110W, back porch upgrade.
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Reverse Sear
Blew my mindComment
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"Probe Tender!"
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Charcoal "snake" in the Weber. It was always a low-and-slow struggle to keep a constant temperature for a long period of time on a charcoal grill. I did my first Beef Brisket with the snake and the temperature was a steady 225-235 all the way through the stall. Had to add a few coals to the end of the snake at that point. This was about four years ago. I have since joined the Pitmaster Club and bought a PBC.Comment
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I realized that patience is a virtue,,,,,in the world of Q
don’t be is such a hurry,,,,all the time
enjoy the process and reap the rewards
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The recipe for things that taste good is "Salt, Fat, Acid, and Heat." Samin Nosrat is the author. When I started applying these ideas to things I had never even prepared before, my friends and family's feedback of what they tasted from my kitchen went to the crazy good side.Comment
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I like to think before I got into smoking food that I was an OK griller and even used a dial instant read on steaks and such on my ole Weber Silver A. Around 15 years ago I decided to get into smoking and bought a $99 propane vertical. One of my early cooks was a brisket flat that I tried to cook by time finding a couple recipes that way. After that cook, the search for more information and the addiction began. Followed shortly after by MCS. Learning that cooking by IT ruled for just about everything was the big first step. Along the way I also learned a lot more about grilling with 2 zone setups, reverse searing, etc.
That’s why I now try to keep a couple Thermopops around for when someone asks about BBQ or says they struggle cooking something.Last edited by glitchy; August 31, 2022, 11:11 AM.Comment
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Every game changer I now have, or use, came after I joined The Pit. So That's what has done it for me.Comment
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For me it was a few discoverys.. i learned about indirect grilling. . I have set a lot of food on fire
and I had an eyeopener using a coalstarter.. damn i've used gallons of igniterfluids..
And this site ofcourse..
Latest discovery was the SNS..Comment
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I remember my pre-AR days, I had the butcher at our local grocery store cut me a couple 1.5 or 2" thick porterhouses that were on sale for my buddy & I. Our wives got smaller, normal steaks. I grilled them on my 3-burner gas grill I had at the time. I put all 3 burners on high becasue I'd read about high heat searing. The disaster was as as real as you're imagining. I forgot about them, or didn't think I need to check often, or something dumb. -
I glance out at flames shooting out the small holes on the sides of the grill's lid. We scraped char off of those steaks and ate well-done charred meat. What was meant to be a splurge that I put some planning into to be memorable was memorable for the wrong reasons. I've never apologized so much in one meal or been as humbled and defeated (financially and ego-wise) as that occasion.
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Reading about the science of salt on the free side fascinated me, not so much a light bulb moment.
Ignored the comments about how good a smoker the kettle is thinking it's all an exaggeration, that wass until I bought one a few months into having joined the pit. That was not only a light bulb moment but a life changer. Still love my other cookers though.
Regularly have LB moments reading posts and responses in the pit.
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My biggest fundamental moment was realizing that I didn't have to spread the coals out evenly over the entire charcoal grate and cook everything over direct heat. I remember banking the coals for the first time cooking brats back in college and afterwards wondering why it took me so long to think of something so obvious. There have been plenty of other moments along the way like using thermometers and low and slow thanks to being here, but that was the biggest.Comment
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The science of salt was a game changer for me, followed by insta read thermometers and my latest fascination with SVQ, I just love taking a tougher cut of meat and having it approach the tenderness of a filet with the full beef flavour.Comment
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Cooking my bacon in cast iron on the gasser...combines the best parts of cooking it on a burner with the best parts of cooking it in the oven. And the super-smellers in the house aren't still smelling it at 6pm...Comment
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Two things are elementary and vital to know/learn to churn out good BBQ/grilled food:
1) Use a meat thermometer - cooking by time, feel or otherwise is a recipe for failure (i still cringe when I see recipes - even some posted here - for things like prime rib that suggest putting in an oven for X minutes and then turning oven off and leaving in for exactly Y hours). This still doesn't work with my wife who wants to go by time or still cuts into a chicken breast to look to see if its done even if the thermometer has confirmed the temp.
2) For grilling, direct/high heat is not always preferable - my early days were always high heat, regarding of what I was cooking. Can't remember all the overcharred burgers or black "bbq" chicken I probably choked down.
The other is less about BBQ and more just general cook is to use enough salt. Feel like when I was first cooking I was pretty damn sparse on the salt (like 20 grains on a chicken breast sparse!) but once you learn what it does, how it impacts flavor and how to best determine the proper amount, your food will taste infinitely better, even if you change nothing elseComment
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1) Hard habits to break
2) I remember my dad teaching me that lesson indirectly. I grew up with a wood stove. I'd come in as an older kid or teen from outside snowmobiling in the winter and stoke that wood stove up sky high. My dad asked why I was doing that. "I'm freezing" "Yeah, now, but in 5 minutes you'll sweating with the heat that high" he'd tell me. He was always right. Applying that to grilling- a big pile of red coals seems manly but it's too much and it takes burnt food to learn that.
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Measuring ingredients with measuring cups and spoons Isn't usually necessary. Approximate amounts are just fine.Comment
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