What I'm learning from...

Since the beginning, I've considered this venture in the world of BBQ as a continual learning process as I experiment, play, try, read, learn, watch, try something else, etc.

So I thought I'd post about some good resources to learn from:

1) The BBQ Brethren is one of the best online sites I've found for exchanging ideas, recipes, swapping stories, looking at meat from my desk at work while I'm eating the salad my wife made for me for lunch, etc. Go to: http://www.bbq-brethren.com and look specifically at the Q Talk section in the discussion area.

2) Amazing Ribs. I really can't find a better site reviewing products and giving advice on some of the old-time traditions of bbqing including a great write-up on soaking wood. http://amazingribs.com/.

3) Twitter. I have developed a great list of people I follow in Twitter -- mostly companies, professional teams, a few backyarders, and a couple of people who publish daily newspapers on BBQ. If you follow me on Twitter at @SuburbSlicker, then you can click on my picture and then click on Following and you'll find the people I follow. It's a good list -- 300+ tweeters. 

4) The Smoke Ring (http://www.thesmokering.com/) is actually a number of other BBQ-friendly sites all connected together (including this blog) that have great information (sometimes you have to hunt a little bit), as well as any number of products. 

5) Cookbooks. I have a bunch and sometimes even look at them. Generally, I get most of my recipes online now. I do like Prophets of Smoked Meat (http://www.amazon.com/The-Prophets-Smoked-Meat-Barbecue/dp/0062202928) which is more of a travel book on bbq in Texas than a cookbook. But if you want some bbq pron, there's no better place for it. 

6) TV. I have to admit, I started some of my fascination with cooking by watching all of the BBQ Pitmasters, American Grilled, Man-Fire-Foods, etc. shows that I could find. I'm now finding almost all of them to be so repetitious and copycatting one another. I still like Restaurant Impossible and Bar Rescue, but more as entertainment than learning. The one exception to my TV rule though is Steven Raichlen's Primal Grill on Public Television. That's the only BBQing show, in my opinion, worth spending any time with. AND, he posts all of his recipes online! http://www.primalgrill.org/. Go check it out.

KCBS Certified Judging Class

Wife and kids sent me to school for Fathers' Day -- actually one class to make me a Certified BBQ Judge with the Kansas City BBQ Society. And though I wanted to go, I also had a million things to do around the house on Saturday -- other than driving 2 hours to go to Gettysburg, PA to spend the next several hours thinking about KCBS BBQ Competition rules.

So I was torn, but got up at 6 on a Saturday morning and headed north on U.S. 15, through Frederick, Emmittsburg, and into Harley Hell (a.k.a. Bike Week) in Gettysburg. I entered the room with  25 others who almost all looked largely like me -- middle to upper-middle class, generally chunky, white, middle aged men with circle beards. There were a couple of spouse-like female critters as well. Most of them went without the circle beards.

Once there we had the usual PowerPoint-driven lecture with stories of BBQ contests of the past sprinkled in. There was a heavy focus on the KCBS rulebook and a lot of explanations of permitted vs. non-permitted lettuce as garnish. Then we got to test our new-found skills by eating! Chicken, ribs, pork, brisket. Wash your tastebuds with water only. Don't eat too many crackers. Don't lick your fingers and then touch more food that your neighbor judges will have to eat.

At the end we had to take a semi-hokey pledge to defend truth, justice and the BBQ way.

And then we were told to go find some competitions to judge. Seems like their might be a database of judges that organizers could tap into to make that process a little more automated, but such is life...

Good class, interesting class. I learned a lot about competitions and what judges look for. Not sure I'm ready to jump into that work yet, but it's always good to be prepared. And now I have something new to add to my Linked-In and FB profiles! ;)

Plankies: Epic BBQ fail

So I'm going to be honest, I've not been blogging too much because I've been too busy cooking. And I'm getting pretty good at it, IMO. But this was a fail for me.

Ted Reader's Plankies: http://www.tedreader.com/recipe/desserts/plankies

Plankies

serves 4-8

Ingredients

1 regular cedar plank, soaked in water

8 Twinkies (4 pkg.)

3⁄4 cup (175 mL) Nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread)

6 Oreo cookies, smashed into chunks

1⁄2 cup (125 mL) mini marshmallows

1⁄4 cup (60 mL) chocolate toffee pieces

 

Preheat grill to medium-low heat. Arrange the Twinkies on the plank. Slather the top of the Twinkies evenly with Nutella. Sprinkle with mini Oreo chunks, marshmallows and chocolate toffee pieces.
Place plank on grill and close lid. Allow Twinkies to heat and smoke slowly for 15 minutes, until marshmallows are golden brown and everything is heated through.
Remove from grill and serve immediately with a big glass of milk.
 

So you can imagine: looks good huh? 

 

I followed the directions precisely. Everything looked spectacular -- but the taste: yuk! The cedar planks I purchased completely overpowered any other flavor. I'm not sure if it was the brand (Western from WallyWorld) or if I left them on too long, or what. But the woodsy flavor was just too much to enjoy the rest. 

 

If I ever do again, I'd just do on a foiled tray on the grill with maybe a couple of chunks of something lighter for smoke. Maybe oak or a fruitwood.  Also, one of my guests had a tree nut allergy and Nutella apparently drives him on a non-stop trip to the ER. I'll check for allergies next time too.

Oh well. Live and learn.

You need to buy this stuff

Not BBQ related, but this is the best stuff on Earth for getting baked-on crud off pots and pans. It's sometimes hard to find. Try Wal-Mart. I just bought the last two bottles for $2.68 each.

BBQ Photos -- Summertime is coming!

Butch with new WSM 22.5

I know a cure for the summertime blues

MMMMM Ribs!

Butch with Famous Dave!

Haven't blogged, but have been smokin!

It's been some time (almost a year!) since I posted, but that doesn't mean my grills have been quiet. No, in fact, in the interim, I've picked up a 22.5-inch Weber Smokey Mountain (called WSM for short) along with a variety of tools. (I also bought a handy little Aussie grill from Home Depot which is my go-to beach grill.)

Let's start with my most recent cook -- 48 lbs of pork shoulder (six butts) on the WSM, and two large pans of baked beans on the Char-Griller COS. Why so much? Every winter, our church opens its doors to host homeless folks in the community through a program run by the county. And for the past two years, my buddy Dave and I have volunteered to do a big cook to treat our guests to a special meal on their last night with us. That was Saturday. Saturday was also cold. And windy. I was getting low 20s on my ambient air thermometer and the wind was pushing between 10 and 20 mph, so I knew I'd have some issues keeping the COS hot without burning through my entire firewood pile. So I opted for the WSM for this cook.

 This WSM held all six butts, three on the top and three on the bottom, fat cap side up. Temp control was tough given the cold and wind. I tried to block the wind as much as possible, but wasn't very successful. I also put my new Pitmaster IQ110 into service for this cook. The IQ110 is a handy little tool which is basically a thermostatically controlled fan which attaches to your bottom vent (see the mental cone thing at the bottom of the second picture) and blows air across your charcoal when it needs to stoke the fire. I found the IQ110 very easy to use, but I think it was struggling in the temperatures I was facing. I think on a warmer day it would have been better. The instructions caution over and over that the smoker must be tight for it to work. Mine's tight, but I don't think it was enough to overcome the cold and wind. I ended up setting the temp around 240 to keep it at about 230, but it seemed to be struggling to keep the temps hot enough to cook. I blame that on the WSM and the outside temps more than the IQ110. I'll try again when it's a little warmer.

The pork took longer than expected and I eventually had to throw it in the oven to get it above the 175 mark, but it was supremely tasty. Here's some pics:

Quick tip on brining a turkey

I love turkey, smoked or fried doesn't matter. But I grew up with overcooked and dry birds and decided to change that paradigm and found the art of brining to keep turkey moist.

I use a cup of sugar and a cup of salt like every other recipe. I used to add spices but I haven't found those do much. But here's my trick: you should be brining overnight in a non-reactive container and I had been using clear plastic garbage bags like a leaf bag until I found out I'd been poisoning my family and friends for years with chemicals from the bags.

But I found a better and much safer and honestly more convenient way!

Ziploc!

Really!

Ziploc makes a food safe bag big enough for two birds. I found mine at Target, so they're probably available widely. Here's a link: http://www.ziploc.com/Products/Pages/BigBags.aspx?SizeName=XXL. Costs a few cents more, but saves time and possibly later illness.

Some pics from my big cook

My biggest cook ever...

First off, I apologize for being off the blog for the last seven months. I smoked all summer long, up until Labor Day when I did a big smoke for about 30 people (brisket, pork, baby backs) on Saturday with the expectation that I'd be able to feed them on Monday. Alas, Hurricane Isaac had other plans for me and I was sent to Louisiana and Mississippi for a couple of weeks. My ever-supportive spouse decided that since I'd already made all the food and our friends had already been invited, she should go forward despite my absence and throw one hell of a party. They saved me about a baggie's worth. Thanks, guys.

Hurricane Sandy dealt us another blow and I spent six weeks in NJ for work there. I didn't find any good BBQ, unfortunately, but I did find absolutely the best hot dog I've ever eaten. If you're ever in Central New Jersey, along the shore, you absolutely cannot miss going to The Windmill. Hands down the best hot dog ever.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I'm becoming a much better cook in the past year since I bought my smoker.  I keep reading and keep following Twitter and keep learning new things, but I'm getting good at pork and pork ribs. So this weekend I'm trying one of my boldest experiments ever -- smoking for 50+. Each year our church hosts a hypothermia shelter for homeless folks in our area and my BBQ buddy Dave and I, along with a couple of others, volunteered to make pork for our guests on their final night with us. Originally, we thought we had more people coming and so we bought food for 80 or so. And then we were told some guests wouldn't like pork, can we make something in addition. So now we've got nearly 80 lbs of pork, and 30 pounds of turkey to deep fry. All tomorrow. Two smokers, two fryers, four guys, a lot of beer. I'll let you know how it goes.

Stuff I've learned:

1) Buy a food bagger/sealer! I bought one off Craigslist that looks like this (mine's black, not camo):http://www.foodsaver.com/product.aspx?pid=13134. I got it for $40, almost brand new. Best investment ever. Now I can smoke, vacuum seal and throw it in the freezer and we've got smoked BBQ dinner for a busy Tuesday night a couple of weeks, or a couple of months from now.

2) You absolutely CAN make your own rub at home. I'm not sure how much I'm saving because the initial investment in spices is significant. The best part is that a $6 little bottle of cayenne pepper goes a long way. This is the recipe I used. It's actually a combination of a variety of different recipes. It's not cheap, but it's amazing. I call it:

SuburbSlicker's Sublime Pork Rub

3/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup paprika
1/4 cup Morton's kosher salt
1/4 cup garlic powder
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
2 tablespoons ground ginger powder
2 tablespoons onion powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin

2 teaspoons rosemary powder

2 teaspoons dry mustard

1 tablespoon chili powder

1 teaspoon cayenne (2 if you like it hot)

3) If you've ever cursed your charcoal chimney, try this: Fill your chimney as you always would, then put it unlit on top of the side burner of your gas grill. Hit the gas and the igniter and you'll have hot coals in just a few minutes. No gathering newspaper or trying to determine which kid stole your lighter (and for what purpose) at 6 a.m. Just make sure that once your charcoal is fully lit, pull it from the gas burner to make sure those little sparks don't spark something bigger around your propane tank (mine's right under the burner, for example.)

Smoking and freezing (and today's fixation on thermometers)

I know it's been a while since I posted anything, but I took some time off from smoking to:

1) Be a baseball dad
2) Do a modest amount of yard work
3) Travel for work
4) Be a baseball dad

Both of my young sons are big Little League players and two games a week plus a practice or two thrown in per week keep me running during the spring. So my grill adventures have been limited lately. Add to that a flooded house from an antiquated toilet supply line two weeks ago (that's a blog for another day) and I haven't touched my smoker in a couple of months except to wash it down a few weeks back.

But today was a different day. Today was a day of smoking destiny!

Well, almost. In our area periodically a butcher shop called Springfield Butcher has a Groupon and they'll sell you $26 of fresh meat for $13. Their meats are top-notch, but usually a little pricey for me unless I have a deal. So the last time the offer came out, I bought three and used two yesterday. So for about $130 I got four racks of babybacks and a large brisket. Having just been in Texas a week ago, and checking out prices on  meat there, I'm ready to move. No one said DC is cheap on anything. Regardless I happily plunked down the $70 or so bucks for my meat, my two Groupons and went on my way, ready to smoke today.

For the first time, I'm smoking without eating today because we're traveling in July to North Carolina with four families and I got the bright idea to pre-smoke enough meat for a bbq dinner at the beach house. I bought a used FoodSaver vacuum food sealer on CraigsList for $45 from a guy who'd only used it a couple of times and I was itching to try it out.

Meanwhile, over the spring, if I can't cook, I can at least buy things that make me think about cooking and I decided this spring that I needed thermometers. I'd bought a $15 smoker thermometer at Wal-Mart to replace the cheap one that came with my CharGriller and I had a variety of cheap-o meat thermometers in the drawer. So I made some investments. I first bought a ThermoWorks Thermapen RT600C from Amazon for about $20. I'd read a lot about ThermoWorks and knew I wanted theirs, even if their top-of-the line cooking thermometer was out of my price range at around $90. I also bought a Polder Digital In-Oven Thermometer/Timer, Graphite for $23, thinking I could use it to keep track of my grill temp. I was wrong as its actually a meat thermometer. But it looked cool, so I kept it. Finally I bought a $8.49 CDN High Heat Oven Thermometer which came highly rated. I also ordered a high-heat oven thermometer used in laboratories, but it's been on backorder for a while now and I'm ready to cancel that order.

Anyway, I put all three of my good temp checkers to the test today and found my $15 WM thermometer that I'd been using for months is actually about 50 degrees off. So all this time I'd been trying to cook at 175 degrees. No wonder everything was taking so long. So now, with the proper temp, I'm cranking along with my ribs and brisket and I try out my Polder as well as my Thermoworks (they were about a degree apart -- close enough).

I left my smoker to run #2 son to a baseball game and watch a little of son #1's game(baseball Dad again) . I got back an hour later, ready to check my temp, and found my new Thermoworks, which I'd shoved in my pocket, had slipped out. I raced back to the field, searched everywhere, but alas, my new toy was already gone on its first day in service.

Meanwhile, the Polder is a good little digital thermometer too and it kept my brisket temp reported and it cooked beautifully to 175 when I pulled it, wrapped it in foil to come up to 185 and rest.

The ribs also looked splendid and I vacuumed sealed the whole lot, and I pull it from the freezer in a couple of weeks and let you know how it works.

Mmm...Smoking is for the birds too!

I admit it, I can be a real cheapskate when it comes to groceries and this past Thanksgiving was no exception. Since I'm a more frugal shopper than my wife, and since we're trying to spend less and save more, I do the majority of the grocery buying in the house. So I was pleased when the Wal-Mart around the corner underwent an extreme makeover and added on a large supermarket section.

A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I was in that section and noted that the cheap frozen turkeys were on sale for 38 cents a pound (as opposed to the major grocery chains selling the same cheap frozen turkey for 99 cents a pound). As I elbowed my way to the freezer, I noticed that frozen butterballs were a nickel more at 43 cents a pound and I bought two. The first one (big boy at around 18 lbs) went into the deep fryer on that Thursday and the other one (little brother at about 11 pounds) went into the freezer.

This past weekend, I decided to throw it on the smoker to see how it would do. Here's what happened:

1) I removed bird from freezer on Thursday to let it thaw. Turkeys need to thaw before you cook them and it always takes forever, so start early, but keep it refrigerated or cold to keep the micro-bugs from growing and sending you on an express trip to the Emergency Room.

2) Beginning Saturday, I cooked up a nice brine to soak bird in. I started brining my turkeys a few years back (instead of injecting with butter) and I think it makes for a much juicier cooked bird. There are any number of recipes out there, but basically you need some liquid and some salt. What else you throw in (and at what quantity) is up to you and will subtly flavor your meat. You can tell below that my recipe is not too precise. This time I used:

• water, 
• a little less than a cupful of table salt (you can use kosher or sea salt if you like, but I went with what I had in the cupboard), 
• about three cups of peach/apple juice from Trader Joes,
• a cup of sugar,
• a few good shakes of Lawry's seasoned salt,
• about a cup of some kind of salt-free organic all-purpose seasoning blend from Costco,
• few tablespoons of fresh-ground black pepper. 

I boiled it all together so the salt and sugar were mixed in and cooled it with ice cubes. I lined a five-gallon bucket with a plastic liner, put my bird in (after washing and removing the neck and little bag full of nasty turky guts), covered with the brine and filled it up with cold water. Then back into the fridge overnight.

3) Sunday morning, I pulled out the bird and rinsed it thoroughly, making sure to get the brine off and patted it dry with a paper towel. Then I worked my fingers under the top layer of skin and separated it from the meat. I didn't want to pull it all off, just work it off enough to be able to get my fingers between the skin and the meat since a rub won't penetrate the skin to actually flavor the meat which is what you're rubbing for.

4) I added rub to the skin, but between the skin to the meat itself. I used a poultry rub from Ashman Manufacturing called Virginia Coastal that I found in the grocery store (http://www.ashmanco.com/category-rubs.html). I did my best to get it under the skin while leaving the skin on. I also added a few shakes inside the chest cavity.

5) I put the rubbed bird back into the fridge for a few hours while I went to church to allow it to all settle together. I read this is called "The Curing Rest" (here: http://www.smoker-cooking.com/smokedturkey.html).

6) I put the bird in a foil pan, rubbed a little more rub and onto the smoke it went. 

7) 30-40 minutes per pound is the estimated cooking time at 225. I think mine took longer because it was cold and windy outside. I used lump charcoal, hickory and oak, being careful not to over-smoke it. Turkey is definitely more tender than pork or beef and it needs a little extra TLC.

8) After about three hours, I pulled it from the smoker and moved it over to my gas grill for about 90 minutes on low (offset -- meaning I turned the burner opposite where I put the turkey on to "low" and left the one right under the bird full off). I did this to reduce the smoke and because I needed room on my smoker.

9) Pulled it off at the end of about 4.5 hours and the internal temp was still lower than I wanted so I put it in the oven at 300 until it came right up to 160. Then I let it sit for about 30 minutes letting the bird firm up and the juices to move around a little.

10) DELICIOUS! That's all I can say. Even my father who is a pretty timid eater when it comes to smoke and spice said it was delectable. Everyone at the table said it was the best they'd had in a long time (which puts my standard fried turkey to shame, I guess).

11) Only thing worthy of note, the skin cooks very differently on a smoked turkey. It's not the crispy treat it usually is on a fried or roasted bird. I found it chewy, and less than tasty. Try it yourself first before you serve it to guests. I ended up just tearing off the skin and chucking it in the Dispos-All before sending the platter to the table.

Good luck!

Review: VA BBQ Manassas

Well, I wanted it to be good.

We entered a little after 7 p.m. and were told it was almost closing time. But the gentleman at the counter was very friendly explaining the menu and helping us all. I ordered the 1/2 ribs with 4 ounces of pulled beef brisket (I wish I'd read it was pulled, I was expecting sliced, but my fault). I got two sides and ordered baked beans and hush puppies. My sons both had pulled pork sandwiches, my daughter had chicken strips and my wife ordered the ribs/beef combo with potato salad and mac & cheese.

First the Q, since that's why I wanted to go. Ribs were well cooked, tender, juicy, but slathered in a non-descript sauce, cold and there was no detectable smoke. The super-salty beef came in a little foam cup and tasted fresh from the microwave. It was swirling around in some juice, but no smoke either. There's an Arby's in the parking lot and  I think the beef there would've been much better.

The beans were super hot which told me they were fresh from the microwave as well, but the hush puppies were good. My oldest son said he saw frost on his pork sandwich along with a hair which he neglected to report to us until after we left. My daughter said her chicken and onion rings were pretty flavorless and my wife ate only part of her meal before searching around for some Tums.

The restaurant is in a strip center amongst a sea of strip centers. Inside, it's very casual and you order at the counter (very friendly staff, btw). The soda machine's ice maker was broken on our visit and the sodas all tasted flat. The sauce bottles were covered on the outside with sauce making a sticky mess and I spotted an ant crawling across a condiments table.

Aside from the friendly staff, I wouldn't recommend. That's a shame because it's relatively close to my house and there are a couple of other very weak bbq restaurants in the area, but it turns out those are better than VA BBQ.

How I Killed My First Brisket

Ok, so this one didn't go as well, if the blog name gives you any indication. A few weeks ago, I purchased an Angus brisket -- about $4/lb at Sam's Club. It was small, about 4.5lbs, so I assume it was actually a half brisket. Not sure if it was the point or the flat, but I think, given the fat cap, it was the point.

It was frozen from Sam's, so I threw it in the freezer at home. Apparently I should buy fresh and use immediately. I prepped in the usual way I've prepped anything else -- thawed completely, coated in yellow mustard and applied the McCormick Grill Mates "Cowboy Rub" as I wanted something with a little kick and there's not much to choose from here in the Mid-Atlantic this time of year. I need to start doing more mail order rubs. I'd also nearly run out of my Kansas City rubs that I picked up out there before Christmas.

So I prep and inject with low-sodium beef broth (not sure if that was worth it or not, but I read it somewhere and it seemed like a good idea). I also read that you could spice up the broth by grinding some rub in a coffee grinder until it's powdery and mixing it with the broth before you inject. I found that to mess up not only my wife's coffee grinder (thank goodness she's lazy and only uses the Keurig now) and it clogged my injector. I don't think it was worth the effort. It sat in the fridge overnight.


Early Sunday morning, threw it on the smoker using mostly hickory to start with some oak later in the day as the lump charcoal ran out and I still needed some heat. Checked it hourly and applied a spray of half apple juice and half apple-cider vinegar. And I waited. And I waited. And I waited. Now theoretically, I should've reached a good temp at around the 7 hour mark. I pulled the brisket around hour 5, double-wrapped in foil to keep it moist, and put it back in the smoker.


And I waited. And I waited. And I waited.


For the life of me, I couldn't get the thermometer to budge off 120 degrees. I tried heating up the smoker to around 300 or so, and waited. I moved the brisket over to the fire and unwrapped, and waited....


Finally we had to get going to party, so I wrapped it in foil and threw into the cooler (thank goodness for a cheap pork butt which was delicious) and off we went. When we arrived, I threw brisket in oven for another hour at about 400. Thermometer is now reading about 135 -- still well short of 190. I had to punt as it was nearly halftime and my brisket still wasn't on the table. As I sliced, I could see that it was fully cooked, but as I tasted, I knew I'd screwed up someplace. It wasn't quite shoe leather, but it wasn't nearly as moist and tender as I'd wanted. The flavor was outstanding, but the overdoneness killed it.

Thinking it's time for a new thermometer.

Smoked Bacon Mac & Cheese!!

I knew when I read the recipe on Gary House's blogsite, http://www.cooking-outdoors.com/smoked-bacon-mac-n-cheese-recipe/, that this was going to be good. (I also learned that Gary House is a heckuva nice guy).

I didn't change much, except to double his recipe. Here's his original recipe and I'll add some thoughts at the end:

Smoked Bacon Mac n Cheese recipe

Print

Recipe type: Side dish

Author: Gary House

Prep time: 20 mins

Cook time: 1 hour

Total time: 1 hour 20 mins

Serves: 6 – 8

Ingredients

• 16 oz large elbow macaroni, cooked
• 6 slices of smoked bacon, cut in 1″ pieces
• 2 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
• 2 cups mexican blend (cheddar/colby) cheese, shredded
• 5 oz 3 cheese blend (parmesan/asiago/romano) cheese, shredded
• 8 oz cream cheese, cubed
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tbs salt
• 2 tbs pepper
• 1 cup crushed corn flakes
• 1 cup bread crumbs
• 3/4 stick butter, about 9 – 1/4″ pats
• cooking spray

Instructions

1. Prepare elbow macaroni according to package instructions.
2. Mix elbow macaroni, bacon, cheddar cheese, mexican blend cheese, 3 blend cheese and cream cheese together.
3. Mix heavy cream, milk, salt and pepper together.
4. Add milk mixture to macaroni mix and blend together.
5. Pour Mac n Cheese into cooking container.
6. Combine crushed corn flakes and bread crumbs together.
7. Spray all sides and bottom of a 8 x 8 x 4 inch container.
8. Pour Mac n Cheese into container.
9. Spread bread crumb mixture over top of Mac n Cheese to cover.
10. Place pats of butter on top of crumb mixture.
11. Smoke at 225 degrees F for one hour.

Notes

Container size can vary, just cook till cheese melts and top browns!

Back to me now, I doubled the recipe because we had 20 or so expected for a Super Bowl party. That made for an extremely heavy foil pan (9x13x4) that I picked up at the Dollar Tree. Get your foil pans there if you can. For a buck, they're a good deal, as opposed to $3 for the same thing at Wal-Mart or Target. 

I probably could've gotten away with a smaller quantity. Doubling it made A LOT of mac and cheese. 

Couple of observations, I pre-cooked the bacon in a skillet (tried smoking it in the smoker and that was taking too long) and mixed it in. It gets very heavy when mixing all of the ingredients. It's worth it, but bring a strong wrist. We also only were able to get in about 2/3 of the milk cream mixture without overloading the pan. My wife thought that made the dish a little dry. I thought it was fine. 

Also, the flavors of the cheese were amazing, but I didn't get much taste of smoke (it was on for about 3 hours) and I think the cheese drowned out the taste of the bacon a little. Gary's recipe calls for six pieces, I think I did about 14, chopped into thumb-sized pieces. It wouldn't have hurt any to add more. A guy at my office suggested mixing in a little of the bacon grease for flavor. That might be an idea, not sure. But if you're questioning if you should try this, by all means, do it!  

Bacon Explosion!!

I know I'm late in getting this up, but I had a bunch of other pressing priorities that, frankly, came before writing this down for a the few folks that read it, and mainly my own amusement.

I'm writing in three parts today: Bacon Explosion, Smoked Bacon Mac & Cheese and Crappy Brisket. So you can decide which of the three (or all, or none) you want to experiment with yourself.

Bacon explosion sounds like a cardiologist's fantasy come true -- and it probably is. But it's oh so yummy and depending on the serving size, you can control how much you're clogging your arteries at any one time. I started out using the base recipe from the BBQ Addicts (http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/). They'll even ship you one if you don't want to hassle with making it yourself. I tweaked their recipe a little to make mine a little sweeter. My wife complains that I spice things up too much, so I erred on the side of sweet this time.

I followed their recipe:

2 lbs of thick sliced bacon
2 pounds bulk mild Italian sausage
Rub
Sauce
and I added maple syrup and some cinnamon/sugar.

I also used a sweeter rub (McCormick's Grill Masters Sweet and Smoky which is all I could find in the rather limited selection at the supermarket -- it had brown sugar as an ingredient listed) and I used some cheap "Jack Daniels" Sweet Hickory sauce. (The only relation to Jack Daniels seems to be that the Heinz Ketchup folks licensed the name and logo for their bottle of very routine sauce). Go with whatever is sweet and cheap.

I laid out my bacon lattice on wax paper to make it easy to roll up. That worked wonders. I used 7 pieces on each side of the lattice. The BBQ Addicts page shows a 5x5 lattice. I thought that would be too small, so I bumped it up by two. I think you can pretty much do what you like as long as it's sort of squarish.

From there I sprinkled a pretty good dab of rub on what will become the inside top layer. I also sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on the bacon at this point to bring up the sweetness. Same kind you'd use if you were making cinnamon toast.

Then I added a layer of Johnsonville bulk mild Italian sausage. I might try some other kind of sausage next time -- maybe just some standard bulk breakfast sausage from Jimmy Dean or someone. I thought the Italian flavor conflicted a little, but that was me. No one else seemed to mind. Maybe because I'd intended a sweeter explosion...

I used two pounds and that was perfect. Made a nice two-inch layer. Make sure it's flat and well spaced so you don't end up overcooking one spot or undercooking another.

Then I added about 12 slices of cooked bacon. The recipe isn't specific, but my wife told me that six pieces looked skimpy. So I bumped to 12 and then added a drizzle (rather a bunch of blobs) of the pseudo-Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. I also added a drizzle of maple syrup over the top. In hindsight, I might've used more syrup and less sauce.

So here's what it looked like, and here's what it looks like rolled up. The wax paper here made it really easy to roll up and pull away. I just wrapped it tight and pressed it together, sealing the ends. I was wondering if I needed toothpicks or anything to hold it together. Nope. It'll hold by itself as long as you don't play football with it. I did grill it with the open side down and it sealed itself.

I left mine on the smoker about three hours, flipping once, maybe twice, and added a layer of the faux-Jack Daniels sauce for the last 30 minutes.

This is how it looked finished.

Taste: Delicious!!

And if you slice it in about 1/2 inch slices, I think you'll end up with about two slices of bacon and maybe 4 to 6 ounces of sausage. All-in-all, not as bad as you might think. But certainly outstanding from a taste perspective.

 

Dr Pepper Ribs and Pork Butt

Well, for my second smoking adventure, I went whole hog, as they say, and threw on six racks of baby backs from Harris Teeter at $3.77/lb, a pork shoulder from the Wal-Mart for $1.78/lb, a couple of packaged sausages and some hot dogs for the kids (I like Hebrew National, even though they're made by Con-Agra which doesn't sound particularly Hebrew to me).

I began prep on Saturday night by taking off the membrane, putting on a light coat of yellow mustard, rubbing them with Fiorella's Jack Stack Rub (not as spicy as Gates' rub) and then added about a cup of Dr Pepper to the plastic bag before putting them back in the fridge overnight. My daughter (picky eater) had read about marinating in Dr Pepper and said she'd try them if I did them that way. So what the heck.

As I was prepping the ribs, I also made a Dr Pepper bbq sauce that -- even though it didn't have much Dr Pepper flavor -- was outstanding. I combined ideas from a couple of different recipes I found online.

Dr Pepper BBQ Sauce
 (by Butch)

1 cup Dr Pepper (not diet)
1 tablespoon Chili Powder
1 tablespoon Canola Oil (I used canola, would probably work with any vegetable oil)
1 and 2/3 cups Ketchup
1 and 1/2 cups brown sugar (one recipe called for dark, I only had light in the pantry, dark might have more flavor)
1/2 medium onion (or maybe a little less) minced
3 cloves garlic minced
1/2 cup Worchestershire
1 tablespoon vinegar (apple cider)

Whip it all together and let it sit in the fridge overnight.

While the ribs were on the smoker, I basted them with a sprayer filled with Dr Pepper just to add some moisture. I was afraid the sugar would char onto the ribs too early but it didn't seem to have any problems. About 45 minutes left in smoking, I coated two racks of ribs in the sauce, leaving the other four with just the dry rub, and the sauced ribs were OUTSTANDING.

This time I smoked my ribs a little differently, according to a recipe I'd read online. It called for smoking for 3 to 4 hours at around 225 (Mine got too hot -- around 300 -- at one point. I fear I overdid them a little). Then you pull them off, double-wrap in heavy foil, put them back on the grill for another 2-3 hours (it was cold yesterday, hence the longer cooking times) and then pull off the foil and back on the grill for another hour or so. I basted with apple juice and Dr Pepper from a sprayer every hour or so. I also used a new set of rib racks I picked up at Home Depot. Observation: After I removed the foil from the ribs, I placed four racks back in the rib rack and left two in their opened foil pouches. I basted those with the above sauce and they were the best -- juicy, tender. The ones I placed back in the rack seemed chewier and tougher to get off the bone. I'll have to read up on the differences in the way I did them.

Finally, I did the same foil routine on the pork shoulder/butt and it was out of this world yummy.

Throughout the entire process I used mostly lump charcoal and oak with some cherry chips (about a Solo cup-ful every hour or so). I noticed the meat had a thin smoke ring and the flavor, while nice, wasn't as smoky as I usually like.

I also noted that my meat didn't take as long to cook as I expected, despite the cold temps. I think my earlier mistake with letting the smoker get to 300 was a major downfall. Need to work on keeping that temp down. I've been using fireplace logs of oak, I think I need to cut those into half or quarter them before I use them, and use them more sparingly to control the heat better in the initial stages.

Meat Week!

I've been known to complain some about the dearth of good BBQ in the DC area. And I'll still complain a little, but things are looking up.

Enter: DC Meat Week!



Love this shirt!

And the reverse side:


It's a week-long tour of BBQ restaurants in DC -- unfortunately, most of these are deep inside the District (with a few in the inner suburbs). Any good suburban denizen in the DC area will tell you that they avoid going into town whenever possible. So I'll only get to try out one or two of the DC Meat Week participants this year. But it's nice to know there are some options.

Learn more about DC Meat Week here: http://www.meatweek.com/chapters/washingtondc

And here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/all-we-can-eat/post/smoke-signals-get-ready-for-the-carnivorgy/2012/01/23/gIQACMF6LQ_blog.html