Christmas Vacation Pre-Decampment Cooks

[WayneT]

As some of you may remember, we were once considering a Christmas vacation in the Caribbean in an all-inclusive resort. With the spike in Covid cases during the planning stage, we decided not to go through airports or get in tubular, metallic petri dishes at 30,000 ft. We chose to remain stateside and find a warm(er) place in FL, which we did. We'll be spending two glorious weeks on Cape San Blas, FL, where El Nino may rain on us but it will be a warm rain. The house has an awesome kitchen so we will be cooking lots of stuff while there. However, before we decamp on December 15, I'm doing a lot of baking and cooking ahead of time. My bakes are already covered in SUWYB so I'll not be redundant on this thread. This topic will be all about red meat and fire, those two most precious things that make AR tick.

Here's the lineup so far.



Left - two corned beef briskets totaling around 8 lbs, soon to become pastrami.
Center - rack of lamb (tonight's supper) and a 8.5 brisket flat, trimmed to approximately 7 lbs.
Right - Whole 9 lb pork belly

As the day progressed, here's what I accomplished.



The two corned beef briskets are being de-salinated.



The brisket flat is being dry-brined.



The pork belly has been scored and salted for brining.



Rack o' lamb has been scored, salted and slathered with herb rub - parsley, rosemary thyme and mint suspended in a 1:1 combo of EVOO and melted butter.



Last, but not least, another batch of limoncello is in the making.



We're trying a different approach this time. Instead of peeling the lemons then de-pithing each piece of peel, we zested the lemons and dumped it directly into the 100 proof vodka. Obviously, it will need to be strained before adding the simple syrup. It will be interesting to see how the taste compares to the tradition 'peel' approach. Hopefully, this will be as good or better than the tradition because zesting is a helluva lot easier than peeling and de-pithing.

Stay tuned. I'll post more pix and narrative as our Christmas Vacation plans move forward.

Finis

[smokenoob]

that sounds like a great way to do it, and just right down the street is Apalachicola for oysters!

[WayneT]

We are definitely going to hit up Indian Pass Raw Bar just on the mainland.

[RonB]

Looks like great times, but you forgot to put the full addy in your post.

[smokenoob]

yes! and send out the invite list to locals….😁

[Bkhuna]

We'll be in Port St, Joe the week of Christmas. Have to get out of the Orlando area and head up to the real Florida. I lived for a stint in Panama City and am looking forward to some good Gulf seafood. It's beautiful up there.

[Draznnl]

Thanks for the invite Wayne. That menu looks delicious, but that’s about a 7 hour drive from those of us on the dangly part of the state.

What’s that? This wasn’t an invitation, just an announcement? Oh silly me.

[Draznnl]

Well, when you break it into segments it isn't so bad Jim White

[acorgihouse]

I'm just a quick jump off I-75, and I can help with the driving too!

[WayneT]

Jim White Draznnl acorgihouse We’ve never been accused of turning anyone away but there’s a finite amount of food (unless y’all bring some) and unlimited appetites.

[WayneT]

Next steps.

After brining (desalinating the corned beef) for 30+ hours, each protein got a rub treatment. Pork belly got Meat Church Honey Hog Hot, the brisket has my own, proprietary SPOG rub. (Don’t bother asking for my rub recipe, it’s a trade secret! 🤫😉🤣) And the corned beef briskets got the Katz’s Deli rub-alike from this website, thank you very much. The PB will get a spritz of apple juice every 45 mins for the first 3-4 hours.

Then they were loaded into my Copperhead 5. Fireboard 2 probes in the PB and brisket. After this pic was taken, I inserted my CI wireless probe into one of the corned beefs.

[STEbbq]

I add mushroom powder to my SPOG rub. I know I can trust you to keep the secret.

[DaveD]

Beefs? Or beeves? I have often wondered this.

[WayneT]

DaveD It keeps me up at night too.

[WayneT]

Brisket boated at 160F, 4 hours into the cook.

[WayneT]

Foil boat deployed on PB at 162F, about 6 hours 45 mins into the cook.


The two corned beefs just hit the stall at 136F.

[STEbbq]

Just to be clear, this is all prep work and food you will take on vacation with you to reheat and eat alongside whatever else you make at the vacation spot?

[WayneT]

Yep, that’s the plan. After smoking, I’ll cool, chill, vac-seal then freeze everything.

[WayneT]

The pork belly came off around 8:30 pm, about a 10 hour smoke.



This was my first whole PB. I mislabeled the PB and brisket on my FB 2 app and was confused why the ThermoPen reading was so much different..once I figured out my mistake, at around 8:15 pm, the PB only had about 15 mins left to reach IT of 195F. Beautiful bark and the taste was ethereal. So far so good!

[STEbbq]

Hey, that corner bit over there looks messed up. I will snag it and eat it so no one will notice. Thanks.

[WayneT]

STEbbq For a minute there I thought I’d taken the pic after I actually sampled a corner. As it turns out, you’re prescient.

[DaveD]

Nice work Wayne! Looks like nobody is gonna go hungry on your trip!

[WayneT]

Thanks Dave. That’s my goal. I was up until 3:00 am this morning waiting for the brisket and two pastramii to come off. Pix soon. See how I avoided that beefs/beeves Gordian knot?

[STEbbq]

Beefies for my teefies!

[Bkhuna]

I've enjoyed watching you prep for you trip into the wilderness. Just in case you forget anything there is a Piggly-Wiggly express on St. George Island and a Piggly-Wiggly in Port St. Joe. I'd stay away from the Piggly Wiggly in Apalachicola however.

[WayneT]

Thanks for the heads up. We’re bringing most of our food except staples. I haven’t been in a Piggly Wiggly in decades.

[WayneT]

This smoke-a-thon has come to an end. The two pastramii and brisket flat were on the pellet pooper for 15+ hours. Consequently, there was a great deal of biomass conversion during the cook. Time to replenish my pellet pile. I’m also on the 5th of 6 bags of Kingsford Pro charcoal I got from Costco this spring. Maybe we should see if Meathead would consider buying us all some carbon offset credits.



After I took these off at 3:00 am this morning, I tented them and placed in a warm oven. At 7:00 am, I put them in the fridge. I just finished vac-sealing them and put them in the freezer for travel down south in 6 days.