Wild Cow (sort of) Kölsch (Batch 394)

I brewed a couple Sundays ago for the first time since Bad Lands Kölsch (Batch 393).

Over a month between brew days. I'm still "on pace" for less than 75 gallons of beer, which would be the least amount of beer I've ever brewed in a year since 2009, the first year I brewed.

And ... back then I only did 2.5 gallon batches, so even though the volume was less, the number of batches would have been much higher that year.

Oh well! My beer supply isn't in danger of running out. 

Anyway ... as I mentioned in Bad Lands Kölsch vs. Spotted Cow, I recently traveled to Wisconsin, and picked up some Spotted Cow.

Back in 2020, I came up with a "tribute" recipe to Spotted Cow, but didn't have any to compare the two beers to.

I thought now would be a perfect opportunity to re-brew ...

Wild Cow (sort of) Kölsch

Brisket!

I love brisket, but OMG beef is expensive now-a-days.

The cost and the time commitment make smoking a brisket less than ideal, and the last time I actually did one was Humdinger of a Brisket in November of 2023.

I've had a 10 pound full packer in the freezer for awhile, so it certainly isn't simply the cost.

I decided that I would smoke this brisket the Sunday before last and so a few days before I pulled it out of the freezer to thaw.

And on Sunday, I smoked it.

Saturday, I applied Montana Steak Seasoning to the meat to sit on there overnight. 

2025 Thanksgiving Turkey

This past Thursday was Thanksgiving.

Since 2018 (Cherry Wood Smoked Thanksgiving Turkey), I've been the one in charge of cooking / smoking / grilling the turkeys at the SheppyBrew house.

It's fun for me, and it frees up the oven for the various sides my wife generally makes.

And, I think smoked turkey tastes better than it would if we cooked it in the oven.

Over the years, I've tried several techniques for actually cooking the turkey.

I've smoked a few roasted whole. I've done spatchcocked. I've halved the bird and last year, I quartered the bird.

My plan this year was to repeat the Quartered bird like I did with the 2024 Thanksgiving Turkey. However, for whatever reason, this bird was just being difficult when I was cutting it.

I ended up just deciding to try the spatchcock method again.

Tri-tip photos

I've had a tri-tip in my freezer since sometime in mid-ish October. 

Tri-tips were on sale I guess and I purchased two. One I grilled on October 13. The other I grilled this past Saturday.

I never posted about the first one. Now, lucky reader, I'm posting photos from this past cook.

I really enjoy grilling eating tri-tip, but they are expensive enough that I never buy them unless they are on sale.

Tri-tips are pretty simply to make, and my process is always pretty much the same. I apply a salt / pepper / garlic rub hours before I want to cook.

I generally prepare my grill around an hour and a half before dinner. I'll set up the grill for a reverse sear. Indirect for the first hour to hour and fifteen minutes and then direct for the last little bit.

Double Spare Ribs

So ... remember not too long ago I did "hot and fast" Individual Spare Ribs for the first time.

I really liked how they turned out.

The past Tuesday I had another rack of Spare Ribs, and decided I would do something similar.

I trimmed the ribs on Tuesday morning. This time, I cut them into pairs of two ribs instead of the singles I did last time.

Then, I applied rub and let them sit until the afternoon.

As I mentioned in Individual Spare Ribs, I thought I could have put them on the grill about half an hour later than I did. This time I did wait and got them on just after 3:30 for a 6pm supper time.

Individual Spare Ribs

So ... I have not shared any of my BBQ adventures recently.

I've been smoking / grilling every week, but just have not had anything I've taken the time to share.

Sunday, I did something new, though.

I've tried various ways to smoke BBQ Spare Ribs. all of which take several hours to make.

On various BBQ forums, I've seen pit masters do ribs "hot and fast". Some of them cut the ribs into individuals before putting on the grill.

Theoretically, individual ribs cook faster than a big rack of ribs.

With all the riding I'm doing this month, long cooks are a little more difficult to pull off. So, I decided to give this technique a try on Sunday.

Easter Ribeye Roast

I know that it has already been awhile, but I did holiday cooking on Easter.

Of course I did.

If you follow along at all on this blog, you know that Ribeye Roast is one of my favorite holiday meats.

As luck would have it, I had a Ribeye Roast vacuumed packed and waiting in the freezer. 

For whatever reason, we must have purchased extra last Christmas.

And ... that is what I cooked this past Easter.

The process is pretty much the same as always. I smoke the meat to a rare internal temperature. Then, I sear the roast for a bit to get a nice crust on the meat.

Ribs and Belgian Beers

I made some spare ribs a few weekends ago.

I have not really published many BBQ posts on this blog this year, and I took photos when I made the ribs. 

So I thought I might as well go ahead and share. 

My spare rib process has changed some over the years, but for the most part it remains basically the same.

I set up charcoal in sort of an ugly snake with chunks of (usually) hickory wood.

For a 6pm dinner, I'll aim to get the ribs on the kettle around 5pm.

I cook the ribs between 250 and 275 for between 2 and 3 hours ... usually closer to 3.

Glop

On Sunday, I had planned on getting a Chucky on the Weber Kettle in the morning to use in pulled-beef sandwiches for dinner.

But, I totally forgot until a little later in the day when I wasn't sure I'd have enough time to get it pull-apart tender.

So ... I decided to save it for our Mardi Gras dinner (Tuesday, which is the next time I was "scheduled" to make dinner).

So, I needed something fairly quick to make.

I actually had a loose plan and ingredients to make an Smoked Green Chili Hashbrown Egg Bake for Fat Tuesday. For some reason, my wife and kids have traditionally wanted breakfast-for-dinner on Mardi Gras. I find this weird, but generally I play along with their wants.

X-Mas Ribeye Roast

Well ... you may remember that I generally really like to grill / smoke / reverse sear Ribeye Roast on holidays when they go on sale at our local grocery stores.

This past Christmas, my wife had picked up a 9 pound roast and I cooked it up for our family along with some visiting guests.

I gave myself about 4 hours before our dinner to get the roast to a rare to medium rare doneness.

There were a couple of people who prefer the meat more "well done", and I figured that I could give them the ends, but it was probably a little less done than they claimed they liked.

But, they also say they loved the meat.

Hooligans vs Left Hand Milk Stout

As I mentioned on Tafel Mystère Belgian Single (Batch 367), I had some Pack o' Hooligans Stout on my last brew day, but wanted to give it it's own blog post.

As you probably know if you've been following along, Pack o' Hooligans is my Roll-a-Style beer for the BJCP Style 16A. Sweet Stout.

Now, when I think of "Sweet Stout", my mind goes to Left Hand Milk Stout as the defining commercial example.

I'm fairly lucky to be able to get Left Hand Milk Stout anytime I want and decided to compare Pack o' Hooligans Stout vs Left Hand Milk Stout.

I tried the two beers together last Saturday. 

 

2024 Thanksgiving Turkey

Since 2018, which was the year I started becoming obsessed with BBQ, I've been in charge of smoking the Thanksgiving turkey outside.

It's fun for me, and it frees up the oven for the various sides my wife generally makes.

And, I think smoked turkey tastes better than it would if we cooked it in the oven.

Over the years, I've tried different ways to cook the turkey, and this year I actually tried something new.

Last year, I spatchcocked, and halved the bird, which is how I generally cook my whole chickens now.

This year, I came across a youtube video where the author "quartered" the bird. I decided to do the same thing on my cook this year.

 

Bacon Wrapped Tenderloin

Sometime over the weekend, I picked up some pork tenderloins from my local Sam's Club.

According to a search I just did on this blog, I've never blogged about making pork tenderloin, but I think maybe at least one of my Sheppy's Blog: Pork Loin posts may have actually been tenderloin.

It honestly doesn't matter. The only difference between how I would cook the two is that the pork loin would probably cook just a bit longer.

Anyway ... Tuesday, I wrapped these tenderloins in bacon, applied some rub and cooked them up on the Weber Kettle.

Guuud stuff.

Recent BBQ Photos

I have not posted much about my BBQ adventures recently.

I've been posting about Brewing and local breweries and biking.

Just no BBQ.

I believe the last time I posted about BBQ was over a month ago with Pork Butt Burnt Ends.

Of course, I have been cooking BBQ between then and now.

I thought I'd share pictures from some of those cooks.

On Sunday, August 11, I cooked some spare ribs on the weber kettle.

Workday Pork Butt

My oldest son graduated from college this past weekend.

It is sort of hard to believe I'm old enough to have a kid this old .... but ... anyway ...

We had some family in town to help celebrate, and my wife thought I should cook on Friday when the family was going to be arriving.

It was a work day for me, but I decided to smoke a Pork Butt.

Generally, it takes me about 8 hours to smoke a Pork Butt on my Weber Kettle.

Since I work at home, and making pulled pork is mostly just waiting for the pork to slowly cook, it was a very do-able activity while doing my job.

I pretty much had the butt seasoned and the Weber Kettle going by 6:30 AM.

Photos of Poppers and Ribs

I'm sure this will come as a shock to all of you .... but ...

I. Love. Ribs.

I really really like smoking and eating just about any kind of ribs.

Pork spare ribs. Baby back ribs. Beef ribs. Country style ribs (which are not really ribs).

The kind that I make the most are Spare Ribs, for sure, and the weekend before this past one I made spare ribs for dinner.

Just for the fun of it, I added on some Jalapeño Poppers as well.

If you've followed along on this blog at all, you probably know how I make both of these things. If not you can check out Sheppy's Blog: Spare Ribs and Sheppy's Blog Jalapeño Poppers and find lots of information on how to make these.

Tuesday Ribs and Cheesy Rice

Historically, the cooking I do is usually over the weekends, but my wife and I have agreed that I should be in charge of dinner at least one time each work-week.

Usually Wednesday. 

Since I work at home, and most of what I make is very easy to multi-task with, there really isn't any reason I can't do long cooks during the day.

Last Tuesday, I decided to cook pork spare ribs during the day.

I didn't really do anything special with this batch of spare ribs. If you need to see my process / "recipe" ... take a look at past posts on Sheppy's Blog: Spare Ribs.

KFC Thighs Again

I made dinner last Wednesday.

I was planning on cooking chicken thighs, and at some point during the day, I was looking through this blog and came across my KFC posts.

Kettle Fried Chicken (KFC)

I grill / smoke chicken thighs quite often, but I don't think I'd made KFC in almost two years.

Since it had been awhile, I decided to give it a try again.

I went with a pretty simple KFC coating this time. I oiled the thighs up, put a few tablespoons of Progresso Italian Style Bread Crumbs into a plastic bag, added some random spices, and shook the thighs in the mixture.

Beef Back Ribs

If you read 2024 Melting Stream Spring Saison (Batch 354), you know that I brewed beer last Sunday.

Interestingly, completely coincidentally, the last three times I brewed Melting Stream Spring Saison, I also made Pork Spare Ribs.

(see 2023 Melting Stream Spring Saison (Batch 332),  2022 Melting Stream Spring Saison (Batch 309), and Melting Stream and Spare Ribs)

This time, I mixed it up a little, making Beef Back Ribs.

This is actually the first time I've smoked Beef Back Ribs. I never see them at the grocery store or Sam's Club I usually go to.

However, when I drop my kid off at college, we quite often stop at his grocery store, and I see the beef ribs there.

Tri-tip

If you've been follow along on this blog for awhile, you might know that I really like grilling / smoking tri-tips.

A tri-tip is one of my favorite things to make on the grill.

Unfortunately, they are usually more expensive than I like to pay and/or I don't see them at all at my local grocery store a whole lot.

A couple of weeks ago, there was a buy-one-get-one sale on tri-tips, so I picked up a couple.

I grilled one of them the next Sunday.

The other is sitting in my freezer waiting for another opportunity to grill up some beef.