OK, on to the reviews! I’ll start with the most recent (my 3 year anniversary special) and work my way back to the oldest:

I’ll start of with a video review of the Canon 10-22mm lens that I rented for our trip out west. You can read more about it on my photography blog Mark’s Photography Spot. I have reviewed some good beers in the last month including some Sour Ales and Holiday Seasonal Beers. I even reviewed an afordable Kentucky Bourbon.

Here they are. Enjoy!

In this latest “catch-up” post I review a Porter from Trader Joes, the latest collaboration beer between Terrapin and Left Hand, give you a beer cellar update, make some Posole and pair it with a collaboration between Terrapin and Schmaltz and finish with yet another Terrapin beer, their 2011 fresh hop ale.

Here We go!

The past couple of weeks have seen me review the Laughing Dog Dogzilla IPA, an Oktoberfest from Thomas Hooker, an Amber Ale from Rogue and the first Porter of the season from Founders Brewing.

Enjoy!

This was the 1st time we had been to this part of the country and we really enjoyed it. We hit a nice spot of low-humidity weather and really took advantage of it. The distillery tours were interesting and the people were super-friendly.

I brought back 2 Bourbons (Jim Beam Devil’s Cut and Maker’s Mark) and a Kentucky brewed Bourbon barrel ale to review. Here they are:

Enjoy!!

The secret to the perfect car wash is a product called Optimum No-Rinse, which is an advanced car wash product that allows you to wash your car just about anywhere using less than 5 gallons of water. I’ve been washing our cars this way for more than five years with fantastic results. Lots of professional car detailers use this method every day on Ferrari’s and Lamborghini’s so it’s probably OK for our cars.

Here’s a link to their site:

Optimum No-Rinse

All you need is a couple of five-gallon buckets and a good microfiber wash mitt and drying towel. Each bucket gets 2 gallons of water. In one bucket goes 1oz of the Optimum No-Rinse. Start with the roof and work your way down the car. If you are in the sun make sure to dry the panels as you wash them.

Have fun washing your car!

On Friday night I started the process by making a basic dry rub of pepper (3 Tbsp), salt (2 Tbsp) and garlic powder (1 Tbsp). I took the brisket out of it’s vacuum bag and applied the rub liberally. I then put it back in the fridge, set the coffee-maker to start brewing coffee at 6:30AM and went to bed.

At 6:30 on Saturday morning I woke up, stumbled into the kitchen and removed the brisket from the fridge, setting it on the counter to warm up a bit while I prepared the Big Green Egg for it’s workday. Here’s what it looked like:

Once I got the ‘egg cleaned up and loaded with fresh lump charcoal I put some mesquite wood chunks/chips on the coals and loaded the brisket on the grate. I used indirect heat and placed a drip pan beneath the brisket. The temperature range needs to be 200-250 degrees. Here’s the brisket on the BGE, ready to start cooking:

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Once the temperature stabilized, I headed out for a bike ride. Three hours into the cook things were looking great:

Since everything looked good, I double-checked the temperature and vents and then headed out to do some errands. Five hours later we got back home. I noticed the temp had dropped to about 180 so I opened up the vents a bit and re-established the 225 degree ideal. An hour after that (nearly 11 hours into the cook) here’s how the brisket looked:

At this point I closed the vents on the BGE and wrapped the brisket in foil to let it sit for a while. 45 minutes later I took the brisket off the ‘egg, unwrapped the foil and cut into it. Here’s the final result, YUM!!!:

I served the brisket with some potato salad and a SweetWater Motor Boat. It was a perfect dinner.

Here’s the video version of the day’s events, along with the review of the Motor Boat: