Welcome from the northern Virginia suburbs of the US capital. Hope you have fun! I wouldn't turn up my nose at frozen meats. If they've been packaged and handled properly, they come out great. Always preferable to get fresh if one can, but even here I get most of my meat delivered frozen (both because I want to limit contact with people and because the quality is excellent). Good luck!
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Welcome from California!Comment
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Thanks!Originally posted by DaveD_SpaceBBQ View Post
We dry-age all of our steaks in a salt room for 40+ days, and found that the texture of ones that had been frozen before the aging process was slightly less enjoyable. Not a huge thing, but we charge quite a lot and so wanted them to be perfect. It also tends to go down badly if people ask if they’ve been frozen, so we avoid it where possible. Local and fresh is our "thing"
But that’s work and this is at home for my own entertainment, so I’m fine with going that way if it’s the best way to get interesting cuts. The texture of something cooked for 10 hours is inevitably going to be very different to something grilled for a very short time, so it probably matters less. I just wanted to see if there were options.Comment
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Interesting....I respect your wanting to expand your skills and experience. Best wishes and welcome from Wisconsin!Comment
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Welcome from St. Cloud, FL.Comment
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So I did my first cook yesterday (Saturday). Annoyingly I forgot to take photos of the finished food, but here’s how it went.
I did 2 racks of BB ribs and a chicken.
For the ribs I made the Memphis Dust rub, then cooked for about 3h at 280ish. I then pulled them out, brushed with a bit of BBQ sauce, then put back in for 20 minutes. They were delicious. The only very tiny problem was I don't think there was quite enough meat on them, but that's a meat issue rather than a cook issue. I'll order meatier ones next time. Otherwise, they were great. The texture was more than good enough, and while I have a few things I want to try in the future to improve them, I'd happily have paid for them in a restaurant. I was surprised at how much I liked them for a first attempt.
The chicken was less successful. I made a rub that I found online, which was pretty uninspiring. I then cooked it for about 1h45m until it hit 160f. None of the flavour really made it through to the meat, and I found the texture quite disappointing. It was a last minute addition because someone decided they were coming over at short notice, so it was just a cheap supermarket chicken. Never exciting at the best of times. It was also pre-brined as that was all the small local shop had, so I couldn't do my own thing with it. I need to work on this a lot. Does anyone have a link to something that worked well for a whole chicken? At least chickens are cheap, so I can do a load of them over the next few weeks to try to get this right.
I think the biggest problem with the chicken was that not enough flavour got through to the meat. I can fix the textures, but it just didn't taste smokey. How much wood are people throwing on to their coals, and at what point during the cook?Comment
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Take a look at https://amazingribs.com/simon-and-ga...oultry-recipe/
I don’t have a PBC but the smoke flavor will be set early in the cook. When I use one of my other cookers I just need a few hand-sized chucks, usually apple, to get enough smoke flavor. I will be interested to see what PBC owners tell you.
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Welcome from the middle of the USA, Nebraska. Beef\corn country. Look forward to seeing what you cook and how you progress. You’ll find a very helpful supportive group here.Comment
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Welcome to the pit from the bbq capital of New England, Massachusetts.Comment
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