Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Kinda shaped like ‘Berta if you look at it right.

 

This is my first time trying pitfaced bbq rub and it smells amazing! Im making some rib eye, pork belly, and a sitting chicken. More pics to come!

 

Inaugural wings with the vortex, super impressed! Did a light coat of flour then some lemon pepper, cayenne, and garlic powder.

 

First time ABTs. Crisped over propane, then in an applewood smoke bath for flavor, 35 min. Cream cheese with Slap Ya Mama Cajun seasoning, and some medium cheddar. Applewood bacon wrapped, half had a little diluted Sweet Baby Ray’s with a pinch of brown sugar and a little honey.

So good.

 

This is the sitting chicken.
Its got a beer up its crevice and another beer on the side. No its not actually soda, I just poured it into a soda can along with some pitfaced rub.

 

I don’t do chicken, but i thought i read somewhere that the beer can method could potentially be troublesome.

 

Yea...beers up the arse, 10/10 situations calls for trouble

 

I mean, not 1st hand experience...thats just what i heard

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.huffpost.com/entry/beer-can-chicken_b_1634001/amp

 

I like your sticker lol

 

Try this rub next time.

 

It's all good. Just messing with you.

I attempted to smoke some cheese today. I set my smoker to it's lowest temperature 160* and it was doing well until the 3 1/2 hour mark when it started melting.

I pulled it and put it in the fridge where it continued to melt a little. I tasted a bit and it's still damned good though.



I wrapped them and will patiently wait for them to cure. I also threw in a steelhead fillet for the wife.

 

Better believe it’s ‘Berta beef.

 

Looks like your cook went off a little better than mine even if it wasn't ideal. Both fires somehow started to die off halfway through the cook. I think I must not have stacked the charcoal evenly or something.

I was able to get the brisket back up and cooking but had to take it up to 275* to have any hope of eating it last night. Pulled it at 200* and wrapped in foil but only had about 45min to rest before it was time to eat so we could get to bed. All in all it turned out better than the last brisket I did but that moist, tender, melt in your mouth brisket still eludes me.

Not quite sure what happened with the ribs. Everything looked good to start but I went out to check on them after about 3.5 hours and with half the charcoal burned it was not much more than warm and the meat was down at 110-115*. I was trying to be slightly conservative on my charcoal use since a full basket will last 8-10hrs but I may have used too little so at some point it just fizzled and didn't keep lighting the rest of it. Ended up having to start more charcoal, pull everything out and dump it in. After 6 hours of cooking they were done enough to eat but still a bit tough and not up to my usual standards.

With all the panic cooking I never even got a chance to take pictures of the final products... though I don't know if I want photo evidence of my failures. At the end of the day at least it's all still edible BBQ and I learned a few lessons so I can get it right next time.

 

Did the results get posted?!?!?!

Curious to hear your thoughts!

Also, maybe an entry photo in the cook-off?

(Check my sig)

 

Every cook is a learning experience. And in the end, it'll still make a for a full belly. But sounds like it was too cool of a fire. what was pit temp at? after bumping it up I figure it would recover fine. Just more notes for ya moving forward. Perfect, or damn near Brisket is still elusive to most if not all of us. I know I'm still chasing it. I've gotten close a couple times, but I'll keep trying.

Pimp it out! Good call on the extension. Need to post daily links in here with lots of

 

Yeah, I'll try to pimp it out a bit more.

Poor timing on my part. Been crazy busy and haven't taken the time to sit at the computer and get done what needed to get done with the prize packages.

We're rolling now, though!

 

you get my like bomb on your post last night?! the prize post?

Looking forward to getting my cook in!

 

Brisket pit temp was rolling between 225-240* for the first 6 hours or so then out of nowhere it dumped down to ~170- 180*. That's when I had to restack some coals and get things going again and it ended up slowly climbing for a while after that before I had to let it get hotter so I could finish it for dinner. If I had 3 more hours I could've just kept it down at normal temp and let it come up slow but hunger and sleep won out. Gives me motivation to know I have it moving in the right direction though, certainly won't stop me from trying again.

One of the issues with ribs is that I only have one good pit thermometer at the moment so I didn't have one monitoring that smoker which would've alerted me much sooner to the fact that the temp had dropped off. Typically with that pit barrel it is more stressful watching the pit temps because it tends to yo-yo a bit which I think is just part of the nature of it. As long as the fire stays going like normal though it has always delivered the desired results.

I've been wanting to pick up a multi-probe thermometer so this is a good excuse to justify it now. The brisket would've been much easier if I was able to monitor the internal and pit temps at the same time.