What's for Dinner?

[ceeaton]

I'm taking the discard from my sourdough culture which is approaching day 13 and making a loaf of bread on the stone in the oven for a coworker of mine who has her last day tomorrow. In this COVID environment I'm sure she won't get a cake or any type of sendoff, she has worked there over 30 years. Kind of sad, just hope she likes bread with a small bit of sourdough twang to it!

Edit: House smells great, turned out pretty well, going to be hard to give it away!

 

[sour_grapes]

I had an island theme going, but I could not decide if it was in the Caribbean or the Mediterranean! On the Med side, we enjoyed grilled asparagus and green garlic; fava bean salad with parsley, cilantro, basil, garlic, EVOO, and Asiago; grilled patty pan squash with za'atar; and homemade bread with EVOO; on the Caribbean side, we enjoyed grilled cod slathered with mango/jalapeño salsa. Also a simple salad of Boston lettuce with only lime juice and EVOO. Washed down with the ho-made Viognier described elsewhere.

I am not sure which side of the debate the grilled peaches with heavy cream land on!

 

[ibglowin]

 

[geek]

Pork shoulder in the making.....

 

[cmason1957]

We are having pork steaks tomorrow. For those who aren't from the St. Louis area, I'll explain. Take a pork shoulder, cut it into steaks. Grill. (This next step is optional and sometimes called South St. Louis BBQ) Get a relatively large metal pot, like the big blue roasters grandma used to have. Add 1 gallon of Maul's BBQ (and it must be Maul's brand, extra thin). Place steaks in pot, bring to a boil. If you have some hamburgers, hot dogs, or ribs, throw those in as well. If I do this step, I'll try to take a picture, more than likely I won't do it, my wife isn't a fan of it and everybody knows, if momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.

 

[NoQuarter]

Sat. I'll be starting my fire in the smoker about 4:00 am to do a couple Boston butts myself.
Got some pecan wood after storm damage last winter, gonna be good.
Throw on a few slabs of pork ribs after noon too. Lot of friends, kids and grand-kids to feed up.
Calling for some showers so we should have a good long fireworks display without catching forest on fire.

 

[ceeaton]

Pork butt tomorrow...it is supposed to be 95 so maybe a few burning twigs and I'll get 200*F +. It's a smaller butt, only 6.5 lbs (much smaller than my butt). Tonight is a spatchcocked chicken which is slightly larger than the pork butt (but still smaller than my butt).

 

[geek]

 

[geek]

Came out darn good

 

[ceeaton]

Sorry, no grill images, forgot. Did a hot and fast spatcocked chicken (cut in half) on the Weber bullet. Put in 3/4 of a chimney of lump charcoal and a mesquite log. Took longer to get done than the recipe states, but was worth the wait. Seasoned with salt, pepper and some dried oregano. Sorry, forgot to take pictures until we were eating, turned out really tasty!

Edit: meant to add a link to the approach I used:

https://www.virtualweberbullet.com/hot-fast-chicken/

 

[Boatboy24]

Got some ‘flap meat’ at Costco last week. Pretty much skirt steak, but so far, I think much better. Took this one out of the freezer and thawed it earlier today. It had been previously seasoned wit S&P, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, chili powder, cumin, and oregano. I started it in sous vide for what was supposed to be 2 hours, ended up being closer to 3. Then onto the Performer at 550F+ for about 90-120 seconds per side. Sliced it up after resting for a few minutes and made some tacos.


At the turn after just under two minutes - getting a nice sear.


Layering the flavors: ho-made guacamole smeared on the tortilla, then topped with the steak.


Final assembly and ready to be rolled, thinly sliced Romaine, pickled red onion and a little leftover 'crema' from our last batch of fish tacos.

 

[ceeaton]

Varis, you can't love that post, it isn't well done enough, LOL.

 

[ibglowin]

Celebrating a day early! 14lb Costco Prime. Now down to about 10.5lb. Trying a new rub. Chupacabra Brisket Magic. Mostly SPG blend.

 

[geek]

I have a 17lbs brisket in the freezer and will try to tackle soon, hoping I can dial in this fire to be stable overnight :-(

 

[ceeaton]

I have a 17lbs brisket in the freezer and will try to tackle soon, hoping I can dial in this fire to be stable overnight :-(

Just do a snake in the weber kettle, but instead of doing a double decker line of charcoal just put one row on the top layer. Should last you four or five hours, and with your inkbird you can set an alarm to alert you when the snake runs out. Then get up and build another snake the same way and hopefully that will make it till morning and you can either put another snake with two layers x two rows or move it to another grill.

I'm having issues controlling my fire in the bullet cooker because it is so darn hot here, and of course I was stupid and set it up in the sun. It's just getting into the shade now but I've been running 270-280. I used the minion method for a pork butt and at four hours it just hit 165, so if I lift the lid and the fat is splitting when I go to spritz it, I'll have to wrap. Just a little too early for a 6 pm dinner. Guess it will spend more time in a cooler than I expected. Such is the life cooking a hunk of meat...

 

[geek]

Just do a snake in the weber kettle, but instead of doing a double decker line of charcoal just put one row on the top layer. Should last you four or five hours, and with your inkbird you can set an alarm to alert you when the snake runs out. Then get up and build another snake the same way and hopefully that will make it till morning and you can either put another snake with two layers x two rows or move it to another grill.

Thanks Craig for the tip. So one row on the bottom and another on top?
I've done 3 rows on the bottom, then 2 rows on top and one row on the very top, I think it is way too much and they burn fast for sure.!!

 

[ceeaton]

I always do two on the bottom so as the snake progressively catches fire it won't be interrupted if the next briquette isn't close enough to catch. Two has a better chance of one catching than one. The top is where I do one if I'm going to be away, or trying to sleep and keeping it in control. Now if you get a windy night I'd probably do two on the top and two on the bottom. I always leave my vents 100% open, top and bottom. That way I don't need to adjust in the middle of the night, my adjustments are through the fuel amount, not the air amount.

Now on the bullet, the vents are everything, hard to control that with out air control. I've been running three hours with the bottom ones closed all the way and I'm still hitting 270. Other times I've done that it has gone out after and hour or so. I think I warped the bottom of the cooker when we started doing fires in the driveway before we got our stand alone fire pit. So I think a lot of air is getting in around the seams. At least that is what I'm going with!

edit: I just added some cold water and apple cider vinegar to what was left in the water pan and am holding around 245, guess that is the ticket on a hot day. Checked the butt and the fat cap hasn't cracked hardly at all, so I think I'm good for now. I wait for that till I wrap, I don't go by temp.

 

[geek]

I always leave my vents 100% open, top and bottom. That way I don't need to adjust in the middle of the night, my adjustments are through the fuel amount, not the air amount.

Oh wow, I learn something new every day.
I always close the vents accordingly to prevent a very high temp, but thinking about it then it makes sense with the sneak method since the coals will be burning sort of "one at a time".

When you do this with vents wide open, what's the average grill temp taking in consideration a warm weather temp?

 

[ceeaton]

I'd guess 260 on a hot day, on a cool spring afternoon (or night for that matter) maybe 235-240. That's with the two x two rows on top of one another. Two rows on the bottom and one on top will run 20 degrees cooler, but for some reason seems to burn faster (ie. not last as long). If you put lots of wood chunks in that will raise the temps as wood seems to combust at a much higher temp than the briquettes. I have always used the Kingsford briquettes. I had trouble keeping the Royal Oak going for some reason, maybe the bag got wet or something. I do love the Royal Oak lump, but the lump burns way too quick and hot to use in a snake IMHO.

Oh, wind can knock 25-50 degrees off it, or it can add. Haven't figured that one out. It will add if you can insulate the cooker because it is getting more oxygen for combustion, plus the heat loss from the cooker if insulated is decreased.

 

[geek]

Thanks Craig, good tips.