Well, sadly, I never did make it out to the Renaissance festival to risk eating the gluten free foods they were serving this year.  I was trying to get a group of people (normal people mostly) together to try to do a food comparision, but that fell through.   I wound up going again and sticking with my chicken salad sandwiches and sangria.

September and October were my busy times at work as well, so I haven't had much time, especially with October being Halloween.  I did manage to start up a hard cider however, and I'm hoping to start up a second one in a week or two that will contain cinnamon, nutmeg and oak.  We'll see if I can manage.

In other news, I did help throw a gluten free birthday party in October.  Sadly, I didn't keep the recipes, so I'll try to say what I recall.  We did a gluten free rahmschnitzel with fries, and what was supposed to be a molten chocolate cake.  We also attempted to fry gluten free ravioli.

The results were that next time, we need to bread the ravioli before frying.  It was surprisingly difficult to find gluten free ravioli as well.  I saw certain brands at stores whose website declared they had a gluten free line, but unfortunately the store didn't carry them, but we finally found a bag from one store.  The fries turned out ok, they were simply frozen fries that were deep fryed in a vat of peanut oil, nothing special about these.

The Rahmschnitzel was a bit more difficult.  A day before, I baked a loaf of gluten free bread that I mostly followed from the sandwich bread recipe on Serious Eats.  <link to seriouseats.com>   I ate a few slices, just to see how it tasted, really...  And then sliced it and dried them out in the oven. The next day, I sent them through the food processor and voila, gluten free breadcrumbs, and it only took me some eggs, oil, yeast, rice flour, potato flour and tapioca flour.

To cut down on costs, we used pork, which I pounded flat and sprinkled lemon juice on for about 30 minutes while I prepared the dredge.  I used rice flour seasoned with a bit of salt, a bit of garlic, pepper and paprika.  I then dredged the escalopes in  egg, and breadcrumbs, then fried in a mix of oil and butter.   I fried both sides and stuck them onto a pan and into the oven that I was keeping at a low 300 degrees to finish the cooking, and to keep the pork and the fries warm while I was preparing more of the same.

Once the pork was finished and in the oven, I made the sauce.  I took some of the oil/butter, and because I was low, added more butter, and sauteed a mix of baby bella mushrooms and standard white mushrooms.  At this point I was experimenting and split pans.  In one pan, I started a gluten free roux.  Some oil/butter, flour, and finally a liquid and the mushrooms.  Unfortunately, I used both wine and cream, so there was a bit more alcohol flavor than I would want, but it had a nice thick sauce/gravy texture.  Reduce the wine in a separate pot first, next time.  In the other pan, I kept half the mushrooms and dumped in the wine, letting it simmer and reduce and then adding cream.  This one was a bit thin.    After learning from these mistakes, I then combined the two together anyways.  These were also seasoned with garlic, pepper, salt and paprika.

Finally, there was dessert.  I followed a recipe from a book, one that I've made before, but somehow, it didn't turn out right.  It might be because the cups were higher, it might be because the oven ran hotter than at the parents, but it was supposed to be a molten chocolate cake, made from a mix of melted chocolate and butter, and very well frothed eggs and then cooked in the oven in a hot water bath. It was more like a chocolate mousse cake.  Still very light in texture, soft but not still runny in the middle at all.  We still ate it with freshly made whipped cream.  One of which was a standard vanilla whipped cream using vanilla extract and sugar, the other which was made using Dekyuper's michigan cherry liquor just so I could make an alcoholic, flavored whipped cream.

On a side note, the breadcrumbs, of which I still had some left over, were also used in making meatloaf a  week later.  (When I make food, I try to make enough to last a week, so I ate the rahmschnitzel for a week, and then made meatloaf . I just finished the last of said meatloaf of it two days ago).

A bit of an odd pairing, and no pictures at this current time, but finally an update.

I *Still* have not yet made the orange and coriander beer that I said I wanted to do (This was back in May mind you).  But instead, I did make a new batch of Sangria.

I was finally starting to run low on the first batch of Sangria, and due to a request to have sangria on hand for my sister's baby shower, I felt I needed to make a new batch.  I used the same kit as before, the Orchard Breezin Seville Orange Sangria, which I acquired at 25% off.  I used the same procedures, adding approximately half the flavor pack into the initial fermentation, and the remaining half when it was kegged.  I ran out of room in the keg and did not add additional cherry concentrate at the end (yet).

What wound up happening was that the final gallon or two of the initial sangria was finally finished, and we didn't even touch the new keg.  In fact, not all the sangria was consumed that day, I filled a bottle and brought it home, and let the other family members finish whatever was left another day.

This brings me to this past weekend, I decided to visit the Michigan Renaissance festival.  Being somewhat frugal at times, I decided to pack myself a gluten free lunch consisting of a puree of chicken, combined with mustard, mayonaise, onion and celery to make a chicken salad (of which was only missing cranberries) along with a loaf of Rudi's gluten free multigrain and I quickly had filled two small beer bottles of sangria and capped them.  I also brought along two 750ml bottles of water that I had frozen.

When I had lunch, I also had one of the sangrias, and found that indeed, without the additional cherry concentrate, and due to not measuring my exact quantities by volume or weight, that this new sangria is not as sweet as the prior, and was stronger.  (Bad me for not measuring the gravity at the start or the end as well, to know what the alcohol content actually is).  But, this does mean that the half flavor pack method does seem to be viable for these breezer drinks that I am likely to find too sweet normally.

What I'm going to try next, since I expect to go to the Michigan Renaissance festival several more times, is to ask about their official gluten free foods and take pictures of said food, since this year is the first year that they've included gluten free food in their lineup.  Here's to hoping to a post or two within a month, cross your fingers!

Well, tax season has ended, about a month ago, and unfortunately I'm rather behind on several projects.   The temperature fluctuations hasn't helped the beer that I had out in the storage room of my apartment, even though I was monitoring it to make sure it didn't drop below freezing, but somehow, the process didn't go as smoothly as the first lager I had made out there several years ago.    It was the exact same recipe using saaz hops and sorghum syrup, however, I'm beginning to wonder if the pressure based fermentation did have an effect on it.  The first result was a pale, clear beer, however the one this time is more amber, and has the definitive taste of sorghum, and the fruity esters of the yeast.  It will still age under pressure for some time, and I may be trying it this weekend.

I've finally run out of the cider that I've had on tap for two years.  Admittedly, I had been only slowly going through it, due to last year's disastrous apple crop for Michigan.  I don't have a particular apple blend, nor do I have a source for specific apples, or fruit grinder, so I normally pick up ciders from certain producers, I usually look for a tarter cider, rather than sweeter when I was doing this for the prior years.   As of two days ago, there has been a frost, but while there are reports of frost damage, it's nowhere near the damage that existed last year.

I've also finally run out of a too-sweet white zinfandel that I've had for three years.  These have been in kegs, and yes, has been drinkable despite being 3 years old.  This was one of the early batches where I had followed the instructions, rather than the later batches where I've been adding half the sweetener pack during the first fermentation and the other half at the end.

I also brought a keg of a plain gluten free beer that had used the New Zealand hop motueka.  Because of the timing of my drinkers (usually just me), it's been about half a year since it was made, so it had lost a lot of the up front grapefruit flavors that the hops introduce.  The remaining tropical fruit flavor did, however, blend well with the diminished sorghum flavor and my initial testers liked it.  I wound up dragging several gallons out to a brewing day in Ann Arbor to see if I could receive any feedback.  Unfortunately, there wasn't much in the way of detail.   It wasn't a terrible beer, but it was not a favorite (in comparison to the normal barley based beers).  It was, however, the only gluten free beer out there.  Among the taps, it was one of the last two remaining beers at the end of the day, and I still took home a gallon or two.

Again, I managed to discuss some gluten free brewing to people who were looking at trying it out for friends and family, but nothing to the extent of people who were currently brewing gluten free, or had any suggestions for changes.

With two empty kegs, and the third expected to be empty this weekend, this does mean that it's time to start making something again.   Perhaps I might have been able to fit something in January or February in a carboy and let it sit for a few months, but I honestly didn't expect for three to come up at once.  I do have a Cellar Craft Sterling International GSM that is currently in secondary fermentation, so I do expect this to go into one of the kegs, and to finally bring out either the Cranberry mead, or the other Red wine.

I also need to catch up on cleaning, since I won't brew in a dirty kitchen, (And being in an apartment, it's all I've got).  But once that's done, then I can expect at least two more posts of something being made.  I'm considering another variation on the Orange & coriander beer.  Also, I really need to finish the sprayers that for the grain sprouting test in the spare bathroom.