Rained out with wicked storms passing through, so no cooking outside this evening. We do not need the rain, the Mississippi River and area tributaries are flooding really bad right now, and every day we seem to get another storm dropping 1 - 3 inches of new.
My wife’s first trial meal was tonight, and she said after looking at all the pizza, she wanted pizza.
long ferment, sauce, mozz, Italian sausage, pepperoni, onion, and olive.
Beautiful pizza pie! You don't need the rain and we could use a little. 104F here today and the next six days are forecasted to be over 100 as well, with hottest at 113.
Not my best presentation but definitely one of my best briskets. Super tender and full of beefy flavor. The bark is my best yet, KBQ for the win. Kinda crazy, this thing cooked in 6 hours, I am learning the KBQ. Twas a super fun cook though.
I of course love smoked meats of all kinds, but also like quick cooks like chicken portions, pork tenderloins, steak and fish. Really into cooking of all kinds.
My outdoor kitchen has a Lone Star Grillz Adjustable and it is wonderful. There also is a Pit Boss 5 Burner Ultimate Griddle and a Pit Boss Copperhead pellet grill.
There is an outdoor fire pit that has grilling capability and limited Santa Maria-style grill raising and lowering.
OKJ Bronco
Camp Chef Woodwind PRO 36
Santa Maria grill
Camp Chef Gridiron flattop griddle
14" Two burner camp stove
16" Three burner camp stove
Pizza oven accessory for camp stove
Gas grill (sitting idle)
Camp Chef 30" SG pellet grill (re-homed)
Camp Chef 24" DLX pellet grill (re-homed)
Bullet smoker (retired)
Masterbuilt Electric smoker (retired)
Some smashburgers for the 4th. Double meat, double cheese, thin sliced onions, on a brioche bun. I’m sure having fun with this new griddle. Hope everyone is having a safe time today.
Did baby back ribs for today, and yes....I really do prefer baby backs over spares. Perhaps it is because in the PBC the fat doesn't render all that well in hot and fast? Or I really hate eating around cartilage (I do)? But, these baby backs have been delicious.
I pulled the membrane off each rack and then cut them in half. (Many people with a PBC report this results in more even cooking and the ends not getting charred. I do agree.)
I seasoned with a light sprinkling of Kosher salt and then a heavy seasoning of Killer Hogs / Malcom Reed's The Hot Rub, my favorite rib rub. It is (relatively, as commercial rubs go) light on the salt and actually is not hot; more less sweet as it goes.
Here we are after three hours on the PBC.
Wife's plate. (I ate mine right off the tray I put them on after I pulled them!)
So good....but I could have let these things go another hour. My last batch were far more tender. Curious....next to no smoke ring, which I did not have on my last batch either. Weird. (If you look closely in the PBC shot, you'll see that only one of my three cherrywood chucks is consumed, and that one side of the charcoal tray is far more consumed than the other. That may have had something to do with it.)
If one side of the coals are more consumed than the other it is often an air leak on that side of the PBC. I'd be curious to hear what fzxdoc has to say about the matter.
That happens occasionally for me. Sometimes due to a slight breeze coming in on the vent side; other times it has been due to liquid from the meat dousing part of the fire (but this only happens on occasion with split chickens).
It often happens when I run the Pit Viper fan with my Fireboard ATC setup, so I rotate the basket or reposition the meat for long cooks. Regardless of the burn pattern, the average temp of the barrel (taken with 2 probes, opposite placement) stays the same.
fzxdoc Yes, it does seem the general temperature inside remains fairly constant; both racks of ribs were effectively equally cooked.
The worst case of having half my fire extinguished was when I was cooking some super marinated....something (I forget what) and I was hanging and the marinade doused the coals from the chimney on one side. Oops.
Lang 48 inch Deluxe Patio Model (burns hickory splits)
PK 360 (burns premium lump charcoal with wood chunks)
28 inch Blackstone Griddle (propane)
Rubs I love:
Yardbird by Plow Boys
Killer Hogs by Malcom Reed
AP Rub by Malcom Reed
Meat Church (any)
Three Little Pigs Memphis Style for ribs
Would love to try Meathead's commercial rub
Sauces I love:
Gates'
Joe's
Pa & Ma's
Killer Hogs Vinegar Sauce
Disposable Equipment I use:
Disposable cutting boards
Tumbleweed chimney starters
Aluminum foil
Aluminum pans (half and full)
Latex gloves
Diamond Kosher Salt
Vice-President of BBQ Security, Roy
He's a pure-bred North American Brown Dog
He loves rawhide chewies
My wife calls me "Teddy" and I call her "Princess" and that's where "mrteddyprincess" comes from.
I planned my cook based on the weather forecast saying we'd have rain all day. So the menu included homemade brats, Nashville Hot Chicken Sandwiches, Mr. Bones Beans, Princess Mac and Cheese, step-mom potato salad, ex-husband-in-law Frito Salad, and Princess cookies and frozen Key Lime Pie. I didn't get pics of everything, but I did get a close up of the Roy's BBQ brand on the chicken buns. We had nine guests and a lovely time. Sid P the brats were a hit.
hoovarmin an ex-husband-in-law is the guy who at one time was married to my current wife, they had two boys, and now he and I are related by marriage. :-) The boys' dad, John, comes to all our family functions and he's cool.
Well...Independence Day was mostly relaxing, but I started my day by squeezing 6 pounds of key limes for pie, using a hand squeezer. Here is a subset of the limes:
It was a labor of love, as these are hard to juice. I'm thinking a cider press might be a good idea if I ever do this many again. 6 pounds yielded 2.75 cups of lime juice, enough for 5 pies. I froze 4 pouches of juice for future pies.
Here is the pie...I was lazy and just used an off-the-rack graham cracker crust:
Since I had leftover egg whites, I decided to scramble them up for my lunch with some cheddar and Worcestershire sauce:
Very tasty.
We mainly snacked our way through dinner, but here is dessert, topped with my own sugar-free (but sweet) whipped cream, and a key lime slice:
And just for laughs, here is my wife's plating pic:
A+ on the pie. I'll never go back to bottled juice again, if I can help it.
I love key lime pie, but I’ve never attempted to make it. Key limes are a staple around here…we eat a lot of Mexican food. Those hand squeezers are great…but I can totally see arm fatigue with 6 lbs!
Well, I decided to "simplify" the 4th this year, and cooked ONLY on one cooker - the SNS Deluxe Kamado. For this cook, I just added a chimney of lit lump to the lump leftover from my last smoke down in the bottom of the kamado, and then installed Grillgrates on the main cooking grate, and then the SNS elevated grate above that. I know a lot don't see a use for Grillgrates on charcoal grills, but for me, it helps spread all the insane heat from the lump, prevent flareups.
Started the morning getting a selfie with Yvonne for her to post to Facebook... how do yall like my new "Grilling" shirt?
I decided to set a cooler of beer and cokes up by the pool, to save some walking back and forth to the garage kegerators and beer fridge.... this is all in interests of improving my cooking experience in 95+ degree heat!
I also blew up some new floats and scattered them around the pool for the kids and grandkids....
Now, you are asking, WHERE is that grilling shot? Well, here for starters....
And an action shot of the magic happening on the grill...
fzxdoc those brats from Fresh Market were a HIT! They are HUGE compared to the Johnsonville brats. A bite or two hanging out of each end of the bun. The girls ended up splitting them...
I cheesed the above burgers too soon... the heat and smoke and grease kinda degraded the American cheese slices, to where I ended up adding a second slice on top as I pulled them off the grill. All in all I cooked 8 VERY large brats, 24 hamburgers in two batches, with just 8 cheesed on the grill, and I wrapped up the cook with these lonely little Nathan's, as Yvonne loves Nathan's...
Not pictured is the two churns of home made ice cream I made. I did 5 quarts of my traditional vanilla, and 4 quarts of a dairy-free egg-free orange sherbet, made using coconut milk, for the daughter and grandbaby that can't have either eggs or milk. Despite finding the recipe on a vegan website, it's a keeper.
EDIT: I want to add one last thing on the cook. I don't think I've cooked anything BUT smashburgers since getting a griddle in 2020, and probably a couple of years before that when I was using the flat of Grillgrates on a gasser. These were the first "traditional" grilled burgers since maybe 2018. Seasoned with The Holy Gospel BBQ rub. And I really liked them! May be doing it this way for a bit, and mixing it up more in the future. They were smoky from the drippings hitting the valley of the grillgrates and then down to the charcoal underneath, and just about perfect. I pulled them all before they got much beyond 160, to avoid drying out too much. I made the patties up from ground chuck using a burger press a couple days ago, and stored on the top shelf of the garage fridge, where they actually FROZE on me. Thankfully I put wax paper between layers, and was able to pry them apart... anyway, enough on that. Just feeling a swing back to traditional steakhouse burgers is in store.
I made 18 of those Fresh Market sausages to go along with grilled chicken breasts, baked Ziti, grilled veggie kebabs and caprese salad last Monday for the herd of family who was staying with us for the week. All 18 sausages disappeared between that meal and the next afternoon, and there were only 5 people in the bunch who ate sausages!
Plus they cleaned me out of my freezer stash of PBC-smoked sausages as they were
leaving today!
fzxdoc Kathryn Thanks! And so glad to see you back on here! I was having worries in my mind when we didn't see any posts for you for the past few days.... glad all is well!
4th of July grilling on the 5th. Mushroom and Swiss Smoked Meatloaf 4lbs ground chuck. Eggs, minimal bread crumbs. Swiss cheese layer in the middle. 1lb cremini mushrooms pulsed and mixed in with meat mixture. 2 packets Lipton onion mushroom soup mix mixed in dry.
Sat overnight to meld flavors. Smoked with a large smoker box of apple. Glazed with McCormick’s mushroom gravy mix made thick. 350-375 deg F for 2hrs approximately, rotated every 30 min after smoke. Pulled at internal of 160 deg F. Mac and cheese and pea salad for sides.
I finally got to do those steaks I have mentioned a couple times. They were prime grade strips from Wild Fork. I did them blackened with Hard Core Carnivore Black spice rub. I fired up the Weber Smokey Joe mini kettle and used the “just keep flipping “ method. I overcooked them a touch but they were still very good. The plate was a hot mess though. 🙄 I think I need to change the battery on my Thermopen because according to it I pulled them at the right time for the rare side of medium rare. 🤷♂️
Oh, and notice the steak knife. Meathead gifted me a set of four (among many other things including the spice rub) as my Secret Santa this last go round. 😊
I tried Hard Core Carnivore Black a couple of times, and each time seriously over-salted the meat trying to get enough rub on for the other flavors to have a chance. I was bummed. Gave the rub away.
Comment