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The ribs this weekend went off MOSTLY without a hitch. The grill wasn't as large as I remembered, and cooking 4 racks of ribs was... a challenge. We ended up with my 3 racks that I made going with indirect heat and cooking well. The dry rub was most lauded, with the wet sauced ribs being liked as well. The butcher seasoned ribs however ended up being over direct heat, and the bottom got charred as hell. Lesson learned, but even still the bottom was all that was blackened and the meat still tasted great to me. However the rest of the party was highly disappointed with the Apple Cinnamon that we got from the butchers, and they all wanted more of the dry rub! I ended up using the bounce test to check for their condition and it served me well. Thanks to everyone for the tips and advice, it's already been requested that we make this a tradition. Though I had to sit by the grill and nurse it to make sure that it kept to temperature. The grill wasn't exactly top of the line and would sometimes drop in temp due to the high winds we had I guess, and we had to turn on another burner to get it back up in a reasonable time.
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Sep 2, 2014 15:21
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Random Hero posted:Smoked Hatch Green Chili Meatloaf with bbq sauce glaze... Turned out incredible. I will definitely be doing this more often, and I would absolutely recommend it for anyone that likes meatloaf but wants to try a different take on it. Wowzers, got a recipe?
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Sep 2, 2014 18:08
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Jamsta posted:Wowzers, got a recipe? Well, about that... It was actually a premade meatloaf from Central Market (everything there is hatch right now) that I smoked for around 3 hours with some hickory and apple wood. Towards the end, I spread some Sweet Baby Rays on it to get the glaze.
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Sep 2, 2014 23:15
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Just wanted to post since using the replacement stainless door from cajunbandit. It is worth the hype, my 18.5 WSM held temperature better than ever. Did a relatively short 6hr smoke and barely needed to touch the vents at all. Highly recommended, thanks thread for the tip!
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Sep 3, 2014 01:45
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A family member just gifted me a Masterbuilt electric smoker. Does anyone have experience with seasoning this brand of smoker, or any other stainless steel smoker? Is it even required? I seasoned the hell out of my WSM while lurking this thread, and amazon reviews. I am just not sure if it needed with this new fancy steel box.
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Sep 3, 2014 01:49
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Sagnid posted:A family member just gifted me a Masterbuilt electric smoker. Does anyone have experience with seasoning this brand of smoker, or any other stainless steel smoker? Is it even required? They recommend blasting it at max heat for a few hours to blow out any kind of residue coating there might be on the metal from manufacturing. Then just do some BBQ! After that, look at buying the AMPS pellet burner which was specifically designed for it. Pretty well the first/only thing to do.
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Sep 3, 2014 03:44
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unknown posted:They recommend blasting it at max heat for a few hours to blow out any kind of residue coating there might be on the metal from manufacturing. Then just do some BBQ! Are you referring to, http://www.amazenproducts.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=amnts If so, what is the benefit of using this device over plain wood chips in the tray the masterbuilt comes with? Reviews seem to point to a longer burn time on the pellets as compared to wood chips. If that is all, I will just stick to the dried fruit wood I already have on hand.
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Sep 3, 2014 04:30
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It'll make real smoke. The stock tray generally is regarded as being woefully inadequate. There's a reason the amnps has a ton of really good reviews. Also you can use it with sawdust if you want to make your own.
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Sep 3, 2014 08:53
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sellouts posted:It'll make real smoke. The stock tray generally is regarded as being woefully inadequate. There's a reason the amnps has a ton of really good reviews. I just got done watching a few youtube links and I understand. It seems these things do pump out a ton of smoke. I will have to pick one up and give it a try.
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Sep 3, 2014 15:01
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I need to try smoking with lump again. I've been a Kingsford / apple wood guy for a while but I recently tried hickory and I couldn't really taste a difference. That makes me wonder if the primary smoke flavour is from the charcoal and not the wood.
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Sep 3, 2014 15:13
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Canuckistan posted:I need to try smoking with lump again. I've been a Kingsford / apple wood guy for a while but I recently tried hickory and I couldn't really taste a difference. That makes me wonder if the primary smoke flavour is from the charcoal and not the wood. The qualities of wood smoke are more dictated by growing conditions like soil and climate than they are by variety of wood. For example, white oak from arkansas will taste different than texas will taste different than minnesota, because each are raised in different average temps, humidities, a soil types. Two woods, even an oak and a fruitwood, from the same geography may very well taste more similar than two applewoods from a thousand miles apart. Also, often times bagged smoke woods will contain more than just the wood that's advertised anyways so it may all be moot. Wood is definitely important to tasting certain characteristics of smoke in your meat, that doesn't mean you can't get smokey flavor with only coals (a lot of Carolina BBQ uses wood coals only, burnt down into neutral carbon) but more just to reflect that they are not the same/there are unique flavors in woods. Wood has acids, alcohols, and aromatic polymers that charcoal doesn't. It also has creosotes (which though fowling are important in imparting flavor). Phenols, guaiacol, syringol are apparently the key flavoring agents in smoke, they're creosotes, and they do not exist in charcoal. Really, the key to smoking flavor has more to do with fire management than a particular kind of wood. Keep the smoke coming off the top of your cooker transluscent and blue and you're gonna end up with a good product. If you're cooking with white smoke it doesn't matter what fuel you're using - you're just going to taste bitter smoke anyways.
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Sep 3, 2014 15:43
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If your ribs pull apart easily when you take them off they're overcooked you heathens.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:50
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Digital_Jesus posted:If your ribs pull apart easily when you take them off they're overcooked you heathens. I have found it is incredibility difficult to convince guests to believe this. Everyone outside of my family seems to think a rib should fall apart at the mere prescience of pressure on the bone. Its like people who think mustard belongs on fries!
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Sep 3, 2014 21:56
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Biting into a rib should result in a clean break from both the bone and the peripheral meat. In an ideal world you would be able to see individual teeth marks in the meat itself.
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Sep 3, 2014 22:05
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Going for my first attempt at smoking this weekend - a 4 lb boneless Boston Butt roast in a Weber kettle w/ Smokenator, roughly following this recipe. Anything you guys wish you had known when you were doing your first smoke, recipe tweaks, rough time estimate, how much charcoal to start with (my first grill experience was reverse searing some ribeyes at 225, and I didn't realize I wasn't necessarily supposed to use a full chimney for those temps), what to do if it finishes early, etc?
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Sep 4, 2014 17:58
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The Bunk posted:Going for my first attempt at smoking this weekend - a 4 lb boneless Boston Butt roast in a Weber kettle w/ Smokenator, roughly following this recipe. Anything you guys wish you had known when you were doing your first smoke, recipe tweaks, rough time estimate, how much charcoal to start with (my first grill experience was reverse searing some ribeyes at 225, and I didn't realize I wasn't necessarily supposed to use a full chimney for those temps), what to do if it finishes early, etc? 4lbs is not even worth it, honestly. It's going to cook too fast for the connective tissue to melt away. McSpankWich fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 19:27
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That site has pretty good advice. You won't go wrong in following it. I guess my only advice is that it's done when it's done. Give yourself lots of time as sometimes the stall seems like it's going to last forever. I've held meat for 2 hours with the foil/towels/cooler method with no problems, so it's usually not a problem if it finishes early. edit - ^^^^ meh, it's good for a first time and to get a taste of good BBQ. I got in the mindset of 'go big or not bother' and I found that I'm just not smoking as much as I used to. I'm trying to break that mindset and smoke more with smaller batches. I don't really need to smoke a dozen racks or 50 lbs to make it worthwhile, and besides I can experiment more with smaller batches. edit after your edit - hrmmm. possibly a good point. Still it should be OK. I've done small roasts in the oven and they've pulled fine. Canuckistan fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 19:30
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The Bunk posted:Going for my first attempt at smoking this weekend - a 4 lb boneless Boston Butt roast in a Weber kettle w/ Smokenator, roughly following this recipe. Anything you guys wish you had known when you were doing your first smoke, recipe tweaks, rough time estimate, how much charcoal to start with (my first grill experience was reverse searing some ribeyes at 225, and I didn't realize I wasn't necessarily supposed to use a full chimney for those temps), what to do if it finishes early, etc? The best advice we can give you is go get a 12lbs bone-in shoulder and do that instead.
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Sep 4, 2014 19:37
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McSpankWich posted:4lbs is not even worth it, honestly. It's going to cook too fast for the connective tissue to melt away. That's nonsense. Why cook 10 lbs of meat if you don't need to? It's wasteful and time-consuming. 4-5 lb butts cook and taste just fine if you keep the temperature low.
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Sep 4, 2014 19:59
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I feel like evaporation is relative to surface area and surface area is consistent with mass (a pork butt is a pork butt is a pork butt). Cook time is relative to mass as well, so the duration necessary to achieve successful breakdown in a 4 lb should obviously be achieved sooner since cooking is about imparting radiant heat. In turn the rate of moisture loss should to be similar to that of a larger weight of pork butt, so you're not going to "dry it out" unless you cook it longer than the meat requires to reach optimal temp. That's assuming the dimensions and surface area is relatively consistent with a traditional pork butt, which feels like a safe assumption. I.E. it's fine to smoke 4 lbs of pork shoulder, just monitor it intentionally as you would any cut of meat and be aware that it will take less time than your used to so stay aware. My new smoker project (an 18.5 inch WSM) is still underway and I took receipt of an Auber instruments smoker controller with 6.5cfm fan, as well as a thermoworks two channel thermometer with alarm. Lots of guys use these to monitor the smoker and their protein, but I'll be wiring it up with two food probes to monitor those temps since the Auber will be monitoring/managing the smoker temp on it's own.  Next on the list are: Heavy gage steel door for the WSM Pressure latch for said steel door Steel hole caps for the smoker vents on the bottom (since the auber will manage flow) silicon gaskets for the door and lid hinge for the lid so I don't have to remove it to check on the meat. Also recently redid my modified salt and pepper rub and am waiting to try the new blend until i've got the new smoker running. Using a new combination of peppercorns and grinding them right before they go on the meat so that as few of the essential oils are lost to shelf life. Also using some MSG and instant dashi in the rub. Plus segregating the salt so I'm applying the appropriate volume per meat weight (less the MSG i've added, too). Injections are switched to beef stock and autolyzed yeast extract to try to impart only glutamates into the beef, since the goal is to really just taste meat and pepper, not apple or paprika etc. Woof! Woof! fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Sep 4, 2014 |
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Sep 4, 2014 20:14
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coronaball posted:That's nonsense. Why cook 10 lbs of meat if you don't need to? It's wasteful and time-consuming. 4-5 lb butts cook and taste just fine if you keep the temperature low. But you can vacuum pack it and freeze it and then have BBQ any time you want with little effort.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:14
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Haha, well poo poo. I thought I'd be ok since the Amazing Ribs recipe called for 5 lbs bone-in. I guess I can use this run as a way to practice holding low temperatures (since it's small should I aim for closer to 200?) & invite people over so I can go bigger next time.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:17
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The Bunk posted:Haha, well poo poo. I thought I'd be ok since the Amazing Ribs recipe called for 5 lbs bone-in. I guess I can use this run as a way to practice holding low temperatures (since it's small should I aim for closer to 200?) & invite people over so I can go bigger next time. You are ok in using a 4 lb. But do not adjust the temperature of your chamber, 225 is still optimal. Monitor the temp closely and pull the meat when it achieves the same internal temp (180-190 depending on your attitude). This will happen sooner than on a heavier cut, so the trick is to be aware of internal temps — which is always the trick in BBQ. Smoke with light blue smoke at 225 until the internal temp reaches 180-190 (wherever in there you like, I like lower since I do coarse chop instead of pull on a pork shoulder). Don't worry about time just worry about monitoring the process.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:22
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niss posted:But you can vacuum pack it and freeze it and then have BBQ any time you want with little effort. Yes! I've started doing this and just dropping the foodsaver bags into boiling water to heat them up. The meat comes out tasting almost exactly like it did off the smoker. The bark softens a touch but it's miles better than microwaving or heating up in the oven as far as moisture and flavor.
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Sep 4, 2014 20:24
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Woof! Woof! posted:My new smoker project (an 18.5 inch WSM) is still underway and I took receipt of an Auber instruments smoker controller with 6.5cfm fan, as well as a thermoworks two channel thermometer with alarm. Lots of guys use these to monitor the smoker and their protein, but I'll be wiring it up with two food probes to monitor those temps since the Auber will be monitoring/managing the smoker temp on it's own. Please keep us (especially me) updated on this. I have all the parts ordered to build a HeaterMeter with a RotoDamper for my 18.5", and I'm hoping to piece it together this weekend. I'll be very interested to see how your build goes.
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Sep 4, 2014 21:45
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Random Hero posted:Please keep us (especially me) updated on this. I have all the parts ordered to build a HeaterMeter with a RotoDamper for my 18.5", and I'm hoping to piece it together this weekend. I'll be very interested to see how your build goes. Definitely will do. I'm actually building this project backwards (buying the smoker last) because I'm enjoying the build up. So it'll be a couple weeks before my first cook. I have my last parts coming save for the smoker itself, which I'll order next paycheck. I have a packer brisket sitting in wet age in the fridge now, which will be ready in a week or two so hopefully everything times up together.
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Sep 4, 2014 22:10
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The Bunk posted:Going for my first attempt at smoking this weekend - a 4 lb boneless Boston Butt roast in a Weber kettle w/ Smokenator, roughly following this recipe. Anything you guys wish you had known when you were doing your first smoke, recipe tweaks, rough time estimate, how much charcoal to start with (my first grill experience was reverse searing some ribeyes at 225, and I didn't realize I wasn't necessarily supposed to use a full chimney for those temps), what to do if it finishes early, etc? I did a bigger one this past weekend on the Smokenator and I think that site's Smokenator tips section covers it well. Mine took 8 hours although my air temp was probably closer to 250 most of the time (long story). I think the best advice to take from that article was to leave the bottom vent open fully and modulate the top vent from a tiny bit open to a little bit open, and to just forgo the tiny water tray since it takes up so much fuel space. Since I didn't have baked beans or anything in the lower rack, I just poured a kettle of boiling water in the dripping pan below the meat to moderate the temp through the cook. Here's a lovely pic of what it looked like after pulling: 
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Sep 5, 2014 00:53
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I tried asking on tvwbb.com and did not get a favorable response, so I'll ask here. Anyone know a good place to get a heatermeter 4.0 case printed? Shapeways.com seems ridiculously expensive.
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Sep 5, 2014 04:26
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Flatulence Jones posted:I tried asking on tvwbb.com and did not get a favorable response, so I'll ask here. Anyone know a good place to get a heatermeter 4.0 case printed? Shapeways.com seems ridiculously expensive. I got a great case printed and shipped to me by Ralph on tvwbb. I can't remember the exact price but it was very reasonable with quick shipping. He has also been very helpful answering some of my other HM questions.
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Sep 5, 2014 20:33
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What the gently caress am I doing wrong? I'm having to fight to keep my Smokenator under 300 with like 35 briquettes in there. All the guides were saying to get it as full as possible which I did at first, but I've taken approximately half of them out at this point. Top and bottom vents are both around half open. Am I an idiot?  Edit: looks like other people have had issues with leaky lids causing temp overshoot. Wonder if it's worth it at this point to run to the store for some binder clips... Edit 2: found wife's binder clips with sassy phrases on them. temp is looking much better. i guess this is why they recommend dry runs. The Bunk fucked around with this message at 16:19 on Sep 6, 2014 |
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Sep 6, 2014 15:56
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Getting everything set up. 
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Sep 7, 2014 01:34
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Did a brisket today on my WSM. High heat method, smoked at 350 degrees on oak and mesquite. Just hit 170 degrees internal temp, then I foiled it.  Smoke ring money shot. 
Huge_Midget fucked around with this message at 04:34 on Sep 7, 2014 |
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Sep 7, 2014 04:28
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But how was it?
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Sep 7, 2014 15:47
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^^ What he said, the brisket gods must be appeased! 'Cue session in Merry England Didn't have time to setup a proper session with large meats, so went with a medium slow smoked burg' cook. TLDR: loving awesome. Recipe: * 1 x large toasted brioche bun * Medium-slow smoked home made 3/4 pounder pattie pressed with red onion * 4 rashers of med-slow smoked streaky bacon * Extra mature English shredded cheddar * 1 x home grown green habanero chilli * 1 x diced pickle slice * Ras-al hanout spices * BBQ sauce in the base Trip report: best burger I'd ever eaten. still getting after-taste hours down the line, and only in a good way. Also did a follow up but with just bacon, and was also amazing. Serious burgin'   
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Sep 7, 2014 18:02
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It was pretty good. I let it finish in my oven at 300 until it hit 190, or so I thought. I found out my remote probe kitchen thermometer is reading about 5 degrees low, so I overshot where I really wanted it to be. Still, very good but a tad drier than it should have been. I think next time I'll do 250 degrees until internal temp is 190.
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Sep 7, 2014 19:19
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I was looking at getting a BGE and read that they aren't very good for setting up two-zone fires. I usually do steaks in my kettle grill with all the coals on one side, sear and finish on the cool side--do you guys do something like this in the BGE (perhaps by venting and changing the airflow?) or will I need to keep my trusty Weber kettle if I get one?
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Sep 7, 2014 19:26
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Hed posted:I was looking at getting a BGE and read that they aren't very good for setting up two-zone fires. I usually do steaks in my kettle grill with all the coals on one side, sear and finish on the cool side--do you guys do something like this in the BGE (perhaps by venting and changing the airflow?) or will I need to keep my trusty Weber kettle if I get one? You will not have any problems achieving indirect heat with an egg. The ceramic plate does a good job of diffusion direct heat above the coals. I have gotten into the habit of adjusting my fuel level and not my oxygen levels if I require a lower temperature. Either way, I gave up my weber pretty fast after fiddling with my plate setter for a while. http://www.biggreenegg.com/eggcessories/plate-setters-baking-stones/plate-setter/ Sagnid fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Sep 7, 2014 |
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Sep 7, 2014 19:40
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Hed posted:I was looking at getting a BGE and read that they aren't very good for setting up two-zone fires. I usually do steaks in my kettle grill with all the coals on one side, sear and finish on the cool side--do you guys do something like this in the BGE (perhaps by venting and changing the airflow?) or will I need to keep my trusty Weber kettle if I get one? You're right, you can't do dual zone on a BGE. What people do instead is the reverse sear. You start off at a low temp and when you're 10F from your desired doneness, you take the steaks off, open up the vents and wait to achieve 650-700F and then return the steaks for 1 minute per side. http://www.biggreencraig.com/reverse-sear-ribeye.html
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Sep 7, 2014 22:40
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BGE has produced some of the best steaks I've ever eaten. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend one for steaks.
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Sep 8, 2014 01:25
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Cool, that will take some getting used to but it all makes sense. Thanks guys.
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Sep 8, 2014 11:21
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