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

[Obi-Dan]

First as a new member let me say that I love that no one on this site gets upset about zombie threads. Everyone just chimes in. It's refreshing.

The two BBQ mishaps that come to mind are very different indeed. A few hours before dinner this Christmas I was cooking a pork butt on my new PBC. I told my wife I was going to go wrap it. Next thing she sees is me running into the house yelling, "It fell! It fell!" She asks what did. All I can reply as I come running back with every long handled utensil I have is, "IT! IT!" Fortunately I was able to save it from a fiery death on the coals of my PBC and just lost some bark. I also learned that the hooks do have to face a certain way on the rebar to keep from getting my hand crossed up by the rebar.

My favorite BBQ fail comes from more than 20 years ago when we were all in college and decided to buy a grill and have burgers at someone's apartment. So went to the Kroger and got a cheap square grill, a bag of Kingsford, a bottle of lighter fluid, a ground beef log, american cheese, buns, and a lot of beer. We got back, built the grill and loaded it with charcoal. Probably used the whole bag. We doused the briquettes and lit a match. Nothing really happened so we doused some more and lit another match. They fire sort of held on two briquettes so we decided to douse some more. It was like a scene out of backdraft. One wall and the ceiling of the balcony still had scorch marks when they moved out of the apartment several years later. Also, we threw the burgers on right away and ate these things that were burnt on the outside and basically raw on the inside. In the morning the coals were still hot so we ate burgers for breakfast too. Those were pretty good because you know, we cooked over coals instead of an inferno. Actually, in retrospect that was not a fail. It was a wonderful night with good friends.

[fzxdoc]

Great stories, Obi-Dan . "like a scene out of Backdraft" made me laugh out loud.

I still remember the hibachi from my college days. I'd set it up outside of the side door of our dorm, add some charcoal, light it and throw on a cheap cut of beef (all that I could afford). The meat was always heavenly as I shared it with some of my girlfriends. The hibachi/sizzling meat smells were a great guy magnet, too.

My BBQing skilz were in their infancy back then; like you, sometimes we had more fire than the meat could tolerate and ate our share of raw-in-the-middle meat. I won't mention the accompanying libations, since alcohol on campus was forbidden. wink wink

Kathryn

[Breadhead]

BYU? Kathryn.

[fzxdoc]

Nope. Just back in the day.

[Dewesq55]

In the middle of an EPIC one! 3, count 'em 3, Peruvian chickens on the rotisserie. Cooking along as nice as you like. Suddenly the hi-temp alarm on my Mav goes off. Its at 405° by the time I look. By the time I get out to the grill the chickens arw engulfed in flames. The water/drip pan had run dry and the fat had ignited. The breasts are coated with charcoal. Some of the thighs and lefs might be OK. The thing is, I was cooking for a potential crowd at my friend's store. I will (unusually) cut them up here before bringing them to the store. I will cut the charred parts off, of course. "Film at 11!"

[Huskee]

Ahhh! Lol, sorry but I'm laughing picturing it because I've been there too!

[fzxdoc]

Oh phooey! Your heart must have dropped when you saw those flames. Let us know how the crowd liked those Peruvian birds.

[Dewesq55]

The wings were toast (pun intended.) Most of the breast skin had to be removed before serving and some of the leg skin. The meat was still delish and the green sauce covers a multitude of sins.

[GilaMonster]

My most recent fail was this afternoon. Had a spatchcocked chicken all brined and rubbed and ready for the grill. Lit a chimney of charcoal, and while it was starting, hooked up my Maverik and probes, and checked the batteries in the new PartyQ, and reset the grill temperature for 325°. Dumped the burning coals into the SnS, added a few chunks of pecan, and watched the Maverik remote as the temperature built up. When it got to about 150°, put the chicken on, turned on the PQ, and sat back to let it do its magic.

Temp climbed right up to 325°, the PQ shut off, and the internal temp of the bird was rising! All was right with the world, and I love this new PQ fire stoker!

The PQ stayed off, and the temp just kept climbing. Before long it was at 365°, then 375°! Chicken was getting done sooner than I thought! IT hit 165°, so I got the instant read thermometer and checked breasts and thighs - yep, time to eat. As I was putting the lid back on the Weber, I noticed the top vents were all the way open! No wonder it got so steadily hotter!

Enjoyed the chicken, then I went out to begin to get the grill ready for tomorrow's Chuckie Roast. Damn! It was still blazing hot! I double checked that I had put the plug in the PartyQ mount - yep - it's there!

That's when I saw it! Any of you who are still with me - can you guess?

I had left the lower vents all the way open, as well! The whole cook! Top and bottom vents wide open, and the PQ fan stoking the fire for more than an hour! I coulda cooked eggs on the top lid of the Weber (I do live in Arizona after all...we're always trying to cook eggs on hot metal, you know!)

Note to self: mind the vents tomorrow when you use the PartyQ the third time!!

[fzxdoc]

I bet that chicken tasted great and sported some nice crispy skin. Chicken loves 325-390 !

[Potkettleblack]

Three failures with heritage breed chickens.
Vertical roast produced leathery skin and rock hard connective tissue.



sous us vide and deep fry produced slightly better results, but horrid skin and tough pull on meat (may have had a bad bag leak)


and and long brine produced slightly better meat, but over salted to the point of pitching it after Simon and garfunkle treatment.

[richinlbrg]

Potkettleblack , if you had put a beer can between the wing and thigh, you'd have had one funny pic! Kathryn is right, looks like the bird has a bad attitude!

[fzxdoc]

Well, what a bummer, Potkettleblack . If you can't get a heritage bird to taste good, I wonder who can. That veritcal bird looks like he's got a real attitude. You could cartoon caption him with "You want a piece of me?".

Do you think those heritage birds are just too lean for good eating? I did two heritage turkeys, spatchcocked a couple of Thanksgivings ago, one in my PBC and one conventionally in the oven. They both turned out great, but guests preferred the PBC bird.

Kathryn

[Potkettleblack]

The last one wasn't bad, it was more on me with using blonder brine instead of an equilibrium brine. The next one is going for coq-au-vin, which is made for a tough bird. But these breeds have been described as soup chicks.

[Mosca]

Not my photo, not my cook, but definitely someone's fail.

[Potkettleblack]

Amazing bark! ;-)

[RonB]

It looks like they made charcoal. So does charcoal made from beef work with chicken, or just beef?

[martybartram]

I was a chicken wing once and young

[RonB]

Well, the good news is that I can get my kettle hot enough to cook a pizza in under 3 minutes. The bad news is that it took me 4 minutes to discover this...



And even worse is that the stone was not hot enough, so the bottom was just starting to get done.

[Huskee]

Lol....I actually LOLed reading this! Hilarious.

[RonB]

That the parchment caught fire quickly didn't help either...

[Huskee]

Bumping a fun old thread.

[Abom]

The first time I ever smoked something was a beef roast in a Brinkman bullet smoker. I had my girlfriend invited over, but I just could not keep the dang thing lit! It seemed to have no air circulation at all. I ended up rescuing it in the oven in a dutch oven, and threw away the brinkman. Never again. It was about 5 years before I bought my kamado, and then I was able to get somewhere.

[RonB]

"Get somewhere" with the cookin' or the girlfriend... LOL

[fzxdoc]

RonB , you crack me up.

K.

[Shane Rakow]

Never, eVer, EVER, smoke low and slow with anything net-wrapped. Netting makes for a really nice bark removal tool. Ugh.

[fzxdoc]

Awww, that's just sad, Shane Rakow . I'd be picking every barky molecule off that string and sprinkling it back on the meat as it is served. Thanks for the cautionary tale-by-photo.

Kathryn

[Craigar]

Oh heavens no, that is for the chef to chew on while the side dishes are being prepared.

[fzxdoc]

I like the way you think, Craigar!
K.

[Mr. Bones]

It'd be my dental floss after I was done chewin on it! ;-)

[OneEyedJack]

No photos, but I'd like to relate a fail that my father experienced at the grill many, many years ago. He enjoyed grilling steaks and burgers for our family and one day got the idea to do a rotisserie goose. He was fairly skilled with grilling over direct heat and I suspect that he didn't know about 2 zone cooking. The goose goes on and things are looking pretty good until the goose fat starts rendering and creates the most amazing conflagration that I have ever seen. Not one to just give up and waste food, he grabbed a fire extinguisher. At this time in our great nations history, the common extinguisher chemical was carbon tetrachloride, which I believe is now considered a hazardous material or carcinogen. It put the fire out, but the goose flesh was so tainted with the chemical that it was inedible. I can still remember the taste.

[gdsim1]

New guy here, and I'm very proud to report that in all the years I've been smoking and grilling, I have never, EVER, not one single time EVER had a fail.

Now, there HAVE been a FEW "surprise pizza nights" in my illustrious cue'ing history but hey - everybody loves pizza right? Here are a couple of my favorites, and I'll come back from time to time to update the thread with other memories or new incidents as they occur...

1) Last weekend - "When are you gonna cook that BIG A** BACON?!?!? " my lovely girlfriend asks? Took me a second to figure out what she was talking about - oh yeah! The pork belly I picked up at Costco the week before. Until I saw the recipe / video for it at the Pit Barrel Cooker site, I'd never even heard of pork belly. "What the hell," I thought, "lets give it a whirl!" Took it out to defrost overnight, and the next evening into the PBC it went.

The love of my life came wandering out into the garage just as the timer went off as I completed the second to last step. "How's the BIG A** BACON coming??? " Lovely girlfriend loves her some bacon, and she was SO excited! I unwrapped it from the foil and it smelled like heaven. I let lovely girlfriend swipe a finger down the side to have a taste, and her eyes turned into hearts just like in the cartoons. "LET'S EAT IT!!!" Not yet honey, one step to go... just need to put this fat side down on the grate to render a bit off and crisp it up and we're golden.

Ten minutes later? I pulled the lid off the PBC and my heavenly BIG A** BACON was now a BIG A** CHARCOAL BRIQUETTE. At least on one side - I meant burnt to a CINDER! Tried to salvage some decent looking leavings, but after the third bite or so lovely girlfriend turns to me and asks, very sweetly...

"We've got pizzas in the freezer dont we?" LOL

Yeah... she knows whats up.

2) Years back - I had recently split with my ex wife, and was having my daughters (age 12 & 14 at the time) over for their first weekend visit. I wanted to do something special, and they LOOOOOOVE it when ol' dad decides to grill. Decided on a new recipe I found in "BBQ USA" by Steven Raichlin. "Whats for dinner dad?" Cuban pork on the grill honey! "YAAAAY!!!" All three of us are big fans of Cuban pork sammiches, so excitement abounded.

Then... I learned something.

The day before, I had spent all day smoking up a pork butt. At the time, I was using a Char Griller with the side smoke box add-on, so essentially an offset smoker. Well, yours truly, in his exuberance to start that cook, forgot to put a drip pan in the cooking chamber. When I went to start (direct) grilling the Cuban pork (which is diced into bite size cubes for this recipe), I noticed the solidified grease in the bottom of the grill but meh, wont be that big a deal. With a smug look on my face, I threw the coals in the bottom, and when the grease didnt burst into flame, I closed the lid which was the first step.

Y'all... when I went back to check flip the meat around three or four short minutes later? I raised the lid and was immediately hit in the face by a cloud of smoke I can only describe as what it would be like if you tied fifty of those smoke bomb fireworks we used to love as little kids together and lit em all at once - in a confined area. LOL

When my eyes stopped watering ten minutes or so later, the cubed pork was covered in this grayish black film... yes, that would be the residue of the oil slick fire that must've occured inside the chamber. Somewhere both Exxon AND BP were smiling - "See? Its not just us this happens to!"

Youngest girl: I dont think its supposed to look like that Dad.

Me: I dont think so either honey.

Youngest girl: Should we try it?

Me: Do you think we should?

Eldest girl: There's always piiiiiiii-zzaaaaaaa....

(All of us died howling with laughter. )

Me: Good call baby, good call. LOL

So yeah, we have some good times through the years - even when good FOOD didnt result. Life is all about your outlook folks, and I'm reminded of a great quote I heard the other day...

"I NEVER fail. I either WIN, or I LEARN, but as long as I dont give up I never EVER fail."

[Craigar]

Great stories!

[fzxdoc]

Thanks for the wonderful stories, gdsim1 ! I'll never look at pizza the same way again.

P.S. What happened to the pork belly in the PBC? Did you leave it too long for the crisping step? I would have thought you would have had some serious fire going on in that charcoal basket from all the drippings. What would you do differently next time to avoid this "FAIL!" ?

Kathryn

[gdsim1]

I honestly don't know Miss Kathryn, as this was my first shot at it. Followed the PBC video, ten minutes fat side down... disasterpiece! LOL As for next time, 2 minutes maybe? Oven broil where I can keep an eye on it? Skip that step altogether?

[fzxdoc]

Yeah, I'm thinking you must have had a bit of a firestorm going on in there, just judging from what I see when a bit of chicken fat drips onto the coals. A nice fatty pork belly would amp that up quite a bit, I'm guessing.