I think I may have ruined New Year's Day dinner. :(

[Huskee]

Two words- thermometer alarms!

My wife did the same thing to a cheesecake last spring, coincidentally on a big 2-Prime brisket cook of mine, for company. America's Test Kitchen's New York cheesecake recipe is freeking outstanding, my most favorite ever. Well it calls for baking at 500 deg for like 20 min or something, then turning the oven down to 200-ish for 2hrs. Guess what she forgot to do? Yep. It cooked at 500 for a long long time. Black was the result. She said a bad word out loud in front of the kids she was so upset, and she doesn't cuss, ever. We salvaged it by scraping off the black, and I gotta say it wasn't too bad at all! The little black bits that we couldn't scrape off added a certain caramelized character to it in the just the right amounts.

Anyway, we've all been there. I did it with ribs twice and a brisket once, all when company was over. Not my finest hours. We gotta do that once in a while to remember we're still imperfect humans and to add to our "remember that time when.." story cache.

[Potkettleblack]

Honestly, you only get better through failures and incremental experiments. Lesson learned, you'll have a slightly longer argument with the wife next time, but you'll swing it, and win it next go. My wife is a lot easier on my cooking than I am, which gives me a bit of a free hand. Classic example this NYE... em-pie-nadas... A chain of unfortunate events... the filling was amazing (short ribs, short smoked, then pressure cooked to shreds), but I went to the wrong grocery, couldn't get empanada discos, so got pie crusts... didn't have a good sized cutter, so used a wine glass, so got smallish rounds... harder to fill and harder to seal. and less filling to dough... wife thought they were great. I saw every flaw. But, I'll try it again, just to do it better (and will go to one of my neighborhood shops for the discos).

[klflowers]

Been there, done that, got the t shirt. You will be so keyed up and focused that the next one will be perfect.

[FireMan]

Pics of the shirt please.

[Dan Deter]

I did similar the first time my parents got to have my rotisserie chicken, which my wife, kid and in-laws rave about. Wound up black on the outside. Still haven't had a chance to make a good one for them, but the in-laws got to enjoy it done right again on Christmas Eve.

[FireMan]

Huskee , what was the bad word? As ecowper says, "inquiring minds wanna know". 😎

[Huskee]

Shall remain unspoken.

[klflowers]

FireMan


OK, maybe I don't have the t-shirt...

[ecowper]

Early on cooking brisket, I turned a flat into shoe leather. Cooked too long, had no idea about probe tender and was just going by time/temp. Thank god I had cooked ribs and chicken also since it was a 4th of July gathering. Everybody was very nice about the brisket, but didn't really eat any.

[Hulagn1971]

I made a huge mistake years ago on Thanksgiving. I had deep fried a few turkeys before but was still pretty incompetent. Had my Dad over and I was drinking some high ABV beers. Dad asked how much longer on the turkey I thought it was supposed to be 6.5-6 minutes per pound. When I pulled it out it was half the size! We put it on the carving board for Dad to carve. He went to cut some "meat" off the drumstick and the bone flew across the kitchen. It was pretty hilarious. Definitely not one of my finer moments.

[ecowper]

Hulagn1971 but did you find the heart?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Spmqbs8YCW8

[Hulagn1971]

That's about right!

[bep35]

BBQ is like sex. When it's good it's really good and when it's bad, it's still pretty good!

[Potkettleblack]

I've never made charcoal in the bedroom, but I have on a grill.

[jfmorris]

This story is a lesson in why even with a ‘set and forget’ pellet rig, you need a thermometer with high/low alarms. I love being able to monitor the cook from my Smoke and know if the pit drops below 200, usually where I set my low alarm for overnight cooks, or above 300F. If I am awake I close the gap to 225-275.