BSNBB- Weekend Forgy [General]

2007 Jun 4
Forgy == Food Orgy

Friday we loaded the family into the car and drove 13 hours to New Brunswick for the annual Big Strange New Brunswick Brew. Stayed 2 nights and drove back on Sunday.

Why this madness?

For the food orgy, of course! Beer is afterall a food. In this photo, we'd already taken to 20lbs or so of pork off the smoker and had pulled it and were finishing it up in the massive 24" x 2" deep frying pan (and 2nd smaller pan).

What is BSNBB? The Big Strange New Brunswick Brew is a celebration of all-grain homebrewing. We get together every year on the first weekend of June, brew beer, drink beer, talk about beer and brewing, barbeque a bunch of meat, and sit around a bonfire at the end of it all, telling lies and ranting.

We also teach others how to brew beer. "Give a man a beer, and he wastes an hour. Teach a man to brew, and he wastes a lifetime", is the motto of the Members of Barleyment (barleyment.wort.ca), the brewclub which gave rise to the original Big Strange Brew in Ottawa, and this offshoot in NB which has taken on a life of its own over the years. Any aspiring brewers interested in learning the craft will be assigned to one of the teams to act as "Brew Buddy" to some established brewers so they can see how it's done.

2007 Jun 4
27 litres of salad, and about another 15 of coleslaw.

Mmmmmm

2007 Jun 4
We only had about 20 kegs of excellent craft-brewed beer to choose from on Friday night. Some 10 more would arrive on Saturday. Here is a shot of them happily chilling in the huge walk-in fridge at Camp Pascobac. We'd rented the entire camp for the week.

2007 Jun 4
Cliff Shaw enjoying a beer in front of the fire place at the lodge. Note the Lederhose

2007 Jun 4
A view of the lodge. The beautiful Bellisle Bay in the background. The field is far larger than this (off to the left) and there were a couple of dozen tents set up.

There will be more food photos to come as soon as I get the pics from a friend. She has some good shots of the traditional Sunday morning breakfast of home made Belgian Waffles smothered in fruit and fresh whipped cream, and the deep fried turkeys.

2007 Jun 4
Making the salad

2007 Jun 4
Sampling while making the salad dressing

2007 Jun 4
Freshly smoked salmon

2007 Jun 4
A huge batch of home fries coming out of the turkey fryer

2007 Jun 4
Just a small sampling of the fresh mussels

2007 Jun 4
Enjoying said mussels

2007 Jun 4
The first deep-fried turkey was a bit overcooked. But don't worry, the 2nd one was just fine!

2007 Jun 4
In goes the 2nd bird!

2007 Jun 4
Forgy in full swing!

2007 Jun 4
The local Fredericton brewpub Picaroon's supplied a couple of kegs of beer as well, along with a "jockey box" for serving it cold

2007 Jun 4
Enjoying a bonfire by the beach after a long day of eating and drinking

2007 Jun 4
The traditional BSNBB Sunday breakfast of home made Belgian Waffles smothered in fruit and fresh whipped cream.

2007 Jun 4
See, I told you the 2nd bird was done just right :-)

2007 Jun 4
It all looks delicious, and of course, complemented wonderfully by some handcrafted beer too?! Yum!

2008 May 16
Bump!

Some highlights of last year's event in New Brunswick. This year it's the June 14th weekend and I'm taking the family down for 5 days! Can't wait!

2008 Jun 6
Only 5 more days! Woo-hoo! We're going down on Wednesday this year! Notes have already been sent to the school excusing the boys for 3 days :-)

2008 Jun 16
Just back now ... head still spinning. So much beer. So much food.

Will report later ... only 3 hours sleep and had to drive 12 hours back afterwards.

2008 Jun 16
Can't wait to see the pics zy, sounds like you had an amazing time.

2008 Jun 16
My pics are now all up on the club site here : barleyment.wort.ca

But I don't have comments on them all yet. I'll fish out the food-related ones and add them to this thread. Hopefully tonight.

Wow there was a lot of great food!

2008 Jun 17
Pig with sunglasses = priceless

2008 Jun 17
I didn't put the sunglasses there, I just snapped the shot. In hindsight I don't like it because it seems disrespectful to an animal which gave it's life for our sustenance.

2008 Jun 17
A shot of the kitchen at the Camp Pascobac lodge. It's huge with counterspace EVERYWHERE!

2008 Jun 17
Another shot of the kitchen

2008 Jun 17
And the massive 8 burner cast iron propane stove!

2008 Jun 17
Getting the pit ready for the pig

2008 Jun 17
And getting the pig ready for the pit. We had to put metal caging on top and bottom, then bolt the 2 together. See my link above for all the sequence photos, I won't post them all here.

2008 Jun 17
On he goes!

2008 Jun 17
Cover it with foil

2008 Jun 17
This is only about 1/3 of the 30 lbs of sausage we got from a local organic farmer.

2008 Jun 17
another shot of the local organic sausage

2008 Jun 17
MIght as well post a photo of the local organic farmer himself :-)

2008 Jun 17
I made home fries for brekkie saturday morning. THat's a massive 24" pan to get an idea. 5lbs potatoes, 2 lbs onions, some spices, and about a cup of bacon fat to fry it in!

2008 Jun 17
5 dozen scrambled eggs for breakfast on saturday as well

2008 Jun 17
I didn't count the pounds of bacon, but it must have been close to 10. The home fries were sort of ad-hoc. I saw all the bacon fat being run off into another pan and a lightbulb went off over my head so I started dicing potatoes and set another guy to peel onions :-)

2008 Jun 17
And speaking of ad-hoc breakfasts on Saturday, Nick decided we needed pancakes, too.

2008 Jun 17
And of course beer is a food too :-) Cliff was the first guy to mash in, while others were still finishing up their breakfast on Saturday.

2008 Jun 17
Our host Jon and his massive 150L brewery that one of the other fellows hand-built him as a wedding present. It was made by hand from a sheet of stainless steel, and welded together in a home shop.

2008 Jun 17
Cliff was not only the first to mash in, he was also the first to finish. So he baked up these incredible loaves for us! He prepared the dough the day before and let it rise 24 hours. I hope he won't mind me including this email from him this morning on how to make it :

---snip---

Cliff's Ciabatta recipe (makes one small loaf - 1/3 of the size of the
ones I made at BSNBB)

Starter (make at least 12 hours before you want to make the dough -
several days is better).

1/2 cup flour
1/4 tsp dried yeast
1/4 water

Stir until smooth. Put in 3 cup bowl cover and ferment for up to 4
days in the fridge.

Dough

1 cup flour (I normally use 3/4 unbleached bread flour and 1/2 Durum)
- not sure what I used at BSNBB
1/2 tsp dried yeast
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup water.

Mix starter and ingredients for dough - this bread is best done in a
mixer since the dough is very sticky. If you must make it by hand (as
I had to this weekend) use as little flour as possible and keep the
dough sticky).

Mix for a few minutes with the paddle on medium high and as strands of
gluten begin to form lower the speed to medium. After a few minutes
the dough should begin to pull away from the sides of the bowl - if it
doesn't add a tablespoon of flour and continue mixing - repeat as
needed until dough just begins to pull away.

Cover and allow to rise at room temp until tripled in volume (make
sure to use a large enough container - I had a lot of overflow issues
at BSNBB).

After the dough has risen, gently scape it out of the bowl onto a well
floured surface and shape into a rectangle. Sift more flour on top
and the transfer to a parchment covered sheet.

If you want the bread ready within a few hours allow it to rise in the
kitchen for a few hours before baking. If you can wait I think the
final product is better if the dough rises overnight in a cool spot -
the fridge might be a bit cool, I usually put it in my beer fridge
which is at ~ 8C.

To bake: preheat oven to 475 F for at least an hour before baking.
Put an iron skillet or some sort of pan on the floor of the oven when
preheating.

When you are ready to bake throw a handful of ice cubes into the pan
and get the dough in the over quickly before you lose the steam. Bake
at 475 for 5 minutes then decrease to 450 and bake another 20-25
minutes until the crust is golden brown.

This one is a lot of work and requires some planning but it works well
and can be make even when slightly drunk (as I was on Saturday)

2008 Jun 17
Someone enjoying the drumstick of a deep fried turkey. We did 2 of them this year and they both turned out perfectly! I took the carcasses home in my cooler and made up a huge batch of stock last night which I'll can up tonight. Broth from deep fried turkey is incredible!

2008 Jun 17
Making the traditional sunday morning breakfast of home made belgian waffles. Sorry, forgot to get a shot of the final product but see far above for a shot from a previous year.

2011 May 18
June 11 weekend this year - can't wait! My wife and I missed the last 2 years because of employment issues, but we'll be back with a storm this year! I've got 3 days off work and we're heading to NB with the family!

2012 Jun 17
Big Strange New Brunswick Brew was this weekend - I'm just recovering now :-)

Here are some videos of some of the food and beers we enjoyed all weekend - it was truly an insane weekend for a foodie. It seems that just about everyone who makes beer is into good food.





Some of the breweries


2012 Jun 17
what is this sour beer you mention in the videos? Where in NB is this event, never heard of it?

2012 Jun 17
It is a private event if you are in our brew club :-) Or know someone who is.

Held at Camp Pascobac on the Bellisle Bay about half way between Saint John and Fredericton


2015 Jun 21
Just got back from this year's edition ... 13 hour drive to NB on Friday. Big Strange Brew Saturday. 13 hours back today. Worth. Every. Minute.

The highlight aside from seeing old friends was the Polynesian style hip of beef. Dug a big hole Friday morning. Burned wood in it all day to get a massive bed of coals. Buried a prepared hip of beef at about 10pm. Dug it back up about 6pm Saturday fully cooked. Insane!

Pictures and videos to follow.

2015 Jun 21
Hip of beef wrapped in several layers of aluminum foil, then burlap that gets soaked, then some wires and chains for getting it into and out of the pit.

2015 Jun 21
The perspective is a bit funny on this shot and the hip looks way smaller than it really is.

2015 Jun 21
The massive bed of coals.

2015 Jun 21
A better idea how big the hip is ...

2015 Jun 21
All covered up ...

2015 Jun 21
Our mark on the wall at Camp Pascobac ... that plaque was from our so-called 10th year of Big Strange New Brunswick Brew. 2013. But actually as we were all packing up to go home in 2012 we started talking about how next year was the big 10 year and we should do something special for it. After a bit of chatting and doing the math, we realized that we had just completed our 10th! But we decided to celebrate 2013 as the 10th anyway and claim that we were all too drunk to notice the difference :-)

2015 Jun 21
A close up ... I hope the site knows to rotate this ...

2015 Jun 21
Hanging out at the lodge

2015 Jun 21
Next year in Ottawa will be our 15th btw ...

2015 Jun 21
Cooking up some snarsages ...

2015 Jun 22
Hand pump in the walk in beer fridge

2015 Jun 22
Part of the beer fridge ...

2015 Jun 22
Another part of the beer fridge

2015 Jun 22
The door to the beer fridge

2015 Jun 22
Starting to dig up the hip of beef

2015 Jun 22
First we rescued all the potatoes and corn-on-the-cob that we had in the pit - they went in on top of the hip

2015 Jun 22
Oh look, what's that?

2015 Jun 22
Oh, that's what it was!

2015 Jun 22
Well let's take that over here for closer examination ...

2015 Jun 22
OK let's get this thing unwrapped ...

2015 Jun 22
And into the kitchen with it!

2015 Jun 22
Oh my goodness!

2015 Jun 22
Unwrapping the other goodies

2015 Jun 22
There's that hip of beef I was telling you about.

2015 Jun 22
My plate

2015 Jun 22
Decisions, decisions ...

2015 Jun 22
Sunday breakfast of home made waffles, sausages from a local butcher, and home cured bacon

2015 Jun 26
Our beer fridge ...