FAIL! (photos & stories of recipe mishaps and oopses)

[Stevehtn]

Christmas Turkey looked like I set it ablaze, instead of the wood, to smoke it.

[Stevehtn]

Actually the meat itself was absolutely delicious, save the drumsticks were a little dry towards the bottom where I forgot to wrap the tips. That said, crispy skin took on a different meaning with this bird......

[richinlbrg]

If it tasted good, it is not a fail, IMHO!

[Stevehtn]

Well, I consider it a fail for the fact that the skin was similar to the turkey on Christmas Vacation. But underneath the meat was as juicy as any turkey I've ever cooked. Go figure.

[somethinfishy]

Before I found AR my wife would send me random recipes from pintrest or other random websites and ask me to cook them for her. Well theres an authentic taco stand here in town and we love their pork tacos, so my wife found me a recipe involving a pork butt to make tacos.

Let me be perfectly clear, heinz "perfectly PEPPERED" vinegar is not the same as apple cider vinegar. Even though they look the same minus the giant label...No matter how much you swear you followed the directions to the "T" pepper taste will not go away.

One of the few times I felt like I really wasted food

[Stevehtn]

LOL

[TraumaLlama]

Well I decided to try chicken legs for the first time. I thought I'd take all the knowledge I've gathered here in my head (notorious for being made of swiss cheese) and treat these legs like the Pollo a la Brasa or spatchcocked alternative to beer can chicken etc.
So far me and my Q have hit a groove despite me being a terrible person and not doing the bread test, as I've figured out the left doesn't get as hot as the right, and the 4 corners are great for a quick sear as they're the hottest. It doesn't actually get as hot as I was led to believe so I often have to leave the one burner on high and the "no burner" section on really low just to support some cooking.

Head out to my porch, and I lock myself out(it's a door-door instead of a sliding door). I'm on the second floor apartment so escape is not an option. Yet.
Thanking the summer gods that it's the time of day that the sun isn't beaming onto the porch, there's a slight breeze, my BF is due home in half an hour or so and that it is indeed summer and not the middle of winter at -40, I plop the legs on the grill and myself in my lawn chair and wait patiently, wondering what I do now without a book or a phone or something.
Dazing into a half sleepy day dream, trying to will BF home ASAP because I'm bored, I become more and more aware of the BBQ making unhappy noises. Ignoring it for a few minutes it insists I take a peek (maybe they need to be repositioned?).

Fortunately I didn't lose eyebrows to the chicken fat inferno that erupted forth, I shut of the gas and closed the lid, but it kept going for a while.
Escape was starting to look like an option! But the fire died down and I was left alone and disgruntled on my porch with two pieces of char and a helluva mess to clean up. The boyfriend found it amusing until I announced he was on his own for dinner (I actually had to be at work that night).

I will be doing some serious review before trying legs again!!

[Stevehtn]

Hahaha. Glad you didn't have to do a Greg Louganis off the back porch

[Ptrbve]

Made pizza for the first time in my kamado a few nights ago. Got it up to close to 600. I had my pizza stone just above the heat deflector stone. I used parchment paper to trasfer the pie to the stone. The paper immediately caught fire and burned the edges. I let it go and hoped it would stop there. I took it out after about six minutes. It didn't look too bad on the top but the entire bottom was burned. I was able to salvage some of it. Next time I will use the top grate.

[_John_]

Did the same thing myself on the kettle, I think my major error was heating the stone and then transferring, it was always burning before the top was cooked. I need more practice.

[Ptrbve]

I think the stones are supposed to be hot when the dough is put on them, but there is probably a limit. Any pizza people out there know for sure?

[Superskierpat]

I once cooked beef ribs while using a new kind of charcoal (Hardwood instead of briquettes) the ribs were so burned the bones were charred through and the table near it actually darkened a bit. Really taught me about heat management xD

[Huskee]

Bump! C'mon, let's see those oopses!

[MBMorgan]

Fail??? What fail? No pics = didn't happen! Right? (crap ... never mind)

[Huskee]

Fail??? What fail? No pics = didn't happen! Right? (crap ... never mind)

Good things "never happened" without pics. Fails always happen and we all know it.

[Jerod Broussard]

No pictures but I totally BOMBED the mac 'n cheese recipe from Kenji's book. I couldn't find the right cheese, so I bought a block of some smoked cheese. So bad if I mention it all the kids start acting like they are all about to gag and die.

Had I topped it with goat crap it would have had a legitimate excuse or might have been better.

[DWCowles]

Three things that I did wrong with the bacon wrap stuff chicken breast cook today. (1) Sit the SnS up for a low & slow instead of hot & fast. (2) Forgot to add the wood chunks before putting the chicken on. (3) Got interested in the Kentucky vs Georgia basketball game and forgot about the chicken and when I check them with the Thermopen the IT was 190 F. but to my surprising they weren't dry at all. Since I put the wood chunks on the coals after the chicken was already in the kettle the bacon was too smokey but the chicken breast was good and tasty. I think the bacon save the chicken. Well at least Kentucky won

[fzxdoc]

Go Wildcats! and that chicken looks mighty tasty, DWCowles !

K.

[Huskee]

I will humbly admit my last couple steak cooks I oversalted during the dry brine (and I now know what I did) and I keep overshooting my temp goal. They turned out too salty and borderline medium-well. My wife likes hers more in the 135-140 range, so I tend to do mine there too even though I like 130 better. Then in all the effort to not have hers be rare, I overshoot and they end up at 145. #notenoughsteakpractice #mustdomore.




Also DWCowles I overcooked my last chicken, the breasts were 175 and the skin up top was blackening. You wouldn't be proud.

[fzxdoc]

Huskee , salty steaks are good reasons to swill beer with them. That's the (beer) glass is half full approach to grilling. Seriously, though, I'm looking forward to hearing about your next steak cook. I bet it will be perfect now that you've figured out some tweaks.

Somewhere (maybe Meathead's salt manifesto?) I read that chefs like using kosher salt to season because they use less in a pinch of salt than if using table salt, thereby avoiding oversalting.

Kathryn

[Huskee]

Problem was I used Kosher. But I salted all the edges. I realize that's not neccessary based on how we eat a steak...and that's what actually led to my oversalting.

[fzxdoc]

Sometimes it's fun to read back over this topic. Two of my fav posts in it are:

troymeister 's: https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...3821#post53821

This one is scary but hilarious. Almost like watching a cartoon in your mind.

and

Lost in China 's: https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/fo...1731#post81731

This one, as you read along, as soon as you see one photo in particular, you can predict what's coming. Plus it's so well written. Scrolling through the photos is like watching a train wreck about to happen in slo-mo.

Kathryn

Edited to add: This post by Ninja Q from another topic, cracks me up as well.

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/pitmaster-general-discussion/140692-i-m-an-idiot-again?p=140857#post140857

[lemayp]

There is no photographic evidence but I completely failed on an attempt to make oyster stew last week. Had some time alone and I'm the only one here that likes oysters so I had my lunch plan... found a Paula Deen recipe that I figured would be a good start. It took me a minute to realize that the milk was curdling and there was no saving it. Threw a hamburger on the grill instead.