My brother passed away a week ago and we had a BBQ at our house a couple days later. Not looking for sympathy, just wanted you to know how important the cook was to me. I had been planning all summer to do ribs for an old friend of mine. Another close friend decided to drive 6 hours for the dinner so I promised him steak.
I did baby back ribs because I haven't done St. Louis cut yet and didn't want to experiment. Also, I understand there is more meat on them and I was feeding a crowd. Did 4 big slabs of ribs and 9 large strip loins. We had enough meat given all the other dishes people brought. Here is a shot of the meat.
I dry brined all the meat for a few hours (just salt).
I sous vide three of the steaks to well done/158 for my wife and family. I cold shocked them and put them in the fridge.
Then I started the ribs 5 hours early planning for a 4-5 hour cook. They ended up taking 5.5 hours to cook which worked out just fine. They were pretty crowded on my webber rib holder.
Here is the setup I used for smoking them. I picked up a container at Home Depot for $14 to hold the dry wood chips. When I first started smoking I used large water containers and found it a challenge to get the temp up and to hold it consistent. I have switched to two small water containers (just use 2 weber drip pans) and I find it really easy to regulate the heat and I still get a good smoke ring on the ribs. (Also get a good crust on a brisket type cook). I ran the bbq around 235 degrees and didn't have to fuss with it much. In the photo there are two probes just left outside so they are showing the ambient termperature for no particular reason. The side furthest from the heat was running very cold so I switched the ribs side to side and front to back a couple of times to even the heat. I only had to use the left burner for heat, it was turned to about 1/2.
If you only have a gas barbeque like me, I really encourage you to start smoking with your gasser. I've been really happy with the results. Especially ribs.
I pre-heated the Sous Vide to 140 (not hard to do since my hot water tank is set close to that temp).
About 2 hours before meal time I put the 6 remaining steaks in the sous vide for 1.5 hours at 140. The two photo's below are actually from the well done phase of the cook, but you get the idea. The container is an $11 cheap plastic container I got from a big box store. I just used a dremmel and cut a hole for the Anova. I use a rib holder to help hold the meat down in the container. I know this container isn't an approved cooking container but since everything is in an approved bag anyway, I'm assuming it doesn't matter. Can't believe the difference a cover makes. On an 8 hour cook I would lose inches of water without the lid. Wish the lid, I can't notice any change. Its a 7 gallon container and the Anova is good to 5 gallons so I don't fill it full. At 5 gallons, I don't find the 50 pounds it weighs to be hard to move around so I'm really happy with the set up for large cooks.
I threw the well done steaks back in the bath for the last 1/2 hour of the 140 degree cook so all 9 steaks came out at 140 degrees. I will do a cold shock to these steaks in the future, but again, I didn't want to try anything new on this cook so I went right from the hot water bath to the sear station.
The sear station is my favorite part. I think the vast majority of people here have charcoal setups available to them so it will be hard for you to appreciate this. But for those of us with gas only, we pine for a good sear station. I don't have a fancy ceramic one on my weber. Worse, I use natural gas and have a pretty long run to the end of my house so I don't think I get the pressure/volume that I should to get really hot. I do have GrillGrates but they only get up to 450 to 500 degrees when I use the back side. fzxdoc and others report up to 800 degrees on grill grates with their set ups.
My favorite toy bar none is a Weber chimney. A $20 solution for a seared steak to match anything I have had in a restaurant is hilarious. Also, boys like to play with fire and all the guys had to come over and look at the chimney.
When I pulled the steaks from the bath, I coated them with olive oil, cracked pepper and kosher salt. Then they went on the fancy sear station. While doing this my buddy was putting sauce on the ribs, carmelizing them and cutting them up individually.
All in all a very successfull cook. 6 steaks done to a perfect medium - pink throughout. Great ribs with a smoke ring. Fed 28 people.
Sous Vide allowed me to nail the steak risk free.
Things I'd do differently:
1) I thought I'd need more searing time so I tried to light a full chimney. That didn't work. I used 3 weber starters (white parafin?) and ended up removing a bunch of unlit coals. I noticed a chemical taste in a piece of my steak like starter fluid from using 3 starters. Frustrating but I figure I'm still learning. Just re-enforced for me that you shouldn't experiment for a big cook, go with tried and true.
2) allow more time for searing/carving the steaks as well as prepping the ribs. It was the sort of evening that 1/2 an hour late didn't bother anyone.
Thanks to the moderators and others here for teaching me so much about BBQ.
I did baby back ribs because I haven't done St. Louis cut yet and didn't want to experiment. Also, I understand there is more meat on them and I was feeding a crowd. Did 4 big slabs of ribs and 9 large strip loins. We had enough meat given all the other dishes people brought. Here is a shot of the meat.
I dry brined all the meat for a few hours (just salt).
I sous vide three of the steaks to well done/158 for my wife and family. I cold shocked them and put them in the fridge.
Then I started the ribs 5 hours early planning for a 4-5 hour cook. They ended up taking 5.5 hours to cook which worked out just fine. They were pretty crowded on my webber rib holder.
Here is the setup I used for smoking them. I picked up a container at Home Depot for $14 to hold the dry wood chips. When I first started smoking I used large water containers and found it a challenge to get the temp up and to hold it consistent. I have switched to two small water containers (just use 2 weber drip pans) and I find it really easy to regulate the heat and I still get a good smoke ring on the ribs. (Also get a good crust on a brisket type cook). I ran the bbq around 235 degrees and didn't have to fuss with it much. In the photo there are two probes just left outside so they are showing the ambient termperature for no particular reason. The side furthest from the heat was running very cold so I switched the ribs side to side and front to back a couple of times to even the heat. I only had to use the left burner for heat, it was turned to about 1/2.
If you only have a gas barbeque like me, I really encourage you to start smoking with your gasser. I've been really happy with the results. Especially ribs.
I pre-heated the Sous Vide to 140 (not hard to do since my hot water tank is set close to that temp).
About 2 hours before meal time I put the 6 remaining steaks in the sous vide for 1.5 hours at 140. The two photo's below are actually from the well done phase of the cook, but you get the idea. The container is an $11 cheap plastic container I got from a big box store. I just used a dremmel and cut a hole for the Anova. I use a rib holder to help hold the meat down in the container. I know this container isn't an approved cooking container but since everything is in an approved bag anyway, I'm assuming it doesn't matter. Can't believe the difference a cover makes. On an 8 hour cook I would lose inches of water without the lid. Wish the lid, I can't notice any change. Its a 7 gallon container and the Anova is good to 5 gallons so I don't fill it full. At 5 gallons, I don't find the 50 pounds it weighs to be hard to move around so I'm really happy with the set up for large cooks.
I threw the well done steaks back in the bath for the last 1/2 hour of the 140 degree cook so all 9 steaks came out at 140 degrees. I will do a cold shock to these steaks in the future, but again, I didn't want to try anything new on this cook so I went right from the hot water bath to the sear station.
The sear station is my favorite part. I think the vast majority of people here have charcoal setups available to them so it will be hard for you to appreciate this. But for those of us with gas only, we pine for a good sear station. I don't have a fancy ceramic one on my weber. Worse, I use natural gas and have a pretty long run to the end of my house so I don't think I get the pressure/volume that I should to get really hot. I do have GrillGrates but they only get up to 450 to 500 degrees when I use the back side. fzxdoc and others report up to 800 degrees on grill grates with their set ups.
My favorite toy bar none is a Weber chimney. A $20 solution for a seared steak to match anything I have had in a restaurant is hilarious. Also, boys like to play with fire and all the guys had to come over and look at the chimney.
When I pulled the steaks from the bath, I coated them with olive oil, cracked pepper and kosher salt. Then they went on the fancy sear station. While doing this my buddy was putting sauce on the ribs, carmelizing them and cutting them up individually.
All in all a very successfull cook. 6 steaks done to a perfect medium - pink throughout. Great ribs with a smoke ring. Fed 28 people.
Sous Vide allowed me to nail the steak risk free.
Things I'd do differently:
1) I thought I'd need more searing time so I tried to light a full chimney. That didn't work. I used 3 weber starters (white parafin?) and ended up removing a bunch of unlit coals. I noticed a chemical taste in a piece of my steak like starter fluid from using 3 starters. Frustrating but I figure I'm still learning. Just re-enforced for me that you shouldn't experiment for a big cook, go with tried and true.
2) allow more time for searing/carving the steaks as well as prepping the ribs. It was the sort of evening that 1/2 an hour late didn't bother anyone.
Thanks to the moderators and others here for teaching me so much about BBQ.
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