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Never done a smoked corned beef. Does it come out like pastrami?Smoked some ribs and a couple of corned beef points today. Great success!
Social Saturday is BBQ Day V3 - How big is your meat?
- Thread starter MASShole
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Yes, especially if you grind up pickling spice and use that as your rub. I think pastrami is technically smoked corned beef.
I strive for the flavor of the Montreal smoked meat sandwich from Fumare Meats in the French Market in Chicago. I don't do it as well as them (yet) but the pickling spice gets it in the same ballpark I think. If you're ever in Chicago do yourself a favor and check them out.
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Awesome thanks. Ive got two at the house so going to experiment this weekend.
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Moisture in a cooking chamber is actually pretty necessary for the smoke to "stick" to the meat. Aaron Franklin talks about this quite a bit in his book, "Meat Smoking Manifesto". Myron Mixon designed and uses his "H2O" smokers which have something like a 55 gallon water pan between the fire and the meat so that you're steaming the meat. You've also got Meathead from AmazingRibs.com who talks about the necessity of moisture for good bark formation, smoke adherence, etc. I did away with my water pan but I live in North Carolina, about 5 miles or so from the ocean, so it's always very humid out here, so the air is always moist... meaning I don't need to worry about it.
We all know Myron is about the money and he's not going to waste money on this kind of setup if it's not worth it.
To each their own though... so much good BBQ with so many different methods.
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Smoked some ribs tonight because the wife is out of town and she's not a fan, so I rarely cook them anymore.
I made a trip to Sam's Club yesterday and for the first time in a long time they had full packer briskets... and CHOICE! In my area that's pretty damned rare, so I jumped all over that. I also picked up a nice double pack of some huge spare ribs, and even some pork tenderloins for shits and giggles.
Smoke the ribs today at about 275F for around 4.5 hours over oak and pecan. I used my lovely Yoder Cheyenne offset smoker, which I love ever so much, but the wind was swirling like crazy and I ended up getting a bit of that thick smoke a few times during the cook. Didn't ruin my meat though as it was pretty short bursts, but yeah, wasn't happy about that. As you can see they had quite a bit of internal fat in them but I was able to render most of it out.
Doing the brisket tomorrow, depending on the weather I might end up using my Kong Kamado. I keep meaning to build some kind of awning for my offset cooker but I never do... so when it rains it's best not to fire her up. But my kamado lives in my garage so I just open the door and it's flip the bird to the clouds.
Edit: sorry about the size of the pics, holy hell!
I made a trip to Sam's Club yesterday and for the first time in a long time they had full packer briskets... and CHOICE! In my area that's pretty damned rare, so I jumped all over that. I also picked up a nice double pack of some huge spare ribs, and even some pork tenderloins for shits and giggles.
Smoke the ribs today at about 275F for around 4.5 hours over oak and pecan. I used my lovely Yoder Cheyenne offset smoker, which I love ever so much, but the wind was swirling like crazy and I ended up getting a bit of that thick smoke a few times during the cook. Didn't ruin my meat though as it was pretty short bursts, but yeah, wasn't happy about that. As you can see they had quite a bit of internal fat in them but I was able to render most of it out.
Doing the brisket tomorrow, depending on the weather I might end up using my Kong Kamado. I keep meaning to build some kind of awning for my offset cooker but I never do... so when it rains it's best not to fire her up. But my kamado lives in my garage so I just open the door and it's flip the bird to the clouds.
Edit: sorry about the size of the pics, holy hell!
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Hmm, well I was in Chicago which gets humid as hell at times and am now about 50 yards from the bay and 1/4 mile from the ocean so maybe that's why I haven't noticed an issue. Though neither of these places compete with North Carolina for humidity. Went to Wilmington last Labor Day and holy crap was it outrageous! Stand outside for 10 minutes not even doing anything and you're covered in sweat.
Great looking ribs!
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Yeah, I think being around humid air kind of makes it seem as though a water pan is unnecessary. And yeah, the god damned humidity out here during the summer is brutal. I came here from Las Vegas, and I showed up to Camp Lejeune in March of 2001 and the humidity whipped my ass that first summer. Unreal for a desert dweller like myself. haha
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I live in CO and it's so hard for me to go back to the midwest to visit family or Boston to visit friends because I feel like I need 3 showers a day.
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So guys,
Got back from Tuffy Stone's cooking school last night.
http://www.coolsmokebarbeque.com/cooking-school.html
Tuffy is one hell of a nice guy and super approachable. The class is located adjacent to his catering kitchen and it's in a nice building which he has bascially turned into his competition / bbq pitmasters trophy room. The walls are decorated with lots of his big checks from when he wins big competitions, as well as tons of awards / trophies / ribbons from competitions.
The setup of the class is basically mimicking a KCBS competition where you'll cook chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket. So you get there and there's and there's kind of a meet/greet hour, but if you do go to his class, get there as early as possible to get a good seat. The classroom is pretty long and only a few rows deep. If you're on either of the edgs (and not in the middle columns) you're going to have a hard time seeing what's going on. Tables are arranged with auditorium style chairs (not comfortable at all, especially for 3-4 hours at a time). Tuffy has a nice stainless steel work station at the front center of the classroom, which also has an angled mirror on top so most of the class can see what you're doing. Again, anybody not in the center columns won't be able to see anything directly or in that mirror due to the angles. They also have a camera directed at the work station from above, and there are two small tv's hooked up so you can see what he's doing. Again though, the camera is kind of zoomed out too far, and the tv's are too small, so unless you're in the center column's you can't see shit. So if you go to his class where you sit is very important.
So the class starts officially at 4pm on Friday afternoon. Tuffy comes out and introduces everybody who is working with him for the class and he gives some thoughts on BBQ and competition. Then he gets right into prepping chicken thighs for competition. He does a good job of talking about everything he is doing, especially the why, which I really liked. Again, I couldn't see shit during the prep work because I was on the edge, but I just payed attention to what he was saying and I think I got the gist of it. He also goes over his rubs, marinades, sauces, injections, and cooking methods. He also does the prep work for pork butt and brisket. All that took a few hours, then his catering company came over and served us grilled Tri-Tip from his Primo XL cookers, along with a whole slew of gourmet sides.... food was 10/10, insane, and the best Tri-Tip I've ever had. One good note on Tri-Tip, cook it to a bit higher temp. Most people stop at 135-140, but cooking it to 145-150 is the way to go. After dinner class is "officially over" for the night, but he does offer up some beer and wine for a social hour. Again, Tuffy is super approachable and very social the entire time.
The next morning starts pretty early, but that's kind of optional. Tuffy and his teammates are there starting the fires in his Jambo double barreled offset smoker at 5 am, but the class begins again at 7am with breakfast, again served by his catering company, and again very delicious. He let us show up anytime we wanted and I got there at about 6am, so it was only a few of us. He seemed to truly enjoy spending time with the students and answering questions and just generally shooting the shit. I'll tell you what though... that Jambo is an absolute beast and now that I've seen them up close I understand why they're so coveted on the circuit. The firebox is enormous and holds so much oxygen, so it's very easy to run a clean fire. So Tuffy puts the meat on the smoker (brisket and pork butts) and we go inside and he does some more instruction on rib preparation and then ribs go on. Then he goes over all of his methods and procedures for chicken and again why he does everything. From there his catering company does a quick "deli-style" lunch of sandwiches and wraps.
Last piece of the day is treated just like KCBS competition turn-ins. Every 30 minutes he's preparing a turn-in box just like he would for competition. He shows you how to finish off each piece of meat and get it ready for turn-in... him and his wife do a good job of explaining how to prepare a box for turn-in with the lettuce/parsley/greens. A great thing about his double barreled smoker is that one side is just to make the competition food for the boxes, but the other side has enough of each meat category to feed each student. So we each got a competition chicken thigh, rib, pork slices, and a brisket slice from the flat and a burnt end (waygu brisket.... oh yeah)! The food was stellar... best piece of chicken I've ever had.
Then Tuffy ends the course with a Q and A session and this is where Tuffy being so nice really frustrated me. He was available to everybody for basically two solid days, and now everybody wants to ask stupid questions which he has already answered 10x over. This went on for way too long and every single question asked Tuffy had already answered... then we get some asshole who wants to spend 10 minutes asking why Tuffy uses certain rubs and sauces and not some of these other rubs and sauces which are more prevalent on the competition circuit today.... I finally grabbed my shit and just left... I mean, you're at the man's class, and instead of listening to everything he has had to say, you're wondering why he doesn't do everything differently so that he lines up with everybody else on the circuit? I wouldn't have cared so much but this guy talked for so long about how Tuffy should be using stuff that everybody else is using. On the way out you get a "goodies bag" which has a normal sized shaker of all the rubs, sauces, and injections which he uses in his competition recipes. I didn't get to see how the class officially ended as I left before I punched that dude, but I'm sure it was in a good way. ; )
Overall a very good class but if you do take it, above all else, get there the absolute second the place opens so you can get a seat front and center. Also recognize this class is 99% about competition BBQ, though Tuffy will answer any and all questions the whole time. A few of us were there for catering / vending, and when we asked he would give us advice on things to change when serving whole meals rather than single bites. Certainly worth the time and money and overall a very pleasant and positive experience. I was a bit upset that we didn't get any "hands on" with the meat, but that was just a misunderstanding with my part. We had a few guys there who had also taken Myron Mixon's class and in that class everybody is doing prep work on all the meats the first day, Myron smokes it over night, and then the next day / morning everybody is back there tasting all that meat. So a very different style of teaching.
Got back from Tuffy Stone's cooking school last night.
http://www.coolsmokebarbeque.com/cooking-school.html
Tuffy is one hell of a nice guy and super approachable. The class is located adjacent to his catering kitchen and it's in a nice building which he has bascially turned into his competition / bbq pitmasters trophy room. The walls are decorated with lots of his big checks from when he wins big competitions, as well as tons of awards / trophies / ribbons from competitions.
The setup of the class is basically mimicking a KCBS competition where you'll cook chicken, ribs, pork, and brisket. So you get there and there's and there's kind of a meet/greet hour, but if you do go to his class, get there as early as possible to get a good seat. The classroom is pretty long and only a few rows deep. If you're on either of the edgs (and not in the middle columns) you're going to have a hard time seeing what's going on. Tables are arranged with auditorium style chairs (not comfortable at all, especially for 3-4 hours at a time). Tuffy has a nice stainless steel work station at the front center of the classroom, which also has an angled mirror on top so most of the class can see what you're doing. Again, anybody not in the center columns won't be able to see anything directly or in that mirror due to the angles. They also have a camera directed at the work station from above, and there are two small tv's hooked up so you can see what he's doing. Again though, the camera is kind of zoomed out too far, and the tv's are too small, so unless you're in the center column's you can't see shit. So if you go to his class where you sit is very important.
So the class starts officially at 4pm on Friday afternoon. Tuffy comes out and introduces everybody who is working with him for the class and he gives some thoughts on BBQ and competition. Then he gets right into prepping chicken thighs for competition. He does a good job of talking about everything he is doing, especially the why, which I really liked. Again, I couldn't see shit during the prep work because I was on the edge, but I just payed attention to what he was saying and I think I got the gist of it. He also goes over his rubs, marinades, sauces, injections, and cooking methods. He also does the prep work for pork butt and brisket. All that took a few hours, then his catering company came over and served us grilled Tri-Tip from his Primo XL cookers, along with a whole slew of gourmet sides.... food was 10/10, insane, and the best Tri-Tip I've ever had. One good note on Tri-Tip, cook it to a bit higher temp. Most people stop at 135-140, but cooking it to 145-150 is the way to go. After dinner class is "officially over" for the night, but he does offer up some beer and wine for a social hour. Again, Tuffy is super approachable and very social the entire time.
The next morning starts pretty early, but that's kind of optional. Tuffy and his teammates are there starting the fires in his Jambo double barreled offset smoker at 5 am, but the class begins again at 7am with breakfast, again served by his catering company, and again very delicious. He let us show up anytime we wanted and I got there at about 6am, so it was only a few of us. He seemed to truly enjoy spending time with the students and answering questions and just generally shooting the shit. I'll tell you what though... that Jambo is an absolute beast and now that I've seen them up close I understand why they're so coveted on the circuit. The firebox is enormous and holds so much oxygen, so it's very easy to run a clean fire. So Tuffy puts the meat on the smoker (brisket and pork butts) and we go inside and he does some more instruction on rib preparation and then ribs go on. Then he goes over all of his methods and procedures for chicken and again why he does everything. From there his catering company does a quick "deli-style" lunch of sandwiches and wraps.
Last piece of the day is treated just like KCBS competition turn-ins. Every 30 minutes he's preparing a turn-in box just like he would for competition. He shows you how to finish off each piece of meat and get it ready for turn-in... him and his wife do a good job of explaining how to prepare a box for turn-in with the lettuce/parsley/greens. A great thing about his double barreled smoker is that one side is just to make the competition food for the boxes, but the other side has enough of each meat category to feed each student. So we each got a competition chicken thigh, rib, pork slices, and a brisket slice from the flat and a burnt end (waygu brisket.... oh yeah)! The food was stellar... best piece of chicken I've ever had.
Then Tuffy ends the course with a Q and A session and this is where Tuffy being so nice really frustrated me. He was available to everybody for basically two solid days, and now everybody wants to ask stupid questions which he has already answered 10x over. This went on for way too long and every single question asked Tuffy had already answered... then we get some asshole who wants to spend 10 minutes asking why Tuffy uses certain rubs and sauces and not some of these other rubs and sauces which are more prevalent on the competition circuit today.... I finally grabbed my shit and just left... I mean, you're at the man's class, and instead of listening to everything he has had to say, you're wondering why he doesn't do everything differently so that he lines up with everybody else on the circuit? I wouldn't have cared so much but this guy talked for so long about how Tuffy should be using stuff that everybody else is using. On the way out you get a "goodies bag" which has a normal sized shaker of all the rubs, sauces, and injections which he uses in his competition recipes. I didn't get to see how the class officially ended as I left before I punched that dude, but I'm sure it was in a good way. ; )
Overall a very good class but if you do take it, above all else, get there the absolute second the place opens so you can get a seat front and center. Also recognize this class is 99% about competition BBQ, though Tuffy will answer any and all questions the whole time. A few of us were there for catering / vending, and when we asked he would give us advice on things to change when serving whole meals rather than single bites. Certainly worth the time and money and overall a very pleasant and positive experience. I was a bit upset that we didn't get any "hands on" with the meat, but that was just a misunderstanding with my part. We had a few guys there who had also taken Myron Mixon's class and in that class everybody is doing prep work on all the meats the first day, Myron smokes it over night, and then the next day / morning everybody is back there tasting all that meat. So a very different style of teaching.
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Hey All,
So I just finished up the 4 day "IAMBBQ" seminar hosted by the NBBQA (National BBQ and Grilling Association). It was hosted in Forth Worth, TX at the Stock Yards and Billy Bob's. It was a terrific conference and a hell of a good time. I missed the first day of the conference because I went to take a look at my new smoker which had just been completed and was getting ready to get shipped. The 2nd and 3rd days of the conference were all seminars of varying subjects, but mostly business and BBQ related. They were all taught by some serious people in the industry with tons of years of experience. Each evening they had a cook off, first day everybody was doing brisket for the most part, and the 2nd night was the steak cook off.
Then today there was a People's Choice cookoff and they had ~20 "Dream Team" cooks comprised of just about all of the BBQ Pitmasters from many of the seasons of the show. Big Moe Cason, Myron Mixon, Tuffy Stone, Diva Q, Sam Jones (Skylight Inn BBQ), Chris Lilly, Junior Urias, Craig Kimmel, Brad Orrison from The Shed, and a few others which I can't recall. The great thing was during the conference they did a drawing and 3 attendees were chosen to cook with each team. I ended up with Sam Jones and he was cooking a whole hog on an a giant hog roaster using burnt down hickory coals. So I spent the entire night with him and some of his team members just shoveling coals, soaking up the smells, and shooting the shit. Hell of a nice guy and god damn can he cook a hog! We then served over 200 portions out to the people for the "Peoples Choice Award" thing and it was a good time. Great sense of camaraderie among the BBQ folk and everybody taking care of each other. Aaron Franklin showed up as well and was out and about having a good time... poor dude got swarmed though and believe it or not he's pretty shy in a crowd.
Anyways, if you're thinking about getting into the BBQ business, you might want to give the NBBQA a peek and see if you're interested in becoming a member. Every month they do Special Interest Group calls (SIG's) where basically it's a phone / internet conference with somebody in the BBQ world and they're doing a class on something specific. Catering, Business Start-Up, Food Trucks... just all kind of stuff. Plus everybody is willing to help even if you have silly questions... The co-creator of the Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, Mr. Raymond, gave us some good insight and things to look out for when opening a BBQ business. He was also handing out his card and encouraging anybody to contact him with any questions they might have.
Oh, and here's my new pit right after it was loaded up and making it's voyage from Ennis, TX to Jacksonville, North Carolina.
So I just finished up the 4 day "IAMBBQ" seminar hosted by the NBBQA (National BBQ and Grilling Association). It was hosted in Forth Worth, TX at the Stock Yards and Billy Bob's. It was a terrific conference and a hell of a good time. I missed the first day of the conference because I went to take a look at my new smoker which had just been completed and was getting ready to get shipped. The 2nd and 3rd days of the conference were all seminars of varying subjects, but mostly business and BBQ related. They were all taught by some serious people in the industry with tons of years of experience. Each evening they had a cook off, first day everybody was doing brisket for the most part, and the 2nd night was the steak cook off.
Then today there was a People's Choice cookoff and they had ~20 "Dream Team" cooks comprised of just about all of the BBQ Pitmasters from many of the seasons of the show. Big Moe Cason, Myron Mixon, Tuffy Stone, Diva Q, Sam Jones (Skylight Inn BBQ), Chris Lilly, Junior Urias, Craig Kimmel, Brad Orrison from The Shed, and a few others which I can't recall. The great thing was during the conference they did a drawing and 3 attendees were chosen to cook with each team. I ended up with Sam Jones and he was cooking a whole hog on an a giant hog roaster using burnt down hickory coals. So I spent the entire night with him and some of his team members just shoveling coals, soaking up the smells, and shooting the shit. Hell of a nice guy and god damn can he cook a hog! We then served over 200 portions out to the people for the "Peoples Choice Award" thing and it was a good time. Great sense of camaraderie among the BBQ folk and everybody taking care of each other. Aaron Franklin showed up as well and was out and about having a good time... poor dude got swarmed though and believe it or not he's pretty shy in a crowd.
Anyways, if you're thinking about getting into the BBQ business, you might want to give the NBBQA a peek and see if you're interested in becoming a member. Every month they do Special Interest Group calls (SIG's) where basically it's a phone / internet conference with somebody in the BBQ world and they're doing a class on something specific. Catering, Business Start-Up, Food Trucks... just all kind of stuff. Plus everybody is willing to help even if you have silly questions... The co-creator of the Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce, Mr. Raymond, gave us some good insight and things to look out for when opening a BBQ business. He was also handing out his card and encouraging anybody to contact him with any questions they might have.
Oh, and here's my new pit right after it was loaded up and making it's voyage from Ennis, TX to Jacksonville, North Carolina.
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Hey guys, so I finally got my new smoker this morning and within about 30 minutes I was fully engaged with seasoning it.
Absolutely love this thing... holds temp like a champ and the firebox is massive, so there's a ton of oxygen constantly flowing through it to keep the fire fully oxygenated. This gives out nothing but a beautiful, thin, blue smoke.. just unreal how easy it is to operate this thing. Especially coming from a much smaller offset this thing is a piece of cake. haha
I'll keep adding some pics to this Imgur album over the next few days as I get more time with it.. we had a big rain storm come through when I was cooking on it earlier so I had to shut it down for the night.
Absolutely love this thing... holds temp like a champ and the firebox is massive, so there's a ton of oxygen constantly flowing through it to keep the fire fully oxygenated. This gives out nothing but a beautiful, thin, blue smoke.. just unreal how easy it is to operate this thing. Especially coming from a much smaller offset this thing is a piece of cake. haha
I'll keep adding some pics to this Imgur album over the next few days as I get more time with it.. we had a big rain storm come through when I was cooking on it earlier so I had to shut it down for the night.
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I ate an entire quart of frozen yogurt while BBQing earlier. It was a nice day outside so i said screw it, i do what i want!
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Yes I am.
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How did the cook turnout? Any pics?
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So I've had my new smoker for a few weeks now and I'm absolutely in love with this gorgeous vixen. She cooks like a dream, especially compared to my much smaller Yoder, and I've got probably 40+ hours of time cooking on her now. I made a bit of an expanded post on Imgur with some more pictures showing the reverse flow tube Johnson Smokers uses. It works well... not going to lie, when I first saw it I was pretty dubious that it would work, but I'm very pleased with how well it distributes heat across the smoking chamber.
http://www.johnsonsmokers.com/ultimate-chargrill-trailer/
Anyways, here's the updated album I posted for your perusing.
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Good, they were for Easter so I took pics after taking them off but forgot to get some on easter.
Reheated in oven with a little water in the pans. Came out good. I was hoping for a better smoke ring but it was good regardless.
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BBQ is one of my favorite hobbies along with drinking beer, so I do the both at the same time as much as possible.
I'm doing a Mexican BBQ this weekend. Fajitas marinadas. I'll try to remember to take some pics of it. This is the only pic I have of a BBQ I did awhile back.
I'm doing a Mexican BBQ this weekend. Fajitas marinadas. I'll try to remember to take some pics of it. This is the only pic I have of a BBQ I did awhile back.
