Local Brewers

Dan told me that a group of folks interested in brewing was organizing in the Page County area.  They've named the group The Blue Ridge Brewers Association - there's a blog, linked in my blogroll, and their doing lots of other things to organize.

Yesterday was the regular meeting.  There was serious business to cover:

1) a local effort to develop a local source of malt for brewing - a farmer has planted about 3/4 acre of two row barley for this purpose;
2) a visit from the folks over at Copper Fox Distillery over in Sperryville, where they are already engaged in crafting malts for their products, and for special orders nationwide; and
3) results from a tasting given at the Luray Downtown Initiative (LDI) and the prospect for another soon at the Luray Caverns CX.

As I mentioned, this is the first of the meetings I'd attended.  There was this obscure item on the agenda that I was especially curious about, called "Around The Cooler."  This ended up being the tasting section of the meeting - quite a few of the members had brought samples of their latest or a recent batch, or even a commercially available craft brew.

Although I had found a bottle of my recent Belgian Black on Saturday, I figured that one 22 oz. bottle wasn't enough to bring for this purpose.  I hope to have something to share in the future, however.

In any case, it was quite an educational program, as we progressed through a couple of items you wouldn't traditionally expect to find at a homebrewers' meeting:

• Kabuchi - a fermented tea
• A Marzen-style lager
• A Belgian Chimay-style
• An IPA
• A porter
• An Imperial Stout
• Whisky from Copper Fox

We also had some very tasty sauerkraut and wursts...There's more to come from this group!

Next Batch: Chocolate Maple Porter

The mash of chocolate malts.

I'm not normally one to go in for strongly flavored beer.  I just like...beer.  But for some reason when I got started on this home brewing hobby, I bought a one gallon kit to make up a Chocolate Maple Porter - and I brewed the batch last weekend.

I just moved it to secondary fermentation last night, using an old Carlo Rossi Paisano gallon jug that I have pressed into service as a carboy.  Here are some photos - bottling will be next week.

Primary fermentation in my recycled wine bottle.

Now, I should note that the only flavoring added here is the maple syrup - I used some from that jug I bought in upstate NY last spring.  The roasting style of the malts imparts the chocolate flavor - there's nothing added to create it.


I'm finding brewing to be as interesting and relaxing as grilling has been, so I'm likely to keep going with this to build my skills.  I even took off to the homebrew store here in Alexandria last weekend to buy some supplies and check out the ingredients they have available.

I used the Gingered Vagabond Ale recipe from Papazian's "The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing" (Amazon link below) as a resource to shop with.  The store had all the requisite grains, yeasts and hops...so I'm good to proceed.

First, though, I've got to break out the five gallon mix of IPA that I've had stored in the basement - I want to try my hand with that one over the next few weeks.  I will be using some of Dan's Cascade hops in it, and also the packet of Calypso hops he gave me, substituting them for whatever's in the kit.

Also of interest, the home brewers' club out in Luray has a meeting this weekend, I hope to get by there to meet my fellow brewers.  They're also keeping a blog now:  http://blueridgebrewers.blogspot.com/.

More to follow, I'm sure!

Here is a link to the Papazian book, and another with some good recipes:



The New Complete Joy of Home Brewing

Dave Miller's Homebrewing Guide: Everything You Need to Know to Make Great-Tasting Beer

Wisteria Vineyards Harvest - A Wrap

Here's a view of Big Meadows Mountain in Shenandoah National Park,
as seen from some of the new vines at Wisteria.

 Mary and I had a great time during the late summer and early fall getting to know some of our neighbors as volunteer grape pickers at Wisteria Vineyard.  Each weekend morning as we went over to the vineyard, we joined a dozen or so friends from around town who’d come out to pick the Seyval, Traminette, Chardonnay, Merlot, and Norton grapes.

Here's an orientation of the vineyard - the harvest
progresses more or less from right to left.

Although the hour was a little more civilized and there weren’t any stalls to muck out, I’ll chalk up the experience as another “internship” – similar to the one I had last year working with David at Public House Produce, where I learned “up close and personal” about the craft of raising excellent local food and agricultural products.     

I posted about the experience in more detail a few weeks ago (http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2012/09/scenes-from-vineyard.html ), but as volunteers we helped during the early stages of the winemaking process.  We picked, then worked the destemming/crushing equipment, loaded the wine press and watched as the juice or early wine poured out and was loaded in the casks to complete fermentation.  Then we cleaned up – and there was a lot of that, but it was fun too. 

The barn, where the sheep and chickens reside, at Wisteria.
Behind is the Blue Ridge and Shenandoah National Park.

Just as I have learned with my new brewing hobby, cleaning up is a big part of the process for these crafts.  There are estimates that it takes 20 gallons or so of water to make a gallon of wine, because of all the cleaning.  In my home brewing experience, I’d say that I probably use five gallons for every gallon I make, although I may be more efficient when I start making five-gallon batches.  But all of this effort is meant to ensure you have a high-quality, safe, and tasty end product.

And that is definitely what you’ll find at Wisteria Vineyard. 

Red grapes, the last harvest at Wisteria.

For Hawksbill Cabin readers, if you happen to be coming out to visit the vineyard, give a yell – we’re only a half mile away, and maybe we can meet you there.

Home Brewing

The Bruxelles Black - first tapping!

After so much encouragement from neighbor Dan, co-workers Tom and John, and friends Stan and Brendan, I decided to try my hand at homebrewing.  Stan’s been doing this forever, and then Dan has his hopyard out the back, so these things raised my curiosity.  Other friends have posted their process and experience on Facebook.  

Then Tom built himself a keg vault down in the basement; and I’ve been treated to watching them brew five-gallon batches – a wheat with Stan, a coriander-spiced Belgian with Brendan, and Dan’s Flat Tale IPA. 

The new brewers' association Dan helped to start.

The stakes keep getting raised.  Now Dan has formed the Blue Ridge Brewers Association, with regular meetings that are educational about the craft of brewing – with samples.  He also bought a 15-gallon set-up, and he’s had talks with local farmers about how to get a plot of barley suitable for brewing going, and then how to establish a malting operation.

Brewing with the one-gallon kit.

So I finally broke down and bought one of those beginner kits at Williams-Sonoma.  It included a one-gallon set-up with an IPA mix.  Before I even got started with this set, I also bought a five-gallon brew kit, although I haven’t yet broken that one out – I did upgrade to a brewer’s pot though, with six-gallon capacity.  I’m all set, if I ever get serious about it.

So far, my exploits have been to make three one-gallon batches.  The first was an IPA, and it was marginal.  For two reasons:  first, I was clumsy and wasted a lot of it during the bottling process, so we never got a good taste of it; and second, because I probably missed an instruction or two and didn’t end with the fullest, richest beer I might have.

My second batch was much better, a summer brew that was called Honey Grapefruit Ale – I managed to bottle almost the compete gallon in a set of 22 ouncers I have been saving up.  And the third, which has been sitting in bottles for the last 10 days, set for opening tonight, is a Belgian Black Ale, shown in the photos here. 

The bottled yield of the Bruxelles Black.

I opened the Belgian Black Ale with Dan last weekend, and we liked it.  It lived up to its appearance, and it is different enough that I could specialize in it and possibly end up with something really special.  So I am going to try it again soon.

I still have a one-gallon fall brew to go: a chocolate maple porter.  When I’m done with that one, I’m planning to move up to the five-gallon set up, since I’ll have been through the process a few times and feel pretty confident of it.   I have an IPA lined up for the first batch. 

Down the road, once I have a batch or two under my belt, I will probably substitute the hops provided in the kit with some of Dan’s homegrown Cascades and a pack of Calypso he gave me.  That’ll be a treat.

Visitors - and a Trip to Luray Caverns

The iconic bell tower at Luray Caverns, with Mary's Rock
in Shenandoah National Park in the background.

Last weekend our friends Kelly and Tom came out to Hawksbill Cabin for a visit – seven-year old daughter in tow.  The kinds of recreation we might have taken in during the old days aren’t available here, even if those were the choices we might have made for the weekend.  Fortunately, seven-year old Erin had come prepared with research.

A scene in the caverns - a small underground lake here.

High on her list were Luray Caverns, our most famous landmark here in Page County, and the corn maze up at Valley Star Farm, which I had sent along in a short list of things I thought might be fun to do.  To these we added a stop at Wisteria Vineyard for the “Music Under the Arbor” with Marcos Brown and the Sugartones, a trip to the Luray-Page Farmers Market to see some friends, and a cookout on Saturday night.

I have a few photos here of highlights in the Caverns, including one of Mary, Kelly and Erin with our tour guide Chad.  This may be the moment that Kelly asked if anyone had found the white sweater she lost during a school trip when she visited the Caverns in second grade, when she was seven.  Chad courteously directed her to the lost and found above ground. 

Getting our money's worth from tour guide Chad!

As far as the story of Luray Caverns goes, they were found in 1878 by some local farmers – there’s a little sign in the Caverns marking the spot where they first went underground.  The Wikipedia article on the Caverns offers a pretty colorful history on the development of the property as a commercial enterprise, but you can cut to the chase about modern day attractions on the website at www.luraycaverns.com .

We didn’t get to enjoy some of the other highlights there – including the museums that are included in the price of admission, or the two mazes that have been constructed on the grounds.  We’ll save them for another day.  

However, on Saturday, we had visited the corn maze and pumpkin patch at Valley Star Farm north of Luray. 

Another cavern scene, I think this formation

is called "The Fish Market."

Although Mary and I never go into the maze, the pumpkin patch is an annual stop for Mary and me, and we often bring visitors with us to this spot, which is as scenic as any here in the Valley.  Here’s a past post about one of our visits in 2008:  http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/09/valley-star-farm.html

Looking up at the caverns' ceiling, I found
the algae interesting.  Must grow due to the
combination of lighting and moisture.

Tom and Erin went into the corn maze, where there is something of a scavenger hunt set up for the kids to explore and learn about the farm.  When the scavenger hunt is over, the kids visit the little farm store to turn in a visitor card, earning the youngster a pumpkin from a special bin – followed by an ecstatic search for just the right one.

An unexpected theme of the weekend happened while we were at the pumpkin patch – seven year old Erin lost her sweater, just like Kelly did in that long ago school trip to Luray.  We searched all over for it, including the lost and found at the pumpkin patch.  

It’s gone to sweater heaven, maybe they’re even together now.

Random Grillin'

Here are a final two photos from the Smokin' on the Track contest.  I took these mainly for posterity - one of the guys at work has the same Weber style set up the guy next to us was using, and then the other is one of the other neighbor's beer can chicken. Or maybe they were turkeys - because that group's members certainly were.

It's a long story, but one of them had been drinking all day, and he thought he was quite the funny man.  A bit of a smart ass if you ask me - then later his antics got them disqualified.

They'd driven down from Pittsburgh, and they had an elaborate set-up.  So I bet they had the ride home they all deserved!

What's cookin' - at Smokin' on the Track

So the grill was lit, some preliminary socializing was out of the way, and we'd even had our health inspection.  The long and slow cooking parts were underway.  It was time to begin planning how our items were going to come off the grill and get lined up for submission.

The schedule for submitting the chicken. ribs, pulled pork, and brisket was pretty tight, all set at 30 minute intervals in the afternoon.  I set my watch, which has five alarm settings, to go off with thirty minute notice for each of these, which are shown in the first photo. Then we got to cooking - brisket and pork were the first in, as shown in the previous post.

These next three images are of the pulled pork - first when we checked on it midway through cooking, second when we pulled it out of the smoker and began breaking it down, and last, just before submission, as we presented it..

I have to admit, this was my favorite part of the contest.  We felt like we'd done a good job on this, and with second opinions from a few friends and family, we were getting good feedback.  We were proud to put this one up in front of the judges.

But we only finished 10th or so on this.  We learned later that the instructions for this meat specified that the sauce would be mixed in with the pork - we had a prized recipe that we had cooked up on the side, but we couldn't figure out how to submit it, and we had overlooked the instruction.  So we'll have to see how we do next year on this.

Next up are the brisket and ribs we submitted.  The brisket came out just right, as far as being done and cooked tender.  But it had begun to dry out a little, since we finish it early and took it off the heat, and then took it back up to temp before allowing it to rest so we could slice it.  We ended up fixing this with just a little brush of sauce - and these placed fifth overall out of 20.

The ribs had their own special considerations - Jared carefully sliced them off from bone to bone - with a bone in the center.  So the lucky judge would actually getting two ribs' worth of meat with these.  They were done with a dry rub - again no sauce, and we placed about the same as we had on the pulled pork.

Finally, here's our chicken.  We had prepared two batches, one with a traditional rub, which is what we submitted, and one with a Greek style lemon and oregano marinade.  That one came out great too - but we decided we should go with the traditional recipe for the contest.  That turned out to be a good decision - we placed third in chicken.

Finally, Dwayne, Jared and I waited to hear how we had done in the overall category.  With a third in chicken, and a fifth in brisket, we'd already done better than we expected in our first competition, but the two lower finishes in pork might set us back a little bit.  They only announced the podium finishers, but they passed around the final results (and later they posted those on the web):  

Two Fat Farmers and a City Slicker placed fourth overall!

We all had a great time and we're looking forward to next year - or the next contest.  We'll keep you posted!

Oh-dark-thirty at Smokin' on the Tracks

Things start early in the Valley and the Smokin' on the Tracks fest was no exception.  In fact, we'd agreed that we would meet at the Shenandoah Speedway that morning at 6:00 am, or as close to that as we could.

I drove over Friday night, arriving at Hawksbill Cabin at about 11 pm.  So you see my dilemma with these events.  But I always remember some advice from my dad when I'm dragging my butt out of bed for a purpose:

"Son, if you are going to hoot with the owls, you better be ready to soar with the eagles."

It was so dark when we arrived, I couldn't find Jared and Wayne, my other team members, shown here with one of the neighbors in the first photo, as Jared gets the grill started.  Fortunately, Jared saw me driving around looking for them, and called my cell, vectoring me back to our spot.

I should make a note about our team - it was a few weeks ago that Jared told me about the fest and his plan to form a team.  I invited myself along because of a shared interest in pork and grilling on big units.  Jared graciously allowed me to be part of it all - and it is with great pride that I report our team name - Two Fat Farmers and a City Slicker.

As the light started to come up, I noticed that two spots over, the contestants had actually decided to sleep near their grill under a tarp on air mattresses.  They were snoozing away over there while we were loading charcoal in our grill - I should note these well-rested fellows won second place overall in the contest.

With the fire started, we moved over to get the first meats ready to go in as soon as the heat was up.  That meant brisket and Boston butt - shown here, as are the ribs, which we didn't put in until around 11 am.  Jared had brought along a secret recipe rub which he is putting on here.

About 45 minutes after the grill was loaded with coal, the early meats had been rubbed and were ready to go in.  That's the last photo for today, with them all set up in their pans to cook away a couple of hours over slow heat.

The Grillin' Units at Smokin' on the Track

So, I am going to write about our team and about the food we cooked during the Smokin' on the Track fest, but this morning as I began to write that post I had a few computer problems, and didn't manage to finish that post.  Instead, let me post today some more of the photos I took while I had a few minutes - of some of the rigs the various cooking teams had out there for the contest.

First is the one we used, this vertically oriented grill with the UVA image on it.  Like many of them were, it's made out of an old metal fuel or water tank; in fact, there was a lot of lore and discussion about work in progress that a lot of the teams had going on, making new grills.

In the background from ours, you can see a red unit in the distance.  That actually is one you see around town in Luray at Luray Fire Department events.  That fellow owns the one we borrowed.  The fire department themed grill is pretty cool - here's a photo.

Next I am going to show the set up that one of the pro teams had going on - they had quite a few of those "eggs" working.  You can clearly see two of them here - they had a couple of the next size down, and even an egg chimnea displayed around their space.  I don't know how they placed, clearly they were sponsored by the manufacturer though.

I've posted about this one before.  If you're out in Luray you'll see this one parked in front of the old cannery in the Stonyman neck of the woods.  These guys catered a gig at Wisteria recently, and they fabricate grills there.  I really like this one, right down to the chicken and pig cut outs that are welded on it for decoration.










For the last one, I want to show this one painted up in Army camouflage.  As a matter of fact, the guy running this won first place overall - he'd come up from somewhere in North Carolina to participate.  I talked to him about the rig.

He told me he painted it up to honor his son, who is enlisted in the Army and stationed at Fort Benning.  I thought that was a pretty nice story and privately was rooting for him after that - hoping he would finish second behind us.

I've given away part of the story now by telling how he finished.  More to follow.

The Big Do - Smokin' on the Track BBQ Fest

Saturday was a pretty busy day around Page County - there was just a lot going on.  I spent my day at the Smokin' on the Track BBQ Fest put on by Performing Arts Luray (PAL) down at the Shenandoah Speedway.

Mary joined me later in the day - here she is posing with the fest mascot Dale Swinehart.

I was there as part of a BBQ team led by Jared Burner from Skyline Premium Meats, one of the Page County Grown farmers - I've got a link below to a couple of past visits to the farm.  Jared and another friend and I formed a BBQ team to compete in the Backyard Boyz part of the deal.  More on that later though,

There was a lot of activity to go around at this event.  Here are a couple of photos - one of Wisteria, our neighbor who also ended up across the aisle from where our team was set up cooking, and one of the Cornhole Tournament area as it was being set up.

I took this one sometime in the morning before the gates had actually opened.  I flagged down one of the volunteers on a golf cart to see if I could pick up a few bags of ice for the Wisteria booth.  That's the only way I managed to check out those areas, since the cooking kept us so busy down in the infield.

Here's another couple of shots - very early in the morning.  I went over to grab a cup of coffee and walked back through the grandstands at the track.  Hey, the area where the guy waves the start and finish flags for the race track was right there, so I climbed up there and took these photos of the infield.  Still a lot of vendors yet to show at this time, but all the cook-off competitors were up and running.

 I've got a couple of posts I will put up about the event this week.  I took some photos of the grills I saw when I took and early walk, and then of course I want to post on our cooking and the results.  So more to come.

Here is a link about the Smokin' on the Track fest:
http://smokinbbqpal.com/

Here are a couple of posts about Jared's farm:
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2012/08/getting-back-on-topic-of-page-county.html
http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2011/09/page-county-grown-farm-tour-skyline.html

The Last Brats (Pork Diaries)

Well, after all that grilling the last few weeks, I decided that we needed a quick dinner last Sunday night.  I dug into the freezer from some bratwursts - finding that I was going to cook the last pack of them from last January's pig.

Mary had bought some sweet corn at the Alexandria   farmers market - some Maryland variety, unfortunately, and no where as tasty as the Page County Grown stuff we've been used to.

There are still a few pork chops left, two roasts, and a bunch of the ham.  But that's not much variety.  We'll see how it goes.

Ribs Again - the Pork Diaries

Mary's plate - ribs, sweet corn, and summer vegetables.

Saturday was a long day of cooking for me.  I brewed a small batch of "Brussels Black" - a dark Belgian ale that is fermenting away in the basement as I write this, and then I set out to do a practice run on some ribs. Those were cooked over charcoal with hickory smoke on the big unit out in the back of the Alexandria house.

My plan was to work a bit on the rub recipe, and I decided to go with a Kansas City style that features brown sugar and cayenne.  If you Google this type of thing you'll find that some ink is given to the difference between the K.C. and Memphis styles.  They saw K.C. style uses a sauce in addition to the rub, while Memphis style doesn't...neither Mary nor I found that any sauce was needed on these when all was said and done.

As you can see I started with a very meaty half rack.

The recipe I was using called for gobs of spices, and I figured that since I was using a half rack, I should reduce the recipe.  I cut it in half, and then saw that two spices I like were missing, and I added them back in - powdered mustard and cumin.  So that's where I am coming from...but I may leave the cumin out if I'm ever competing with this recipe.

The big unit, as the hickory smoke started.

Once the prep was done and the half rack rubbed, I went out to start up the big unit.  It wasn't long before those coals were going.  I put the meat on - indirect, since I have a lot of real estate in there, and after a little time to sear started adding hickory.

I had some other prep to get back to - I had to shuck some sweet corn, cut up vegetables, and things like that.  I also wanted to make some ice cream for dessert - I bought some fresh raspberries for this to combine with some dark chocolate chips I had stored in the fridge.

Boogs is bored.

After all of that, Tessie and I went out onto the deck while the ribs cooked.  As usual, she was a little bored with the whole thing, but she liked being outside with me.

I enjoyed a stogie while things were under way, and I'll admit to having a nice Fat Tire IPA for accompaniment.

Late summer dinner of ribs and grilled vegetables.

The upshot of all this is the ribs, which were done in about 2.5 hours or so.  I took them a little farther than I did in the last batch I made a few months ago, so they were done well enough that they did literally fall off of the bone.

There's a photo below of the platter.  Usually we have a little left from a half rack - we did this time too.  But they were gone by lunchtime Sunday.

And neither of us used any sauce on the leftovers.

New Pigs!

A few weeks ago I realized that David had gotten the pigs at just around this time last year - when I was spending some time on the farm in my so-called internship.  When I asked him about it at the farmers market, he confirmed that this was the time he'd be headed out to get the new pigs, and next thing I knew, there was a photo of them all on Facebook.

This one is a shot of all the little pigs in a pile sleeping one morning last week - the temperatures are getting down into the 50's at night now, so they sleep pretty close together.

All pink and proud.

Pigs sleep soundly, and their wakeup time is at least an hour after the chickens get up, as you can see here.  In fact, even the goats had wondered into the stall that morning before the pigs got up.

No post about pigs would be complete if I didn't mention last year's pig, who I called Pork Chop, much to David's daughter's chagrin.  Here she is, weighing in at just about 400 pounds last January.  The week before we butchered her.

To put this new bunch in perspective, they probably arrived at the farm at around 35 pounds, and they may already be passing 45 on the way to 50.  They'll pass normal market weight of 250 in November or so, and then continue growing until January.

Here's to Pork Chop, in any case.