Big Brew Day ... Halfway to Helles (Batch 375)

It was the American Homebrew Association's annual Big Brew Day this past Saturday.

If you follow along on this blog, you may remember that Big Brew Day is quite often a day that the Beer Model and I brew with one or more our homebrewing friends "Du" and "Doc".

But, "Du" recently moved out of state and "Doc" was busy doing something else this year. So, the Beer Model and I did a brew day all by ourselves.

I had a Pork Butt thawed, and we decided to make a feast even though it was just the two of us.

If you are a regular on this blog, and were paying attention to the Roll-a-Style posts, you might actually have a guess as to which beer recipe we brewed:

Halfway to Helles Leichtbier

Oisin Owl Irish Stout (Batch 371)

I brewed this past Sunday.

This was already my 4th batch of beer of the year, and if I'm counting correctly, my 371st batch of beer I've ever brewed.

Of course, if you've been following along on this blog, you know that this year I'm concentrating on brewing BJCP styles that I've never brewed.

In the 16 years I've been brewing, I've brewed at least one beer in all 34 categories in the BJCP Style Guidelines, but now I've decided to check off most of the individual styles.

If you're curious, you can see which beers I've brewed in each category / style as of 2024 Update on the 2021 BJCP Goal.

And ... the beer I brewed this past Sunday was the 3rd new style in 2025 I've been able to mark off the list.... (4th if you count Tasman Devil Pilsner (batch 368))

Oisin Owl Irish Stout

2024 Learn to Homebrew Day

If you read Roll-a-Style 14 ... 16A. Sweet Stout, you know that Learn to Homebrew Day was the first Saturday in November.

I had plans to get together for a brew day with my buddies Du and Doc.

My turn to host has been overdue, and the Beer Model and I decided that we would go ahead and have Learn to Homebrew Day at our "brewery".

We also invited some non-brewers over to "Learn" on Learn to Homebrew Day. These people were also available to help us eat BBQ and drink beer.

I was a little more ambitious than I probably should have been, planning to brew two batches of beer, smoke a pork butt, and make some chicken wings.

Pork Butt Burnt Ends

Remember that in Pork Butt Steaks, I cut about half of a pork butt into steaks.

The other half, I vacuum sealed and froze for a future meal.

On the same day I did 2024 Hail Storm Summer Saison (batch 359), I cooked that other half.

I decided to cut the meat into cubes and do Pork Butt Burnt Ends.

A Pork Butt isn't a real common cut to make Burnt Ends. Usually, you hear about them made with the point of a brisket. 

or ... 

Sometimes people use the pork belly cut for burnt ends.

Pork Butt Steaks

I've been wanting Pork Steaks recently, and therefore looking to buy them.

For whatever reason, my Sam's club hasn't had them when I looked, and my wife didn't see any at our grocery store when I asked her to look last time she was there.

Some time ago I saw a youtube video where someone (I don't remember which channel this was on) removed the bone from a port butt.

Since I wasn't finding pre-cut pork steaks, I thought I could simply make steaks out of a pork butt.

So ... I got a pork butt from Sam's and cut it up this past Tuesday.

Early in the morning, I cut the bone out of the shoulder. It went pretty good, but I am sure with more experience I'd be better at this process.

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.

Butt and Biking

If you look at this blog, you'll see that I smoked Port Butt quite often.

Out of all the meat I BBQ, I have probably posted more about Port Butt than anything else ... although I suspect that I've actually cooked chicken thighs more on my various grills.

My kids are home on Christmas break from their colleges, so with more mouths to feed, I thought I'd make a big piece of meat this past weekend.

Port Butt is what I ended up making. 

One of the nice things about Port Butt is that it is something that doesn't require constant attention to make.

I tend to use a modified snake method, which if set up correctly means that I can just let the kettle cook for several hours.

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.

Double Pork Butt

So ... remember in Double Chuck Roast, I doubled up on Chuck Roasts to feel family visiting for my younger son's graduation from high school.

Well, this past weekend, we had more family visiting, again mostly to celebrate my son.

This group was even bigger.

This time, I decided to go with a couple of 9ish pound pork butts so I'd have plenty of meat for the big group of family we have visiting.

Early Saturday morning ... around 3am ... I got the kettle ready and the pork on the fire by 3:30 ish.

I let the pork shoulder smoke for around 6 hours. 

Sandwiches on the Kettle Griddle Plate

So ... I'm a little surprised it hasn't shown up on this blog before, but I have this Hunsaker Smokers Griddle Plate for my 22 inch Weber Kettle.

I got it for a Christmas or birthday (or maybe Father's Day) gift awhile ago.

I use it mostly for smash burgers on the kettle.

When I got it, I thought I'd do breakfast eggs and bacon on it ... but I've yet to try that.

This past weekend, I was using up some of the left over pork butt from the last time I made pulled pork, and I thought I'd use the Griddle Plate for sandwiches.

So, I got myself some peppers and cut them up with onions.

Butt and Biking

As I mentioned in #10Everestsin2022, I went on a fairly long bike ride last Sunday.

62.8 miles to keep my #MetricCenturyEveryMonth streak alive.

I had committed to smoking a Pork Butt, and as you probably know, smoking a Pork Butt is an all-day process.

Luckily, like a lot of the things I do on the weekends, smoking allows for multi-tasking.

As long as I set up the kettle to burn long enough at about the right temperature, it doesn't really take a whole lot of effort on my side.

I just let the fire and smoke do its thing. I don't really have to do all that much for most of the hours the meat in on the smoker.

Wien Zerschlagen (Batch 323)

I brewed my 7th lager of the year last Sunday.

My 19th batch of beer this year (20th if you count the double bath of McShepardSons Irish Ale as two batches).

Officially, it was the 323rd batch of beer I brewed since I started way back in 2009.

If you've been following along on this blog for the last year or so ... you might have noticed my infatuation with the Vienna Malt from Root Shoot Malting.

Root Shoot is a Colorado malting company, so I've tried to use it quite a bit for the various Colorado Strong beers I've brewed.

The Root Shoot Vienna Malt is darker in color and (in my humble opinion) more rich in flavor than other Vienna Malts.

I feel like it is pretty unique and I use it quite a bit in beers whenever I get my malts from the Brew Hut.

Mid-week Pork Butt

It is rare that I get to cook during the work-week. Even more rare to do a long BBQ / Smoke.

Due to the covid shutdowns, I now work at home, so there is really no reason not to do long cooks like Pork Butt and Brisket. We just mostly think of those as weekend meals.

Anyway ...

This past week, my nephew, AKD Bluefield (my sister's son), was on a post-college road-trip with 3 of his friends and stayed with us a couple of nights.

My wife worked on Tuesday, and we thought we should feed AKD and his friends. I decided to smoke a pork butt for dinner so she wouldn't have get home and try to get something cooked for a larger-than-normal group.

Pulled Pork Shepard's Pie

Remember a few weeks ago I made Brisket Shepard's Pie? It turned out awesome.

At the time I mentioned that I would probably like to try a pulled pork Shepard's pie at some point too.

Well ... I had some frozen left over pork butt in my freezer that I decided to put into Shepard's Pie this past weekend.

Pork Butt on the Kettle

Over the weekend, I smoked a Pork Butt on the Weber Kettle for pulled pork sandwiches.

As I mentioned on Hickory Smoked Mac and Cheese blog post, my son was home from college.

Arctic Vortex and Pork Butt

Here at the SheppyBrew Home Brewery, we love the Three B's.

Beer. Barbeque. Bicycling.

Like many Sundays, I did all three yesterday.

I actually started my brew day on Saturday. First, I made a yeast starter from the Wyeast 3711 French Saison yeast that I harvested last time I made a Seasonal Saison. 

I also mashed in before I went to bed to do an overnight mash.

This is one of the reasons I love my Anvil Foundry. It allows me to maintain some heat on the mash overnight. This is great to save time ... especially for styles of beer that should end up dry.

Like ...

Arctic Vortex Winter Sasion

Decemberfest Lager (Batch 303) and Pork Butt

I brewed my 303rd batch of beer this past weekend.

It was my 27th batch of beer in 2021, and my 29th brewed in my Anvil Foundry.

It might be my last batch of the year.

Or ... it might not. We'll have to see.

Regardless, this will be my 2nd most volume of beer brewed, behind only the ridiculous amount of beer I brewed in 2020.

I feel like I say this a lot ... but it blows my mind that 2021 is already almost over. I don't feel like I'm ready for a new year yet.

Anyway ... the recipe I brewed this past Sunday was ...

Decemberfest Lager

This is the 2nd time brewing this recipe, although this time I substituted the Vienna malt with some from local maltster Colorado's Root Shoot Malting.

The Root Shoot Vienna malt lists its color as 6 Lovibond vs the 3.5 Lovibond Vienna malt I usually use, so this batch is likely to be a couple of shades darker than last year's version. 

Pork Butt and Corn on the Cob

If you follow this blog ... you'll see me posting about smoking Pork Butts on my Weber Kettle quite a bit.

The family really likes pulled pork sandwiches, and Pork Butts are fairly easy to smoke. They are also pretty economical to buy.

It is pretty much an all-day commitment, but that is ok on most Sundays.

I can let the pork cook while I'm doing a lot of other things. As long as the charcoal is set up well at the beginning, the cook just sort of takes care of itself for the most part.

So ... it is a great meal for Sundays.

Last Sunday I made a pork butt for pulled pork sandwiches again. 

Irregular Eric Double IPA (Batch 273)

Early in 2020 ... I started seeing a lot of traffic to my "Colorado 6 Pack" post on the blog, and I decided that it would be fun to take that list and homebrew batches that matched up with the list. 

See Sheppy's Blog: Homebrew Colorado 6 pack.

So far, from the "6 Pack" ... I've brewed:

• Stone Soup IDA (inspired by Tommyknocker's Hop Strike Black IPA)
• Foothills IPA (inspired by Odell IPA)
• Blackhawk Black (inspired by New Belgium's 1554)
• One Hundred Hoppy Brown Ale (inspired by Boulder Beer Company's Flashback India Brown Ale)

Next up, it was time for me brew something like Oskar Blue's Deviant Dale's IPA. 

Deviant Dale's doesn't exist anymore, but the idea was that it was essentially Dale's Pale Ale, only more. More hops. More malt. More ABV. More Body. More deliciousness. It was an 8% ABV, 85 IBU double IPA with lots of citrus, grapefruit rind and piney resins in the aroma and flavor.

I didn't really have a recipe that was close, so I designed one.

Irregular Eric's Double IPA

2020 Will-o'-Wisp Pumpkin Ale (batch 268)

The SheppyBrew Beer Model (aka my wife) brewed this weekend.

Really, she did.

I helped, but she was the Brew Master Sunday. In fact, I had to leave right when the boil started, so for a significant portion of the brew day, she was the only brewer.

Every Autumn since 2014, SheppyBrew has brewed a pumpkin spice ale, "Will-o'-Wisp Pumpkin Ale".

The base beer is an awesome Autumn Ale, and we basically flavor it with a pumpkin pie spice tincture.

I wouldn't brew it if the SheppyBrew Beer Model didn't like pumpkin spice beers, but you know what they say ... Happy Wife - Happy Life.

Anyway, Sunday we brewed it. 

As with all brew days that the Beer Model participates in, we got started later than my usual start time.