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Episode 78

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Published on:

30th Jan 2023

About Gas Stoves, Our One-Minute Cooking Tip, An Interview About Opening A Brewery, Strip Steaks, Ramen-Style Eggs & More!

There's a lot about gas stoves in the news these days. And the matter is more complicated than you might first think. Don't listen to the screaming pundits. Let us help you make sense of the noise.

We're veteran cookbook authors Bruce Weinstein & Mark Scarbrough. We've written over three dozen cookbooks including THE GREAT BIG PRESSURE COOKER BOOK, with over 500 recipes written for BOTH electric and stovetop pressure cookers. (You can find it here.)

We're talking about the controversy surrounding gas stoves in the United States right now. We've got a one-minute cooking tip for steaks. Bruce interviews entrepreneur Nils Johnson, one of the new owners of the Little Red Barn Brewery in Winsted, CT. And we tell you what's making us happy in food this week.

Here are the segments of this episode of COOKING WITH BRUCE & MARK:

[00:58] Our thoughts on the controversy about gas stoves. 


[17:01] Our one-minute cooking tip: a shortcut to make store-bought steaks taste like steakhouse, dry-aged steaks. 


[18:28] Bruce interviews entrepreneur Nils Johnson, one of the owners of Little Red Barn Brewery in Winsted, Connecticut. 


[27:30] What's making us happy in food this week? Better hard-cooked eggs and strip steaks!

Transcript
Bruce:

Hey, I'm Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast

Bruce:

Cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Mark:

And I'm Mark Scarbrough.

Mark:

And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen cookbooks, including our

Mark:

latest, the Instant Air Fryer Bible.

Mark:

We just did a Milk Street cooking class on air fryers, and we love

Mark:

the air fryer more than we can say.

Mark:

You should check out that book, the Instant Air Fryer, Bible, wherever

Mark:

cookbooks are sold, mostly , so you can maybe see, uh, peak

Mark:

inside our Kitchen since it's all.

Mark:

Actually right there, but we're not talking about air fryers instead,

Mark:

we're going a long way away from that.

Mark:

Oh yeah.

Mark:

We wanna wade into the controversy about gas stoves.

Mark:

We wanna have our traditional one minute cooking chip.

Mark:

Bruce has an interview with Nils Johnson, the owner of Little Red

Mark:

Barn Brewery, and a discussion about starting up a brewery from scratch.

Mark:

Always an interesting thing and we're gonna talk about what's

Mark:

making us happy in food this week.

Mark:

So let's get started.

Bruce:

So we wanna talk about gas stoves today.

Bruce:

I know it's a political minefield.

Bruce:

We are being barraged on every side.

Bruce:

, use your gas stove, don't use your gas stove.

Bruce:

They're taking away your gas stoves.

Bruce:

They're not taking away your gas stoves.

Bruce:

And we wanna talk a bit about how we got to this point.

Bruce:

Well, how did we start getting to this, this point?

Bruce:

Well, what triggered this whole point was in the United States, in the US was

Bruce:

last December, Richard Trump Good, Jr.

Bruce:

A member of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, spoke about the

Bruce:

growing body of research demonstrating.

Bruce:

The harms of gas stoves, which is not anything new, and this is

Bruce:

something he's, you know, we've talked about for a long time.

Bruce:

But then the problem was a month later on Bloomberg News, Keith said,

Bruce:

products that can't be made safe can be banned and all hell broke loose.

Mark:

Yes.

Mark:

That's just absolutely what happened.

Mark:

And let's talk about this for a minute, and let's not talk about gas stoves

Mark:

versus electric stoves, and let's try to step away from the politics

Mark:

of this for a minute and just think through this issue of gas stoves.

Mark:

Here is the truth of the matter.

Mark:

Um, it's not about gas stoves, it's about the culture we live in.

Mark:

In the last 30 years, the natural gas and propane industry have made an incredibly

Mark:

successful run at convincing all of us that gas is the best way to cook.

Mark:

They did this, of course, in order to sell natural gas.

Mark:

And propane.

Mark:

But there's also intuitive parts about this too.

Bruce:

Well, yeah, I mean, you think about when you cook over

Bruce:

gas, you're cooking over fire.

Bruce:

It is just Yeah, it is.

Bruce:

It is in our dna, n a, I mean, we started . I doubt that, but Okay, go ahead.

Bruce:

You know, when we started cooking food as cavemen, we cooked it over fire.

Bruce:

So I still don't

Bruce:

think it's in our DNA , but Okay.

Mark:

So there's something primal about cooking over fire.

Mark:

There is.

Mark:

That is exciting.

Mark:

And it's, it's, you want to

Mark:

do it.

Mark:

And for a lot of people have good memories of campfires, of being

Mark:

a kid somewhere with a campfire, being on a retreat with a campfire.

Mark:

It tags all kinds of sense.

Mark:

Memories inside of us making s'mores outside, maybe when

Mark:

we're camping somewhere, or as a little kid in the backyard.

Mark:

There's all kinds of ways that cooking over gas really tags important.

Mark:

Nostalgic memories in his an let us also say, and this is actually accurate,

Mark:

that gas can be more responsive than many forms of electric cooking.

Bruce:

It, can you turn the gas up?

Bruce:

You turn the gas down, you instantly have a higher and lower flame, and on many.

Bruce:

Not all, but on many electric style cooktops, it takes a while for the

Bruce:

temperature to change because you've heated up a glass surface and now

Bruce:

that glass surface has gotta change.

Bruce:

And so it's not always instant.

Mark:

And so I, I, I should also say that, and this is going back a

Mark:

long ways, but many years ago, got a decade ago, Bruce and I used to.

Mark:

Teach cooking classes on Holland America Cruises.

Mark:

And we did this because we got to have a beautiful cruise.

Mark:

They gave us a beautiful state room with a balcony.

Mark:

We got complete guest privileges.

Mark:

We're getting paid for the job, but we got a nice cruise and I got to go

Mark:

places like Easter Island and Pitt.

Mark:

Karen Island that I wouldn't get to go normally in my life.

Mark:

So this was all a beautiful perk of teaching on Holland America.

Mark:

And as you probably know, ships don't have open flames.

Mark:

You can figure out why ships don't have open flames and why they

Mark:

don't wanna have open flames.

Mark:

So ships cook mostly on induction, and we did all our cooking demos on induction.

Mark:

And this is long before the political explosion of all this.

Mark:

I always said when we redo our kitchen, yes we have a gas,

Mark:

well, we have a propane stove.

Mark:

We don't have any natural gas at our house because we lose so rurally.

Mark:

So we have a gas stove, but we run it on propane.

Mark:

But nonetheless, I always said when we ever, we redo our kitchen, I'm

Mark:

gonna redo it to induction burning.

Mark:

It had nothing to do with the current political controversy.

Bruce:

No.

Bruce:

We like induction because it's quick, it's responsive.

Bruce:

Yep.

Bruce:

And.

Bruce:

Easy because it's an electronic control.

Bruce:

It's easy to set it to a specific temperature.

Bruce:

When you turn your gas stove on medium or low, you don't actually

Bruce:

know what temperature you're setting, you're you're paying at.

Bruce:

But an induction burner, you can actually set the burner to 200 degrees to 2300.

Bruce:

Three 20.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

So it's.

Bruce:

Very precise.

Mark:

So now we've come to this moment in which this man has made a claim about,

Mark:

you know, products that can't be fixed, should be banned, and yada, yada yada.

Mark:

And this broke out the entire outrage cycle that has gone on now.

Mark:

And this is what I wasn't, I just wanna come down to and talk about

Mark:

for a second, is we live inside of a marketing and political bubble and.

Mark:

It is engaged in creating outrage, desire, all of that inside all of us.

Mark:

The desire for a gas stove, they were better somehow.

Mark:

You were up if you cooked on gas.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, it's kind of funny cuz Bruce and I lived in a rent control department in Manhattan

Mark:

and we had a gas stove and we were hardly.

Mark:

Up when we lived in Matt Manhattan, to say the least, no, that was, we were hard.

Mark:

We were trying to desperately figure out how to pay the rent, so we were hardly

Mark:

up in any way, but we had a gas stove.

Mark:

Did that make us somehow more refined?

Mark:

No.

Mark:

It was just what came with the apartment when we got it and we live

Mark:

in this just kind of unbelievable.

Mark:

Bubble of manipulation.

Mark:

And it, it exists on a political level with outrage.

Mark:

It exists with industry lobbyists convincing us about gas stoves

Mark:

versus other kind of stoves.

Mark:

And it's very hard in this bubble to figure out exactly what

Mark:

is going on because it's all, it's all, what do I wanna say?

Mark:

It's all manipulated to get a response out of you.

Bruce:

So in the end, when it comes to.

Bruce:

You have a choice and you still have a choice.

Bruce:

You're gonna have a choice for a long time, whether you want to cook with gas

Bruce:

or propane or electric, and even within those categories you have choices.

Bruce:

Let's talk a little bit about those choices.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

Well, you mean in terms of cooking?

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

That what, what are your choices when you go to choose a gas stove or propane

Bruce:

stove versus what are your choices when you go to choose an electric stove?

Mark:

Well, what are the pros and cons?

Mark:

Well, in an electric stove, it depends on the kind you get.

Mark:

Coil stove such as my mom had when I was growing up.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

isn't very responsive.

Mark:

It is more efficient in modern terms because of the way electricity is

Mark:

produced versus the way sometimes natural gas is produced not all times.

Mark:

So it is more efficient as a way to, uh, cook.

Mark:

It can also be more expensive with rising electricity rates.

Bruce:

This is true electricity.

Bruce:

All over the US are going through the roof.

Bruce:

So the cost of cooking on electric is going to be something you have to

Bruce:

figure in if you choose to go electric.

Bruce:

Now, there are other forms of electric that don't use as much power.

Bruce:

Part of why those coils, mark talked about use a lot of power is these are

Bruce:

metal coils that heat up red hot, right?

Bruce:

And so that takes a lot of electricity to heat them up red hot.

Bruce:

Induction Mark talked about, we used on the ship uses magnetic waves.

Bruce:

And the magnetic waves actually heat up the metal of the pan

Bruce:

without creating heat themselves.

Bruce:

So they use much less energy.

Bruce:

Right.

Bruce:

And they're instant.

Bruce:

They're instant on.

Bruce:

They're instant off.

Mark:

That's right.

Mark:

And they are incredibly efficient, the induction burners, but they don't

Mark:

give you the thrill of gas or propane, and let's just face it, they don't.

Mark:

The thrill of gas and propane is lighting a fire or clicking on a fire, as it

Mark:

were, and cooking and yes, that's right.

Mark:

Most stoves in gas stoves in the United States are not

Mark:

vented to the outside of the.

Mark:

And so there is a methane problem in the house and there

Mark:

is a toxin problem in this.

Mark:

That's not a joke, but there is with Windex too.

Mark:

So part of that's true.

Mark:

It's absolutely true.

Mark:

So part of the outrage, manipulation, desire, culture we live in, it's crazy.

Mark:

Let me give you an example.

Mark:

The price of eggs.

Mark:

As you may or may not know, inflation has cooled dramatically

Mark:

in the United States, but currently the current outrage manufacturer

Mark:

is all about the price of eggs.

Mark:

Now listen, there was a huge avian flu outbreak.

Mark:

The NA US egg industry lost millions of chickens in the last year.

Mark:

This point, all those chickens have been replaced, and what happened

Mark:

is the price of eggs escalated because of the lack of birds.

Mark:

All those birds have been replaced.

Mark:

Industry profits are up.

Mark:

Over a thousand percent year over year for eggs, and the price

Mark:

of eggs have not calmed down.

Mark:

So there was a shortage, the price jumped.

Mark:

Now there's no shortage, but the price is staying high, and inside of that,

Mark:

you are being manipulated to believe.

Mark:

Eggs are a product, or the price of eggs is a product of inflation.

Mark:

In fact, there's much more going on behind the scenes than any of us

Mark:

is conscious of, because again, we live in this desire, outrage bubble.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

And we live in a society of corporate greed.

Bruce:

And so the price of gasoline, the price of eggs, Things that can come down

Bruce:

once the shortages and those issues are resolved don't because of corporate greed.

Bruce:

Now, in the end, does that help society?

Bruce:

In some ways, yes, because retirement funds go up, because those stocks go up.

Bruce:

So there is a plus side of some of that, but not for everybody, right?

Bruce:

Not everybody has money investing in these.

Mark:

I mean, just think about it over.

Mark:

Year, we had reporters hanging out in front of gas stations,

Mark:

and then we had reporters hanging out, you know, in some other isor.

Mark:

And now we have reporters hanging out in front of eggs because

Mark:

it's a story that gets traction because you hear it and hear it.

Mark:

And hear it and hear it.

Mark:

And this is the same way that we have always been manipulated.

Mark:

We've been manipulated.

Mark:

And I'm not suggesting there's, and when I say manipulated, let me back up.

Mark:

I'm not suggesting there's anything nefarious about it.

Mark:

I'm suggesting this is.

Mark:

Marketing how news, how all of attention grabbing works in a capitalist culture.

Mark:

This is how it

Bruce:

works.

Bruce:

It started with advertising, right?

Bruce:

I mean, advertising is manipulation and back, of course, in the

Bruce:

forties and fifties, and smoke camel cigarettes and drink.

Bruce:

Budweiser beer or whatever it was, was all a way to get you to want something.

Mark:

So let's admit it.

Mark:

Let's, here's my food take.

Mark:

Let's admit that we've been manipulated by the gas industry to thinking it's better.

Mark:

Let's admit that there are ways that gas is really fun to cook

Mark:

on, and it really works well.

Mark:

Let's admit that there.

Mark:

Are problems with gas that it does in fact leak.

Mark:

Methane and gas stoves are not vented to the outside.

Mark:

And let's admit that in the current moment we are being manipulated

Mark:

into stances and outrage, and let's take it all back and step way back

Mark:

and say, okay, what's best for me?

Mark:

What's best for my family?

Mark:

For example, right now, Bruce and I.

Mark:

Be able to change out our stove.

Mark:

It's not because we necessarily don't want to, but listen, I right

Mark:

now in our lives, I don't want to go spend 7,000, $10,000 on a new stove.

Mark:

I just don't wanna do it.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

So we wouldn't change out our ga, our propane stove of propane

Mark:

again, cuz we live so rurally.

Mark:

So we can't do that.

Mark:

I might think to myself, Hmm, maybe I should.

Mark:

And there is some difference between propane and natural gas, we should say.

Mark:

But at the same time, this is what we can do right now.

Bruce:

There are some cooking methods though that I will say tend to work

Bruce:

better with one over the other.

Bruce:

And that's walk cooking.

Bruce:

And we've talked a lot about walk cooking and Asian cooking

Bruce:

in this podcast and walk.

Bruce:

Cooking for the most part is better when you have a nice.

Bruce:

Big jet flame, right?

Bruce:

That is how it works best.

Bruce:

And it's interesting cuz you know, Kenji Lopez t wrote the book VK last year.

Bruce:

It was a huge bestselling book about how to cook and walks.

Bruce:

And when he went on tour for this book, he had with him a walk that was an

Bruce:

induction walk and he had an induction burner that fit the walk perfectly.

Bruce:

So the walk fit into this concave bowl of an induction burner.

Bruce:

Cuz the way induction burners work is they create.

Bruce:

in the pan where the pan touches the cook surface, right?

Bruce:

So this cook surface was curved, which made the entire bottom of

Bruce:

the walk from the bottom of the bowl all the way up to the sides,

Bruce:

a heated cooking surface, right?

Bruce:

And that's brilliant, but that's really the only way you're gonna

Bruce:

get the same effect in a walk with electric that you would get in gas.

Bruce:

But otherwise, Most things can be cooked either way.

Mark:

Yeah, and, and again, I just wanna say that if Bruce and I redid our

Mark:

kitchen, I have this theory that I would like the oven and stove to go away.

Mark:

I would like to build a big center island with a hood over it.

Mark:

I would like to have induction burners that I can pull out from underneath.

Mark:

I can put them on my butcher box.

Mark:

Pounder of my island, I can make whatever I'm making on as many burners as I want.

Mark:

And at the end of the night, I can wipe them down and put them back in

Mark:

storage under the, the, the block.

Mark:

And I would have, uh, basically a speed rack oven.

Mark:

As a chef does an electric speed you black oven.

Mark:

That's how I would do it.

Bruce:

Imagine living without a stove.

Bruce:

I think it's actually really kind of a cool idea.

Bruce:

I don't think we would ever sell our house.

Bruce:

No.

Bruce:

If we went, cause most people want stove.

Mark:

People wanna walk in and see the Viking or the wolf and you know, they

Mark:

wanna see this really fancy stove.

Mark:

But I just wanna say that Bruce and I wrote 12 cookbooks on a.

Mark:

Crappy Manhattan, uh, gas stove.

Mark:

It tilted it.

Mark:

Didn't even have a gas oven.

Mark:

Don't have

Bruce:

it had a gas oven too.

Bruce:

Yeah.

Bruce:

It wasn't even an electric, it wasn't even a dual fuel.

Bruce:

It was really an old crappy tilted down into the left.

Bruce:

It was a pilot light.

Bruce:

Yeah, right.

Bruce:

It was crazy.

Bruce:

Yes.

Bruce:

The oven had a pilot light.

Bruce:

I didn't, it wasn't even an electric ignition.

Mark:

No.

Mark:

It had a pilot light.

Mark:

Yeah, it, it sloped back into the lift and we wrote 11 cookbooks on

Mark:

that crappy old stove, and it was gas and we were certainly not up.

Mark:

So the, let's say, here's the big takeaway is just step back and think

Mark:

about the way that all of our desires for.

Mark:

Food in the food industry and all of our desire on many other

Mark:

levels are manipulated, massaged, created, fabricated around us.

Mark:

What does that have to do with what you want?

Mark:

If you wanna have the same stove as your neighbor, and that's really

Mark:

important to you, bully for you if you wanna make other choices.

Mark:

Bully for you.

Mark:

I, I find it all just really important occasionally just to

Mark:

step back and say, look, we've all been trained to think certain ways.

Mark:

We've all then been manipulated into holding those as beliefs,

Mark:

and in fact, maybe sometimes we should just step back and do what

Mark:

we think is right for ourselves.

Bruce:

Before we get to segment two, our one minute cooking dip, I want to ask

Bruce:

you to please subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast from.

Bruce:

You won't miss a single episode and leave us a rating.

Bruce:

Leave us a comment, just go down to the bottom of wherever it is you get

Bruce:

your podcast and click five stars.

Bruce:

Please.

Bruce:

That would be nice.

Bruce:

And just say anything.

Bruce:

Say nice podcast.

Bruce:

Love these guys.

Bruce:

It all helps with the analytics.

Bruce:

The more comments, the more people find out about us, and we are unsponsored.

Bruce:

We love to talk about whatever we want to talk about.

Bruce:

And so we get to do that because like gas stoves and

Mark:

eggs and all that, which we couldn't do if we were sponsored by somebody

Bruce:

and we get to do it because you listen and because you.

Bruce:

Like us and cuz you review this podcast.

Bruce:

So share it like it.

Bruce:

And on to segment two.

Mark:

This is our traditional one minute cooking tip, and this

Mark:

time it's all about fresh steaks.

Bruce:

If you want to know how to make a fresh steak taste like

Bruce:

a dry, Age steakhouse steak.

Bruce:

All you have to do is take some powdered dried mushrooms like sha, you know,

Bruce:

dried shiitakes, put them in your spice grinder, and a little white

Bruce:

pepper and a few drops of soy sauce.

Bruce:

Rub those on the steaks, let them sit for about an hour.

Bruce:

What that does is it just gives it this umami.

Bruce:

Mm.

Bruce:

Funkiness that you only get mm-hmm.

Bruce:

from a dry age steak.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, the interior of the steak, we will admit, does not taste like a dry age steak.

Mark:

No.

Mark:

But the outside does.

Mark:

There's enough material from the dried mushrooms, white pepperoni

Mark:

sauce on the outside of the steak that you can almost fool yourself

Mark:

that this is a long dry age steak.

Mark:

The kind that you'd pay big bucks for an a steakhouse on just a run

Mark:

of the mill strip steak or ribeye.

Mark:

Up next in Segment three, Bruce's interview with NIS Johnson.

Mark:

He is the one of the owners, I should say, right, one of the owners of Little

Mark:

Barn Brewery in Winsted, Connecticut.

Mark:

And this is always an interesting subject for us because we love

Mark:

interviewing food entrepreneurs.

Mark:

People who have stepped out at opened a food business on

Mark:

their own despite the odds.

Mark:

And believe me, if you know about Winsted, Connecticut, there were a lot of odds.

Bruce:

Today I am very excited to be speaking with Nils Johnson.

Bruce:

He is the owner of Little Red Barn Brewery in Winsted, Connecticut.

Bruce:

Man, they have some amazing beers, great atmosphere, food,

Bruce:

trucks come in live music.

Bruce:

You need to go down there and check it out.

Bruce:

And today we're gonna talk to Nils about what it's like to be a be your brewer

Bruce:

full-time and to open your own business.

Nils:

So, hey, Hey Bruce.

Nils:

Uh, thanks for having us on the show.

Bruce:

Oh, it's my pleasure.

Bruce:

You opened your craft beer brewery about three years ago, just before

Bruce:

Covid in Winsted, and for people who don't know, that's Litchfield County.

Bruce:

It's up near the Berkshires, and I've seen your brewery, a ton of

Bruce:

equipment, huge space, but you didn't start out in that huge space.

Bruce:

Tell me about your journey that brought you to be a professional beer.

Nils:

It's an interesting journey.

Nils:

It actually really started when my partner Matt, got a Mr.

Nils:

Beer kit from his, uh, wife for Christmas.

Nils:

Uh, he made a pretty horrible beer, but he fell in love with

Nils:

the, uh, the concepts of it.

Nils:

And then, uh, his brother, uh, Nathan got involved.

Nils:

They were brewing into the kitchen and, uh, I loved to sample beer.

Nils:

So they got, they dragged us, uh, dragged us in, and, uh, we had a blast.

Nils:

And finally, our families are, particularly our wifes, uh, hated the

Nils:

smell of, uh, the, the brewing process.

Nils:

So we had to find a new home and, uh, got blessed.

Nils:

My father had a, uh, old horse barn on his property, a little red barn.

Nils:

So, you know, that's where our club started, really took off as in a little

Nils:

red barn in bar camps to Connecticut.

Bruce:

Back there.

Bruce:

You were just brewing beer for yourself, right?

Nils:

Yeah.

Nils:

We would get together every Sunday morning.

Nils:

We would brew beer, we would take out the Coleman stove, make breakfast,

Nils:

and uh, listen to the fifties, sixties music, sing, dance, drink, and brew beer.

Nils:

It was no intentions other than just having some.

Bruce:

So how did that grow into making beer for other people?

Nils:

Well, you know, we were giving the beer away for gifts and having a blast.

Nils:

And there was one, uh, festival that we went to that, uh,

Nils:

raised money for fidelco dogs.

Nils:

There were 10 to 12 established breweries there, but, uh, we knew

Nils:

the owners said, Hey guys, hand out some of your home brewers.

Nils:

Have some fun with it and, you know, get some.

Nils:

And we noticed that we had won the longer lines at the event, but it was

Nils:

really at the end of the night when vendors came up saying, Hey, people are

Nils:

raving about the home brewers porter.

Nils:

Can we try it?

Nils:

And we gave it to 'em like, wow, this is great.

Nils:

Where do you guys brew this?

Nils:

And we're like, oh, we brewed it in a barn, . And they go, no way.

Nils:

You know, who do you guys work for?

Nils:

This is really good.

Nils:

Like, no, no.

Nils:

We brewed this in the barn and.

Nils:

That's when we went from a club, we called ourself a brewery in training, and the

Nils:

seed was set to, uh, what you see now.

Bruce:

What was the transition like from that little red barn that you

Bruce:

were brewing for yourselves to this beautiful, huge space you have in Winsted?

Nils:

Well, what uh, we did is we set a lot of little benchmarks, you know,

Nils:

you know, uh, cause I am conservative.

Nils:

My, uh, my partners Matt, Nate knew from the start this is what they wanted to

Nils:

do, and they believed in the concept.

Nils:

I'm a little more cautious.

Nils:

. So we kept sending these benchmarks and we kept meeting

Nils:

them, which kind of surprised me.

Nils:

And we started doing public tastings.

Nils:

You know, if someone were having a party, we would donate our beer, we would talk

Nils:

about it, we'd get feedback, and it really kind of, uh, got to the point where, uh,

Nils:

uh, it was a full, full steam ahead and we had something that people believed in.

Bruce:

That's pretty amazing that you were willing to just give away your product to

Bruce:

see what people thought and to improve it.

Bruce:

A lot of people wouldn't be willing to do.

Nils:

Well, you know, you know, branding's very important.

Nils:

And again, I, I guess, uh, again, being conservative, I was more looking

Nils:

for ways out and this was my way.

Nils:

Hey, you guys, you know, maybe the beer's not as good as I thought it was.

Nils:

And it was actually better.

Nils:

. that fired on you?

Nils:

? Yes, it did.

Nils:

And you know, I was in a career field.

Nils:

I was in for 20.

Nils:

Seven years and wasn't happy in it anymore.

Nils:

So this was kinda like therapy.

Nils:

You know, I worked 60 hours plus a week at the, at, at the real job.

Nils:

And then as we worked on this dream, that was fun.

Nils:

That was therapy.

Nils:

I, I wrote a business plan and I, I took a job that I didn't really enjoy, but I took

Nils:

it to get my wife through nursing school.

Nils:

And, you know, I, I, I didn't like it.

Nils:

I, I get laid off and I, I call my wife on the ride home.

Nils:

I go, Hey, honey, guess who, uh, finally got laid off?

Nils:

And she goes, congratulations.

Nils:

Now go open your F@@@ING brewery , and, and my, that, that's actually funny.

Nils:

Um, so today, it's the fifth year anniversary of me

Nils:

being laid off from that job.

Nils:

So five years ago, I, I was the l B's first full-time employee,

Nils:

. Bruce: Well, congratulations, and you have

Nils:

And when I've been in the brewery, I noticed you have a dozen

Nils:

different beers on tap at any time, which is really amazing.

Nils:

Where do the recipes for these beers come from?

Nils:

One of my favorites, uh, it's called Squires Tavern Ale.

Nils:

and it's a beer that we actually were inspired to brew for a

Nils:

historical society in Bar Hamstead who happens to be Squires Tavern.

Nils:

So we, uh, we researched a colonial beer, we got the same ingredients

Nils:

that were available to the colonists and, uh, you know, one of our

Nils:

top sellers were, were born.

Nils:

The other ones, you know, we, we, uh, beers that, that we, that we

Nils:

would like, that we liked over the years that, you know, we'd like.

Nils:

You know, they can make it, you know, we, we'll, we'll figure out

Nils:

the ingredients and do it ourselves.

Bruce:

Are there any styles of beer that are more fun to make than others?

Nils:

Well, you know, any new beer is the most fun one to make, cuz you,

Nils:

you get to use the, your creativity to come up with, uh, you know,

Nils:

with a, with a new, new recipe.

Nils:

So it's, yeah.

Nils:

You know, we're always innovating, you know, we always try to bring

Nils:

out something new and, you know, you know, for the, I had brewer Nathan

Nils:

and his, uh, sister, his brother Matt.

Nils:

That's when they have the most fun, you know, is researching it,

Nils:

something that's never been done and then you brew it and you wait 18 days

Nils:

and you pray to God that it's good

Nils:

. Bruce: And when you start a new beer like

Nils:

first to see if you even like it, or do you jump right into the large scale?

Nils:

Small scale would make way too much sense.

Nils:

No, we just jump in with both feet and, and pray to God and.

Nils:

We are absolutely blessed.

Nils:

There's only been one beer that we've brewed, uh, in our almost, uh, three and a

Nils:

half years that didn't make it to market.

Nils:

So they've done a nice job.

Nils:

But I bet it wasn't wasted.

Bruce:

No, it was that bad.

Bruce:

. Hey, you know, if the cost of producing beer wasn't an issue, you didn't

Bruce:

have to think about your ingredients.

Bruce:

You didn't have to think about selling it.

Bruce:

You could make any.

Bruce:

You wanted to, what would you make?

Nils:

You know, uh, I love the stouts and the, and the, and the porters.

Nils:

And there's so many different things that you can do with them.

Nils:

Uh, from chocolate to vanilla, we, we actually made one of my favorites that we

Nils:

worked with a local coffee roaster that came up with a blend, uh, of beans that

Nils:

would match perfectly with our porter.

Nils:

It, it was, well, you know, accepted by people, but it was,

Nils:

that was my, one of my pet projects.

Nils:

So it's coffee and beer.

Nils:

You put the two together.

Nils:

That's just per perfection.

Bruce:

Nils your brewery was welcomed into the community with open arms

Bruce:

and it's really a very popular place.

Bruce:

And how is the beer you make connected to the local area?

Nils:

Well, I tell you, if you look at a lot of, you know, our

Nils:

names, we tried to connect them to, to kind of local landmarks.

Nils:

uh, like, uh, good example is the Mad River Pilsner, uh, the,

Nils:

the, the Mad River in 1955.

Nils:

It was a river that wiped out the Connecticut Valley, and it happens to

Nils:

now run right in front of the brewery.

Nils:

It's more now of an angry stream.

Nils:

But at one point it was, uh, the Mad River.

Nils:

And, and I think, you know, a lot of our beers, uh, that we've, we've used

Nils:

to fundraise for local charities and.

Nils:

We never thought that, uh, how important the charity work would,

Nils:

would've been for our business.

Nils:

It's something that was part of our mission statement.

Nils:

It was important to us.

Nils:

And, uh, but it's been, it is been a great driver, you know, for our business

Nils:

has gotten our name out there and that's just been a happy, uh, uh, bonus to

Nils:

it.

Bruce:

And you don't serve food at the brewery for now, but you

Bruce:

do have food trucks that come on a regular basis and some of.

Bruce:

Really interesting.

Bruce:

You have a lobster truck coming.

Bruce:

How has the addition to the food trucks impacted your business?

Nils:

Well, it's fun about the food trucks.

Nils:

You know, we try to do, you know, multiple different trucks a week, so

Nils:

every time you, you can come to the brewery five times in a row and have

Nils:

five different dining experiences.

Nils:

So it, you know, and some of the more popular trucks, I'll have 20, 30

Nils:

people that all come here just because that truck's here and now they get

Nils:

introduced to the, uh, to the brewery.

Nils:

So it's been a huge, uh, uh, great for marketing.

Nils:

It's, it, it's great for business and it's, uh, they,

Nils:

they feed the staff for free.

Nils:

So it's great for us.

. Bruce:

Oh, that's really, that's very nice.

. Bruce:

So, I wanna end with a personal question.

. Bruce:

Is working in a brewery different than what you thought it would be?

Nils:

Actually, yeah.

Nils:

I, I gotta say, you know, . It was, it's been more challenging, which

Nils:

everyone warned me that it would be than I, I thought it would be.

Nils:

Uh, I am blessed.

Nils:

I have two amazing partners, you know, so we have nice separation of work, but it's,

Nils:

uh, been harder, but much more rewarding.

Nils:

You know, we've helped fire victims.

Nils:

We help food kitchens a, a woman's shelter.

Nils:

And the joy that comes with that, you can't put into words, you can't

Nils:

put that into a business plan.

Bruce:

Congratulations with, uh, where it's come so far and where

Bruce:

I know you're gonna be going.

Bruce:

Nils Johnson, owner of.

Bruce:

Red Barn Brewery in Winsted, Connecticut.

Bruce:

If you're in the area in Lichfield County, check them out.

Bruce:

They're an amazing place.

Bruce:

Nos.

Bruce:

Thanks for spending some time with me this morning,

Nils:

Bruce.

Nils:

This was an honor.

Nils:

Thank you very much.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

That was a kind of just, I don't know what inspiring interview.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, what is it?

Bruce:

He is, he is very inspiring.

Bruce:

He's so, Up and bubbly and happy and yep.

Bruce:

Just the perfect kind of guy to be opening a brewery.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

And in Winsted too, Winsted is town, uh, not so far from us, and it is a

Mark:

collapsed milltown, and it has always been just on the verge of utter

Mark:

dissolution and that they decided to move.

Mark:

To this brewery there in, open it there.

Mark:

It's just done wonders for that town.

Mark:

I mean, really, it's crazy what it's done for Winsted.

Bruce:

It's, you know, everyone's been saying for the 16 years

Bruce:

we lived up here that Winsted is on the brink of a comeback.

Bruce:

Well, maybe we're actually starting to have a comeback.

Mark:

Yeah.

Mark:

Because they, he made a place where people wanna go, where people wanna drive to you.

Mark:

They wanna get there, they want, it's really convivial inside.

Mark:

It's really nice inside.

Mark:

It's a destination.

Mark:

It's not fancy.

Mark:

Um, you know, it's not No.

Mark:

Incredibly up.

Mark:

It's not like some, you know, oh, good god.

Mark:

Manhattan Brew Pub

Mark:

No, it's really cool.

Mark:

Has much more local vibe.

Mark:

A quieter vibe, you know,

Bruce:

and it's right across the street from the American Museum of Tort Law.

Mark:

Oh, Ralph Nader's Museum to himself.

Mark:

So yes, it is right across the street from the Museum of Tort

Mark:

Law, in which you can see all the cases that Ralph Nader ever won.

Mark:

Oh hazzah,

Mark:

Before we get to.

Mark:

Next bit.

Mark:

Let me just say that we have a newsletter.

Mark:

You may not know this, but there is actually a Bruce and Mark Newsletter.

Mark:

Would you like to have that newsletter?

Mark:

It's got all kinds of tips and tricks and things about our personal life.

Mark:

Um, the We Went Out was about grief and cooking and the

Mark:

connection between the two.

Mark:

If you'd like to get that newsletter, you can go to our website.

Mark:

Dot com.

Mark:

There's a form right on the landing page.

Mark:

The splash page where you hit the website.

Mark:

Scroll down a little bit, you'll see it.

Mark:

Subscribe to our newsletter.

Mark:

You can put your name and email address in there, and let me say guaranteed, a

Mark:

hundred percent, we will never sell your.

Mark:

Email or give it to anyone else.

Mark:

So a hundred percent guarantee and you can get our newsletter.

Mark:

Okay, our final and traditional last segment.

Mark:

What's making us happy info this weekend?

Mark:

I'm gonna start.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

And say that.

Mark:

I have learned, and listen, I have done a lot in this food career and been

Mark:

around the block a lot of times, and I could never make an appropriate hard

Mark:

boiled egg until the last couple weeks.

Mark:

And the reason why is because I don't really like.

Mark:

Hard cooked eggs all the way through the way my mom made

Mark:

them when she made deviled eggs.

Mark:

I like the soft centers of the eggs that you find in ramen and

Mark:

I never could get that right.

Mark:

And I finally saw, I'll admit a video on YouTube and somebody said, don't

Mark:

put the egg on the bottom of the pan.

Mark:

Use a silicon rack.

Mark:

Or an egg holder to lift the eggs up off the superheated

Mark:

surface of the bottom of the pan.

Mark:

Six minutes, large eggs, soft, nice.

Mark:

Slightly runny centers.

Mark:

Oh, they are fabulous.

Bruce:

Now mean, just say six minutes is you put the cold egg from the

Bruce:

fridge into the already boiling.

Bruce:

. Yep.

Bruce:

And that's when you start counting your six minutes.

Bruce:

Yep.

Bruce:

Transfer to some cold water for about two minutes.

Bruce:

Peel 'em.

Bruce:

And Mark is right.

Bruce:

They have those runny centers that are quite amazing

Mark:

the way you get 'em in ramen.

Mark:

Mm-hmm.

Mark:

, I could never get it right until somebody said, don't put it on the

Mark:

super heated bottom of the pan.

Mark:

And I'm like, Ugh.

Mark:

Cuz I always just dump the eggs in the way my grandmother and my mother did and

Mark:

let them sit on the bottom of the pan.

Mark:

So we actually got a silicone rack.

Mark:

Out, out of an Instant pot and put it in the bottom of a sauce pan and

Mark:

put the eggs on that silicon rack that came out of an instant pot.

Mark:

And it w they, they now just work like, uh, like a charm.

Mark:

Okay.

Mark:

So what's making you happy in food this week?

Bruce:

What's making me happy this week?

Bruce:

Grass-fed strip steaks.

Bruce:

I was out running errands yesterday and I stopped in Whole Foods to pick

Bruce:

up some stuff and they had the most be.

Bruce:

Looking grass fed organic strip steaks, and I bought us each one.

Bruce:

And despite the fact that it's freezing out and that the driveway has four

Bruce:

inches of slush and ice, and the ice is falling off the roof, new England,

Bruce:

I dragged the charcoal grill out and I lit my hardwood charcoal and I

Bruce:

grilled these steaks over charcoal.

Mark:

You did?

Bruce:

And I made.

Bruce:

Baked potatoes in the air fryer and that's what made me happy.

Bruce:

It, it was just really a classically down meal.

Bruce:

I guess strips, steaks aren't down, down.

Bruce:

Grass fed strips, steaks not down.

Mark:

Yeah, it's not down, but I mean it's his simple meal.

Mark:

What, what I would've had in Texas growing up as just.

Mark:

Dinner.

Mark:

So a baker potato, except we would've also had a canned pair as salad . But um, but

Mark:

that's a whole different and sad story.

Mark:

So that's our podcast for this week.

Mark:

Thank you for being along with us.

Mark:

Thanks for being here at listening to us talk for a minute about the marketing

Mark:

desire, outrage bubble that we all live in, especially when it comes to food.

Mark:

And the things that we consume.

Mark:

It's just really important to step back from the outrage and take a breath

Mark:

and think about what's best for you and what decisions you wanna make.

Mark:

Outside in.

Mark:

It's almost impossible to step out of it, but outside of the marketing bubble,

Mark:

there's our tip about dry steaks.

Mark:

What's making us happy in food this week and great interview

Mark:

with a food entrepreneur.

Bruce:

You'll get more interviews, more great conversation, and.

Bruce:

Tips on what's making us happy in food this week on further episodes

Bruce:

of cooking with Bruce and Mark.

Bruce:

And go to our Facebook group cooking with Bruce and Mark and share

Bruce:

what's making you happy in food this week cuz we would love to know.

Bruce:

And we'll see you next week for another episode, cooking with Bruce and Mark.

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About the Podcast

Cooking with Bruce and Mark
Fantastic recipes, culinary science, a little judgment, hysterical banter, love and laughs--you know, life.
Join us, Bruce Weinstein and Mark Scarbrough, for weekly episodes all about food, cooking, recipes, and maybe a little marital strife on air. After writing thirty-six cookbooks, we've got countless opinions and ideas on ingredients, recipes, the nature of the cookbook-writing business, and much more. If you've got a passion for food, we also hope to up your game once and a while and to make you laugh most of the time. Come along for the ride! There's plenty of room!

About your host

Profile picture for Mark Scarbrough

Mark Scarbrough

Former lit professor, current cookbook writer, creator of two podcasts, writer of thirty-five (and counting) cookbooks, author of one memoir (coming soon!), married to a chef (my cookbook co-writer, Bruce Weinstein), and with him, the owner of two collies, all in a very rural spot in New England. My life's full and I'm up for more challenges!