EZ Corned and Pastramied Beef Brisket on the GM Daniel Boone

My first sandwich is made on toasted rye bread and then I added a generous amount of the pastramied beef brisket, three slices of baby Swiss cheese, and a big helping of horseradish sauce. This is probably my most favorite sandwich.

My local Kroger store had some Corned Beef Brisket Flats on sale so I purchased 4 of them for my treat. Got home and found out that they were the points which is about too fatty for good pastramied brisket. Took them back and they called another Kroger store in the next town and found me some flats. Wife picked them up and when I opened them up, I found whole briskets that had been cut in half diagonally. Man, I can’t win!

Anyway, I started with the 4 purchased corned beef brisket halves  and then trimmed them up of most of their fat.

The cuts of meat were not as good as I usually get but I will make them work. Had to cut off way too much fat with these lousy briskets.

Since the purchased corned beef brisket is bathing in salt water and brine, which will work great for something like corn beef and cabbage but not good for making into pastrami, I need to de-salt the meat somewhat for my treat. I do this in this container for about 24 hours changing the water 3-4 times during this period to remove the excess salt.

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This is the meat ready to go on the cooker. I piled on a rub consisting of large butcher cut black pepper, coriander, brown sugar, and a few other spices.

I loaded my meat into my Green Mountain Daniel Boone and set the cooker for maximum smoke and ran it that way for the first 3 hours and then turned it up to 290 degrees to finish my cook. 

I took the meat off of the cooker at an internal of about 185 degrees and it looked pretty good. 

Put all the meat thru my slicer.

The finished meat looked ok but the slices were not very wide.

We kept out enough meat for a couple of sandwiches and then vacuum packed the balance for the freezer.

Ready for the freezer.

Start of my sandwich on toasted rye bread. 

I added a small tomato salad and had a fine lunch.

Green Mountain High Temp Pizza Oven Accessory

I purchased this Green Mountain wood fired pizza oven a few weeks ago when they were on sale and finally got it installed in my Daniel Boone to try it out. WOW, it is one great accessory. Pizza as high as 850-875 degrees is what it is designed to do. Imagine, a 2 minute pizza!

This accessory is all Stainless steel except for the hearth stone and it sure looks like a quality unit. To install it, I just took the grids and drip pans out of the cooker and just dropped it into the Daniel Boone. The unit fits over the fire box in the cooker so all the heat is directed up into the unit. 

The base of the unit installed in the cooker. 

Ready to go in the cooker. The top part just lifts up and off of the unit if needed (for rookies that can’t handle a pizza peel) but I found that it wasn’t needed for my pizzas. I had plenty of room for using both a wood and metal peel.

I wanted to start with a couple of simple Pizza Margherita style pies so I didn’t have very much on them for my first attempt. 

I used some frozen dough I had made up a few weeks ago that was made with 00 flour, a few herbs, and of course, salt, sugar, oil, water, and some yeast. To top the pizza, I started with some sauce, and then some mozzarella cheese, next up some small sliced tomatoes, and then some shredded parmesan cheese. I did the second pizza the same way but also added a few pieces of pepperoni. 

Since this was my first bake on this unit, I decided to use a little lower temperature at around 650-700 degrees for my first attempt. To get this temp, I had to set the cooker at just 275 degrees. It took about 20 minutes to get to temp on this cold 20 degree morning. 

Pizza just loaded into the hot oven.

Pizza about done in the oven...note the bubbled up dough. After loading, I let it bake for 2 minutes and turned it about 90  degrees and let it go for 2 more minutes for a total of 4 minutes to complete the pizza. The 90 degree turn is all that is needed as the pizza oven heats the top of the pizza from both sides of the accessory. 

I thought my first effort came out great...love that bubbled up dough and the way everything came out. I added my chopped basil after the pizza was out of the oven. I can hardly wait to try it again at a higher temperature. 

Lunch...

And I paid just over $100 dollars for this unit and I think it is a great value for the folks that own a Green Mountain grill. The grill will fit both the Green Mountain Daniel Boone and the Jim Bowie. Won't fit the Davy Crockett grill. 

Jerky in the Green Mountain Pellet Cooker / Bull Racks

Did this jerky a couple of days ago on a cold morning (22 degrees) in my Daniel Boone pellet cooker using a blend of hardwood Premium heating pellets. The same pellets I have used for the past 15 years for everything I cook in my pellet grills. 

This round of jerky was made from a little over 5 pounds of top round which I found on sale last week. I had the meat cutter at the store cut the meat into slices a 1/4” thick and against the grain. For my preparation, I cut every speck of fat I could out of each slice of meat and then cut the pieces into strips about 1 to 1-1/2” wide. 

To be sure I got each piece covered well with my marinade, I used the two bowl method to be sure each piece was dipped into the marinade and covered completely.

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My favorite marinade for jerky and I use if for most batches is the following. This recipe is for about 4 pounds of meat. 

1 cup soy sauce

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup blackstrap molasses

2 tsp onion powder

2 tsp garlic powder

2 tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 tsp white pepper

1 tsp cayenne pepper*

2 TBL crushed red pepper flakes*

*I am sure this recipe will be too hot for most folks so do cut back on the hot pepper to suit your taste.

I will sometimes add about a 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce to this recipe for one of my Daughters and her family as they like that recipe better. 

I like to have the meat in the marinade for at least 24 hours before the fire and do make it up a few hours before you need it to allow enough time for the sugar to dissolve and the spices to kinda mellow out in the bowl with some stirring once in a while. 

I used my “Bull Rack BR6 Ultimate which is The Worlds Best BBQ Rack” as that is what it says on the box. I only needed 4 of the 7 pans that will fit in the rack for this cook. 

This picture shows the jerky about 3 hours into my 4 hour cook running 150 degrees in the cooker. 

Now, I have to throw in a couple of plugs for the Green Mountain cookers and the first one is the height inside the cooker is tall enough for many different applications including this very nice tall rack system. I also run rotisseries including the Rib-O-Lator which requires a lot of height. 

Another nice feature is the PID digital controller which will operate between 150 degrees to a top of 500 degrees. The lower temperature of 150 degrees is perfect for items like jerky, sausage, vegetables including my hot peppers, and other drying or low temp smoking with that light hint of wood smoke flavor which makes the items better tasting in most treats. 

Came out great and will be in the mail in time for Christmas.

Ground Sirloin Jerky on the Green Mountain Daniel Boone

I did this jerky cook early yesterday morning and it came out quite well. It was also my first try making jerky out of ground meat. 

I did 5 pounds of the ground sirloin (90%) lean for this batch. It took 3-2/3rd trays on the BR6 Ultimate Six Rack setup from Earthworks.

I had 3 trays of the standard mix and cure that came with the LEM Jerky Cannon and one tray of which I added a big sprinkle of cayenne pepper.

I turned and rotated the trays every hour and the total cooking time was 3 hr and 45 minutes.

My LEM Jerky Cannon worked great for this treat and made quick work out of 5 pounds of ground sirloin. 

Ready to be carried out and placed on my Green Mountain Daniel Boone cooker. I ran the cooker at 170 degrees through out the whole cook.

About done on cooker.

Jerky done and cooling on the counter top. 

The wife liked this batch and I think it is pretty good but I think it could be improved with more spice and heat. 

Next batch will be made out of sliced top round.

Steak & Pork Burger on the Davy Crockett Grill

The first part of this cook was done on the Davy Crockett pellet cooker with my cast iron grilling insert and using a grid temp of about 450 degrees.



Ribeye was trimmed up a little and then rubbed with one of my steak rubs and then left out on the counter top to warm up for about 45 minutes.



Steak was on the grill for about 7 minutes total and this resulted in a nice medium rare cook.



Came out looking pretty nice and sure smelled good.

Dropped the temperature on the Davy Crocket grill to about 350 degrees, removed my grilling insert, and added a round cast iron griddle for my pork burgers.



I formed up 4 patties of my homemade pork burger and then added some simple SPG rub and they were ready for the fire.

Placed my four (6 oz each) pork burgers on the cast iron griddle and cooked them until done.





Sure made a nice lunch.

Cheesy Sausage Biscuit Bites & Pig Shots

This cook (bake) was done on my Green Mountain Daniel Boone pellet grill running at about 400 degrees. This appetizer bake consisted of forty of the biscuit bites and about sixteen of the pig shots.



Preparation of the Easy Cheesy Biscuit Bites:

Ingredients

2 )10 count) cans of flaky biscuits (Grands Jr)
1 lb sausage (I used the hot sausage)
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
jalapeno slices

Preheat cooker to about 400 degrees
Mix uncooked sausage and cheese gently until well blended. Shape into 40 balls of equal size.
Remove biscuits from cans and separate each biscuit into two layers, making 40 total biscuit layers. Pam your mini-cupcake pan and press one layer of the biscuit into each hole. Repeat with the remaining dough or biscuit layers.
Place sausage-cheese ball into each biscuit cup and add a jalapeno slice. Bake for 8-10 minutes or until biscuits are browned and sausage balls are bubbly.

The pig shots are just a piece of rope sausage with a piece of bacon wrapped around them leaving about half the bacon on the sausage piece and the other half forming a pocket for the goodies. Use a toothpick to hold the bacon in place. Stuff the cavities with cream cheese and sprinkle on a light rub and then fill the remaining space in the cavity with brown sugar. Bake these until the bacon is done.



Loaded into the Daniel Boone cooker running around 400 degrees.



I had only one of the mini-muffin tins so I had to do these in two rounds. After I got the first round of the biscuits off the cooker, the pig shots were done shortly thereafter.



Second round of the biscuit bites going on the cooker.







My completed appetizers.