Tag Archives: fermentation

Zaya Rum

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I’ve recently been exploring different tastes in various liquors and recently I’ve been concentrating on rums. This is to compliment what I’d like to think is a developing palate for wines, and while I’m no super-taster, I do take pride in knowing what I like and being able to identify good wines from bad. I’d like to see what serious artisans do with their distilled spirits.

To that end I’ve decided to leave certain spirits by the wayside. They may have their charms but to me a lot of them are just sophomoric vehicles to deliver ethanol to underage kids looking to explore intoxication. I’ve “enjoyed” Vodkas and Tequilas. They are for the most part blunt instruments. Before anyone gets worked up over what I write about these spirits, please know that just like the type that I have chosen, Rum, there are examples of both Vodka and Tequila that are upstanding and respectable members that have things to bring to a discerning palate, but please be aware that my exposure to these types is biased by my early college experiences which lead me to the ‘blunt instrument’ summation of those spirits. I may revisit those sometime in the future but don’t hold your breath.

As for rum itself, I’ve elected to trim away the obvious filler that surrounds this spirit and only concentrate on the serious ones that remain. So the squeaky clean silver and clear rums are out. They, along with the spiced rums are really ingredients in mixed drinks, not really meant to be explored all on their own. They just have either nothing to contribute or a carefully constructed and factory-same quality that doesn’t interest me. What I’m after is the same as I am with wines. The vintner for wine has only a few things he or she can really take a solid grip on and similar themes run for people who distill spirits.

The rum I’ve started with is called Zaya. It’s from Trinidad and comes in a really distinctive bottle with a huge heel in the bottom. The rum itself has been aged 12 years and is a nice deep caramel color. Much like the wines that I really love, I’m selecting rums based on their age and their maturation in oak barrels. It’s the oak that attracts me. I really love oaky red wines, oaky chardonnays and now oaky rums. I did a little research on rum and discovered that different language-speaking islands in the equatorial belt approach their rums in distinctive ways. The english-speaking islands feature very molasses-forward flavors in their rums while the spanish-speaking rums seem to depress this molasses flavor in their rums.

Zaya is Trinidadian and while shopping I discovered that Trinidad is an English speaking island, so I was expecting a rum dominated by molasses flavors and that’s exactly what I got. A bottle of very soft, very delicious and approachable rum. I found a nice glass and I’ve been sipping it as an evening cordial for a few weeks now. The bottle is very distinctive and the rum inside is aged 12 years and as I’ve said before has a delightful deep caramel color. Nothing is quite like shopping all on your own and taking a shot on something different.

Since this is the first bottle of serious rum that I’ve enjoyed I am going to reserve judgement as I don’t have the palate developed to start forming opinions on each bottle. What I can say is that this rum has what I was after. It’s clearly a definite molasses-forward spirit. The next rum I am going to get is from a Spanish-speaking island so I can compare the strength of the Zaya against the next rum and see which one I prefer. A well-done rum is a delight no matter where it comes from, it’s only until you get to the finer points of aging and in some limited ways the fermentation and distillation where you spend your time establishing one spirit over another.

I’m looking forward to enjoying many more rums and then we’ll see what next is on my list for exploration. Only time will tell. 🙂

Best Bread Ever!

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This recipe takes two days and creates a handy loaf of homemade bread, unit price per loaf is less than 50 Cents, 1 loaf can be a meal.

Ingredients –

  • 3C Water at 100°F
  • 2 Packets of regular Yeast
  • 6.5C of AP Flour
  • 2 tbsp Salt

Procedure – Wake up Yeast in 100° Water for 2-4 minutes. Stir vigorously to get them all distributed evenly. Put salt and flour in mixing bowl, mix them up. Pour water and yeast into mixing bowl and mix until the entire mass is turned into dough and there is no loose flour on the walls of the mixing bowl. If you have a stand mixer, dough hook attachment, 10 seconds for dry mix on 4, then likely 2-5 minutes on 4 to get the dough to form while pouring in the water and yeast. When the dough is completely formed, scoop out and put in a soup pot or plastic bin big enough to handle 4x it’s starting volume. Place pot or bin on countertop and cover. Leave it for 2 hours, then put it in the fridge overnight. Next morning take out the bin or pot, with a serrated knife hack it into 4-5 equal pieces. Prepare a work surface, put down some more flour, grab a hunk of dough and knead it into a ball, you want a taut drumhead surface and a bunched up bottom. Lube up cookie sheet, put bread on cookie sheet spaced an inch or more apart from each other. Melt half stick of butter, brush onto bread loaves. Fill oven-safe bowl with water, heat oven to 350°F. When oven is at 350°F, put bowl of water at the bottom rack, then bread on next highest rack. Bake for 40 minutes. Bread will be fragrant about 30 minutes in and will be an early warning that you are getting close. Pull at 40 minutes, bread should have a thump-able crust.

You can multiply this recipe as much as you like, either for your arm+mixing spoon or the size of your mixer. Recommend that if you want to multiply, mix in batches and set in batches. The dough is viable for 2 weeks in the refrigerator, the longer it goes the more complicated the flavors get as the yeast complete their life-cycle. You can dole out whatever shape bread you want, I prefer the 5 loaf approach because they are handy and makes enough for 4 people + 1 bakers loaf. You could incorporate mixins if you wanted or cover in cheeses or augment the butter or switch fats and go with olive or peanut oil to brush-on or you could skip the fats altogether. Up to you. One important thing to note, this bread requires absolutely NO KNEADING. Bread needs gluten to form properly, gluten can either be kneaded in or ‘waited for’. I elect to wait for gluten to form, makes for a much moister interior and a more satisfying texture.

This recipe is from the “Artisan Bread” recipe available on splendidtable.org. I heard it on the program, made it once, fell in love. Everyone should listen to The Splendid Table! With these loaves made, you can have a loaf or two a day and if you are trying to eat without chemicals and to do so incredibly cheaply, you cannot go wrong. I imagine that if you hollowed out these loaves and put in a thick soup, you’d be able to make bread-bowl-soup, quite delicious, for pennies on the dollar for what you’d pay at Panera, for example.

With good clean water, you know EXACTLY what you are eating. No preservatives, no chemicals, nothing but yeast, water, salt and flour. If you want to use different flours, feel free. Don’t know what happens if you use something that isn’t as balanced as AP Flour. Bread Flour might make a really rough-and-tumble loaf, pastry flour would probably just puddle or flop about. If you attempted to use a different starch, like arrowroot or rice flour, I have no idea what might happen, no gluten, no structure *shrug*