Rocks in the lump

I finished my first bag of lump with the burgers cook. That 10 LB bag of lump lasted over 55 hours of slow and hot cooking, with only about an 1-1/2 inch of a five gallon pail full of ash. Amazing.
The biggest issue was the concrete I found in the lump. I sent a letter off to BGE and await a response.

Burgers

For the first time, I did some burgers. Basic, with some cheese. Got the egg to about 400 Dome with about 3 big pieces of Mesquite, and they were great. Not much else to say! Well, Smoke On, is appropriate!

An Eggalicous weekend!

I had plans to do some cooking on the egg, and this weekend allowed me to use it for 3 days in a row.
Thursday I hit Costco for some baby Back rib. They come in a three pack. I had plans for at least one rack, so i decided that dinner Friday was going to be some ribs. I unwrapped and washed them, then rubbed them down with a thin coat of yellow mustard. Then I covered them in a heavy coat of a 50/50 secret rub and raw sugar. These then went on the egg for 5 hours with some soaked Apple wood, and were even better than last time. I made some corn on the cob from Whole Foods, and we ate like kings! The cool part was after I at, I cranked down the Egg to 190 degrees, and let it sit for about 5 hours. Saturday my close friend, Jack, would be having a birthday, so i told him, as my gift, I would make him a brisket. I kept the Egg low so I wouldn't have to relight. I added some Mesquite for smoke, and at 1:23 am, put my brisket on.









From an earlier post, you can see the Stoker log and how it dealt with the pit, keeping it around 220 +/- a degrees, unless I messed with the pit, then the fan has to adjust the temp.



When I knew I had about 5 hours left, I threw on a rack of ribs, as an added bonus to the brisket. The meat hit 185, so I pulled it and put in a cooler. The ribs were done, I made some beans then headed to my buddies house to deliver his meal. He was thrilled. I got lots of compliments, and learned alot about brisket.

Sunday was pizza day. The past week, I visited the Seattle Aquarium with my mom and the kids. It was a great day. While I was down there, we stopped in at Big Johns PFI For some Italian flour and tomato sauce. I made the dough by hand, prepped the sauce and cut some mushrooms, some ham, and some basil. It was a feast. Enjoy!

Pulled Pork!

I volunteered to bring some Pulled Pork to a gathering a buddy had for his mom. I said this, even though I had never done pulled pork. I had always done ribs. But I figured, no time like the present. So off to the WWW to find out about the "right" way to cook pork. The it was off to the cookbook cabinet to see what the champs had done. I found that 98% of Pulled Pork is just done with rub. The other 2% use injectors. I went with the rub only. I went to Safeway and found two bone-in Pork Shoulders, at 8 lbs each. So for my first cook, I went with 16 lbs of pulled pork. Usually I have my meat rubbed and left overnight, but I had issues the night before. I rubed and massaged the meat, and left it for 4 hours. For years, I have been using Willighams rubs, which has worked for me. It is also what I had.
I filled the egg to the fire-ring, and got the Stoker set up, and the egg lit. The experts think that about 1.5 - 2 hours per pound. So we were ready for the long haul.


The stoker worked like magic. 225 for 19 hours. I realized I had set up the fire wrong. Not wrong per say, but not a long haul fire. It about 1:00 and we were out on the deck enjoying some company and I hadn't seen smoke in some time. I had some help lifting the grate and moving my chunks of mesquite around. That fixed the problem. Or at least until the end when the grate gets a bit clogged up. That was an easy fix. So I went to bed and got some sleep just as the pork was hitting it's platou or 160 degrees. That when the fat and collagen start to break down and its becomes pull- able pork. I woke up and the temp was at 177 degrees. I wanted 195, but eventually, it hit 185 degrees.



Oh, what a site. The smell and the look. It was fantastic to see. I pulled them off the Egg, and rolled them in foil for an hour. I pulled them and they were juicy and tender, melt in your mouth. A few of my neighbors came over and had a chunk. They loved it. I made some sauce and took it over to my buddies house. They loved it. It was a big hit!



Of course I forgot to take a picture of what everything looked like after it was pulled. But it was beautiful. The coolest thing was that after one load, 19 hours, this is the fuel that was left. Amazing.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday, Dad. I miss you more each day...

The Stoker

One of the issues I had with my old pit was control. At first I loved the whole BBQ dynamic: watch the temp, adjust the temp, watch the temp, adjust the temp. Hopefully after a day of doing this, food would be ready. Then we had a kid. I quickly found the days of minding a pit were over. Babies require even more tending than a pit. So this is when my Q days dwindled...

During my research for a new smoker, I learned about the BBQ Guru (Thebbqguru.com). Great product. Basically it controls the pit for you. It is 3 part unit: Control unit, fan, and probe(s). The Probe hooks to the grate and tells the unit your temp, the unit then tells the fan to push air onto the fire to get it hotter, or it cuts off air to lower the fire. You can add a second probe for meat temp. For several hundred dollars you can get a wireless unit. Then a guy on the Grill Dome Forum(another great grill, but hard to get since it is a smaller operations. I had a 6-8 week wait before shipping) told me about the Stoker.

The Stoker (Rocksbarbque.com) is similar to the Guru in that it controls your pit. But it does so much more. It allows for multiple pit control with one unit, and the best part? it has a NIC card built in. That is Network Interface Card, with a webserver. On the back, is an Ethernet jack that allows the Stoker to be plugged into a wireless hub and accessed, they say, from anywhere in the world, by any web browser. To me, this was a no brainier. As long as it worked with a Mac. Yes, I use a mac. Oh, don't be surprised. I crossed over years ago, and will never return (or so I thought). Basically, you plug the stoker in to the wireless router, and the Stoker is assigned an IP address. You type that into your browser, and boom, the stoker software shows up. It looks like this:



Well I found that it will work with a mac since it can be accessed from any web browser, but due to my research, I found there was something I would be missing: Stokerlog.
The same guy who turned me onto the Stoker is a code writer. So after he fell in love with the stoker, he wrote some software to add a bit to the Stoker software. What he came up with is a nifty piece of work. It goes out and gets the info off the Stoker, and allows for you to control it without a browser. It will email you information, send your phone a text message, and track your cooks. You can have an entire history of your cooks with this unit.


The issue? It only runs on Windows. I know! According to forums everywhere, there are several coders writing a Mac version, but until then, Windows only. So I had to install windows on my Mac. Yes the picture you see to the right is Stokerlog running in Parallels (Parallels.com). I know, I know. But what can you do? Anyway, this is one slick machine. I will be live testing it out ASAP. Just have to hit the Butcher.

Spider Continued...

It has arrived. Today was the joyous sound of the Fedex truck stopping by my house. He dropped off the Spider.

Can't wait to try it!

Pizza Oven

I hope everyone had a great Fourth of July. We spent ours in P-town, enjoying good company, some great laughs, and an amazing firework show. A few years ago, my buddy decided to buy a pizza oven, and sadly it sat in the garage for some time while the logistics got worked out. Eventually he got it built and it looks fabulous. We were unable to try it, but it has revived rave reviews.

They say the Egg is a fabulous pizza oven. I have yet to try it. The unofficial "rules" are that you must burn in your egg 8-10 times before you go for the high heat cooks. The gasket can melt otherwise. So Pizza must wait. The funny thing is after my first cook, the wife brought up pizza, so I had to go into the whole pizza thing with her. We just need to buy a pizza stone to give it a whirl.

In other news, my spider in on the way. The spider allows the grid to get closer to the coals, allowing for 800-1000 degree sears. This is called the TREX method, which is supposed to be the best!



Thanks to www.eggaccessories.com for great price, service, and advice. I can't wait for it to be delivered.

Lump...

The ceramics use lump, a sort of burned wood that burns hotter, faster, and cleaner than Charcoal. Well, I am amazed. I loaded Lump on Sunday and lit it. I started the fire at 2:00 and shut it down at 7:00. Monday, I lit the Lump for a pizza, and it burned for 1 and 1/2 hours. So for 6 1/2 hours, check out how much lump is left!



That's enough for a few more burns. Charcoal never did that for me.

Wow.

Pizza

We got a take and bake pizza today, and I lit the egg and got it to 325, and let it stabilize. I threw the pizza on and cooked it. It turned out great. And kept the house cool, since it HOT here. Yea, yea, I know. Seattle aint hot. Well it was today and yesterday.

The pizza was good. The amazing thing was the The egg was on for 45 minuets, and after I shut it down (closing the daisy wheel and shutting the vent) it held 220 for about 2 hours. Amazing.

Burgers tomorrow.

At First Light...

After putting together the egg, I realized I had no lump charcoal. These things run on Lump charcoal, and in my hurry to get home and get the kids settled, I forgot to get some. I had bought a platesetter, which allows for an indirect cook. But with no fuel, no BBQ.
So Saturday, it was off to the Butcher to get some ribs, and off to the dealer to get some lump. I got both, and Saturday night I prepped them. The Butcher had a full and 1/2 rack, so I took both to try something I had been meaning to try for years. Mustard. I always wanted to try to get a bark. So I slathered the half with Mustard, then used some Rudy's Rub. Rudy's is a chain in Texas. The Full rack got Butches Smack Your Lips, which I ordered off the food channel. They were both left overnight.
Sunday came, and at 2:00 I lit the egg for the first time.

It was great to see smoke. It had been 2 years since I last tried to make Q. Long time gone! But the smell brought me back. Oh, did it bring me back.



One of the best thing about a ceramic cooker is its ability to hold heat, while using little fuel. I got the tempt to hold at about 250 dome (which means the dome thermometer, which is about 4 inches off the grate). The saying is that whatever the dome says, subtract 25-30 degrees and you roughly have your grate temp. I had a thermometer on the grate, which told me the saying was true. i had the thing pegged at 230 for about 3 hours, then bumped it to 275-300 for 2 hours.



The last 30 min were putting some sauce on the ribs for show.





The full rack turned out great. I think i could have got them off about 30 min earlier. The half was a disaster. they were over cooked and the Rudy's Rub was way to spicy. I was so proud. For the first time, I had a smoke ring.



My wife had bought me a cookbook called Grill It, from Bobby Flay, for fathers day. She whipped up his potato salad, and it was fantastic. Add some beans to the mix and I was in heaven.

The Build...

So at 8:00 pm, my buddy Brent and I cracked the box...



Theese things are packed solid. And heavy. Did I mention heavy? I did? Good, because it is.


it was so heavy, I struggled to get this thing into the "nest", the device built to hold it. The directions are slightly better than the Ikea drawings, but only slightly. They were obviously written for engineers. The Egg comes with a DVD, which has a video on how to put this thing together. Bu you have to either have a TV outside or watch it and run outside. Lucky for me there are some great stuff on UTube. Freds BBQ has a 3 part series. So we built.



And had some beer, and built some more. By far the hardest thing is the alignment of the lid with the bands, but you don't have to be a rocket scientist to get it right. Just make sure you do the dollar bill test.


We were finished by dark. And there she stood. Big. Green. Shaped like a giant egg. The wife just shook her head and went to have some wine.




I basked in the glory of what was to be...

How it began...

A long time ago, in a city, far far away...

Well not really.

I married a Texan. She took me to Texas. I discovered BBQ. Real BBQ. Not the chain restaurant BBQ, but good old-fashioned, cooked with smoke, BBQ.

Then I came home. I found Seattle lacks in real BBQ. There are a few places. The best ones seem to do, in my opinion, one meat right. Either their ribs are good, but the brisket is bad, or the brisket is amazing, but the ribs are horrible. Don't ask about the chicken. One even warms up your food in a microwave. I have tried Several. I was let down by everyone of them at one point or another.

So I bought a smoker. A big, heavy, black steel, smoke spouting offset smoker. I spent a summer learning the ropes on that thing. I smelled like smoke for a summer. But then I had some kids. Time got away. My love for BBQ stayed the same, and much to the disappointment of my neighbors, the smoker stayed under wraps.

But a month ago, a strange thing happened. I smelled smoke. Hickory to be exact. I wandered down the street like Yogi Bear looking for the source. I found a neighbor had bought an offset smoker, just a bit different than mine. My blood began to pump. I got excited about making BBQ again. And so it began...
My quest for a new pit. Much to the dismay of my wife, but to the delight of my neighbors...

So began the research. I crawled the Internet, looking at every type of grill. I joined every forum, asked every question. I drove my wife crazy. I drove my friends crazy. I drove myself crazy. In the end it came down to the ceramics. Ceramic grills are just that, ceramic. It retains moisture, and more importantly, heat.

And even that took weeks of painful research. Big Green Egg. Primo. Grill Dome. The big 3. Each one a great piece of equipment. each one a little different. Egg has all the accessories, is readily available, and lifetime warranty. Primo is bigger, different shape, and smaller dealer network. Grill dome is painted better, has thicker ceramics, uses stainless steel, and is unheard of. Each has a rabid fan base. Each is loved by those who use it.

In the end it was a cost factor, or I should say a cost savings factor. I ended up getting an Egg. I chose it because it was at a liquidators and about 25-30% cheaper than retail, which is a big deal with an egg. They never go on sale. Ever. So I sold a few of my possessions and drove to another city and made a deal.
So this the journey. I hope you enjoy it. I sure am.

In memoriam...

This Blog is dedicated, in loving memory, to my father.

He cooked with fire and smoke, and taught me how to grill on a Weber Kettle.

I miss him.