare them to allow him to have maximum freshness.

Sadly, due to issues with the all-grain technique, this batch will only have about 3% alcohol, but I’m trying to get him to make it again because the second time around, when you know what you are doing, is bound to be better.

Sometime soon, I’ll go ahead and try making a dandelion wine.

Haha! One of my local newspapers did an article talking about harvesting dandelions today.

My Herb Garden

I’ve been gardening a lot recently, trying to get our property in tip top shape to grow a garden and plant my apple trees. This is all so that I have things to ferment.

There was a small flower bed in front of the window of our office that I thought would make a nice little herb garden. I measured it as being about teen feet long, and the space between the down spouts and being flush with the patio concrete was 18 inches wide.

I talked to my father about making a raised plant bed for that space. We found some scrap wood and made it 10 feet long by 18 inches wide on the outside, so the inside was actually smaller. We put in two cross braces to prevent the dirt from bowing the longer sides and to give more stability. The whole thing was screwed together.

In the meanwhile, I had to go remove all the weeds and a few flowers from the location, along with picking out the river rock that the previous owners used as trim that got buried. The soil was all clay.

So I put the new frame down in the space, and it fit perfectly. I then spent about $35 on two bags of dirt and some herbs. I got herbs that I cook with, such as oregano, thyme, chives, tarragon, fennel, curry, sage, and cilantro. Of all of those, I believe the cilantro is the only one that dies every year, but I should be able to plant it every year. I thought about transplanting my rosemary bush into this spot, but it was too big. Also, I did not plant any mint or lemon balm since I have both of those in other parts of the yard, and they do have a spreading tendency, so they would take over the entire bed. I thought about getting lavender, but I decided my use for it would be small. Also, I thought about basil, but it does not like wind and dies back every year, so the ability to maintain it would require some work compared to the other plants.

I also decided to take some of the smaller river rock we had been picking out of our property and make a “river” running though my herb garden to give it a design element. As a last thought, I also put down a little bit of lettuce seed.

I’m quite pleased with how it turned out. Now I will have more fresh herbs for cooking, seasoning, and brewing.