Friday, April 20, 2012

Cooking with Jack's Abby

I resisted running a blog for some time. Routine maintenance and my lack of an attention span just aren't compatible. Beer though... I am constantly trying new things and pausing to write about them keeps me from overdoing it, blacking out, and yelling at armed soldiers. Besides, it's not like I would ever acquire three cases of beer from a single brewer and drink nothing but beers already covered here for a month. Since Jack's Abby helped me achieve the impossible, I thought I'd share some of the resulting cooking experiences with you.

1) Jabby Jerky
I started making my own beef jerky in a dehydrator awhile back. Since my meal of choice is steak and beer, combining the two became a priority for me. The product manufacture considers usage of alcohol based marinades a warranty voiding act since it's entirely plausible fumes could ignite even on a low alcohol content beer like Jabby Brau. I've been at this for 1.5 months and have yet to start a fire but I do extra supervision.
Anyhow, I start with a couple top round steaks from the local butcher. Those are then cut into even strips, with anything particularly fatty set aside or thrown out, depending on the other cooking initiatives of the day. Fat goes rancid more quickly and I don't cure as the stuff only sits around two weeks max. I then deposit the cut meat into a thick gallon bag and squeeze out all the air. Then it's time to blend my marinate.
Jabby Brau was designed as a session lager. It's got an earthy grainy flavor beautifully offset with just a twinge of hops. On their own, two 500ml bottles impart a fairly nice grain-centric taste after 24 hours of soaking. It's not the strongest jerky around so I add garlic and pepper to make it pop just a little more.
Once everything is together, I pop it in the fridge and shake things up when passing through. After 24 hours, I load up the trays and set it on high. To cook evenly, I rotate trays every couple hours, blotting up any massive fat deposits in the process. The way I usually cut, a batch takes four hours. However, that will vary depending on your thickness preferences.

2) Smoke and Dagjerky
Smoke and Dagger is a smoked lager. It's very malty with a bit of charcoal-y smoke flavor on the end. My greatest success with this one came when I upped the concentration of beer. The brew's own flavors are awesome with red meat. However, I do eat the stuff at work so snacks that make my breath smell like I've been drinking are unwise. My favored solution is adding a touch of brown sugar. It doesn't kill the beer's flavor and imparts something quite nice, all things considered.

3) Corned Beef In Beer
I went a bit overboard on this one. In order to use up some of the bottles irritating my wife, I used an undiluted mixture of Smoke and Dagger with 1/3 Framinghammer Baltic Porter. Then I plopped the meat in, simmered for three hours, and added some random vegetable matter. This may be the brine tasting talking but I quite liked how things cane out. There was a pinch of smoke, nice malty flavors throughout, and just a touch of alcohol. As a bonus, I strained the remaining liquid and got a jerky marinate out of it. Bit weird tasting hints of cabbage at first but with a side of rice, it became a bit like stuffed cabbage leaves without all the rolling.


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