Weekend #3 in a row on a stickburner - Man, I am LOVING this!!! You want PICS???? I got PICS!

[realdocBBQ]

Longtime Pellethead here, first an old donated Traeger, then a fairly nice Yoder YS480. Enjoyed the ease of use, convenience and the 80/10 ratio - 80% of the result with 10% of the effort. I still can't complain about that aspect at all.

This spring/early summer added a Camp Chef Smoke Vault 24" and really enjoyed the additional smoke flavor on some things, also began to enjoy the adding of wood chunks and the ongoing monitoring of wood and smoke. Some interesting thoughts on the flavor profile vs. the pellet pooper, look for a topic upcoming on that...

Then 2 weekends back I came in halfway through the cook for my friend's daughter's wedding, and as a 'rookie' took over running his offset stickburner, and I really enjoyed the process, the results came out great. This led me to steal his 250-gallon offset and bring it to my house last weekend, where I cooked brisket, pork belly 2 ways, spatchcocked chicken and pork butt. See my thread for that one here.

Fast forward to this weekend and I pulled the smoker over to a different friend's house to run a cook today, which was a lot of fun and relaxation to boot.

Here is where I started, about 8AM, 40ºF after a night of thinderstorms.



Slow start getting the smoker up to temp, we are learning as we go, and we learned we need to start with a chimney or two of lump or something to get the wood burning, and also with this particular smoker, some quirks with the firebox. But we eventually got up to temp and got the meat on.




^^^^In these pics, we have a set of Click Akayushi 4 bone beef chuck ribs (S&P) over the top of a rack of Costco beef back ribs (S&P), foreground right is a set of Costco plate ribs with SPG and some paprika and maybe some ancho powder. Hard to remember, these have been in my freezer already seasoned and vacuum sealed a few months.

To the left up top is some Smithfield St. Louis pork ribs with MMD+ and in the foreground another rack of Costco beef back ribs with SPG, paprika and cumin.


More pics incoming, don't want each post to be as long as the bills our reps put forth in Washington...

[realdocBBQ]

So here is the first set of beef back ribs to come off - pretty quickly, in about 3.5 hours or so, I think, temping mid-190s in between the bones with my Thermapen.



These were the multi-seasoned beef back ribs.

Next the S&P-only beef back ribs:



As you might be able to tell, I cut these wide on either side of the bone, as beef back ribs are a little shy on meat, but doing it this way, a single back rib gives enough meat for one person, or so it would seem to me - unless one has quite an appetite.

I was happy with both of these racks, both had great flavor, and while they weren't as tender as they could be, they were great eating off the bone. I didn't want to risk overcooking these and drying them out, as they do not have a ton of marbling, are somewhat thin and seemed likely easy to turn into jerky. I could be wrong, but pulling at mid-high 190s and wrapping in foil and resting an hour or so, they were extremely good. Definitely not bad, but, at a little over $20 per rack, it's questionable whether I will buy these again.

On to the rest of the cook...

[texastweeter]

Hail yeah! Murrica! You hooked brother.

[realdocBBQ]

Next the pork ribs came off, along with the beef plate ribs (3 bone). I was surprised the plate ribs were done and high-190s in about 5 hours or so, unwrapped.

St. Louis:

Looked good, very tender, pull off the bone but not fall off the bone, good bite-through, overall I'd give them an 8.5/10, probably. Grading harshly, as I usually do.

Beef plate ribs:






I was apprehensive about these beef plate ribs - seasoned them back in August and vacuum sealed them and put them in the freezer while I cooked their 'sister rack' that came in the same package. I had bought some cheaper Amazon vacuum seal bags and these failed on me, I was afraid these plate ribs would be freezer burned and unappetizing - I was worried for nothing.

They were incredible. As the pics above I hope will convince you.

Here are the Click Akayushi beef chuck ribs after they were pulled, but I never got around to slicing them.



They looked good, but I saw no reason to dive in yet with all the meat we already had.

More coming...

[realdocBBQ]

And last but definitely not least....


About a 6lb pork belly, seasoned with S&P only:





As I'm sure many of you would guess, the best of the bunch were the "King of Texas BBQ" plate ribs and the S&P pork belly. Unbelievable.

Anyone who hasn't tried these, I can't recommend them enough.


And yes, I am rapidly becoming a stickburner junkie.

And I've got to do a thread on my pellet pooper vs. Smoke Vault comparison.

And I've got some update pics on my stickburner-in-progress project, too.


I'll get those up tonight or tomorrow.

Hope ya'll enjoyed these pics.

[Stuey1515]

Love me some beef ribs but that belly looks the absolute bomb!!!

[mrteddyprincess]

There is something about building and maintaining an actual wood fire that is appealing to a stick burner! Yep. Much bigger pain the butt to smoke on, but the experience can be worth it. Great pics!

[Huskee]

Nice! They are very rewarding to operate and make great food on.

[scottranda]

Wow! You’ve been doing some WORK!

[TripleB]

What a write up. Kudos. I'm gonna have some questions, but have to digest your post first. Fantastic job!

[bbqLuv]

You are having so much fun. The cooks look amazing too.

[Washblue]

Sweet! I know everyone enjoyed it! As I did all the way from here!
It’s rewarding to feed a crowd… makes for a good nights sleep too…

[realdocBBQ]

Uhhh... yeah. Well, about that...

There were two of us. lol

[hoovarmin]

I need a generous friend with a 250 gallon offset on wheels. Looks like you were having a blast.

[texastweeter]

Next challange whole hog?

[realdocBBQ]

Did a whole hog on this same smoker about... wow, 3 years ago now. I forgot about that. I didn't run it myself the whole time, though, didn't stay overnight. I helped with that one.

[DaveD]

Thanks for the great writeup! Fun stuff, and that pork belly does look amazing. I've only had a few bites of pork belly before (some just yesterday in fact) but that's it. May need to rectify that...

[realdocBBQ]

I think I am firmly in the camp of pork belly being one of the two best bites in BBQ - right up there with beef plate ribs.

And I've found I really prefer it just S&P, without the sugar and stuff. Nothing wrong with PBBE at all, but just plain ol' S&P pork belly allows for SOOO many variations of things to do with the leftovers, too.

[RiverJeff]

All those cooks are going to make that new construction go so much faster!

[realdocBBQ]

It's definitely got me excited, and my buddy who is helping, as well. Yesterday he was impressed that the offset didn't take more work to run - he was like me, he had heard you have to tinker and mess with things all day and all night - not so. Regular, routine feeding of the firebox is pretty minimal.

[Uncle Bob]

Your enthusiasm is testing me dearly. For several months I've been toying with the idea of adding a stick burner to the arsenal. So far I've convinced myself that I'd enjoy the process a time or three and then usage would dwindle. You keep having so much fun and I'll either have to submit or stop reading your offset posts.

[realdocBBQ]

Haha, yeah. I don't expect I'll be doing cooks this big and this often, right now it is new and exciting and I am learning more about cooking, about meat, and about cookers and the process. But... it is what it is. Just sharing my experiences, let the chips fall where they may! lol