Fairly new owner and need some ideas for the weekend!
-
-
You'll never look at chicken the same way again :-) But like Jerod says, ribs are good too. But there's a little bit of a learning curve as ribs may hang closer to the fire than makes you comfortable ... but you just hook the meat a little closer to center and it works just fine.Comment
-
I second chicken and ribs. Chicken is easy and quick. I stopped doing whole chickens though and just do leg quarters to make it even easier. I hang em with the hooks and rebar ties around the leg quarters. Works great. Good luck with your cook.Comment
-
Haven't done nothing but ribs so far but chicken is next on the PBC list.Comment
-
I'd say chicken or ribs ... just not both at the same time. Chicken needs to cook at a minimum temperature of 325 (350 - 375 is even better) and ribs do best at the PBC's more "normal" temperature in the 270 - 290 range.Comment
-
To change things up, if you're looking for some appetizer food:
-I did Meathead's Fancy Schmancy Smoked Salmon in the PBC a few weeks ago and it was super easy. About 1.5 hour wet brine time in the fridge, then dried them and put them on the grate for like 30 minutes and they were done. Other than that just follow his recipe to a T. Really fantastic and easy, and a big crowd pleaser served room temp with some crackers for spreading.
-Also an easy appetizer, just take an uncooked sausage (I've done everything from gourmet-ish links with various seasonings to a good old long link of polish kielbasa) and throw it on the grate for 30-45 minutes. Then slice into small pieces and serve with toothpicks and some dipping sauces. If you're running them solo, crack the lid to bring it up in temp a bit and it will reduce cooking time and crisp the skin a bit more, but if you're cooking them next to something else, the regular temp in the PB turns out just fine as well. I think I took them to 160-165ish internal. fzxdoc modded a sausage holder to hang on the rebars in the PBC which is a nice way to cook them at the same time as chicken or ribs (and give some nice sausage-y flavor to the smoke if you do as she does and poke some holes in the bottom sausage). I haven't done this yet, but just throwing them on the grate works fantastic as well.Comment
-
I love to cook brisket in my PBC. Maybe not the best thing to cook for the first go round but the PBC makes it easy. It is my favorite thing to make in the PBC.
For a first round I would go with ribs. They are pretty easy to do, and you can just let the PBC run at it normal temps. I find that when I am cooking chicken, I need to run it hot, 425 F to 450 F. This is in order to get the nice, crispy skin. These temps are not what the PBC was necessarily designed for. Cooking ribs for your first cook allows you to get used to running the PBC at it's regular running temps. As opposed to a chicken cook, when you need to do a few tweaks to get that temp bumped up. Just my two cents.Comment
-
Great info. Keep 'em coming!Comment
-
I've only done 3 cooks in mine so far - ribs, chicken and chuck roast. Of the 3 the ribs came out the best. I think next time I do chicken I'll either crack the lid for a bit or use a few more lit coals at the start. The skin didn't get as dark and crispy as my last chicken cooked in the 14.5 WSM with the bowl removed.Comment
-
I'll put a vote in for chuck roast. Best pulled beef I've ever had.Comment
-
Gosh, I haven't found anything yet that I didn't like to cook on the PBC, so it's hard to choose a fav. Pork butts are soooo good on it, but I think the nod has to go to chicken. That's how my family would vote too.
KathrynComment
-
I am always amazed at how the chicken turns out on the PBC, and for that matter, the ribs as well!Comment
-
Pork tenderloin is my family's weak spot, followed by chicken. I normally do a couple of tenderloins (they heat up quickly, usually just over an hour), then when I pull those off I drop in two or three whole chickens (chopped in half, backbone cut out) and crack the lid to get hotter temps. I don't worry about crisping the skin, though; for the most part, the pork is our dinner. We're only cooking the chicken to shred, vac-seal and freeze, so the skin gets dumped for the most part (or sliced finely and mixed in with the meat, if I'm not too slammed for time).
I freeze the chx in 8-oz. packets. That way we can drop one or two packets into a soup or salad or casserole and it's pre-measured, ready to go. You don't even have to remember to pull the chicken out of the freezer ahead of time; just drop the frozen treats into what you're making, and it'll warm up nicely. Tortilla soup with smoked chicken? Yes, please!!!
Pork tenderloins are usually fairly inexpensive, but I buy a ton when they're on sale and freeze them in their cryo-pacs. I pull them out to thaw in the fridge the day before, and dry-brine them for about 45 minutes. Then I rub them with a light coating of olive oil and season them with cracked pepper and garlic powder, and some dried rosemary (crushed), maybe a bit more salt. Hang them in the PBC (I usually toss a 2-3" cube of pecan or apple wood on the opposite side of the basket), bring them to 140-145F internal, then let them rest for 5-10 minutes under a foil tent. Slice into medallions and serve with a few sprigs of parsley, some sweet corn and asparagus (if you've got the hinged grate, you can do the asparagus at the end of the cook right in the PBC). Huge hit every time I cook them, and it looks like you spent a TON of money for a dinner that ends up running about $2.50 per plate (including the briquette cost).Comment
-
Chicken is literally the bomb on the PBC. Spatchcocked takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours.Originally posted by Jerod Broussard View PostComment
Comment