So, as promised we are going to start with Smoked Spam Burnt Ends as our appetizer, along with cheddar brats, german sausage, and because I can do this on a pellet grill Smoked Apple Pie..
I will say the Spam Burnt Ends were actually pretty good and whole lot easier than pork belly burnt ends.
Today has been a cooking challenge here in SE Arkansas! Got the Jambo going, pulled the fire pot out to start fire in Woodmaster and distressed the wasps that called it home! Plan B grab the pellets and fire up the Grilla!
Ribs on at the same time. Kinda pale with just salt pepper and garlic! Note the sunshine…
just a couple of hours later
Both cookers lost temp. When rain slacked, ribs came in to finish in the oven.
You simply cannot accomplish that with a pellet pooper. I have one of the finest ones on the market, use it regularly, but it can't do what a stick burner can do.
My brother came over for rib dinner.
Smoke flavor was more intense on the stick burner, color was better on the pellet.
Brother and I prefer pellet, but we may be biased!
Jambo ribs
pellet ribs
Did some ribs, from Heritage Foods. Didn’t realize I was getting Berkshires, but damn, these were the meatiest Berk spares I’ve ever seen.
any rate, my wood pile was getting low:
So, I went to the basement and loaded it back up. No chainsaw required. Just a ten cup scoop.
One rack got the end of a jar of Meat Church Honey Hog, which I enjoy greatly. The other got some Cool Smoke BBQ rub with cayenne and smoked paprika, which I got because it sounded cool on the BBQ All Stars class, but I don't really like that much. Think it has too much cumin. I rubbed at the start of the Yankees game, after trimming the ribs a bit, they came beautifully squared, though one rack had a ton of flap meat folded under the short end to even out the thickness. Took a couple of big chunks of hard fat off those, stuff that wouldn't render well.
Ribs went on around the 7th inning stretch of the Yankees game. I then watched the Cardinals game. In the air conditioned house. Away from the humid, bug infested, globally warmed, outside. ;-) I made a couple of checks on it, during the 7th inning stretch, and maybe a pitching change in the Cardinals game, what a dog of a game after they've been so hot lately. Any rate, cooker held a steady 225, with some swing. The old saying with Grilla was to Trust the Swing. Since I didn't upgrade to the Alpha controller, I continue to trust the swing.
When they were starting to crack under their own weight (tong test), I realized these were so meaty, they probably wouldn't break the whole way. When the wife and I took a quick trip to Holland, Michigan back in the spring, we stopped in at the Cherry Republic store, and I picked up a jar of their BBQ sauce. My first use at home was so so, largely because all of the cherry flavor in it came from whole cherries in the sauce. Nothing a stick blender couldn't solve. I blended it in the jar, got it smooth, and more evenly distributed, brushed the racks. Bumped the heat to 275 to help it caramelize.
Here they are, in process of the sauce cooking.
On the board, in the house.
You can see the flap meat tucked under. This is the rack with the Meat Church on it.
Get a closer look at the beauty
Look at that plum twig smoke ring. So deep, so pretty.
Things I did on this one that were out of my norm.
1- glazing. I usually like a dry rib, but, the Cool Smoke rack, I felt could probably use the glaze (to cover up the cumin flavor), so I did the glaze. Would do again. I usually lack the patience to get the sauce set properly, but I just let it roll.
2- Heritage Foods ribs... I don't think I've gotten ribs from them before, as I've usually balked at the price. I think I got a 20% coupon, got a couple of freebies for being a regularly customer, and everyone else's price for ribs has gone up, while their price seems to have held stable.
#TwigBurner
Last edited by Potkettleblack; September 7, 2022, 05:23 AM.
If not cooking outdoors, I am cooking on the stovetop with my 14" carbon steel wok, 12" CI skillet, or in the oven with my two Lodge CI pizza pans, or two dutch ovens. I've also got a nifty Lodge carbon steel grill pan that rocks for veggies outdoors.
Alrighty folks! I woke up feeling a LOT better today, and the afternoon looked to be rain free - just dreary and overcast. So, decided to hose the offset out, scrub it down, and get a fire going!
I started with a half chimney of briquettes around 11AM or so, just to get a bed of coals to get things going, then started feeding it sticks... I was burning some cut down oak the rest of the time.
As you can see from later on - no charcoal left, just wood. I had to keep the fire small to keep the smoke clean.
Started the cook with one lonely rack of SLS spares, at about noon. They came pretrimmmed, but I dry brined them overnight, and coated them with MMD and a mustard binder before heading outside with them.
I took a little blonde outside to keep me company on one of the MANY MANY refueling trips...
After the ribs ran for a couple of hours, I added a pot of piquintos down by the firebox, courtesy of Rancho Gordo, and in the last hour, I finished a cast iron skillet of smoked mac and cheese in the center.
Ribs were looking bendy at about 6pm, so it was time to call it done!
Ok - some close ups of the sides.
Pot-o-beans (onions, garlic, carrot, piquintos and chicken stock):
The smoked mac-n-cheese:
And finally, the star of the day! Ribs!
And finally, my plate. The mac really was top notch, good recipe from over at HeyGrillHey.com, and I love the piquintos, good beans. And of course, the ribs stood on their own with no sauce whatsoever. Nice bark, nice bite, moist, and came clean off the bones.
Was it worth it? To beat you lame pellet heads, sure it was!
First off, soo glad you’re feeling better Jim! Second, that is absolutely one great looking cook! The smoke ring on your ribs…..hell yeah! Everything you did looks wonderful, but that’s not really surprising coming from you…..
I’m so glad I got to participate in this! The weather really was threatening to keep me out of it. When it began to look like I might be able to slip something in, I realized that what I usually would try to cook was all very much frozen and would not defrost in time.
This caused me to start thinking about why I got a pellet grill to supplement my Weber Kettle and PBC to begin with. The main driver is that I wanted something that would let me cook outdoors more often, especially on marginal weather days or days in which I just didn’t feel like messing with a full charcoal setup. I also wanted a setup that would impart a lesser smoke profile for certain foods.
So I started to think…..what could I cook on a pellet grill for which an argument could be made that it would be preferable to cook it on a pellet grill and not an offset?
So here we go….my friends, I give you smoked lobster tails with pasta salad!
(This is the first time I've ever cooked lobster. In any way. Ever!)
Here are the two rock lobster tails.
I opted to do the presentation thing and try to cut into the shells and lift the meat above the tails. I watched quite a few videos on this, but even then it is still tricky. What worked best for me is instead of cutting a single slit, you cut two parallel slits offset from each other by about 1/8". This give you a wider gap from which to get the meat through.
Also, while strong, these shells are brittle. Too much pressure will cause the shells to crack. Lobster meat is delicate, so you want to work slowly, but deliberately. I also wore some cotton gloves under my nitriles as those shells can be sharp!
I then seasoned both sides of the meat with a light sprinkling of Killer Hog's / Malcom Reed's The BBQ Rub. In the photo below you can probably tell that the rightmost one was my first attempt; the left one turned out much better.
Here's the grill I am using: my Chimp:
I set it to 250 F on Pro Mode (which allows for temperature swings that generate more smoke that maintaining a steady temperature.) I whipped up a quick butter sauce: a stick of butter, four minced cloves of garlic, and a bit of parsley, and placed it on the grill to melt. I also added two lemon halves for fun.
I let these things go for five minutes, then basted them, then let them go for another ten minutes with another baste. I did three more ten-minutes-baste cycles and the lobster was then at 135 F so I pulled them off.
Here's the final plated product, served with some cherry tomatoes and pasta salad. Delicious summer dish.
For my first try at lobster, this turned out really good. The BBQ rub really works and that lemon and garlic go wonderfully with the lobster.
Cook/Meal 4 – Monday, September 5, 2022 Course One Pistachio crusted apricots stuffed with St. Andre triple cream cheese
Course Two Bibb lettuce salad with blueberries and bleu cheese
Course Three Smoked Herb Crusted Rack of Lamb Smoked Cauliflower Steak Smoked asparagus wrapped in phyllo
Course Four Lemon Posset with blueberries
Limoncello
And with this cook, this pellet pooper family is all in. One of our guests was vegetarian so we made an accommodation with the cauliflower steaks.
What a blast this has been. There just aren’t any losers in this friendly competition because everyone has put it all on the line, and that’s what makes a winner. Congratulations to both Team Pellets and Stick Burners for an outstanding display of culinary prowess and good sportsmanship.
Bronco Pro Barrel Smoker
PBC
Pit Boss 757GD Griddle (2)
Blaz'n Grill Works Grid Iron
Weber Genesis E-310
Original Original Grilla
Smokey Joe® Charcoal Grill 14"
Fireboard 1
Thermoworks ThermoPop
Thermoworks Thermapen Mk4
Thermoworks Smoke Thermometer with gateway
2 iGrillminis - from before they were Weber.
Brisket started out at 17.8 lbs, and I probably trimmed about 3 lbs off. Started it on the OG at 8 pm. with salt, pepper, onion and garlic powder. The OG held "steady" at 205 to 235, for an average temp of 220, according to Fireboard. The flat and point both hit 160 about 2 am. I did not get up and wrap it. I did wrap it at 8 am when civilized people get up on their day off. About 10 it was up to 195, and stalled there for another 2 hours. At 12:30 it was still 195, but probe tender, so I brought it in. It had been "resting" while wrapped for several hours. So by 1 I was slicing it. It wasn't my best, but with my schedule over the weekend and travel it got about an hour to brine.
Served with fresh green beans and twice baked potatoes.
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