Jet power

Continuing with our after stew maintenance. One of the propa e burner/pot,combos we borrow is a King Kooker jetburner. It's great for getting water to a boil really fast. My buddy JH has built a smaller version using one of my old burner stands. We'll use this one with my 13 gallon brew pot. I'm planning on 2. I'll make a brew pot out of a keg for the second one.  You can see it in action here -

 

Maintenance

Right after stew week is the best time to maintain our gear, otherwise it is forgotten until we start cooking. This is the pipe burner for my pot. Connected to tje regulator running one of the small pots it never gets hot enough. Running on a 10 psi regulator by itself it will blow out if turned too high. Again, not getting hot enough. So I'll fiddle with it until I get it right. 

Brussel Sprouts

Brussel Sprouts with potatoes, onions, carrots and smoked sausage. Seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder. Brussel sprouts are halved then layered first so they brown. Then onions, sausage, potatoes and carrots are layered on. Cover with foil and bake at 400 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake until browned; about 15-20 minutes.

 

Brunswick Stew

Veteran's day means Brunswick Stew at church.  We use the proceeds to fund various ministries around the community.  This year marked the 51st year.

We use 6 pots ranging from 30 to 65 gallons. Each pot has about 25 gallons of vegetables and broth that must be cooked down before adding the chicken.  The big pots get double that.

 

 

This is pot 1 aka Big Pot. It's 65 Gallons and is a converted church bell.

 

Pot 2 is only 30 gallons.

 

Pot 3 is the only modern pot.  I purchased it several years ago. It's 65 gallons.

 

 Pot 4 is 39 gallons

Pot 5 is also 39 gallons.

Pot 6, aka little big pot is also a converted church bell. It's 45 gallons

 

 We cook the chicken ahead of time.  Previous years this was whole chickens and would be an all day job.  After covid I was not able to find whole chickens by the case and switched to thighs. This makes the process go much quicker and I think gives the stew a better flavor.  We save the broth and added while cooking.

 

 Stew night, cooking starts around 9:00. There's a couple hours of cleaning and leveling the pots that mush happen beforehand. Potatoes go in first, followed by the onions.  No stirring at this point. That prevents the onions from sticking and burning.

 

 After around 90 minutes we add the canned vegetables, stacking the cans in front of the pot so we can keep track of the quantity. 

 

It's basically soup at this point.

 

 I hold off adding the chicken until around 4am. Once the chicken is added you must start stirring and there’s only 3 of us on the overnight crew. The morning "stir" crew doesn't arrive until 5:30. You can see how full the smallest pot is at this point so we need to cook it down to add the chicken.

 

It's done when you can stand the paddle upright. 

 

We usually get around 140-145 gallons.  Originally, this was bottled in 1 gallon glass pickle jars.  This was very labor intensive as all the jars were washed and sterilized by hand. Dropping a full jar was catastrophic.

 

 

 We power-wash the pots which are then placed back on the burners to dry.  We then apply a thick coating of lard while the pots are still hot.