Old Dave's Po-Farm

Sausage Tutorial

2012-01-02T02:34:00.000-08:00

While I am not any kind of expert in making sausage, I do make it several times a year. We use my super spicy Italian in many different dishes and I probably make over 60 pounds a year of this great treat. We also like a good sage breakfast sausage, my home made brats, and my Texas Hot Links. This article is about all but the Italian as I have plenty of it in the freezer.

I will make this as simple and easy as I can and maybe we can get some new folks interested in this fun hobby. It sure goes good with BBQ!

Equipment

You will need a grinder of some type and they can be as simple as a hand grinder which starts at about $40 dollars to a larger electric grinder that will start at about $100 dollars. Many of the better electric grinders will also work for stuffing sausage.
A heavy duty food processor might work and a simple Kitchen-Aid mixer with the grinding attachment will do a fine job with the smaller amounts (5-20 lbs) of meat. The Kitchen-Aid is nice in that you can use the mixer to blend all your meat with the spices in the mixing bowl. However, the sausage stuffing attachment for this mixer is not very good. It will work but it’s a two person operation.

For this batch, I will use my larger electric grinder.

The next piece of equipment you will need is a sausage stuffer. There are many types and sizes out there from about 40 dollars to well over $400 depending on the size. A good sausage stuffer makes this hobby mucho fun. A lousy stuffer will have you talking to yourself and pulling your hair out. If you decide to spend any money on this hobby, start with a good stuffer.

I prefer a tin can stuffer and this one will do 5 pounds at a time. That is about right in that many recipes will call for 4-5 pounds of meat. This fine stuffer runs about $100 dollars.

You will need some kind of scale to weigh your meat for the recipes.

I use a small electronic scale that works up to about 22 pounds.

Nuff introduction...lets make some sausage.

Old Dave’s Breakfast Sausage

4 pounds of ground pork butt
1 TBL red pepper flakes
4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp splenda
2 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
2 tsp dried sage
1 tsp dried thyme
1 tsp ground cayenne pepper
1/2 cup cooking wine or water
medium natural hog casings
grind thru a 1/4 inch plate

These are two pork butts from Sam’s Club that weighed 17.4 pounds.

My grinder has a throat that will take meat up to about 1-1/2 by 1-1/2 so I kinda start slabbing the meat off of the butt.

Then I cut the slabs down to fit my grinder.

This is both of the butts ready for the grinder. (TIP) Place the meat into the freezer for about 30 minutes or the fridge for an hour or two before you run it thru the grinder for best results. You want the meat cold but not frozen.

This is the ground pork butt all weighed out into bowls for my three recipes. I netted 15-3/4 pounds of meat from the 17.4 pound of butts.

(TIP) Any pork sausage recipe that uses pork butts can be improved by adding about 20% more pork fat as the butts are really too lean for the best sausage. If you can get it, pork back fat is best if you can find it.

Measure out your wine or water or beer in a bowl or large cup and then add your spices to it and mix it up about an hour before you mix up the recipe. Let this mixture soak and dissolve.

If using the Kitchen-Aid, put the meat into the bowl and then add the spice mixture and mix it up. Usually for a small amount, I just use a larger bowl and put all the ingredients in it and have the old woman mix it up as I don’t want to get my hands dirty.

It is now ready to stuff in casings.

You need to wash your gut well and I find the best way for this is to lay it out in the sink and then hook it up to the faucet and run some hot water thru it.

Slide the gut onto the hog casing stuffing tube and tie off the end. We are now ready to stuff the casings.

I usually let my lady drive the stuffer (turn the crank) and I run the tube end of the operation.

The plate of the left is my 4 pounds of breakfast sausage, the other plate is my 5 pounds of brats all ready to be linked. I didn’t get any pictures of the linking process but you just use your thumb and forefinger and pinch off the length you want and turn it a couple of times to seal it up.

This is a picture of the links from a previous round.

This is a picture of Jan mixing my Hot Links...notice the dark red color on the meat. This come from all the hot and spicy stuff that we put into the meat. If you like hot, this is to die for!

This is 8 pounds of my Texas hot sausage ready to be linked.

This is the recipe for my brats and it is a mild flavor and the best I have ever eaten. It is a work in process with my friend Jim Ferguson.

Old Dave’s & Jim’s Mild Brat Recipe

4 pounds ground pork butt
1 pound ground chuck roast or just ground beef
3 TBL salt
1 tsp mace
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp red pepper
1 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp marjoram
1 tsp parsley
1/2 tsp celery seed
1 cup non-fat dry milk
1 cup wine or water
grind thru a 1/4 inch plate.

This is the hot link recipe that I use and it comes from a fellow in Texas.

Bigwheel’s World Famous Genuine Texas Hotlinks (version Nov 2002)

6-7 pounds of ground pork butt
1 bottle of beer
2 TBL course ground black pepper
2 TBL crushed red pepper
2 TBL ground cayenne pepper
2 TBL Hungarian paprika
1 TBL Morton Tender Quick
2 TBL Kosher salt
2 TBL whole mustard seed
1/4 cup minced fresh garlic
1 TBL granulated garlic
! TBL MSG
1 tsp ground bay leaves
1 tbs whole anise seeds
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp ground thyme
grind thru a 1/4 inch plate

Use the same method as above for the breakfast sausage to make the other two recipes.

Making sausage is a lot of fun and you can make a better product that you can buy in my opinion. Give it a try!

Sizzle on the Grill Fall Gathering

2011-12-10T02:02:00.000-08:00

Early last Spring, the folks on the SOTG forum (Char-Broil) started talking about putting together a get together or fall gathering and after many posts on the subject about where, when, and how, decided to take the advice of fellow forum member Dee Stafford and use the Central Christian Recreation Association facility which is just North of Augusta, Georgia and right on the Clark's Hill Lake. This lake is a part of the much larger J. Strom Thurmond Lake, Dam, and Rec area.

This is just one beautiful place and would be perfect for many different uses including our fall gathering.

The property is easy to find and about 20 miles North of Augusta.

This is the main building which contains a full commercial type of kitchen, a large mess hall, a porch with several swings, and a couple of bathrooms. Upstairs contains bunks and bathrooms with showers for many people. I am sure it is used for a Summer camp for several churches and probably Scouts.

The mess hall.

The big kitchen.

This is the front porch.

Another porch on the building.

It also has a nice place right outside the kitchen door to set up some cookers.

Some of the upstairs bunks.

The property has two of these cabins which are doubles and each side will sleep 6 people.

A shower house and bath near the cabins.

Looking down at the lake.

Another lake picture.

The property covers quite a few acres and is wooded with many places for camping with tents and also has about 5 camper spots with 30 amp electric and water. It has many more spots with just water. It also has a dump site on the property for the trailers.

This is the open theater overlooking the lake.

This is a big outside cooking pit for hogs or whatever.

Like I said, this place is perfect for the Fall Gathering. Was also pretty close to motels, stores, and shopping.

Dee had secured the facility from Sept 30 thru Oct 3rd for the event. The cost was to be a donation from everyone that attended.

We decided after seeing the pictures and getting some information to go to the event. It would mean missing our favorite bbq contest in Owensboro, Kentucky but we wanted to give it a go. The folks on the SOTG forum are just so real and easy to get along with and we just wanted to meet some of them.

We left from home about 3:00am on a Thursday morning and drove about 510 miles to a KOA just North of Atlanta. Just hate to drive thru this city!!! Anyway, stayed over until about 3:30 am and left to get thru Atlanta before the morning rush hour. West out of Atlanta to the turnoff to the facility and got there about 8:30 am on Friday morning. Dee was ready for us and we were the first to arrive. The total trip down was about 720 miles.

We had our pick of the rv sites and selected a great site facing the lake. Got the trailer turned around and backed into the spot.

We spent most of the morning getting setup for the event.

I brought 3 cookers to the event including my Char-Broil 940X, my Char-Broil 500X, and a Backwoods Party for my Saturday evening rib cook. These cookers run on charcoal with chunks of wood for smoke.

Many other folks came in on Friday and got setup for the event.

Many great food items were cooked over this 3 day period in many different style of cookers including gas, electric, infrared, and charcoal. Of course, most of the cookers were the Char-Broil brand.

Barry Martin, a Char-Broil rep, got the Compart Duroc Family Farms in Minnesota to donate a 218 pound box of mixed cuts of premium pork and we had this to cook on top of what everybody brought to the event. You talk about eating, we just were fixing and eating 24 hours a day.

From here I will just put in some random pictures and list some of the items cooked when I know what they were.

Busy in the kitchen.

Sausage of some type.

I think this was ice cream cake.

Kabobs

Pizza

Real busy in the kitchen.

Might have been doing sausage for the low country boil.

Getting the pot ready for the low country boil.

Results of the low country boil and it was "killer".

Pork butt.

I didn't get pictures of all the items cooked but I can tell you that the group also cooked brisket, pork tenderloins, abt's, steak, pork chops, chicken, brunswick stew, and several items out of the Compart Pork donation.

Now, what did we cook and serve you might ask?

We started out on Friday evening with some "kicked up" pulled chicken sliders.

I butterflied the chickens and used some Smokin' Guns hot rub and then cooked them on the classic Char-Broil 940X charcoal cooker.

They come off the cooker looking good.

As it might be served...Doesn't that look good?

Saturday was our big cook day and we started out with a large plate of my smoked and mixed cheeses with crackers. This great appetizer had gouda, Swiss, cheddar, 3 alarm hot, and a couple more different cheeses. I didn't get a picture.

About 10:00am, we started with about a 7-8 pound piece of pork from Compart Duroc Farms. I am not sure of the cut but it was like a whole bone in non-Frenched pork rib roast. Just a beautiful piece of meat.

Now, that is one great looking piece of meat. Looked like a row of pork chops!

I trimmed some of the fat off of the roast.

Pulled the membrane off.

Put a little sweet rub on that baby.

Cooked the roast on the CB940X over lump charcoal with hickory for smoke until the internal was at 135 degrees. I glazed it later into the cook. Took it off the grill and foiled it and let it rest for about 20 minutes.

Cut it up for serving and we sent it up to the main building so everyone could taste it. It was very juicy and tender and the flavor was as good as it can get. Probably be a while before I cook another piece of pork that is as good as this one. Many thanks go out to the Compart Farms.

About noon, we started on our big meal. I had promised to cook some competition type ribs along with some pit beans for the entire group for the Saturday evening meal.

We brought both St. Louis cut and also loin back ribs and I think we had a total of 9 slabs.

Stripped the membrane of the backs and rubbed them up with some Smokin' Guns hot rub and placed them into the Backwoods Party cooker.

We also prepped our pit beans in a large hotel pan and got them on the cooker.

Foiled the ribs using the same method I would use for competition and then glazed the ribs later into the cook and got them ready for serving.

A picture of the ribs at the serving table. I didn't get a picture of the beans but you can see them on the video.

Some more random pictures from I think Saturday.

Everyone was having a great time.

There were several folks that attended this event from the Char-Broil HQ and it was interesting talking to them. My interest is in charcoal and wood cooking but it was nice to see some of the other cookers out there and how well they cook. Char-Broil is a leader in several types of grills, cookers, and smokers.

They did a bonfire down by the lake on Saturday evening. These are some of the pictures from this event.

We missed this great part of the event as we were just dead tired and went to bed very early Saturday evening.

We did two large pans of our breakfast casserole for the Sunday morning breakfast. The casserole is made up of hot sausage, hash brown potatoes,onions, bell peppers,eggs, spices and Cresent rolls.

I didn't get a picture down there but this is some pictures from home of the casserole.

After breakfast on Sunday morning, we had a very nice service in the theater down by the lake.

I think that all of the folks that were on site attended this service.

We had much food left over and just served it up again on Sunday. There were several folks still cooking new food and of course, we had to try it all! I am sure I gained 5 pounds at this event. We spent most of Sunday afternoon packing up and getting ready to go home.

There were a bunch of T-shirts laid out on the tables and everyone signed them so we had a very nice gift to take home to remind us of this first SOTG Fall Gathering.

We had a wonderful time at this event. I had never met any of these people although I did get to know some of them from using the SOTG forum. These folks are just so laid back and easy to get along with and we felt like family being around this group.
While we have tons of fun doing bbq contests, it was sure nice to do this Fall Gathering without all the pressure of a contest. These folks just made us feel at home and couldn't do enough for us. Thanks so much for making us a part of your life.

There were two video's made of this event and they can be found here. They do show some of the items we cooked where we didn't get any pictures.

Video 1. http://youtu.be/bRghotv7AKg
Video 2. http://youtu.be/pRTfzOdDpTA

It's gonna be bigger and better next year....can't wait! You folks that don't own a Char-Broil product better get yourself one and get on the SOTG forum to get all of the details.

Chicken Little / Hasty Bake

2011-11-29T23:43:00.000-08:00

I like using a standard rotisserie setup on my Hasty Bake Gourmet cooker and this is a cook using my non-standard EZ-Que rotisserie unit which I have adapted to several cookers. It’s kinda a work in process on this cooker as EZ-Que has gone out of business so I can’t get any parts to match it to this great cooker.

This is also a low-carb cook and will consist of a couple of Cornish Hens which will be brined in a honey brine which is sitting behind the hens in the half gallon jug.

I will grill some low-carb veggies which I have marinaded in my own no carb marinade which is in the bowl behind the veggies.

The other item I will be cooking is a can of Spam which is not shown in the picture.

I gotta thank Jeanie at Cowgirls Country Blog for the idea for this picture. Every time I see it, it cracks me up.

Anyway, I let the girls hang out a bit with their feet in the liquid before I dropped them down into the brine pot.

I brined the hens for about 2-1/2 hours.

About 5 hours before the fire, I put the veggies into my marinade and then back into the fridge. The veggies consisted of some celery, carrots, mushrooms, plum tomatoes, bell pepper, green onions, and garlic.

I got the cooker fired up and started bringing it up to temp.

After the hens came out of the brine, I washed them off good. I placed some onions, celery, and garlic inside the hens. I then placed some rosemary and bay leaves under the breast skin. I added a light sprinkle of my no carb rub and placed them into my EZ-Que cradle.

I installed the cradle into the cooker and turned it loose. I also added the Spam which is not shown in the picture.

Time to just let the cooker do its thing.

Took them veggies straight out of the marinade and placed them on the direct part of the cooker. Kinda let them char up a little and I must have eaten half of them during the cooking process. Man, were they good.

I cooked the hens to about 165 internal and pulled them off the cooker. I then plated it up for presentation to Mommy since it is her birthday meal.

Shazaaaam...that looks great!

I split those hens right down the middle into two pieces.

I got it plated up and added a scoop of cottage cheese and gave it to Jan. Her total meal is less than 2 grams of carbs.

What did I eat you might ask...

Look at the great crust I put on that block of Spam. Just add a little mustard and horseradish and I am ready for my meal.

Low Carb Grilling / Char-Broil 940X

2011-11-06T23:01:00.000-08:00

As Fall arrives at the Po-Farm, we usually start lo-carbing and this means a lot of outside charcoal grilling thru the Winter season. There is just no way to fix all the meat that we eat any better than over charcoal on a good grill. The flavor of anything cooked over charcoal is so much better than cooked with or over any other fuel in my opinion. We try to grill about two times a week and when we do, we cook enough for several meals and just re-heat as needed.

This cook was to be eight 6 oz burgers, two large porterhouse beef steaks, two Compart Farms dry aged porterhouse chops, and a very nice Compart Farms pork tenderloin.

This grilling along with the tenderloin will require both a direct and indirect fire so I used my Char-Broil 940X and set it up by loading just the right half of the firebox with some Ozark Oak lump charcoal and then raised the charcoal grid up to where it is close to my cooking grate and fired it up.

Beautiful Fall sunny morning with the temp at about 45 degrees. A great day for an outside cook.

Wife had the fatburgers ready...I call them fatburgers because we make them with the fattiest burger we can find. FAT is flavor. Just a little sea salt and some good fresh ground Tellicherry pepper is all these patties need.

These two large porterhouse beef steaks weren’t very thick but well marbled and should cook up well. They were prepped with some garlic salt and fresh ground pepper.

This is the Compart Duroc “all natural” pork tenderloin. This is the “Filet Mignon” of pork cuts. It just doesn’t get any better then this cut of pork and it needs to be treated as such. I just want to compliment this pork a little so I sprinkled on a very light coat of my low carb rub and it was ready for the grill.

These are the Compart Duroc Premium Dry Aged Porterhouse Pork Chops and they were just slightly over 1-1/2” thick. Now that my friend is a chop!! These premium chops were seasoned with some sea salt and Tellicherry pepper.

As soon as the fire was very hot, I started with the tenderloin as it will take the longest to cook. I seared both sides for a few minutes and placed it on the indirect part of the grate to finish it up.

I seared the burgers about 3 minutes a side and they were done enough to suit me. I didn’t have to finish them indirect.

I seared the Porterhouse beef steaks about two minutes a side and they were done to about medium and that was a little overcooked as I wanted them more rare. They were just too thin for me to get them cooked the way I wanted them.

Sure was a pretty day and the cooker did a fine job with this cook.

I seared the Compart chops about 3 minutes a side and they tested at about 140 degrees internal so I took them off the grill.

I then checked the Compart pork tenderloin and it was at 135 degrees so I let it go about 10 more minutes and pulled it off.

It sure looked good.

Isn’t that pretty...it will just melt in your mouth...still pink and very juicy.

The Compart Farms Dry Aged Porterhouse Pork chops.

The porterhouse steaks just off the cooker.

My fatburgers.

The last four pictures are the way we might serve them for our locarb meals.

Many thanks go out to The Compart Family Farms Premium Duroc Pork for donating some great pork to the Char-Broil Fall Gathering as it is the best I have even eaten.

Spun and Kicked Chicken / Hasty Bake

2011-11-06T02:36:00.000-08:00

This is one great dish and we do it often on our cookers and grills. I start out with a couple of nice Bell & Evans clean and non-injected whole chickens. I butterfly them by cutting the back out of the chickens and then breaking the breast bone so they will lay flat. In this crazy pc world, they now call it spatchcocking.

I arrange them in my spinner cage for cooking.

I sprinkle on a medium dose of Smokin’ Guns hot rub to both sides of the whole chickens.

Brought the cooker up to temp using Ozark Oak lump with some hickory chunks for the smoke wood. I then loaded my two butterflied whole chickens into my Gourmet.

I got it all spinning and smoking on the cooker.

In a little over an hour, things were looking good.

Took the meat off of the cooker as it was looking great.

Now that is a pretty piece of chicken.

The chicken is spun so now we will “kick it”.

I take one pound of bacon and cut it up into about 3/4” pieces and place it into a skillet. Cook it until is about crisp and strain the grease off and set aside. I then cut up about 4 hot peppers into small pieces and this time I used two Jalapeno and two hot banana peppers.

Hot peppers ready for my treat.

Next step is to pull all the skin off of the chicken.

Cut this skin up into small pieces.

Load the chicken skin into the bacon grease and cook it a little while and then add the peppers and cook them a little while and add the bacon. Strain off the grease again and it is ready to use.

Pull your chicken and place it into a bowl.

Add your “kickin” mixture.

Stir it all up and it is ready for the Slyder buns. You now have spun and kickin chicken which is real good for a number of treats.

How about a couple of my spun and kicked up pulled chicken Slyders?

As with most of my charcoal cooking, I always do some hot wings.

Hot wings on the rotisserie are great.

Good Stuff!

Lunch on the Char-Broil 940X

2011-11-06T01:36:00.000-07:00

While Char-Broil makes several different charcoal smokers and grills, there is one that really stands out in my mind. It is the classic Char-Broil 940X. This great cooker has been around for many many years and will just flat do it all. From smoking cheese at 80 degrees to baking pizza at 425 degrees. Of course, it will also do everything in between these numbers. It is really not a hard cooker to learn and the results coming off of this cooker are outstanding.

We had some friends up from Florida this week and I used this fine cooker to do a nice lunch on Friday. My plan was to cook a few slabs of ribs and a full half pan of Rick Salmons pit beans. Wife decided at the last minute to do some smoked baked potatoes as well.

I rolled the CB 940X out of the garage to my cooking patio and set it up for the cook. It was still dark and a cool morning at about 32 degrees.

The first thing I did was to place two of these Weber charcoal rails at the end of the Char-Broil charcoal grid to cover up the big holes where the charcoal will fall thru. I would sure like to talk to the engineer that designed this grid.

These rails really work nice in this cooker. Bout $ 7.00 bucks a pair.

My ribs will take about 5 or 6 hours so I will setup a fuse burn with 3 firebricks. This way I can get it on temp and won’t have to worry about it staying close.

This shows my 3 firebricks in place in the cooker.

I then load up the charcoal grid with some all wood charcoal brickettes and add my hickory chunks for the smoke wood. I then place a Weber fire cube in the near front corner. This burn setup should last about 8 hours at around 225-250 degrees.

Next step is to add a pan to keep the cook indirect. I have been using oven liners as they are a perfect fit on the cooker but they are too much money so this time I used a full pan foil cover and just folded it up to fit the cooker. These lids only cost about $.50 each. It worked fine for this cook.

Fired the cooker up and then went in to prep my food.

Trimmed up the ribs and pulled the membrane off. Dusted them with some Smokin’ Guns hot and then cut the slabs into two pieces.

Put the pit beans together and added the brown sugar. I also applied some peanut oil and sea salt to my baking potatoes and got them ready for the cooker.

Placed the ribs into a rib rack and put them on the cooker.

I added one of my raised grids to the cooker and then put on my pit beans and potatoes.

When I get it on temp, it will just set there and run like a swiss watch with my setup. I use the service door on the front of the cooker to control the temp of the cooker.

The cook took about six hours and this picture is the ribs and potatoes coming off of the cooker.

Those great pit beans coming off of the cooker. I didn’t get any other finish pictures with this cook due to having guests in for the cook. Everything turned out great and those slow smoked potatoes were wonderful.

Old Dave's "Killer" Turkey

2011-09-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

This is my second cook on my new Hasty Bake Gourmet cooker and I decided to just load it up a little to see how it would perform with a larger cook. This is my competition recipe with five turkey breasts. This recipe has won some money for both me and several friends. It is also the recipe I use for most cooks around the house for our poultry.

This is a great cook and with the holiday coming up, should fit into most schedules.

This is a great recipe and method for doing a great whole turkey or just cooking a couple of turkey breasts.

You will be brining and marinading at the same time and this will produce a wonderful result.

This recipe will work for both the turkey breasts and the whole turkeys.

Try to find a clean turkey that is not injected with the salt water and if you can't find one that way, try to get one with the least amount of injected salt water. You can probably find them from about 6 to 13% injected salt water so do go with something around 6% for the best results.

The turkey will be prepped about 12-14 hours before the fire so be sure you have the time.

BRINE, and it is injected into the turkey. Be sure the turkey is completely thawed if using a frozen bird.

This is Shake's Injectable Honey Brine with my slight changes and it is a great brine and I use it for all my poultry.

32 oz of water
1/4 cup pickling salt
2 tsp Tenderquick
1/3 cup honey
3 bay leaves
1/4 tsp gound cloves
1/2 tsp pickle spice

Heat this up on the stove to help it dissolve but do not boil or you will ruin it and have to start over. Just get it warmed up. Cool it down before injecting it into the turkey.

This cook included 5 nice turkey breasts and I did have to increase the above recipe to cover this larger cook.

This picture shows a couple of the breasts being injected with my brine. Inject 2oz in each leg, 2oz in each thigh, 4oz in each side of the breast. This is a total of 16 oz per bird or 8oz per whole breast. MORE is NOT better as it will make the turkey toooo salty!!!

MARINADE....I use Wishbone Robusto Italian salad dressing in the 16oz bottle and you need one bottle for each breast and about two bottles for a whole turkey.

You will be brining and marinading at the same time.

Place the brine injected turkey into a food grade small plastic bag and then pour the Wishbone over the bird. Align the turkey so it is longways in the bag and on one side of the bag. Carefully start at the bottom of the bag using both hands and work all the marinade up around the meat getting most of the air out of the bag and then tie off the bag. Better to have some help with this step. Place the bag and turkey on a platter and put it into the fridge for about 12-14 hours. You might turn it a time or two when you get into the fridge for a beer.

This picture shows adding the Wishbone Robusto to the bag with the breast.

This is all 5 of my breasts ready for the fridge and my overnight brining and marinading session.

On the morning of the cook, I take the breasts out of the bags and get them ready for the rub.

RUB...This rub has no sugar and will not brown or burn at any temp. (thanks mr. db)

1 TBl Salt
1 TBL Paprika
2 tsp Onion powder
2 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp White pepper

I also left out the salt for this cook as my breasts were injected with 11% salt water and I figured that along with more salt in the rub would be too much.

I sprinkled on a light dose of my rub.

I loaded the right half of the charcoal pan with lump charcoal and then added a small amount of hickory and placed the heat diverter on top and lit it off.

I placed all 5 breasts on the cooker.

The breasts a little later into the cook and about half done. I did have to add charcoal again to get this large amount done.

They sure looked good coming off of the cooker. I placed four of the breasts into individual pans and covered with foil and then sent them out for delivery.

I deboned the one breast I kept for us.

I then sliced it up for the plate.

Plated with the balance of the meal.

Sure was good...

This recipe does quite well at the lower temps of 250-275 and will also do well at temps up to about 350.

I think I am going to like this new cooker.

Philly Cheese Steak Sandwich, Western Ribs, & Wings

2011-09-18T02:41:00.000-07:00

I just purchased my "Lottery Cooker" which is an all Stainless Steel Hasty Bake Model 257 Gourmet cooker. I say lottery because it takes a lottery hit plus a second mortgage on my home for the funds to own one. I believe this cooker is the best of the best of the cookers like it out there and I have cooked on most of them.

This is the first cook on my new Hasty Bake Gourmet #257 Stainless Steel grill. I brushed it down good on the inside with peanut oil and then setup a fuse burn for this longer cook.

I used two firebricks and just split the firebox down the middle and added my lump charcoal. I will light it with a Weber fire cube in the left front corner and it should burn all the way down and around the corner and back to the front. I’m looking for about a 7-8 hour burn.

Looks a little tight at the corner but I think the fire will go around it ok. I then added some hickory chunks to my fire. I then placed the heat deflector over the firebox. Lit it off and then got my meat ready for the cook.

These so called Western ribs are cut off of a pork butt and are pretty thick. I sprinkled on a generous amount of Smokin’ Guns hot rub and placed them on the grill.

I got the cooker dialed in at about 225 degrees measured at the cooking surface and let it go for a few hours with the Western ribs. Near the end of their cook, I slopped on some Blues Hog bbq sauce and glazed them for a few minutes and then took them off the grill.

They sure looked good. I then added the first batch of my breaded hot wings.

The wings usually take about an hour at the lower temp and then I added my hot sauce and finished up the first batch. With my heat deflector in the center of the firebox, the two ends of the grill were not covered and I could move the wings around both direct and indirect and that worked out great for finishing them up.

Later, I added the second round of wings over the direct part of the grill and noticed that I had a big chunk of my hickory smoke wood on fire with the flames coming up thru the cooking grate and decided to just add the steaks as well for their searing. I had planned to do them at the end of the cook with a raised firebox so this worked out great.

I also sliced up a couple of onions about 1/2” thick for my sandwiches and placed them on the top cooking grid of the cooker for about 90 minutes.

The ribeye steaks had some garlic salt and fresh cracked black pepper sprinkled on them before the cook. I seared them about 4 minutes a side and checked them and they were done to about medium so that was just fine for them. I would have preferred medium rare but I missed that one by a couple minutes.

My two plates of super hot chicken wings.

The Western ribs.

My two ribeyes just before I cut them up for my Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches.

The steak sliced for my treat.

This is the start of my brides sandwich as she doesn’t do soppy. We will be using hot dog buns for our sandwich.

I like to place my onions, and my steak slices in some warm Lipton Onion Soup and then add my roasted peppers. I then prep my sandwich out of the soup.

I start by spooning on about 2-3 tablespoons of the soppy on my bun. I then add the balance of the ingredients from the soup. Next is the cheese....Now That is a Philly Cheese Steak!

Was a nice first cook on the Gourmet.

Rib Sandwich / Char-Broil 940X

2011-08-24T05:54:00.000-07:00

Kroger had those great big “bronto” sized spare ribs on sale again last week for $1.67 a pound and even though they are all pumped up with salt water (13%)....I still couldn’t pass them up and bought several slabs. Figured I could do something with them if I was careful with my rubs and process so they wouldn’t taste like cured ham!

I decided to do rib sandwiches with a couple of those great big 6.5 pound slabs.

I figured it would take about 6-7 hours to get these big rib slabs done so I set up the CB 940X cooker with some fire bricks in the charcoal grate which will give me a longer fuse burn and loaded it with some Wicked Good brickettes which make a nice longer burn in the grill. I then setup my grates for an indirect cook and used grids to make it a two layer cook to get it all on the cooker. Fired it off and then prepped my ribs while I was waiting for the cooker to get on temp.

I cut each slab in half and sprinkled on a blend of Smokin’ Guns hot rub mixed 50/50 with some Florida Crystals pure cane sugar. I needed some extra sweetener to overpower some of that lousy salt water.

I smoked them with some hickory chunks for about 4 hours and then pulled them off for foiling. In each of the foil boats, I placed about 2 oz of apple juice, some brown sugar, about 1 oz of Agave Nectar, and about an ounce of clover honey. Sealed them up and placed them back on the cooker for about 2 more hours in the heat as I needed some real fall off the bone rib meat for my sandwiches.

Pulled the ribs off the cooker and removed the foil and then removed all the bones and cartilage from the ribs. I also chopped up some of the larger pieces and placed it in a large bowl.

The pulled and chopped meat came out wonderful and not too salty and I put up about half the meat in freezer bags for future use and then made up my sandwiches.

This is a brand new sauce from my friend Bill Arnold and his Blues Hog company and is “Killer”. It is called Smokey Mountain Sauce and I used it on my rib meat before I placed it on a sandwich.

I placed a big pile of the meat on a hotdog bun and then added some cheese chunks, some fruit, and some peppers.

I then added my slaw....shaaaaazam, now that is a sandwich!

Grate Steaks

2011-08-23T02:04:00.000-07:00

Four or five times a year, our local Kroger store will have a bargain that I can't pass up. It might be spare ribs, maybe round steak or chuck steak, or even whole chickens. A few day ago, they had a sale on their USDA Whole Boneless Choice Ribeye loin for just $4.97 a pound. With hamburger running about $3.39 a pound, this is a bargain in comparison! This meat normally sells for about $10.00 a pound cut into steaks.

I purchased two of the whole loins with a combined weight of 34.24 pounds with a total price of $342.06 for a sale price of $170.18. Heck of a deal...half price for great meat.

The ticket on one of the whole loins.

I usually start by cutting off the tail as I use it in sausage and then cut a roast off of each end of the loin and slice the balance up into about 1-1/4" thick steaks. However, we were also out of what I call "State Fair" steaks so I cut what meat I would use for the roasts into my 1/2" thick State Fair sandwich steaks.

I like to grill the State Fair steaks about 75 seconds a side over a very hot lump charcoal fire and then place them into a half pan filled with some hot Lipton Onion soup. Serve them right out of the pan on a good bun. Good Stuff!!

More steaks ready for the shrink wrap.

They all didn't make it to the freezer...now that's a nice steak.

Ready to freeze for future use.

Butterflied and Pulled Extra Juicy Chicken / Weber Kettle

2011-08-16T01:20:00.000-07:00

This is a treat that we like to do often as it is simple and always produces great results. We plan to use this chicken as pulled chicken and we want the finished chicken just dripping wet with as much retained juice as possible. Don't want to spill any of that goodness down on the fire. Must be retained inside the chicken. Got That!!!

Ok, I had the Char-Broil cast iron grid in the cooker so I decided to use it and set the fire up for an indirect cook with a drip pan in the middle of the kettle.

Loaded some Ozark Oak lump into the baskets on each side of my cooking area and lit it off.

This is a fresh Bell & Evans whole chicken that hasn't been injected with a lot of salt water and seaweed and with full coverage perfect skin. We need perfect skin for this treat as the secret to this cook is in the skin.

Turn that chicken over and cut out the back bone. Then break the breast bone so it will lay flat on the plate. I added some Smokin' Guns rub to this back side of the chicken and then turned it over.

Sprinkled on more rub to the skin side and it is ready for the cooker. NOW, from this point forward, this chicken will NEVER be with the skin up during the cook. It will not be turned over again, period. SKIN SIDE DOWN.

I carefully arrange the chicken on the grid to be sure the skin has everything covered so none of the juice can get out of the meat.

During the cook, there will be puddles of juice on top on the chicken as all that great skin is holding all this juicy goodness inside the chicken. SKIN SIDE DOWN, use that lousy old chicken skin to your advantage!

I did a couple burgers too and those Char-Broil grids left some nice marks on the meat.

Late into the cook, I still had some puddles of juice on top of the chicken. I remove the chicken at about 165 internal measured with a Thermopen.

I take the chicken off keeping it skin side down being very careful not to spill any remaining juice. It is placed on a plate skin side down for about an hour to let it cool and absorb the juice back into the meat.

After cooling and turning over to skin side up, it still leaks some of that juicy goodness on my plate. This is one juicy chicken. Can you imagine, non-injected, non brined, non pumped in any way.....and all that goodness!

I then strip all the skin off of the chicken. Next step is to pull the chicken and place it into a bowl.

I chop up the chicken skin into little pieces, chop up about 3-4 pieces of bacon and chop up about 2 fresh Jalapeno or hot banana peppers for this treat.

This goes into a skillet with about 2 tablespoons of peanut oil and I fry this mixture up until about crisp.

I strain the grease out and add the mixture into my pulled chicken.

Now, this is some good stuff!

Makes a nice juicy chicken sandwich. YUM

Beef Ribs, Slab Potatoes, Breaded Hot Wings / CB 940X

2011-08-15T02:49:00.000-07:00

I found a slab of beef ribs in the back of the freezer that had been in there about a year so they needed to be cooked up. Since I will have some extra room on the cooker, decided to cook up some breaded hot wings and some slab potatoes.

I rolled my Char-Broil 940X out to my cooking area.

Figured I would need about a 6 hour burn so I set it up for an indirect fuse burn with 3 firebricks. I also added a raised grid to give me some additional space on the indirect area of the cooker.

Pulled the membrane off of the back side of the ribs and gave them a light coat of Smokin’ Guns Hot rub. Wife fixed up some more slab potatoes and I put them on the cooker along with the ribs.

While this was cooking up, made up my breading and breaded up the chicken wings and got them into the fridge for about 45 minutes before they can go on the cooker. Best to let the breading set up for the best results.

After the potatoes came off, I added my breaded hot chicken wings.

Later into the cook after I had sauced the wings and turned them. I did sauce and turn these wings about 4 times as the breading really sucks up all that hot goodness.

The breaded hot wings just off the cooker.

A nice looking slab of meaty beef ribs.

Steak and Slab Potatoes / Weber Kettle

2011-08-14T03:41:00.000-07:00

I needed to cook up a couple of steaks and decided to do them on my Weber Performer and with all that extra room, I needed something else to cook and just loaded it up with some slab potatoes.

I set the cooker up for both direct and indirect cooking.

I sliced my pots lengthwise and brushed on some peanut oil.

I sprinkled on some dried herbs along with some salt and fresh cracked black pepper and got them ready for the cooker. There are many herbs and spices that are good on the pots including thyme, rosemary, basil, chives, dill, oregano, dried onions, garlic salt, garlic powder, to name a few. I also like to sprinkle on some parmesan cheese just before they come off of the cooker. Just pick out a couple of things that you like and put them on your slab potatoes.

I place the potatoes on the indirect side of the cooker and do not add any smoke wood as my good all wood charcoal give the pots a great flavor.

A picture a little later into the cook as I did the steaks on the direct side of the cooker.

Some rib-eyes done on the plate.

My slab potatoes.

These slab potatoes freeze well and nuke well so we try to keep them on hand for a quick treat especially with steak and burgers.

Breakfast Casserole / Char-Broil 500X

2011-08-14T02:51:00.000-07:00

I developed this recipe because I am a lazy cook and wanted a simple to fix whole breakfast meal casserole for our Saturday morning contest cooks. I also wanted to be able to fix it on say Wednesday evening and then bake it on the following Saturday morning. Here is what I came up with and it is very very good and super simple to make.

Ingredients:

16 oz tube of Bob Evans Zesty Hot Sausage
Bout 1-1/2 cups (6oz) of frozen hash brown potatoes
Bout 1/2 cup chopped onions
bout 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
5 large eggs
Bout 2 cups of shredded Cheddar cheese (I use the sharp)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp leaf oregano
1 can Crescent rolls
1 Nine by Nine tin foil poultry pan
Pam for spraying the pan
Paprika

Run some hot water into a bowl and toss the hash browns in there to thaw out.
Chop up the onions and bell peppers and place them into an oiled cast iron skillet that will fit your cooker.

Cook them about 6-7 minutes and then add the sausage. Brown it well and pour off the grease.

Add the 3 spices and mix it up.

Select a sealed container that is large enough and will fit in your cooler.

Break the 5 eggs into the container and mix them up. Pour the sausage mix into the container, strain the hash browns thru a colander and place them into the container, add the 2 cups of Cheddar and then mix it all up well.

Now if you need to cook at a later date... you can place this mixture and the can of rolls in the cooler and you are all ready to go as it just takes a few minutes to finish it from here.

Pam the poultry pan and place half (4) of the Crescent rolls on the bottom of the pan.
Spoon out the mixture and spread it evenly on the bottom of the pan on top of the rolls.

Place the last half of the Crescent rolls over the top of the mixture and then sprinkle on some paprika.

Fired up the CB500X with some of that great Ozark Oak lump charcoal and brought it up to around 350 degrees for my baking. I have it setup for an indirect cook or bake with the charcoal on the right half of the cooker.

I had to bend up the pan a little to get it to fit as I didn’t have the correct size pan.

I just let the little cooker do its thing for about an hour or until the internal of my treat was at 165 degrees and then took it off the cooker.

Looking good coming off the cooker.

I cut the casserole into 9 servings.

Served it up.

Char-Broil Cast Iron Cooking Grid/Weber Kettle

2011-08-14T00:49:00.000-07:00

I purchased this cast iron grid to use in several of my grills and smokers. Along with the Char-Broil products, they will fit some other brands including the Weber 18-1/2” kettles, the Weber 22-1/2” kettles, and the Weber Smokey Mountain cookers. The grids come in two pieces and both pieces must be used for the larger 22-1/2” applications and then the small grid by itself can be used for the 18” applications. Very nice for folks that may have two grills.

This cast iron grid setup retails for $29.95 and comes with a porcelain coating and requires no seasoning and is ready to use. There is a promotion code for the folks that use the Char-Broil forum for an additional 10% off the purchase price.

I would advise folks to shop around and you will see a few replacement cast iron cooking grids for the above cookers and grills that cost in excess of 100 dollars. This grid is a bargain in price as compared to all others.

The grid is shown in my 22-1/2” Weber Performer grill.

To use my grills charcoal igniter, I just remove the center section of the cooking grid and place the chimney over the igniter flame.

After I poured the charcoal in and replaced the grid, I waited about 10 minutes to be sure my cast iron grids was hot. I have a couple of porterhouse steaks for the first attempt with the grids.

I cooked these steaks about 3 minutes and then turned them a little to get the cross hatch type marks and then cooked them about 2 more minutes and then turned them over and did the same to the other side.

It made for a nice looking steak.

I also did some burgers after the steaks.

Burgers looked ok but not as good as I wanted. Would be better if the cooking grids were a little closer to each other for small items. Probably have to watch grilling smaller veggies that some don’t fall thru the cracks.

I love the grid and think it is a bargain compared to anything else out there at that price.

Next step is trying a large wok hanging thru the center section of the grill....I think it will work.

Mixed Cook on the Char-Broil 940X

2011-06-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

This cook started out as a Black Iron cook of some talapia fillets and potatoes on the CB 940X and just kept growing from there. I also decided to include a batch of hot wings, a couple of chicken legs and one chicken thigh for my bride, some brats, and about a pound of some other hot sausage along with some burgers.

Set the cooker up for about a 4 hour cook both direct and indirect with lump charcoal and fired it off.

I started out with making up some breading of flour, cornmeal, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, white pepper, and red pepper for my hot wings. And for the bride’s chicken, I used just some flour and cornmeal and salt and pepper. Made a wash of milk and eggs and got started with the prep.

I oiled up a black iron skillet with some peanut oil and placed my whole potatoes into it. I then sliced the potatoes in place and carefully kept them looking whole. Made up a mixture of some butter, garlic, onion, and poured it over my potatoes.

My black iron potatoes ready to go on the cooker.

The chicken and potatoes a little later into the cook.

The classic Char-Broil 940X doing it's thing with some hickory chunks for smoke.

After the poultry came off, I added my brats, the burgers, and my hot and spicy sausage.

Next step for the potatoes was to add about a half pound of crumpled bacon and some shredded sharp cheddar over the top.

I did the burgers on the direct side of the grill so they didn’t take very long.

The stuff is looking good coming off of the grill.

For the fish, I oiled the skillet with some peanut oil and then made up a dredge of some butter, a little lemon juice, 2 cloves of garlic, pinch of rosemary, and some onion flakes. I brushed it on both sides of my tilapia fillets and placed them into my skillet. I then sprinkled on some Panko crispy bread crumbs.

I did the fish on the direct side of the cooker and they didn’t take long.

Was another great cook on this classic grill and cooker.

Mountain Spare Ribs / Char-Broil 940X

2011-06-17T02:34:00.000-07:00

Kroger had those big “bronto” spare ribs on sale again for $1.47 a pound and I just couldn’t let them get by me even though they are injected with 13% salt water. Will need to adjust my rub for this or they will taste like cured ham!

Mommy found 3 slabs that were just a little over 5 total pound each and I decided to make them into a recipe I saw on the web called Mountain Spare Ribs.

There not a bad looking rib if it weren’t for the injecting. I trimmed them into St. Louis cut and skinned the back of the membrane.

As I needed only the bone in rib, I will freeze the rib-tips for another event. I got all three slabs trimmed up and then I cut the ribs into individual pieces for the recipe.

I placed all the ribs into a large bowl.

Made up a no-salt rub and rubbed up the bowl of ribs. I then added about 3/4 pound of some thick cut bacon as everyone knows, everything is better with bacon!

I setup the CB 940 for an indirect cook and added enough lump charcoal for about a five hour burn and lit it off with a Weber fire cube.

I had about 40 pieces of ribs so I just placed them on the cooker in a big pile as the recipe suggests.

My bad...still haven’t got my cutting block tables stained and sealed as you can see. Anyway, I ran the cooker around 275-300 degrees and every half hour, I sprayed apple juice on the pile and then stirred it up and sprayed it again.

At about 4-1/2 hours into the cook, I sauced up the ribs with a blend of Blues Hog regular and Blues Hog Tennessee Red. I hit em 2-3 times in the last 45 minutes.

They came off looking good.

Served them up with some green beans and salad stuff for a nice low carb meal. These ribs do have more bark and a nice crunch when eating and I liked them. Mommy wasn’t impressed at all and told me to go back to my regular recipe.

Brisket Cook / Char-Broil 940X

2011-06-16T02:53:00.000-07:00

This is a three brisket cook on my CB 940X and it came out great! It is also my first cook on this cooker and I do like it. It is very similar to my Hasty Bake and cooks about the same.

I figured I would need about 8 hours on temp so I sure didn’t want to fool with the cooker all day so I set it up for a fuse burn. I placed three firebricks on the charcoal tray to divide the burn or tray in half. I then poured in 14 pounds of that great Stubb’s all wood no crap charcoal. I also added some hickory chunks for the smoke. I will start this burn on the front side with a Weber fire cube and it will burn around the other end and back to the right side of the cooker.

For this larger cook, I needed a fairly large cooking area and it needed to be indirect. I placed a 16X18 oven liner right in the middle of the cooker. This will keep my cook indirect and catch all the drippings from the cook.

Placed two of the cooking grids on the oven liner and this should hold two of the briskets. I then put an additional rack over the grates to hold the third brisket.

I trimmed up the briskets to where I had only about 1/16 to 1/8th fat cap left and then went to my next step.

I was trying out a couple of new competition recipes and these two briskets were injected with a mixture of Butcher’s beef injection mixed with some water, rub, and maple syrup.

The third brisket was cooked for the Minister’s wife and she wanted a brisket from the food network called the Neely’s Smoked Cider Brisket. This brisket was brined for 3 hours and and then cooked with some special recipe stuff from the network.

The two briskets were a little too long for my setup so I placed a couple of beer cans on the grid and laid the briskets over them. This trick shortened them up for the cook.

Added my raised grid and placed the cider brisket on it.

I then let the grill do its thing....

These are the briskets about ready to be foiled.

At about 5-1/2 hours into the cook and when the color looked right, I foiled the briskets with some Rick’s Sinful Marinade and just stacked them back on the cooker.

At about 6 -3/4 hours into the cook, I got the brined brisket off the cooker. The other two briskets came off at about 7-1/2 hours into the cook. As you can see, I just nailed this cook as the charcoal did finish up about the time I got the product off the cooker. I could have probably gone about 45 more minutes but it wasn’t needed.

Now for the money shots....

This is the cider brisket and it was nice and juicy and came out great.

All three briskets were great but the Cider Brisket was outstanding. Will do this recipe again. You can find it at the Food Network.

BBQ Pit Boys Big Cheeseburger / CB 500X

2011-03-17T01:38:00.000-07:00

This cook on my CB500 X was inspired by the BBQ Pit Boys who have about 200 grilling videos on You Tube. These cooks do most of their cooking on the classic Weber Performer. Do go over there sometime and punch up BBQ Pit Boys for some great information, recipes, and cooks. This is my version of their big super cheeseburger.

The ingredients used in this big burger are about 3-1/2 pounds of 70/30 burger, cheddar cheese, onion, green bell pepper, bbq sauce, pepperoni, mushrooms, olives, jalapeno peppers, rub, and some real thick bacon.

I formed the burger just a little thicker than it came in the package and then poured on the bbq sauce, and also added some cheese, onions and bell peppers.

Next came the mushrooms, pepperoni, and jalapeno peppers.

I finished it off with some half slices of some real thick bacon. It is now ready for the grill.

I figured I would need about two hours at about 350 degrees to do this cook so I loaded up my big Weber chimney with 65 Stubb’s brickettes. Fired it up and ashed them over completely and poured them into the right side of the CB500 which is setup for an indirect cook. Opened the service door about an inch and brought the cooker up to cooking temp.

First mistake...pan was about 1/2” too long for the cooker. I had planned to use the direct side of the cooker as well so I couldn’t just turn the pan sideways. Took it back into the house and formed up a pan out of tinfoil and placed the meat back on the cooker.

For my potato wedges, I made up another tinfoil pan but somewhat shorter for my potatoes. I cheated and nuked the potatoes to about half done. Cut them into wedges and then drowned them in some real butter, sprinkled on some garlic salt, and cracked on some of that good Telecherry black pepper. I poured the balance of the butter over the wedges and placed them on the cooker.

I cooked the potatoes direct about 30 minutes to where I wanted them and took them off the cooker and placed them on some paper towels.

The big burger came off next and it sure looked good.

Next, I grilled up a couple of big buns. I then cut the big burger into 4 equal pieces.

Loaded the big burger on the grilled bun and then added some lettuce, more onion, and a slice of tomato.

This big cheeseburger worked out to just a little under a pound per sandwich.

Shazaam.......now thats a burger!

More Cooks Char-Broil 500X

2011-03-16T02:36:00.000-07:00

I have done a couple of more cooks in the CB 500X and have got some good results.

This first one is pork steaks and I had five of them and used a hot and spicy rub on three of them and Mommy wanted hers with just salt and pepper so I fixed her up as well.

I set the cooker up for indirect and placed my three steaks on the left side on the bottom and then added a cooling rack and placed the wifes two steaks right on top of the rack.

Wife didn’t want hers sauced so this worked out well and her two steaks got done first. I then slopped on some sauce and finished up my three steaks.

Added a little fruit, some salad stuff, and some string beans and had a great low carb meal of about 6-7 total carbs.

I had a slab of loin back ribs and since they wouldn’t fit on the cooker without either rolling them up or cutting them up......I decided to cut them into two pieces.

The cooker was again setup for an indirect cook with a drip pan and I used a Weber rib rack to hold the ribs. As you can probably see, I have room for about two slabs of loin or baby back ribs.

I smoked the ribs for about two hours and then wrapped them in foil for the braising period. They had to come out of the rib rack to braise. Let them braise two more hours and sauced them and they came out perfect.

Sure love ribs!

Cook, Grill, and Bake/Char-Broil CB 500X

2011-02-19T01:57:00.000-08:00

This is a mixed cook, grill, and bake in this fine little cooker and the meat used in this cook are two nice pork steaks cut about 1/2" thick, two rib-eyes cut about 1-1/2" thick, three burgers at 1/3 pound each, and I also added some no knead bread which I decided to bake in my small Dutch oven. Here is a teaser from this cook.

As you can see, these rib-eyes look great!

I started this cook by setting up the cooker for a low and slow type of cook for the pork steaks. I loaded the right side of the cooker with some Stubb's charcoal. I then added a couple of Weber fire cubes. I placed a half size drip pan on the left side to catch the drippings and to also add a little moisture to the cook. Added about a cup of water to the drip pan to keep the drippings from burning. Placed my cooking grid over the drip pan and I was ready to load the pork steaks. I fired off the cooker and brought it up to about 230 degrees and loaded the pork steaks which had been rubbed with my low carb rub.

I added a couple of chunks of hickory wood to the fire and let the cooker do it's thing.

Was a pretty nice day with the temperature around 40 degrees which was melting all our ice and snow.

I smoked the pork steaks about two hours and glazed them and removed them from the cooker. I then added the second cooking grid right over the fire as I planned to cook the burgers and steak both direct and indirect. I also opened up the front service door on the cooker to bring up the temperature for the grilling.

I seared my 1/3 pound burgers over the fire on the right side of the cooker and then placed them on the indirect (left) side for a few more minutes to get them done.

I sprinkled some garlic salt and fresh cracked black pepper on my steaks. I then placed them on the direct side and over the hot coals in the cooker for a sear. Seared both sides and then placed them on the indirect side to cook them to about medium rare.

I added a few more pieces of charcoal and loaded up my no-knead bread in my small Dutch oven. Opened up the service door on the front of the cooker all the way as I wanted the cooker to run hot as possible with what I had left of the charcoal. Would have been nice to have started with a fresh load of charcoal as the bread is better baked above 450 degrees but we came out pretty good with the temp around 350- 375 degrees as my charcoal was about used up. Took a little longer but the bread was just as good.

Now, for the money shots!

I added a small cuke and onion salad in vinegar, and some tomato slices and a piece of lettuce, and then cut me a slice of the bread and spread on some real butter, and plated up my steak.

WOW!!

The old fatman got that steak cooked just right....eat your heart out!

I think I am gonna like this cooker.....

Chicken / Auto Temp Control / CB- 500X

2011-02-02T01:54:00.000-08:00

I'll start with a few small modifications that I have made to this slick little tailgate cooker to improve the overall use.

The cooker comes with holes for a rotisserie in the hood and I plug these with a couple of balls of tin foil.

This hole in the lower right side of the cooker is for a gas burner and again, I plug it with some tin foil.

With the above mods, this little cooker will run the indirect low and slow temps for hours and I use the service door to run the higher temps used for baking pizza and bread. Works great!

Now, to set the cooker up with a Pitmaster IQ 110 Auto-Temp Control.

I removed the tin foil plug from the lower right side gas burner hole so I could mount the standard manifold from the auto control. For the unit to work correctly, the blower must be below the charcoal grate level. There are three mounting holes for the gas burner and I drilled out the top one with the next drill size so it would fit the toggle bolt on the manifold.

The Pitmaster IQ 110 is one slick control if all you want is cooker control. It doesn't have any probes for the meat that goes on your cookers. It is also about half price as compared to the other units on the market. The unit in the picture with this standard manifold will fit WSM's, Weber Kettles, my two classic Char-Broils, and with another adapter will also fit both my ceramic cookers and my Backwoods cookers. I believe it could be adapted to most all charcoal cookers. Not shown in the picture is the 110 volt power adapter which also comes with the control.

I used the toggle bolt to mount the manifold to the Char-Broil 500X. I then setup the cooker for an indirect cook by loading up the right hand side with a full load of Stubb's Brickettes charcoal.

I placed two Weber fire cubes in charcoal and lit them off. I placed a half pan on the left side for the drippings and added about a cup of water to keep them from burning. If you look close, you can see the probe connected to the back of the cooking grid. This probe controls the cooker temperature.

I hooked up the Pitmaster and decided to use my 12 volt Jump-Starter to run the unit. I used a Radio Shack 12 volt adapter cord to power it up. It was cold with a light snow and I didn't want to fool around with running 110 out to the cooker so this hookup worked fine.

After my starter cubes went out, I set my Pitmaster control to about 245 degrees and started it to bring the cooker up to cooking temp. I then opened up the left side exhaust vent in the hood so I could pull all the smoke and heat across my meat during the cook.

While the cooker was coming up to temperature, I prepped my four pound fryer by cutting out the backbone and then breaking the breastbone so the chicken would lay flat on the cooker. Some folks would call this spatchcocking but I prefer the word "butterfly." I then sprinkled on my low carb rub and it was ready for the cooker.

I placed the chicken on the cooker and added a few chunks of smoke wood.

This picture shows the chicken about halfway thru the cook.

The chicken just off the cooker.

Me and Mommy split this treat as she made chicken salad with her half and I made pulled chicken with my half.

I toasted up a piece of low carb bread, added some pulled chicken, then sprinkled a little of my low carb bbq sauce over it. Added some salad stuff and cheese and made a great low carb (6 grams) meal out of it.

The Pitmaster IQ 110 temperature control is a fine product and very low cost compared to other units on the market.

Beef Ribs on the Char-Broil 500X

2011-01-18T06:39:00.000-08:00

I did another learning cook on my CB500X cooker. I found some beef ribs with a little bit of meat on them and snapped them up. Meaty beef ribs in my area just doesn't happen very often and these looked fairly good.

These ribs were the bone in beef back ribs and this slab weighed 4.19 pounds. At a $1.98 a pound the slab cost $8.30. You know, a fellow will only get about 65% of this weight after cooking so this would be about 2.7 pounds. Now, take out the bones and gristle and you have about 6 to 7 oz of actual meat left out of this whole slab of beef ribs. Very costly but sure worth it in my opinion.

I sprinkled on a generous coat of my no carb rub and got them ready for the cooker. I had to trim off one bone to get them to fit the cooking grid.

I set the little cooker up for an indirect cook and loaded the charcoal tray about half full of lump. Filled a small charcoal chimney up with lump and when it was ready, I poured it on top of the lump in the cooker. I added about 1-1/2 cup of water to my drip pan to keep the drippings from burning.

I added the slab of ribs and it sure filled up the grid. I had the cooker at about 275 degrees for the start of this cook.

I cooked the ribs for about two hours at around 275-300 degrees and then took them off the grill to wrap in foil.

I brought the ribs in to wrap and added about 2-3 oz of beef broth to my foil boat and about 3 TBL of Splenda to the mix. We are low-carbing.

The ribs went back on the cooker for about two more hours in the foil until they were done.

They came out of the foil looking good. I added a generous coat of my low carb bbq sauce and they were ready to eat.

Plated one of these big ribs up with a small tossed salad and some fried apples.

There might be a better dish out there than these ribs but I sure don't know what it would be.

Pizza, Calzone, and Flatbread on a Char-Broil 500X

2011-01-18T05:23:00.000-08:00

I decided to test my new Char-Broil 500X portable cooker with some higher temp bakes to see if it would put out a product as good as I can get off of my other smaller cookers. As you will see, it did quite well.

I started by making enough dough in my bread machine for about three of these treats. I used a standard bread mix but also added some Italian herbs and spices to the dough. I then divided the dough into three equal pieces.

I chopped up some onion and bell pepper, got out some fresh basil, pepperoni, marinara sauce, mushrooms, an Italian 5 blend cheese, some Romano cheese and then sliced up a small tomato.

I got the cooker out and loaded up the charcoal rack about half full with lump charcoal. I then used a small charcoal chimney to light off my fire. Placed my 10" in diameter hearth stones right on the cooking grids. The outside temp was about 13-15 degrees during the bake.

I rolled out the dough and then brushed on some of the marinara sauce, added some onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers.

I finished the pizza with some cheeses, pepperoni, and some tomato slices. I also added some fresh basil. It is ready for the cooker.

Did the calzone next. I used the same ingredients that went into the pizza.

Next came the Italian Flatbread. I brushed some evoo on the dough, sprinkled on some Italian herbs, and then added some Romano cheese. On top of that was some tomato slices and some fresh basil. Man, we are ready to bake now.

I filled the charcoal tray about half full of lump and then loaded up a small chimney of lump for this bake. I poured this chimney over the lump in my tray and placed the cooking grates back on the cooker and added two 10" in diameter hearth stone which I stacked for a thicker hearth.

When the temp got up to about 375 degrees, I loaded the first pizza. I did have to open the service door on the front of the cooker about an inch to get enough air to keep my baking temp in the 400-425 range.

This pizza took about 17 minutes to get done and I took it off.

I loaded the calzone on the cooker and it took about 15 minutes to bake.

Next came my Italian Flatbread and this baked in about 13-14 minutes.

The pizza looked good just out of the cooker.

I couldn't wait to try the flat bread as it is one of my favorites.

I didn't get a picture of the whole calzone.

This is the results of my first bake on this fine little portable cooker.

The cooker did a fine job with a task it probably wasn't designed for and I was happy with my first bake.

Double Smoked Ham / Bloody Mary

2010-12-26T00:11:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for an excuse to do some rotisserie smoking on the Weber kettle and did another ham a few weeks ago and here are the results.

I started with a Cumberland Gap Hickory Hills hickory smoked boneless ham that weighed 10.46 pounds. These are great for a rotisserie setup.

Wasn't much to do to prep the ham other than to sprinkle on a little Smokin' Guns hot rub and place it into my EZ-Que 6" rotisserie setup. A real shame that this company went out of business as they made great products.

I decided to use the Performer as it was closest to the door and got it all setup with a drip pan and lit it up to have ready for the ham. I used some cherry wood for the smoke and used my battery powered motor for the rotisserie and then covered it with a plastic bag since it was raining.

Checked it a little later and it was going good so now it was time for a drink and wouldn't you know it, there is a story behind this drink.

As a competition cook, we usually pick parsley (and all the cooks will know what I am talking about) about 7 to 8:00am on Saturday morning at a contest. My friend Jeff Neals from the Shigs in Pit would bring me a great Bloody Mary drink that was very hot and spicy (he knows I am a chili-head) about this time in the morning and it was wonderful. I really don't do very many mixed drinks as I do like my beer but this was an exception. I asked him to give me the recipe or teach me how to do this great drink as it is killer!

Jeff told me that the first thing I had to do was to infuse the vodka and he got me started with this step.

I purchased an infusion jar that holds about 1-1/2 gallons and loaded in several kinds of peppers. Mild peppers like ancho, bell peppers, and bananna peppers, hot peppers like the hot bananna, jalapeno, seranno, and a couple of habenero peppers. Looks better if you select some for the color. Then I added some onions, baby carrots, celrey, and a couple of cloves of garlic. I then filled it up with vodka and let it infuse for about 4 days. I poured it back into the bottles and I was ready to go with the infused vodka. Them used up veggies would probably make a heck of a good pot roast!

For the mix, Jeff suggested several different brands but after trying them all, both Jeff and I prefer the Mr & Mrs T's Bold and Spicy.

Jeff would suggest that you garnish the rim of a 16 oz cup with lime juice and maybe a rub of your choice or some celrey salt but I usually leave this step out. I usually just fill up the cup with ice and then pour about 1/4 of it into my shaker. I then add about 1-1/2 oz of the infused vodka and about 6 oz of the Mr & Mrs T's Bold and Spicy mix to the shaker. Next comes a 1/4 tsp of celrey salt, and a 1/2 tsp of celrey seed and then a very generous shot of Tabasco sauce. I then grind in generous amount of fresh ground Telecherry black pepper to the shaker. Shake that all up and pour into the cup. Then add a celrey stick, or maybe a Slim Jim sausage stick or pickle or whatever you have.

I don't think you can drink a better Bloody Mary. I think the infused vodka makes all the difference in the great taste of this drink.

I made up a glaze with some bbq sauce, real maple syrup, and some honey and brushed it on the ham about 30 minutes before it came off the cooker.

Looked pretty good coming off of the Weber kettle and I let it rest covered with foil for about 30 minutes.

Set my slicer up for thin slices and started slicing up the ham.

Made up a nice plate of sliced ham and then I got it ready to send out.

Placed it into another container, added some pineapple slices and juice along with some cherries and sent it on its way.

Char-Broil / Classic Cooker

2010-12-20T00:58:00.000-08:00

I stumbled onto this slick little cooker a few months back while doing some research on the much larger Char-Broil 940X which is one of the Classics. It is called the Char-Broil 500X and is a smaller version of the CB 940X. Like it's bigger brother, the CB 500X just looks like quality with both cast iron and heavy steel going into it's production. You know, it's just not "tinney" like many of the cookers out there today. I really liked the looks of it, the design and features, and figured if I could get it to do half of what I can do on my Weber kettle, it might be a great purchase. And then I find it on sale for 1/2 price....Bingo!!

I just got this grill on Wednesday so I put it together and then got it ready for the first seasoning and the first cook.

Very neat little grill with the pre-seasoned cast iron grates, pull out ash pan, adjustable fire grate, and a service door in the front of the grill.

I slopped on a heavy coat of vegetable oil on all the inside parts and areas like the manual suggested and then took it outside in the cold (13 degrees) for the first fire.

Placed about 3 pounds of charcoal in a chimney and fired it up and then dumped it into the cooker for a two hour seasoning session.

When that was done, I set the cooker up for my big chuck roast that I planned to use for my pulled beef.

I trimmed all the fat off of the outside of the roast and sprinkled on a heavy dose of my low carb rub.

I moved all the charcoal to the right side of the grill and then added a drip pan with about 1-1/2 cups of water to help keep it moist and prevent the drippings from burning.

Added a few more brickettes and some chunks of hickory for smoke and then placed the roast on the cooking grid.

I smoked the roast about 3 hours at about 275 degrees and when it looked right, I took if off to wrap in foil for my braising period which will tenderize it enough for pulling.

I added about 1/2 cup of beef broth to the foil and wrapped up the meat and placed it back on the cooker.

When the internal got to about 205 degrees, I pulled the roast off of the cooker being very careful to not tear the foil as I need the juice for my meat. The total time was about 5 hours for ths smoke. Sure looked good!

I pulled the meat and then added the juice back into it and it was ready for serving.

I toasted up a piece of low carb bread, added some of that pulled beef, drizzled on some of my low carb bbq sauce, added some salad and cheese, and I had myself a great meal.

You know, this cooker at half price right now has got to be one great bargain for the folks that do like charcoal. I would think it would be perfect for tailgating.

Pizza Next.....

I Smell Smoke Competition Cooking Class

2010-12-17T22:51:00.000-08:00

I had been kicking around the idea of hosting a competition cooking class at the Po-Farm for a couple of years and finally decided to do it this year. I did share this idea with a few friends and they were all for it and said I shouldn't have any problem filling up a class if I could get a great instructor to come in and do it. Well, I only had one person and team in mind all this time and I sure hoped I could get him to fly in and do the class. I had met this fine gentleman a few years earlier when I went East to compete in the New Holland, Pa contest. He and his Father and team were cooking on the same brand of cookers we were using at the time and they did quite well at this big event. It's just got to be Mr Steve Farrin and his "I Smell Smoke BBQ Team." This is a picture of some of the trophies that "I Smell Smoke" has won over the years.

Steve is from near Boston and is a long time competition cook with a tremendous record and has been terrorizing the East coast and other areas for a number of years. Steve has over 30 Grand Championship wins in his career. He has cooked or qualified in the Kansas City Royal about 10 times, the Jack Daniels 7 times, the Gab, and has several 1st place wins in the contest categories. He has many top ten calls and many high overall finishes in the more prestigious and larger contests. Last year, Steve went down to the wire against all the other cooking teams which is over 4700 teams and did finish 3rd and just a few points out from winning the coveted Team of the Year award.

I met Steve at the Jack Daniels and we discussed what I had in mind and he said he would be interested in doing a class at the Po-Farm and just let him know the details and we would work it out.

Since the Po-Farm is out in the sticks and about 30 minutes from the nearest motel, I decided I would need to try to put together a class that could be done in just one day...but would include all the details and information that one would receive in a normal hands on two day class. Would require cooking extra meat and starting a day in advance of the class getting there but could be done with an early start and an intensive day of instruction.

Now, the ball was in my court and I had a lot of work to get done to help pull this off.

I got my friend Jeff Toler to help with setting this class up. We needed tables, chairs, a big coffee pot, to name just a few items. Needed to jury rig a sink in the basement for cleaning and washing hands. Jeff also helped with the purchase of some of the meat. Another friend Steve Creech stopped at the famous Longs Donuts in Indy and brought us some great morning treats.

Steve gave me a list of the products he uses and I had to purchase most of it to be ready for the class.

My wife Jan was in charge of planning the snacks, drinks, and lunch for the event. She also did all the running and picking up the products for me and that was a big plus. Items like notebooks, pens, tablecloths, nametags, trash cans, and this list just never ends.

I sent out a note on the class to about 27 friends explaining that we were hosting a KCBS type of competition cooking class with Steve Farrin as the instructor and included this paragraph in the note.

"The class is about KCBS contest type of cooking and will cover all 4 meats from the selection and cut of meat to the presentation of the meat at a contest. Steve tells me that he will give it all up. We will learn how he cuts and trims and prepares each cut of meat. We will learn about the rubs that he uses, marinades, injections, products used in the foiling process, sauces and sauce blends, methods, how he presents the meat in the presentation boxes, and all the other tips and tricks from his arsenal".

I got a quick response back from most of them and it filled up very quickly as we only had room for about 20-22 people. We ended up with several people from out of state with one fellow from South Carolina who would travel the longest distance. We ended up with 23 people taking the class and that was about right for the space that we were working with.

We has set the date for the class at Saturday December 4th and I was hoping for good weather. Didn't happen!! First snowstorm of the year and expecting about 3-6 inches of snow.

A few days before the event, we did have the basement setup for the class.

I also moved the cookers he wanted to my cooking patio which included the Backwoods Party, the FE 100, and a Weber kettle.

Jan picked up Steve and one of his team mates Charlie Pini at the airport on Friday morning before the contest and brought them out to the Po-Farm. Got them settled in and they went to work as they needed to trim, inject, and rub the over-night meats and get them into the cooler. We needed one round of both the pork butts and briskets done by 7:00am on Saturday morning and into the holding cooler.

Everyone showed and on time for our 7:00am early start class.

This is a picture of Charlie and Steve ready to start the class.

From my point of view, the class went very well and I sure learned a lot that I will use in the coming year. Steve and Charlie were great instructors and covered everything that they do in a contest. From selecting and trimming the meat, to the rubs, injections, marinades, the handling of the cookers along with the smoke woods, the products used in the foil wrapping, the mixing of the sauces, prepping the turn in boxes, and presenting the meats. We also received pass out sheets on the products they use along with the recipes used for mixing up these products. Since the class was done a little out of contest order to get it done in one day, Steve also sent us his timeline for a normal contest.

I will include one of Steve's pork presentation boxes to give you an idea of what he turns in at a contest.

Steve and Charlie did a great job with the class and cooking in the cold and snow and I sure would recommend this cooking class to any competition team interested in improving their cooking skills and getting into the winners circle quickly.

Steve can be reached at ismellsmoke@verizon.net

I would also like to thank Stephanie Wilson of www.theslabs.com for furnishing some sample packs of the Slabs products for the class.

Gopher The Dough 2011

2010-12-13T02:32:00.000-08:00

The upcoming KCBS competition year may be a record breaker for the big buck events.

With Ron Cates of Smoke on the Water Productions planning a new event in Las Vegas at over $100,000.00 and assuming he continues with his other big events as he did in 2010, we are looking at as much as $370,000.00 in prize money just from this one promoter. WOW!! Thank you Mr Cates.

Along with Ron Cates there are several other organizers that do offer great prize funds and we as cooks sure thank them as well for their efforts at finding sponsors and money for the larger events.

I think that one of these high paying contests in 2010 paid out a check of $20,000.00 for the winner and I would guess that with some money from each of his meats, that he could have taken home around $25,000.00 total for the event. And that ain't chump change!

Assuming the money is the same as 2010, the big events in 2011 of above 20K each will look like this.

Date.............City and State................(Miles from Po-Farm)........Purse

3/18-3/19....North Little Rock, Ar..................(558).................$100,000

4/8-4/9......Scottsdale, Az.........................(1673)..................20,000

4/15-4/16....Jefferson City, Mo.....................(344)...................26,000
4/15-4/16....Lula, Ms...............................(501)...................20,000

4/29-4/30.....Huntsville, Al........................(434)...................20,000

5/20-5/21.....Bonner Springs, Ks....................(480)...................53,000

5/27-5/28.....Johnson City, Tn......................(468)...................19,800

6/10-6/11.....Tryon, Nc.............................(541)...................20,000

6/25-6/26.....Washington, DC........................(633)...................20,500

7/1-7/2.......Daytona, Fl...........................(1009)..................30,000

8/12-8/13.....Brooklyn, Mi..........................(259)...................30,000

8/19-8/20.....Midwest City, Ok......................(724)...................25,000

Not Sure/Date...Las Vegas...........................(1838).................100,000

8/26-8/27.....Springdale, Ar........................(575)...................20,000
8/26-8/27.....Amelia Island, Fl.....................(925)...................20,000

9/2-9/3.......Mesquite, Nv..........................(1729)..................39,250

9/9-9/10......Grand Junction, Co....................(1303)..................20,000

9/16-9/17.....Pine Bluff, Ar........................(576)...................20,000

10-1-10/2.....Kansas City, Mo.......................(459)..................110,000

10/28-10/29...Talladega, Al.........................(568)...................50,000

11/4-11/5.....Shelby, Nc............................(577)...................20,000

You know, a fellow could just follow the money for just 19 weeks and assuming he has an invite for both the Royal and the GAB, could compete for a prize fund of above $743,000 dollars. Shazamm!

Rekon Old Dave and His Ribs and Bibs BBQ team could win some of this loot if he would Gopher The Dough in 2011? Sure is tempting.

Looking at the above info, I do live kinda central to most of this money and think that many of these contests are just one day or less drive from the Po-Farm. If I figure I can drive 600 miles in a day with my small trailer, I could possible make about 14 of these events which would pay a total of about $489,000 in prize money.

The big bucks are a calling....

Non Traditional Thanksgiving / Hasty Bake

2010-11-29T01:24:00.000-08:00

Another cook on my oldy but goody 40+ year old Hasty Bake Model 130 cooker.

This is my 3rd cook on it as I am trying to get this cooker figured out and I did get a pretty nice meal out of it yesterday.

There are just the two of us and we sometimes don't go to all the hassle of cooking up a big meal for the holidays. We decided to just cook something up plain and simple for Thanksgiving on my new old cooker.

I started out with stuffed pepper halves. For the stuffing, I used pulled and chopped pork, sharp Cheddar cheese, Worchester sauce, chopped onions, cream cheese, and bacon. I also par-boiled the pepper halves before I stuffed them.

Added a little rub and the bacon and this dish was ready for the cooker.

I took a head of Romaine lettuce and cut it lengthwise right down the middle to have two pieces. I then drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled on some fresh cracked black pepper, some sea salt, and some garlic powder to both sides and this treat as well was ready for the cooker.

Next step was to get a couple of nice thick ribeyes ready for the cooker. I sprinkled on some fresh ground black pepper and some garlic salt on the meat.

For my bread, I then prepped some Cresent Rolls for the cooker.

This is the way I set up the cooker and maybe some of you Hasty Bake owners can tell me if I got it right for this cook. My older cooker doesn't have the slide out firebox so I just loaded thru the top of the cooker and filled the right side or right half of the firebox full of lump charcoal. I placed the heat deflector over the left side of the cooker so I could cook both direct and indirect at the same time. I lit it up and brought it up to temp and raised the firebox up to just under the cooking grates.

I placed my stuffed peppers on the left or indirect side of the cooker.

I then placed my raised baking grid over the peppers for my Cresent rolls.

I placed the Cresent rolls on the indirect side of the cooker and then loaded the Romaine lettuce on the direct side of the cooker. The lettuce only cooks about 3-4 minutes a side to just get some char or black on some of the leaves and to get it warmed up in the middle.

Looked and smelled great coming off of the cooker. I shreadded up about a half cup of fresh Romano cheese and sprinkled it on top of the lettuce.

Placed the steaks on the direct side of the cooker and right over the fire and cooked them to about medium rare. Took about 6-7 minutes a side.

The steaks came off looking good.

I took the stuffed peppers off next but the bread was not ready.

I finally took the bread off after about 12 more minutes and it didn't come out as brown as I would like but it was done. I guess I just had the lid opened up tooo many times with the rest of the cook to build up enough heat to brown the bread.

You know, it sure wasn't a traditional Thanksgiving meal but it sure was a good replacement in my book.

That was the first time I did that lettuce like that and it was KILLER!

Holiday Appetizers / Smoked Cheese

2010-11-25T02:45:00.000-08:00

I usually like to get my holiday cheese smoking done by early November so it has some time to age in the vacuum sealed packages before the holidays. Running a little behind this year as I just got to it yesterday.

Wife purchased a large batch this year and this is the cheese I got ready for smoking by cutting it up into logs that measure about 1" to maybe 1-1/2" near square logs.

Three Alarm Colby Jack 11.46 lbs
Alpenhaus Swiss 4.80
Dutch Gouda 2.00
Colby-Jack 2.00
Bruschettta-Jack 2.00
Danish Havarti 1.43
Le Gruyere 1.30
Sharp Cheddar 4.81

This is 29.80 pounds of cheese and probably the largest batch I have smoked at one time.

I decided to smoke this batch in my Backwoods Party as I thought it would be a full load and this cooker was handy and at the front of the garage.

I rolled the smoker out of the garage and loaded a charcoal chimney with about 10 brickettes of that great Rancher charcoal. When it was ready, I fixed up my firebox (pie pan) with 6 greyed over brickettes and then added some chunks of a mild hickory out of Maine which I won at a contest a few years ago.

I was right in that it really filled up the cooker. I smoked this batch of cheese a total of 90 minutes and it was checked for smoke flavor about 3 times until I got it to where it should be perfect after it comes out of the vacuum sealed packages.

This is some of the cheese coming off of the smoker. Sure looks good...

We got it all bagged up and vacuumed sealed and placed back into the fridge to age for a couple of weeks which will mellow out the flavor. Just can't wait to get into some of that smoked Three Alarm Colby-Jack cheese.

For the folks that need more detail on cheese smoking, see my other articles on this subject.

Texas Toast from Scratch

2010-11-16T23:32:00.000-08:00

I just had to try some baking on my 40+ year old model 130 Hasty Bake cooker.

I just found out from a Hasty Bake Guru that my cooker is older than I thought. He said it was made in the late 60's or early 70's. Heck, it is more than a classic...it's and antique as well!

I figured I would need a good head of steam due to the weather conditions so I loaded the firebox full of lump for this higher temp bake.

I placed the heat deflector right in the middle of the grid and added a raised grid on top of that to get my baking grate higher up inside the dome or lid of the cooker.

It was probably about 4-5 inches up into the lid where I figured I could get a better and more even browning on the bread.

I used our favorite recipe for our regular bread which is the Old Order Amish Bread and had it ready at about the time I got the cooker up to temp.

It baked up fine although it did take a little longer than I expected but the outside temp was about 37 degrees with light rain and I am sure that caused some of the increase in the baking time.

I really got the bread browned up nicely and very even and it came off the cooker looking great. I then cut one loaf of the bread into about 1" thick slices for my Texas Toast. Added a stick of butter to a bowl, then some garlic, and a little garlic salt, heated it up and brushed it on both sides of the slices.

Moved the heat deflector over to one side and put the bread back on the cooker. MY...MY the smell was wonderful and I couldn't wait to get at it!

You just can't beat some great home made bread turned into Texas Toast.

Served it up with a burger and sure enjoyed the meal.

That 40+ year old cooker is doing me a fine job and I am enjoying fooling around with it.

Maybe Pizza next??

Hasty Bake / Classic Cooker

2010-11-13T23:57:00.000-08:00

You know, Jimmy Carter lusts after beautiful women and I guess I lust after some of the older and more classic cookers and smokers. Cookers like the smaller 15" WSM, a Charbroil CB940, Cajun Grill, Hasty Bake, the two smaller Jedmasters, a Weber Performer in Red with the stainless steel table, and even a less expensive PK Grill to name a few.

I check the Craig's List about twice a week for some of these hard to find units and had been looking for one of the larger Hasty Bakes for about 3 years in the Indiana area. Last week I decided to look farther out and set my Search Tempest to 1000 miles from Indy and bingo, I got a hit in Mount Cory, Ohio! Heck, that is only 250 miles from the Po-Farm.

Some of the information in the ad stated the following...Made in USA. Been in dry storage the last 20 years, needs a good cleaning but this is a very nice large charcoal cooker. On it's way to the scrap yard, thought someone might appreciate it for what it is. The price was $10.00 dollars. Had these two pictures enclosed.

I called the gentleman and he told me that the cooker had been in his Mother's garage for about 20 years and other than a little surface rust, the cooker was in pretty good condition. I told him that I would take the cooker and asked him to hold it for me for a few days until I could get over there with some help to pick it up.

A few days later and early one morning, I picked up my good friend Jeff Toler (Anchorman) just North of Indy and we went over to Ohio and picked up the cooker and I had it back home at about 3:30pm in the afternoon. Pretty good for a 500 mile round trip.

All this time, I thought the cooker was the smaller Suburban size but after I got to checking it out, I found that it was a model 130 which is the larger and more desirable Legacy size model.

Looked it over good and it did need a good cleaning and had a broken firebox fire grate and was missing the heat deflector. The gentleman had told me that it did still have some ashes in the firebox when he rescued it from the garage and that did worry me some but the ash pan was fine and not rusted out.

With a few replacement parts, a good cleaning and reseasoning, some wire brushing and sanding, and a new paint job, I will add this cooker to my arsenal. Might be a great ending for a cooker that is probably near 30 years old at the present time. And yes, this is one fellow that will appreciate this old cooker as the seller had asked!

I am not sure I can get it to look as good as a new cooker as seen above and priced at about $1100.00 dollars but I'll bet it will cook just as good as a new one. As you can see, there has not been very many changes in the life of this 30 year old cooker.

Hasty Bake is a smaller company has been in business since 1948 and that is even longer than the Weber company and have built several models of these fine cookers over the years. They have a wonderful reputation and are a rock solid company. If they don't have a replacement part, they will make one up for you. They do treat their customers right.

I called the head guru, a Mr. Adam Myers at Hasty Bake and we talked about the age of this cooker. It doesn't have the indicator to show the height of the firebox and also doesn't have to pull out firebox feature. Other than that, it is the same as a new cooker. He figures it's an early 80's model cooker. I then ordered the three replacement parts I needed along with some accessories I wanted for this old classic.

The first thing I did to the cooker was to take it apart and then I scraped the inside down and removed some of that old grease and sludge. I then washed it all out and I put it back together and oiled it down good and then lit a hot lump fire and reseasoned the inside of the cooker. Now, I got parts coming in about a week but I couldn't wait and wanted to cook something in this old cooker.

I covered the ash pan with foil, and then placed two fire cubes on it, and then loaded up the right half of the firebox with some good Ozark Oak lump. I added 3 big chunks of hickory to the top of the charcoal. I then lowered the firebox right down and on top of the fire cubes and it lit off quickly and I had a hot fire in about 20-25 minutes.

I left just the one cooking grid in the cooker for this cook. I then raised the hot firebox up to about 9-10 inches under the cooking grid

This old chili-head does like his hot stuff and I rubbed these wings with a heavy dose of the very hot 80 grade cayenne pepper. I also made up some glazing sauce with about a half stick of butter, about 10 oz of Franks Hot Sauce, and about 2 tsp of the hot ground cayenne pepper.

I moved the cooking grid over to the left side of the cooker so it wasn't over the fire and loaded up my wings. Since I don't have the foggiest idea of what I am doing with this cooker, I guess you could say I was "winging it". I know, that's bad but I had to say it! Anyway, I let them cook indirectly like this for about 30 minutes. Slopped on a heavy dose of sauce, turned them over and slopped on another dose to this side. Slid the grid over to the right side and over the fire for some direct cooking and to set the glaze. I kept moving the grid back and forth and turning and saucing the wings until my sauce ran out and the wings were charred up to suit me.

Worked nice for this first cook and I removed the wings and shut down the cooker.

Love my hot wings!!

Will be more coming on this old classic cooker in the future.

The Ultimate Hot Fattie

2010-09-18T02:36:00.000-07:00

This treat has been all over the web and on the cooking shows and other TV shows and I believe it was invented by The BBQ Addicts and posted on their blog back in 2008. They call it "The Bacon Explosion".

Probably a gazillion versions of this treat out there and this is another with my changes as this chili-head does like this kind of food hot.

Had some other items to grill along with this Ultimate Fattie so I fired up the Weber kettle and got it ready for my version of this treat.

I started with these ingredients:

2 pound bacon
1 pound of Bob Evans hot sausage
onion
bell pepper
Jalapeno peppers
shreadded up about 1-1/2 cups of the very hot Three Alarm Colby Jack Cheese with Habanero, Chipotle, and Jalapeno peppers from Sam's Club.
rub
cayenne pepper

I need to stop right here and make a statement about the very hot Three Alarm Colby Jack Cheese as used in the above recipe.

This stuff is "killer". It's great shreadded up and then mixed with your regular cheese for pizza, calzones, lasagna and other Italian treats. Also wonderful just sliced for crackers.

I started by making up the bacon weave and did it on a piece of wax paper. I used 14 pieces of bacon.

I then cut up the rest of the ingredients and shreaded the super hot cheese. Fried up about 10 slices of bacon on the stove and broke it into small pieces.

Next, I sprayed some Pam into a 1 gallon Zip-Lock bag and placed the sausage inside the bag and then pressed it out with my hands to form a nice square piece of sausage. I cut the top off the bag and then cut down the two sides and laid the bag open to get at the sausage. Placed a piece of waxed paper on top and then turned it over and removed the rest of the bag.

Started the stuffing process with the onions, bell peppers and Jalapeno peppers.

Next came the bacon pieces and the shreadded cheese.

I then used the wax paper to help roll up the stuffed sausage roll and placed it on my bacon weave.

Using the wax paper again, I rolled up the sausage and bacon weave and then sprinkled on some rub and cayenne pepper and it was ready for the cooker.

Placed it on the kettle at about 275 degrees and let it cook until the internal got to 165 degrees. As you can see, I didn't get the seam of the bacon all the way under the roll. It came loose at about the time it was done and was easily fixed.

Had a problem here as the inside was done and the outside bacon wasn't as crisp as I like and I didn't want to overcook it. The picture makes it look like it was done enough but it wasn't so I let it rest until it cooled down some and then placed it in the oven under the broiler for about 10 minutes turning it a few times and man, that did it without overcooking the stuffing.

Cut it up for serving.

Just take a buttermilk biscuit, butter it and spread a glob of some good blackberry jelly on it and place one of these Bacon Explosion slices on it and enjoy. Also great on an English muffin with a big slab of tomato and some Mayo.

Sweet Corn and Ribeye Steak

2010-07-25T02:15:00.000-07:00

Fresh Sweet Corn cooked "right" in a pot of boiling water is a wonderful treat but even better in a smoker or cooker following these simple steps.

First, you need to forget what you read on those other blogs about sweet corn and by the way, you shouldn't be reading any OTHER blogs as it hurts my feelings and some of those dimwits and cityfolks don't know nothing about country cooking. Anyway, do not pull back the shucks and remove the silk as it will be much easier when it is done and the shucks need to be tight on each ear for this method to work right. Do not add sugar to the soak water. Do not overcook this great treat by browning up the shucks on your cooker. KISS

Get out a clean bucket or something that will hold the corn you plan to cook and fill it up with water. Add about 1/2 to 2/3 cup of salt to this bucket.

Add the sweet corn with the shucks and be sure to get it all submerged. Do not strip the ears back to remove the silk or even fool with the shucks as this is one of the secrets to great corn.

Soak this corn for ONE hour.

Now, take it straight to the cooker or smoker running about 225-275 degrees and cook it indirect for ONE hour turning every twenty minutes. The shucks do not have to be browned as it will be far overcooked before the shucks brown up very much.

Make you up a butter jar out of a quart canning jar or a pitcher of some type. Fill it about half full with hot sink water and then add a cup of hot butter on top. Pull the shucks back to use as a handle and remove the silk on the corn and dip those ears in the butter jar and then add your salt and pepper.

ENJOY!!

Ok, for the balance of this cook which will be three ribeye steaks and nine burgers, we will use the Weber Performer.

I like the burgers done at high temps and indirect so I placed the first 6 burgers over the drip pan and cooked them in about 12 minutes. I then placed the last 3 on the cooker and added 2 of the ribeye steaks and I have them direct over the hot coals.

The ribeyes take about 3-4 minutes a side and this is the 3rd steak.

Finished steaks and some corn and we also did some baked potatoes when we did the corn for this meal.

A nice meal.

Rib Tips, St Louis Spares, and Other Treats

2010-07-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

This cook started out as a rib practice cook and just kept growing until I had several other items cooked as well as the ribs and tips. I had a couple of new things to try with my competition ribs as I sure do need some improvement to stay ahead of those dang Shigs.

Here in Central Indiana, those bronto spares have been on sale all Summer for as low as $1.59 a pound to about $1.99 a pound and this is a very good buy if you can find them under about five pounds per slab. I have been filling the freezer with them and decided to see what I could do with them.

I cut them down to St louis cut which gives me a slab at just under two pounds and about 3 pounds of rib tips per whole slab of the bronto's. Got more tips than I got ribs!!

I got them ribs all prepared with some secret stuff and then did the tips with my regular stuff and fired up the pellet cooker with some pecan and loaded them up.

They came out good and I did sample one rib off of each slab and gave them to a neighbor for testing.

Now for me and my lady, I have this 9 pounds of tips ready to go back into the smoker in some sauce and another sweetner to finish them up.

Now that is some good eating!!

I also prepped a whole pork loin which is another great buy at $1.57 a pound at Kroger and cooked it along with the ribs and tips. They can be brined, marinaded, or just rubbed and cooked whole and make a great meat that will go with about anything. I love a couple of slices with my eggs at breakfast. Makes a great sandwich as well.

They slice up nice and are always tasty and juicy.

We usually end up freezing some one pound packages of this meat for later use.

As with all my cooks when I have room, I always do some of my breaded and super hot wings.

This chili-head just can't get enough hot stuff!!

Smoked Sausage Medley

2010-07-19T03:55:00.000-07:00

I did this cook for a Thursday evening contest pitch-in over in Kettering, Ohio at the 4th Annual Veteran BBQ Cookoff. You know...bring your favorite dish type of thing.

I figured that I would need to serve about 70 people so I decided to do about 9-10 pounds of meat. I used some Smoked Eckrich sausage, some Eckrich Polish sausage, some mild Italian sausage, some Brats, some Chorizo, some Andouille, and some of my super hot and spicy Italian sausage which I have in the bulk.

Ok, for the Medley, I used some portabella mushrooms, red onions, white onions, red, green, yellow, and orange bell peppers.

I wanted all of the ingredients smoked kinda heavy and did them slowly in my pellet cooker with pecan pellets on the smoke setting for some additional time. I started with the bell peppers.

A tray of onions ready for the smoker.

The portabellas ready to go on the cooker.

Since some of my home made sausage is in the bulk form, I just make it into small meat balls for this treat.

I made several smokes with this treat to get it all done and ready for the event.

I cut up the sausage and got it ready. As I finished up, I placed all the smoked and cooked ingredients into some Zip-Lock bags until serving time at the contest.

I planned to make up a light sauce with some Prego, wine, water, and Italian spices.

At the contest, I put this all together in a large stainless steel pot and heated it up for serving.

I don't have any finished pictures of this treat as it went pretty fast at the contest.

Flat Iron Steak Meal / Weber Performer

2010-04-23T00:27:00.000-07:00

Around the first of the year, Lowe's Hardware chain put a few Weber Peformers on sale for about half price at $199.00 dollars and I did find one at this great price and bought it. I really wanted a red one but I had to settle for the black.

For my first cook, I wanted to do a total meal on the kettle so here it is.

My menu was to be the following:

Flat Iron Steak
Thick slabbed potatoes
Marinated and grilled veggies
Fruit
An Italian Flatbread

Prep

For my bread, I kinda crossed one my focaccia recipes with my bruschetta flat bread recipe and just made up the dough with some Italian herbs and then added some olive oil, a bruschetta tomato topping, some tomato slices, and shreadded mozzarela cheese. I also sprinkled on some dried Italian herbs.

The bread ready to go on the cooker.

I made up a sweet marinade for my veggies and also added some pineapple to the mix and got it soaking. I had slab onions, bell peppers, and pineapple in the bowl.

I then prepped my slab potatoes. I used peanut oil as a sticker, and then added some dried Italian spices, fresh cracked black pepper, sea salt, and some parmesan cheese.

I sprinkled on some garlic salt and then cracked up some fresh tellicherry pepper on top of my 3 pound flat iron steak.

The Cook

My slab potatoes will take the longest so they went on the cooker first. I then put the bread on the cooker on a raised grid to get it closer to the top of the cooker for the best baking results. I was running the temp at about 400 degrees.

This was the first cook on a brand new Weber Performer Grill.

The bread just off of the cooker. Man, did it smell good!!

Just as soon as I got the bread off, I opened up the vents to get the cooker up to as high temp as possible for the steak.

It only took a few minutes a side to get the steak to about medium rare- medium and then off the cooker and wrapped in foil and rested for about 30 minutes.

The potatoes were done at this time as well.

The veggies went on next in my veggie pan.

At this high temp, they only took a few minutes to cook.

After the steak rested, I cut if for the serving plate. Looked great!

Mommy wanted some more fruit with the meal so she added some tangerine slices to the plate.

Ya just gotta love those Weber kettles...

Spamwich and Rooster Booster Wings

2010-03-03T03:18:00.000-08:00

I did an interesting cook a few days ago in the Backwoods Party cooker and it came out very well. This cook started out as a practice cook for my upcoming contest season and I also had a few other items I wanted to try on the cooker so I included them as well.

As a chili-head, I usually try to include some hot stuff on about all cooks if I have the room and I did plan for some hot wings of some type. Had a new bottle of Rooster (Sriacha) Sauce and decided to see if I could find a new recipe using this great chili sauce on the web for hot wings. Bingo!!!--out jumps a great looking new recipe at "The Wolfe Pit" (Mr Larry Wolfe) for some Orange Marmalade Sriacha Wings that just looks wonderful to me.

One of the other items that I wanted to cook is my Southern Succor Spam as this is a favorite of ours and always a great treat off of a smoker.

The Southern Succor Rub comes from the great Jamison's book titled "Smoke and Spice" and is a super spicy black pepper based rub that is also great on pork butts. I cut the recipe down a little for this Spam cook.

1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup paprika
1/4 cup Turbinado sugar
2 TBL salt
2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper

I am now ready to give the two blocks of Spam a heavy coat of this very spicy rub.

Now ready for the cooker.

About done on the cooker.

Now that is some good stuff!

While those items were cooking, I made up the Orange Marmalade Sriacha Sauce from the recipe at "The Wolfe Pit" as I wanted to try it on my Spam Sandwich.

18 oz orange marmalade (not shown in picture)
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup Sriacha Chili Sauce

I did add a touch of cayenne to the mix but would be too hot for most folks.

Heated and mixed it up in a pan and then removed from the heat.

I like to either grill or toast the hoogie bun and then lay down some colby jack slices on one side of the bun. On top of that goes some lettuce, some tomato slices, and some onion slices. Place the Spam on the other side and then I added some of that great looking hot Rooster sauce out of the glass on top of the Spam.

Fold that baby up and enjoy---oh my, that is good!!

I sprinkled on a light coat of the Smokin' Guns hot rub on the wings and placed them on the cooker. I then cooked them until they were done and took them off the cooker, dipped them in the Rooster sauce, back on the cooker until this glaze set up a little and then back off the cooker for one more round. Glazed them a second time and they came out very good but probably not as good as if I would have grilled them as per the recipe.

I made a mistake cooking these wings indirect in a smoker. Larry grills them and I think that would definitely improve the wings. They needed more char from a direct flame to improve the taste and I will do them this way on my next cook. The sauce is out of the world and I can't wait to try it on my pork loin.

Thanks again to Larry Wolfe for this wonderful recipe with the Sriacha sauce for wings as I am sure I will use it for many other cooks as it is just toooo good to not be included in my recipes and trials for hot stuff.

Portabella Pizza

2010-02-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

I was cruising around the bbq forums a few days ago and on the "Addicted To BBQ" forum, I found this great looking treat. A gentleman who uses the handle of "a26guy" put up a post with pictures of this great looking personal sized pizza.

The unique part of this pizza is that the crust is just a plain portabella mushroom which makes it great for all low carbers as it is about impossible to make a low carb pizza crust out of anything that is edible. It is just great for your regular pizza as well and should please all guests.

Anyway, after seeing the post, I couldn't wait to try it for myself. I also did a couple of regular pizzas with this new treat in the pellet cooker using pecan for wood.

I started by using a mellon baller to cut and scrape the gills from out of the underside of the portabella caps. I then cut each stem off down to the caps. For my toppings for the six portabella pizzas and the two regular 14" pizzas, I browned up a mixture of one pound of hot sausage and one pound of hamburger. I then cut up some onions and bell peppers and opened a can of black olives and the sauce to go on the pizzas. I also used 6 cups of mozzarella cheese on the pizzas.

I sauced the caps and then added the blend of hot sausage and burger.

I added the onions and bells peppers.

Next came the black olives and plenty of cheese and then I added a piece of pepperoni on top.

The six portabella caps ready to go on my pellet smoker.

I brought the smoker up to about 350 degrees for this treat and it took about 18-19 minutes to get the pizzas done to my liking.

This is just before I pulled them off the cooker.

Sure did look great!

After the portabellas came off the cooker, I raised the temp to about 425 for the regular pizzas and loaded them on the smoker.

These things are KILLER!!

Was a little cold outside to screw around setting up a couple of baking hearths so I did the regular pizzas on a pan.

Good stuff!!

Making Brats and Texas Hot Links

2010-01-25T01:54:00.000-08:00

As a long time sausage maker, I am always looking for new recipes and other interesting sausages to try and although I am completely out of my Italian sausage, which I must have at all times, I decided to try a couple of new recipes before I make up a large batch of my Italian. A large batch to me is about 20-25 pounds at the most so you can see that I am a small time sausage maker.

A good friend, a Mr. Jim Ferguson (Rolling Smoke Barbeque) from over around the Dayton, Ohio area, gave me a recipe for his brats that he has been working on and it looked good to me so I wanted to give it a try. He probably thinks I forgot about this recipe as he gave it to me about six months ago and this is the first time I will try it.

Jim's web page: http://www.rollingsmoke.com/

Another friend, a Mr. Kevin (Stoogie) Taylor (The BBQ Guru) has a great looking Texas Hot Link recipe on his web site "The Recipe Goldmine" that I have wanted to try for a while now as it looks very good and I think it would be hot enough to suit this chili-head.

Kevin's web page: http://www.recipegoldmine.com/bbqguru/bbqguru.html

I started out with two pork butts that weighed a total of 14.82 pounds as my brat recipe calls for 4 pounds of ground pork and I will use the balance of the ground pork in the Texas hot links.

I prepped the meat by cutting out the bones and cutting the meat into small chunks that would fit my Kitchen-Aid grinder. I also mixed the fattie stuff with the lean stuff in the bowls as I prepped the meat for a better and more even grind. The meat then went back into the fridge for a couple of hours to cool down again for the grinder.

While the meat was cooling down again, I got the spices out for the sausage. I found an error in the recipe...calls for a 1/2 cup of water?? WATER, that stuff will rust your pipes!!! I decided to substitute red wine. I also added a very small amount of cayenne pepper to the mix as I do like a little bite in my brats. That is the only changes I made to this great looking recipe. I then mixed most of the spices into the red wine to let them seep until I needed to add them to the mix.

Next, I ran the cold pork thru the Kitchen-Aid with grinder and only plugged it up once. Cleaned it out and finished the meat.

I had a nice batch of ground pork ready for my two recipes.

I then weighed out enough ground pork for the brat recipe, mixed the ground beef into the ground pork for my brats, added the spices, and mixed it up with my hands. I then covered the bowl and placed it into the fridge so the flavors can all meld together for about 12 hours before I stuff the casings. I will have about 5 pounds of total meat ready for the brats.

With my brats out of the way, I started on the Texas hot links. Here is the recipe from Stoogie's web site.

Texas Hot Links

From the kitchen of Kevin Taylor, the BBQ Guru

1 (6 pound) pork butt
1 bottle beer
2 tablespoons black pepper, coarsely ground
2 tablespoons red pepper, crushed
2 tablespoons cayenne pepper
2 tablespoons paprika
3 tablespoons kosher (coarse) salt
2 tablespoons mustard seed
1/4 cup garlic, minced
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 tablespoon MSG
1 teaspoon Tender Quick
1 teaspoon bay leaves , ground
1 teaspoon coriander
1 teaspoon thyme, dried

Mix all spices with beer.

Grind pork for sausage.

Mix beer/spices thoroughly into the meat.

Form into sausage links and grill or smoke.

Place in bun and slather heavily with mustard.

I got my spices all measured out for about 9 pounds of meat. The recipe calls for 6 pounds of meat and I have 9 so I added about 1/3rd more spices to the ground pork. Again, as a chili-head, I think that using 3 TBL of the very hot 80 grade ground cayenne, 3 TBL crushed red pepper, and 3 TBL black pepper, to only 9 pounds of ground meat, that these links should come out hot and spicy.

I got the 9 pounds of Texas hot links all mixed up and covered the dish and placed it into the fridge for my melding period of about 12 hours. This bowl of meat is blood red from the spices and just eaks and eaks of heat. Gonna be a good batch!!

I did make up a pattie of each recipe to taste it right after I mixed it up so if I thought it needed anything I could add it now. Both recipes were great and I didn't change anything.

The next day, I ran the brat meat thru my upright tin can stuffer into hog casings (gut) and it came out looking good. I don't stuff sausage very often as I use it in the bulk but I was pleased with the 5 pounds of stuffed brats.

I made the sausage into links and then bagged up the brats for future use.

I started stuffing the Texas hot links into the hog casings and they came out looking pretty good.

I ended up with a nice batch of stuffed Texas hot links.

Again, I made them up into links and bagged the sausage for future use.

Both of these recipes were very good tasting in bulk form in a sandwich but I really won't be able to judge the results until I can taste them as they are properly served in the links.

A fellow needs to carmelize up some onions and bell peppers for both of these sausage recipes. They also must be served in a good fresh bun (not a hotdog bun) for the best results. A nice poppy seeded bun with a sausage link in it, with some carmelized onions and peppers, a few jalapeno slices and then some homemade honey mustard is a real treat.

My thanks go out to both Jim Ferguson and Kevin Taylor for these recipes.

Pit Beef/Roast Beef on the Weber Kettle

2010-01-18T03:59:00.000-08:00

Wife wanted some roast or pit beef and I was looking to do a rotisserie cook of some type so this cook just went together like peaches and cream. I decided to do it on my EZ-Que in the old stand by Weber Kettle which always gives me great results. Never had a bad cook with this setup.

I started out with two beef bottom round roasts from Sam's Club with one weighing in at 3.58 pounds and the other a little larger at 4.11 pounds. I like the smaller roasts as it gives me more of that great outside crust after cooking. This meat should make for some wonderful sandwiches!

I cut the hard fat off of the fat side and then sprinkled on a generous dose of garlic salt and black pepper.

I got the cooker out of the garage and loaded up the charcoal chimney with enough Rancher brickettes to fill the two charcoal baskets in the Weber kettle. I then lit up the chimney full of charcoal. Was a cool morning at about freezing and with some misting rain and fog in the area. As you can see, we still have some snow on the ground.

I got my 6" EZ-Que rotisserie basket out and loaded up the two rubbed bottom round roasts and got them ready for the cooker.

Went back outside and poured the charcoal into the baskets inside the cooker and added the drip pan with a little water and got the cooker ready to load for an indirect hight temp cook.

I loaded the meat into the kettle for this short cook.

With the freezing rain I decided to use my tailgater battery operated rotisserie spit motor for this cook and I replaced the D batteries and installed it and it worked well.

I wanted to cook this meat as hot as the cooker would get and I opened up all the vents and had a lid temp of around 425-475f degrees which should get these roasts done to medium rare in about an hour. Then the wife told me she didn't want them "moo-ing" so I decided to cook them a little longer.

I ended up cooking the roasts for about 75 minutes which gave me an internal temp of about 155-160f which is about medium done. It sure looked good and should make for some great beef.

Brought the meat inside the house and removed it from the EZ-Que basket.

The smell was wonderful and I couldn't wait to get some sliced up. Wrapped them in foil and let them cool some before I put them thru the slicer.

The meat coming off of the slicer.

It sure makes up a nice plate of thin sliced roast beef. Me and my lady fought over each of the last 1/4" thick crust pieces off of each block of meat that went thru the slicer as the slicer won't cut the meat all the way to your fingers! ouch! These thin crunchy chunks are to die for!!

Take a fresh onion bun, cut it in half, wrap it with a wet paper towel and place it into the nuker for a few short seconds to get it steamed and warmed up. Place a big pile of this roast beef on one side of the bun. Add a couple of slices of Swiss cheese on top of the meat, back into the nuker for a few seconds to melt the cheese. Add a big dollop of horsey sauce to the top of the meat and add the top of the bun for one great sandwich.

We did freeze the remainder of the meat in pound packets for future use.

Holiday Appetizers / Pig Candy

2009-12-20T00:33:00.000-08:00

Pig Candy is a great sweet and spicy treat to have around the house for the holidays. It is fairly easy to make and is a great snack and goes well with my other appetizers of Jerky and Smoked Cheese.

This cook is my no-carb low calorie version and I used the following ingredients.

4 pounds of the thick cut Country Bacon from Sam's Club

Sugar Twin Granulated Brown Replacement Sugar (Calorie free-no carbs)

Ground Cayenne pepper

Crushed Hot Red pepper flakes (in black pepper container)

I start by adding some Sugar Twin to a bowl and then adding enough ground cayenne pepper to make it as hot as I want it. I like it SCREEMING HOT and use way more than most folks can handle. For you folks that don't like it very hot, just add some cayenne and taste it and then get it as hot as YOU want. Some of the mix will cook and wash off of the bacon so do make it a little hotter at the start.

I would normally smoke this in one of my Backwoods cookers like you see in the picture but I cheated this time and did it in the kitchen oven so it won't have any smoke flavor but I was pressed for time and just didn't get the smoker out and fire it up for this treat. The Shame of it.....much better in a smoker.

I don't like this treat cooked in it's own grease so I use raised cooling grids in the pans to keep the bacon up and out of the grease.

After I apply the hot spices & sugar to the top side of the bacon, I placed it in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.

I pulled it out, and then turned the bacon over, and added the spices again, and placed it back into the oven for about 25-30 more minutes or until it is done to suit me.

This is the final product just out of the oven and cooling on the top of the stove.

I then cut each strip of bacon in half and this picture shows the results of my 4 pound cook.

I bagged up the Pig Candy and have it ready for the holidays.

Good Stuff!!

Holiday Appetizers / Smoked Cheese

2009-12-18T01:27:00.000-08:00

Real Smoked Cheese is a great treat to have around the house during the holidays. It is very easy to prepare and is wonderful with crackers and any smoked meat.

For this smoke, I used the following cheeses.

3.99 lb of Alpenhaus Switzerland Swiss Cheese (one of our favorites)

2.10 lb of Members Mark Sharp Cheddar

1.82 lbs of Dutch Gouda Cheese

1.23 lb Black Diamond 6 yr aged Cheddar Cheese

1.66 lb of Great Midwest 3 Alarm Colby Jack with Chipotle, Habenero, & Jalapeno

I cut the blocks of cheese into the smaller chunks like you see in the picture. The smoke doesn't penetrate the cheese but only builds up on the outside of the blocks and to keep the smoke equal in the pieces, it is better to keep the blocks no more than about 1 to 1-1/2" in diameter for the best results. This is also cracker size and will be perfect for this treat.

I got the Backwoods Chubby out for this smoke. I will run no water in the pan for this very low temp smoke. Placed about 10 Rancher Brickettes in the chimney and lit it off.

As soon as I had the coals all ashed over and grey, I place 6 brickettes in my pie pan and then laid a couple of chunks of fruitwood on top of the brickettes and placed it into the firebox of the cooker.

I loaded the cooker with the grids of cheese and closed it up. I must keep the temp inside the cooker to under 80 degrees for this smoke and with the cold morning of about 18 degrees, this won't be a problem with this cook. No heat is needed for smoking cheese but only the smoke for great results. In the Summer, I would have filled the waterpan with ice for the cook.

I let it smoke for 60 minutes and then pulled one log off to sample for the smoke. I cut the first piece off of the log and SET IT ASIDE!! I then cut the second slice off of the log and tasted it for smoke and found that it needed some more smoking. I then placed the log back into the smoker. I didn't taste the first slice off the log as it has way to much surface area (end piece) and would have given me a false reading.

I checked another piece at 90 minutes into the cook and it was perfect. Had a nice light smoke flavor and was good.

I pulled the cheese off of the cooker and shut it down.

I then vacuumed sealed the blocks in their bags. They will need to age about a week in the fridge as this brings out more flavor in the smoked cheese.

This will go over great with my Jerky and all I need now is the Pig Candy and it is up next.

KCBS Judges / Judging--Thank You

2009-12-15T00:13:00.000-08:00

The Ribs & Bibs Competition Barbecue Cooking Team would like to extend a heartfelt THANK YOU to the Kansas City Barbeque Society Certified Judges. Without your support, we couldn't enjoy this great hobby of competition barbeque cooking.

I know it is a "thankless" task at times but we do want you to know it is appreciated by this cooking team. In our area of the Mid-West, I know many of you have to travel which means additional fuel costs, maybe a motel room, several meals, and we know this comes out of your pocket and again, it is appreciated.

Along with the cost of judging in our area, we also would like to thank you for your valuable time that you give up to judge the contests. Your dedication to this sport/hobby means the world to the Ribs & Bibs BBQ Team.

For any of the judges that might arrive early on Friday for the event, or any of the judges that might want to stay over after the judging and visit, we would be honored to have you stop by the Ribs & Bibs cooking site for a beverage. We always have extra chairs and do like to talk about our sport.

Just find the site with the red and white Ford pickup with the small white toy hauler and come in and introduce yourself and visit with us for a while.

Holiday Appetizers / Jerky

2009-12-05T23:39:00.000-08:00

With the holiday season coming up, we always like to have some homemade appetizers, treats, and snacks available for family and visitors. We usually make up some holiday baskets for several friends as well.

This is one of our baskets from last year and it contains a package of my Pig Candy, a package of my Regular Jerky, and a package of my Hot and Spicy Jerky, a couple of logs of my real Smoked Cheese, and a bottle of Jack.

Now, dontcha wish you were one of my friends and received your Christmas basket???

CAUTION: This jerky recipe and method doesn't have a cure in it so it must be either refridgerated or frozen so it doesn't spoil after the cooking and drying.

This batch was 10 pounds of beef bottom round roast and I had the store cut it off of the full round in 1/4" thick slices for my jerky. This saves me a step in the prep of this treat.

I usually start by making up my marinade for the meat as it needs to soak a while so the sugar can dissolve. For this 10 pounds of meat, I mixed up this recipe...

3-1/2 Cups of Soy Sauce
3/4 Cup Dark Molasses
2-1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
2 TBL Onion Powder
2 TBL Garlic Powder
2 TBL Black Pepper
1 TBL White Pepper
1 TBL Ground Red Pepper
2 TBL Crushed Red Pepper

I make the marinade up in a large bowl and then throw the meat into the bowl as we trim it.

We trim as much fat out of the meat as we can and then cut it into slices like you see in the picture.

After the meat is trimmed, I place the meat and the marinade into a large stainless steel pot and put it into the fridge for at least 12 hours before it goes on the smoker. More time is even better.

On smoking day, I usually bring my cooking grids into the kitchen and then load them up. This was a large cook and will take both of my Backwoods Party cookers as I ended up with 14 grids of jerky meat.

I loaded up both cookers with some Rancher charcoal and then placed some hickory chunks over the top. I am running both with a dry water pan with my foil pan modifications as I sure don't need any moisture for this type of cook. After I lit them up, I cut the air back to about nothing on the intake vents as I don't want the temps to go over about 160 degrees.

The meat then comes out of the fridge and we load it on the cooking racks. With the Backwoods cookers, I can only load the racks about 65% full so the cooker can flow the proper amount of smoke and heat.

I ended up with 14 racks of jerky ready to go into the cookers.

Meat looked great coming out of the marinade.

Was a cold morning at about 18 degrees and I got the meat on the cookers at about daylight.

On my one cooker, I did my spicy hot jerky and for this, I sprinkled on some more ground cayenne pepper as I put the grids into the cooker.

It did warm up a little to I think about 28 degrees so it was a good day for my cook.

I had one cooker that did great and I was able to keep the temps where I wanted them at under about 160 degrees but the other cooker got a little hot and the meat got done a little quicker that I expected at about 4 hours. Didn't hurt the quality at all as the meat from both cookers came out wonderful. I need to adjust the door on that cooker and I am sure my next low temp cook will be fine.

My jerky started coming off the cookers at about 4 hours and continued to come off for another 4 hours before all of it was done.

Meat looks great and is now ready for the vacuume pack bags.

These are the first few bags off the cookers and are ready for the freezer.

Again, one last CAUTION, this meat must be refridgerated or frozen and it hasn't been cured. You can't just leave it set out on a table as it will spoil.

This is one great treat and will be a great snack for the holidays.

My smoked cheese is coming up next...

Ribs & Bibs BBQ Competition Results / Year 2009

2009-11-15T01:36:00.000-08:00

The competition BBQ team from Old Dave's Po-Farm (Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team) had a wonderful year. We competed in five Midwest states and covered about 4500 total miles on the Kansas City Barbecue Society trail in 2009.

The team competed in 13 contests was fortunate enough to win two state Grand Championships during the contest year. Out of the 4679 different teams that competed in the US in 2009 on the KCBS trail, only 29 of these teams won more contests than the two contests that Ribs & Bibs won during the year. We also had several other good finishes through out the contest year so it was a very good year for the Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team.

This picture shows Ribs & Bibs win at the "Wabash Ribberfest Barbeque Championship" in Mount Carmel, Illinois in September. The Gentleman on my far right in the blue shirt is Paul Everman who co-cooked the event with me this year.

We were lucky enough to get all four of our competitive meats in the top ten and did receive some nice trophys and a ribbon along with a little cash.

Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team consists of myself and usually one other member per cooking event. I am really blessed with some great co-cooks, friends, and of course my bride Janet who has put up with me for 44 years. There is no way I could do these events without all the wonderful support I received through out the year from these people. I just can't thank them enough for their help with this crazy hobby of BBQ competition cooking.

Steve Creech

Steve is from Columbus, Indiana and was a co-cook with the team during the year. He and Linda call their cooking team ZZ-Que and also compete on the KCBS trail during the year. Steve is great help and a pleasure to cook with. My friend, I sure appreciated the help this year.

Jeff Toler

Jeff is from the Westfield / Carmel area on the North side of Indy and co-cooked the Madison, Indiana event with me this year. Jeff with his wife Teri and family compete as Snake Pit BBQ. Jeff is a blast to cook with and is great with the preparation of our turn-in boxes. Thanks much...my buddy.

Paul Everman

Paul is from Versailes, Indiana and has co-cooked with the Ribs & Bibs team for a couple of years when he is not competing with his own team. Paul and his good friend Pat compete as Hickory Flats BBQ. It is sure nice when he cooks with Ribs & Bibs as he is just too tough to beat cooking with his own team! Paul is a great cook and a joy to cook with as he is always one step ahead of this old fat man and sure keeps me on my game. What can I say Paul...Many Thanks!!!

Mike Zinkan

Mike is from Sheridan, Indiana and is a long time friend. He has co-cooked with me longer than any other cook and claims to be the Indiana State Micro-Wave Champion. At least, that is what he put on his resume. Mike is a great friend and keeps me in my place. Just couldn't find a nicer, easy going, and more liked fellow to cook with at the events. Mike is more than a co-cook, he is a life time friend. Thank you for putting up with me all these years and all the help with this crazy hobby.

I sure hope my co-cooks can find the time again next year to cook with the team again as this old fat man couldn't do it without the great help.

We had several friends and guests visit with us during the cooking year and also had two KCBS judges cook with the team early in the year to earn their Master Judge certification.

I know many folks visit this blog from all over the world and don't have the foggiest idea of how the KCBS barbeque contests work so I will try to give a brief discription of how they work and some information on the rules.

Most contests in our area will have about 25 to 60 cooking teams. They will usually compete for a prize fund of about $3000 to about $12,000 dollars. We cook chicken, pork ribs, pork shoulder or pork butts, and beef brisket in these competitions. Our food is judged on Presentation, Tenderness & Texture, and Taste. We must turn in at least 6 samples of each meat and it will be judged by 6 judges. This means that all 4 of the meats will be judged by 24 judges. The judges will give out a score which is assigned to a point system and the winner in each class of meats will have the highest score with the judges. The overall score which determines the Grand Champion is the total score from all 4 meats.

We usually start prepping our meat after it is inspected on Friday morning and have it ready for the cooker in the evening. We cook 14 pieces of chicken, 3 slabs of pork ribs, 2 pork butts, and 2 brisket or brisket flats. We like to get the butts and brisket on the cooker by about 8:00pm on Friday evening as they cook overnight. We start both the ribs and chicken on Saturday morning. The turn in time is chicken at 12:00, ribs at 12:30pm, pork at 1:00pm, and brisket at 1:30pm on Saturday.

These are some typical presentation boxes for the 4 meats.

Chicken Thighs

Pork Ribs

Pork Butt

Beef Brisket

About 2 hours after the last turn-in, they have the Awards Presentations at the events. If we are lucky, maybe we will get our names called a couple of times and might win a trophy or ribbon with a little cash.

We now have enough contests in our area that we can kind of pick and choose the ones we like as we only do about two events a month. We prefer contests where we can arrive on the Thursday before the event, and then stay over on Saturday evening, and then leave early on Sunday morning. We also prefer a reasonable entry fee of $225 or less and will pass on contests that we feel try to hold you up. Another nice feature that we look for is inside restrooms and showers or someplace close we can go to get a shower. We need a large cooking site for our toy hauler so that as well is important to the team. I guess that the perfect contest would be in a RV Park with all the amenities including sewage hook ups.

A typical KCBS contest in our area is getting expensive and the teams are very difficult to compete against with all the cooking schools out there at the present time. We are not usually very serious cooks and do this for fun but sure find it nice to hear our name called once in a while at these events.

Typical Contest Cost..

$225.00----- Entry Fee
125.00------ Contest Meat
100.00------ Fuel for Truck
25.00------- Food on Road
60.00------- About 14 Total Meals at Cooking Site for 2 Team Members
75.00------- Thursday or Friday evening Party--feed 20
50.00------- Beer and other Beverage
50.00------- All Cooking Supplies for Contest-Rubs, Sauces, etc
25.00------- Misc
-------

$735.00------Total per Event

Ribs & Bibs compete out of a small toy hauler as older folks do need their creature comforts!!

In 2009, we used both the Old School Fast Eddy Pellet Cooker and my pair of Backwoods Party Cookers for contest cooking. These are great contest cookers.

I did get a few pictures at some of the events this year and will share them with the people that read this blog.

Our cooking year started out wet!! As you can see, I am stuck in the mud before I even got backed into my site.

Some of these units needed a very serious wrecker to get them out.

This is Charles and Velma Krininger at the Fairbanks, Indiana contest. This couple cooked with the team to complete one of the requirements of becoming Master Judges. They just did it all!! From trimming up the meat, to the injection, rubs, sauces, wrapping, presentation, etc.. they were there 24/7 and did a great job with this contest cook. Really nice folks and a pleasure to cook with.

It can also be cold at the end of the year and this picture shows one of the teams co-cooks, Paul Everman, at the New Albany, Indiana event in October. His cooking partner, Pat, is in the background.

This is another gentleman that cooks with the team once in a while during the year. The picture shows Steve Creech with his better half Linda at an event in Southern Indiana late in the year.

This is a picture from our Grand Championship finish at New Albany, Indiana in October. The gentleman on my right and co-cook for the event is Mike Zinkan from Sheridan, Indiana.

This was a first year contest right on the bank of the Ohio river in New Albany, Indiana. Real nice setting for a contest. If you look close, you can see the river in the background.

We enjoy doing some kind of party either on Thursday or Friday evening at the cooking events. Some of the treats we have done in the past include pizza, jambalaya, several Mexican dishes, hot wings, hawg wings, and some other appetizers.

We are kinda known for our pizza and do this one often. Hickory Flats and Ribs & Bibs teamed up this year at the Madison, Indiana contest for a large pizza party.

We put some tables together for this event and the beautiful salad was made and brought to the party by Hoosier Crawdaddy's (Doug and Debbie Searcy).

Isn't that pretty...

This is a picture of Doug, Debbie, and Mom from the Hoosier Crawdaddy's cooking team.

My co-cook Jeff Tolar and Paul Everman made them up and I cooked them on the Backwoods Party cooker. At times, we had 4 pizzas in the cooker.

We also did some cajun pizza which is always a hit at these events.

Again, 2009 was a great year for Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team. Had a wonderful time getting to visit and compete against many great friends and also had the chance to meet many new friends and cooks and hope to do it again next year.

It's a great hobby but is expensive...but what isn't in this day and time??

Old Dave's Slyders

2009-11-10T12:31:00.000-08:00

I am always looking for something unique to cook for friends and competitors on Thursday or Friday evening at a BBQ Contest. I think this one will be a winner. Much of the work can be done in advance to make it easier to prepare at a contest in the cooker. Everyone I know loves Slyders!!

There are a couple of my homemade cheeseburger slyders and one hamburger slyder on the plate.

I grew up eating these sandwiches on a Friday evenings after the ballgames and at that time, they were $.12 cents each. As a young man, I could put away about 12 of these in one meal.

All right, lets make slyders...

There are several things you can use for buns and I am lucky in that our local Kroger carries the very small Lewis Bake Shop sheet buns which come 24 per package and measure 3" X 3" which is the perfect size for a slyder. If you can't find something like that, you can use the small yeast rolls or maybe hotdog buns that you could cut in half or thirds.

The pickles need to be the very small and thin hamburger type dill pickles for best results.

Ingredients for 12 sandwiches

1 lb. ground beef
1 jar Gerbers beef baby food 2.5oz
2/3 cup of low sodium beef broth
1-1/2 cups of chopped dehydrated onions
3 cups of hot water
12 buns or rolls of some type
12 thin sliced dill pickles
Salt and Pepper at table
Condiments of your choice

Instructions for making the patties

Mix the hamburger, baby food, and the low sodium beef broth in a bowl with your hands.

Line a medium sized baking sheet (about 10X15") with plastic wrap. Place the meat on the sheet and spread it out with your hands or a spatula until it is fairly thin and then cover it with another sheet of plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to spread it out to the final size which will be slightly less than the full size of the sheet. Carefully remove the top sheet of the plastic wrap and score the flattened meat in about 3-1/4 to 3-1/2" squares all the way to the pan and then cover the meat back up with the plastic wrap. It now goes into the freezer to be frozen solid.

This is what it looks like just coming out of the freezer. You can see the way the meat has been scored and it will now just break off into the 12 pieces and be ready for the next step.

This is another picture of the meat just before I broke it up for the slyders and placed it back into the freezer until I was ready to do my sandwiches.

On cooking day, I fired up the smoker and brought it up to about 350 degrees. Using pecan for smoke.

The next step is to place the onions in a bowl and then add the water to get them ready for the cook. It will take about 15 minutes.

I wanted the buns steamed so I made up a pan for this.

I put a little water in this pan and then added a rack to the top of the pan.

I placed the buns on the rack and then covered the pan with another pan.

I then lined a larger cookie sheet with foil to make for an easy clean-up and then spread the wet onions out on the sheet.

The pan is ready for the frozen slyders.

I got the frozen meat out of the freezer and placed it on the onions.

I put the bun pan on about 30 minutes before I placed the slyders on the smoker to give the buns time to steam a little. I then placed the slyders on the smoker for a short cook of about 15-18 minutes although I didn't time it.

This shows them on the smoker just before I pulled the pan off the cooker.

This picture show the slyders right out of the cooker and just before I got them ready for the table.

This picture shows me getting the patties on the steamed buns and then adding the pickle on top of the meat.

Man, don't them things look great!! And they do taste like the real thing.

I prefer a slice of American cheese on my slyders.

I know many folks won't have a smoker that will run at the higher temps but I am sure these slyders will do fine at a lower temp of say about 250 degrees but will take longer to get them done.

You can do them in your kitchen oven as well for the folks that don't have a suitable cooker or smoker.

Whole Pork Loin / Rick's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans

2009-11-06T03:32:00.000-08:00

Here in Central Indiana, they are just about giving away whole pork loins at both our local Marsh and Kroger stores. For the last month of so, they have been running about $1.32 to $1.36 a pound and that is a bargain. Most of the whole loins weigh about 5 to 7 pounds. Heck, you can't even buy burger for that price!

You know, you can cook em whole, cut them up for roasts, kinda fillet them open and stuff them with whatever, have the store cut and cube them for great sandwiches, pound em out for your deep fried loin sandwiches, and many other great methods for this wonderful cut of pork. At this price, I have been filling the freezer.

One of my favorite ways to do the loins is to just cook them whole and then slice them up and freeze the slices in bags for the freezer. They re-heat nice in the nuker and make for a quick and tasty meal along with some of Rick's wonderful Pit Beans.

I usually start by laying the loin out and giving it a light coat of my favorite rub which is Smokin' Guns hot about 30 minutes before I put it on the smoker.

Rick's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans are KILLER!!! While I do love about all kinds of baked beans prepared in a smoker, these are much different and have a very unique flavor. They have a slight celery taste that really is great and goes with about all types of meals. I do many other beans but this one is most requested and very simple to prepare as it starts as a canned bean.

I will start with Rick's recipe and we can go from there.

Rick Salmon's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans

(as Rick originally posted over on the BBQ Forum sometime back in early 1993)

Two 28 oz. & one 15 1/2 oz cans of Bushs original baked beans
1 12-to-16 ounce bottle barbeque sauce (I use KC Masterpiece)
1/2 onion, finely diced
1/2 green pepper, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
8 tablespoons of prepared yellow mustard
About 1 pound brown sugar (or what ever it takes to adequately cover)
2 tablespoons powered hickory seasoning (or bbq rub)
2 tablespoon celery seed
1 to 2 pounds of smoked pork or brisket
1 aluminum half steam pan (roughly a 9x13)

Put all the above ingredients in the pan. Mix well. Cover with brown sugar, about 1/2 to 1 inch thick and do not stir in the brown sugar. Put in smoker for about two to three hours at 200 to 225 degrees, I use hickory wood. Let the brown sugar melt down into the beans. Stirring it in is not necessary.

Can be done in the oven.

Use one of the big industrial cans for two half-steam pans. "end quote"

For our home use, I usually do a double batch of these beans in a full sized hotel pan as the beans do freeze well and heat up great. A great side dish for my pork loin.

For this batch, I used a couple of cans of the 44oz and a couple cans of the 28oz regular Bushs original baked beans. I also used about 5 pounds of pulled and chopped pork butt. This picture shows the brown sugar going on the top of the bean mix.

I also doubled all the other ingredients in Rick's recipe and then added a little cayenne pepper to the pan as I like a touch of heat or a little kick in my beans. Probably best to leave this out if you don't like a little heat in your beans.

I started the beans first in my old school Fast Eddy pellet cooker and set it on smoke for about the first 90 minutes to be sure I got some smoke flavor in the beans. I used pecan pellets for this cook.

At 90 minutes into the cook, I added the whole pork loin and let is set in the smoke for an additional 60 minutes before I turned up the temp to about 325 degrees to finish my cook. I can't remember for sure but I think it took about 90 more minutes to get the loin to about 140 degrees internal and then I pulled it off the cooker and wrapped it in foil and placed it into a cooler for about two hours.

I sliced the loin up and kept out a few pieces for lunch and breakfast and then put the balance into freezer bags and froze it for later use.

I dished up a large bowl of the beans for our use and then froze the balance in quart containers for future use.

I served my loin up on a toasted bun with some special home made hot sauce along with some veggies and pickle and then added some of Rick's wonderful pit beans for one great meal.

Orion Cooker / 70 Minute Spare Ribs

2009-09-03T04:39:00.000-07:00

I got the itch to try another cook on the Orion cooker and decided to smoke up a couple of slabs of 2.25 and down St. Louis cut spare ribs on this very unique cooker/smoker. It is advertized to cook up great "fall off the bone" baby back ribs in just and hour and ten minutes. Of course, most real bbq cooks would know that "fall off the bone" is nothing more than an overcooked rib and I sure didn't want that in my first try with ribs on this cooker!

As you can see, I did get some nice looking ribs cooked up in this first try on the Orion cooker.

I started out by setting up the cooker for the rib cook by installing the rib hangers as the ribs are cooked hanging upright in the cooker. I then wrapped my drip pan to make for an easier clean up after my cook.

Next step was to select my smoke chips and I decided to go with some sugar maple for my smoke flavor for the ribs.

I then packed in around the drip pan about 2 cups of the smoke wood which should be more than enough for the cook.

I then placed 11 of the Matchlight Briquettes in the top part of the cooker and the balance of the bag was poured around the bottom charcoal holder of the cooker and I was ready to cook.

The ribs used for this cook came from Gordon Food Service and they were the non-injected, 2.25 and down, St. Louis cut spare ribs. I started my prep by removing the membrane off the back of the slab. I then trimmed up some of the fat off of the ribs and got them ready for the cook. I rubbed them with a generous coat of Cimmarron Doc's rib rub and then cut a small slot between the 2nd abd 3rd bone so I could hang them in the cooker. The ribs going into the cooker.

I then fired up the cooker and just let it do it's thing for about 70 minutes.

I checked back after the correct time and found the cooker with plenty of the charcoal left and I was wondering about this as even the longer cooks like pork butts and beef briskets are suposed to cook with just the one bag of Matchlight charcoal for about 3-4 hours and from the looks of the remaining charcoal, it looks like it will go this long for those meats.

I pulled the top off of the cooker and other than a kinda ugly color on the ribs, they did look like they were done judging by some pull back on the bones and the flexibility of the racks. Sure would have been nice to have been able to glaze the ribs on the cooker but the cooker design doesn't lend itself very well to that kind of finish for the ribs so I came up with something that did work for this cook.

I quickly brought the ribs in the house and applied a generous coat of Blues Hog mixed with some clover honey to the slabs and then let the remaining heat in the slabs to kinda set the sauce on the slabs and after about 15 minutes, it looked pretty good.

I then cut up the ribs for serving and they did come out looking very good.

Ok, let's critique my first cook of ribs on the Orion Cooker as compared to what I can cook on my other cookers. My normal rib would have cooked for about 5 hours verses the rib on the Orion cooking in just 70 minutes.

Color...the outside color came out great as I love that deep dark red color on my finished ribs. However, the inside looks pale white and not pink showing a smoke ring like my normal ribs. The ribs were perfect in smoke flavor so I sure can live with a little more whiter inside color rib.

Tenderness...very close to what I can get off of my other cookers although I found them slightly rubberie if that is a word. They were tender enough but the texture was a little different.

Moisture...these ribs are probably as moist as anything I get off of my other cookers. Very Juicy!!

Taste...just as good as anything I can cook on any of my other cookers.

Ease of cooking...you know, light it and forget it....what could be more easier??

As a competition cook, I feel that I can cook a pretty good rib and if my best rib would be judged as a "9" off of my other cookers, I think the rib off of this Orion cooker would be a solid "8" with the method I used on this first cook.

Tailgating...what could be better?? Six, count em, 6 slabs of very tasty ribs cooked in just 75 minutes at your favorite sporting event??

In closing, I am not a shill for this cooker but just a cook that can see some applications for this very unique and inexpensive cooker. I like it!

Genuswine Rotisserie / Ribs and Hot Wings

2009-07-21T05:54:00.000-07:00

I am always looking for an excuse to dig this classic little rotisserie cooker/smoker out of the barn for a cook as it is just a joy to use. I needed to cook about 3 slabs of ribs, 6 pork steaks, about 25 pieces of chicken for some hot wings, and a few hotdogs and this would about fill up this cooker. I also figured that a load of lump will fire this cooker for about 5 hours and this is the time I needed for this cook. Looks like a good match to me! I also have about 200 pounds of Royal Oak lump from offshore that has many chunks that are as large as soccer balls and this fine little cooker will burn about anything including large pieces of lump. Been trying to use this stuff up for about a year.

I rolled the cooker out to my cooking patio, hooked it up to electricity, loaded it up with that nasty lump, filled up my charcoal chimney, and got it ready to light.

I have some rather large chunks of seasoned pecan from my friend Mr. Steve Creech (ZZ-Que) that I also used for this cook.

I wasn't ready to light it up as I had some prep to get done before the fire.

I mixed up some wing breading with some flour, cornmeal, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. I then mixed up a milk and egg wash for the wings.

I ran the wings thru the wash and the breading and then placed them in the fridge for about 45 minutes to allow the breading to setup on the wings.

I then fired up the cooker as it will take about 30 minutes to get it ready for the cook.

I skinned the ribs and applied a generous coat of Smokin' Guns hot rub.

I applied Slabs pork rub to the pork steaks.

When the cooker got on temp (about 235), I added 3 big chunks of the pecan smoke wood.

I loaded up all the meat and just let the Genuswine do its thing. Once this cooker is on temp, it just stays where I set it and I really don't have to touch it again until it runs out of fuel.

Was a nice day for cooking with the temp around 82 degrees with a very light wind.

I then made up my hot sauce for the wings with some Franks, butter, honey, and more cayenne pepper.

I also mixed up my sauce for the ribs and the pork steaks. I used about 40% Blues Hog, about 40% Tennessee Red, and about 20% Tupelo honey.

The cooker just does a great job with this type of cook and all I had to do was watch it do its thing. I did wrap the ribs for a short period and sauced some of the meat but that is all I did with the cook.

The chicken wings came off first and they are great although very hot.

Pork steaks came off next and they looked good.

I also added a bowl of baked beans during the cook and they got done about the same time as the ribs.

The last step with the ribs was to glaze them on the cooker.

Ribs were last off the smoker and they as well looked great.

About 3 of the ribs, one of the very large pieces of hot wings, some of the smoked baked beans, and some fruit makes for a nice meal.

You know, I am fortunate enough to own several great cookers and this one is really a favorite of mine. It is just plain fun to use!!

Pizza and Calzones on a Weber Kettle

2009-06-23T12:30:00.000-07:00

Been a long time folks as I have been busy with some contest cooking and other Summer time duties. I must do better in the future with the blog!!

Did you know that you can bake many great treats on the old reliable Weber Kettle?

This crispy crust pizza is loaded up with some hot sausage mixed with burger, onions, bell peppers, smoked red peppers, pepperoni, cheese, and sauce. The calzone is made with the same meat and peppers, onions, sauce, herbs, and cheese.

To get started, I like to use a real stone hearth for my baking but it can be done with a different technique and I will cover that at the end of the article for the folks that don't have a stone hearth and want to consider pan baking. Both will work great on the kettle.

I set the charcoal up so it is in a circle slightly smaller than my pizza stone for this indirect bake. I always use lump charcoal for all my baking in any of my cookers/smokers. I have the charcoal containers filled about half full for this bake.

I started a small amount of lump in my charcoal chimney and when it was ashed over and ready, I poured it over the lump in my kettle.

I then added my ceramic plate setter and my 14" in diameter hearth stone. Plate setters can be found at any ceramic, clay, or kiln store. Put the lid on the cooker and waited until it got up to baking temp.

While my hearth was getting all heated up and ready, I started making up the first pizza. This picture shows the sauce, meat, and onions on the pizza.

Finished pizza ready to be carried out and placed on the kettle.

First pizza on the kettle running at about 405 degrees measured at the top of the hearth stone. Take about 18-20 minutes at this temp.

The old reliable Weber kettle doing its thing.

The pizza done and ready to come off the cooker.

While the first pizza baked, I got the second pizza ready for the cooker. I then placed this pizza on my hearth.

I think this one looked better than the first pizza.

While the second pizza was baking, I started on the calzones.

I rolled out the remaining dough and had enough for about 3 medium sized calzones left and I made up the first one.

By this time, the second pizza was ready to come off the cooker.

I then loaded the hearth with all three calzones and placed the cover back on the kettle. I made the calzones with a very thin crust and running at about 405 degrees will take about 12-14 minutes to bake.

Calzones done and ready to come off the kettle.

The results of this short baking session on the Weber kettle.

That is some good looking grub in my book.

Now, for the folks that don't have any method of making up a hearth.

The first thing you need is a way to make the cook indirect so about any type of pan will do as long as it is about as large as the pan you will use for your baking.

This is a standard sized cookie sheet that I have placed under my raised grid. You do need to get the baking grid as high up into the dome as you can for the best results. This baking grid has some bolts to raise it up to where it is needed.

This picture shows a pan on top of the setup and that is where your pizza needs to be cooked. Pan pizza is great on this cooker.

You know, it is really not rocket science and if nothing else, use a few beer cans to elevate a baking grid in the Weber kettle. Make do with whatcha got!

Old Fashioned Real Cornbread & Pinto Beans

2009-04-25T04:02:00.000-07:00

Cornbread--vs--Corncake, anyone know the difference??? Just check the recipe. If it has any type of sweetner, it is corncake. If it has any more than about 3-4 tablespoons of flour to help hold it together, it is corncake. If it is baked in a pan or glass baking dish and the picture shows it more than 1" thick, it is corncake. Cornbread should be made out of fresh ground corn, sweet buttermilk, bacon drippings, little salt, couple eggs, and maybe no more than a 1/8 cup of flour per skillet. It should be baked in a very hot cast iron skillet that has been greased with lard or bacon drippings. The bottom should brown up nicely to the point of being slightly crunchy and the bread should come out about an inch in thickness.

Ok, lets do the real thing...

These are the ingredients for some good cornbread. The corn is grown on the Po-Farm for Frito Lay corn chips. We will grind this for our cornmeal.

Old Dave's recipe for two large 9-10" skillets of real cornbread is as follows.

2 cups fresh ground cornmeal
4 TBl flour
1-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1-1/2 cups sweet buttermilk
2 beaten eggs
2 TBL bacon grease
Enough lard to grease up the two skillets.

Sift the dry ingredients and then add the wet stuff and stir lightly until it is mixed. Do not over-stir or overmix. Lumpy batter is a-ok.

Next step is two shell enough of the corn off of the cobs for our two cups of cornmeal.

Great meal is ground course and never fine and when you eat the cornbread, you should have some grit left in it. In other words, as you chew the cornbread, it should be slightly gritty. Again, It is NOT cake!!

This is about 4 cups of fresh ground cornmeal ready for our cornbread.

I decided to do this cook and bake on my Backwoods Chubby so I got it out, loaded it up with good lump charcoal and fired it off with two Weber fire cubes which I placed right in front of the two intake vents. I will also run a dry water pan for this bake and cook. I planned to bake the cornbread first at about 400 degrees and then lower the temp to around 275 degrees and do my beans.

I greased up two 9" skillets with lard and placed them in the smoker as I want the skillets very hot when I pour in the cornbread batter.

Now, while I am waiting for my cooker to get on temp, I will start on my old fashioned method of cooking some pinto beans to go with our real cornbread.

Never, I say never, soak hard beans for any recipe. If you do, you will lose up to 18% of the nutrition in the beans when you throw out the water. It is fine to wash the beans if you want but please, don't pre-soak any hard beans for the best results. Beans are simple...put them in a pot, light the fire, and cook them.

Never add water to any dry beans as they are cooking. Start with the right amount of water for the cook and you will get a better result.

To start my pinto bean cook, I sort about 2 cups of the beans to be sure to get the small rocks and other crap out of the beans. If they look dirty, I will wash them but 9 out of ten time with beans, I do not wash them as they usually look good to me.

I then get my seasoning meat ready for the cook. I like to season all beans with a little bacon and a lot of 2 year old aged country ham. For this 2 cup cook of pinto beans, I am using about 9-10 ozs of the ham and two strips of smoked bacon.

This picture shows the seasoning meat ready to go into the bean pot.

I will also chop up a medium size onion for the cook.

I start by throwing the ham and the bacon in the pot and then kinda rendering it down on the kitchen stove to where most of the grease has been cooked out of the meat. I then add 10 cups of water, the beans, and the onions and then grind a big batch of black pepper over the beans. I do not salt as the country ham is usually salty enough for the pot of beans.

The beans are now ready for the smoker.

Well, the Chubby is up to temp (about 400 degrees) and is ready for the cornbread.

Just pour about half the batter into the first very hot skillet and you should hear some crackling as the batter hits the very hot lard in the skillet.

Do the same to the second skillet and you are ready to smoke some cornbread. I usually use about one small piece of apple smoke wood or nothing but the lump charcoal for this bake.

It takes about 30 minutes at 400 degrees to get the cornbread done. This skillet is about done.

Both loaves just out of the smoker and looking good.

Just slop on some real butter and give the cornbread a try. I think you can see just how crispy the bottom of the cornbread is and that is the way you want it.

After I lowered the temp in the Backwoods Chubby to about 300 degrees, I loaded up the bean pot. I cooked the beans at around 275-300 degrees for about 3-1/2 hours to get them as done as I wanted.

About every 45 minutes, the smoke and skum would build up on top of the beans in the pot, and I would then stir all this great stuff into the beans and continue the cook.

The beans are about done and ready to come off the cooker.

I will usually taste the beans and adjust for salt and then maybe add some chopped onions and just eat a large bowl with some of that real cornbread.

Good stuff...Nuff Said

15th Annual Redneck Barbecue--Sikeston, Missouri [Lambert's Cafe]

2009-04-21T06:19:00.000-07:00

The date of this event was April the 10th and 11th and was to be our first contest of the year for 2009 and I spent about a week getting everything together again and loaded into the trailer for this event. Was still too cold to de-winterize the trailer so we will use it without the bathroom and the water service.

My co-cook for this event was Steve Creech (ZZ-Que BBQ) from Columbus, Indiana and he arrived early on Thursday morning and we got him all loaded up and we were on the road by about 8:00am for this 330 mile trip to Sikeston.

After a couple of stops, we got into Sikeston around 12:30pm their time and found the cooking site and asked some folks where to set up and was told by a couple of teams that it didn't make any difference so we just picked out a spot and got all set up for the event. The site was at the Sikeston Rodeo Grounds and they had great hookups with both water and electricity. With some weather coming, we decided to go out and pick up some new wiper blades for the truck and get a bite to eat. We then unhooked the truck and went back into town and found an Auto-Zone and got some new blades and Steve installed them on the truck. Now to find something to eat.

Sikeston has a very famous cafe called Lambert's and is the home of the "Throwed Rolls" which has been seen many times on the Travel and Food channels and is a great adventure in itself. It was established in 1942 in Sikeston and they now have two other locations with one in Foley, Alabama and the other in Ozark, Missouri. Now, this old fellow doesn't wait well but the time was right between lunch and supper so we drove out to the place to see if we could get in without a wait and we did but it was still about full even at this time.

I really wasn't real hungry but I did want to order a whole meal so we could be sure to experience Ole Norm's Pass-Arounds and of course the "Throwed Rolls" and it came down to two great looking meals on the menu. The full one pound "Rooster" cut Chicken Fried Steak or the big 14 oz Real Country Ham meal. Tough choice!!! Anyway, I went with the Country Ham and for my two sides, did the mashed potatoes with white gravy and the cole slaw. My drink was to be unsweetend tea.

Bout this time, one of the kids came around with the first round of Ole Norm Pass-arounds and it was a pot of deep fried okra! The young lad kinda looked at us like we were some kind of out of towners as we didn't know what to do as we didn't have any plates or silverware on the table yet as we had just ordered. He told us to get some paper towels or napkins down on the table and he just poured out about a pound of the golded brown deep fried treat. Now, this old farmboy was in Heaven as I sure love this Southern treat and I just sat there and with some good hot sauce proceded to do some damage to that big pile of okra. Someone then hollered "Throwed Rolls" and I looked up and a young fellow just tossed one to me and those things are a big as softballs. Applied about a stick of butter to the roll and now it was really getting good. We just sat there and feasted on these two items and along with our tea which was served in quart mugs, just about made ourselves sick!

About 20 minutes later, our meal arrived. The ham was served sizzeling hot in a large stainless steel skillet that the meat was cooked in and the veggies were in bowls and also inside the skillet as well. Very nice presentation! Bout this time, here come all the rest of the kids with the Pass-Arounds. First was a large skillet of fried potatoes with just a hint of onion flavor and of course, I got a big helping. Next girl had a pot of black eyed peas, then a pot of macaroni and tomtoes arrrived, then more okra, next came a girl with a bucket of sorghum for the rolls. And then, some more throwed rolls and this just continued on throughout the meal. Those kids just forced all this food on this old fat man and I really loved it. The Country Ham was the real thing and must have been aged at least 12-14 months and was the very best I have ever eaten in a restaurant. All the sides and Pass-Arounds were great and the meal was as good as can be found anywhere and was resonably priced. We both had to get a 9X9 to-go box and load up what we couldn't eat and believe me, it was about as much as was served in the first place and sure made for a great breakfast and lunch on the next day at the contest.

Friends, I just can not say enough good about this place and I just can't wait until next year when I can take on that "Rooster" cut full pound of the Chicken Fried Steak. For me, the restaurant itself was worth the trip to this contest. I will remember to take my camera next year!

Arrived back at the contest site and one of the organizers told us that we were parked in the wrong spot. Now that didn't go over very well with me after spending about 90 minutes getting all set up and I squalled and griped for about 30 minutes as I couldn't see any difference in the size of the sites. The lady couldn't give me a good answer on why I couldn't stay where I was parked and forced us to load up and move to another site. The J-Mack team had arrived and they helped up move and get setup on another site and I sure thanked them for that help. I was a heart attack looking for a place to happen after that huge meal at Lambert's and sure didn't need all that hassle after my meal. Hell, I needed a nap!

Anyway, we got all setup again and checked the tv for the weather and it looked pretty bad for the evening. It just looked like waves of bad weather coming so we did get the truck all hitched up again and got everything stowed away as the storm and winds were coming. I was very tired and went to bed early and then the first round of weather hit at about 12:30am and the wind just bounced and tossed the trailer up and down and the rain came down in sheets. There were many 55 gallon trash barrels around the campground and they were blowing all around the site and banging up against the truck and trailer. I had the tv on and could see the mess we were in and it didn't look good. There were all kinds of tornado and storm warnings out and they were reporting some deaths just West of our location in Arkansas so it was a bad storm. We made it thru the first round ok and still had electricity so I figured I would be up all night so I made a pot of coffee and then checked outside to see the damage. Real good thing that there were not many teams at the contest yet as I am sure there would have been some considerable damage. Well, the porto-pots were blown over and the trash barrels were all over the place but that was all the damage I coud see in the dark. Kinda surprised me that my cooker hadn't been blown over. Anyway, we had about 3 more waves of weather come thru before morning but none as bad as the first wave and we did survive the mess without any damage.

After the last big wave went thru at around 4:30am, it was now just misting some light rain and I went out to do my morning walk. I got up to the far end of the campground to where the team of Florida Skin & Bones was set up and found a mess. This team had arrived early on Thursday as they were one of the teams that planned to vend at the contest and of course, they were all setup by Thursday afternoon and the storm had realy torn up their area. They had a large metal awning that had blown back over the top of their trailer and then about 60 more yards and over a fence and up against the side of a maintenance building on the golf course. Many other items had been upset and blown around their site, stuff broken, bent up, lost, and it was a real mess. Sure felt sorry for the team but they were taking it ok and laughing about the mess.

Anyway, it's Friday morning and time to start thinking about getting our meat prepped for the contest as we did want to do some visiting after this was done. Had several friends coming as this looked to be a good event. Around 8:00am, and after breakfast, the rain stopped long enough for us to get outside and prep our contest meat. Probably spent about two hours getting this chore done and just in time as it had started to rain again and now it was time to visit and chew the fat with our friends as they arrived and got their sites all setup for the contest. It looked like more rain was coming so we figured we had better enjoy it now as more was coming our way.

Got to visit with the Smokin' T's and also Bill Arnold of Blues Hog fame. Also said hi to Delta Smoke as I hadn't seen them since the Lebanon, Tn contest of last year. Did visit with a couple of new teams and got back with Bill Arnold as I needed a case of his sauce. I purchased a case of gallons with three gallons of the regular sauce and then one gallon of the Tenn Red sauce. That should hold me for the rest of the contest season with what I have at home. Steve purchased a case of pints as well.

I didn't get any pictures as the rest of the day was kinda nasty with off and on rain and some wind and cold and it just wasn't a very nice day.

About 4:00pm, Steve went to the cooks meeting and when he got back, we got ready to get started with the cook. Got the cooker set up to run off of the inverter and marine battery as I wasn't sure we would have electricity all night. Fired it up and brought it up to temp and loaded the first round of meat (pork butts) at about 6:00pm. We then loaded the briskets at about 8:15pm and we were set for about 5-1/2 hours before I needed to wrap the meat. I went to bed as I do like to get some sleep early into the contest. Steve came in later and went to bed as well as it is always a long night cooking a contest. We got thru the night in great shape as the weather started to lift and Saturday morning was dry and with some sun coming around a couple hours later in the morning. Turned out to be a nice day. Steve did a practice walk to the judging building which was a good distance from our site so he would know how long it would take to get our meat turned in and we just cooked and prepped all four of the meats and got them into the presentation boxes and all turned in by 1:30pm in the afternoon.

We then did what clean up work we could do as we planned to stay over on Saturday evening at the contest site so we couldn't load everything into the trailer until Sunday morning.

Cleaned up a little and caught a ride in a golf cart from the J-Mack team and went to the awards which were inside a nice building. The awards were around 3:00pm in the afternoon.

We ended up with the following awards:

Chicken...5th place...and nice plaque and some money
Ribs...11th place...nothing for this
Pork...9th place...ribbon
Brisket...7th place...ribbon

Overall...8th place

This was our chicken and our highest scoring box.

Was a very tight contest with the top 9 teams only separated by 13 points. I deserved the scores we got as I forgot a few steps with the first contest of the year. I have to be retrained each year and this takes a few contests to get going again!

The J-Mack team invited us down to their beautiful motorhome for a pizza party on this evening and even come and got us on the golf cart. I wasn't hungry as I had snacked all afternoon but old Steve had some pizza at the party. We didn't stay very long as I think we were both beat so we went back to the trailer and I went to bed.

Got an early start on Sunday morning and I got home about 12:30pm. Steve is about an hour away so he got home early in the afternoon as well.

Was a great contest and I will probably do this one again. Lambert's by itself was worth the trip!!

Backwoods Competitor "Demo" Grill & Bake

2009-04-15T03:11:00.000-07:00

This grill and bake was done a few years ago to show the versatility of the Backwoods line of cookers.

My plan was to grill direct on the lower grid in the cooker over the lump coals at a very high temp and at the same time, bake on two levels in the top of the cooker at around 400-450 degrees.

Wonder how many cookers out there are designed well enough to be able to even consider this type of cook?

I would have no help with this cook so I did get most of my prep work done in advance.

This grilling part of this cook was to be a plate of pork chops and about a pound and a half of some cod fish.

The baking part of the cook was to be one loaf of focaccia bread, two loaves of French bread which will be baked, split, buttered with garlic, and then back on the cooker to be grilled and made into garlic bread, one thick and chewy pizza, and one thin and crispy pizza. The green dough balls in the picture are my baking dough for the above treats. The items in the bowls are the ingredients for the pizza and focaccia bread.

I figured I would need a full load of very even burning lump to keep the cooker where I wanted it for this planned two hour grill and bake. I use two fire cubes to start the fire with one at the left front near the intake vent, and one at the right rear neat the other intake vent. This shoud give me a very even burning fire for this cook.

I also removed my removable water pan from the cooker so I could grill direct over the lump coal in the cooker.

I then set up my two baking hearths near the top of the cooker for my pizza and bread.

I then brought the cooker up to a good baking temp which was about 450 degrees and held it there for about 15 minutes to be sure my hearths were all heated up and ready to bake.

While the cooker was coming up to temp, I made up my first thin and crispy pizza and had it ready for the cooker.

The rest of this cook is just a blur as I was running around like a chicken with it's head off trying to keep up with the cook as I didn't have any help. All the bread products had to be rolled out, prepped, and made into each type of bread I wanted for the cook.

This picture shows the thin and crispy pizza about half done as I was loading the thick and chewy pizza on the cooker.

At this time, I also loaded the pork chops on the lower direct grid in the cooker for my grilling.

When the two pizzas were done, I loaded the focaccia bread on the hearth. Looks like I also turned the chops over on the lower grid.

After the loaf of focaccia came off the hearth, I loaded my two loaves of French bread. At this time, I also took the chops off the cooker.

I then put my perforated fish pan on the lower grid and loaded up the cod fish on this pan for this very short cook.

When the French bread was done, I pulled it off the cooker and at this time, I also turned the fish over on the grid. I then sliced the French bread in half and added some butter and garlic and got it ready for the grill.

The fish came off the cooker along with the pan I used to cook it in and now the cooker was ready again for grilling my garlic bread.

The garlic bread just took a few minutes and it was ready to come off the cooker.

The results of this crazy grill and bake. Top left is the thin and crispy pizza, center is the thick and chewy pizza, top right is the focaccia bread, lower left is the chops, center is the fish, and on the right is French/garlic bread.

I don't think I would try a cook like this again without some help....this old fat wore out fellow is just not up to this kind of work and abuse!!

Great Turkey + (Turkey Competition Recipe)

2009-03-26T02:52:00.000-07:00

This is a great recipe and method for doing a great whole turkey or just cooking a couple of turkey breasts.

You will be brining and marinading at the same time and this will produce a wonderful result.

This recipe will work for both the turkey breasts and the whole turkeys.

Try to find a clean turkey that is not injected with the salt water and if you can't find one that way, try to get one with the least amount of injected salt water. You can probably find them from about 6 to 13% injected salt water so do go with something around 6% for the best results.

The turkey will be prepped about 12-14 hours before the fire so be sure you have the time.

BRINE, and it is injected into the turkey. Be sure the turkey is completely thawed if using a frozen bird.

This is Shake's Injectable Honey Brine with my slight changes and it is a great brine and I use it for all my poultry.

32 oz of water
1/4 cup pickling salt
2 tsp Tenderquick
1/3 cup honey
3 bay leaves
1/4 tsp gound cloves
1/2 tsp pickle spice

Heat this up on the stove to help it dissolve but do not boil or you will ruin it and have to start over. Just get it warmed up. Cool it down before injecting it into the turkey.

This cook included two turkey breasts that will be prepped with my recipe.

This picture shows the brine ready to be injected and also the marinade I use for this recipe.

Yet another couple of breasts ready to be injected. We do this recipe about 6-8 times a year for the turkey breasts.

Inject 2oz in each leg, 2oz in each thigh, 4oz in each side of the breast. This is a total of 16 oz per bird or 8oz per whole breast. MORE is NOT better as it will make the turkey toooo salty!!!

MARINADE....I use Wishbone Robusto Italian salad dressing in the 16oz bottle and you need one bottle for each breast and about two bottles for a whole turkey.

You will be brining and marinading at the same time.

Place the brine injected turkey into a food grade small plastic bag and then pour the Wishbone over the bird. Align the turkey so it is longways in the bag and on one side of the bag. Carefully start at the bottom of the bag using both hands and work all the marinade up around the meat getting most of the air out of the bag and then tie off the bag. Better to have some help with this step. Place the bag and turkey on a platter and put it into the fridge for about 12-14 hours. You might turn it a time or two when you get into the fridge for a beer.

RUB...This rub has no sugar and will not brown or burn at any temp. (thanks mr. db)

1 TBl Salt
1 TBL Paprika
2 tsp Onion powder
2 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp White pepper

You will also use a light sprinkle of cayenne pepper directly on the turkey.

On cooking day, take the turkey out of the fridge and then out of the bag and set it on a counter top and let it warm up for about 30 minutes. Then sprinkle on a light coat of the rub and then sprinkle on a light coat of the cayenne pepper. Again, more is not better and it is very easy to over season your poultry.

These two turkey breasts are in my contraption all ready to be carried out and dropped into my ceramic cooker as soon as the cooker gets on temp. I like to do the whole turkeys and also the turkey breasts at about 350 degrees indirect on the cookers if possible. It gets the skin better and cooks much quicker and I feel that I get a much better product at this temp.

These are some turkey breasts on my large Egg.

Again, cook the turkey at about 350 degrees using just a very small amount of mild smoke wood untill the internal measured in the thigh is about 170 degrees. Poultry really sucks smoke so do not use much for the best results. It can also be cooked at a lower temp but will take longer and the skin may not get as done or crispy as you like.

This is a whole turkey about half done on my WSM. To do them on this cooker, I run the water pan dry and use lump charcoal and just turn the cooker loose and let it rip. Always get great results.

A couple of breasts just off the cooker.

Now for the contest cookers, I do like to do two breasts along with two of the smallest turkey legs I can find for my contest presentation. Be sure that you do the two legs exactly like the breast as there will be a judge that will select that piece out of the box instead of the breast meat.

Contest Presentation....There are several ways to present the bird in a contest. I like to use a presentation piece like one of the legs in the box at an angle and then fan sliced breast around it and then garnish to look good. Another way that has done well for me is to slice a very thick piece off of one side of the breast and then place it meat side down to where the skin side of the breast shows in the box and then fan the thinly sliced breast meat around it. Just before you close up the box, very carefully spray lightly all the meat in the box out of your pump sprayer with HOT strained low salt chicken broth.

Enjoy...

High Temp Brisket / Direct Cooked

2009-03-20T04:05:00.000-07:00

This is my method of cooking a brisket direct at a higher temp that will result in the meat tasting just like a good "steak" and cut the cooking time to less than 5 hours. It will also give you a very tasty, tender, and juicy finished product.

It is best done on a cooker where you can place the meat above the open coals at enough distance above the hot coals so the drippings don't flame up and sear the bottom of the meat.

This cook MUST be done direct with the meat straight above the open fire as the drippings must go into the fire. This will give you a completely different and wonderful flavor of the finished meat. Steak, I tell ya!

The meat needs to be on some type of raised grid in a ceramic cooker as you need to get the meat as far above the fire in the cooker as possible to prevent flame ups from the fat burning the bottom of the meat.

Let's get started...

I like to use a big brisket flat and my Sam's club has the real nice choice flats that usually weigh above 7 pounds and do have some fat left on them. They also sometimes leave about half the point on the brisket like the one in this picture. I do trim up the fat to about 1/8" thick on the fat or cap side of the brisket.

Now, this isn't bbq...keep all your rubs in the pantry and just get out some garlic salt and some black peppercorns. Grind on a fairly heavy layer of black pepper on both sides of the meat. On top of this, sprinkle on a layer of the garlic salt on both sides.

Get the cooker up to a temp of about 350 degrees and then put on your smoke wood and do use a large amount as it doesn't last long at this raised temp. I used cherry for my cook yesterday and about 7-8 chunks.

Place the meat on your raised grid in the ceramic smoker fat side down.

With the fat dripping on the fire, you will get a lot of smoke but this is normal for a direct cook.

My cooker wanted to run at about 365 degrees yesterday so I just let it and I cooked the meat to about 175 internal and this took exactly 2-1/2 hours and then I foiled the meat.

Sure did look good just before it went into the foil.

For my Au Jus, I mix up about 2-1/2 oz of beef broth and about 1-1/2 oz of worchestershire sauce and pour it into my foil boat.

Place the brisket in my double layer foil boat and wrap it up.

Cook the brisket until the internal is around 210 degrees and I know this is hotter than normal but it does take this finish temp to get this meat to where it is tender at this higher temp. Be very careful when checking the brisket with your Thermopen and don't stick it all the way thru the meat and poke a hole in the bottom layer of the foil and let all the juice out. The total time in the foil yesterday was one hour to get to my finish temp.

The total cooking time for this wonderful treat was just 3-1/2 hours.

I will usually let the meat rest in the foil for at least an hour before I cut it up. This is enough time for the juice to redistribute inside the meat.

I carefully take the meat out of the foil over a bowl as I don't want to loose any of the Au-Jus. I put this juice into a plastic squirt bottle for serving at the table.

I then cut the meat to the thickness I want and as you can see, it is very juicy and tender.

Take a real fresh onion bun and cut in half, grill or toast it, put a ribbon or two of horsey sauce on the bun, lay a couple layers of this steak brisket on the bun, and then squirt some of the Au-Jus over the top and enjoy.

Charcoal Grilling / Pork / Poultry / Fish / Veggies

2009-03-19T00:00:00.000-07:00

Along with my Charcoal Grilling / Beef article, we also grill many other items both direct and indirect over a lump charcoal fire in most of our cookers. These cookers would include my ceramic cookers, Backwoods cookers, WSM cookers, Weber kettles, and the Weber charcoal chimney.

For grilling, you do need a very hot lump fire for most of the treats done on the cookers.

We like both our pork chops and the real thin cut pork steaks grilled over a hot lump fire in the cookers. Just apply a little rub of your choice or just salt and pepper and grill them a short amount of time over a lump charcoal fire and enjoy.

Fish is another great meal that can be done either direct or indirect on a grill or smoker. I usually do all my fish direct over a hot fire and it doesn't take very long to cook. This was a mixed grill of fish, fat burgers, and pork steak.

This picture shows some fish on a perforated vegetable or wok type of pan and works great for those items. This cook was done in my Backwoods cooker with the water pan removed from the cooker so I had a direct fire over the coals for the fish.

Great fish from my direct cook over a hot lump fire.

Here is another meat that in our area is called Western ribs. The ribs in the picture average about a pound each. They are cut out of a pork shoulder or pork butt and can be quite good but not even close to the REAL country ribs that are cut out of the loin. It is very difficult to find the loin cut country ribs in my area at this time and when you do, they are very pricy but usually worth it!

I like to cook or grill the Western ribs indirect on a raised grid in a ceramic cooker at a temperature of about 325-350 degrees. I use a pork rub and then finish them with a good bbq sauce and honey glaze. One of these one pounders along with a few slab potatoes and a salad, makes a good meal.

Mixed veggies are a great treat that can be grilled direct over a very hot lump charcoal fire and is a wonderful side for your other grilled meats or even a whole meal with just a big chunk of garlic bread. We do these often and love them with many different meals.

As you can see in the above two pictures, we cook them over a hot lump fire in either a vegetable basket, or sometimes called a perforated wok, or maybe a grill topper, or in a perforated pot like you see in the second or lower picture.

The best recipe and method I have ever seen for this treat comes from my friend Mr. Chris Cappel (Nature Boy) and the owner of Dizzy Pig Rubs. He posted his method with these veggies in November of 2001 on the BGE forum and I will share some of this with you as it is just a "killer" way to prepare this dish.

Quote

My favorite combo of veggies is asparagus, mushrooms, sweet onions and pineapple, but other combos work great as well. Green beans, red peppers, onions is one more example. Or maybe Zucchini, shrooms and onions. The possibilities are vast, and only limited by your imagination. Mushrooms, sweet onions and pineapple really add a lot IMO.

I slice the veggies and put them in a large bowl about 30 minutes prior to cooking. Nice big chunks. Then in a small bowl I mix up seasonings...again let your imagination go. The critical thing is to use some oil in the mix to "coat" the veggies. As an example of something I do often:
1-2 tbsp soy sauce
1-3 tbsp wine, sake or mirin
1 tbsp oyster or fish sauce
1 tsp of garlic powder (or fresh garlic)
1 tsp sugar
pepper to taste
and 2 tbsp or more of peanut oil.
Maybe a bit of sesame oil, or a tsp or so of your favorite rub. Maybe some lime juice.

Pour over veggies and toss with your hands to coat. Let sit 15-30 minutes. Any longer and the salts start yanking moisture out of the veggies and they shrink.

Once you have a good hot fire, and a glowing bed of coals all the way accross the firebox you are ready (not a huge load of coals like you would use for turbo temp steaks, but a smaller load, like what you have left after cooking chicken pieces). Place the grill topper wok (sprayed with oil) on your grate directly above the inferno, and close the lid. Dome should read between 500 and 750. After a minute or so carefully open the lid, and dump the veggies in. It should make a crisp sizzling noise as the veggies contact the hot steel. Spread the veggies out fairly evenly and close the lid. After 2-3 minutes open and stir well. You should see a hint of browning on some of the veggies. Close lid again and wait another couple minutes, and repeat this process until they are done to your liking. 5-8 minutes usually is perfect. We like them with a bit of crunch.

Cooking in a regular wok is good, and you will end up with plenty of juices, but it is not the same. There is something really special about the effect that the high heat, open flames and smoke have on he veggies. It is impossibe for me to explain. Just try it!!

UnQuote

Thanks Chris for one of the best recipe I have ever used for mixed veggies and please do try this with the veggies of your choice. I have used about every veggie out there with the above method and they have all come out wonderful.

Any type of sausage links are great grilled on a cooker. Can be done either direct or indirect at about any temperature with good results.

All poultry is great grilled on a cooker but you must be very careful to get it done to where the juices run clear or the internal temperature is at least 165 degrees or above.

Poultry can be cooked either direct or indirect at about any temp above 250 degrees but if done by itself and the cooker can run hotter, it is usually the best when cooked at or above 350 degrees grid temp. It is also a good ideas to place the chicken in the cooker where it doesn't drip down on your other food while cooking.

There are other articles in my table of contents dealing with some other grilling and you can find them under ABT's, Hot Wings, and Slab Potatoes.

Charcoal Grilling / Beef

2009-03-15T01:39:00.000-07:00

I grill with charcoal for fuel on several of my cookers which would include my ceramic cookers, Backwoods cookers, WSM cookers, Weber kettles, Weber charcoal chimney, and a couple of home made cookers. I do this both direct which is over the fire with the drippings from the meat going straight into the fire and also indirect with a drip pan between the meat and the fire. Most of this grilling is done at elevated temperatures over lump charcoal.

Ribeyes are really hard to beat cooked over a very hot lump charcoal fire with the meat just in the tip of the flames on an outside cooker. The above ribeyes were cooked on my WSM smoker.

Great steaks MUST start from great meat!! For my ribeye steaks, which is by far my favorite steaks, I usually purchase the whole CHOICE ribeye loin and then cut the steaks into the thickness to suit me. Many times a year, in my area, the select grade will be on sale but in my opinion, spend the extra $1.00/2.00 a pound to get a better grade of meat. It must be choice or above!

The first thing I do with my whole loin is to cut the tail off of the steaks as I want this fat for sausage or hamburger. I vacuum seal it and freeze for later use.

For our regular ribeyes steaks, I cut them about 1-1/4" to 1-1/2" thick and then vacuum pack them for the freezer. We also like what I call a State Fair steak sandwich and for this treat, I cut the steaks to about 1/2" in thickness.

Just like your steak, great burgers start out with great ground meat. Never, I say never, if you want a great tasting hamburger, buy any ground meat that is leaner then chuck. And even with chuck, you will need to add some fat for the best results if you are grinding your own meat. If you want something leaner than chuck, grind up some liver and it will have about the same amount of flavor and moisture as a brick on your bun! I put burger ground from sirloin and round in this same catagory. FAT makes a great burger!! I usually make my burgers from the fattest cuts I can find and then add more fat from my other meats. I think about 65%lean and about 35% fat really make the best burgers. You bite into on of my home ground FAT burgers and all the juice and flavor from the fat will squirt into your mouth and you will think you have died and gone to heaven! The flavor is wonderful! Stay away from those bricks!

For the best steaks, you really need a hot fire and this takes a lot of lump charcoal as you see in the picture. This is my Big Green Egg with a full load of coals and all fired up and waiting for some steaks!

These are some fat burgers and a couple of ribeye steaks that have been salted and peppered and ready to go on the cooker. I will sometimes use a little garlic powder on my steaks as well but nothing else.

With a good hot fire like you see in the picture with the flames licking at the bottom of the meat, a great steak cooked to about rare or medium rare will only take about 3-4 minutes a side.

Now those are nice looking ribeyes ready for the plate.

This is a plate of my State Fair cut ribeyes along with a couple of butterflied pork chops. They sell a sandwich with this cut of meat at the fair and it is just a killer meal. I cut them around 1/2" to 3/4" thick and then grill them at a high temp over lump charcoal for just a few minutes a side.

With a hot fire, they only take a couple of minutes per side. If I am serving to a group, I hold the steaks in a pan of hot Lipton onion soup. They come out of the onion soup and then onto a big bun for serving. It doesn't get any better than that for a sandwich.

This is a few of the State Fair steaks done on a plate with the butterflied pork chops. Good stuff!

One of my favorite meals is a good steak off of my large Big Green Egg.

All my Backwoods cookers have the removable water pan which allows me to cook steaks and chops on them at just the tip of the flame with a lump charcoal fire if I want and these cookers will also do a great job with a steak meal.

T-bones on the Backwoods smoker.

Another great steak dinner.

I do burgers both direct and indirect at many different temperatures as we do eat them often and I can usually find some room on any cooker for this great treat when cooking our other meats. Burgers are just wonderful as long as they are cooked over a charcoal fire.

For cooking them alone on a cooker, I prefer to do them direct on my ceramic cookers or my Weber kettle at the very high temps like I use for my steaks.

The above pictures show the burgers being cooked direct on a very hot fire. They cook in about the same amount of time as the steaks for rare and medium rare and that is about 4 minutes a side on a hot fire with the flames licking at the bottom of the meat.

The above pictures shows some burgers being cooked indirect on a ceramic cooker. Using a cooking temp of about 325-375 degrees will also make a great burger but it does take longer.

This is a mixed cook of burgers and sausage links just going on the ceramic cooker.

About done on the cooker and looking good.

Doing this article and seeing all the pictures sure makes my hungry so I think I will lay out some steaks for supper.

Hot and Super Spicy Italian Sausage

2009-03-07T23:54:00.000-08:00

This is a great recipe for Italian sausage but it is very hot and spicy and by far, the best recipe I have ever tasted for this wonderful treat. This sausage stuffed into casings and eaten as a sandwich may be too hot and spicy for some of the family but used loose (bulk) in all other recipes is just something that you won't soon forget! It is really that good!

We use it in our pizza, meatloaves, meatballs (both over spaghetti and in meatball hero sandwiches), calzones, stromboli, stuffed bell peppers, fatties, lasagna, marinara sauce, spaghetti sauce, and some other casseroles.

This picture shows about 18 pounds of my Italian sausage ready for the freezer.

We usually make it up in batches of about 8 pounds to as much as 18 pounds. It does freeze well and will hold fine in the freezer for about 6 months.

Ok...Let's get started. You will need a way to grind up the pork butts for this treat or if you are lucky and have a local store that still has a real meat department, just have them grid the butts up for you when they are doing their own sausage. I usually grind my own pork in my Kitchen-Aid mixer and I also use the mixer to mix each 4 pound batch of meat. You will need some method of grinding up some of the spices for this meat and I usually use a mortar and pestle but I think a small spice grinder would work as well. If you plan to stuff the sausage into casings, you will need a stuffer of some type and of course, the casings of your choice. The Kitchen-Aid with the correct attachment will do it but it is a two person operation for the best results.

I start by cutting up the pork butts into pieces small enough to fit into the neck of my Kitchen-Aid grinder attachment.

It is now ready to go thru the grinder.

I then run the pork thru the grinder and into a few bowls or pans.

My recipe is for about 4 pounds of ground pork per batch as that is the largest amount I can mix in my Kitchen-Aid so I usually weigh out my ground pork into bowls of 4 pounds each. You can do larger amounts if you want to mix by hand.

Again, for 4 pounds of ground pork butts:

4 TBL crushed fennel seed
4 TBL crushed red pepper
4 TBL oregano
4 TBL very finely chopped onion
2 TBL MSG
2 tsp coriander seed (crushed)
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp caraway seed
1 tsp salt
1 tsp sugar
Bout 14 cloves of fresh garlic (crushed)
Bout 8oz water or wine

Grind or crush up the seeds and items in the recipe as needed and place them in a large cup of about 8 oz of water or wine and let this soak for about 20 minutes before use.

This is 2 batches ready to be mixed into the ground pork by hand or mixed up in the Kitchen-Aid.

I place the ground pork back into the mixer bowl and pour the spice mixture over the pork. I use the dough hook on the mixer to mix up the spices in the sausage. Again, I am making 4 pound batches of the sausage.

About 8 pounds of my Italian sausage as it was finished up in two batches in the mixer.

This is about 12 pounds of sausage.

This is about 17 pounds of sausage.

At this time, I will usually fry up a pattie for a sandwich and taste it for the seasonings and make a change here if needed. At least, that is the excuse I use to the old woman to get a sample this wonderful treat as early as possible.

The meat then gets covered and goes into the fridge for about 2-3 hours to let the seasonings work into the meat before I vacuum pack it for the freezer or stuff it into casings.

I usually put either a pound or a pound and a half in each bag. I think this picture shows 1-1/2 pound bags ready for the freezer.

This batch is one pound bags of sausage.

Try that on a pizza...Good Stuff...Nuff Said!

WSM / Pizza

2009-03-05T03:24:00.000-08:00

While scrounging around my files looking for a sausage picture, I came across this very first bake on my Weber Smokey Mountain (WSM) cooker. I think this bake was done in the Winter of 1999.

I set the cooker up for baking on my hearth and then fired it up and waited for it to get up to about 475 degrees which is the temp I wanted for my two "Thick and Chewy" crust pizzas.

Was a cold Winter day with some snow and the WSM did a fine job with this bake.

I made enough dough for two 14" thick and chewy pizzas in my Kitchen-Aid mixer and prepped the first pizza and placed it on the cooker.

While the first pizza cooked, I made up the second pizza and had it ready to go when the first pizza came off the cooker.

This great little cooker does a great job with about any type of task that you can throw at it and does it well.

You can find more information on how I setup and bake on this cooker under "WSM Cooker" in the "Table of Contents".

Pork Steaks

2009-03-04T01:06:00.000-08:00

Pork steaks are wonderful cooked on any type of outside cooker or smoker and are very easy to prep and cook and will always make a nice base for any barbecued meal.

The steaks are usually cut out of a pork shoulder and preferable the butt section and the thickness can vary from about 1/4" to over 1-1/2" thick. The thickness of the cut may determine the best method of cooking the meat.

This treat originated around the St. Louis area and the meat is usually cut thin and after the addition of a rub or marinade of some type, just grilled and then glazed with Maull's sauce or sometimes grilled and then placed in a pan with the Maull's sauce which is usually cut with beer and then baked or simmered for some additional time. Other older methods for preparing this treat might be to sear over direct heat at a high temp and then finished at a lower temp. With this method, they would dip the steaks in sauce after they were done and put them back on the grill to caramelize the glaze at the end of the cook.

There are many other methods of cooking or smoking this meat including casserole dishes, crock pot cooking, Dutch oven cooking, and the list just goes on forever with both grilling and smoking, indirect of direct cooking, and the truth is, that it is about impossible to mess up a good pork steak.

In my area of the Mid-West, I can usually find these steaks on sale for no more than about $1.39 a pound and often at about a dollar a pound. They do freeze well so we always purchase extra when we find a sale.

I like to purchase the pork steaks that are cut around 1/2 to 3/4 inch thick and then just apply a good rub and cook or smoke them indirect at a good low and slow temp of around 250 degrees. I can always make some extra room on the cooker for this meat as it is a great barbecued meat.

This shows 10 pork steaks in my contraption for my Big Green Egg all rubbed up and ready for the fire.

After I got the cooker on temp, I just carried this out and dropped it into my ceramic cooker.

This picture shows two layers of pork steaks on the ceramic cooker. This was an indirect cook.

Of course, you can also do them direct over a hot lump charcoal fire and they will also come out well.

These are direct on my large Egg.

These are indirect on a raised grid in the ceramic cooker.

This picture shows some pork steaks on my pellet cooker. When cooking these by themselves, or with some chicken, they will cook as well at a raised temp of around 325-350 degrees which is also better for most chicken cooks.

Pork steaks, along with my crunchy hot buffalo wings, are two items that I can always find room for on my cookers on most of my cooks.

More pork steak on the pellet cooker with a mixed cook of other meats.

Another mixed cook with some pork steaks. It's just a great treat and super easy to cook.

These next few pictures will show the pork steaks done and ready for serving. The different look and color that you see in the pictures comes from my different methods of handling the sauce and finishing the steaks on the cooker.

To finish these steaks, I will sometimes just apply some sauce near the end of the cook, or I might start adding some layers of sauce during the last half of the cook, or I might make up a good glaze with some honey and caramelize it on the steaks before I pull them off the cooker. In my opinion, about all finishing methods are very good on the pork steaks.

Finishing the steaks without any sauce is also good and I often use this method when testing a few rubs against each other for their taste on a meat after it is cooked. It's a great way to compare products.

I couldn't finish an article on one of my favorite treats without including some information from an expert and my friend, Juggy D. Beerman who is from Missouri, and is known for his recipe and method for producing the best pork steak in the Mid-West. This is what Juggy would tell ya...

For the Marinade:

2 cups Wishbone Spicy French Dressing
1 cup lemon juice
2 cups apple juice
1 (12 oz) can of cherry cola
1 cup Woeber's Spicy mustard
1/4 cup habenero hot sauce
1/4 cup of rub

You can reserve some of the marinade for a baste if you so desire. I don't baste the steaks for the first hour or two of the cooking time.

Due to the acidic content of the marinade, I would not marinate the pork steaks more than eight hours or the meat will turn to mush. Because of the sugar in the marinade, I do not cook the meat directly over the coals or above 250ºF. I usually use the kettle for this but the WSM works too. I like to use cherry wood for the smoke flavor.

Depending on the thickness of the steaks, they take anywhere from two to four hours to cook. You won't be able to render all the fat out between the muscle areas like you do a pork shoulder, but quite a bit of the fat will cook out. I consider the steaks done once you can easily separate the muscle areas. Once you can pull two areas of the meat apart, apply the finish sauce of your choice and give the sauce a little time to thicken on meat.

Give them a try as I am sure you will enjoy.

Butterflied Chicken / Pulled Chicken

2009-02-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

Butterflied chicken or as it is sometimes called, spatchcock chicken, is a great treat on a cooker, grill, or smoker. It is easy to do and can be cooked at about any temp that you can come up with on your cooker. I prefer it cooked at a higher temp at around 350 degrees if it is the only thing I am running on my smoker/cooker at the time. Other than cooking a chicken whole in a Weber Kettle Rotisserie setup, I feel that this is the second best way to cook a whole chicken on an outside cooker.

To prep the butterflied chicken, place the whole chicken breast side down on your cutting board and using poultry shears or a very good knife, cut the backbone out of the chicken. Turn it over and spread it out and then press down on the chicken hard enough to break the breast bone and you now have it.

The chicken is now ready for your rub and I prefer something like Smokin' Guns Hot as I feel it is a great rub for all chicken.

This picture shows three butterflied chickens ready for the cooker.

I do this treat on most of my cookers and will show some pictures of this cook in process on the different cookers.

This is 3 butterflied chickens on my pellet cooker.

This picture shows 2 butterflied chickens on my contraption in my large BGE cooker.

This is a butterflied chicken in my small Egg on my raised grid setup.

Chicken just going on my Backwoods Party smoker.

I have some pictures of this wonderful treat just coming out of the cookers.

This chicken is out of one of my Backwoods cookers.

These two chickens are coming out of my Backwoods Party cooker.

This butterflied chicken is just coming off of my "Old School" Fast Eddy Pellet Cooker.

These are two more butterflied chickens off of my pellet cooker.

Again, one more chicken along with some baked potatoes just coming off the pellet cooker.

I use several different methods for finishing and glazing this chicken on the cookers and that is why the pictures show the different results in my cooks.

There are a lot of ways to present a butterflied whole chicken and I think this is one of the best! I like to cut it up at the table with a good knife and then serve it right off the plate.

Pulled Chicken is another great way to use this meat. Must be a hundreds of ways to prepare and serve this treat after pulling and we use several of them and all are very good. Wife loves chicken salad and if I don't watch her, all of the chicken I cook will end up in this dish. Once she gets it chopped up and made into her chicken salad, she will use it for several treats. I like it fixed as barbecued chicken and on a hoogie roll with some hot sauce. I also like it in some Mexican type of dishes and I also use it for some stir fried recipes. It's great about any way you prepare it.

This is a bowl of pulled chicken from two butterflied whole chickens. We will usually make enough to put up a bag or two for the freezer when we cook this meat as we do use it often for several recipes.

Now, for the folks that want to kick this up to the next level, I'll give you my top secret recipe and method that will make this treat something that you might never forget.

To prep your pulled chicken for this, you first need to pull all the skin off of the butterflied chicken and put it aside. Then go ahead and pull the chicken into a bowl.

Put all the chicken skin on a cutting board and chop it up into small pieces and place it into a skillet that has a tablespoon or two of peanut oil in the bottom and then add about 3 cut up pieces of bacon per whole chicken. Now, for the folks that are the lovers of the pod, cut up about two jalapeno peppers per chicken and place them in the skillet and cook this until it is kinda crispy but not overdone.

Strain the grease out of this mixture.

Pour it over your pulled chicken.

Mix it up and you really have something that is more than good.

I like to take a hoogie roll and lay it out flat on the plate. Run a couple of beads of mayo on one side of the bun, then add some lettuce, some tomatoes, and some onions. I then place some of my pulled chicken on the other side and fold it up and eat this great sandwich.

Wife likes to make some of the pulled chicken into chicken salad and then use a whole wheat tortilla to make her chicken salad rollups. She will also stuff a Pita Pocket with some pulled barbecued chicken as a second choice. Both are very good.

Another great way to use the pulled chicken is in what I call a Mexican rollup. I start by chopping up some of the pulled chicken and then mixing the meat in a bowl with some taco sauce. I then put some of it down on a whole wheat tortilla.

I then add some finely chopped lettuce, tomato, and onions and then some sharp shreaded cheddar cheese on it. I will then dribble on some more taco sauce on the top before I roll it up.

Put the rollup in the nuker just long enough to heat it up and melt the cheese.

I will then cut it into two pieces, add some sour cream, and serve it like you see in the picture.

A great meal!

Wife will sometimes pile on some more of the veggies and sour cream on the top of her rollup and eat it that way. Either way, it is a wonderful treat.

Meatloaf on a Smoker/Cooker

2009-02-25T01:11:00.000-08:00

Meatloaf is wonderful cooked on an outside cooker/smoker with just that light hint of smoke flavor. It is very easy to oversmoke this treat so I usually don't use much smoke wood for my cooking. It is also a great treat for the low-carbers if you use the Heinz One Carb reduced sugar ketchup over the top of the meat and leave out any of the fillers that would have carbs.

Meatloaf can be made with many different ingredients and I prefer to use some of the following for my loaves. This would make up about a 2-1/2 pound loaf.

1 lb Italian or a tube of hot sausage.
1 lb 70% lean hamburger
Sharp cheddar cheese
Egg
Onions
Bell peppers
Roasted red peppers
Italian spice
Salt
Pepper
Mushrooms
Black olives
Filler--either oats, crackers, or bread crumbs

The above picture show a 1-1/2 pound package of my homemade super spicy Italian sausage and about 1-1/2 pound of fatburger for the meat in this loaf. I like to keep the meat about 50/50 hamburger and sausage for my regular loaves.

I like to cook my meatloaves on perforated pizza pans as I don't like the meat cooked in its own grease. The grease will drip thru the holes in the pan and this makes for a better result. I use the handle end of a wooden spoon to make some indentations in the top of the loaf for the ketchup and then pour some over the top of the meat just before it goes on the fire.

This is the meatloaf about done in the ceramic cooker. I usually use a temp of about 350 degrees for this treat and take it off the cooker when the meat reaches about 165 degrees internal. I usually don't use any smoke wood as the lump charcoal will give the meat enough smoke flavor.

Another loaf going on the cooker.

Meatloaf done.

More meatloaf going on the ceramic cooker.

About done on the cooker.

This is my Cajun meatloaf and it has some Cajun spices and some crawfish tails in this loaf along with my regular ingredients.

This is a mixed cook with the meatloaf on the lower grid in the ceramic cooker.

I then added my upper grid.

Placed a pan of rolls above the meatlaof.

Rolls done and ready to come off the cooker.

This is another mixed cook that I am getting ready in my contraption for the ceramic cooker. This cook is a meatloaf, some slab potatoes, and a sausage fattie.

It is now ready to be carried out and placed on my ceramic cooker when it's on temp.

Meatloaf is a great treat and very easy to do on about any type of outside cooker.

Stuffed Bell Peppers

2009-02-22T02:37:00.000-08:00

Stuffed bell peppers are fairly easy to make and are a great meal on a cooker/smoker. I probably don't make them up the same way twice but all recipes will come out great on the cooker with just that light hint of smoke flavor. I also do a couple of lo-carb recipes with this treat.

The peppers can be cooked in a baking dish or even in a Dutch oven with the lid off.

I usually start out with par-boiling the pepppers for a few minutes.

Ingredients:

Italian sausage
Hamburger
Onions
Mushrooms
Cheese
Garlic
Egg
Italian seasoning or some fresh herbs
Salt
Pepper

And for the fillers if desired, we use either rice, oats, or crackers. Leave this out if you want the treat lo-carb.

You can add some of your favorite spaghetti sauce over the top or if you are low carbing, use my low carb sauce found in my low carb pizza article. (See Table of Contents). I also use some of the sauce in the bottom of the Dutch oven when cooking in this pot.

Place the stuffed peppers on the cooker and cook them with just a small amount of wood for smoke until the internal of the pepper is about 165 degrees. I prefer a cooking temp of about 350 degrees but will also do fine at the lower cooking temps of say about 250 degrees.

Serve them up and enjoy.

Fast Dougie's Pellet Fired Primo Cooker

2009-02-21T03:08:00.000-08:00

This slick little cooker was designed and fabricated by my friend Doug Feil (USA Doug) from Decatur, Alabama. It was built out of parts from a Primo ceramic cooker, parts from a Big Green Egg ceramic cooker, and parts from a Traeger pellet cooker along with a sheet of aluminum diamond plate metal and some other misc. parts. I think it is kinda a "work in process" as Doug works on it when he has the time.

Doug used the outer shell (both top and bottom) of the round Primo ceramic cooker.

He also used the Primo pizza stone and grate along with the vent top in his assembly of this cooker. He also used the ceramic ring out of a BGE cooker in this unit.

Doug fabricated his pellet hopper, control panel, and complete feed delivery system housing out of the diamond plate aluminum sheet. He then installed the Traeger pellet feed system into the Primo cooker shell and attached his feeder and hopper assembly to the Primo shell.

The cooker is coming along nicely at this point and looks good.

He used the BGE plate setter with the legs up in the cooker and then the cooking grid on top of that.

This picture shows the cooker lit up with fire in the firebox.

I think this is a great modification and fabrication job to the Primo ceramic cooker and "kudo's" go out to Doug for coming up with this very unique cooker.

Ribs & Bibs Contest Schedule / 2009

2009-02-20T04:14:00.000-08:00

This is our Tentative 2009 Schedule:

Sikeston, Mo. 4/10-4/11, Arrive Thursday Unknown, Leave Sunday OK, Anything Butt
(Will only do this contest if we can arrive on Thursday)

Wamac, Il. 5/1-5/2, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK,

Edwardsville, Il. 5/8-5/9, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK, Peoples Choice, 30 Teams

Fairbanks, In. 6/5-6/6, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK,

Trotwood, Oh. 6/12-6/13, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK, Must get proclamation.
(Won't attend this contest unless it is a State Championship)

Jeffersonville, In. 6/19-6/20, Arrive Thursday unknown Leave Sunday OK, Must get proclamation.
(Will only do this contest if we can arrive on Thursday)
(OR)
Franklin, Ky. 6/19-6/20, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday Unknown,
(Will only do this contest if we can arrive on Thursday and leave Sunday)

Shannon Il. 7/10-7/11, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK, Sausage and Dessert,
(OR)
Kettering, Oh. 7/10-7/11, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK,
(It's a shame that Kettering changed their date to this weekend)
Not sure which event we will attend!

Jasper, In 7/31-8/1, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK

Madison, In 8/21-8/22, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK, Sausage, Dessert, Anything butt

Nashville, In 8/28-8/29, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK

Mt. Carmel, Il 9/11-9/12, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK

Owensboro, Ky 9/25-9/26, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK

Arthur, Il 10/10-10/11, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday OK, All the extras

Mt. Vernon, Il 10/16-10/17, Arrive Thursday Leave Sunday Ok
(Not on KCBS Schedule yet)
(OR)
Nelsonville, Oh 10/16-10/17, Arrive Thursday Unknown Leave Sunday OK
(Will only consider this contest if we can arrive on Thursday)