Smoked Cheese

Here is another post I've been meaning to get up for awhile. We had a lot of company over thanksgiving and I wanted to have some snacks around for all the football we were going to watch. It had been awhile since I smoked some cheese and I thought that would be good to munch on. I couple days later I smoked a chub of bologna (sadly, no pics) and made the best bologna and cheese sammies.

You can smoke pretty much any cheese you want, as far as I know. I chose a block of extra sharp cheddar (my favorite), pepper jack (always a hit), and swiss. The cheddar and jack were from Sam's, so they were huge. I cut them in half to maximize the smoke flavor. I "borrowed" a cooling rack from Mrs. Hog (shhh, don't tell her) to get the cheese up off of the grate.


The most important thing when smoking cheese is to build a very, very small fire. Basically you don't want any heat, just the smoke. It was pretty easy this time because it was in the 20s outside. I burned down some charcoal, added 3 or 4 briquettes and one small piece of hickory to the firebox. The aluminum foil is just there to keep the stuff from falling through the basket as it burns down.


Simply add small pieces of wood when needed. I replaced the charcoal once as well. With a little practice you'll learn what works for you and how long you need to smoke the cheese to get the flavor you want. I like mine pretty smoky, so I went 2 hours or so on these. Mmmmmm, cheese.

Smoked Eggs

I mentioned way back in my very first Monthly Roundup how I wanted to try some smoked eggs. I was cooking some pork butts overnight sometime last fall (that's how far behind I am getting stuff on the blog) and decided to do a fatty and eggs for breakfast. Sometime in the wee hours of the morning I put a fatty and three eggs on the smoker.


I didn't really know how long to cook them, so i just let them go until the fatty was done (160 degrees; a little over an hour). It was as simple as that.


If anything, the eggs were just a touch overdone, but not too bad. I just peeled the shell off of them and had smoked sausage and eggs for breakfast. It was fantastic. You can see where the smoke penetrated the egg shells and colored the white of the egg. they had good smoke flavor, but it wasn't overbearing. If you like hard boiled eggs, you'll definitely like the smoked eggs. If not...well, you probably won't like them. I'll be doing these again when cooking overnight. I'll do them again sometime to make egg salad, too. Oh, and smoked deviled eggs would be awesome, too. Yep, I'll definitely be doing the eggs again.

Smoking in Cold Weather

I told you that I would be smoking a couple pork butts last Thursday, so I thought I'd tell you about them. I did three things last week that I have never done before:

1. Cooked in 10 degree weather
2. Foiled pork butts, and
3. Finished pork butts off on the gas grill

I got home from work last Thursday and, as you can see in the pic above, had to shovel some snow to be able to cook. It was about 19 degrees when I started to cook and quickly fell to the low teens after dark. I burned through about 90 lbs of charcoal in about 4 and a half hours. I was pushing the ol' Chargriller pretty hard at 300-325 degrees (I didn't want to be up all night....some guys gotta work, you know). The key in this kind of weather is to keep a good bed of extremely hot coals.

Make sure you give you fire a lot of air and don't worry about how much charcoal/ wood you use. I used up about half a bag of hickory chunks (giving off the flames in the pic) in addition to the charcoal. That's what happens in cold weather, I guess. To give you an idea of how cold 10 degrees is, take a good look at my out of place grease trap (i.e. the coffee can).


The coffee can got knocked over and you can see where the pork fat running out of the smoker is solidifying right as it hits the can.

When the butts got to about 150 degrees I wrapped them and put them on the gas grill over indirect heat to finish them off to 195 degrees or so. I couldn't get the far end of the grill up to 300 deg, so I had to drape a quilted moving blanket over it to hold the heat in. I didn't think about it at the time, but I should have just wrapped the butts and put them in the oven. I just don't think "oven" when I'm cooking BBQ.....but, I don't really think "grill" either. It was 10:30 or so now and I went in for a catnap while Mrs. Hog kept an eye on the butts (she gets to sleep later than I do and these were for her party). She woke me up about 12:30 and I took the butts off the grill. We let them rest for 20 minutes or so and Mrs. Hog and I pulled the butts at 1:00 AM Friday morning. Six o'clock came might early for me.

So, I did the butts in a little over 6 hours, which is by far the fasted I've cooked one. I forgot to mention that these were good sized (9 and 10 pounds) butts, too. It was definitely a successful cook, despite the unorthodox (for me) cooking style. The butts didn't have quite the smoky flavor that I usually get. The smoke ring was normal, though, so I'm thinking that the juices that collected in the foil kinda "washed" the smoke off the butts...maybe. The bark was also compromised by the the foiling. It wasn't as flavorful and the consistency was way off compared to what I'm used to. Anyway, I'm calling it a win due to the time constraints and the extreme conditions....not to mention that they tasted great. Mrs. Hog and I got a lot of nice compliments at the party we took them to. I think I'll pick a day closer to freezing for my next cook, though.

How NOT to Inject a Pork Butt

Not only do I tell you of my successes in my outdoor cooking, but I'll tell you about my failures as well. Failure may be a strong word in this case because the pork butt ended up very good, but the injection was surely a failure.

My buddy and I decided to "tailgate" at home before the NCSU/FSU football game last month. (Don't look now, but NCSU may get bowl eligible after a horrendous 1 and 5 start.) I had a couple pork butts in the freezer and moved them to the fridge on Wednesday night to be put on the smoker Friday night. The game was at 2:30 central time, so we want them done for lunch. If you remember from my last pork butt injection, I didn't really see a lot of difference with the injected butt. This time around I decided to use my Eastern NC vinegar sauce as a base, because I love the sauce. I strained the bits of pepper and stuff out of the sauce and mixed it 1:1 with apple juice. All is well at this point. I pull the butts out of the fridge and set one aside (uninjected, to compare). I start to inject the butt and realize to my dismay that the butt is still slightly frozen. It's not frozen hard. I can get the injection needle into it, but when I press on the syringe the liquid just runs out of the hole in the meat. I tried several different areas of the butt, but only got the injection to stay in the outer couple inches of meat. After messing with it a little while, I said "screw it" and just threw em' on the smoker. Slightly frozen meat does fine on the smoker, by the way. You'll actually get a bigger smoke ring.

So, the long and short of it is to never try to inject a semi-frozen pork butt. I should have checked it earlier in the evening. 30 minutes on the counter would have worked wonders. I was in a hurry the next day and didn't get pictures, but you can follow the links to beautiful pork butt pics.

Atomic Buffalo Turds (ABTs)

Here is another post I've been meaning to get up for a couple weeks. I posted about atomic buffalo turds one other time, but I didn't really give them their due. We had a pot-luck party a couple weeks ago and I offered to make the appetizer. ABTs were the obvious choice.

Start out by cutting the stem off and halving the peppers. Then I like to use a grapefruit spoon to scoop out the membranes and seeds. Just use the teeth of the spoon to cut through the pulp up near the stem. Then simply rake it down the length of the pepper to scoop everything out. If you want them to be hotter, take out the white pulp and seeds, but leave the thin membrane on the inside wall of the pepper. Give em a good rinse now to get extra seeds, pulp, etc. off of them.


Coring out the peppers is probably the biggest pain of doing ABTs. Once that is done I lay out the peppers and Mrs. Hog helps out with the rest of the process. An extra set of hands make it go a lot quicker.

Make sure your cream cheese is soft before you try to pipe it into the pepper. I let mine sit out for a while, but you can microwave it if you have to. Be careful, though....you want it soft, not melted. I like to add some cayenne pepper to the cream cheese. Just add the pepper to taste in a bowl and use the back of spoon or a spatula to mix it in. Mrs. Hog bakes cakes, so I use one of those fancy piping bags for the cream cheese. If you don't have any of those, just cut the corner out of a zip-lock bag.


Then simply add the lil' smokies on top of the cream cheese. Give them a little push and they'll kind of stick into the cream cheese.


Use a half of a strip of bacon to wrap around the pepper. When I just do a few of these I use toothpicks to secure the bacon, but when i do this many I use bamboo skewers. I put the skewers through the lil' smoky and not the pepper. It's enough to hold the whole thing together, but it's easier getting the ABT's on and off. It also makes it easier handling that many ABTs at once.


Unfortunately, we were running late for the party and I didn't get pics of the cooking or the finished product. Luckily I had old pictures from a Christmas party last year in TX. One hundred turds pretty much fills up the Chargriller. As you can see, this was before I figured out the skewer thing. You can cook these at whatever temp you want. If I do them by themselves I cook them at 275ish for about an hour and a half. They're done when the bacon is done to your liking, which is crispy for me.


These things are as beautiful as they are delicious!!


It's important to note that this recipe is really just a sample. Use your imagination and come up with other stuff to do with these. You can change the cheese, the spices, the kinds of peppers, etc. One of the best ones that I've done was to mince up some pork butt really fine and mix it in with the cream cheese. I believe I left out the smoky on that one. Anyway, you can do anything with these and they'll turn out great.

Chuck Roast -- Pulled Beef Barbecue

Like I said in an earlier post, I did more than smoke Spam last weekend. I picked up a couple of nice chuck roasts for pulled beef barbecue. Sometimes I'll use the point of a brisket for pulled beef, but I like the taste and texture of chuck roasts a little better.

I picked up two nice chuck roasts at Sam's over the weekend....one obviously a little nicer than the other. Go ahead and trim the fat off the outside edges. There is more than enough internal fat to keep the roasts moist.


I like to use my brisket rub for pulled beef barbecue. I rub the roast very generously making sure to get the sides as well. I use yellow mustard before I rub them to help make the rub stick.

Pulled Beef Barbecue Rub:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3 Tbsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp garlic salt
• 1/4 cup onion powder
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp oregano
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 Tbsp cracked black pepper
  
• 1 tsp kosher salt

I cooked the chuck roasts at about 225 (up to 250 at times) to an internal temperature of about 140 degrees. They'll look something like this at 140 degrees and it should take 3 to 5 hours depending on your cooking temp.

At 140 degrees I double wrap the chuck roasts and continue on the smoker at 225-250 to an internal temperature of 200 degrees. On a side note, I don't cook in foil very much. I don't necessarily have an aversion to it, I just seem to like my results without it. I do like to use it on the chuck roasts to collect the juices, though.

The chuck roasts are good and tender at this point. I immediately pour the juice off into a bowl and put it in the fridge. Make sure you let the meat rest like normal. I like to allow at least 20 minutes before I start pulling. If it's tender enough after resting you can just use two forks to shred it. It is kind of a pain and you can tell by the picture that I got tired of pulling and ended up cutting some of it with a knife. It was tender enough that I could cut it with the grain. It'll kinda fall apart when you reheat it. Once you have it pulled, take the juiced out of the fridge and scoop the congealed fat off the top. Add back enough of the juice to moisten up the meat good. You won't need all of it...you don't want it swimming in it. Here is the barbecue sauce that I like on pulled beef. This sauce is similar to a store bought sauce, but it's a lot less sweet with just enough kick to let you know you're eating it. I keep it around all the time for various things. I put just a light coating on the beef and have the sauce on the table to add more if needed.

Pulled Beef Barbecue Sauce:

• 2 cups ketchup
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
• 1/4 cup yellow mustard
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1/4 cup light brown sugar
  
• 1 Tbsp onion powder
• 1 Tbsp garlic powder
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper (more or less to taste)

This stuff is fantastic on cheap white buns for sammies. I had one for lunch today. It freezes well, too. Just vacuum seal in single or double serving and it'll keep for several months.

Smoked Spam

Yes, I said Spam.....

I'll put just about anything on the smoker to see how it turns out, and when a coworker brought up the Spam website (Warning: lost of flash and audio) last week at work....well, I decided I had to give it a try. They're really playing up the, "Hey look at us, we're Spam, haha" kinda thing. We got a good chuckle looking at the website. I haven't had Spam since I was a kid, so I thought I would just throw it on the smoker to see what happens. One of them I smoked naked and the other I rubbed generously with butt rub.

They were both pretty good. Only a slight smokey flavor because the smoke didn't really penetrate the meat. There is a crapload of salt in these things, so the one with the rub was a way too salty. If I ever do these again I'll rub it with either a very sweet or very spicy rub to counteract the salt a little bit. I fried a couple leftover pieces this morning for a spam and cheese sammie for breakfast. I could really taste the smoke after it sat overnight.

No, I didn't fire up the smoker just for some Spam yesterday. I cooked some pulled beef barbecue, too.

Smoked Chicken Wings Update

I cooked the smoked chicken wings again last Sunday and wanted to update you on a little observation I made. I had too many wings to fit into two aluminum pans, so I put a half a dozen or so directly on the grate. Those half a dozen ended up even better than the original. Yes they made a little mess in the smoker, but it was totally worth it. I think the biggest difference was that it took up a bit more smoke and, more importantly, none of the rub came off the wings when the fat rendered out of them. I'm going to do these again soon and I'll give you another update with pics. I doubt I'll ever use the pans again.

Injecting a Pork Butt

I have cooked a lot of pork barbecue in the past, from whole hog to country style ribs, and have never seen the need to inject it with anything. I know a lot of folks swear by it, so I thought I'd give it a try. Everybody raves about Bib Bob Gibson's shoulder injection (their white sauce is good, too), so I thought I would give it a try. I did one butt with the injection and the other without. I used the same rub for both butts and they were both cooked at 250ish degrees to an internal temp of 190 degrees.

The injection recipe:

• 3/4 cup apple juice
• 1/2 cup water
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• Note: I got this recipe from "Peace, Love, and BBQ" (Link in sidebar) and it says to finely grind the salt. I don't because it's going to dissolve anyway and once it's dissolved, well, it's as small as it's gonna get.
  
• 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  

As you would expect the injection didn't affect the outside appearance of the butts. I wrapped them in aluminum foil after they were done because it was going to be a couple hours before supper. I just left them on the counter and they were still piping hot for supper. Sometimes I'll cook overnight and get the butts done even earlier. If so, I'll put the butts in a cooler after wrapping them and stuff a couple of towels in with them. The butts will stay hot for several hours (I've kept them for 5 hours before). This works well for brisket as well.


Now for the comparison. When I busted open the butts, I didn't immediately notice a difference. I was primarily looking for a difference in the juiciness of the butt and I didn't immediately find it. After looking into it a little further, I did notice that the meat right next to the bone was a little more juicy in the injected butt. This cannot be seen in the picture below. What can be seen is the color of the injected but on the right. It's a little darker, which I assume is because of the Worcestershire sauce in the injection. I'm not sure if this is normal or not, but I like the whiter butt better. As for taste, I couldn't really tell a difference, but I knew which was which. I had my wife and a friend do a blind taste test and they both could tell which was injected but said it was very subtle. They thought they were equally good, but just a little different. So, I doubt I'll be injecting any more butts because I don't think I gain anything from it. Now, a whole shoulder might be a little different. Darn, I guess I'll have to get me a couple shoulders and do another little experiment.

In the end pulled both butts and just combined them. It was some good eats, if I do say so myself.

Smoked Chicken Wings

I did quite a bit of cooking over the weekend so I'll have a few things to share this week. First up is the appetizer for Saturday's cook. I've been wanting to do some chicken wings for a while. I was trying to think up a recipe when I saw this post at Jason's BBQ Blog. His wings looked fantastic, so I thought I would give them a try. I had to deviate from his recipe some so I'll post what I did here.

The rub:

• 1 part kosher salt.
• 2 parts turbinado sugar
  
• Jason used yellow sugar...I'm going to show my ignorance and say that I don't know what that is.
• 1 part paprika
• 1 part garlic powder
• 1 part onion powder
• 1 part dry mustard
  
• Jason used ground black mustard...again, not sure what that is.
  
• ½ part coriander
  
• Jason used cardomom, but it was outragously expensive, so I substitued.
  

The sauce:

• 2 cups smoked tomato halves
• Two good sized tomatos, smoked on the Chargriller for about an hour at 250ish. I don't think I smoked them as long as Jason did.
  
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup dried dates.
  
• Jason used fresh dates (I think), but I could find any.
  
• 1 clove garlic smashed
• 1 large red onion, quartered.
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 juice from ½ of a lemon
• ½ tablespoon rosemary
• ½ tablespoon thyme
• 1 teaspoon coriander
• 1 teaspoon paprika
• 1 teaspoon cayenne

Put all of the sauce ingredients into a blender or food processor and liquify it.

I sprinkled the rub very liberally over the wings and let them sit for 15 or 20 minutes. Jason used a BBQ wok for his wings but I used a couple disposable aluminum pans. I put one layer of wings per pan and smoked for a total of about 2 hours or so. You can rip one open when you think it's close and take a look to make sure they are done. The fat really came out of the wings, so I drained the fat twice during the cook. Like Jason, I put the sauce on about a half an hour before the cook was over.

The sauce ended up kind of gooey, so I fired up the kettle and charred up the outside of about half the wings....you could see them on the left of the pic. The ones that I put on the kettle definitely had a slightly different taste, but they were equally good. These wings will definitely be made many more times. They were fantastic.


Update: make sure you check out my update on this recipe in a more recent post.

Spring Maintenance on the ol' Chargriller

The weather in Houston was not kind to the Chargriller. It is so humid most of the year (like 10 out of 12 months) that it was constantly wet from condensation. Incidentally, this is not good for vehicles sitting in the driveway, either. Condensation would form even if I had a cover on the Chargriller...even if it was a breathable cover. For the cooking chamber it isn't a big deal because the paint stays on there pretty good. For the firebox, however, you can hear it rust because the heat of the fire takes the paint off over time. So, once or twice a year (I didn't get it done in the fall) I'll take a wire wheel to the rust and repaint the firebox. I also took the opportunity since I had it in the garage to add some bigger wheels so I can move it around a lot easier. Here is a pictorial of the process with some before and after pics.

The before shot...she's looked better.

Here is a shot of the firebox. Lots and lots of rust.

Firebox from the end....even more rust.

I'd say the firebox looks a little better, wouldn't you? It took me aboutan hour to brush the rust off, then I cleaned it with soap and water. I waited a day for it to dry before painting.

My fire baskets, and particularly the rods suspending them, have seen better days, too.

I just straighted out the rods in my vice and put them back in. I'll likely be replacing these next spring.

One of the worst things about the Chargriller are the crappy wheels they come with.

I've been wanting to upgrade for a while now. I thought about pneumatic tires, but decided on the hard plastic ones from Ace. I just used a length of steel rod for the axle...also from Ace.

The "after" pic!!! I'm really pleased with the result, especially the tires. You can see that I decided to move the old "crappy" wheels to the other side of the cooker. This kept me from having to cut some of the legs off to level the whole thing up and it makes it even easier to move around.

Cowboy Lump

I have always heard very bad things about Cowboy Lump. I have had a seriously hard time finding lump charcoal here in south-central Nebraska. I thought Kingsford lump (which I hate) was my only option until a ran across Cowboy at the local Ace Hardware. I decided to give it a try. The NakedWhiz is a fantastic site where you can see reviews on most brands of charcoal. My opinion is similar to theirs, in that I think Cowboy is OK, but far from ideal. I used B&B when we lived in TX and it's much better than Cowboy. However, Cowboy will do in a pinch and it is better than Kingsford.

The fact that is made from construction scraps doesn't bother me at all. They use end pieces presumably from wood going into the flooring and cabinet making industries. I've used two bags of it now and occasionally you find a piece of tongue and groove wood. I have found one piece of wood that wasn't carbonized (in the picture below), but that isn't too bad out of two large bags. I didn't realize until now, but the picture I took underestimates the average size of the charcoal pieces. The average size is probably closer to the large piece in the picture. There was surprisingly little dust in the two bags that I've used. My biggest gripe, by far, is that it burns up so quickly. The best thing about it is that it produces very little ash.

Brisket, Sausage, and ABTs

I did some atomic buffalo turds (ABTs) for appetizers this weekend. These are super-easy and they are fantastic. Just cut some jalepenos in half and scoop out the seeds. Add some cayenne pepper (to taste) to some pre-softened cream cheese and pipe it into the pepper. Top it with a lil' smokie and wrap in bacon. You can cook it at about any temp on the smoker. Once the bacon is done, they are ready to go. Make about twice as many as you think you'll need.


The in-laws are in town for a visit so I decided on an extended smoke session on Friday night/Saturday. I put the brisket on at about 12:30 AM on Saturday morning. I'm glad I did because it took longer than usual to get done....right at 17 hours. This was a strange brisket. It weighed in at 12.5 lbs, which is a little heavier than I like, but there was about twice as much external fat on it than I normally see. I trim the fat down to 1/8 to 1/4 inch, so what I put on the smoker was close to what I like. The brisket reached a plateau of 168 degrees sometime in the morning and then actually dropped in temp to 164 degrees. I'm chalking this up to some fat or connective tissue at the tip of the probe, 'cause that ain't supposed to happen. After 3 or 4 hours she started rising again. When it reached 190 deg internal I took the temp with a different thermometer. There was quite a bit of resistance in the meat so I kept on cooking. I did this a couple more times and finally pulled the brisket off at 205 degrees...by far the hottest I've ever had to cook one to get it tender.

Here is my brisket rub:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3Tbsp paprika
• 1 Tbsp garlic salt
• 1/4 cup onion powder
• 1 Tbsp ground cumin
• 1 Tbsp oregano
• 1 Tbsp cayenne pepper
• 1 Tbsp black pepper
• 1 tsp kosher salt

The Final Product!!!

Pork Butt

Here is the pork butt recipe from my smoke last week.


Rub:

• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup paprika
• 1/4 cup kosher salt
• 3 Tbsp fresh cracked black pepper
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1 tsp dried basil
  

Sauce (this is authentic Eastern NC vinegar based sauce...they put this in our bottles as babies):

• 1/2 gallon apple cider vinegar
• 2 cup white vinegar
• 2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 5 Tbsp brown sugar
• 4 Tbsp red pepper flakes
• 5 Tbsp fresh cracked black pepper
• 5 tsp kosher salt

Bring this sauce to a simmer, but don't boil it.

A lot of folks rub their butts the night before and wrap them in saran wrap. I've done it that way, but can't tell any appreciable difference to doing it 30 minutes to an hour before I smoke. I usually coat the butt with cheap yellow mustard (you won't taste it; it just helps the rub to stick) and put a liberal coating of rub on the butt. Then I go fire up the smoker and when it gets to 200-225 I put the butt on.

Depending on when I need the butts done I cook them at anywhere from 225 to 275 degrees. I shoot for 190 degrees internal for my butts so they will pull well. You occasionally get one that needs 195-200 to be really tender. I assume this is due to the amount of connective tissue. With a little experience you can tell when you put a thermometer in the meat whether it is done or not.

For this cook I pulled one of the butts and chopped one of the butts. I add just a smidgen of my sauce when I pull the butt, then have it on the side for folks to add as they please.

Writing this post has given me a hankerin' for some pulled pork. Lucky for me I have some in the freezer I can pull out for lunch tomorrow. It freezes very well. If you vacuum seal it it'll keep for months, but mine usually doesn't last that long.

Dedication to BBQ

Well, not really dedication, because if we weren't having folks over yesterday I would have just cooked today when the weather was nice. Early in the week I looked at the weather and it was going to be a nasty week, but Saturday was supposed to be beautiful. Evidently the front was slower than the weather folk thought, so it was windy and rainy all day yesterday.

I had to move the smoker around to the side of the house to get it out of the 35 mph gusts and I rigged up the umbrella to keep most of the rain off.


I smoked up two butts, 3 racks of baby backs, a stuffed fatty, and a stuffed onion for supper. I smoked up a few jala penos because I'm working on a brisket sauce. I'll post recipes later in the week when I have more time.


I also took the time to vacuum seal the loin, ground beef, and sausage from my meat run the other night. I froze the brisket in the original cryovac and cooked the rest.



Check in later this week for a few recipes.

El Cheapo Brinkmann (ECB)

Ok, I promised to post about the the ECB, so here it is. The ECB is a very, very affordable way to get into smoking, and lots of folks start out with one. However, they can be extremely frustrating because they are not built very well. I smoked on an ECB straight out of the box for a long time and got some decent results. I wish I had known about the modifications it needed way back then.

I don't want to reinvent the wheel here, so I'm just going to point you to a post on The Smoke Ring written by Alien BBQ (lots of good Q knowledge, that one) and post a pic from his post here.

Here is a pic of Aliens mods. Make sure to read thru
that thread as several folks added good info about the ECB.

Here is a pic of my buddy's ECB in action. He cooks a
mean butt on it.

So, the ECB is a very good option for somebody just getting started. It's cheap and the mods make it manageable. It's still gonna be very, very hands on though. I've often thought about picking another one up. Mainly to do appetizers and cheese when my Chargriller is full of other stuff.

My "BBQ" wish list

Now that you've seen what I'm cooking on these days you may be wondering what I wish I was cooking on. Don't get me wrong, I love my Kettle and Chargriller, but I'd like to improve my equipment eventually. The Kettle, however, I will never be without. Right now, I have two different wants when it comes to my cooking: a gas grill and a trailer smoker.

Now, don't get yourself in a tizzy. Yes, I said gas grill. I know some folks think they're made by the Antichrist and it has been years since I owned one, but I'm reconsidered for two reasons. One, it is frickin' cold in Nebraska in the wintertime. With a gas burner I can go out and cook with a minimal time investment. I wouldn't have to mess with charcoal, etc....I can just go out and cook. Secondly, I really need something quick during the week. Mrs. Hog and I are trying to sit down for supper with our oldest daughter (20 months old) on most nights. She needs to eat between 5:30 and 6 so she can have her bath and wind down before her normal bed time (7-730). I get home between 5 and 5:30 most days, so that doesn't leave me a lot of time to do any cooking. With a gasser I could get home and cook up some chops or chicken breasts in no time. So, what do I want/need in a gas grill right now. Well, I'd love to have a super-duper massive stainless steel grill.....but I don't really need (and shouldn't really spend that kindof money) on one of those grills. I'm seriously considering this Brinkmann from Wal-Mart:



It's got the four burners so I could do some indirect stuff if I want too. Although I'll probably still use my kettle for most of that. It's got the side burner, which a lot of folks say they don't use much. I think I'll get my money's worth out of it, though. Mrs. Hog has threatened to force me into using my turkey fryer for some of my sauces and brines because they tend to smell up the house a bit. I don't really like the porcelain-coated cast iron grate that it comes with (Why on earth would you "coat" cast iron). I'd rather have just cast iron or stainless. With a $300ish pricetag, it's doable in the short term (months, not weeks). I'm going to do some more looking around, but I'll let you know when/if I pull the trigger.

Now, for what I'm really Jonesin' for...a trailer cooker. Specifically, I want the Fat50 from Diamond Plate Products:


There are many reasons why I want this particular cooker, not the least of which is that Travis posts occasionally on The Smoke Ring and is a genuinely nice guy. The folks that post on the Ring just rave about this cooker. I'll let you check out the site for info. Do I need that much space? Well, no. Do I need a trailer I can move around? Well, no. Would I enjoy something like this? Well, yes. Would I put something like this to good use? Hell, yes!!!

This is, of course, a significant investment and it won't happen for awhile. I'll probably pick up a Weber Smokey Mountain (as a compliment to the Chargriller, not a replacement) before I get the Fat50.

What is BBQ?

Growing up in rural North Carolina, BBQ to me was one thing: pork. It may have been from slow roasted shoulders or from a whole hog, but it was pork. It may have been pulled or chopped, but it was pork. It also had a vinegar-based sauce on it, but that's a whole other discussion. Now, BBQ to me is anything that is slow-cooked with real smoke. It could be a pork butt, a whole pork shoulder, a whole hog, a brisket, chickens of any persuasion...hell, even a fatty and atomic buffalo turds (ABTs) qualify...sorta. As long as it is slow-cooked using real smoke, it counts as BBQ to me. On a side note, if you don't know what a fatty or ABTs are, stick around, I'll post on them eventually.

Lots of folks will disagree with me on this, but that is the way I see it. Shoot, we can't even agree as to how to spell BBQ....barbeque, barbecue, Bar-B-Que, BBQ, etc. You know, some folks say they are cooking insert any meat here on the barbecue (barbie for our down-under friends) this weekend....or, let's have a barbecue this weekend. You won't here me using the term "BBQ" in that way, but to each his own. I don't let the semantics bother me much. I will spend an equal amount of time on this blog talking about grilling recipes, techniques, etc. that don't qualify as BBQ in my book. I've been trying some new (new to me anyway) things on the ol' Weber Kettle lately that I'll be posting up in the weeks to come.

So, in short, if it's cooked slowly with real smoke I call it BBQ. But if it is cooked outside using charcoal and/or wood, I'm all for it, whether I call it BBQ or not.

The Arsenal

As one of my first posts, I thought I would show you what I'm cooking on. I don't use the fanciest equipment, but you know what they say: "It ain't the pit that makes the BBQ, it's the pitmaster". You may have heard that saying put a little differently, but it's true. You can make fantastic Q in a hole in the ground. You don't have to have thousands of bucks work of equipment. Here is what I'm currently using:

WEBER KETTLE

Brined chops and a pork steak (I'll post the recipe soon)

Everybody should own a Weber Kettle, in my opinion. They are by far the most versatile grills there are. I guess that is why there are so many knockoffs on the market. Some of the knockoffs probably work as well (or close to it), but I don't want to go thru a few of them to find out. Right now I do most of my direct and indirect grilling on the Kettle. If I need more space I go with my bigger cooker....

THE CHARGRILLER SMOKIN' PRO

I have made lots of good Q on the Chargriller (go to Lowe's if you want to buy it...you'll save a little cash) and would recommend it to anybody. However, cookers in this price range tend to need some modifications to make them work properly, and the Chargriller is no exception. Here is a list of the mods that I have done.

• Extend the smokestack--When new, the smoke stack only extends an inch or so into the cooking chamber. This doesn't allow the smoke and heat to circulate well in the chamber.
  
• Add a good thermometer--The stock thermometer is junk. I added one from BBQ Galore.....unfortunately my "good" thermometer is not working right, so I'm using the Maverick remote thermometer now.
• charcoal baskets--I bought two of these from Chargriller, but you could make your own or come up with a similar solution. The problem is that with the stock charcoal grate sets too low in the firebox. The ash generated from the charcoal/wood tends to snuff the fire out. By raising the coals a bit you get more airflow and a hotter fire.
  
• Baffle--If you don't have some kind of baffle the end of the cooking chamber closest to the firebox gets way to hot while the other end is just about right. Some folks add a baffle made out of sheet metal to their Chargriller to deflect the heat out of the firebox. Because I like to grill on mine sometimes, I just turn the charcoal pan upside down and put in to the highest setting when I smoke.
• Warmer Plate--Again, I bought it from Chargriller, but you could make your own if you wanted too. This isn't a must, but it's nice to have to heat up/cook sauces, beans, etc.

This was pre-mods (in 2004)

You can see the stack extension, warming plate, and upside down "baffle"

Charcoal baskets

You should be able to see the mods in the pics. If you have any questions about them, leave a comment.

THE ANCIENT ONE

This is an ancient electric grill that I stole borrowed from my Dad. I ripped the guts out of it and used charcoal to cook hundreds and hundreds of hamburgers and hotdogs on it when tailgating for NC State football games (GO STATE!!). Sadly, the grate is burned through and it's relegated to burning down charcoal from time to time.



THE ARKANSAS ASSASSIN

This is what my buddy, Junior, was cooking on until I gave him my old El Cheapo Brinkman (ECB).



That reminds me. I need to post about the ECB. Don't buy one until you've read my post about it or get in touch with me (comments). They are doable, but, again, need to be heavily modified (more so than the Chargriller).