Scallywag Czech Dark Lager

Barbecue and Homebrew. Can you think of a better combination on a beautiful September afternoon?

I can't think of one.

Add in some football; it doesn't get much better than this.

I brewed and barbecued exactly two weeks ago today.

The homebrew of the day was a new SheppyBrew recipe called Scallywag Czech Dark Lager.

I'm not real familiar with the Czech Dark Lager style. It is there in the newest BJCP guidelines, but I don't think I've ever actually had one.

I am in love with Czech Pilsners (now referred to as Czech Pale Lagers in the BJCP Guidelines). I figured I would simple make my My Ello Poppet Czech Pilsner and add some color.

That is what I did.

Scallywag Czech Dark Lager

My barbecue of the day was pulled pork shoulder (aka Port Butt).

This is the third Pork Butt I've smoked, and every one so far has been delicious. Yum!

I got started a little later than I had intended on the smoked Pork Butt, but it was still before the sun was up. I had applied a homemade rub (recipe basically like the Basic Barbecue Rub that I've talked about on this blog a few times). I got the butt on the smoker just before 5AM.

Once I got the Pork Shoulder on the cooker, I worked on getting the mash for the beer going. By 5:45, the mash was doing its thing.

For the first few hours, I cooked the pork a bit hotter than I've targeted in the past. I averaged around 300 degrees, getting up into the 340 range.

Every half hour or so, I sprayed the shoulder with my homemade pomegranate kombucha.

The smell was so guuud!

Brew day went well. Pre-boil gravity was right on.

The boil went perfect.

I added over 6oz of noble hops.

I got the beer in the fermentor before 10AM.

Of course, this being a lager, I had to let it chill in ice for quite a bit before pitching the yeast.

The pork butt reached an internal temperature of 165 by 10:30. In the past, I have wrapped the pork and continued cooking to around 200 degrees.

This time I tried something new. I put the butt in the crockpot for the rest of the time.

For quite awhile, the internal temperature fell while the pork was in the crock pot, and it was over an hour before the temperature started rising again. In fact, it was 1pm before the temperature was back where I had been reading before moving to the crock pot.

But, the pork got to where it needed to be a little after 4pm. We usually eat around 6, so the pork had plenty of time to rest.

I put it in a cooler wrapped in foil and a towel to keep warm.

It did.

A bit before dinner, I shredded about half of the pork shoulder.

We had pulled-pork sandwiches. YUM!

I got the yeast pitched, and the beer has been fermenting since then.

I will be kegging the beer when I empty one. Hail Storm is probably the next one to kick.

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Go Rockies!