Smokers, grills, and BBQs. What are you cooking?

[~mikey b]

Test cook a tri tip or something. It takes a while to get it figured out. Maybe make stew out of the leftovers?

[~mikey b]

Anyone using a sous vide at home? My buddy owns a very good BBQ joint and he recommended one to me. His process is to smoke the meat for 4 hours, the vacuum seal it and put it in the sous vide for up to 72 hours, then grill it if he wants the bark. Precise temp control

I'm probably going to start out with one of these. My friend says this is a great affordable home unit. Might even see if I can carry them at the store.

http://store.anovaculinary.com/produ...ecision-cooker

[~mikey b]

At under $200 I'm going pretty low budget.

[Game Over]

I know a guy who gets great results cooking lamb racks using a cooler, tap water at 130f and a ziplock. At a hour the lamb and water are at 125. Then just throw on a grill or pan for a quick crust.

most important thing is make sure you get all the air out of the bag.

[Ksyrium]

I've got the annova, it's great. I usually cook in the bath then smoke for a couple hours to add some flavor.

[irul&ublo]

If you cook ribs in water, bag or not, the terrorists win.


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[~mikey b]

Thinking more for slabs o meat, but I'm no stranger to ribs in a bag. I often make extra on the smoker, vacuum seal them and freeze them for another day. Great for car camping. Can last a few days in the cooler, then you can heat them in the bag or toss in a cast iron vessel and put them on the fire to heat. Same with slabs. You can seal up bags of smoked sliced meat to any portion size you want, freeze it and heat it up when you want it. It's all about the leftovers.

[Grange]

I am going on a fishing vacation with my father and brother-in-law and I wanted to bring some BBQ for a meal or two and decided to try something different. I started scouring cook books and the internet for good recipes for the pork butt in my freezer. I settled on something that we could make Cuban sandwiches since I really enjoy those.

After lots of searching I decided to take the best elements from a few different recipes including at least one from here. The marinade came from a cook book. The rub came from a message board, and I kind of tweaked the injection to my tastes.

I made the marinade the night before and stored it in the fridge overnight. I then reserved a cup of the marinade for a sauce on the finished pork. The rest I used for the injection recipe and of course the marinade. I injected and then marinated the butt all day (12 hours or so).

The recipe I got the marinade from didn't call for a rub, but I made one anyway with cumin, orange zest, Mexican oregano, garlic powder, onion powder and kosher salt. I put the rub on right before it went on the BGE.

I put it on the BGE with cherry wood since I didn't have apple wood and smoked it at around 225. I tried my brother-in-laws IQ 110 and it took a while for me to get used to it, but once I did it was great. The butt was about 7-8 lbs and after about 15 hours I got sick of waiting since it was getting late so I cranked it up to 315 to finish.

I pulled it at 195, wrapped it and placed it in a towel packed cooler to rest for an hour and a half. I then pulled it and poured the reserved marinade. It was very difficult for me to freeze pack it for the fishing trip because it was so damn good. It may be the best pork butt I've ever made. It is going to make some very good Cubanos.

[Cruiser]

^^^ Uh, yeah. That sounds ridonculous. Do want!

[BigKuba]

It's 4th of July time. Whatcha got? My plan is
- Ribs -- conventional rub spiked with some chipotle/ancho powder, peach wood chunks (talk me into something more complicated than spare ribs cut down to St Louis style & rib tips). Get going first thing in the morning, then car shuttle MTB laps
- An assortment of kebabs -- shrimp & chorizo, various forms of marinated meat. Again, suggestions?
- Watermelon + mint or rosemary agua fresca/booze
- Some sort of smoky sauce

[irul&ublo]

It's 4th of July time. Whatcha got? My plan is
- Ribs -- conventional rub spiked with some chipotle/ancho powder, peach wood chunks (talk me into something more complicated than spare ribs cut down to St Louis style & rib tips). Get going first thing in the morning, then car shuttle MTB laps
- An assortment of kebabs -- shrimp & chorizo, various forms of marinated meat. Again, suggestions?
- Watermelon + mint or rosemary agua fresca/booze
- Some sort of smoky sauce

If you are going to smoke the ribs, "smoky" sauce may be overkill, esp. w/ ancho/chipotle rub

[BigKuba]

I just take conventional rub and mix in some ground ancho. It's worked well before, it's a different flavor than wood smoke. Maybe I just like smoky-overkill...

[Tippster]

It's 4th of July time. Whatcha got? My plan is
- Ribs -- conventional rub spiked with some chipotle/ancho powder, peach wood chunks (talk me into something more complicated than spare ribs cut down to St Louis style & rib tips). Get going first thing in the morning, then car shuttle MTB laps
- An assortment of kebabs -- shrimp & chorizo, various forms of marinated meat. Again, suggestions?
- Watermelon + mint or rosemary agua fresca/booze
- Some sort of smoky sauce

Add some feta to the Watermelon & mint salad.

[sherpahigh]

Anyone have experience with wood pellet grills? Was eyeing one up at Costco the other day and it seems pretty cool. I'm in the market for a new grill right now for our new place and trying to figure out which way I should go. Right now I have a Propane Grill that the wife won with Tim Horton's roll up the rim to win contest, like, 13 years ago. I hardly use it anymore since getting a Bradley smoker a few years back but it does come in handy from time to time and I can't do everything with the Bradley obviously. The new house has a gas hookup where we'd put the grill so I'm thinking of getting a fairly basic grill to take advantage of that and keep the Bradley, but this wood pellet grill at costco looks pretty versatile and can supposedly do it all in the one unit but I've not had any hands on experience with them.

Anyone have one? The brand at Costco is a Traeger Grill.

[Cruiser]

Traeger gets pretty uniformly positive reviews for ease of use and functionality. But the cost of their pellets can be cumbersome, especially for high heat cooks.

[2FUNKY]

I have the GMG Jim Bowie with wifi. Love it. It even has an area on the grill for searing the meat, which most others do not. Best outdoor cooking purchase ever. The wifi feature is awesome, wasn't going to get the wifi, but the dealer threw it in at no cost.

Pellets make a huge difference, do not get cheap ones, they cannot handle the high heat. Premium pellets are the only way to go.

[glademaster]

Does anyone here use the LPG infrared grills to smoke? I have a Char-Broil Tru-Infrared 2 burner grill and I'm toying with the idea of bbqing a big hunk of meat or two this weekend?

Any tips or tricks? Can the chips go directly on the heat diffuser tray below grate level or should I still put them in a pan? Obviously temp setting is dependent on the cut of meat I go with. I'll be smoking over a mix of apple and cherry, as I have about 400 pounds with of chunks from the wood splitter last fall. On that note, if anyone near SLC needs some fruitwood chunks for their weekend bbqing, feel free to give me a shout. I charge 1 cold beer or 2 warm ones per 5 pounds of chunks, and no grocery store beer...

I've done pork shoulder and loin, chuck roast for shredded beef, brisket, sausages, turkey breast and while chickens on a 22 inch Weber kettle I set up to smoke back in college, but this is my first rodeo with gas, and with an infrared gas grill. I would be into doing something like a tri-tip, but it seems like that is best suited to smoking over oak, not fruitwood.

School me in the ways of infrared smoking.

[sherpahigh]

Traeger gets pretty uniformly positive reviews for ease of use and functionality. But the cost of their pellets can be cumbersome, especially for high heat cooks.

I've heard that as well. I'd probably mostly use it for low heat cooking/smoking just like I've been mostly using the Bradley right now but it'd be nice to have the option of the high heat grill to finish burgers, etc.

I have the GMG Jim Bowie with wifi. Love it. It even has an area on the grill for searing the meat, which most others do not. Best outdoor cooking purchase ever. The wifi feature is awesome, wasn't going to get the wifi, but the dealer threw it in at no cost.

Pellets make a huge difference, do not get cheap ones, they cannot handle the high heat. Premium pellets are the only way to go.

Never heard of that one before, will have to check it out. Are you able to get a decent smoke flavor out of the pellets at low heats?

[2FUNKY]

Never heard of that one before, will have to check it out. Are you able to get a decent smoke flavor out of the pellets at low heats?

Oh yeah. Deep smoke flavor.

[BigKuba]

Add some feta to the Watermelon & mint salad.

I love me some watermelon-feta-mint salad, but you don't win friends with salad
This watermelon is going into a boozy drink

[Grange]

Oh yeah. Deep smoke flavor.

The level of smoke imparted on meat is probably one of the biggest criticisms of pellet poopers. The other big criticism I hear is the ability to cook at high temps. For smoking though they are supposed to great at set and forget. That would be nice when doing an overnight smoke or if you're too busy to maintain the temp. I figure if they can win in BBQ competitions they are probably pretty good for smoking.

[2FUNKY]

The level of smoke imparted on meat is probably one of the biggest criticisms of pellet poopers. The other big criticism I hear is the ability to cook at high temps. For smoking though they are supposed to great at set and forget. That would be nice when doing an overnight smoke or if you're too busy to maintain the temp. I figure if they can win in BBQ competitions they are probably pretty good for smoking.

They are not for everyone. Mine gets plenty hot enough, it will sear meat. If you don't want it super smoky, foil the meat and open the damper. Heavy smoke, close damper and leave out the foil.

[Tippster]

The level of smoke imparted on meat is probably one of the biggest criticisms of pellet poopers. The other big criticism I hear is the ability to cook at high temps. For smoking though they are supposed to great at set and forget. That would be nice when doing an overnight smoke or if you're too busy to maintain the temp. I figure if they can win in BBQ competitions they are probably pretty good for smoking.

IMHO people use too much smoke on their meats. There is a lot of literature on the web about this. At some point the over-smoking causes creosote buildup on the meat and it starts tasting worse. When you're smoking a shoulder for instance you should really only have it on heavy smoke in the 1st couple hours and then leave the smoke off completely, or lightly smoke it throughout, throwing a chunk on here or there with times in between that are smokeless. The smoke doesn't cook the meat - the heat does.

There is also the difficulty of getting "blue smoke" vs. white or black. Blue smoke is almost transparent, yet supposedly gives the best flavor.

[Game Over]

IMHO people use too much smoke on their meats.

hear, hear!

[~mikey b]

Sous vide.