Blargh, sorry, I stepped away and didn't update. I guess I'm like that - write a novel, then drop it.
Call me George, I guess. lol
Soooooo....
My point finished up about 2½ hours after the flat, after I'd separated them, moved the flat into the oven to hold. I did NOT put tallow on the flat, my bad, and I didn't want to unwrap it once I'd already wrapped it up.
I did three racks of St. Louis ribs, as well, left one at home for the family and took two to the wrap party.
Also took a pork belly I had sitting in the fridge since last weekend, wrapped up tight. I did that one on Saturday, I think, the final day of our show and we just hadn't eaten it. But it had been sitting - so what did I do?? Of course, I cubed it up, put it with some butter, BBQ sauce and brown sugar and stuck it on the smoker for a half hour or so at a 'pretty hot' temp. My Fireboard died about 4 hours into the ribs, it ran just about 24 hours. Also ran my 30lb cylinder dry on the Smoke Vault. It wasn't full at the start, don't worry. lol. And I had another 20lber sitting there ready to do.
Results:
The pork belly pseudo-burnt ends went over like you'd expect - people couldn't get enough. Only had a small pan, I coulda brought 3x that many and still run out.
Brisket - point was great. Interesting rub with only Lawry's and pepper. It was good. I might do that again, with a more coarse pepper, but no real complaints. Not even a lack of salt. Interesting. The flat, though... the flat was a bit dry, a bit tough. The outside end, while not being overly thin, was very dry, and I cut it off and set it aside - probably a pound and a half of it or so. The rest of the flat wasn't bad, but wasn't good, either. I mean, all my theater nerd friends raved over it, but what do they know? lol. Seriously, I'm thinking I'm about 1 brisket away from giving up on it. If I can get points alone, I may just go that route. I haven't dry-brined and injected, so that's probably my last resort before I give up on flats forever.
Ribs - hmmmm... interesting. They were ok. They LOOKED fabulous:
And I guess they tasted ok. Plenty of smoke but... there's something at work here. Some difference between the Smoke Vault and the pellet smoker. I noticed - zero smoke ring on the ribs. Zero. And very little on the brisket. Certainly nothing like I get out of the pellet smoker - go figure. The smoke is definitely more pronounced, but there are other flavors missing. I'm not sure what is going on, but to me, the food was not nearly as... I dunno... appetizing? Appealing? Pleasant? Something about the combustion of gasses in the pellet smoker I'm guessing, that does cook somehow differently than in the Smoke Vault. When I mentioned it to The Wife, she agreed - as she was eating leftover ribs Sunday - that the ribs coming off the Smoke Vault are definitely lacking... I dunno... SOMETHING. She just said they 'cook better' on the pellet smoker... SOMEHOW.
I think I'm going to need to do an experiment next weekend with both cookers and see what happens. I've got a pack of 3 St. Louis ribs left in the freezer, maybe I'll do those. I'm just not sure what it is, why these ribs weren't exciting to me, like I said, they looked good. I think they needed a little more time, but I'm still not comfortable with St. Louis ribs.
Oh, and I think I've found something else I don't like about this Smoke Vault - I can't play with the meat the same way as in the Yoder. Like... the shelves and racks are packed in there, it's too low, and with mine, somehow it got damaged a bit in shipping, so the racks don't slide out well, I really have to yank to get them to come out, they get hung up on the front. That's annoying. But with the Yoder, I can open the lid and I have plenty of room to move them around, rotate, pick them up with tongs and 'feel' the bend, etc. I can't do that with the Smoke Vault, not easily, anyways. I felt like these ribs were not quite done, they had a little more chew than I like, and they were very pale inside, not as tender, no smoke ring at all, zero. They just weren't my favorite.
Of course, my friends all raved, and I said the appropriate, "Thank you"s and all that, but inside I was just trying to figure out what went wrong. The point was good, the belly ends were good, the flat was disappointing (to me - luckily I brought a big bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's), the ribs were also a little underwhelming. But not to them. They all adored it. I barely ate any of it - one rib, a couple of bits of flat, maybe 3 1" chunks of point. I just didn't have much appetite after cooking for 24 hours straight, with about 4-5 hours of intermittent sleep.
You know how it is. You know how we are. Pursuit of perfection.
Last night I made some chicken Hatch chile enchiladas. I was so proud, I made one large pan and one smaller pan and thought, "I'll have some left over for another night this week." Then I dropped one pan in the kitchen floor pulling it out of the oven. It was one of those 8x8 or 9x9 glass Pyrex dishes and it just shattered everywhere. What a mess to clean up, had to lock up The Dog to keep glass out of her paws until we got it all clean. God, what a nightmare. I was using one of those silicone oven mitts, you know? I think it had some oil or grease on it, and it just slipped out of my hand. <sigh> And when it started to go I tried to recover, but I have a really bad shoulder and fast sudden movements send excruciating pain instantly, so I stood there in broken glass and splattered cheese and sauce in my sock feet for like two minutes just bent over waiting for the pain to ease while my son was asking me if I was ok, if I needed help, was I hurt, etc. It's like that - just reaching back suddenly for a doorknob if I didn't get a door to close all the way will about drop me. <sigh> It sucks getting old. I mean sheesh, I dunno how much I have left on this globe, but these shoulders are for the birds!
But, when I got the large pan of enchiladas out, let it cool, those were really good. Really good.
But I think I'm going to do an experiment next weekend and see side by side how things come out of each smoker. I have a feeling something is going on different and it has to do with combustion in the pellet smoker vs just propane burner in the Smoke Vault. Even with real solid wood chunks burning, and even with demonstrably heavier smoke and smoke flavor - something is missing here.
I'm open to thoughts - even if they're, "God, when are your keyboard batteries gonna run out???"
Call me George, I guess. lol
Soooooo....
My point finished up about 2½ hours after the flat, after I'd separated them, moved the flat into the oven to hold. I did NOT put tallow on the flat, my bad, and I didn't want to unwrap it once I'd already wrapped it up.
I did three racks of St. Louis ribs, as well, left one at home for the family and took two to the wrap party.
Also took a pork belly I had sitting in the fridge since last weekend, wrapped up tight. I did that one on Saturday, I think, the final day of our show and we just hadn't eaten it. But it had been sitting - so what did I do?? Of course, I cubed it up, put it with some butter, BBQ sauce and brown sugar and stuck it on the smoker for a half hour or so at a 'pretty hot' temp. My Fireboard died about 4 hours into the ribs, it ran just about 24 hours. Also ran my 30lb cylinder dry on the Smoke Vault. It wasn't full at the start, don't worry. lol. And I had another 20lber sitting there ready to do.
Results:
The pork belly pseudo-burnt ends went over like you'd expect - people couldn't get enough. Only had a small pan, I coulda brought 3x that many and still run out.
Brisket - point was great. Interesting rub with only Lawry's and pepper. It was good. I might do that again, with a more coarse pepper, but no real complaints. Not even a lack of salt. Interesting. The flat, though... the flat was a bit dry, a bit tough. The outside end, while not being overly thin, was very dry, and I cut it off and set it aside - probably a pound and a half of it or so. The rest of the flat wasn't bad, but wasn't good, either. I mean, all my theater nerd friends raved over it, but what do they know? lol. Seriously, I'm thinking I'm about 1 brisket away from giving up on it. If I can get points alone, I may just go that route. I haven't dry-brined and injected, so that's probably my last resort before I give up on flats forever.
Ribs - hmmmm... interesting. They were ok. They LOOKED fabulous:
And I guess they tasted ok. Plenty of smoke but... there's something at work here. Some difference between the Smoke Vault and the pellet smoker. I noticed - zero smoke ring on the ribs. Zero. And very little on the brisket. Certainly nothing like I get out of the pellet smoker - go figure. The smoke is definitely more pronounced, but there are other flavors missing. I'm not sure what is going on, but to me, the food was not nearly as... I dunno... appetizing? Appealing? Pleasant? Something about the combustion of gasses in the pellet smoker I'm guessing, that does cook somehow differently than in the Smoke Vault. When I mentioned it to The Wife, she agreed - as she was eating leftover ribs Sunday - that the ribs coming off the Smoke Vault are definitely lacking... I dunno... SOMETHING. She just said they 'cook better' on the pellet smoker... SOMEHOW.
I think I'm going to need to do an experiment next weekend with both cookers and see what happens. I've got a pack of 3 St. Louis ribs left in the freezer, maybe I'll do those. I'm just not sure what it is, why these ribs weren't exciting to me, like I said, they looked good. I think they needed a little more time, but I'm still not comfortable with St. Louis ribs.
Oh, and I think I've found something else I don't like about this Smoke Vault - I can't play with the meat the same way as in the Yoder. Like... the shelves and racks are packed in there, it's too low, and with mine, somehow it got damaged a bit in shipping, so the racks don't slide out well, I really have to yank to get them to come out, they get hung up on the front. That's annoying. But with the Yoder, I can open the lid and I have plenty of room to move them around, rotate, pick them up with tongs and 'feel' the bend, etc. I can't do that with the Smoke Vault, not easily, anyways. I felt like these ribs were not quite done, they had a little more chew than I like, and they were very pale inside, not as tender, no smoke ring at all, zero. They just weren't my favorite.
Of course, my friends all raved, and I said the appropriate, "Thank you"s and all that, but inside I was just trying to figure out what went wrong. The point was good, the belly ends were good, the flat was disappointing (to me - luckily I brought a big bottle of Sweet Baby Ray's), the ribs were also a little underwhelming. But not to them. They all adored it. I barely ate any of it - one rib, a couple of bits of flat, maybe 3 1" chunks of point. I just didn't have much appetite after cooking for 24 hours straight, with about 4-5 hours of intermittent sleep.
You know how it is. You know how we are. Pursuit of perfection.
Last night I made some chicken Hatch chile enchiladas. I was so proud, I made one large pan and one smaller pan and thought, "I'll have some left over for another night this week." Then I dropped one pan in the kitchen floor pulling it out of the oven. It was one of those 8x8 or 9x9 glass Pyrex dishes and it just shattered everywhere. What a mess to clean up, had to lock up The Dog to keep glass out of her paws until we got it all clean. God, what a nightmare. I was using one of those silicone oven mitts, you know? I think it had some oil or grease on it, and it just slipped out of my hand. <sigh> And when it started to go I tried to recover, but I have a really bad shoulder and fast sudden movements send excruciating pain instantly, so I stood there in broken glass and splattered cheese and sauce in my sock feet for like two minutes just bent over waiting for the pain to ease while my son was asking me if I was ok, if I needed help, was I hurt, etc. It's like that - just reaching back suddenly for a doorknob if I didn't get a door to close all the way will about drop me. <sigh> It sucks getting old. I mean sheesh, I dunno how much I have left on this globe, but these shoulders are for the birds!
But, when I got the large pan of enchiladas out, let it cool, those were really good. Really good.
But I think I'm going to do an experiment next weekend and see side by side how things come out of each smoker. I have a feeling something is going on different and it has to do with combustion in the pellet smoker vs just propane burner in the Smoke Vault. Even with real solid wood chunks burning, and even with demonstrably heavier smoke and smoke flavor - something is missing here.
I'm open to thoughts - even if they're, "God, when are your keyboard batteries gonna run out???"
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