Hot 'N Fast Pork Butts / Weber Performer

This cook was done on my Gen 2 Weber Performer running the Slow ‘N Sear charcoal accessory. The temperature used was about 325-340 degrees measured on the cooking grid. 

The two  butts were pretty large and weighed a total of19.4 pounds. I trimmed the fat off of the fat side and then cut each butt into two pieces. This will give me about 25% more surface area for bark and also cut the cooking time down as the pieces are smaller. 

The butts were then injected with Chris Lilly’s 6 time World Champion pork injection and then rubbed with SGH rub. 

Ready to go on the kettle

I believe I had a full load on the Performer!

Got this cook started about daylight this morning and hoping to get the cook done by about noon before it gets too hot.

Cooked the butts for about 2hours and 45 minutes and then wrapped them with some Stubb’s Pork Marinade and placed them back on the grill. 

After a little over three more hours, I started getting the butts off of the cooker. The total cooking time was 6.2 hours.

After a rest period, I unwrapped the meat and got it ready to pull. 

The results of my cook...

Pit Beef/Roast Beef on the Weber Kettle

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.

Orion Cooker / 70 Minute Spare Ribs

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!

High Temp Brisket / Direct Cooked

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.

Complete Steak Dinner / Backwoods Party

This cook, bake, grill, and smoke was done on my upgraded Party but could have been done as well in my Fatboy, Competitor, or Chubby as all four of these cookers are airtight and can be operated at the higher temps if done carefully. Of course, you do need the removable water pan option in the cooker.

Along with the steak, I did both slab potatoes and slab onions and a pan of green beans with bacon. I also wanted Texas toast so I also baked a loaf of sourdough pan bread for this treat. My dessert was to be Swedish Nut Cake.

The first part of this cook will be at about 350 degrees with a dry water pan IN the cooker. I also needed a very even cook with the fire in the center later in the cook so I started the fire on both sides and brought it up to cooking temp kinda slowly to be sure my fire was even for my later high temp grilling.



This shows my nut cake and the slab potatoes and onions just before they went on the cooker on the top grid. Not in the picture is my pan of sourdough bread.



Little cooker sure runs nice at 350 degrees.




Somewhere around 40 minutes, the first part of the cook was done and removed from the cooker.

I then removed the water pan and the diffuser plate from the cooker for my grilling and upped the temp to about 500 degrees which is as high as I run these cookers. With the cooking grid just a few inches over the fire, the temp there is much higher but I don't have any way to measure it.



Put the green beans on the cooker as they just need heated up some and then cut the sourdough bread for Texas toast. Added garlic and butter and then placed this on the top rack of the cooker.





I then placed the steaks on the cooker for just a few minutes as I wanted them medium rare and I would guess this was about 7 minutes per side. The picture isn't very good as the steaks did look better.



Wife put the icing on the cake and plated up this meal and it did come out well.



Made for a nice meal and all in just one cook on the Backwoods.