Pork Butt and Kumbucha

Summer is almost over!

My youngest son is heading off to college this week. How did this happen so fast?

One of the things he requested before heading off to school was to have pulled pork for dinner some night.

So, this past Sunday I smoked a pork butt.

Generally, I use Kombucha to spray my bbq. My spray bottle was empty, but I've had a batch fermenting for quite awhile.

So, I had to bottle up that batch.

I got started around 6am, applying rub to the butt, getting the kettle ready, and getting the kombucha ready to bottle.

More Ginger Kombucha

Well back in February, I made some Ginger Kombucha.

I liked it. It needed some carbonation, but other than the lack of carbonation, I really liked it.

More recently, I made Ginger Beer. It was a little too sweet for my taste, but it was nicely carbonated. 

Last week, I decided try Ginger Kombucha again.

Ginger Kombucha

Since Sauerkraut Yogurt Kombucha in 2023, I've pretty regularly been "brewing" up kombucha.

I've brewed 4 batches this year. 2 green tea and 2 black tea. 

One of those black tea batches is currently carbonating with Black Cherry Pomegranate juice right now.

One of those green tea batches is in the kombucha jar right now, fermenting.

 

Sauerkraut Yogurt Kombucha in 2023

Before the New Year, it has been quite awhile since I've made fermented food or kombucha.

I've been missing doing both.

At the beginning of 2023, I brewed some more kombucha, and this past weekend, I made some jalapeno sauerkraut and yogurt.

I'm hoping I don't go as long between doing either again.

I'd like to get to a point where I have yogurt almost all the time. We'll see how that goes.

I'd also like to have sauerkraut to eat most of the time, but sauerkraut doesn't get consumed as fast.

Kombucha

Until recently, it had been quite awhile since I've made any Kombucha.

In fact, I neglected my SCOBY  last year, and let it die. I have not made any since then.

A month or two ago, I tried propagating up SCOBY from commercial kombucha, but that never ended up growing.

So, I went the lazy-man way and simply ordered one from Amazon.

On 11/13, I brewed up a batch of Green Tea kombucha for the SCOBY to start working on.

The process is really simple.

• Dissolve 1 cup of sugar into water.
• Steep tea in the water.
• Add to a gallon jar, cooled with ice / water.
• Put in the SCOBY with a little "starter" to keep the pH down.
• Let the kombucha ferment for a few weeks.
• Bottle with whatever flavoring you would like.

Barbecue Sauce Recipe

If you follow this blog ... especially the BBQ posts, you might have figured out that I make my own BBQ Sauce.

This past weekend, I made some pulled pork for my son's graduation party. Along with that, I made my BBQ Sauce.

A bunch of people said they really liked it and a few said they'd like the recipe.

I sort of have a recipe. I don't really follow the recipe. But, I thought I'd publish a starting point.

Sauerkraut and Kombucha

It has been awhile since I've made any Sauerkraut or brewed any Kombucha.

I really like homemade Sauerkraut on brats and sometimes other things, but I just have not made any in awhile.

So ... my wife was entering a grocery store order and I asked her to add cabbage and jalapeños. She did. I used it to make jalapeño sauerkraut.

In case you're not familiar with the process, it is pretty simple.

Shred up the cabbage and cut of the peppers.

Add a couple of tablespoons of salt to the cabbage and knead / massaged it, mushing it together. The juices from the cabbage will come out and combine with the  to make a nice brine.

Shipping SCOBY

As you may remember, I have been brewing Kombucha on a regular basis.

I basically have two one-gallon batches of Kombucha going at any time. One with a standard black tea base. The other is made from green tea.

According to my "records" I've done 22 batches of kombucha since September 30 last year.

Anyway, the SCOBY (Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) gets pretty big after a few batches and I end up separating it and throwing most of it out periodically.

That is somewhat of a waste. I've reached out on facebook and instagram asking if anyone was interested in taking SCOBY off my hands. No one took me up on the offer.

Until this past weekend.

This past weekend, my sister texted me about the possibility of shipping SCOBY to her brother-in-law for his birthday.

Smoked BBQ Drumsticks

We had a busy day yesterday at SheppyBrew Brewery and Smokehouse.

We didn't brew any beer, but we started the day early by kegging Melting Stream Spring Saison.

We bottled a batch of green tea kombucha and stared a new batch.

And .. we prepared and made barbecue drumsticks.

I bought a package of drumsticks at Sam's Club in the morning.

I decided to make the whole package even though I knew it would be too much for our family of four. I like having leftovers for lunch. Yummy barbecue drumsticks for lunch will be great this week.

SheppyBrew YouTube Channel

SheppyBrew now has a YouTube Channel ...

See SheppyBrew Smokehouse and Brewery

Currently there is just one video on the channel ... a short video of me making Kombucha. Eventually there will probably be more.

Check it out. Subscribe. Hopefully the content and quality of the videos will increase over time.

Oompa Loompa Mango Pale Ale, Kombucha, and Turkey Bacon Burgers

After brewing the Where'd My ManGo Wheat, I had some of the Mango Flavoring left.

Also, my Muggled Pale Ale didn't last real long.

I decided that it would be fun to make and drink a Mango Pale Ale.

Oompa Loompa Mango Pale Ale

I brewed it last Sunday

No big deal.

Some Pale Malt. Some Vienna Malt. Some Munich and some Pale Chocolate for a bit more color.

Equinox (aka Ekuanot aka HBC 366) hops. Centennial hops.

Fizzy and Pink Cherry Pomegranate Kombucha

So ... do you remember that I've gotten into brewing homemade Kombucha?

I like kombucha enough to drink. I like it a lot more than soda, and it is a good alternative to water or coffee for me to drink at work with my lunch. However, it is way too expensive for me to want to actually buy it.

It is easy and inexpensive to brew at home, so I just make it myself.

My process is simple:

1. Dissolve 1 cup of sugar in enough water to brew 8 to 10 tea bags worth of concentrated sweet tea.
2. Pour the tea into a gallon glass jar with a little ice to cool it down. Fill the jar the rest of the way with water.
3. Add a SCOBY and a little kombucha from the last batch to the jar.
4. Let the tea ferment for a couple of weeks. 
5. Pour the fermented kombuca along with some fruit juice or other flavoring into bottles.
6. Let those bottles carbonate for a few days.

Kombucha

If you follow the SheppyBrew Brewery on Facebook or Instagram, you very well might have seen that I've been making Kombucha.

I'm not sure what exactly got me interested enough in Kombucha to try to brew it. I think maybe it was James at Basic Brewing Radio.

Obviously, I brew beer.

I've been making sauerkraut and other fermented vegetables for some time.

I make homemade yogurt about once a week.

So ... I am pretty well established as familiar with fermentation. For some reason, I was thinking Kombucha was mysterious and exotic.

I'd never had Kombucha. Until the  Basic Brewing Radio episodes, I never really thought a whole lot about it.