Bacon bomb and how to flavor on the PBC

[TroyOHchatter]

The PBC uses juices of the meat to give the meat its smoked flavor. Stands to reason the best way to impart different flavors is to have different foods drip down on the coals.

With that, I did use strips of folded up bacon on the hooks. I also have invented the "Bacon bomb" which is wadded up or folded up bacon in foil, wrapped up, then with a few small holes in the bottom. I hook it, through the foil and the bacon, and hang it as a sacrifice to the bbq Gods. As it cooks inside the foil, the grease drips down on the coals.

I don't think the more fatty cuts need such a thing but my experience is like, chicken and turkey breasts or pork loin need all the help they can get.

So, what do you think?

[bcostlow]

This is an awesome idea! Stealing the idea but will give credit where credit is due :-)

[RonB]

That sounds like Da Bomb.

[JeffJ]

Cook's Illustrated did something similar when cooking prime rib indirect in a kettle. They wadded up 3 pieces of bacon right at the edge of the fire to deliver a bit of "grill smoke" to the meat. Their thinking was they didn't want to overpower the delicate beef with the use of wood, but they did want to deliver a subtle smokiness that comes with grilled food. In short, you are in very good company with a quite clever idea.

[UncleFester]

I LOVE this idea. Yikes, this could be scary good

[TroyOHchatter]

I am also considering other things to impart flavor. If garlic overcooks, it becomes just terrible but perhaps if there was a way to take garlic butter or some form of lard with garlic in it and let it drip down. I am just considering the PBC as a cooker, not a smoker, and going from there. The smoked flavor is from what drips down and sizzles. I have even considered a weird idea of a "Redneck woodchip rotisserie."

Think about it. You put on the rebar a bingo ball full of wood ships. Every now and then, without pulling the lid, you rotate the rebar until a few wood chips fall out on the fire and impart flavor. You could do this every half hour or so, something like that.

Here's my thoughts. The PBC is not a smoker, and all of the fussing with fire, temps, lighting, and such has come from the idea that it is a smoker. It's not a smoker. It's a cooker. Basically it is a "charcoal fueld constant temp oven with gravity fed/juice sizzle induced flavor enhancing technology." Okay, that's a bit extreme, but you get my view. It's not a smoker. And in this way, I probably do better at this than most hard core BBQ people because I have a very limited frame of reference and what frame I do have was frustration over a sidedraft smoker.

What brought this about was a competition smoker rig selling out of their trailer across the street from my work. We all agreed that the wood taste was there, something that my cooks don't have, however, the juice infused smoked flavor that my cooks on the PBC have were not present in the traditional bbq. So instead of attempting to emulate "smoked meat" I want to, instead, attempt to embrace the PBC as a totally different animal.

[JeffJ]

Ernest used to make that point - it's not a smoker, it's a cooker.

[hogdog6]

X 2. Cooker! 👏

[fzxdoc]

I always smoke sausages with chicken for every chicken cook. I make the lowermost sausage on my hanging sausage rack (suspended from a hook) a sacrificial one by poking a couple of holes in it. That dripping sausage fat, I think, adds flavor. Plus the sacrificial sausage and its compadres are always good eating along with the chicken.

Kathryn

[hogdog6]

I've always liked your sausage idea and plan on next PBC chicken cook to give it a try.

[fzxdoc]

You're going to love it, hogdog6 . Just be sure to use a tightly packed sausage like Johnsonville or the Italian hot or Italian sweet from Fresh Market. Those I can vouch for. Once I got sausages from Whole Foods that were not as tightly packed and they were crumbly to eat. They might have been that way any way they were cooked, but I learned my lesson.

K.

[hogdog6]

Will do 👍

[Willy]

I sometimes drape bacon over the grill rack to use later as crumbled bacon bits. I never thought of it as a smoking aid, though. Great idea!