Surf & Turf on the Cobb Premier Grill

I did this cook yesterday morning in my little Cobb Premier Grill and it came out quite well. 

My lobster sauce was some butter, garlic, lemon juice, and salt and pepper. Also added a piece of garlic bread to my meal.

Steak was trimmed, oiled, and then rubbed with a good steak rub. I prepped my lobster tail and then I oiled it with olive oil and then I added a light sprinkle of rub to the meat.

Those Grill Grates sure do a fine job with steaks and chops. This steak was cooked in 8 minutes with a grid temp of about 625 degrees. I used 20 all hardwood charcoal briquets in the larger charcoal basket.

My lobster tail just going on the cooker.

My lobster tail ready to come off of my Cobb Premier. It was basted with a butter sauce.

Sure made a nice meal.

I cooked the steak to medium rare.

Sure was a nice easy cook to do on this fine little cooker / grill. 

Filet Mignon on the Cobb Grill

I finally got around to cooking up a couple of the steaks I trimmed out and froze for the freezer about a week ago. 

To prep, I wrapped each steak with two pieces of pre-cooked bacon and then added a good steak rub about 45 minutes before the fire and left them on the counter top to warm up. 

Brought the grill up to about 620 degrees measured on the Grill Grates and cooked the two steaks. They were on the cooker for 10 minutes. 

I plated the steak with a baked potato, tomato and cottage cheese salad, a cornbread muffin, and some mushroom sauce. 

Really made a nice meal.

Whole Beef Tenderloin / Steak Filets / Filet Mignon

One of the several items we try to keep in the freezer at all times are the Whole Beef Tenderloin Steak Filets and the Whole Ribeye Loin Steaks. Have been out of the tenderloin for a few months waiting for it to come on sale and it finally did this week. Kroger normally sells it for about $13.99 or $14.99 a pound which is kind pricy to me but they have it on sale this week for $8.99 a pound for choice meat. 

I purchased two of them for $173.03 which was a savings of about $70 bucks over the standard price. These two whole tenderloins were a little large and weighed a total of 17.32 pounds but they should make for some fine eating. 

I trim them by cutting off the chain and the head and then cutting most of the hard fat off the bottom of the loins. I then remove all the silver-skin and they are ready to be cut into steaks. Every excess item I remove off of these whole loins except the silver-skin will be used in my white burger. Talk about some good burger!!

We like our tenderloin filets cut about 2-1/2” thick which will make about a 5-6 oz steak but I cut these two about 1-1/2” to 2” wide as they were pretty large. The results were steaks that weighed from a low of about 4 oz to a high of about 7.5 oz. 

I packaged them for the freezer with one large and one small steak per package. We got a total of 32 steaks out of these two whole tenderloins. The cost per steak worked out to about $5.40 each. 

This is my bonus tenderloin trimmings which will be used for my white burger just as soon as I can find some choice chuck roasts on sale. With some other nice beef fat I have in the freezer, I have enough to make up about 25 pounds of my 60/40 white burger. 

Gonna eat good this Winter...

SCA Competition Steak Contest / Cobb Grill

I finally got to cook in a competition steak contest last weekend at the Praise the Lard event in Murphysboro, Illinois. This is a large event which includes a KCBS BBQ Contest, a MBN BBQ Contest, and a SCA Steak Contest. The contest is held at Mike Millls and family 17th. Street Barbeque Restaurant and property. 

This is a four day event with many different contests within the larger contests. 

The steak contest was on Friday so we left Coatesville, In. about 3:30am and got over to the contest site about 8:15 am and got our little area setup for the cook. Must of took all of 20 minutes. 

The other half of Ribs & Bibs Cooking Team and my great friend Mike Zinkan who claims to be the Indiana State Micro-Wave Champion. 

Went to the cooks meeting at noon and picked out our two steaks and one of which looked pretty good. I am sure the steaks were select grade as the marbling didn’t look very good to me. I have been practicing with choice steaks so I figured these might be a little more difficult to cook. 

About an hour before turn-in, started my fire, trimmed up the steak and added my rubs, waited for the fire to get ready and the steaks to warm up, and then got the cook started. 

The steaks were about 1-1/8” thick and took slightly over 9 minutes to cook on my 640 degree Cobb Grill with Grill Grates. The picture shows the steak ready to come off the grill.

This is our steak entry and it placed 15th out of 49 competition steak teams. The steak scored high in presentation, high in doneness, medium in taste, and low in texture. I would assume that it must have been tough to chew. 

I guess my steak cooking skills could use some improvement and more practice will be in order over the Winter months. I was still satisfied with my first competition steak cook and plan to do more next year especially if we get more events in the Midwest.

Competition Steak Cook Off / Mo Money

There is an upcoming “Praise the Lard” SCA competition steak cooking contest in Murpheysboro, Illinois in September and it sure looks good to me. Along with the low entry fee of just $100 dollars and that includes the meat as well, and a nice prize fund of $2600 dollars with $1000 for the winner, it has even gotten better!

SCA and Kingsford have teamed up for the “Kingsford Challenge” which will double the winners prize if you are using the Kingsford Professional Briquets. On top of that, Grill Grates will pay the top placing team using their product an additional $500 dollars for their effort.

Sure seems like a bargain to me...heck, if a fellow gets lucky and wins this event, he could collect as much as $2500 dollars for his $100 dollar entry fee which like I said even includes the meat. Nice prize for a 2-3 hour event.

Since I am signed up for this event, I need to change my charcoal from lump over the the Kingsford Professional Briquets to qualify for the larger prize. I have done so with my Weber Jumbo Joe and have worked out the correct amount for the temperature I want for steak and now need to work out the correct amount on my Cobb Grill as I plan to use it in one of these events.



I tried 20 briquets for this first try and am hoping for a cooking temperature of 620-650 measured on top of the Grill Grates for my steak cooking.



Steak ready to go on the cooker after a one hour warm-up with the rub applied.



Just nailed it...after a 25 minute warmup on my Grill Grates, I had a temp of 650 degrees which is perfect for my method with the steak.



To fill out my cook, I also did three of my homemade 1/3 pound pork burgers on the back side of the Grill Grates.



The results of the cook.





Now, I do like steak but not near as much as one of my 1/3rd pound pork burgers on a slider bun. Added some lettuce, a slice of onion and tomato and then a nice amount of horsey sauce and I enjoyed a very nice 2 bib meal. The steak can wait...

Cobb Grill / Competition Steak Cooker??

Well...maybe. I think if set up right, a fellow could come pretty close to producing a competition quality steak. This is my attempt at this task with the little Cobb Cooker.

Those great folks at Grill Grates make their product for about any grill or cooker and sure enough, they had a pair of grates to fit the Cobb Grill so I did order a set for my grill.



For my first try at a good competition steak, I started with a 16oz ribeye and got it out of the fridge about 45 minutes before the fire. Applied a great steak rub and set it aside to a cooling rack. I also had one of those nice big Indiana pork chops (1” thick) that weighed about a pound so I applied some salt and pepper to this chop as well for the wife. To complete the cook, I made up three of my homemade 1/3rd pound 60/40 fat burgers as these are always great on any cooker.



Rather than using the standard lighting procedure for the Cobb Grill fire, I decided to use a small charcoal chimney to be sure I had all of the fuel hot at the start of the cook.



Poured the lump into the grill and spread it out evenly and my fire was ready to cook.



Placed the Grill Grates on the Cobb and waited for about 15 minutes to allow the grill to get up to about 600 degrees which is ideal steak cooking temperature and then placed the steak on the grid at the 10am to 4pm position for the first phase of the cook. Let it cook for 2-1/2 minutes and turned it 105 degrees to the 2pm to 8am position on the grill. After another 2-1/2 minutes I turned the steak over and cooked that side the same as the first and took the steak off of the grill after about 9-1/2 minutes at 135 internal which should come out to about a medium steak as the contest requires.



This is the steak just before it came of of the Cobb Grill and I think it looks great. That answered my question and I do believe a competition quality steak can be cooked on the Cobb Grill.



Here is the steak as I would present it at a SCA event.

Next up was my big Indiana pork chop.



I used the same procedure as with the above steak as it was about the same thickness of the steak and I wanted it cooked to about 140 internal so I figured it would need about the same amount of time.



Didn’t come out as pretty as the steak but did look good.

After the chop, I turned the Grill Grates over to the smooth side for my three fat burgers.



About 600 degrees at the cooking surface on the backside of the Grill Grates is searing excellence at it’s finest for my fat burgers. Cooked the burgers to medium rare at about 3-4 minutes a side.



The smoke pouring out of the cooker with the burgers on it kinda reminded me of an old steam locomotive climbing a hill many years ago.

Let’s eat...





Wife wanted the chop so I fixed her up with some peas and fruit and she had a nice meal although she couldn’t eat the whole chop.





While steak and chops are good, I live for my 60/40 fat burgers cooked to about medium rare as they are about my favorite meal coming off of a grill. I dressed the burger with a slice of tomato, a slice of cheese, a slice of onion, and some lettuce and then added some chips and a couple of deviled eggs and I was one satisfied old man.

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.