Catastrophuffle

About three seconds before I unleashed the twenty-litre tidal wave of foam and beer and broken glass, I remember thinking: “This is not going to go well.” Things, in truth, had not been going well for about an hour. My already saturated pants and sodden shoes attested to that. If you want to get technical, things started to go sour a month or two previously, when I put together a new batch of home brew. Perhaps I should back up and explain. This is a story about my deep love for beer.

I adore beer. I'm enamored with the its history, the rituals surrounding consumption, its color(s), the magical manner in which a head forms, the perfect columns of tiny bubbles which cling desperately to the side of each condensation-streaked glass. And I love how beer tastes. There are few moments I look forward to in a work-day more than my end-of-shift beer. I can conjure, at any given moment, that delicious malty-sweet and bitter-bubble dance, that rush of sub-arctic, floral-hop-and-yeast, liquid breeze which is the penultimate antidote to fourteen hours of sweating over a stove. I really like beer.



Enough, in fact, to brew my own, and have been doing so for years now. It's not bad, my home brew; most of what I've made has been drinkable, more or less. There have been a couple total failures: one batch of beer tasted like chemicals; a cider had strong notes of wet dog; my attempt at reproducing a 200 year old home brew recipe resulted in fizzy, acidic, sugar water. However, only one batch of beer was an absolute catastrophe.

Or, to use a word my four-year-old and I invented: it was a “catastrophuffle,” that is, a calamity which causes a great deal of commotion and mess. This sort of thing is a common occurrence when you have two toddlers who both like to “help” in the kitchen.

My most recent catastrophuffle began when I brewed up a batch of beer not long ago. Beer ferments in bulk for a week or two and then is bottled for a second ferment which carbonates the drink. After about two weeks in the bottle, you should be able to crack one open to see what it tastes like, though it will improve with a bit of age. Upon opening the first of this particular batch, I was greeted by a small geyser of beer. It foamed and rushed out in a fountain about half a metre high and continued until about ¾ of the beer had been ejected from the 750ml bottle. I'd seen this sort of thing before. This usually means one of a few things: perhaps the beer is still too green, that is, it hasn't finished the second ferment, or it is possible that the bottle was not clean and residual yeasts have infected the beer. Finally, and least likely in my mind, was the possibility that the entire batch has been infected in the bulk-brewing stage and is a total write-off.

I gave the batch another week or two in the bottles before I tried again. Old Faithful once more. This was starting to look bad. The beer should be well finished fermenting by now, and two out of two beers foaming like mad is not a good average. I opened one more in the hopes that I'd had a bit of bad luck. Beer everywhere. The whole batch was bad.

Unwilling to face the fact that I now possessed nearly twenty-five litres of bad beer, I stored the bottles away, lying to myself that they might get better with a bit more age.



When I brewed and bottled the next batch of beer I decided to get rid of the bad lot. I opened one of them again, to be sure, and the sheer force sent the cap to the ceiling and beer in all directions. They'd gotten worse. The bottles were super-carbonated and I was beginning to worry that they might explode. In something of a panic, I loaded the lot of them into a large laundry basket (the biggest vessel I could find) and set off to carry them down the three flights of stairs to the basement level and the rubbish bins.

As soon as I hit the first flight, the jarring began to knock the lids loose and about half the bottles began to fizz violently from around the edges of their marginally intact caps. This sour-smelling, warm beer-foam made its way, through the many holes in the laundry basket, down my legs and into my shoes.

Picking up the pace, in an attempt to limit the mess in the stairwell, only increased the jostling and the beers fizzed even more. By the time I reached the basement and started to make my way to the opposite side where the bins are located, my clothes were soaked and my shoes were filled.

I got as close as twenty metres from the rubbish area when I started to loose my grip. I tried so hard to guide the basket down gently, but my beer-soaked hands were nigh on useless.

It was at that moment I knew things were not looking good.

When the basket full of bottles hit the ground it did so at an angle pointing away from me, thankfully. Every single bottle exploded simultaneously. A wave of yeasty, warm beer washed through the basement, carrying shards of glass well over thirty metres away. In my shocked haste to clean up the mess I jabbed my finger deeply on a bit of bottle and began to bleed at what might be described as an alarming rate.

By the time I'd gathered up the majority of the glass, I'd spread enough blood on the concrete floor to give the general impression of, if not murder, grave physical violence. I returned a short time later, bandaged, changed, and armed with a broom, only to find a few residents in the building marveling at the scene. “Dropped a few beers,” I said, playing things down a bit. “And nicked my finger.”

God I hope no one looks at the security footage.

By way of an epilogue, I found four of the bad batch of beers in the back of a storage cupboard not long ago. I now know how bomb squad members feel when they pick up a suspicious parcel. I filled a sink with water and tapped the top off of each submerged beer grenade. They sounded not unlike depth charges.



Wholegrain Seeded Beer Bread

All of my above problems arose from yeast gone wrong. I thought I'd use some brewing yeast and malted barley to make a hearty loaf of bread. Yeast makes good.

This makes a single, heavy loaf of grainy, seeded bread. Why use brewing yeast? It works a bit slower than commercial baking yeast, allowing for more flavors to develop. Brewers yeast also tastes different; I don't really like the flavor commercial yeast lends.

50g flour
60ml warm water
1 Tbsp malted barley extract
1 tsp brewing yeast

Mix all ingredients and stand for half an hour. This is called the sponge. It allows the yeast to get going and gluten to form without much extra effort.

175ml warm water
1 tsp brewers yeast
125g flour
125g wholemeal flour
½ c mixed rolled grains
½ c mixed seeds
½ tsp sea salt

In a large bowl, mix all of the ingredients, except the salt, together with the sponge. Work into a ball and knead on a lightly floured surface for about 10 minutes. The dough will be a bit sticky – use a dough scraper to un-stick it rather than adding more flour. Rest the dough, covered with a towel, for 20 minutes.

After resting, sprinkle the salt over the dough and knead for a further 5 minutes to mix the salt in thoroughly. Transfer the dough to a lightly oiled bowl and allow to rise, covered, until doubled (about 2 hours).

Knock the risen dough down and turn onto a board. Cover with a towel and rest 20 minutes. Shape the dough into a tight round. Transfer, upside down to a proofing basket or into a bowl lined with a linen cloth saturated with flour. Cover with a towel and allow to rise until doubled (1-2 hours).

Meanwhile, preheat your oven to it's highest setting with a baking stone on the bottom rack. When the bread has risen, turn the loaf onto a bakers peel or a flat tray and slash an X in the top with a sharp knife. Slide the loaf onto the hot bakers stone and reduce the oven temperature to 200ºC. Don't open the oven for 20 minutes.

When 20 minutes have passed open the oven, rotate the loaf, and bake for another 20-25 minutes. Test the loaf by turning it over and tapping the bottom with your knuckle; when it is done it will sound quite hollow. Cool on a wire rack completely before cutting.