Thanks again for having me on the show guys. It's a testament to your expert post-production skills that it ended up sounding as good as it did. I realized that I was talking incredibly fast so I could get as much in as I could without stepping on anyone. 😀 Sorry about that.

I wish I'd come better prepared for the food pairing portion. There's no rule book when it comes to food/beer or food/wine pairing, only guidelines. If you're sitting down to a dinner of roast chicken and potatoes with a Belgian Dubbel, it's not like the chicken's going to get off the table and say «A Dubbel? Are you kidding? I'd go much better with a mild brown ale or English bitter.» There are some things that pair better than others, but overall, I think you have to drink the things you like and eat the things you like. If you do those two things together, you're going to be very happy.

Can't wait to hear the rest of the Sexiest Beer Alive competition.

Great show! Anyone have a tissue?

Thanks for the shout. I did google «smoked olive oil» and found a few smokehouses that sell them in the UK. Another thing I ran into when I was checking it out was they cold smoked butter as well. That sounds great and I am planning an unusual smoking session soon to try out a myriad of odd ingredients. So far my list includes:
Butter, grape seed oil, soy sauce, honey, and salt.

If you have any additional ideas let me know. I am doing a cold-smoke as soon as the temp drops below zero next week.

I loved Phil's nomination. My wife heard it and ran over to see what porn I was looking at. I told her it was about beer, she said, «Figures, men get hot over anything.»

I also notice that as the drinks go down the homo erotic jokes increase. hehe

Take care,
Kirk

Hey Kirk, I've been wanting to do an honest to goodness smoked Lox. That requires cold smoking. I smoke salmon all the time - Costco sells these massive salmon filets that they dye pink - I think the salmon come from the southern hemisphere somewhere. Doing a true lox is tricky though because you have to keep the temps down (under 80F if I remember correctly) or the fish goes tacky on you. I'd also love to try a smoked gouda. Do you have easy access to beechwood? They smoke the malts with beechwood in Bamberg to make the Rauchbiers. I've never seen it in our local bbq supply stores, just hickory and fruit-tree wood (apple and cherry).

Phil is an enormously talented guy who's venturing out into all sorts of new avenues within the new media. We're lucky to have him as a friend.

You're right about the homoerotic jokes... wonder what that's a sign of?! Not that there's anything wrong with that. 😉

I do a lot of smoked lox or in Germany they call it lachs. It is one of the reasons I love winter time is because I can smoke it with no worries. What I do is I make a smoking fire in a little camper grill connect an aluminium duct (4 meters, ~12 ft.) and run that into the heat box of my smoker. This way, with the below 0 C, 32 F there is enough distance to cool the smoke. The smoker also stays quite cold. I try to keep the temperature around 40 F (10C) I find that the taste and texture is much better and you can smoke longer. I can usually get about 10-12 hours of smoking in one day during the winter (gets dark so damn quick).

A little tip though. If your smoke box temp gets too high lay 2 or 3 5lb blocks of ice on the bottom rack of the smoker above where the smoke comes in. I have a freezer full of milk carton blocks. Don't forget a tray below that rack to catch the melt. I find that the blocks usually last about 1 - 1 1/2 hour, but that is only if the temp increases.

There are beech trees all over here, I usually just go to a local farmer and he has stacks of different wood he is willing to give a few logs from, in exchange for some homebrew or smoked goods. A good replacement for beech is actually birch without the bark. The birch bark makes a mediciney smoke, but if that is removed and chip the wood it is quite excellent for smoke.

I will stop here before I write a book,
Take care,
Kirk

Kirk, write away. Hell, we'll give you a page if you want to explore cold smoking on here. People will find it for years to come. Let me know and I'll set you up. Lets face it, for a show about beer, blues and BBQ, we don't do much on the actual topic of BBQ - so you are more then welcom.