You know how we say, post your failures, too? Well, here goes. Trying pork spareribs on the Hasty Bake, first time trying low and slow and aiming to do 3-2-1. Checked with DD (just us this weekend) and I got thumbs up.
TL;DR - I made some bad pork rigs with pão de queijo, and some gello for dessert.
Ingredients:
Rubbed the pork with my regular pork rub, didn't bother with coating the membrane portions, because...you know why. More on that later, but let's just say things are stacking up nicely for failure. Set the vents and dampers to about this....ended up being too generous with the oxygen supply.
I am very awkward with loading charcoal from a chimney into the HB. Comical, really. Put the heat deflector in. It only covers about 60% of the area, which will cause some problems later. The coals were completely under the deflector.
Set the coal box to the lowest setting 'Smoke'. Probed the ribs, set Inkbird to 203F for temp alert. Plenty of hickory smoke throughout. Pit temp got to 275F and tripped the alarm, so I closed the vent and dampers. Got up to 290-ish, but never hit 300. But the damage was done.
Here we are at 204F, in less than 3 hours. If it looks dry to you, it is. Stack, stack, stack.
If you like spicy pork jerky, I've got the recipe and method.
I took it off, wrapped it in foil, and threw it in the oven. The 'brisket', lower right, was tough and dry. Dinner was three hours early.
Made some pão de queijo, but it was really hot Sunday, so I decided to try using the air fryer. Interesting, but not recommended. It made for a very thick crunchy shell and chewy (a good chewy) on the inside.
Brisket (jerky) shown left; ribs on right:
Plating:
Our typical green beans, Fuji apples, pão de queijo, and ribs. Overall, the meal was a 'C'. Everything was flavorful, but wrong.
~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~
Bonus cook:
Weird stuff happens in our kitchen. Like the gello I made, pronounced with a soft 'g'. We like sugar-free things so we wondered what it would be like to make some oddly different gelatins with sugar-free drink sticks, of which we have a large assortment. DD suggested root beer and Shirley Temple, and lots of unflavored gelatin.
Not the biggest fan of the A&W, but we use these to make sodas with seltzer water. I made the gelatin 14g to 16 ounces of liquid. It ended up being way too much gelatin, but here is the result:
It was....interesting. Mainly the gelatin was too thick, thicker than Jell-o jigglers, thus making it more of a chore to eat than a dessert. Next time, half the amount of gelatin. The texture is just way too thick.
This is not something I would repeat with the root beer. The only way it might be good is with a good dollop of whipped cream, a la, root beer float. The Shirley Temple is interesting and I might try it again. Next up: Orange Crush and Grape Crush.
Like I said, weird stuff in my kitchen.
TL;DR - I made some bad pork rigs with pão de queijo, and some gello for dessert.
Ingredients:
- 1 Hasty Bake Legacy with charcoal briquettes and hickory chunks
- 6 hours to spare
- 1 rack of spare ribs, Smithfield
- My pork rub
- One busy and distracted pit master
Rubbed the pork with my regular pork rub, didn't bother with coating the membrane portions, because...you know why. More on that later, but let's just say things are stacking up nicely for failure. Set the vents and dampers to about this....ended up being too generous with the oxygen supply.
I am very awkward with loading charcoal from a chimney into the HB. Comical, really. Put the heat deflector in. It only covers about 60% of the area, which will cause some problems later. The coals were completely under the deflector.
Set the coal box to the lowest setting 'Smoke'. Probed the ribs, set Inkbird to 203F for temp alert. Plenty of hickory smoke throughout. Pit temp got to 275F and tripped the alarm, so I closed the vent and dampers. Got up to 290-ish, but never hit 300. But the damage was done.
Here we are at 204F, in less than 3 hours. If it looks dry to you, it is. Stack, stack, stack.
If you like spicy pork jerky, I've got the recipe and method.
I took it off, wrapped it in foil, and threw it in the oven. The 'brisket', lower right, was tough and dry. Dinner was three hours early.
Made some pão de queijo, but it was really hot Sunday, so I decided to try using the air fryer. Interesting, but not recommended. It made for a very thick crunchy shell and chewy (a good chewy) on the inside.
Brisket (jerky) shown left; ribs on right:
Plating:
Our typical green beans, Fuji apples, pão de queijo, and ribs. Overall, the meal was a 'C'. Everything was flavorful, but wrong.
- Green beans: Just overcooked
- Pão de queijo: super hard and crunchy on the outside, not the ideal texture
- Ribs: multiple things wrong here. Firstly, they were overcooked and chew. Of course they were chewy. Secondly, on my first bite, I realized they were way too spicy for DD. Her tolerance for spicy has increased, but only a little. They burned my lips, so I knew something was awry. This will not be winning any competitions, I'll tell you what.
- The HB's deflector is too small if I am to smoke things over a grate that are longer than the deflector.
- The deflector also allows excessive heat on the left and right sides, so food exposed to the hot updrafts are getting a disproportionate amount of heat. I observed this with another indirect cook I did (two zone, actually)
- My pork rub is wrong. It seems like I have two pork rubs, and one is hecka spicier than the other. But I only have one codified recipe and two distinct rubs, a spicy and not spicy (what DD can tolerate). What the heck did I do? Looks like I have to rework something. I know it is the chipotle that is wreaking havoc.
- Temperature run away; I couldn't get my temps back down, thus the speed run I did with this.
- I was focused on too many other things. I should have attended to this more closely.
- I can't blame the pig, you know, giving life to give us food. But it was a tough one on the membrane. I've had awesome Smithfield spareribs.
- Green beans: made in a pressure cooker, which is very challenging.
- Pão de queijo in an air fryer. I don't use my oven during the summer because my new kitchen does not vent to the outside (yet) and the A/C is not as effective at that end of the house. Also, my stupid Viking range takes at least 30 minutes to get to baking temperature and I have to use a thermometer to assure proper baking temperatures, because the thermostat is awful. I replaced it with a new one and that one is awful. It came with the house, what can I say?
- Rework the rub recipe
- Fashion a larger deflector or use pans and racks to reduce hot spots
- Keep practicing on temperature control; use only 1 vent and 1 damper for low-and-slow
- Cook for time, not temperature and be more attentive to my cook. I should have wrapped when we hit the stall.
- Have DD steam the green beans the regular way.
- Pão de queijo: reserve this treat for cooler weather in a regular oven, which is my DD's suggestion. I wanted to bake them on the Hasty Bake and will probably try it there at least once. I froze about 2/3 of the dough, so that is an easy experiment.
~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~
Bonus cook:
Weird stuff happens in our kitchen. Like the gello I made, pronounced with a soft 'g'. We like sugar-free things so we wondered what it would be like to make some oddly different gelatins with sugar-free drink sticks, of which we have a large assortment. DD suggested root beer and Shirley Temple, and lots of unflavored gelatin.
Not the biggest fan of the A&W, but we use these to make sodas with seltzer water. I made the gelatin 14g to 16 ounces of liquid. It ended up being way too much gelatin, but here is the result:
It was....interesting. Mainly the gelatin was too thick, thicker than Jell-o jigglers, thus making it more of a chore to eat than a dessert. Next time, half the amount of gelatin. The texture is just way too thick.
This is not something I would repeat with the root beer. The only way it might be good is with a good dollop of whipped cream, a la, root beer float. The Shirley Temple is interesting and I might try it again. Next up: Orange Crush and Grape Crush.
Like I said, weird stuff in my kitchen.
Sides were a chicken Caesar salad and corn on the cob. 
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