Tough Saturday

Slow day today.

My old friend Mike is visiting. We have been providing him with a Florida base while he starts a new business and decides where he will finally live. He sold his home in New Hampshire in 2022.

My wife is starting a long fast. She thinks she will go 21 days. But there is a loophole. She only fasts until 6 p.m.

Mike likes ribs. She likes ribs. I have some ribs I need to get rid of while they still have some flavor. They are in the smoker right now. One rack of baby backs and one rack of real ribs.

I have avoided baby backs for years. They’re small. They seem dry and tough to me. They’re expensive. Spare ribs are big, juicy, delicious, tender, and cheap. I have never been able to see the appeal of baby backs. My feeling is that it’s a gimmick that appeals to women, who always seem to get suckered in by wrong food. Women eat filets instead of rib eyes. That’s all I need to say about that.

It’s small. It’s cute. It’s more expensive. It has less fat. It must be better! This is the kind of logic that drove my mother to pay $18 for one bar of soap in the 1980’s. So today, $100.

I saw baby backs on sale, so I grabbed two racks and froze them. I smoked a rack a while ago. They were okay, and that’s the nicest thing I can say.

I rejoined Sam’s Club a while ago, and they have good prices on never-frozen spare ribs, so I now have even less reason to buy baby backs.

Offering fresh spare ribs to Southerners at good prices is like setting corn out for deer. It’s not fair.

I asked some people what to do with baby backs. Some guy who swears they’re wonderful said to cook them until you’re between 192° and 194°. Go by temperature, not time.

I’m trying it, but it seems ridiculous. If one part of a rack of ribs is at 192°, another part could be at 185°. I’m using a probe thermometer anyway.

Truthfully, I think I should just smoke them until the wood is gone, wrap them in foil, and bake at 200° until edible.

My electric smoker doesn’t produce smoke rings in meat. I am trying to cheat by adding a tiny amount of pink curing salt to my rub, but you can’t taste a smoke ring, so it doesn’t matter.

I’m not making anything exciting to go with the ribs. Robert Irvine’s cole slaw recipe, with small changes. I think he uses too much sugar, and I am too lazy to go out and buy white wine vinegar. We’ll be having roasted Sam’s Club corn. I wrapped it in foil with salt and butter, and I’ll roast at 425°.

My wife might persuade me to make bread for Texas toast. She really hates American factory bread.

I finished making a new stout. I call it Steppe Brother imperial stout, but I may change the name. There are so many breweries now, the good, easy names are all taken. I considered “Moose and Squirrel.” Taken. I’m now thinking “Fearless Leader.” Crazy Ivan is taken. Tsar Bomba is taken. There is no point in even discussing Black Russian. Maybe I’ll call it KGB Boot Polish.

I took my dry stout recipe and increased everything but the water, and I used Kveik Lutra yeast. I took a sample from the fermenter yesterday, and it’s wonderful. Like a dark chocolate milkshake with some vodka hidden in it. I may increase the bitterness a little bit next time.

Most beers get all of their bitterness from hops, but dark beers get part of their bitterness from burned grain. If I make a change, I’ll have to decide which ingredient to increase.

I wonder if dark beers were invented by people who were low on hops.

Some guy on a forum is arguing with me, claiming dark beers don’t rely on roasted grain for bitterness. That’s silly. Burned grain is bitter, like roasted coffee. If you go to sites about brewing grain, you will see that they say dark grains impart bitterness.

Now I’m wondering if the sharp flavors from roasted barley are acidic, not bitter. Anyway, they balance sweetness.

You’re all caught up on the news from the Heavily Armed Gated North Florida Compound. I can only imagine your excitement.