OT: What is That Delightful Smell?
- Thread starter PAgeologist
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I had the mildest of mild cases of covid over the holidays last year and haven’t felt the warm fuzzies for scotch since. Not sure if correlated. Never lost smell/taste.
We have a little section in our pantry for liquor. Of course it's almost all her stuff. She sees these new drinks, we buy everything for them and then she decides she doesn't like it. I buy something, I drink it till it's gone. I don't buy anything real expensive, so I don't feel bad putting it down fast. In between I work at drinking her stash.
For the record, I don't think your liquor selection is a problem.
I was the most popular guy in town during the first months of Covid.
Same here. I caught Covid at the Doobie Brothers concert at the end of July. About 4 weeks later the long covid hit. No appetite and worse of all no tolerance for alcohol. I have dropped 20 pounds so I guess there is some good. The last couple of days I have felt better overall but no thirst for alcohol. And I had just picked up a fresh keg of Victory Pumpking. 🤬😭.
I'll have to give Victory a shot if I can find it. I love most pumpkin and octoberfest beers. So far I think Empire Pumpkin Stout, Blockhouse, Southern Tier, and Shipyard are my favorite pumpkin beers. Logyard Pennsylvania Polish Octoberfest is fantastic as well.
It's pretty good. Certainly a bit different. I've never regretted a pour or a bottle but wouldn't seek it out special.
Going to try out a elk chili in the crock pot tomorrow. I plan to make it like my deer chili. Any suggestions? That and a spicy cornbread.
Now we talking, Chili is the only thing I’ve perfected.
Anytime I make mine with Venison (yes Ive used Elk many times) I brown it with bacon (sorry Dave) chunks.
Matter a fact, I put bacon in ALL my chili now.
You just put jalapeños in your bread to spice it up?
I’ve perfected my chili as well. Made a fresh batch of sweet and spicy deliciousness last week. I labeled it Berks county famous but that’s not saying much 😂
I view chili as one of those dishes that you throw a bunch of stuff you like in a pot and cook. One of my favorite dishes to make.
I prefer to make mine stovetop rather than crock pot. Just because I like to taste it often as it simmers without losing too much heat out of the pot.
One of the things I do is along with the ground meat is dice up a roast and put it in as well. For another change, smoke the roast for a while.before dicing it up. Gives the chili a nice smoky flavor.
Chili is my pride and joy, I dont just “throw stuff in a pot“ lol.
And my batches dont fit on a stovetop 😋
I made a batch last T-give with 10# of various meats.
Careful with the smoked meat, I ruined a batch once with an over smoked brisket a buddy did for me.
Speaking of…. what could I have put in it to cut that “ashtray” taste?
I tried EVERYTHING I could think of, it was too late.
I could definitely see where an over smoked meat will ruin a chili. I usually slice up the meat before smoking for chili. It's way quicker and avoids over smoking.
To my knowledge there is no cure for the ashtray taste.
A couple of ingredients I like to use in my chili, chipotle in adobo sauce, fire roasted rotel, and bush’s sweet heat baked beans. Gives the chili a nice smoky sweet heat to build on.
All right, made a mistake. Added to much brown sugar. Too sweet. Any suggestions to counteract?
Hot yellows or habs if you wanna trade spice for sweet. Never had mine too sweet, I usually am adding BS/ honey till the very end to fine tune.
I agree with the above suggestion of adding some heat.
Make sure to always simmer for a while after adding something to allow it to adjust
IMHO the number 1 rule in making chili is you are not making a soup.
Smaller Pork shoulder roast and some baked beans smoking tonight. Really just throwing shit at the wall thus far lol
Pork is fairly forgiving in my opinion. Key is watch your cooking temps.
Keep an eye on your internal temp also. Get a good remote thermometer if you didn't already. See first couple pages of this thread for suggestions. You don't want to keep opening the door to check temps. You lose to much heat.
I would toss those baked beans on the smoker for a little also. Just don't use any good porcelain dishes. The smoke stains them and theyre a pain to clean. And yes, I learned from experience.
Threw em in the cast iron with plenty of brown sugar, chopped onion and peppers.
woke up struggling, so the cook became a night cook 😁
Try some cinnamon in your chili. Adds a nice flavor outside of tomatoes and the heat.
I learned my lesson. I'll fine tune with cinnamon and brown sugar at finish. The chili was too sweet and everything I added to counter-act took out the different flavor profiles. Live and learn.
For brown sugar, I start with some amount, which I know isn't enough. But it gives me a good starting point. I add in small amounts throughout the day. I taste often to monitor how the flavors are developing.
Cutting sweetness without destroying your other flavors is difficult. I didn't think about it at the time, but more garlic and or onion may have helped as well and not been as harsh as adding peppers.
Adjust sweetness last, I get my flavor profile the way I like it first and my last adjustment is sweetness, I add increments of sweetness until perfect.
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Exactly, sweets will cut the acidic taste as well, if there is any left after simmering down.
Had a crash and mostly a burn overnight on the green mountain. Put 4 butts down. Boneless this time as they were on sale for 1.29 $/# did my standard rub and wait. Got up at 3:00 am to start the smoker and get the meat down. Smoker came up to temp, put the meat down, went back to bed. My high temp alarm went off at 5:30 smoker had caught fire and was speed cooking the butts. Hopefully we can salvage them for the big feed tonight. Hate it when I mess up the meat....
Crisis averted. Wrapped the charred roasts in foil and put into the oven at 210. Checked on it a bit ago and the char fell off the outside cleaned up a little. Doused it with finishing sauce like a high school boy uses Axe body spray and went with it. Wasn't my best work but certainly edible.
Trim any excessive char off, shred them, add some spicy barbecue sauce for pulled pork sandwiches, get a few buckets of potato salad and slaw, and lots of beer. They'll be feeling good and full.
Like my grandmothers cooking... Burn it black and scrape it the shade you like it.
Those Bookers all different releases?
Just as a small update, this is a pic with the other Bookers’. Still pales in comparison to your stash!
I know bourbon purists might take issue with this, but those various Jack Daniels Single Barrel Barrel-Proof selections are so good. They are all right around 130 proof, and you definitely get the classic JD banana cream pie notes, but they otherwise don’t really even belong in the same conversation/sentence as the rest of JD’s offerings.
4 pork butts on the smoker. Side by side comparison. 2 bone in and 2 bone out. Beans are doing their thing in the corner. Taters go on in a few hours. Cornbread this afternoon. If all goes well the wedding dinner party won't know the hours involved. Feeding 75 I'm told.
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