10/14/2006 MN Pheasant Opener at Barron's Farm

Found some old photos of an October Pheasant opener in Minnesota.  Great times with some good friends and family.

first brisket with the stoker

cooked for about 12 hours at 230 degrees to internal temp of 195. Started at 10pm and wrapped in foil at 8am. was finished at 10:30am rested for an hour and was good and juicy.

ribs and brisket

Did 2 racks of ribs and a beef brisket on the egg.

The brisket took almost 12 hrs, it was 5lbs, dry rub overnight, 250 degrees with a couple hickory chunks on indirect heat.

Jill is tired of the house smelling like smoked meat.

also did some smoke corned beef (pastrami) for superbowl at ben's house. soaked the brined corned beef overnight in water, changing several times and then smoked to 200 degrees.

have to settle in to the house so I can cook more sodas and grill more food.

pulled pork

7lbs pork butt, dry rubbed with emerils southwest essence.
cooked it on the egg with apple chips I soaked in water overnight. really difficult to start, took me an hour. cooking time, (250 to 300 degrees) took 11 hours to reach 199 internal temp. wrapped in foil and let set for hour, shredded up. made carolina sauce and soaked in pulled pork. very very tasty.

orange dream on the keg.

lastest batch of rootbeer

5 lbs corn sugar, 4 gals water from pur, 1 cup Iowa Kennedy honey, 1 tblspn mexican vanilla extract, 1 pack gnome.

cooked on med high for longer to get rid of the honey crystals.

in the fridge to chill, want to transfer it to the 2.5 gal keg to take to jeff's superbowl party. I think I'll carb it first before moving.

looked at counterpressure fillers, and roots at midwest. I found in my book a couple recipes that make only a little more than a gal which works great for the little keg. Once the gnome is gone I'm off on my own recipes. Got a cream soda to do next.

hot sauce

all my peppers, stems cut off, into the food processor with 4 cloves garlic chopped, ran it for several minutes, added about 3 tablespoons vinegar, and half tablespoon celery salt. Also, tablespoon dried onion flakes.

put in about 2-3 tablespoons water, cooked, forgot about and it boiled over.

it thickened up though, I froze it in individual containers about a half cup in each.

warm. Need to post some reviews to these things.

want to go with pat or on my own to a pepper place in belle plaine, new prague, Pepper yoda is there.

I like finding these yoda's. I wonder if i'll be one someday.

diet sprechers

sister gave me a gallon of low cal sprechers for xmas and a package of draft gnome.
made the low cal sprechers, 1 gal to 4.5 gal of water, foamed up quite a bit when pouring into the keg. force carbed at 35 lbs, this time after chilling keg for one day I sat it on my lap and then shook, rocked it to force carb, after it sat a day or so the flavor really improved. I pulled it off to put on a keg of 1919 for the cavalier new years party. very tasty. I was able to pull the keg off and then retap one day later, still tasted good, with the force carbing I can ensure not alot of gas loss.

The last batch, think i called it the 3rd batch turned out pretty good. i think i'll make another gnome and try bottling next, I've been reading about using counter pressure filler to bottle, that way you can make sure the the liquid doesn't lose gas. Next I need jill to do a logo for my label, i got a recipe book from carol and I'm thinking it'd be fun to try to make the extract myself.