Alright so this past weekend I did a couple more cooks.
First on Saturday I did a cook using just the upper grilling area. I reverse seared a ribeye and also cooked some scallops. For the slow cook phase of the steak I set up an easy 2 zone setup with a smallish lump fire in the right half and the steak on the left. That worked exceptionally well. Then it was easy to do the searing as all I had to do was add a bit more charcoal and let it all catch. I took the steak off for maybe 5 minutes while I did that. So one of the best parts for me was how I could take off one half of the grate and just slide the side that had the steak on it over to the coals. The reason I like that so much is my wife only eats fish as far as meats go, so instead of either waiting for all the meat juices to burn off and scraping the grate, or possibly getting a fishy taste on my steak from any fish residue left from cooking the seafood right before it I could just slide the steak one over and sear the steak then slide it back to the left and put the other grate back in and slap the scallops on. For both things I raised the charcoal grate all the way up to where the coals were touching the bottom of the cooking grate. This turned out exceptionally well for both and I got some great grill marks on the steak. There was also a pretty good amount of charcoal left the next day.
For Sunday I had bought a half butt a few days before and planned on doing it either Saturday or Sunday, so Sunday it was. My wife felt that it would be cool to invite the neighbors over without saying anything to me first so I was instantly nervous as they have never had my food and it was my first slow cook on the M1. I started off by taking the charcoal left over on the grilling grate and putting it on the bottom, then putting some wood chunks (cherry) in the bottom of the firebox as well, and then adding charcoal and layering some more chunks in. I put a lot of charcoal in it and it seemed really full but after looking at pics later you definitely could put a lot more. I started the fire with my torch just lighting the front edge. I was hoping on it kinda chain spreading so it all didn't catch at once, but unfortunately by time the smoker was all the way up to temp a large amount had caught already. Next time I do a charcoal smoke I am definitely going to preheat the cook chamber by burning a small fire on the charcoal grate which I think might help use less getting things up to temp. I had to add more wood chunks about an hour after putting the food on because most ended up burning up while it was preheating.
I was shooting for a bit more of a hot and fast approach because the neighbors were coming around 6 and (supposedly) wanted to eat soon after (in the end only the kids ate around 7ish and one adult was having too much fun to bother eating so took some home and the other was in no rush either lol). In any case, I set the temp at 275 and didn't have much trouble keeping it there. This was the first time so obviously it wasn't set and forget for me. I checked on it about every 30 moms and for the most part it held steady only needing minor adjustments. That was until about the 4hr mark when I ended up having to add some more charcoal to keep the temp up. Considering I used a good bit of preburned charcoal, that probably contributed to the shorter burn time as well. I imagine I can tweak things to get a lot more time out of a charcoal cook, so don't take this as any worthwhile evidence of it not being able to do a low and slow unattended charcoal cook. Also to be noted I was doing 275 which is going to burn significantly faster than say 225.
I think it took around 6 hours or so for the bark to be good and set and internal ended up around 170 at that point. I need to get a temp gauge to attach to the grate so I can see what temperature difference there is with the dome temp reading on the main temp guage. I would like to add that I had better bark than I think I have ever had on my BGE. During the cook I sprayed a mix of apple cider vinegar and water about every 30 mins. I pulled it off and wrapped it with some of the tallow I made from the trimmings and *GASP* put it in the oven. I had the oven set around 325 to get things done a bit faster. It took about 2 more hours and 30 mims at 350 before it was probe tender. I would have liked to have had more time for it to render slowly and also be able to hold it in the cooler for a couple hours but that didn't work out lol. It did get to rest on the counter for about an hour though. It turned out pretty damn good for my first go on the new rig. Pulled exceptionally easy and had great flavor. The neighbors approved.
After making the butt I also fired up the charcoal grate and seared some tuna steaks on it. This time I lowered the grate to get it at a good position for the tuna that can burn or overcook pretty easy. Those turned out great as well.
Now, this is where some not so great stuff happened. While cooking the tuna it started raining some. It didn't affect the temp of the grill at all, but the problem really started later. The grill was obviously too hot for putting the cover on, so I had to let it go which wasn't too big of a deal. Sometime after the guests left though it turned into a monsoon that lasted for about a day and a half...and I'm not joking about that. So when things finally dried out enough for me to cover it I checked inside it first and there was some sitting water in the upper chamber. Not toooo much, but enough I would have to dry it up because it would take forever to dry on its own. The biggest problem though was in the firebox. Water had leaked from up top down into it and there was about a 1/4in of water in the front half of it. Obviously that would be bad to leave so I soaked as much up with towels that I could and then decided the best coarse of action was starting some small fires in the bottom and top so that it would dry out. It took a little while but it did dry out the fires went out and it cooled off in time to cover it before bed which was good as it was supposed to rain most of this week. I imagine this was not an issue on the previous design since it had closeable daisy wheel vents on the sides. While you can close the upper vent it does have a gap and even if it sealed perfectly you would end up with a stack full of water. I plan to fashion a little stack hood that will prevent rain going inside it, and also I think I am going to make a cap that seals the stack off for when I'm done cooking so that the fire will be choked out faster (the gap let's air in, which someone has posted about before I am pretty sure).
Next up on my list is doing some stick burning. I have ordered some wood from a semi-local place (some hickory and some cherry) and to my surprise the neighbor offered some of the oak he still has from when I had a big white oak taken down. He had taken some big pieces off the guys cutting the tree, which I didn't care really. I would have kept some myself but had nowhere to put it. Anyways he had chipped it up and split it and everything and it is old enough now it should be perfectly seasoned. He is supposed to bring some over which will be pretty awesome. You can't get much better than stick burning wood from your own tree you had to have taken down.
First on Saturday I did a cook using just the upper grilling area. I reverse seared a ribeye and also cooked some scallops. For the slow cook phase of the steak I set up an easy 2 zone setup with a smallish lump fire in the right half and the steak on the left. That worked exceptionally well. Then it was easy to do the searing as all I had to do was add a bit more charcoal and let it all catch. I took the steak off for maybe 5 minutes while I did that. So one of the best parts for me was how I could take off one half of the grate and just slide the side that had the steak on it over to the coals. The reason I like that so much is my wife only eats fish as far as meats go, so instead of either waiting for all the meat juices to burn off and scraping the grate, or possibly getting a fishy taste on my steak from any fish residue left from cooking the seafood right before it I could just slide the steak one over and sear the steak then slide it back to the left and put the other grate back in and slap the scallops on. For both things I raised the charcoal grate all the way up to where the coals were touching the bottom of the cooking grate. This turned out exceptionally well for both and I got some great grill marks on the steak. There was also a pretty good amount of charcoal left the next day.
For Sunday I had bought a half butt a few days before and planned on doing it either Saturday or Sunday, so Sunday it was. My wife felt that it would be cool to invite the neighbors over without saying anything to me first so I was instantly nervous as they have never had my food and it was my first slow cook on the M1. I started off by taking the charcoal left over on the grilling grate and putting it on the bottom, then putting some wood chunks (cherry) in the bottom of the firebox as well, and then adding charcoal and layering some more chunks in. I put a lot of charcoal in it and it seemed really full but after looking at pics later you definitely could put a lot more. I started the fire with my torch just lighting the front edge. I was hoping on it kinda chain spreading so it all didn't catch at once, but unfortunately by time the smoker was all the way up to temp a large amount had caught already. Next time I do a charcoal smoke I am definitely going to preheat the cook chamber by burning a small fire on the charcoal grate which I think might help use less getting things up to temp. I had to add more wood chunks about an hour after putting the food on because most ended up burning up while it was preheating.
I was shooting for a bit more of a hot and fast approach because the neighbors were coming around 6 and (supposedly) wanted to eat soon after (in the end only the kids ate around 7ish and one adult was having too much fun to bother eating so took some home and the other was in no rush either lol). In any case, I set the temp at 275 and didn't have much trouble keeping it there. This was the first time so obviously it wasn't set and forget for me. I checked on it about every 30 moms and for the most part it held steady only needing minor adjustments. That was until about the 4hr mark when I ended up having to add some more charcoal to keep the temp up. Considering I used a good bit of preburned charcoal, that probably contributed to the shorter burn time as well. I imagine I can tweak things to get a lot more time out of a charcoal cook, so don't take this as any worthwhile evidence of it not being able to do a low and slow unattended charcoal cook. Also to be noted I was doing 275 which is going to burn significantly faster than say 225.
I think it took around 6 hours or so for the bark to be good and set and internal ended up around 170 at that point. I need to get a temp gauge to attach to the grate so I can see what temperature difference there is with the dome temp reading on the main temp guage. I would like to add that I had better bark than I think I have ever had on my BGE. During the cook I sprayed a mix of apple cider vinegar and water about every 30 mins. I pulled it off and wrapped it with some of the tallow I made from the trimmings and *GASP* put it in the oven. I had the oven set around 325 to get things done a bit faster. It took about 2 more hours and 30 mims at 350 before it was probe tender. I would have liked to have had more time for it to render slowly and also be able to hold it in the cooler for a couple hours but that didn't work out lol. It did get to rest on the counter for about an hour though. It turned out pretty damn good for my first go on the new rig. Pulled exceptionally easy and had great flavor. The neighbors approved.
After making the butt I also fired up the charcoal grate and seared some tuna steaks on it. This time I lowered the grate to get it at a good position for the tuna that can burn or overcook pretty easy. Those turned out great as well.
Now, this is where some not so great stuff happened. While cooking the tuna it started raining some. It didn't affect the temp of the grill at all, but the problem really started later. The grill was obviously too hot for putting the cover on, so I had to let it go which wasn't too big of a deal. Sometime after the guests left though it turned into a monsoon that lasted for about a day and a half...and I'm not joking about that. So when things finally dried out enough for me to cover it I checked inside it first and there was some sitting water in the upper chamber. Not toooo much, but enough I would have to dry it up because it would take forever to dry on its own. The biggest problem though was in the firebox. Water had leaked from up top down into it and there was about a 1/4in of water in the front half of it. Obviously that would be bad to leave so I soaked as much up with towels that I could and then decided the best coarse of action was starting some small fires in the bottom and top so that it would dry out. It took a little while but it did dry out the fires went out and it cooled off in time to cover it before bed which was good as it was supposed to rain most of this week. I imagine this was not an issue on the previous design since it had closeable daisy wheel vents on the sides. While you can close the upper vent it does have a gap and even if it sealed perfectly you would end up with a stack full of water. I plan to fashion a little stack hood that will prevent rain going inside it, and also I think I am going to make a cap that seals the stack off for when I'm done cooking so that the fire will be choked out faster (the gap let's air in, which someone has posted about before I am pretty sure).
Next up on my list is doing some stick burning. I have ordered some wood from a semi-local place (some hickory and some cherry) and to my surprise the neighbor offered some of the oak he still has from when I had a big white oak taken down. He had taken some big pieces off the guys cutting the tree, which I didn't care really. I would have kept some myself but had nowhere to put it. Anyways he had chipped it up and split it and everything and it is old enough now it should be perfectly seasoned. He is supposed to bring some over which will be pretty awesome. You can't get much better than stick burning wood from your own tree you had to have taken down.
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