ottawa foodies

I just made a comment on food "Turducken" that our brew club does deep fried turkey at Big Brew at least twice a year. I've been meaning to post this in the forums and now seems like a good time. This year Big Brew is on Saturday, May 12th at a country estate near Perth. If you are interested in attending, keep your eyes on our club site at barleyment.wort.ca as we'll be announcing details soon. I'll likely bump this thread once we announce it on our site.

It's an all-day event where we welcome people to come out and learn about brewing beer. Not from cans and kits - the real way with grains, mills, mashtuns and boilers. The guys bring their breweries out and we "Brew a Crazy Amount of Beer"(tm). :-) We have the BBQ going all day long, and there is usually a smoker going as well. And of course a deep fried bird. Usually starts at 10am.

Oh, and over course there is usually 20+ kegs of craft-brewed beer on hand to sample. BYOF (bring your own food - don't worry, we've got the beer covered). It's a family event - I'll have my wife and kids there as will several other brewers. Some folks will be tenting overnight - encouraged if you are doing lots of 'sampling'. I personally will not be staying over, so I'll miss the bonfire :-(

bump! Here is the announcement on the club site : barleyment.wort.ca

Here is the Deep Fried Turkey from Big Strange New Brunswick Brew 2006. Our club has another even bigger event in the Fredericton Area every year. This year we rented an entire backwoods campground outside of Hampton, NB

We normally do a bird at the local Big Brew so look forward to it for this year

And here is the bird we did in 2005. Actually that's only half of it - it was so big that year the only way it would fit into the 58L deep fryer was to cut it in half!

A traditional german pretzel-making seminar (complete with lye bath!) at Big Strange New Brunswick Brew 2005

And here were the results of the seminar ...

BTW, in that half-bird photo above I was training Swiss-Simon to fry a bird. We had to cut in in half that year and wire the two halves to the deep-frying spit in order to fry them.

Ug, was having some website issues so the above link to the event on the club site no longer works. Here is the correct link barleyment.wort.ca

I fixed the original link for ya. Glad I'm not the only one who has website issues ;-)

It seems that "Big Brew" is no longer in the subject line though. Could you put it back?

Here is a shot of the traditional BSNBB sunday morning breakfast of freshly made Belgian waffles with whipped cream and fruit

YUM!

Website issues... :-) The quotes are being eaten -- "Big Brew" without quotes will have to do for now!

Good enough for me :-)

Here is a shot of the bird on it's way to the deep fryer at Big Strange Ashton Brew 2006

The bird going into the deep fryer at Big Strange Ashton Brew 2006

Checking the bird for doneness ... of course you stick a thermometer into it and get a good reading of the inner temperature

The spread at today's Big Brew - Curry Fest with smoked pork tenderloin and smoked turkey and chicken drumsticks.

The spread at today's Big Brew - Curry Fest with smoked pork tenderloin and smoked turkey and chicken drumsticks.

More of the food madness at today's Big Strange Lanark Brew. Let me tell you - brewers know how to cook! My smoked pork tenderloin is in the foreground here.

I suppose beer is a food too, so here is some beer food porn.

And yet more lined up including a private stock mead from Church Key Brewing (i.e. not for sale)

And no Big Brew would be complete without some Cask Conditioned Ale

Bump!

A collection of photos from Ottawa Big Brew and New Brunswick Big Brew.

Well, I didn't get many food photos this year but there was lots of great food there. The only thing I really photographed was the perch that was made by the guys who came all the way from Chatham, ON to join us for the day. The same guys also brought some excellent home made venison sausages and pepperettes made with deer one of the guys had shot.

Here is the perch, lightly dusted in corn starch, going into the deep fryer.

And down they go into the fat!

The finished product was extremely yummy!

We did another deep fried turkey, of course, but I did not get any pics of it since it had been raining at that point so I put my camera away.

BTW, for anyone interested, here are my photos from the day :

picasaweb.google.com

We are currently still haggling about an exact weekend, but sometime in May stay tuned for the annual Big Strange Brew held by the Members of Barleyment (barleyment.wort.ca/)

Our motto is "Give a man [sic] a beer, and he'll waste an hour. Teach a man to brew, and he'll waste a lifetime!"

It's looking like May 30th this year (though will finalize in next few days), and in Almonte again like last year.

For anyone who is interested, we welcome non-brewers because part of our mandate is to get you hooked :-) See our motto in my previous post immediately above.

Foodies are especially welcomed when they bring pot luck!

I would love to show up for that, I'm quite interested in the process but have dinner for my parents 50th that evening.

What time do things usually start? Would I have any benefit (learning or developing a potential "addiction") by spending half a day there?

Mashin is typically 10am. Yes, there would be quite a big benefit in spending half a day there. Sounds like you still have plenty of time to come and make it out later for your parents 50th :-)

Well I'll be keeping an eye out on this thread, I do expect to go check this out. My wife says I need a new hobby anyhow.

Hmmmmmmmm ....

"Foodies are especially welcomed when they bring pot luck!"

I'm scared if I go with some Pot Luck I'll want to start brewing again.

The smell of the mash tun ... the aroma of boil ... etc etc.

I could seriously get re-hooked .... then I'd have to get larger sized pants for sure.

Hmmmmmm ... What to do ????

Captain C - LOL, no need for "larger sized pants" you can buy your togs at Marks Work Wearhouse and get your regular size with the "comfort waistband"... a hidden stretchy gizmo that lets you expand a size... perfect for the Buffet Set, Christmas Dinner or a big ole scoff.
;-)

Bump!

It's that time of year again, out in Almonte again this year if anyone is interested in learning how beer is brewed. Just PM me if you are and I'll give you directions. We especially love foodies who bring good potluck :-)

In case you don't want to read all of the above, this is the Ottawa chapter of the Members of Barleyment (barleyment.wort.ca) and their annual Big Strange Brew. Part of the reason for the event is to get newbies interested in brewing their own beer, so come on out and see what it is all about. There will be 5 or 6 guys running their systems starting at 10am which is our mashin time, running on into the wee hours with a camp fire. So you'll get to see 5 or 6 answer to the question : "How do I brew my own beer from grain"?

Saturday. Be there or be square!

Oh, I almost forgot our motto : "If you give a person a beer, they will waste an hour. If you teach a person to brew, they will waste a lifetime!"

Yeah!

I regretfully have come to the realization that I will not be able to attend due to responsibilities to my parents 50th (I would not miss that).

Other than this event is there any opportunity for a newb to get initiated to brewing like this?

My husband brewed his own beer for awhile and it was not great (ok, sometimes it turned out). He'd love to try it again but is away this weekend...maybe next year! (And Almonte is not far from West Carleton).

W.C. and O.F. - we have a "brew buddy" program that you can take advantage of at just about any time. You can sign up for the mailing list shown at barleyment.wort.ca - though it is fairly high volume so make sure you have a program with a good mail filter. We always recommend gmail. Just about any of us are glad to show a newbie the ropes.

What I'd recommend is starting out with kits called "Festa" which you can get at Hop 'n' Vine in the east end. They are basically the output of our mash, so most of the work is done. But they are far better than the old cans of syrup so the quality is the same as what I produce.

Tx, I will pass this on to the brew guy in this house.

Will go check that out, Thanks.

I was about 1/3 the way there when I realised I'd forgotten my camera, so no photos from me this year. And in fact only 1 guy had a camera, and here are his photos : picasaweb.google.ca

The food highlights this year:
- 2 x bacon explosion (www.bbqaddicts.com). I think I can still feel my heart skipping the odd beat
- brined and smoked pork

It is that time of year again! Saturday, June 5th is the brew day. Mash in at 10am.

This year Big Strange Brew will be held just outside of Merrickville, and we are having a double celebration since our host will soon be opening Eastern Ontario's newest microbrewery, on the site. He has 10 acres of land and is inviting folks to come pitch a tent. I'll be there camping out both Friday and Saturday night with my 6 and 8 year olds (kids welcome)

If you want an invitation, PM me with your email address and I'll send you the Evite. There is always lots of good food - foodies should bring some potluck and maybe a 6 pack or so of microbrew for sharing. Will be plenty of pretty incredible home brew on hand.

And here is a link to the other thread about our New Brunswick event - more of the same really just to give you an idea of the "foodie crossover" of these events :-)

Big Strange New Brunswick Brew is the weekend after Big Strange Ottawa Brew, but I will sadly be missing out this year mainly because of the fact that our 3rd son was born this morning in the wee hours :-)

Forum - BSNBB- Weekend Forgy

Saturday the 28th in Merrickville this year. If you are interested in attending and learning about how beer is made, please PM me. Be prepared to bring some good potluck (and drink some good beer).

Hmm, really tempting!

I've got a question which may interest a few so I'll post it here...

do you guys brew beer in group? I'm tempted to try brewing beer at some point but its shelf life is apparently not that great and I'm not:
- willing to gain a 50 pounds beer gut to drink it all rapidly
- willing to drink a bad batch all by myself

It would be nice to have 4-5 batches of different flavors made and then share that between people. Maybe that's what you do already, I guess I should check the mailing list..

Beer has a very long shelf life - not sure who told you otherwise.

Some of our guys do wort swapping,which will give you want you want. But you have to first gain a reputation for making good beer, before anyone will want your wort :-)

Well, here's what you missed last weekend

And another one is come and gone - and I'm pretty ticked at myself for losing a bunch of footage yesterday due to a full memory card. Real amateur move. But you can still get a good look at this years Big Strange Brew in this video ...

Yay! My lost footage is not lost! I've got more videos coming soon ...

I filmed one guy's brew session up until mash in ... really nice setup he has too