Entries Tagged 'bbq' ↓

This Labor Day weekend, I decided to step up my game and smoke a brisket. Here’s the play-by-play.

Prep

First, we picked up a 8.7 pound packer (i.e., untrimmed brisket) in cryovac from Costco for $2.89/lb. This is about the going price these days, although you can occasionally find untrimmed brisket for around $1.99/lb if you keep your eyes open. Saturday night we trimmed it up to within 1/8″ to 1/4″ on the fat side, and trimmed down the notch of fat in between the flat and the point, then applied a very basic rub all over (see below) and threw it in a 3-gallon zip lock bag for the night.

With low and slow brisket, you figure about 1.5 hours per pound. At a little over 8 lbs. trimmed, that looks like about 12 hours to finish. Since showtime for the block party was between 4 and 6PM on Sunday, I wanted to get the meat on by 6AM, so I got as much of the smoker set up as I could beforehand. I filled the charcoal ring with Kingsford, mixed in the equivalent of 6 fist-sized chunks of apple and cherry. Since the wood chunks were smaller that fist size, I had to guess, but it was generally 2-4 chunks. I foiled the water pan (to help with later cleanup), got all the supplies ready (lighter, 20 briquettes and rolled up paper in the chimney starter, a tile to set the chimney on, watering can, assorted thermometers) and assembled the smoker.

Wakey-Wakey

On 5AM Sunday, I rolled out of bed when the alarm went off, went down and got ready to fire things up. Since I had the ring of charcoal already prepared, and since I’d read that you don’t really want to light a chimney on concrete (at the risk of shattering or scorching the concrete), I put an extra bathroom tile on a small retaining wall in our backyard and fired up the chimney. Within about 4 minutes, I was rewarded with a large “crack” as the tile shattered into five pieces. The briquettes were half lit, but I quickly put them into a notch in the center of the ring of charcoal I had prepared. This is the Minion Method, where a small number of coals in the center gradually burn outward, lighting other coals, producing a steady, long-burning fire that you don’t have to add fuel to throughout the cook.

At 5:25 AM, the fire is going. I filled the water pan with warm tap water, reassembled the cooker, set all vents to 100% open, set up the thermometers up and waited. During this phase, the idea is to catch the temperature on the way up, since the smoker is easier to make hotter than it is to cool down once it’s too hot. By 6:00 AM, the temperature is at 205 degrees, but by 6:15AM, it’s at 260, so I quickly throw the meat on, shut down the vents to 50-50-0, and wait. At 6:30AM, rather than the temperature dropping because the meat went on, it rose to 265, so I had to close all the bottom vents.

In some sense, putting the meat on before the temperatures had stabilized was a mistake, but one that only cost me more time spent managing temperatures. Generally, you want to wait until the smoker levels off to an even temperature before putting the meat on, but I really didn’t want to have to finish this thing in the oven, so I decided to try to stabilize the temperature on the fly. It worked out okay. In addition to closing all the lower vents at 6:30, I adjusted the lid (there appeared to be a little leakage, possibly letting in more oxygen) and waited. By 7, the temp had only dropped to 260, so after doing some more reading, realized that I could also shut down the top vents. This did the trick, and the temps were down to 245 by 7:15, so I opened things up to 25-25-25, re-opened the top vent, and waited.

After managing temperature the whole day, I learned a few lessons. First, there’s about a 10-15 minute delay between an adjustment that you make and evidence of the adjustment showing up in the temperatures. Second, small incremental adjustments work better. The move to 25-25-25 with the top vent wide open was a big adjustment from a closed smoker, and as the temp started to rise again over 250 at 7:30, I overreacted in the other direction, went down to 25-0-0 only to see the temps drop to 227. Finally, after a series of ever-finer adjustments, I realized that 25-0-0 was about right to stabilize things, and by 8:30 I was able to quit baby-sitting it since I’d pretty much locked it in at 250.

The ideal range for low and slow is 225-250 degrees. All these temperatures are top vent temperatures. I hadn’t calibrated by thermometers, but through a little bit of careful measurement and comparison, was able to convince myself that there were identical, and therefore I had some confidence they were all in the ballpark of accurate.

At 10:00 AM, I added water for the first time. The temps spiked over 250 because I had to open the side door, but came back down right away. My theory was that I might have doused some of the coals by overfilling. The temperature dropped into the low 230s, so I went 25-25-25 on the vents until by noon, the temps were back at 240.

At noon, the meat had been on almost 6 hours. With a brisket, ideally, you want to turn twice. Once at the halfway point for the duration of the smoke that the amount of meat dictates (in my case, 6 hours) and once at the three-quarters point (9 hours). At 12:15, I opened up the lid for the first time, turned the meat end-for-end to try to get an even cook, and added more water.

After I got the lid back on, I realized that I forgot to spray the brisket with apple juice, so I had to open the lid again and take care of that at 12:30. Naturally, the temperatures started to spike again, so more vent management. I actually ended up having to add some more cool water, close all the vents again, and close the top vent down to 25% for 15 minutes to get things back to 243.

Sides

Meanwhile, the ABTs were being prepared. We did a mix of traditional ABTs (split jalapeno peppers stuffed with Lil Smokies and cream cheese, with a sprinkling of rub, all wrapped up in a half-strip of bacon) and Lime Cilantro ABTs (same thing, but mixed garlic, fresh-squeezed lime juice and cilantro in with some garlic cream cheese.) At 2:00PM, the ABTs went on the lower cooking grate, and the cooker had by and large stabilized at 240.

This freed up time to get the beans ready, and to prepare for the last turn (as well as the first check of internal brisket temperature.) For the beans, we used the Virtual Weber Bullet default recipe, Bush’s Baked Beans, Brer Rabbit Molasses, ketchup and mustard, brought to a medium simmer for 10 minutes and transferred to an aluminum foil pan for insertion on the lower grate. At 3:25PM, I flipped the brisket, pulled off the ABTs, but on the beans and got a reading of the internal brisket temperature. It clocked in at 159 on the Polder instant read thermometer. This was pretty much on track, perhaps a little behind where I thought we’d be. I had prepared to be done as much as two hours early, and this made it look like I might be at the end of the 4-6PM window.

At 4:25PM, the temperature was 230. We opened up, stirred the beans one time, and put the Maverick probe in the brisket. Still 159 internal (we were measuring in a slightly deeper, better spot) and I rationalized this as the “plateau” that meat sometimes reaches.

I started paying less attention to the smoker temperature at this point, and let the meat guide the way. The temperature had stabilized at 250, and the meat was at 170 at 5PM, 178 at 530. By this time, the fire had died down a bit and the vents were wide open. At 5:50, we reached 185 degrees. Since everything else was ready, including the beans and all the stuff the neighbors made, we sliced up the brisket and served it. I scarfed a few of the scraps, sliced up the point, ate a delicious chunk, and put the rest of the point slices into a piece of foil which I threw back on the smoker for a little bit for burnt ends for Monday.

I’m not sure if we would have been better off resting the meat or not. It was pretty good, plain and with Smokehouse BBQ sauce (hot). (The burnt ends turned out great, by the way.)

What I Learned

• Catch the temps on the way up, and plan another 30-45 minutes to achieve some sort of stabilization before throwing the meat on.
• The morning was relatively warm, maybe 72 degrees, so I probably could have gotten by with about 12-15 coals instead of 20 to start.
• On a day like the day I cooked, with temps in the 70s and 80s, light wind and only sun after about 2PM, 25-0-0 to 25-25-0 is pretty good to dial in a stable temperature of 230-250.
• On an 8.7lb untrimmed brisket at 240-250 degrees, 1.5 hours per pound is about right.
• I probably need to start a little earlier than I’d expect, to allow time for the meat to rest.
• It’s true, no matter how many ABTs you make, they’ll always be gone. 24 consumed by 5PM.
• Don’t mess around with the chimney starter. That thing gets hot.

Cooking Log

Time	Temp	Vent 1	Vent 2	Vent 3	Notes
0525	N/A	100	100	100	Coals on
0600	205	100	100	100
0615	260	50	50	0	Meat on
0630	265	0	0	0
0700	260	0	0	0	Closed top vent, adjusted lid
0715	245	25	25	25	Reopen top vent
0730	250	25	0	0
0750	227	50	50	25
0800	245	25	25	25
0810	252	25	0	0
0822	227	25	25	0	Temp was falling like crazy here
0900	251	25	25	0
0915	257	25	0	0
0930	241	25	0	0
1000	237	25	0	0	Added water
1015	240	25	25	0
1030	233	50	25	25
1100	235	25	25	25
1130	239	25	25	25
1200	242	25	25	0
1215	243	25	25	25	Turned meat end for end, added water
1230	259	25	0	0
1300	257	0	0	0
1315	259	0	0	0	Closed top vent to 25%, added cool water
1330	244	25	0	0	Re-opened top vent all the way
1400	243	0	0	0	Added ABTs
1430	231	50	0	0
1446	233	25	0	0
1500	240	25	0	0
1525	240	25	0	0	ABTs off; beans on, brisket at 159
1600	231	25	0	0
1625	231	75	0	0	Stirred beans; Brisket 160
1700	240	100	100	0	Brisket 170
1730	250	100	100	75	Brisket 178
1800	240	100	100	0	Brisket 185

My First “Real” Barbecue

For Christmas, I received a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker/Smoker. The WSM is a bullet smoker–throw some charcoal and wood chunks in the bottom, fill a bowl of water to serve as a heat sink, and dial the temperature in at around 225 degrees Fahrenheit and four to twelve hours later…awesome barbecue.

So far this year it had been either too cold or windy to break it out, but a weekend ago the weather warmed up and it was a perfect 50 degree day to make a test with some baby back ribs. I picked ribs as the optimal choice for low cost (in case I screwed up) and tastiness (in case it turned out well.) Despite a few beginner errors, it worked out fairly well.

The Recap

Prepare the Meat

I started about 11AM preparing the slabs. For the first smoke, we cooked two, each about two-and-a-quarter pounds, slightly larger than is recommended (you typically want a slab that’s just under two pounds.) Since the meat was (unfortunately) injected with some sort of “flavor solution” intended to make the ribs juicier, the weight most likely was higher than it would have been.

We mixed up the Best Ribs in the Universe (BRITU) rub, which on the surface appears a lot spicier than we’d normally go for, with cayenne pepper, but trusting those who went before us, we mixed up a 1/8th batch (and ended up with enough rub after a light dusting for pretty much all the smokes we’ll do this year.) These ribs were pre-trimmed, so I had no membrane to pull off, just a few areas of excess fat to trim back.

As the ribs sat at room temperature for two hours, I went out and started getting the smoker assembled and fired up. First, I poured out one chimney of Kingsford briquettes and set those aside; then another heaping chimney of Kingsford which I fired up.

Fire Good

A word about chimney starters: get one. Seriously.

These things make lighting charcoal easy. They’re about $14, hold a chamber full of charcoal, and only take about two rolled up pieces of newspaper to get six pounds of charcoal fired up. No lighter fluid hassle, no “match light” bags full of starter fluid smell, no medieval looking electric starter with extension cords. Just roll up a circular wick/ring of papers underneath the chimney, set the chimney on your charcoal grate inside the smoker, light it and wait. In about twenty minutes, all the charcoal is ashed over and ready to go; dump it in the chamber, add the unlit charcoal and the smoking wood.

For this smoke, I used chunks of apple and cherry. Most people are lucky enough to find “fist-sized chunks” or “tennis ball sized chunks” of wood, but within a five mile radius of my house, the only fruit wood I could find were golf ball sized chunks of apple and cherry, so I had to throw a few more in to make up the difference, and reassembled the cooker to try to bring it to temperature.

Cherry and apple make for a sweeter and smoother flavor. The real BRITU recipe calls for a chunk of oak, but the only other wood chunks I had were some hickory. Most people I talked to didn’t like the strong hickory flavor in ribs, so I held back and stayed mild.

Wait

Most of the work was done; I just had to wait another hour for the temperature of the smoker to stabilize and for the rub to draw out the fluid from the meat. About 1PM, I rolled and skewered the ribs and put them on the top grate, with temperatures of the smoker at 300 and 210 at the lid and top grate respectively. This was the first indication that something was wrong—normally the temperature differential is more like 30-50 degrees. (Later: speculation on the cause of this mistake).

I hadn’t yet had a chance to buy a real rib rack, so I went with the soaked bamboo skewers. The downside of using skewers is that you can’t lay the ribs out flat in a real slab when you’re finished, as they tend to break into several smaller slabs of 3-5 ribs each; also, you can only get about three on the top grate skewered, but can get as many as six with a rack and careful placement.

Check, Please

At around 3PM, a bit of internet checking revealed my rookie blunder of an incorrect assembly; since it was time to check the ribs and turn them, I also took the opportunity to don the heat-resistant gloves and fix the assembly by locating the water pan in its proper location. This is when I realized that I also hadn’t used enough fuel, so I tossed in a bit more, along with a couple more small wood chunks, and prepared for disaster. I most likely totally hosed up the temperature at this point. Opening up the smoker causes the coals to get a lot more oxygen and throw off a lot more heat, so even though you let a lot of ambient heat escape, the fire itself gets harder and the risk is that you can’t keep the temperature cool enough. Reassembled, the temperature at the lid spiked even though my purported grate temperature crept slowly up.

At 4PM, I checked and tried to run the temperature up for the finish, to 250-275 degrees. Although I couldn’t get the grate temperature about 222, the ribs themselves were done; a probe showed them well over 195 in most locations which was more done than I expected. I quickly pulled them off, prepared for the worst.

We went with the recommended 5:1 mix of KC Masterpiece with honey which is intended to take the spicy/salty edge off the BRITU rub. I’m not a KC Masterpiece fan; I’m more partial to Smokehouse myself, but we hadn’t had foresight to make a Smokehouse run, and didn’t have time to experiment with a homemade sauce. No complaints though, and it worked out better than the other sauce we had which was an extra-hot Gates sauce.

At the end of the day, I was pretty satisfied. I ended up on my feet most of the afternoon trying to figure out my temperature problems (all user error and mistakes I won’t make next time.) When I got things set up properly and dialed in, maintaining temperature in the WSM worked as advertised. I only burned myself twice; once when I tried to adjust a vent with a bare finger, and another time when the metal probe of my electronic monitor brushed my finger (same finger.)

With all that fun so described, I bring you:

Firebones’ Five Reasons to Get a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker

It’s Geeky

Something about making minor adjustments to the airflow to control the temperature, trying to get the amount of fuel right, measuring the temperatures, preparing the meat–it turned out to be a little more geeky than I thought it’d be, like being a human fuzzy logic controller to optimize the smoking. I could easily see this devolving into a Make Magazine project involving radio sensors, actuating arms to control the vent settings, and multiple temperature logging real-time feeds. This way leads to madness.

It’s Idiot Proof

Despite all my blunders (see below), the ribs turned out quite well. For a first time cook, it’s apparently hard to screw up ribs or beer can chicken on the WSM. Once I master temperature control, I’ll move up to more expensive cuts that take longer. I learned a ton so I expect that in the future this will become as easy and as reliable as my gas grill (but better tasting).

It’s Fun and Maybe Even Fashionable

I had a choice to make in the morning when I set things up–put it in the backyard where no one could see me obsessing over the smoker, or in the front, where I could field the question of the occasional passer-by. Not entirely because the front was in the sun most of the day and the house served as a windbreak did I pick the front; it turned out it made for a more social activity than I expected. And after all was said and done, and only a pile of bones remained, it turned out to be a great way to kill a Sunday afternoon.

It Cleans Up Well

Later, after the fire burned out and the coals cooled in the 40-degree night air, and after watching the finale of The Wire, I disassembled everything and cleaned the grates, dumped out the water pan and emptied the cool ash into the yard waste container. The only messy part of the whole cleanup was wiping the fat drippings out of the water pan. That whole experience set me on the path to only smoke once every few weeks–my arteries may not clean up so easily.

Most Importantly, It’s Tasty

Despite all the mistakes, the ribs turned out good. The kids, who routinely hate anything I grill, sang the praises of Dad’s cooking. (Not really sensitive to Mom with that, were they?) Even a guest who hadn’t had ribs before became a convert. Because the guests were last minute, I didn’t get a chance to eat as much as I’d hoped, but I was pleased. While the “bark” was a little tough due to the bungled temperature control, the meat itself came off the bone cleanly and was juicy. Being the first time, I can’t grade the effort; all I know is that my fears were not realized.

Four n00b Mistakes

As this was a learning experience, let me share my screwups.

Picking Subpar Meat

The ribs I picked up were injected with a solution that is intended to make the meat juicier and more flavorful. In reality, I believe it simply is done to increase the weight of the slab, make you pay more per pound. It tends to make the meat saltier than it should be. Since I don’t really have anything to compare it to, I can’t say for sure; in fact, the added moisture may have compensated for overshooting the temperature.

Some (Mistaken) Assembly Required

While the WSM is insanely easy to put together, requiring one-time use of a screwdriver and a wrench, when it came time to put things together I messed up and ended up setting the water pan on the coals directly. How could I screw that up? Perhaps fascinated by the wonderful fire I failed to remember that the water bowl has a nice ledge it sets into far above the flames. I think the net result was that the smoker held a less consistent internal temperature. About half of the way through the smoke, I fixed the situation, but a chain of events had begun that took a while to sort out.

Additionally, I forgot to foil the water pan. When the meat cooks, the fat drips into the water pan. This isn’t that big of a deal, but it did make it a little messier to clean up. (The real reason to foil on a long cook is to prevent excess fat consolidating in the bowl letting water overflow into the charcoal chamber.)

Messing up the Fuel

Because I most likely ran too hot, the fuel ran out before the end of the smoke, so I had to add a few briquettes in the last half of the cook. The mistake: when a recommendation calls for “two heaping chimneys”, use two heaping chimneys, not two “sort of level” chimneys. The amount I added was close to what I left off from two heaping chimneys.

As mistakes go, this one was easily corrected by throwing in the extra fuel as needed through the access door when checking the water level.

Checking the Thermometers

I used an electronic probe threaded through the vent hole and held in place by a potato on the top grate to get one temperature reading, and a probe monitor from my gas grill through the top to get a lid temperature. Normally, the difference between lid and top grate is about 30-40 degrees; during my cook it was closer to a 75 degree difference. What’s not clear is why. I hadn’t calibrated either thermometer (by putting them in boiling water and checking how close to the boiling point the temperature was). I’m suspicious that the wire probe temperature might have been low due to the threading through the potato, and that the actual temperature was a lot higher. I don’t believe I ever exceeded a grate temperature of 221, yet the meat was done earlier than expected.

Overall: Get One

If you like BBQ, like to experiment, and need an excuse to goof around all day working on dinner, get a WSM and have some fun. As hobbies go, it’s one that’s low-key, gets you outside in all kinds of weather, serves as the perfect excuse to knock back a few while cooking, has science-y elements and culminates in a delicious result. The smoker can also be readily converted to a normal charcoal grill if you want to do steaks, burgers, or hot dogs “hot and fast” instead of real barbecue’s “low and slow” (low temperature, slow cooking.)

I’ll most likely take another shot at ribs or beer can chicken to get my temperature woes straightened out before moving on to a more advanced topic like brisket. Check back.