Beef......

With summer quickly coming to an end it's time to cram as many fair weather grilling sessions in as possible. This time around I decided to take my first stab at smoking a beef brisket. I had never done this before so a lot of internet research was conducted. Everything I found online said that briskets are always between 8-10lbs, so at an hour a pound I was going to have a long day ahead of me. A sigh of relief was breathed however when I found 3-4lb flat briskets at the local food hole. With the meat purchased I spent some time looking at dry rub recipes but already had a good idea of what I wanted to use. In a recent visit to Portsmouth Brewery I had the house reuben sandwich featuring beef brisket dry rubbed with a lot of black pepper. I loved it so a simple mixture of salt, brown sugar, and black pepper was applied to the meat the night before. The meat will be cooked in an aluminum pan to hold all the juices in and to prevent the bottom from drying out.


Facing a much more reasonable 3 hours of smoking, I got the coals going. The chimney starter is an absolute must have for any charcoal grilling/smoking. For about 25 bucks you never have to use lighter fluid again, and the coals are ready in as little as ten to fifteen minutes.


After soaking the hickory wood chips for a couple hours everything was ready and the smoking began. Randy really enjoyed the aroma as you can see.




A few hours later we all feasted on the brisket, BBQ baked beans, and some jalapeno cornbread. My beer of choice to pair with this hearty meal was Allagash Black. The maltiness and roasted flavors of the beer paired up perfectly with the beans and brisket and helped turn the jalapeno heat down. Taber n' Jess brought down a homemade apple pie for dessert that was amazing and helped put the finishing touch on another successful Sunday.

Hop Harvest

While doing the usual search on Craigslist for all things beer related I happened upon someone looking to get rid of some cascade hops. A couple emails and a phone call later I ended up in Pownal, ME getting about 3 lbs worth of hops. After dragging the whole bine(yes bine not vine) home I spent about an hour picking them off. They were slightly passed their prime but I still got plenty of nice cones to brew a wet hop, all cascade IPA immediately after harvest. Used 2lbs in the boil and have another lb drying which I will dry hop with this weekend once fermentation is complete. More on the whole brewing process later, but for now, pure unadulterated hop porn........

Mexican Night

Buenos Noches Amigos! For the next round of Sunday dinners we shift things to lovely Bath, ME. While trying to figure out what to do for our next epic fest of gluttony, Taber 'n Jess offered to host the group for some home made mexican food. Taber warned us that this wouldn't be your average taco night. Apparently Jess likes to make everything from scratch which is perfectly fine with everyone involved. Little did we know the quality of food we were in for.

After getting a tour of the house and meeting "Zipper" the family dog we started things off with some guacamole, salsa, and chips.


Randy and Catherine show us two very different yet equally effective methods for eating a chip and guac.

Randy prefers the "Sticky Fingaz Chompdown". A nice firm bite and plenty of guac residue on his fingers shows us that he's not afraid to dig in.


Catherine shows us a very enthusiastic technique. Mouth wide open ready to consume as much avocado in one bite as possible.


While the rest of us spent the day with various other chores Jess was in the kitchen making everything from scratch. Facebook updates kept Catherine's mouth watering all day. We didn't arrive in time for any process pics but the amount of hardware involved in the meal was plenty impressive. Stainless steel and copper abound.....


After blowing through half a bowl of guac faster than zipper can inhale a package of pepperoni it was time for the main course. Jess made enchiladas, one batch with chicken, one with beef. The flour tortillas were made from scratch and so much better than any store bought versions I've had. The enchiladas were perfectly executed with pumpkin seeds being a very nice addition. A pumpkin seed and cilantro sauce was used on them as well as a tomato-chili salsa. All of that was topped off with, that's right, more pumpkin seeds.

The finished product ready to be consumed.....

At this point Taber really stepped up and finished this meal off. If it wasn't for his expert garnishing technique the whole meal would have failed. The pumpkin seeds on top put the finishing touch on things.


Black beans and some white rice with carrots cilantro, and peppers made for excellent sides....


Another successful dinner in the books. Jess 'n Taber really outdid themselves on this meal, and were wonderful hosts. Zipper even warmed up to us after a couple pounds of pepperoni. Next week it's time to fire up the smoker once again for a beef brisket, bbq baked beans, and cornbread.

What do we do on Sunday?

Quite simply, we eat good food, drink good beer, and enjoy good company. Every week we try to cook something new and exciting or an old favorite. Summertime means dinner on the deck at my house. Usually there's something good on the grill or the smoker, but after grilling almost every week it was time to utilize the turkey fryer for something besides brewing beer(more on that in a future post). Turkey is the obvious choice, and we'll be doing one later in the year, but this time around we tried out fish and chips. I never thought I'd be doing any deep frying after a 2 year stint at Burger King in high school. After 10 years though, I think I finally had the taste of fast food out of my mouth and all the memories had faded so it was time to get greasy one more time......

Ok, so I grossly underestimated the cost of enough oil to fry our F+C, 3 jugs of oil later, we were in business......



Beth models the first batch of fried potato deliciousness


Catherine gets a reeeeeal good whiff of the fish, fresh out the fryer


The finished meal, complete with a soda pairing by Randy. For beer drinkers, the choice was Brooklyn Lager


Ok, pretty standard fish and chips at this point. We were all full of fried food and pretty happy, but something was missing. Maybe I've watched too much food reality TV but something else had to go in the oil. Something for dessert. Luckily across town, while I was picking up fish and oil, Beth was making some cupcakes.....



Little did she know her baked goods would be defiled in a such manner. Smothered in a beer batter made with Beamish.....


And the finished product ready to clog some arteries.....


All in all a successful first crack at deep frying. I'm not sure if our stomachs and hearts can handle doing this again anytime soon, but watch this spot for more grease at some point. Next up though, Mexican night.

Words-Jake, Pics-Randy

Disconnected: One week on Louds Island, Maine..

Thanks to my wife to be and her awesome family, I've had the opportunity to spend many a Friday eve, Saturday and sometimes Sunday relaxing, hiking, swimming, sailing and just generally taking it all in on the quiet and quirky Louds Island in Muscongus harbor Maine.

This however, would be the first time in as long as I can remember that I actually took a full week off from work, so naturally, what better place to disconnect and unwind than Louds. No electricity, no cell phone service (with the iphone4 only a week old and fresh in my anxiously awaiting hands, this was admittedly, a bit of a struggle...) and no internet can be a hard pill to swallow at first for somebody as technology obsessed as myself.

Louds is different though, there's something about it. Something that makes me ok with playing scrabble on an actual board (not on my iphone, what!). Something that makes doing a puzzle on a rainy day fun again. Something that makes me feel like a child again, gives me that strong urge to explore for no reason other than exploring and somehow makes insignificant things seem significant.

I'm not sure what it is exactly, but i'm not the only one who feels it and if you ever get a chance to spend some time out there, you'll see what I mean...

Do what's right

For the second time in their short brewing careers, Maine Beer Company took over The Great Lost Bear in Portland. The brothers Kleban were in attendance featuring their only two bottled beers Peeper, and Zoe. I had a chance to talk with David for a few minutes and he gave me the scoop on upcoming plans for the brewery. The bottling line will be up and running soon with a new 15 barrel brewhouse coming shortly. The brothers are currently brewing 1 barrel at a time so soon enough peeper and zoe will be in full supply at better beer stores around Maine. No more going to the store and praying they have Zoe in stock as you walk through the door. Ok, so no guarantees there, but as you can imagine, they will be pumping out much more beer than before. Oh and there might even be a new beer in the works......

See ya later, old brewing setup.......