IYA 2009

2009 is the International Year of Astronomy.
I celebrated by purchasing two Galileoscopes for my boys. They come in a kit, are easy to assemble and last night I managed to snap a pic through the telescope - not a great image but I was just holding the camera behind the lens - so not a bad one either!

The kit - as it appears when you open the box.

Here you can see the two halves of the telescope barrel - the lens is safely tucked in the lens-shade in the centre of the box.

The completed instrument - the Junior Grendels abandoned me long before we reached this point but did want to run outside as soon as they could to try it out - still 4 more hours till sundown kids. . .

I really want to try taking some better photographs with a camera fixed to the telescope, but I have to figure out how to do that first! For now I just have to hold the camera very very still behind the lens and hope for the best.

It was the man from Ironbark. . .

It was the man from Ironbark who struck the Sydney town,

He wandered over street and park, he wandered up and down.

He loitered here, he loitered there, till he was like to drop,

Until at last in sheer despair he sought a barber's shop.

"'Ere! shave my beard and whiskers off, I'll be a man of mark,

I'll go and do the Sydney toff up home in Ironbark.

Yes, I have just returned from the big smoke, the would be, could be and possibly should be, capital city of Australia, where attitude goes hand in hand with altitude and sandstone is worth as much as gold in the right location.

The start of the trip was rather inauspicious as 'abide with me' was playing on the onboard entertainment system of the Qantas jet I boarded.

For those who don't recall, this particular hymn is famous as the one played by the band aboard titanic as she slipped beneath the icy North Atlantic.

The flight was utterly uneventful - and thus almost blissful. I had a couple of hours to spare on arrival so I headed out but decided to pass on the Barbershop shave with a cut-throat razor and went instead in search of coffee.

On my travels I discovered what must surely be Australia's most popular fruit store. It must be very good because people were lined up out the front. I went in myself and they must have had a busy day because the only thing they had left was apples.

I had a quick scout through this haven and then found myself wandering up The Strand Arcade. I quick visit to Haigh's for some chocolate to take home and then I spied Elixir, a tiny espresso bar serving coffee made with Campos beans.

I have heard mixed things about it but found that an evening coffee at Elixir is not to be sneezed at - especially with all the Swine Flu going around, sneezing anywhere in Sydney is about the biggest social faux pas this year. The Eastern Style light fruity roast came through well in the ristretto and certainly blossomed in the milk.

It fell apart a little on the texture side and the style of roasting used is not quite what I prefer but the guys at Elixir do a very creditable job and it was most welcome after a long day travelling.

Friday morning however was Clover morning - I've really been wanting to try a clover and every time I have attempted to get to Melbourne to Liar Liar to see what Nolan was doing with his unit over there the trip plans have gone awry. However, here I was in Sydney with a Clover not 200 metres from my hotel!





Mecca is one of the busiest little cafes around and I got there early and was suitably impressed with the amazing coffee you get from one of these machines. It has such a clean taste and the fruit flavours in the coffee are absolutely vibrant. The coffee was a natural processed Yirgacheff and while the typical citrus of this type was evident there was also an amazing berry salad of aromas and flavours that genuinely surprised me. I enjoyed the experience immensely and regret again that their is no Clover in Perth.

One of the very positive things I saw in the Sydney cafes I passed were the obvious efforts they were going to to ensure that their cafes were accessible including this fantastic power ramp for people who use mobility aids:

Bagged it

I recently bought some tea bags - the kind without tea in them.

You may well wonder what use an empty tea bag is - but I'll let you in on a secret, the tea bag you can fill with decent tea is really the only kind worth drinking.

It is even better if the tea bag is full of coffee.
As an experiment I put about 17g of coarse ground coffee into a little Japanese paper sachet that I bought from Teas.com.au.

I placed this in a beaker and added some hot water then allowed to brew for around 4 minutes.

What I got was one of the cleanest tasting coffees I have ever had - I am dying to try a range of coffees in this method but it really was outstandingly clean on the palate and a different, but good way to try coffee as it opened up a whole new palate to taste.

I don't think it would ever become my main preparation method but it was certainly interesting.

I'll post some photos of the method over the weekend but for now I am off the air for a few days as I head over to Sydney.

Friday Night Music

Scraping in before midnight with the sudden realization that the only good music to come out of the 80s came out of New Zealand (which for practical purposes and as a matter of national policy was still living in the 60s at the time).

We'll shortly be visiting to inspect the current length of the white cloud and to determine if New Zealand have left the 80s yet.

AstroBeans

Given that today is the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing I thought it appropriate to take a quick look at the presence of coffee aboard the Apollo 11 spacecraft.

Via EatMeDaily.com I found the following:

"For the first time, coffee was brought up for the astronauts: fifteen cups for each man, with Aldrin requesting black, Michael Collins with sugar, and Neil Armstrong's light and sweet."

And no - they were certainly not drinking 12 ounce $tarbuck$. . .

It probably was freeze dried however.

Friday Night Music

Just a short one tonight - in keeping with the week's unintended theme:

The Big Milk Post

The last few days have got me thinking about milk. This post is a way for me to re-think milk in general and then start looking at what makes a good drinking milk and whether this might be the same as a good steaming milk. I have observed in cafes that barista's value consistency in the milk so that they are not chasing a changing balance of milk fats, proteins and sugars that alter the way milk is steamed. Generally consistency is obtained at the cost of quality - by increasing the volume of milk blended, and by balancing fats, proteins and sugars by adding permeate, large dairies deliver a consistent, but basic, product.

For the barista willing to tolerate a little more (and usually seasonal) variation, there is some pretty good milk available that really offers better support for the coffee. Generally these are milks that are less ‘generic’ in their profile because they are from a specific herd or small dairy region where there is greater control of the factors that influence milk quality.

Sadly, at this point I must confess my past - I was an agriculture and animal husbandry student. I had high hopes of one day striding tall across my own meadow with a hay bale under one arm and a woman under the other.

Sadly I lack the 'tall' and the 'meadow' and although I have been known to buy the odd bale of lucerne hay that is strictly for gardening purposes. I'm not sure you could even fit a miniature cow in our yard!

In my studies we covered all the introductory dairy cow basics – four leg, four stomachs, four teats etc and we had the pleasure of getting up before dawn to milk them – which is an activity that I must confess enjoying. Cows are big and warm and generally cooperative at milking time and make some amazingly contented sounds as the pressure on their udder is reduced. We also studied the various dairy breeds and their characteristics.

I had forgotten much – but happily the intertubes have brought me up-to-date even more than my old textbooks.

Dairy Australia lists the following breeds of cattle and their descriptions - this list does not seem to have changed much in two decades - except for the Zebus at the end, that one is a newbie for sure. My additional comments are in blue.

Holstein Friesians
Originally from Holland. With their distinctive black and white markings, they are Australia's most popular dairy cow – and great milk producers. Higher lactose but less cream than Jersey and Guernsey cattle and are genetically predisposed towards the production of both the A1 and A2 protein in their milk.

Jerseys
From the Island of Jersey in the English Channel. Mostly a pale honey colour, these cows are a smaller breed but they produce delicious creamy milk. They keep on keeping on well into old age. Higher cream content in the milk than most breeds and both Jersey and Guernsey's produce between 25-50% more riboflavin (vitamin B2) in their milk than Holstien/Fresian cows. Some Jersey cattle produce only the A2 protein in their milk - selective breeding has been used to create entire herds that produce only A2 milk.

Guernseys
They too come from the English Channel Islands. They have a quiet nature, a result of tethering. Their cute pink noses and golden yellow colour are highlighted by distinctive white markings. Like the Jersey, Guernseys produce more milk fat (cream) and riboflavin. Prettiest cow to decorate your paddocks with and having milked these on occasion I can attest to their placid nature.

Ayrshire
From Scotland of course! These are good-looking medium-sized cows, with strong facial features, dark browny-red (roan) and white in colour.

Ayrshire milk is considered to be an excellent drinking milk as it is well balanced between fats, proteins and lactose. It has an excellent flavour and is often selected as the 'best tasting' milk in blind taste tests. It also has an unusual characteristic - the fat particles area smaller and more evenly distributed in the milk which makes Ayrshire milk particularly good for secondary dairy products like cheese.

Ayrshire milk is about 3.9% fat by mass and each cow can produce around 80,000 kilograms of milk in its lifetime. There is an Ayrshire producer in the Toodyay area with amazingly good milk in glass bottles - the Avon Valley Dairy and I have enjoyed their milk in the past. I haven't been able to get it lately.

Australian Illawarra Shorthorns
Developed in Australia from the imported Shorthorn breed. These are attractive, chunky cows with a rich reddish colour and occasional flashes of white on their flanks.

Dairy Shorthorns
Travellers with the first fleet, these big, strong cows are bred for milk and beef and are identified by their coats of red with white blotches.

Australian Friesian Sahiwals (AFS)
These stoic cows can put up with a lot! Harsh conditions, hot weather, and those annoying little tics and parasites. They too are red-brown in colour.

Australian Milking Zebus (AMZ)
A new cow on the block, bred to make milk under tough tropical conditions. They come in various colours, but gold and fawn are the most common.

The last four breeds I have not had much experience of but I do remember the cross-breeding program that was underway in the 1980's to develop warm climate dairy herds - it looks like they succeeded with at least two of the approaches.


The goodies in milk:

• Calcium
• (sometime milk is 'fortified' with additional vitamin D which
promotes the absorption of calcium and enhances bone mineralization.
• Protein - milk proteins are complex with a full range of amino acids making it a very good source.
• Potassium
• Vitamin A
• Vitamin B12
• Riboflavin (Vitamin B2)
• Niacin
• Phosphorus
• Lactose (milk sugar)
• Fat (cream)

To be a nice tasting milk, all of the above need to be in balance but the various proportions depend on a number of factors including the breed of cattle, the feed the cattle are eating and the time of year. Ideally you'd want a supply of milk from a dairy that is close by so that the milk does not have to travel too much. In Australia much dairy country has in recent years been put to other uses and very few cities now have the dairy supply in the immediate vicinity to the city.

The milk of Holstein/Friesian cows is a little sweeter due to the higher lactose content of their milk, but slightly less creamy than the milk from Jersey and Guernsey cattle. Holstein/Friesian’s (the black and white cow of familiar diary images) is an amazing producer. They are very fertile and have more milking seasons than other breeds and produce, in volume each day, more milk than other breeds.

The Jersey and Guernsey cows with their higher cream content and favoured for cream production. Cream has a high market value (butter, cheese and a whole host of value added dairy products) so it suits large dairies to ‘skim’ some cream from all their milk supply standardising whole milk to on-sell or use in value-added products.

Dairies LOVE people who drink skim milk!

On average, whole milk has 3.6g of fat per 100 ml of fluid. Normally this amount of fat will change throughout the year – if feed is thin on the ground the cows are able to put less fat into the milk because they are using it themselves. Always with milk you have to remember that the real purpose of production (from the cow’s perspective) is to feed its young. The nature of milk means that it must have fairly high nutritional value as a calf grows fairly rapidly and needs to consume a good amount of milk to mature to the point where it can be weaned to pasture.

Areas that have good pasture cover (green growing stuff) generally have better quality milk than areas where dry fodder such as hay and feed pellets have to substitute for extended periods. Most cattle do get supplementary feed (usually fortified with nutritional additives for good balance) but best flavour in milk seems to occur when green feed is the dominant food.

It is no coincidence then that ‘dairy country’ is almost always an area with rolling hills and good rainfall – perfect for pasture species. All the way from the grass on the hill to the coffee cup is quite a trip, but just as proper selection, roasting and blending of beans is important for the brown half of your latte so milk selection is important for the rest.

Selecting a good milk for steaming is not too difficult.

• It should be as fresh as you can get it, and should have little or no odour (not a strong ‘milky’ smell)
• You need to warm it very slightly to around 15 degrees Celsius. If you try to taste it much colder than this then the cold dulls your senses and hides some defects.
• Sip it lightly letting it flow across your palate and inhale a little air through your mouth then exhale to carry the aromas to your nose.

It should be sweet, have a velvety creamy texture, very slight buttery note – with some experience you may be able to learn what feed the cows have been on (grasses, clovers, lucerne etc all impart different flavours to the milk if they are the main source of fodder). Other things that can change the flavour are bacteriological activity, chemical changes (such as overheating during pasteurisation) or accidental inclusion of foreign material post milking (rare).

The breed of cow and the health of the individual cow can also change the milk flavour. Naturally in large volumes defects resulting from individual animals may not be apparent.

Australian’s love milky coffees, and the same rule for coffee applies to milk – you can make a bad coffee with good milk but you can’t make a good coffee with bad milk.

At least if you have good milk you are in with a chance!

Don't forget - Drink Coffee!

Caffeine Reverses Memory Impairment In Mice With Alzheimer's Symptoms

Shared via AddThis

Science Daily carries a report from the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease describing a critical new research finding involving mice that have been genetically engineered to develop Alzheimer's Disease.

The study finds that not only does caffeine have a preventative benefit but in sufficient doses (around 500mg per day) it can reverse the build-up of beta amyloid in the brain and restore some memory function previously lost.

This opens up the possibility of human clinical trials with a view to determining of caffeine is a viable treatment of Alzheimer's Disease.


Full details can be found in the back-to-back journal articles reporting the research findings:

Gary W Arendash, Takashi Mori, Chuanhai Cao, Malgorzata Mamcarz, Melissa Runfeldt, Alexander Dickson, Kavon Rezai-Zadeh, Jun Tan, Bruce A Citron, Xiaoyang Lin, Valentina Echeverria, and Huntington Potter.

Caffeine Reverses Cognitive Impairment and Decreases Brain Amyloid Levels in Aged Alzheimer's Disease Mice. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Volume 17:3 (July 2009)

Chuanhai Cao, John R Cirrito, Xiaoyang Lin, Lilly Wang, Deborah K Verges, Alexander Dickson, Malgorzata Mamcarz, Chi Zhang, Takashi Mori, Gary W Arendash, David M Holzman, and Huntington Potter.

Caffeine Suppresses Amyloid Levels in Plasma and Brain of Alzheimer's Disease Transgenic Mice. Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, Volume 17:3 (July 2009)

Brain Surgery

Via Orac at Respectful Insolence

Milk Head2Head

Following yesterday's post on A2 milk I decided to follow it up with a head to head milk challenge.

A2 with the Beta Casein difference up against Bannister Downs, a top notch local.

First things first - milk preference is ENTIRELY subjective - we all like different things in milk so I will report on two thing - the observable facts and my subjective experience of the final results.

I purchased one litre of each milk at Sister's IGA in Joondalup. Each had the same 'best before' date, 12 July.

I measured 200ml of each - enough for a small flat white.

My first test was odour - milk that has a strong 'milky' smell often overpowers the coffee - neither had a strong odour, in fact the A2 was almost odourless. The Bannister Downs had a very slight fresh milk smell.

I had not intentionally considered colour as a factor - until I looked at each jug side by side. There was a distinct difference with the Bannister Downs having a slight creamy colour and the A2 an almost pristine white. I'm hoping it shows up in the photo but the colour difference, although slight, was apparent to the naked eye.




I poured two shots in identical stainless steel cups and then commenced steaming the milk.

The very first difference I noticed was the time to heat - the A2 'ran hot' as in it heated up much faster than the Bannister Downs. (I ran the steam wand for 10 seconds before each to try and minimise differences in temperature and pressure).

Both gave a fine creamy, glossy microfoam although I'd have to say that the A2 seemed slightly finer.

It did not seem to be as easy to intergrate the foam into the milk with the A2 and this shows in the final pours with the Bannister Downs being much more responsive for latte art purposes.

However - it is the taste that is critical for me. Mrs Grendel and I both tasted the results and it is a split verdict.

The Bannister Downs was distinctly creamier and richer and I would suggest that it might have a higher cream proportion - both colour and mouthfeel suggest this.

The A2 however had a much lighter taste and did not dominate the coffee at all which surprised and pleased me.

The Bannister Downs did have a more prominent flavour profile, which while pleasant, would not necessarily allow some more subtle coffee blends to strut their stuff.


The Verdict

I liked the A2 better with this coffee - it is a high quality milk for sure but you are likely to suffer from 'sticker shock' at a price of $3.04 for a litre.

Mrs Grendel liked the Bannister Downs and noted in particular its additional creaminess. The price also is a little easier to swallow at $1.99 for a litre.

As I discussed yesterday, A2 milk is claimed to have a number of health benefits for people with particular conditions. On the current evidence I would not be able to support that it can actually do what is claimed in that respect, however that doesn't mean that it is not a high quality dairy product.

On balance I think the Bannister Downs has the edge - costing 1/3 less with a creamy profile and good balanced palate it is a great local milk. The A2 is interesting and while I personally preferred it I would have a very hard time justifying the additional expense for the very slight difference in the cup.

Friday Night Music

This will date me somewhat. . .

A relative bought me this record for my 11th birthday. A travesty in many ways (due to its utter bastardisation of some great music) it nevertheless did its job. I am now and always will be an appreciator of classical music. Ok I've moved on from classical through baroque and into early music but THAT journey probably would not have happened unless I'd once listed to this record until it wore out.

I thus love it and hate it in equal measure.

A2 Milk

I saw a carton of milk recently being used for coffee - and it was not a carton I had seen before - it had 'A2' on the side in quite dramatic font.

A2 Beta Casein is one of the proteins in cow's milk but is not exclusively present in the milk of all cows usually occuring with another protein - A1. The gene for producing only the A2 Beta Casein occurs naturally in some cattle and they can be DNA tested to see if they have the correct genotype. The main difference is that A1 has a Histidine amino acid while A2 has a Proline amino acid.

It is claimed that the Proline Amino acid can help you digest through the release of bioactive peptides. I say ‘claimed’ because although there are a number of studies cited in support I note that several of the Journal’s such as “Medical Hypotheses” are renowned as less-than-stellar sources of authoritative data since they are not peer reviewed journals and have a reputation for publishing material that is often little more than quackery.

It has been claimed, for example, that A2 milk is less allergenic than A1 however clinical tests have demonstrated that there is little if any allergenic difference between the two.

It has also been claimed that conditions as diverse as autism, diabetes and heart disease can be linked to A1 milk, but not A2. This is a dangerously misleading claim since again there is as yet little evidence that suggests that A1 milk in normal quantities is at all harmful or that A2 is clinically beneficial (to any greater or lesser degree than A1).

Essentially what you get is milk. You pay a little extra in the hope that may what is claimed it will do – but you can’t really know.

For the purposes of making coffee however you may inadvertently be hitting onto a good thing for totally unrelated reasons.

The production of A2 milk requires close attention to herd and production facilities and these are audited by the A2 corporation.

It is also ‘small batch’ production comparatively which means that the overall standards may be higher than at some of the bulk dairies.

It is certainly fresh and creamy and makes beautiful microfoam – but I have to point out, NONE of that is because it has one slightly different protein and is likely to be either confirmation bias (I paid extra so it MUST be good!) or the result of the aforementioned quality control.

Given that we have producers such as Bannister Downs producing superb quality ordinary A1 milk that to my tastes is superior to the A2 milk then I can’t see any reason why you need to pay extra for health benefits that probably do not exist.

(Image via Wikipedia)

Bek's blog: Utegate, as told by LOLCATS

Bek's blog: Utegate, as told by LOLCATS