Tag Archives: Chilli

Belize, Fermentation, Our Products, Saving Money, Soap

Hatcho Miso Belize Style.

Gnome.Straight.SmileMiso Madness is almost over as the Munchkin is starting to feel twitchy over our dwindling supply of soap…Together.Munchking.Pointing

…which means that our run of frenzied fermentation is coming to an end and the previously, prematurely terminated Soap Marathon is going to have to resume (yeah, our soaps are really popular and people just can’t get enough of them; this is A Good Thing, she tells me ;-P).

After the frenzy of rice koji making and the resulting shinshu and shiro misos, we are ending our run with a couple of pig tail buckets of hatcho miso.  The first bucket was made two days ago, however, it turned out to be about a gallon short because I held back some of the black bean koji to reinoculate the next batch of beans.  There was a slight set-back with that particular batch (yes, yes, I’m sure you’ve heard about the Great Bean Bungle…let’s move on…) and to make a long story short, another batch had to be introduced into the equation.  Anyway, back to the short bucket:  I just “happened” to have a gallon batch of miso from last year which was made with cacao beans and while very aromatic, the chocolate taste was just too overpowering (yes, chocolate-lovers, this is actually possible!).  So, we emptied all of the containers, mixed them together again with the addition of bird peppers (Korean-style??) and a generous handful of black peppercorns.

Mixing Black Beans, Last Year's Chocolate Miso, Chilli Peppers and Black Peppercorns.
Mixing Black Beans, Last Year’s Chocolate Miso, Chilli Peppers and Black Peppercorns.

And voila’, the first full bucket of Belizean Style Chocolate (Cacao Bean) Hatcho Miso (with chilli and black pepper) was born:

Super Hatcho Miso.
Super Hatcho Miso.

Time to start thinking about soap…

Amusing, Belize, Fermentation

Beef Jerky and Chilli Mead.

Gnome.Surprised.No.GlassesBrewing has come to an end…boo-hoo!  After completion of the Resurrection Metheglin there was one last brew bucket to be used and alas, this is what has happened, the final fermentation:  Black Pepper Beef Jerky and Chilli Metheglin.

All Buckets have been used.
My collection of trigeminal buckets.

The idea for this unusual mead had its inception from reading an old article on Cock Ale.  Apparently, an old, parboiled cock (a rooster, you sick folk ;-P) that has been flayed, stamped in a stone mortar and put in a sack with other aromatic goodies can be steeped into ale to add just a little bit more body!  Well, with a leap of tangential thinking, derailment and frank thought disorder, I took Cock Ale and got…ta-da…Beef Jerky Mead with Chilli!

Black Pepper Seasoned Beef Jerky Ready to be Simmered.
Black Pepper Seasoned Beef Jerky Ready to be Simmered.

Extrapolating (or intrapolating or just plain guesstimating) from the original recipe of one cock for 10 gallons of ale…and making some assumptions as to the size of your average Belizean cock; and, also, considering the difference in flavour between fowl and beef…we settled on 250g of beef jerky for five gallons of mead.

This is the amount of chilli pepper we used:

Pepper for Beef Jerky Mead.
Pepper for Beef Jerky Mead.

…a nice, wild hybrid of jalapeno (sorry, no tilde) and bird pepper that turns purple before red.

I aimed for a slightly higher strength of alcohol than usual (6-7% alcohol) in order to better hold the expected heaviness from the beef and chilli; which in this case, was achieved with four and a half “quarts” of Belizean Rainforest Honey…

Belize Honey "Quarts."
Belize Honey “Quarts.”

The beef jerky was simmered with half the chilli for about an hour without the honey, making a nice and spicy beef broth.  After which, the honey was added and brought to the boil for a second before cooling and pouring into the brew bucket.  The yeast used was my standard “evolving” lager yeast.

Let’s see how it turns out!