BBQ and Outdoor Cooking Thread
Just put on a pork roast for tonight. Apple wood pellets and Skoda Memphis dry rub.
4+ hours in, looking good!
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Carnivore
Spent Saturday hanging out at a BBQ competition where I knew one of the teams. What a different world it is vs. backyard cooking as we do. Definitely some tips & tricks I will take with me but otherwise a lot of nonsense that doesn't really make sense - like how you are basically trying to do the best job of being right between the goal posts of flavour and are discouraged from trying to do something new and exciting.
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Shrimp getting ready to go on
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These came out so good!
Platoon
Active member
Homemade pizza with sausage, Muir Glenn tomato sauce, fennel, mozzarella, fontina, leeks, and olives. Trader Joe’s pizza dough cooked in the Napoleon on a pizza stone @ 700* for seven minutes. I use parchment paper for two to three minutes during the cook and then pull it off. Never had a pizza stick...
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Did some reverse sear burgers. Smoked at 200° for 30 minutes then seared 1 minute per side on the gas grill
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Are those grill grates turned upside down?
Platoon
Active member
I've never tried this method. Does the 30 minute smoke enhance the flavor? I have to be careful because the Mrs. isn't the biggest fan of smoke like I am. Her favorite method is the smash burger...
it's not strong from a pellet smoker but definitely gives it a great flavor
This may be better served in the rant thread, it both my local bbq joints aren’t currently serving ribs. Is there a shortage I’m unaware of? I get prices jump but to flat out not have makes me sad.
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Sounds Ohio-ish
It's wing night on the Recteq
Dawg 1
Well-known member
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What goes into these? Sadly we don't have game birds like this up here.
Dawg 1
Well-known member
Dove breast with jalapeño pepper and cream cheese wrapped with bacon
links_slayer
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My wife and I were at Costo the other day. She was looking at the briskets... I was looking at the pork loins. We picked a smallish brisket.. a little over 6 pounds. I wasn't sure whether a 12 pounder would fit on my grill; plus I didn't want to run the risk of wasting a piece of meat like that and that price.
Anyway I got up early this morning, got my Akorn Kamado going with some hickory and mesquite chunks. I buried the wood in the bottom like slapyodaddy bbq said "backed by science"... yeah right. So why did my smoke stop about 2 hours in?
I trimmed some of the fat and then rubbed both sides of the brisket down with yellow mustard... not a lot. And seasoned it on all with Bad Boyd's Butt Rub. I stuck a temp probe in each end and placed it on the smoker at 265*F. Thank you Flameboss! Temp held steady where I wanted it. I put a chunk of wood under the brisket to help it not have any liquid pool on it.
Hour 1 spritz it down with about 1/4 or 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce and water in a spray bottle.
Hour 2 spritz it down again.
Hour 3 spritz it again. Notice the smoke stopped. Pull grate off, heat diffuser aside and move the wood chunks around. Smoke starts back up.
Hour 4 spritz it again. Wrap it in parchment paper and foil. Put back on grate in a slightly different position. Raise temp to 295 and let the brisket come to temp of around 209*F
A couple or few hours later, the temp is about 210 on one end and 200 on the other. I pull it off my smoker, wrap it in towels and put it in a cooler for a bit to rest.
About an hour to 1 1/2 hours later I pull it out and slice it up. I was a little disappointed in it... the pieces I tried seemed a touch dry but the flavor was good. The center of the brisket was better. I can't honestly say if it's really good, really bad, or somewhere in the middle. I've not had a lot of brisket to compare it to. I think it should have been a bit more tender. The bark didn't set... I think that's because the smoke stopped. So no more burying wood in the charcoal.. I normally put it on top but I've not run a smoke this long... but that FlameBoss. Is. Awesome!!! It kept the temp I wanted within a few degrees even when the sun was shining on my Akorn Kamado making it a few degrees hotter than it would have been otherwise.
The top vent was barely open. There's a semi-circular notch on the top vents. I put that just past the opening.
The bottom vent was closed up to the cutout for the FlameBoss.
I opened the lid only long enough to spritz the brisket.
Except for that time i had to rearrange the wood to get more smoke.
My family said the brisket was great!
It'll be done again.
Anyway I got up early this morning, got my Akorn Kamado going with some hickory and mesquite chunks. I buried the wood in the bottom like slapyodaddy bbq said "backed by science"... yeah right.
So why did my smoke stop about 2 hours in?I trimmed some of the fat and then rubbed both sides of the brisket down with yellow mustard... not a lot. And seasoned it on all with Bad Boyd's Butt Rub. I stuck a temp probe in each end and placed it on the smoker at 265*F. Thank you Flameboss! Temp held steady where I wanted it. I put a chunk of wood under the brisket to help it not have any liquid pool on it.
Hour 1 spritz it down with about 1/4 or 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce and water in a spray bottle.
Hour 2 spritz it down again.
Hour 3 spritz it again. Notice the smoke stopped. Pull grate off, heat diffuser aside and move the wood chunks around. Smoke starts back up.
Hour 4 spritz it again. Wrap it in parchment paper and foil. Put back on grate in a slightly different position. Raise temp to 295 and let the brisket come to temp of around 209*F
A couple or few hours later, the temp is about 210 on one end and 200 on the other. I pull it off my smoker, wrap it in towels and put it in a cooler for a bit to rest.
About an hour to 1 1/2 hours later I pull it out and slice it up. I was a little disappointed in it... the pieces I tried seemed a touch dry but the flavor was good. The center of the brisket was better. I can't honestly say if it's really good, really bad, or somewhere in the middle. I've not had a lot of brisket to compare it to. I think it should have been a bit more tender. The bark didn't set... I think that's because the smoke stopped. So no more burying wood in the charcoal.. I normally put it on top but I've not run a smoke this long... but that FlameBoss. Is. Awesome!!! It kept the temp I wanted within a few degrees even when the sun was shining on my Akorn Kamado making it a few degrees hotter than it would have been otherwise.
The top vent was barely open. There's a semi-circular notch on the top vents. I put that just past the opening.
The bottom vent was closed up to the cutout for the FlameBoss.
I opened the lid only long enough to spritz the brisket.
Except for that time i had to rearrange the wood to get more smoke.
My family said the brisket was great!
It'll be done again.
RatFink
Carnivore
My wife and I were at Costo the other day. She was looking at the briskets... I was looking at the pork loins. We picked a smallish brisket.. a little over 6 pounds. I wasn't sure whether a 12 pounder would fit on my grill; plus I didn't want to run the risk of wasting a piece of meat like that and that price.
Anyway I got up early this morning, got my Akorn Kamado going with some hickory and mesquite chunks. I buried the wood in the bottom like slapyodaddy bbq said "backed by science"... yeah right.
I trimmed some of the fat and then rubbed both sides of the brisket down with yellow mustard... not a lot. And seasoned it on all with Bad Boyd's Butt Rub. I stuck a temp probe in each end and placed it on the smoker at 265*F. Thank you Flameboss! Temp held steady where I wanted it. I put a chunk of wood under the brisket to help it not have any liquid pool on it.
Hour 1 spritz it down with about 1/4 or 1/2 cup of Worcestershire sauce and water in a spray bottle.
Hour 2 spritz it down again.
Hour 3 spritz it again. Notice the smoke stopped. Pull grate off, heat diffuser aside and move the wood chunks around. Smoke starts back up.
Hour 4 spritz it again. Wrap it in parchment paper and foil. Put back on grate in a slightly different position. Raise temp to 295 and let the brisket come to temp of around 209*F
A couple or few hours later, the temp is about 210 on one end and 200 on the other. I pull it off my smoker, wrap it in towels and put it in a cooler for a bit to rest.
About an hour to 1 1/2 hours later I pull it out and slice it up. I was a little disappointed in it... the pieces I tried seemed a touch dry but the flavor was good. The center of the brisket was better. I can't honestly say if it's really good, really bad, or somewhere in the middle. I've not had a lot of brisket to compare it to. I think it should have been a bit more tender. The bark didn't set... I think that's because the smoke stopped. So no more burying wood in the charcoal.. I normally put it on top but I've not run a smoke this long... but that FlameBoss. Is. Awesome!!! It kept the temp I wanted within a few degrees even when the sun was shining on my Akorn Kamado making it a few degrees hotter than it would have been otherwise.
The top vent was barely open. There's a semi-circular notch on the top vents. I put that just past the opening.
The bottom vent was closed up to the cutout for the FlameBoss.
I opened the lid only long enough to spritz the brisket.
Except for that time i had to rearrange the wood to get more smoke.
My family said the brisket was great!
It'll be done again.
Sounds like a fun experiment! I've heard those Akorns are extremely good at running consistently with their insulation!
A couple things I noticed - it's normal for the smoke to stop after 1-2 hours. Harry runs the wood chunks under his charcoal so that as the wood burns and smokes, the heat from the coals above basically perform a 'secondary combustion' on the smoke to remove any acridness and produce more of a pure flavour. Smoking Dad BBQ who is a Kamado Joe specialist in Ontario does the same thing for the same reason. Wood chunks will also only last so long and if you threw in one chunk of wood (I assume no larger than a sleeve of golf balls), it's perfectly normal for that to be burnt out by then. Even in my Summit Kamado, I will place 3-5 chunks that big around the firebowl and they'll combust as the flame front moves across, but they don't last individually that long.
Some say that smoke flavour really only adheres in the first few hours of a cook anyways - I haven't tested this myself to see if I was to add smoke wood at hour 8/10 instead of hour 1/10 to see if it makes a difference, but the theories around smoke adhering to the moisture/coldness of a fresh piece of meat seem to make some logical sense, vs. a dried out bark.
I would say that a 6lbs piece of brisket would just have been a fairly thin piece of flat?
I have not tried to do one of those as they scare me since they're so small and so sensitive. I have been going with Harry's saying of "I like big briskets and I cannot lie" as they are far more forgiving (I buy 15-18lbs) - but even still I have noticed that the edges of my flat will shred. Kosmos Q showed one technique where he rests his brisket in a container with saran wrap over top of it while still in the butcher paper to re-hydrate those edges via steaming. I will be trying this next time.
It is also possible (though this is yet another theory - as all armchair bbqing is) that due to the size of your brisket and the relatively short cook time, your bark may not have had a chance to set. My last brisket cooked for 9hrs and I didn't see a bark that I could wrap over top of until I was almost through hour 8, and by then it didn't make sense to wrap.
If you haven't discovered AmazingRibs.com, I recommend perusing its database of articles rooted in science for smoking. The site itself is a bit frustrating to navigate, but these guys are BBQ'ers and not UX designers.
Here is an article on bark to consider, and an article on smoke & combustion to consider. The smoke & combustion one discusses the stages of combustion and why you would place your smoke wood under the coals rather than on top to obtain a clean smoke.
Thanks for the reply. And the Akorn Kamado... there's a story there. I picked it up from Home Depot maybe in April or May of 2016. It's the metal one... triple-insulated. I couldn't justify a Big Green Egg so went with that. I was all geared up to start grilling and smoking. Then. June 2016 I had a cardiac issue and wound up with a stent, on cholesterol meds, and, and... there went my hopes for using my new smoker. Not good for the old ticker.
Anyway I used it a few times after 2016 but not enough to warrant having it. But now, I'm using it.
For me, the temp had always been twitchy and difficult to control... move the bottom vent... fire went out. Start it over. Move the vent... move the vent... move the vent... temp is too high and climbing...mine is quick to heat and slooooooooooooooooow to cool.
The flameboss stopped that nonsense. Light the fire, let it handle the temp.
Yep, I guess it was mostly the flat. It's not a big deal, I didn't think one of the 14 pounders would fit on the grill. It's something like 20" or so.
I didn't know the smoke stopped. And I normally kind of set the lump charcoal up in a snake pattern-ish kind of way... and put the wood in spots where the fire's going. I think that's still going to be experimental for me there. I had some good sized chunks of hickory and mesquite intermixed with the lump charcoal... they were bigger chunks too about the size of a tennis ball I would say. But they were all on the bottom of the pile of charcoal and I think the fire went sideways instead of down like slapyodaddybbq said... (if I think about it, heat rises and the fire is going to its fuel sideways... so I'll maybe soak the wood next time and intermix it with the charcoal with the intent of it going sideways.:confused2:
Normally what I would do in the past is light the fire starter, put a smaller piece or 2 of charcoal on it to catch and then put the grates and heat diffuser on. Then load the intended smoke target when the grate temp was 100*F or so... then pull it off because invariably, the fire went out. And relight the fire and all would be well.
This past time, I lit the firestarter, plugged in the flameboss, set it to the target temp 265*F and let it go. I waited till the smoke went from white-ish to blue. Or the other way... I forget which. Got that from Kamado Dad like you mentioned. (He must be a salesman for them or something. He's got like 6 or 7 or 1,000 of them.)
And the bark... it never set. I've seen videos where the pitmasters will almost scrape the bark/rub/seasoning with their fingernail and it won't come off and say "the bark's set!"
If I touched it, it would smear. So it never set. It stayed on the meat which is a good thing. And the meat had a good smoke ring.:confused2: The bark never set though.
I think next time I do a brisket like this I'm going to use a lower temp... something like 240*F... or maybe even 230*F. It'll lengthen the cook time I'm sure... but maybe it'll help tenderize the meat a bit more. And I'll lay out the wood like I mentioned earlier with the intent of the fire going sideways. (maybe the laws of physics refuse to work in my Kamado)
Anyway I used it a few times after 2016 but not enough to warrant having it. But now, I'm using it.
For me, the temp had always been twitchy and difficult to control... move the bottom vent... fire went out.
Start it over. Move the vent... move the vent... move the vent... temp is too high and climbing...mine is quick to heat and slooooooooooooooooow to cool.The flameboss stopped that nonsense. Light the fire, let it handle the temp.
Yep, I guess it was mostly the flat. It's not a big deal, I didn't think one of the 14 pounders would fit on the grill. It's something like 20" or so.
I didn't know the smoke stopped. And I normally kind of set the lump charcoal up in a snake pattern-ish kind of way... and put the wood in spots where the fire's going. I think that's still going to be experimental for me there. I had some good sized chunks of hickory and mesquite intermixed with the lump charcoal... they were bigger chunks too about the size of a tennis ball I would say. But they were all on the bottom of the pile of charcoal and I think the fire went sideways instead of down like slapyodaddybbq said... (if I think about it, heat rises and the fire is going to its fuel sideways... so I'll maybe soak the wood next time and intermix it with the charcoal with the intent of it going sideways.:confused2:
Normally what I would do in the past is light the fire starter, put a smaller piece or 2 of charcoal on it to catch and then put the grates and heat diffuser on. Then load the intended smoke target when the grate temp was 100*F or so... then pull it off because invariably, the fire went out.
And relight the fire and all would be well.This past time, I lit the firestarter, plugged in the flameboss, set it to the target temp 265*F and let it go. I waited till the smoke went from white-ish to blue. Or the other way... I forget which. Got that from Kamado Dad like you mentioned. (He must be a salesman for them or something. He's got like 6 or 7 or 1,000 of them.)
And the bark... it never set. I've seen videos where the pitmasters will almost scrape the bark/rub/seasoning with their fingernail and it won't come off and say "the bark's set!"
If I touched it, it would smear. So it never set. It stayed on the meat which is a good thing. And the meat had a good smoke ring.:confused2: The bark never set though.
I think next time I do a brisket like this I'm going to use a lower temp... something like 240*F... or maybe even 230*F. It'll lengthen the cook time I'm sure... but maybe it'll help tenderize the meat a bit more. And I'll lay out the wood like I mentioned earlier with the intent of the fire going sideways. (maybe the laws of physics refuse to work in my Kamado)
RatFink
Carnivore
I feel your learning pains. my Summit Kamado is nowhere near as simple as the KJs so I am trying to apply Smoking Dad BBQ's tips to a different machine and it doesn't always work.
A couple things - do not put wet smoke wood in your fire bowl, that will ruin your fire and just create billows of gross grey smoke. It's a bit counter intuitive, but when you're smoking you want to see as little smoke as possible (go from white/grey to clear blue) as they discuss in that smoke & combustion article from Amazing Ribs.
Your cooker at 20" will definitely fit a larger brisket - you'll see people draping briskets over lumps of smoke wood or rib racks to bend them to fit within the smaller diameter cookers (like an 18" Kamado Joe). Once they shrink up, they can then be laid on the grill flat without any issue at all.
Your cooker is so efficient that Smoking Dad BBQ's technique of building a smaller more efficient fire is probably going to be the way to go - which will require more experimentation to understand how much charcoal you actually need to do a certain length of cook.
Depending on the design of your fire bowl and your ash basket, you might be be better suited to doing the minion method rather than the snake method (aka: start the fire in the middle of the charcoal and let it naturally expand outwards rather than starting one lump and letting that catch a line of lumps). I will do this by using a charcoal chimney to get a few good size lumps lit, and then put that into my firebowl where the air will help blow the fire to the next set of coals - but always starting with a healthy fire before the diffuser and vents get closed up.
Bark is an interesting one - with my last brisket cook, I ran it hotter than before (275-295) which SHOULD have set the bark, but I am starting to think there was just plain too much moisture on the meat during the cook and that prevented it from crusting over. This is a reason why you never see people running water pans in kamado style cookers as they are far more sealed than a barrel or an offset or other conventional cookers. The smoke ring won't just come from the smoke wood - the combustion of charcoal will release enough chemical compounds into the air to create a smoke ring as is - this is why people say that cooking over charcoal is superior to natural gas/propane. Depending on the brand of charcoal that you use, you will obtain a different flavour as well (Jealous Devil vs. Fogo vs. Kamado Joe all have different flavours).
Keep at it - this is such a feel game, unless you're running a pellet smoker, your learning curve will be pretty lengthy but that is part of the fun.
A couple things - do not put wet smoke wood in your fire bowl, that will ruin your fire and just create billows of gross grey smoke. It's a bit counter intuitive, but when you're smoking you want to see as little smoke as possible (go from white/grey to clear blue) as they discuss in that smoke & combustion article from Amazing Ribs.
Your cooker at 20" will definitely fit a larger brisket - you'll see people draping briskets over lumps of smoke wood or rib racks to bend them to fit within the smaller diameter cookers (like an 18" Kamado Joe). Once they shrink up, they can then be laid on the grill flat without any issue at all.
Your cooker is so efficient that Smoking Dad BBQ's technique of building a smaller more efficient fire is probably going to be the way to go - which will require more experimentation to understand how much charcoal you actually need to do a certain length of cook.
Depending on the design of your fire bowl and your ash basket, you might be be better suited to doing the minion method rather than the snake method (aka: start the fire in the middle of the charcoal and let it naturally expand outwards rather than starting one lump and letting that catch a line of lumps). I will do this by using a charcoal chimney to get a few good size lumps lit, and then put that into my firebowl where the air will help blow the fire to the next set of coals - but always starting with a healthy fire before the diffuser and vents get closed up.
Bark is an interesting one - with my last brisket cook, I ran it hotter than before (275-295) which SHOULD have set the bark, but I am starting to think there was just plain too much moisture on the meat during the cook and that prevented it from crusting over. This is a reason why you never see people running water pans in kamado style cookers as they are far more sealed than a barrel or an offset or other conventional cookers. The smoke ring won't just come from the smoke wood - the combustion of charcoal will release enough chemical compounds into the air to create a smoke ring as is - this is why people say that cooking over charcoal is superior to natural gas/propane. Depending on the brand of charcoal that you use, you will obtain a different flavour as well (Jealous Devil vs. Fogo vs. Kamado Joe all have different flavours).
Keep at it - this is such a feel game, unless you're running a pellet smoker, your learning curve will be pretty lengthy but that is part of the fun.