This week's wines

This week I started 3 new batches of wine: Raspberry jam, persimmon, and apple.

My wife was wanting some champagne and so I thought I would make half of the 5 gallons of apple as still and the other half sparkling.

We have two wild persimmon trees in our yard which still had some ripe persimmons above deer height and so I picked about 3lbs to try my first gallon of persimmon wine.

Lastly, I had been wanting to try a raspberry for some time and so decided to make a gallon of that as well. The jam prices are quite a bit higher than the blackberry jam prices but it may be worth it if it is as good or better than the blackberry wine.

Reverse Seared Burger

Grilling burgers the other night and decided to try a new method that I had been reading about..."reverse sear". The reverse sear method is exactly what it implies, searing at the end of the cook instead of the beginning. I have to say that this method produced the juiciest burger that I have ever cooked on my big green egg.

This method can be used for both burgers and steak and utilizes the "low and slow" method of cooking which tenderizes and holds in most of the juices during the cook and the sear at the end creates that beautiful caramelizing of flavors that everyone loves so much. From what I have read and contrary to popular thought, searing does nothing to seal the meat and hold in juices and in fact extracts juices from the meat.

1/4 tsp of fresh ground pepper

1/4 tsp of garlic powder

1/4 tsp of onion powder

1/4 tsp of basil

Mix all of the above into the burger and form patties. Cook burgers at 225 F for approximately 10 mins. per side or until the internal temperature is approximately 140 F. Remove burgers to rest and open all vents so that temp gets up to searing temperature of approximately 600 F. Brush with oil and then salt and place burgers back on grill to sear for approximately 3 minutes per side.

Credit to amazingribs.com and meathead for this recipe which I adapted to the Big Green Egg.