Summer Spares

While on vacation I had some BBQ. It was OK, but I really thought "I need to fire up my smoker!" We're back and I had some spares in the freezer which I took out last night. Today I smeared them with my usual mix except that I used Rosemary, Sage, Oregano and Garlic from the garden. I also added some Thyme based on Alton Brown's recipe. It will be marinating for a bit (45 minutes?) while I prep the smoker.

Weather is 83°, hot and sunny with practically no wind.


This is going to be smoked in the 18 1/2" WSM with some remaing Grove lump and some Stubbs briquettes. I grabbed a handful of wood chunks consisting of some maple, walnut, apple and possibly some cherry to which I added some hickory for smoking woods. This will be a somewhat unattended cook to a large extent. At about 6:00 PM we need to head out. I plan to have things stabilized by then at a somewhat lower temp and then will allow that it will droop as the evening proceeds. Hopefully they won't overcook by the time we get home.

time	temp	comment
4:20 PM		Set partially lit chimney on the fire lay.
4:32		Fire was roaring! Amazing how fast it goes on a hot day. I put about 3 quarts of hot water in the bowl and buttoned the smoker up. I closed two bottom vents fully and left one about 1/2 open. Within about a minute the grate probe is reading 281°. And the meat probe sitting on the table for my Platinum is reading 125°.
4:40	285°/?(grate/lid)	Meat on!
4:46	288°/230°	Went to about 1/3 open on the remaining open bottom vent.
4:56	233°/?	Dropping faster than I would like. Did I close off too much? I may need to adjust up more.
5:09	229°/?
5:38	215°	Opening the bottom vent up a bit.
5:56	238°	Looks good temperature wise.
6:10	244°	heading out.
11:00	195°	Meat off! Temperature drooped as expected. The meat really hadn't pulled back on the bone and when lifted in the middle, the ribs flexed a little. It could probably smoke a little longer to make more tender ribs but I like mine a bit toothsome and deemed them done.

Flavor - Good! I haven't decided if I took them off prematurely or they were done. The meat is tender 

I'm not sure I would do anything different.

Mother's Day back loin ribs

That's what Mom (*) wants and we're having company so I got two cryovac packs of three racks each from Sam's club. They had no spare ribs so I went with loin back ribs. (SWMBO had requested back ribs but my original plan was to do some of each.) Target serving time is 3:00 PM. I should have these on the fire by about 8:00 AM (based on previous cooks) but that's not critical since I can easily bump it up with additional heat.

Weather is going to be beautiful today. We're at 57° right now and the temperature is climbing fast with full sun and practically no wind at about 5 mph.

I'm using my typical wet rub (dry ingredients + peanut oil + lots of crushed garlic.) In the rub went:

• 1 1/2 Tbsp. Coarse grind black pepper.
• 2 Tbsp. ground Sage
• 1 Tbsp. Coriander (**)
• 2 Tbsp ground Rosemary (**)
• 1 Tbsp ground dried Oregano flakes. (**)
• 1 Tbsp. ground Chili Ancho
• 1 Tsp. ground Chili Chipotle
• 1 Tsp. Cumin
• 1 1/2 bulb crushed garlic (not clove, bulb.)
• Enough peanut oil to make this mixture a slurry.

(**) These herbs and spices were ground in the Krupps whirling blade coffee grinder that has been repurposed as a spice grinder.

These are going into the regular WSM of course. I'll be using the third rack since I like to smoke ribs flat. This is going to be a big load for the smoker. I'm firing with Grove lump from Woodman's (very nice mix of sizes with very little fines.) For smoking wood I'm using Hickory, Box Elder, Black Walnut, Apple and one piece of Cherry. The 22" WSM would be ideal for this size cook but I can get by with the 18". I just cut the last three ribs off each rack and then I can fit two racks and the extra pieces on each rack.

Later on I'll fire up something else to roast some red peppers and then bake some foiled potatoes. Maybe time to use the 18 1/2 which hasn't been fired up in years.

time	temp	comment
8:00 AM	°	Lit coals on the Minion lay. closed bottom vents to (0, 0, 1/2) (The numbers indicate the approximate fraction that each of the three bottom vents is open. 0 => closed, 1 => wide open)
8:20		Meat on!
8:30	169°/? (grate/lid)
9:25	180°/190°	I'm happy with this start. I can bump the temp later if necessary to hit my target time.
10:03	178°/190°	Opened the bottom vent a bit to (0,0,3/4)
10:30	176°/185°	Need to bump this up a bit - stirred the fire and went to (0,1,1) on the vents.
11:09	192°/220°	Bump working - back to (0,0,1)
11:58	192°/230°	Threw some Box Elder, Apple and Walnut on the fire. Higher lid temp than smoker temp is a puzzlement. But the smoke is progressing. I peeked in and the meat is starting to darken a bit but there is no hint of pulling back off the bones. When the spuds are finished, I'll see if I can add those coals to the smoker to give it a little bump.
2:45	242°/200°	Flipped the ribs over. They are starting to pull back on the bone but did not pass the "break when you pick them up" test. They should be done soon but I miss the 3:00 target.
3:30		Meat off!

(grate/lid) Temperatures are recorded using the built in lit thermometer and the smoker temperature probe of a Maverick ET-73 hanging near the edge of the top rack.

I didn't get pix of the final results as it was time to eat and other food to get served. But part way through they looked like this.

Everyone liked the ribs. They were pretty moist and had good smoky flavor, but I felt the spice mix left a bit to be desired. I dunno... I just felt they could have been better.

While the ribs were smoking I fired up some more lump in the 18 and fire roasted some red peppers and then closed things up to bake some foil wrapped spuds. Temp reading I'm getting with a thermometer inserted through a vent is about 425° Peppers were done in minutes on a very hot and open grill and the spuds were started around the edge. Once the peppers were done about 11:30 the spuds were spread over the coals, one bottom vent was closed (1,1,0) and the lid put on.

Once the peppers are roasted, the skins slip off easily and I slice them into strips and dress with white wine vinegar and lemon juice.

Next time I do this many ribs, I should take the three-rib mini-racks and experiment on them with different rubs and perhaps smoking conditions. I could do them in the mini while the almost full racks smoke in the WSM.

(*) Not my mom but the mother of our children. When they were young I had started to call her 'mom.' She pointed out that I was not her mother and I was directed to call her Cindy. I did so and soon our sons were calling her Cindy as well. She sighed and said "OK, call me mom."

Not another rotisserie chicken

I picked up a couple chickens a couple days ago with the thought that I'd put them on the rotisserie again. That works well, but I decided that I wanted to be a little more adventurous and use charcoal. Unfortunately I have nothing that burns charcoal and on which I can  mount a rotating spit. I recall some recipes on Primal Grill that involved a bird split in half so I decided to go that way. It seems like the perfect task for my big Weber. I settled on the recipe for Java Chicken with cafe latte BBQ sauce. It sounded pretty good to me, particularly since I like the coffee rub on brisket (what we had for lunch today) and this started out as coffee rub for chicken. I'll take advantage of the extra space on the grate to grill some zucchini to go along with the chicken.

Weather today has included rain and thunder showers but that may be behind us for the rest of the day - I hope! Temperature is about 63° F right now and wind is light at about 6 mph. The sky remains cloudy and I can hear thunder in the distance.

I mixed the rub per the recipe making a double batch and then split the chicken, saving the back bone, breastbone, giblets and fat and skin trimmings for stock. Then about 3:30 PM I rubbed the chicken and returned it to the refrigerator to marinate a bit while I prepared the kettle.

I'm using lump charcoal and an aluminum drip pan in the middle. I'll use my Maverick ET-73 to monitor cooker temperature so I can shoot for about 350° F. I think I'll use oak and mesquite for smoking woods for this one.  The charcoal chimney goes on the propane burner about 4:15 PM and put on the charcoal grate at 4:18. At 4:30 I dumped the coals onto either side of the fire grate and put the meat on. Before closing up the cooker I put some oak and mesquite on each side of the indirect fire lay. Within minutes the temp is up to 360° so I closed the bottom vent to about 3/4 open.

While the chicken was getting started I set about making the Mocha Mop Sauce and the Cafe Latte Barbecue Sauce. Joke's on me! Care Latte is identical to the Redeye recipe Raichlen provides for beef brisket and I just made some a couple days ago. I'll use that for the chicken then. I'm not a huge fan of mops but this one has both beer and coffee in addition to chocolate so it seems worth a try. As far as the mop goes, it was Dark Magic coffee and Ranger India Pale Ale for the brew.

Here's the chicken ready for the second mop.

time	temp	comment
4:35 PM	?°	Meat on! Starting with top and bottom vents wide open.
5:00	350°	Temperature measurement was spot on! Woops... It just dropped to 329°. I guess I'll open the bottom vent wide open again.
5:14	302°	All vents open and temp still dropping. :( Time to open up and mop and see what's going on! Fire looked robust on one side and not so robust on the other. I added more oak and a few Stubbs briquettes on the not so robust side to see what happens. Chicken looks OK but not moving too fast.
5:30	310°	Mop again.
5:46	310°	Mop again. Flipped the birds and mopped the bottom too. I also added about a half dozen lit briquettes to the laggard side of the fire.
6:00	273°	This time it looks like the robust side of the fire had nearly exhausted the fuel. I added some lump to both sides. I also flipped the birds back up and mopped again.
6:45	327°	Mopped again, mop sauce almost gone. I poked the birds a bit and they were between 155° and 160°. I'm going to take the zucchini out and grill it over the coals with some green onions. Next I slather on a bit of redeye sauce and set it over the coals for 2 minutes.
7:00		Chicken off.

Chicken was still a little bloody at the joints which was to be expected, I suppose. Skin did not crisp due to the extended cooking time. However the white meat was very moist and the chicken was delicious.

When cooking something on the big grill that's going to take over an hour, I need to start with more than a full chimney or charcoal. I can probably light one chimney and pour it out on to some unlit coal. If I need instant high heat, then it's going to take to be two chimneys.

Jonesing for brisket

I've been jonesing for brisket recently so when SWMBO asked if she could pick up anything from Sam's Club I asked her to get a brisket. She came up with this:

Weather is 66° with wind light at about 10 mph. The sky is partly cloudy but we could have almost anything as the day progresses.

Once again I'm using Raichlen's coffee rub with not a lot of marinate time. I guess I should have done that last night, but I'm not sure it matters much for this.

This brisket is just about 14" tip to tip so I plan to put it on the upper rack of the mini. I plan to use some left over charcoal and smoking wood augmented with some lump and mesquite smoking wood. I placed couple handfuls of barely lit coals in the chimney on top of the fire lay about 10:00. This has the effect of starting the coals and wood below it while the coals in the chimney continue to start. At about 10:20 I dumped the coals from the chimney on the fire lay, poured a quart of hot water in the bowl and assembled the mini-WSM. I started out with the bottom vent about 1/3 open and the top fully open. Within about ten minutes the cooker temperature is approaching 200° F so I put the meat on.

It barely fits but should pull back a bit as it starts to cook. Had it been any bigger, I would have cut it in half and divided it between the upper and lower grate. Today - just the upper grate.

time	temp	comment
10:28 AM	?/200°	Meat on!
10:46	65°/214°
10:57	88°/235°	Too much heat - need to trim the bottom vent back a bit. (I don;t want to boil away all of the water too soon.)
11:15	120°/244°	still hotter than I want - trimming a wee bit more.
11:43	147°/221°	That's better.
11:58	153°/217°	Overshoot - trim slightly open now.
1:51	166°/221°	Back from grocery shopping - nice!
2:58	165°/241°	Stalled! Cooker temp has crept up from previous reading. I'll speculate that the water in the pan is now gone. I'll let the temp drift up a bit to drive the brisket toward being done.
3:23	164°/247°	WTF! What's going on?
4:04	167°/217°	OK, meat is moving up again and now the smoker temp is dropping. Time to open it and look at the coals. Stirred the coals and refilled the basket with lump left over from last night's grilling.
4:28	164°/282°	Restabilizing after opening the cooker and adding fuel. Need to cut back on the bottom air vent a bit.
5:12	189°/265°	Need to poke it I think. Still firm. Good time to drop a couple foiled spuds on the coals.
5:50	197°/219°	Still a little firm, just flipped the spuds. They need more time. I'm almost ready to take the brisket off to let it rest. But I haven't made any redeye sauce yet.
6:05	198°/257°	Time to rest the brisket.

Here it is ready to come off the smoker.

I took it to a little higher temperature this time and consequently it seems a little more tender. It's also on the verge of being dry (at least at the thinner end.) It has a thin smoke ring and once again, it is delicious!

The result of refueling was that plenty plenty of fuel was left over. I dumped it in my Platinum and used it to grill some Chorizo Quesadillas following Weber's recipe of the week.

They're appearance on the grill does not do justice to how good they tasted. They were a bit overstuffed. I didn't follow the recipe exactly but I don;t think this is the kind of recipe where proportions are that important. I used a mix of pepper jack and sharp cheddar cheese. I should have drained the chorizo on paper toweling rather than drain in the pan as it was still giving up grease when served.

More pulled pork

I have the privilege to prepare pulled pork for a club event - new member get together. I set aside about half of the pulled pork I smoked a couple days ago for a backup supply and I picked up a 21 lb double pack today. I could be feeding up to 40 people. There will probably be fewer but just in case... This is going to be my first overnight smoke. Serving time is 5:00 PM tomorrow and my plan is to finish this late enough so that I can pull the pork and keep it hot to serve. I'll serve this on rolls with store bought cole slaw and Sweet Baby Ray's sauce as well as home made Big Daddy's Carolina Sauce.

Weather is mild with temps at 55°. Wind is reported at about 10 mph but it feels calm outside. It's not supposed to get much colder through the night.

I used the same wet rub that I used a couple days ago. Why mess with success? It went on the butts about 9:30 PM and I went about choosing smoking woods - hickory, box elder, oak, cherry and apple - and setting and ighting the fire.

Lit coals went on the Minion lay at about 10:20. for charcoal I'm using mostly Stubbs briquettes and the ends of a bag of Mesquite lump (mostly fines.) Fire seems to be getting off to a slow start with temperature holding at 157°. Maybe I need to check the batteries in my remote. Doh! Maybe I need to open the lid vent! I had forgotten to do that when I buttoned up the cooker.

time	temp	comment
10:20PM	pig/grate/lid	closed up cooker with coals starting to light.
10:45	42°/197°/?	Temp approaching 200° so meat on! closed two bottom vents and left one a little less than half open.
11:07	43°/201°/185°
11:37	50°/208°/?
11:56	57°/206°/190°	I'm still not happy with temps so I stirred the coals a bit. Wind has picked up outside - gusts to 20 mph. And it feels like there is the slightest drizzle.
12:12	66°/202°/185°	Stirred coals some more and went full open on one bottom vent.
1:21	95°/211°/?
1:46	104°/217°/195°	Closing the single open bottom vent to about half to see what happens.
2:00	108°/209°/195°	OK! Opened that bottom vent back up.
2:55	123°/217°/?
7:28	157°/202°/190°	Stirred coals and added more smoking wood. Seems to be plenty of charcoal.
8:05	160°/219°/?°	After the previous check I opened a second bottom vent and temp is once again heading where I want it.
8:42	162°/225°/210°	Put 6 brats on to smoke. I had forgotten about those until I was asked why I bought them.
9:45	167°/228°/220°	Brats at about 160° and off, next batch on (total of 20 brats to smoke.)
10:36	170°/215°/225°
10:45		Swapped in the next batch of brats. (Temps holding.)
11:00	172°/228°/?°	Ned to watch for temperature droop due to fuel exhaustion, but that doesn't seem to be happening yet.
11:45	174°/246°/225°	Last batch of brats off and now to wait for the butts to finish. Temp is climbing (recovery to over 260° after removing brats) and that should help moving the butts past the stall.
12:55	177°/240°/220°	Threw some more lump on and opened the third bottom vent about half.
1:46	179°/236°/220°
2:30	185°/?/?	Meat off when it hit 185°.

While I smoked the butt, I took advantage of some of the extra space on the grate to smoke some brats. They take about an hour and were done in three turns.

The butts came out pretty good. The smaller one which I had put on the lower grate was done a little more. This is about the most I would want them done, otherwise I'm afraid they would lose too much texture. I served them with both Carolina mustard sauce (Bit Daddy's recipe) and Sweet Baby Ray's. Some had the pork with mo sauce at all.

What to do differently next time? First, make sure the lid vent is fully open when the cooker is buttoned up. Next... Think twice about using charcoal fines in the fire. I tried to finish off a bag of mesquite lump charcoal which had a lot of fines remaining. I hobbled the fire to start with the closed vent and recovery might have been hampered by the fines preventing good airflow through the charcoal bed. But overall, the temperature profile was good and I hit my target finish time after 16 hours of smoking.

What to do differently next time.

Butt over Brisket

I've heard of smoking butts over brisket so I'm having a go at that today. I have 2 8+ lb butts and a smallish brisket to give this a try. Some of the brisket is to pay off some bobcat work that a neighbor did for me. The brisket is for us, some variety.

(I do need to figure out how to post pictures side by side without digging into the raw HTML.)

Weather is on the brisk side with temps at 44° and not looking like it's going to get much higher. It's windy with average at 17 mph out of the Northwest and both calm and gusty periods.

I'm using Raichlen's coffee rub for the brisket as it's a tried and true recipe. I rubbed the brisket and set it aside before prepping the pork. Thaty got my typical run which is approximately:

• 1 Tbsp black Pepper
• 1 Tbsp Rosemary
• 1/2 Tbsp Coriander
• 1 Tbsp Hungarian Paprika.
• 1 Tbsp ground Sage
• 1 Tbst Ancho chile powder
• 1/2 Tbsp Cayenne pepper
• 1/2 Tbsp Cumin
• Almost a full garlic bulb (crushed.)

I make a slurry of this using peanut oil and rub that on the butts and then went to prep the smoker. For this smoke I'm using the WSM and firing with some Stubbs briquettes and some Mesquite lump. Smoking wood includes Hickory, Box Elder, Oak, Apple and Lilac. Fire lay is modified Minion and I set the chimney on the charcoal while it fully lights to start some of the coals below it. Fire is lit about 1:30 PM. Fire is roaring and cooker closed up at about 1:35. I'll wait to see what temperature is going to do before I add meat. I also put about 3 quarts of hot tap water in the bowl.

time	temp	comment
1:45 PM	?/237°/225° (meat/grate/lid)	Warm enough to put meat on (temps prior to opening the cooker.)
2:09	58°/245°/205°	Going to close that one bottom vent to half and see what that does to the slowly rising temps. I'm probably boiling a bit of water getting tempos this high next to cold meat.
2:35	76°/237°/?	Good progress at this point.
3:32	103°/232°/190°	Tossed in some more smoking wood. Measured brisket at 148°.
4:23	121°/233°/190°
5:28	138°/223°/187°	Opened the bottom vent a wee bit.
6:11	144°/120°/185°	Beef at 154°, opened one bottom vent full and stirred coals a bit.
6:48	147°/202°/?	Beef at 154°, stirred fire and opened second bottom vent full.
7:24	151°/259°/195°
8:24	160°/262°/215°	Beef 164°.
9:51	170°/254°/215	Beef at 180°
10:20	173°/254°/?	Brisket at 187° so it came out. quite a juggling match ensued, but I finally got the cooker back together. <sigh> Brisket is now resting. Outside temp is now 33°,
12:10 AM	175°/241°/130°	Threw a couple more handfuls of lump on - looks like fuel is mostly gone.
12:49	176°/287°/?	Yay! Butts moving again.
1:48	187°/287°/?	Pork off!

(meat - ET-73 food probe in one of the butts on the top rack, grate - ET-73 cooker probe dangling just inside the eyelet. Lid is the built in thermometer.)

Despite the temperature, the brisket was still firm. Not tough, but firm. It still tastes great, but I think it could go to melt in your mouth tender if I kept it in longer. One of these days I'll get brisket right.

Pork on the other hand was definitely done when I took it off. And as usual tasted great! I'll stick it in a warm oven and pull it in the morning.

The one on the right was falling apart when I picked it up off the grate. That's how you know they're done! When I unpacked the raw butts, they just fit into this pan. It looks like they didn't lose too much moisture during the smoke!

Leg of Lamb

This is going to be our Easter dinner. We got a 12 lb leg of lamb - that's just about everything from the ankle to the shoulder blade (or is it the hip?) This will be the inaugural cook on my new 26 and we'll be following the technique described by Steve Raichlen for Leg of Lamb Provencal. In addition I plan to baste using the recipe in this thread. Unlike Raichlen however I'll be using charcoal instead of a gas grill.

Weather is sunny and windy at about 15 mph. Temperature at the moment is 62°F.

I prepared the lamb as described by making slits in which I could stuff garlic, fresh rosemary or Kalamata olive slices. (I found that needle nose cooking pliers are good for inserting the rosemary.)

I put a drip pan on one side of the charcoal grate and dumped lit coals on the other. Over that portion of the fire I plan to grill some veggies later in the cook.  When the ET-73 hanging from the lid vent registered 400°, I put the meat on (over the drip pan.) I also added some chunks of cherry, walnut and oak for smoking wood. I also closed the bottom vent to about 1/2 coverage. Temp soon pegged the ET-73 (max 410°F) and I cut it back a little more by closing the bottom vent a bit more. 15 minutes after closing it up it is reading 377° and that seems good.

time	temp	comment
2:05 PM	400°/? (cooker/meat)	Meat on!
2:37	352°/?	Opened bottom vent a bit more.
2:56	357°/61°	Opened bottom vent a bit more.
3:22	352°/80°	Added more lump and some hickory.
4:13	336°/118°	Temp had risen up to about 390° after last reading and was drifting down again. I added more smoking wood and stirred the coals a bit.
4:50	340°/139°	Meat off and resting. fire stoked a bit for veggies.

Results: the meat was very good - no great surprise - as were the vegetables. I probably could have taken it off a little sooner. I was shooting for medium rare and it seems more like medium. I could probably do with about half the baste as well. Plenty of that left over.

The grate is a cast iron grate from my Lodge Sportsmen. I think I'll get better grill marks with that.