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**fzxdoc** · January 18, 2015, 04:16 PM

Wow, Guy, that's sad, certainly given the $$$$ of salmon. Around here it's about $19 a lb for Alaskan sockeye or even for farm-raised Scottish salmon off the eastern seaboard. Meathead recommends that salmon be lightly smoked so I do it on my gasser with a couple of those Mo's smoking pouches stuffed with applewood. So far so good. I don't eat salmon, but my DH and kids love it the way that Weber Summit S670 pops it out.

One thing I learned about fish is to give them a good quick rinse in saki or cheap vodka if you smell a fishy scent even if you've just purchased it. I just recently started getting my seafood from a private distributor and that stuff has no fishy smell at all. For someone who hates fish but has to cook it for a fish-loving family (and that would be me), that trick with the saki or vodka makes it a much more pleasant experience. I use it on shrimp as well.

Kathryn

**troymeister** · January 18, 2015, 04:22 PM

I was at my wife's family gathering and it was my turn to cook for about 20 or so people. I wasn't familiar with their model of gas grill. Did not know the ignighter was broke. After a few minutes of the gas being on I felt the lid and it was cold. I took a sip of beer, opened up the lid and lit my cigar. I blew off my hair to the crown of my head. No eyebrows, mustache and goatee singed to smelly stumbles. The hair on my arms burnt off too. Luckily I wast burned, had another beer and was able to laugh it off. I made a type of breaded fried chicken legs and thighs on the grill. Done right is awesome. All of skin stuck to the grates and turned out a mess. I was so embarrassed, no hair and ugly chicken. I sprang for about 8 pizzas.. Haven't used a gas grill since...LOL

**troymeister** · January 18, 2015, 05:26 PM

Was in the days before iPhones or easy digital photos. In the end only thing that got hurt was my ego.

**Dewesq55** · January 27, 2015, 06:20 PM

No pix, but I just now had a rack of baby backs end up on the ground while saucing them. OY! I followed the 3 (ok 15) second rule, brushed off any obvious klingons, sauced and put them back on the rack.

DEW

**Henrik** · January 29, 2015, 07:53 AM

Here's an epic failure for y'all. I did a double cook today, and had to throw it all away. All of it.

1. Smoked roe deer bolognese sauce with smoked bacon (yes, I like smoke alright

)
I had 1.5 lbs of roe deer roast (the ham), and I figured I'll smoke it for an hour, then put it through the grinder together with 7 oz of smoked bacon. Then fry the minced meat with plenty of butter and cooking cream to make one bad bolognese sauce.

2. Smoked and braised oxtail, mole poblano style
I was inspired by troymeister so I decided to try oxtail myself. I smoked it for an hour, then braised it in the oven in a cast iron pan with red wine, onions, sweet potatoes, ancho chili and dark (70%) chocolate. I wanted to add a mole poblano touch to it (the Mexican chocolate sauce).

It all started out well, got my kamado fired up, but almost immediately had trouble getting it up to temp. I fiddled with vent settings and put my brand new BBQ Dragon to use (yes, just had to buy one...). I did get it up to temp for short periods of time, but with both vents fully open. I never run with both vents open. This should ring an alarm in my head, but I was in some kind of happy go lucky mode, so I didn't think of it. I then put two cherry wood chunks on the coals, could see the thin blue (good) smoke come out, and I thought that I could leave it for 30 minutes or so. I walked inside, and tended to some other chores, but could see on my Maverick that the temp was going up and down like a sinus curve. Weird, so I went back out and got the fire going again, as I could see white smoke coming out the grill.

When the meat was smoked for an hour I brought it inside. I did smell it, and couldn't miss the bitter smoke flavor. Not good, but I went through with the whole cook anyway.

Two complete dishes, completely inedible. The issue was that since I couldn't get a clean burning fire, the wood chunks were generating white bitter smoke, completely ruining the meat. 6 lbs out the door, and a bottle of red wine. Not to mention 3.5 hours of work.

So, what was the issue then? Well, After almost an hour of trying to get the grill to settle on 230° F, I took a peek through the bottom vent. To my big surprise I could see a good reflection of the fire and bottom parts of the grill. We did have heavy rain the other day, and quite a lot had leaked in, so I had a good half inch of water at the bottom of the grill. Go figure. That acted as quite a good cooler, not letting the grill breathe properly, resulting in cold white smoke.

I tasted both dishes, but couldn't eat a spoonful even, so I have learnt my lesson. Check that damn thing for water next time. It still hurts my ego, as I'm writing this, but hopefully I'll put this behind me and be back for more grilling in the next couple of days. What a humbling experience.

The roe deer and bacon for the bolognese sauce

The end result (bolognese), could not eat it

Here's the oxtail

And the casserole

**Ernest** · January 29, 2015, 08:41 AM

Look closely, smoked red snapper

**airforcekixbutt** · January 29, 2015, 09:40 AM

I had just bought my 18" WSM smoker and after seasoning it and doing a couple of burns to break it in I was ready to do my first smoke. I prepared my Boston butt ready to go on the smoker. I heated the water as instructed and had the WSM temp at 230 ready to putt the butt on. I decided to remove the lower grate so it wouldn't get dirty. The problem was I didn't install the top grate correctly and as I placed the butt on the top grate the grate flipped up and the butt fell into the HOT pan of water splashing water onto the hot coals. I quickly removed the middle section of the WSM and pulled out the Butt from the water pan. All of my rub had washed off!! I did have extra rub so I dried the meat off and slathered more mustard and rub on again. This time I made sure the top grate was installed correctly. The butt turned out great in the end, but what a memory!!

**Ernest** · January 29, 2015, 01:32 PM

So here I am trying to make a Jelly roll cake while sober........A complete delicious disaster.

I can fill up this thread by midnight, complete with photos LOL!!

**Jon Solberg** · February 15, 2015, 09:00 PM

4lbs butt split, ran em 14 hours to 173, pulled one and slice it for sandwiches. Its was okay. Let the second one stay on. 16 hours in second stall hit. IT back down to 156. I'm throw in the towel and going to bed. This half will be good slices as well. Its just not the same dagnabit.

PULL PORK FAIL!

**DWCowles** · February 15, 2015, 09:50 PM

Jon, how can anyone screw up a butt,

**Huskee** · February 15, 2015, 09:54 PM

Originally posted by Jon Solberg View Post

4lbs butt split, ran em 14 hours to 173, pulled one and slice it for sandwiches. Its was okay. Let the second one stay on. 16 hours in second stall hit. IT back down to 156. I'm throw in the towel and going to bed. This half will be good slices as well. Its just not the same dagnabit.

PULL PORK FAIL!

This is precicely why I do not skip the crutch on pork butts, when I want pulled pork I intend to make it happen and not risk an annoyin setback. I know Meathead and Pit Boss don't crutch, but this camper sure does.

Jon, toss them in your crock pot on low overnight you'll have pulled pork in the morning, I've done it.

**Jon Solberg** · February 16, 2015, 04:49 AM

Originally posted by DWCowles View Post

Jon, how can anyone screw up a butt,

I dont know man. I'm going to have to do it again next weekend just to get back on the horse.

**Medusa** · February 16, 2015, 07:39 AM

Try this... for Valentine's Day.

Weber Gasser - all burners on high. Heat it up to about 600.

Add 2 baking potatoes - all burners on high.

Turn potatoes 30 minutes later - all burners on high.

Realized mistake - center burner turned off.

Result: Black Rocks anyway = Trash. ( insert duh! emoticon )

Fortunately, Pan-Seared NYS with Red Wine / Mushroom / Herb Sauce turned out great.

--Ed

**Mygrane** · February 16, 2015, 12:03 PM

Bear with me on this one. Kind of long, but after 20 years, I still laugh about it to this day.
Anyone that has kids, has most likely heard of, if not was involved in the YMCA programs Indian Guides & Indian Princesses. Besides the Nation camp outs being a lot of fun for the kids, this was a time for chest thumping by the dads when it came to preparing the best food.
When I was Chief of my son's tribe, The Ospreys, I (Blowing Wind) was not about to be out done by another tribe. I built ourselves a rather large 'pit' for cooking a pig. The T-111 sides were painted to resemble brick, a smoke stack added, and a slot for an extruded metal grill. We even painted Osprey-Q on the side for a little personalizing. It was made way larger than the anticipated size of the fire we built below to cook said pig. I also intended to keep the fire low enough to stay with the 'low and slow' plan. All great plans!
Everything was progressing nicely and on time to begin eating and to provide a great sample to the NationÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s Council for the judging of the meal. But first, it was time for everyone to head to the full Nation meeting for the opening ceremony. The ceremony was held in silence and was somewhat reverent in an adult childÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s way. We decided to break the rule that ALL must attend and left one of the adults at the campsite to finish his fire water and tend to the fire and the pig. He was well on his way to several more fire waters than his wife would have allowed. We should have taken note of this before we left as it seems he may have decided a nap was in order.
About half way through the silent ceremony we heard yelling and saw a real glow (not faint) and smoke coming from the direction of our campsite. Many Firewaters came running into the ceremony asking about the keys to my new Suburban and whether I had a fire extinguisher available. He wasnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t there long before someone threw the fire extinguisher from the ceremonial fire (safety first) at him and he disappeared back into the woods. I followed behind to find the Osprey-Q fully involved with Many Firewaters emptying the commercial sized extinguisher on our pig.
The good news is my new car survived and we got the award for Ã¢â‚¬ËœBest Use of Pork as FirewoodÃ¢â‚¬â„¢.

**MattTheGR8** · February 22, 2015, 09:49 PM

No pictures from me on this one, but if you can imagine an unrecognizable mass of black carbon you won't need a picture. A few weeks ago I tried a recipe for bacon jam from Americas Test Kitchen and wound up with a total failure. The ATK/Cooks Illustrated/Cooks Country recipes almost always work great for me, so I was very disappointed that this one was such a failure.

The recipe calls for simmering a mixture of cooked bacon, aromatics, vinegar, coffee, sugars and spices until it reduces and becomes thick enough for a spoon to leave a distinct trail in the jam. I let it keep simmering for quite a while and it just kept getting darker and darker, with absolutely no thickening. Eventually, it got so dark that it was obviously burned and I gave up on it. After turning off the burner the residual heat was enough to turn it to a black carbon mass and during cleanup I had to use a putty knife to scrape the "fond" off the bottom of my dutch oven. This failure wasn't as expensive as losing a smoker full of quality meat, but I was disappointed that I lost a pound of my homemade bacon.

The story took a happier turn today since I made some adjustments and turned out a great batch. After the failure, I deduced that the first batch had too much fat and too much heat. So, today I simmered it in just 4 T of bacon fat over a lower heat and the recipe worked as advertised. Wary of losing another pound of good bacon I used el-cheapo supermarket bacon for today's batch, so now I need to do it again with the good stuff.

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