Fishing Food

Our annual trip to Redwing Minnesota to stalk the wily walleye on the Mississippi river is only days away. I'm responsible for food and I need to smoke! We'll have pulled pork and beef brisket as a portion of our menu. In addition I bought a bunch-O-chicken thighs to grill. One of the things I also plan to make is buffalo chicken mac & cheese. I can make that with either the grilled chicken or pulled pork. Both came out pretty good. maybe I'll do a split recipe and make some of each. I also bought a ham that I'll smoke to enhance the flavor. I plan to use both the ham and chicken for lunch as well.

That's 14 lb of beef and 14 lb of pork. I didn't pick them that way. I just chose packages that looked like what I wanted.

Temperature is 41° at 10:30 and wind is very light at under 5 mph. the sky is cloudy. (Good weather conditions for a smoke!) By evening the temperature dropped to freezing.

For the I'm using Raichlen's coffee rub which you can see at Raichlen's Primal Grill web site. For the pork, I went with:

• 1 Tbsp black Pepper
• 1 Tbsp Rosemary
• 1/2 Tbsp Coriander
• 1 Tbsp Hungarian Paprika.
• 1 Tbsp Ancho powder
• 1 Tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1/2 Tbsp Cumin
• 2 Tbsp Garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp Onion powder
• 1 Tbsp Mustard powder

This is going on the WSM where I'm using Grove lump (from Woodmans') and for smoking wood: mesquite, hickory, apple, black walnut, oak and box elder. During the cook I threw a couple pieces of cherry in that I had sitting around. I started with about a gallon of hot tap water in the bowl. The meat probe of the ET-72 is in the thickest part of the brisket on the lower grate.

Using the Maverick ET-73 for temperature measurement with the meat probe in the thickest portion of the brisket. The brisket itself had to be cut into two pieces to fit on the lower rack. I can monitor the butts using a instant reading thermometer but I expect the brisket to be done first.

10:10 AM		Lit coals on smoker and closed up. All bottom vents wide open.
10:20		Meat on! (grate and lid temp about 220°) Closed two vents fully and one vent to about 1/2.
11:00	52°/197°/190° (meat,grate,lid)	Looking good. Cold meat is dragging the temps down but that's OK. I'm not in a hurry.
11:42	87°/180°/185°	Open the 1/2 open bottom vent a little bit - to about 3/4.
1:09 PM	133°/175°/175°	Stirred the coals a bit.87°/180°/185°
1:30	134°/170°/170°	Temp still falling off so I threw a bit more coal in and blew some air in the bed to fire it up and opened another bottom vent.
2:30	156°/218°/?	Better.
3:45	171°/216°/?
4:40	172°/207°/220°
5:00	170°/207°/210°	Stirred the coals a bit and threw some cherry and box elder in.
5:47	166°/222°/?	Meat temp is a puzzlement.
6:34	164°/189°/190°	Threw in a couple more hands full of lump and pumped some air to get it fired up.
8:05	174°/314°/250°	Closed down to one bottom vent full open. Water bowl empty? Peeked in and pork looks like it's coming along.
8:59	190°/253°/210°	Peeked in and checked pork - butts are at 167°, 168°
9:40	192°/?/?	Beef off and meat probe switched to a butt. (now at 169°)
9:55	168°/206°/175°	More lump, more air.
11:00	169°/295°/230°
12:29 AM	180°/272°/230°
1:10	182°/242°/?	Pork taken out, wrapped in foil and put in a cooler to rest overnight.

Beef - seems a bit firm but tastes terrific! Pork is mouth watering and pulls apart easily.

I don't understand why the fire required so much tending. Maybe I should switch back to briquettes rather than lump. Or mix the two. Other than that, I don't think I would do anything differently.

Roadside Chicken - Mexican Style

Got a couple small chickens on sale ($0.88/lb) and weighed 7 lb between the two of them. And that's with no 'inclusions' as we typically get with whole birds. (IOW these are gutless birds.) I planned to make them on the little gas grill using the rotisserie and using the Roadside Chicken recipe. However when I looked it up I ran across this recipe for Mexican Roadside Chicken plagiarized from Rick Bayless. I [pretty much followed the recipe except that I used fresh oregano and added some fresh rosemary. I mixed the marinade and poured it over the birds in one gallon resealable plastic bags. I turned them over several times during the approximate 1 hour marinating time to distribute the marinade.

Weather was nice and sunny with a high of about 68°. Wind was light at about 8 mph.

I used my Weber Silver A with rotisserie to cook these. I put some apple, cherry and mesquite in a foil pack over the igniter (should be a hot spot) and also put a piece of hickory and mesquite on the flavorizer bars hoping they would smolder there rather than burn (which they did.)

I lit the grill and set the burner controls to medium. that proved to be too much heat so I turned them both to low and that held a decent temperature for the remainder of the cook. Maybe at the end I should crank it up again to crisp the skin.

time	temp	comment
16:20		Meat on the rotisserie. Both burners at medium.
16:30	400°	Cut both burners back to low. Wood in foil pack and directly on the flavorizer bars seems to be smoldering nicely.
16:50	340°	Both burners on low seem to do a decent job of holding temps at this level.
17:35	320°	Temp seems to be drifting down a bit. I probed the meat with an instant read thermometer and it was just below 160° on both birds.
17:57	°	Crank the heat up to crisp the skin!
18:02	580°	Chicken off!

Chicken came out pretty good. There was a definite smoky flavor and Southwest flavor. And the chicken was really juicy. Only downside was that the skin was not crispy. Oh,well. Maybe bringing the heat up a little sooner is required for that.

Liver pâté and some pork neck bones.

I saw pork neck bones real cheap at the store so I bought some. I also thawed out several pounds of chicken livers with the plan to smoke both in the mini. I'll use the chicken livers for pâté and not sure what I'll do with the neck bones. (Probably make some kind of stock.)

Weather is pleasant at 67°, sunny and with light wind at about 8 mph.

I made a rub for the pork using the recipe for the previous rub except that I remembered the mustard, used fresh Rosemary and only made about 1/3 as much. Those will go on the bottom rack.

For the livers, I sliced a couple small onions and several cloves of garlic and added some fresh Thyme. (Oops, I was supposed to add some Bay leaf. I'll toss in a couple now.) The liver was smoked in a medium cast iron pan.

This is smoked on the mini-WSM using Grove lump. I selected some small chunks of hickory and mesquite for smoking wood. I also poured about half a gallon of hot tap water into the water bowl. The bottom vent was about 1/3 open and I left it there the whole time, not being overly concerned about temperature control.

time	temp	comment
12:15		Meat on!
12:45	200°/98°/? grate/meat/lid
13:05	245°/122°/?	Turned the livers over a bit for better smoke exposure. Temp spiked to 310° a few minutes after that.
13:45	294°/151°/?
14:00	299°/155°/150°	Stirred the livers again. They don't look done yet. (Time to add the Bay leaves. ;)
14:50	227°/163°/?
15:54		Lifted the middle section and stirred the coals a bit.
16:30	217°/163°/160°	Liver looks done - time to bring it in.
17:40	210°/NA/?	Time to take the neck bones off.

The pâté came out good. I put nearly a stick of butter in as I blended it. That seems like a lot but Pepin recommends a stick and a half for 1/2 lb. chicken livers and I had about 4 lb chicken livers. (This produced about 5 cups of pâté.) I like the flavor but I'm not sure I can pick out the smoke flavor. Against the liver it may be pretty subtle.

The neck bones weren't really done the way I'd want ribs or pulled pork done, but I planned on further cooking anyway. These were pretty bony so I covered them with water and simmered until the meat was falling off the bone. I'm going to use this stock to make lentils.

What to do differently next time.The only thing to do differently would involve the size of the pan I used for the livers. I didn't want something deep but a relatively small cast iron pan was all that would fit in the mini-WSM. Ideally I'd have a 12" cast iron pan with no handle. I used a pyrex casserole last time and the smoke left a relatively durable film on the outside which took a lot of scrubbing to remove.

Spare ribs for the corn roast.

Spare Ribs went on sale at Ultra for $1.76/lb. That helped me to make my decision for what to smoke for the corn roast. I purchased 6 individually cryovaced racks. The racks ran a little on the small size. I'm guessing that some hog farmers may be liquidating their herds doe to the continued drought. the smaller size would work to my advantage when fitting these in the smoker anyway. In addition to that, I trimmed them up a bit, more or less Saint Louis style. (I didn't slavishly go for straight racks, I just trimmed the brisket off mostly. The flap had already been mostly trimmed and I only needed to trim additionally on one of six racks. I also trimmed off what I believe to be the sternum portion of the ribs.

We have a hot day today. At 1:00 PM we're at 89° and should go a bit higher. Wind is breezy reported at 15 mph but much lighter on the patio. The sky is clear and the sun hot.

I'm using a rub modified form the Mother's Day rub. I had meant to add some mustard powder but I forgot. <sigh>. Next time.

• 3 Tbsp. Coarse grind black pepper. (**)
• 4 Tbsp. ground Sage
• 2 Tbsp. Coriander (**)
• Chopped fresh Rosemary - about 2 Tbsp.
• 2 Tbsp ground dried Oregano flakes. (**)
• 1 Tbsp. ground Chili Ancho
• 1 Tsp. ground Chili Chipotle
• 1 Tsp. Cumin
• 2 Tbsp. garlic powder (not enough fresh.)
• Enough peanut oil to make this mixture a slurry.

I ran out of rub before I rubbed the tips so I mixed up a dry rub similar to above except I used dry Rosemary and about 1 Tsp. Kosher salt and 1 Tbsp. packed brown sugar.

This is going to be a double cook. The racks of ribs go in the WSM (equipped with an extra cooking rack) and the trimmings will go in the mini-WSM. I'm using lump charcoal and hickory, walnut, maple and apple (WSM) or pecan, apple, maple and a little cherry (mini-WSM.)  One gallon of hot water was added to the bowl in the WSM and about half that much in the mini.  The WSM was started with a Minion lay and was buttoned up with one bottom vent open half. The mini was nearly full from a previous smoke so I put all of the charcoal in the chimney to light and added the smoking wood to the fire ring and then poured lit coals onto the wood arranged around the outside edge inside the fire ring.

The smokers weren't given more than about 5 minutes to get going before loading the meat.

Racks of ribs in the WSM:

time	temp	comment
		Started out with pone bottom vent half open.
12:50 PM		Meat on!
1:51	172°/170° (grate, lid)
2:40	174°/175°
3:35	174°/177°
4:09	180°/180°
4:35	183°/185°
6:50	246°/210°	Water gone?
7:30	245°/205°	Tips are done but the ring still have more to go.
9:17	213°/195°	Meat just barely starting to pull back on bones. Stirred the fire a bit and threw in a couple more chunks of apple. Seems to be plenty of charcoal left and it seems to be well lit. Opened the one bottom vent a little bit.
10:10	228°/190°	Not pulling back on the bones much yet but the ribs on the bottom rack were starting to. Since there will be opportunity for further cooking when reheating, I'll take them off now. They do seem pretty flexible when picked up by hand. Meat off!

Grate measured using a Maverick ET-73 and lid using the built in Weber thermometer.

Rib trimmings in the mini:

time	temp	comment
		Started with bottom vent half open and (Doh!) top vent closed. At about half an hour stupidity realized and top vent opened. Coals still lit!
1:25 PM		Meat on!
2:40	200°(lid)	Nice recovery
3:35	185°	Opened the bottom vent a little to about 2/3 open.
4:09	180°
4:35	190°
6:50	170°
7:30		Meat off! Time for some rib tip trimmings for dinner.

Some of the rib tips were served as soon as they came off. they were a little dry but still very tasty. The racks that came off the main smoker went into a covered turkey roasting pan to rest a bit and chill before they were put in the cooler.

And yet another butt over brisket

The previous smoke was for the purpose of convincing my neighbor to go with something off the smoker for their after race party. No convincing was needed after she had some of my ribs. She said "Yes, brisket and pulled pork would be fine." So I got another 10 pound brisket and a pair of butts to smoke. My pan is to smoke overnight, starting about 10:00 PM. That should pretty much have the meat done by noon (provided I drop the temps a little bit.) Then I'll foil and put in a cooler to hold the meat until I need to prepare it for serving. that should duplicate the results I had with the previous smoke. I'll hold the meat in Dutch ovens and serve in a Sterno fueled chafing dish.

Outside temperature is about 66°, sky is dark and wind is pretty flat (reported at 3 mph.)

See previous post. I'm using the same rubs. The only difference is I have the rub son by 10:00 PM so they have a couple hours to marinate before they go in the smoker.

Again, I'll be duplicating the smoker setup and smoking woods I used last time. Hot coals on the Minion lay at 9:35 and the cooker closed up. Top vent full open and one bottom vent full open. I'm going to let it settle a bit before putting meat in. OK, by 9:40 the grate temp reads 261° and I think that's settled enough! Brisket will go on the bottom with the meat probe and butts will go on the upper rack.

time	temp	comment
9:45 PM	261°/205°/? (grate, dome, meat)	Meat on the smoker.
10:00	264°/200°/56°	Close the single open bottom vent to about half.
10:43	266°/220°/95°	Closing a little more.
11:28	269°/220°/128°	Closing a little more - barely open now.
5:25 AM	155°/150°/150°	Need more fire! Open one bottom vent full and fan the coals a bit.
8:00	194°/?/153°	Added some charcoal.
10:22	240°/?/167°	Repeated charcoal additions are finally having the desired effect.
11:19	271°/240°/177°	One bottom vent back to half open.
12:22	285°/245°/182°
12:30		Pork feels done - off to rest!
2:15	278°/°/190°	Beef coming off now.

It worked well again. The entire smoke was consumed at the party and I had to dip into my reserves for a few more pound of beef and pork.

What to do differently next time - don't let the temperature drop as much overnight. Of course the drop was better than a runaway smoker.

Another butt over brisket

Just because. We've finished our brisket before vacation and have no more pulled pork left. We do have some back loin ribs, a little more than one rack left. That's all the reason I need. OK, there's another reason. My neighbor runs the Winfield Criterium which is coming up this weekend. I gave her some of the back loin ribs (it was her husband who watched our house while we were out of town.) Last year I cooked for their after party (for everyone who helped put it on) and made - by their request - fajitas. They bought onions, peppers and beef brisket. Oy! I almost panicked when I saw that but quickly researched marinades and settled on one that included lemon juice and vinegar (IIRC) with the hope that it would tenderize the beef a bit. I also sliced the brisket up for maximum exposure. It marinated overnight and was good but still a bit on the rangy side. I think that's just not the right cut of beef for fajitas. This year I'm hoping to convince them that something off the smoker would be better. I hope some brisket and pulled pork talks for me. ;)

I picked out the biggest brisket at Sam's which was just shy of 10 lb. The brisket is a two pack that ran about 16 3/4 lb.

I'm starting this late afternoon so it looks like it will be a long night or an early morning. Plus it will have to go for several hours on its own while we head off to hot dog night.

Weather is hot at 90° and sunny. There is a light of wind reported at about 5 mph but feels like a bit more. Temperature down to 67° by the time the meat came off in the wee hours.

I'm using pretty much the same recipe as last time I did butt over brisket with some modifications as listed below. (I have fresh rosemary but forgot to buy garlic.) The Coffee rub recipe is not worth repeating. You can see it at Raichlen's Primal Grill web site. For the pork, I went with:

• 1 Tbsp black Pepper
• 1 Tbsp Rosemary
• 1/2 Tbsp Coriander
• 1 Tbsp Hungarian Paprika.
• 1 Tbsp Adobo seasoning
• 1 Tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1/2 Tbsp Cumin
• 2 Tbsp powdered garlic

This is going on the WSM where I'm using Royal Oak lump and for smoking wood, mesquite, hickory, apple, black walnut and box elder. I started with about a gallon of hot tap water in the bowl. The meat probe of the ET-72 is in the thickest part of the brisket on the lower grate.

time	temp	comment
3:15 PM		Lit coals on, meat on and buttoned up with one bottom vent half open as seems to work well for me..
3:30	237°/245°/57° (grate/dome/meat)	Temps spiked a bit due to a well lit fire but is settling down a bit after closing up the smoker.
4:08	255°/245°/90°
5:16	263°/250°/136°	closed the vent a little bit - hardly at all.
10:19	219°/215°/172°	That's pretty good for 5 hours of inattention. I'll open a bottom vent a little bit more and stir the coals. Whoops! I fond that one of the bottom vents which I thought had been closed was actually open about half way, so to this point
12:18	240°/?/182°
12:54	220°/215?/185°	Threw in some more lump. Pork is at about 172°.
2:30	230°/225°/195°	Beef off and meat probe switched to pork (now 184°.)
2:40		Decided to take the pork off s well. It looks done.

I wrapped all pieces of meat in foil and put in a cooler for an extended rest (til morning) prior to slicing and pulling. They both turned out to be the tenderest pieces of meat I have ever smoked. The pork was almost too tender. I think that the extended rest was the reason for this. The beef was also very juicy.

The only thing I might do differently is double check which vents are open to keep the fire better controlled. I would have liked a slightly lower smoke temperature but the results were great!

Back Ribs with some rub tests

I owe some friends and these are things I cannot pay back with money. I chose back loin ribs from Sams. (Based on the size, I think they qualify as baby back ribs, but I'm no expert.) I'm also going to perform some rub experiments. I cut off three end ribs so the racks fit better. I'm going to try a variety of other rubs on those micro-racks. But since I made larger quantities of two popular rubs (BRITU, Raichlen's Memphis rub) I'm going to do a rack of each of those too.

Temperature is presently at 79°, sunny and wind is very light (reported at 10 mph but I'm skeptical.)

Most of the ribs will be rubbed with the rub I used for Mother's Day with some changes. I used fresh rosemary form the garden and powdered garlic since we were out of bulbs. I also mixed up some other rubs to try for the sake of comparison:

1. Plain with oil
2. Salt and black pepper with oil
3. Salt, black pepper, garlic powder and Adobo with oil
4. BRITU (Best Ribs in the Universe)
5. Raichlen's Memphis Rub (From his Barbecue Bible book, but I'm not going to mop.)
6. Salt, brown sugar, black pepper and Adobo with oil

I'm using toothpicks broken in half and stuck into the edge of the ribs (between bones) to provide identification. I hope they don't fall out otherwise I'll be guessing which is which.

This smoke is on my 18 1/2" WSM (Weber Smokey Mountain.) I'll be using water in the bowl and the third grate so I can lay two racks of ribs on each grate. For the fire I'm using Royal Oak lump charcoal with chunks of hickory, box elder (maple) and crab apple for smoking wood.

time	temp	comment
10:45 AM		All rubs have been applied.
11:10		Lit charcoal chimney on propane (Yay Performer!) and set on a Minion lay.
11:20		Lit chimney dumped on unlit coals. One gallon of hot tap water in bowl and smoker closed up. Top vent is wide open (as always) and one bottom vent left 1/2 open (other two bottom vents closed.)
11:30		Meat on!
11:50	167°/190°(grate/dome)
1:05	194°/200°	Progress is good!
2:34	198°/210°
		Hmmm... What was that reading and what time was it? Anyway, at that point I stirred the fire a bit and threw in some more hickory and apple.
4:53	189°/195°	I stirred the coals a bit more and opened another bottom vent to 1/2. the ribs still look good but they're a ways away.
5:10	177°/195°	Gave it a shot of air to fire up the coals a bit. Temp seems to be recovering.
5:37	201°/195°
5:45	200°/195°	Opened one bottom vent full (two at 1/2 and one at full open.) Almost time for dinner!
6:10	233°/215°	Took samples 1 & 2 off for dinner - Hungry!
6:20	250°/	Closed one vent - the full open one.
7:00		Meat off!

This is about an hour into the smoke.

About 5 hours

Ready to come off

That's a nice pile of ribs!

Here's an evaluation of the various rubs.

1. Plain with oil - Surprisingly good! It goes to show that the primary flavor is from the pork and the smoke and the rub just adds additional layers of flavor.
2. Salt and black pepper with oil - Again very good with the improvement of the salt and pepper which provides minimal heat.
3. Salt, black pepper, garlic powder and Adobo with oil - Also good with the addition of some heat from the Adobo seasoning.
4. BRITU (Best Ribs in the Universe) This is good, but IMO not the best in the universe. But it is produce juicy ribs.
5. Raichlen's Memphis Rub (From his Barbecue Bible book, but I'm not going to mop.) At present, my favorite. I think the mustard gives it a nice tang and the cayenne gives it some heat. and it is juicy.
6. Salt, brown sugar, black pepper and Adobo with oil - Pretty good flavor for a simple rub. I little dryer but nice and spicy.

My rub - Not as good as Raichlen's. I should cut back a bit on the rosemary and the heat. I could add some mustard as well. An open question remains salt and sugar. Particularly with sugar, I'm just not sure it adds much. I'll have to taste test again tomorrow and re-evaluate, checking for moistness as well as flavor.

One thing seems clear. It is not necessary to add a lot of flavor. Hickory, apple and maple do that just fine. Subtle flavors and a little heat are all that is really needed.