This blog contains articles about stuff that interests Old Dave. Might be about bbq cooking, down home cooking and baking, bread making, recipes, maybe some old fashioned skills, bbq contests, cooker reviews, restaurant reviews, racing or shooting sports. This site also contains the largest collection of articles and information on the Cobb Grill in the US.
This cook was done on my GMG Daniel Boone running a Rib-O-Lator rotisserie setup. It was also my first cook on this setup. I wanted to cook a full load of spare ribs but just didn't need them at this time so I decided to do a mixed cook to see how this modification would work. The cook consisted of the following meats. Slab of St Louis cut Spare Ribs Rib Tips from the slab of spares Three Pork Steaks Two Chuck Steaks Ham Steak I prepped the meat by cutting the spare ribs up into a slab of St. Louis cut spare ribs and then I had the rib tips to cook as well. I applied a rub to both the tips and the spares. I prepped the pork steaks by just giving them a good rub. I prepped the chuck steaks by sprinkling on a medium coat of garlic salt and then a generous dose of black pepper. I did nothing to prep the ham steak.
To keep this rotisserie in balance, I planned to load the ribs on one tray and then the tips on the tray opposite the ribs. Then I would load 2 of the pork steaks on one tray and the two chuck steaks on the last tray. I was running hickory pellets and set the cooker at 150 degrees for the first hour to get some additional smoke into my product. I got all but the ham steak loaded into the cooker and it did balance out quite well and was rotating just fine. After one hour at 150 degrees, I raised the temperature up 300 degrees for the balance of the cook. I ran at this temp until my chuck steak and pork steak was done and my ribs were ready to wrap. Rib Tips and Chuck Steaks Ribs and Pork Steak The food looked good at this point into the cook. I pulled the pork and chuck steaks and then wrapped the ribs and tips and placed them back on the cooker. I had to cut up my ham steak as it was too wide for the trays and then I loaded it on one of the empty trays and then placed my last pork steak on the other tray. Cooked about an additional hour until my ham and last pork steak was done. The cook came out quite well for a first cook with this rig. Pork Steak and Chuck Steak. Ribs, Rib Tips, and Ham Steak Not looking forward to the cleanup!!! The Rib-O-Lator did a great job with the meats I tried on this first cook. Was very easy to keep in balance and will cook just fine even if it isn't in perfect balance. Looking forward to cooking a full load of ribs in this rotisserie setup.
Our local Kroger has these very large Bronto Spares on sale several times each year at a low of $1.47 to $1.87 a pound and although they are injected with salt water, I get sucked into purchasing a few slabs each time they run the sale. Jan found a couple of slabs that only weighed around 5-1/2 pounds each so I decided to cook one up yesterday. I also needed to do some pit beans for a an upcoming event so this cook worked out great for me. I start by cutting out a slab of St. Louis first and then taking the remaining rib tips and cutting out some of the fat, cartilage, and bones so they will be ready for the grill. I then got my pit beans ready as I planned to cook them under the ribs so the drippings would go into the beans for some additional flavor. I put the pit beans on my little Davy Crockett tailgater pellet grill and then placed the ribs over the beans on a raised grid. Later into the cook, I pulled both the slab of spares and the rib tips for some additional cutting and saucing and then placed them back on the cooker with the rib tips in my pan. I glazed the sauce on the slab of spares and pulled them and waited for the tips to get done. Tips cooked about 30 minutes more and I pulled them. Beans, spares, and tips look good coming off of the grill. We made a meal out of the rib tips along with some of the pit beans.
The beans were then frozen to will be used for one of the treats I will prepare for the folks at the Gathering in a few days.
This cook was a complete meal on my GMG Daniel Boone pellet cooker and was done on a cold Winter morning a few days ago. It utilized my raised grid setup and also a welding blanket. The ambient temperature at the start of the cook was at 18 degrees. The meal consisted of some pulled, cut, and shredded rib meat, some of Rick Salmon’s Pit Beans, a buttered piece of fried cornbread, and a fried apple pie with some ice cream for dessert. I also added a dip of cottage cheese for my salad. I sometimes use those real large Kroger “Bronto spare ribs which weigh about 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 pounds per slab. I usually cut them down to St. Louis cut and this leaves me with about half of each slab in rib tips. I throw them in the freezer and when I get enough, I usually use them in my sausage, cook them up in rib tips, or make my pulled rib meat as I have done on this cook. I prepped the rib tips with a good rub and then made up my pit beans in a black iron pot. I placed the rib tips in the cooker with some of them on a raised grid over my beans for additional flavor to this fine side dish. The drippings off of the ribs really compliment the beans. Was a cold morning with a light wind so the welding blanket will help with the cook. Later in the cook I added a black iron skillet and started my fried cornbread. After the fried cornbread was done, next up in the skillet was my fried apple pies.
These are the results of this cook. I then shredded up the rib meat. As plated. I added some ice cream to my fried apple pie. Again, it was one nice meal off of my Daniel Boone pellet cooker.
For this cook, I needed maximum indirect grilling space so I chose my classic Char-Broil 940X and then added a second grid to this cooker to get even more space. I planned for about a 5-6 hour cook so I used a smaller fuse burn so I wouldn’t have to fool with it all day. I poured in about 13 pounds of the Wicked Good all natural brickettes into the firebox which I had divided out with 3 firebricks and then added some hickory chunks for flavor wood. Used a Weber fire cube to start it off in the front end of the cooker. Since I needed maximum indirect grill space, I used two full hotel pan covers right under the cooking grids on the left side of the cooker and this just left me with about 1/4th of the cooker direct and I needed this to keep the cooker flowing correctly. With the smoke and heat coming up on the far right side of the cooker, I planned to use only the exhaust vent on the Left side of the cooker which will pull all the smoke and heat back across my food for the best flavor. As with all my fuse burns in this cooker, I used the front service door for my air intake to the fire. These rib tips were trimmed off of those big “bronto” spare ribs I get from the Kroger store which I store in the freezer until I make sausage or just want some tips. I gave these a good sprinkle of my no-carb rub and they were ready to go. This package of pork steaks has 6 nice slabs and they as well were prepped with my rub. Good meaty beef ribs are about impossible to find in my area so I usually fall back on these lousy looking beef ribs from wallyworld. They are injected with salt water and trimmed way to close to the bones. I do live with them once in a while as I guess they are better than nothing. I used my no sugar Texas rub on the beef ribs. I managed to get it all loaded on the indirect part of the cooker and it took up all the space I had allocated for the cook. I had the beef ribs which I think will take the longest on the raised second grid which runs a little hotter that the standard level in the cooker. Nice cool sunny morning with just a light frost and a great day to be outside and cooking something. Pork steak about done so I slopped on some low carb bbq sauce and then let them glaze for a few minutes until they were done to suit me. Hard to beat the taste of a well prepared pork steak in my opinion. With the pork steak off, I had room for my hot wings so they got a dose of rub and a heavy sprinkling of ground cayenne and they were ready for the cooker. I got them on under my beef ribs. Next step was to wrap the beef ribs and I used a little broth and some Splinda in the foil for additional flavor.
The rib tip pieces were wrapped as well with the above broth and sweetener.
About the same time, I slopped on a heavy dose of my hot sauce which consists of a large cup of Frank’s hot sauce, bout 1/3rd stick of butter, one tbl Splinda, and 2 tsp ground cayenne pepper. Hot wings just of the cooker and I couldn’t wait and ate one....oh my!!! Later into the cook, my rib tips came off the cooker and I cut them to size and placed them into my pan. I added a little pork marinade and mixed it all up and then back on the cooker. Had a few peppers left so I added them to my cook. Later in the cook, I unwrapped the beef ribs and slopped on a heavy dose of my low carb sauce. The beef ribs come off the cooker looking good. At this time I poured some sauce into my rib tip pan and stirred them up real well. After my tips come off the cooker, I plated up my meal. I had one big beef rib, 4-5 rib tips, one hot wing, and some salad, cheese, and veggies. Made one nice low carb supper. Not that it means anything, look at that smoke ring on those beef ribs.
This blog will probably contain some real truths and facts, maybe some half truths, and maybe some total nonsense or fiction. May have some funny stories, articles, and other pictures and information from the web that I find interesting.
