Beer Brewin' and BBQin'

Fellow Eatfiends,

It's your Commander-in-Beef checking in from the Bay Area. I see Travis has forsaken this blog to men riding around on their "skating boards," so I'm here to bring it back to the roots. BBQ or die? Sgt. Baconator HAS CHOSEN DEATH!

I picked up homebrewing recently.

First homebrew: Rogue Dead Guy Ale. If you haven't had it, you're an asshole.

Making the wort, which is the pre-beer containing the grain extract and malts.

Hoppin'! Seriously, hops smell like the essence of delicious beer. I want to live inside of hops.

~1 week later, transferring the beer from the primary fermenter to the carboy. The best things in life happen in garages.

"Racking" back into the bucket before bottling. I shouldn't have left the lid off, but I'm a few batches wiser now.

First beer bottled and capped!

The haul! The batch was a little small because it was my first time and I did a few things wrong.

A few weeks later, I grabbed a beer blindly from the homebrew haul. Seren-fuckin-dipity!

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

Visited Colin in Sacramento. "Lord Tyrion" if you're an asshole. Pictured here: former first lady Ladybird Johnson.

That town is way too fucking hot all the fucking time. Luckily, I know how to cool down. This bar, Blackbird, is 10 kinds of awesometits. (Blackbird, hence the creepy bird people portraits on the outside)

Got hammered that night and tried to tip "$Bananas" and pay a total of "$Sandwich" at a bar. You'll all be happy to hear I made a complete drunken asshole out of myself in Sac, and that ingratiated me with Colin's drunkard friends. I knew just what to do.

Next day, cured the hangover at the Shady Lady. Fantastic bar. This town knows how to fucking drink. I feel like I took a freshman intro seminar to drinking that weekend.

If memory serves, it was Whiskey, bitters, rosemary, and some angel placenta.

 My roommate Randy's 30th birthday came and went, so we had a drunken bbq. Pork shoulder gonna get smoked!

 You're goddamned right I checked all of those things off of the list.

 Dry rub and pork, I now pronounce you man and wife. You may slather yourself on the meat.

 Made some insanely spicy salsa. So many habaneros. We lost a lot of good men that day.

Is it one huge beer, or a whole bunch of tiny beers?

 Randy grilled a whole salmon, which was super fucking impressive. Even the guys at the butcher shop advised against it, but he pulled it off. It was beautiful. It's too bad salmon tastes like butt.

 Drunken darts at the Albatross, my new favorite bar. Actually, we were throwing them backwards over our shoulder. Pretty tight grouping. "Precision" in scientific parlance.

Batch #2, a northwest IPA. Recognize the giant beer bottle? That's a gallon of deliciousness.

From Cook's Illustrated, homemade pimento cheese-stuffed juicy lucies. Fucking insane.

Last Saturday, a relaxed bbqin'/drinkin' day in the yard. Lucy's on the top left. Collard greens & taters on the side. Wicked.

Next up: Smoked a pork loin. Gotta crosshatch the fat cap so it renders properly.

Couldn't sleep so I got up to do the pork loin. I couldn't sleep, so I got up, made the bourbon-soy marinade, then had the leftover bourbon with eggs for breakfast. This is 5:49 am, the best time for whiskey and eggs.

Never "trussed" a pork loin. Can I boo myself for that joke?

She turned out fucking insane. Marinade: Bourbon + soy sauce + dijon + garlic. Rub: Chili powder + oregano + smoked paprika + brown sugar + kosher salt + pepper. Cherrywood smoked. FUCKING INSANE! "HOLYFUCKPORKMAGIC" as I described it to Colin. Or Lord Tyrion if you're an asshole.

Which brings me to last night. I got drunk, came home and drew this in my whiteboard. A brain surrounded by ethyl alcohol molecules. That's the drinky kind.

Start the blog drinkin' heavy, end it bbq heavy. See Sarge, this is how you manage a blog called Eatfiend. The profession of "Skating Board" is a mere distraction from your eating duties.

Rager at the end of June since we're moving out of this house. I'll post details up in case any of you ass hats want to make it up to the bay. I'll be down for Travis's Desert Drunkstravaganza before that happens.

Eat

Fucking

Fiend