American style BBQ

[Gimli]

 

Cooked this set of beef ribs earlier as a test run to dial in the smoker ill be using tomorrow cooking at a new years party before buggering off out bush again. A lot of people call them dinosaur ribs. They're pretty hefty. This rack was 4.5kg

 

5 hours @ 300F in a Kamado Joe classic with only one minor adjustment. Incredible smokers. Big ceramic bowls that really hold heat well. 50/50 kosher salt/cracked black pepper for rub and left to come up to room temp. 

 

Not a huge fan of cooking ribs, mainly due to the wastage when it comes to trimming them up (which you could use to make burgers), so I decided to cook them untrimmed, hard fat and all. 

 

Bit of post cook trim and served them up with thumbs up all round. People always say "oh, meat should fall off the bone etc" This is wrong. You want them to have the slighest tug as you bite into the meat. It is a fine line between falling off and a slight tug though. 

 

Tomorrow i will be cooking 15kg of brisket and some other sides like beans, slaw and mac n cheese.

 

Does anyone else here cook low and slow whether it be charcoal, gas or pellets?

 

Interested to see what others are cooking and sharing recipes/tricks/tips etc

 

[☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ]

i love to cook slow , whatever can fit in the oven or pans .. not gotten as far as trying out on the barbi but usually it's a rush job here for burgers , sausages n various smalls ..

 

but in the kitchen i discovered the "get it cooking and lower the heat to 1 and leave it for hours" by accident .. suddenly my food started to melt in the mouth and tasted like heaven with no extra magickal ingrdient other than what was already there.. delish

 

loving the size of your rack , reminds me of the flintstones :3 and look fwd to learning some tips from you guys ..

 

one thing i could add is a fast easy side dish

if you have ciabatta bread and it kinda gets a bit past using fresh , slice it into flats ,

add cubed sliced tomato or thinly sliced bell peppers,

drizzle olive oil,

sprinkle your fave herbs,

grate a bit of ya fave cheese on it,

microwave for about 45 seconds or toast on the barbi until cheese starts to melt ..

Edited December 31, 2017 by ☽Ţ ҉ĥϋηϠ₡яღ☯ॐ€ðяئॐ♡Pϟiℓℴϟℴ

[Sallubrious]

I made a charcoal cooker from an old keg. I cut a hole in the top that a camp oven fits into and the firebox is a stainless sieve with ceramic stones in the bottom so the arse doesn't get burnt out of it. The firebox sits on an old  baby formula tin to bring it up closer to camp oven. I put a large stainless bowl over the top after the camp oven goes in to retain the heat. When it's all up and running it looks a bit like a stainless R2-D2, we call it the R2-BQ.

 

It is a bit cumbersome compared to a commercial cooker but it's super efficient and only uses a few handfuls of charcoal to cook a roast. I had everything except the ceramic stones, so all up it cost me about $12 and a bit of elbow grease.

 

The only cuts of meat I cook these days are slow cooked lamb shoulders and I cook them at about 140-150 C for for 5 hours. I cook mine until it falls off the bone & we never have to use a knife to portion it out. I use an egg flipper to tease it off the bone and portion it out.

 

My lamb shoulder recipe for one shoulder, I normally do two.

3 cloves of garlic

2 sprigs of fresh rosemary

a good whack of cracked pepper

about a teaspoon of salt

a few shakes of sage powder

 

I peel the garlic and put it into my mortar with a good splash of olive oil and then put all the other ingredients in and grind it all up to a slurry with the pestle. Then I cut a cross hatch pattern (about 2 cm diamonds/squares) across the skin side of the lamb and massage the seasoning slurry into all the cuts I just made.

 

The bottom of the camp oven tends to get a bit hotter than the internal air space, so I thickly slice some large onions and line the bottom of the camp oven with them keep the meat from touching the bottom. Then I put the meat in & close it up cook for about 5 hours at 140-150 C. The onion gets overcooked so I just toss it when the meat's done. Every time I open it (normally twice during cooking) to add more charcoal I put a few small green eucalyptus twigs on the charcoal to get some smoke/flavour happening.

 

The same recipe works well in a normal oven inside but it doesn't taste anywhere near as good as one cooked on R2-BQ

Edited December 31, 2017 by Sallubrious

[Gimli]

@Sallubrious do you have a photo?

 

I love seeing backyard builds. Some pretty cool and very efficient home jobs kicking about.

 

We have a lot of woods for smoke/flavor, including one type of iron bark (Eucalyptus sideroxylon). Mesquite and jam wood are great for beef. Lemon wood for seafood. Cherry wood for poultry. Apple wood for pork

 

Theres a smoking wood chart floating around on google. Quite handy

[DeadStar]

You bastards have got me all hungry for smoked meat :-)

 

I have been messing around with a cheap bullet smoker for a couple of years now. To tell the truth, it needs to be replace but i cant bear throwing it out.

 

I have cooked a couple of briskets, beef ribs, pork ribs but pulled pork has to be my favorite.

@Gimli 15kgs of brisket is going to take you a good 12hrs to cook. Your going to need alot of beverage.

 

Heres the pork scotch i pulled for xmas. It was rubbed and smoked it over carcoal and apple wood for 9hrs. I wrapped it about the 6hr mark

Edited December 31, 2017 by DeadStar
Damn, my pics rotated?

[Gimli]

I cook wagyu briskets, can do a 5kg slab in around 4-5 hours. The fat really helps the cook time, as does cooking at a steady 300F. Then I'll rest for about an hour or so before serving. Can rest and keep hot for hours in a boat method so it retains heat but so the residual heat doesnt keep it cooking. 

 

Nice color on that pork! Apple really is the best wood for pork. 

 

Here is one of the briskets I've got in at the moment, 2 hours in, probing at 152F on the point already. Because its wagyu i wont wrap but ill spritz with water. Leaner brisket id wrap and boat at the stall

 

[DeadStar]

Looks awesome gimli

I bet your bbq would hold heat a lot better than mine, which affect my cook time alot. You also cook a bit hotter than i do. With a water pan, i sit at around 114C-120C.

 

[Drildo]

This is a sick bbq, small but maybe u can get two going at once, they're portable etc.

Everdure Echurasco: http://ausbbq.com.au/everdure-e-churrasco-review/
 

Its a gas and coal bbq, u spend 7 mins wth gas on to get the beads glowing, then u turn gas off and leave them for another 7 mins to burn through white hot. Slap your meat on and if its starting to cool down too much u just pump the gas back on...   You can load gumwood or chicory or your favorite smoking chips in there with your beads too give it an extra smokey flavor.  A non gas Webber charcoal BBQ might take an hour+ before the coals are ready to cook on, the churasco means your cooking on coals in less than 15 mins.   You can cook HOT AND QUICK like a gas bbq too, but still retaining that delicious smokey flavour.

[Sallubrious]

I just braved the jungle out the back to get a few snaps.

I originally made it to use as a fire pit & I planned to fit a mesh rack in the ring under the hole in the side. It's got heaps of 1/2" holes drilled into the bottom and around the side near the bottom for airflow but it really doesn't need them for the way I'm using it now. I was also planning to make a grille to fit over the hole in the top so I can use it like a hibachi but I'm a lazy bastard and I never did any of that after I realised a camp oven would perfectly in the hole in the top. It just works so well how it is.

 

I ran out of charcoal last time, so that's why it's got dead heat beads in the firebox. You can just see a few of the ceramic stones under the heat beads. I hate heat beads they stink and smoke the whole street out when you first light them up. Given the choice I'd use charcoal every time.

 

It's a bit hard to see but there's 2 stainless bowls on top which gives a bit of insulation & it works well in all weather, rain is no problem.

Edited December 31, 2017 by Sallubrious

[Gimli]

I use heatbeads in my webers and I've never had an issue. Ill do the snake 2x1 and then place 8-10 already ashed over heads from my heatbead chimney

 

Nice looking little rig tho! 

[Halcyon Daze]

I have a very similar thing Sallubrious,  made of an old keg too. The reason they are so good is the stainless steel that can withstand the high temperatures. 

 

I see you also have a stainless steel insert like mine, an old colander, very good

 

I just use eucalyptus sticks as fuel. I have a couple of local parks that are full of gum trees and dry sticks laying around everywhere. The council guys make piles of the long dead sticks so they can mow around them properly, I just help myself and they have given me the thumbs up a couple times.

 

I really like the sticks for a few reasons. -They are free and renewable. Nice and dry and make fck-all smoke once burning (they usually dry on the tree before falling). A drum full of sticks burns down to a half a drum of red hot coals in less than 20 mins, which is ideal for grilling on (better than flame). If the branches were any thicker than say a vacuum cleaner pipe, then they would take too long to burn down into a hot coal bed. I also use a bunch of dried gum leaves to easily get the fire started.

 

Also I like to use a double hotplate. ie a flat regular hotplate goes on first, followed by either a cast iron skillet, cast iron rack, sausage rack, camp oven, bloody sandwich iron, anything. It all seems to cook better with the double. It still get's hot enough to easily burn stuff, but it's great because you don't get any oil dripping on the red hot coals which makes a crap load of smoke and smothers the coals out etc.

 

Another thing I have is a huge steel hotplate from a broken down 6-burner BBQ. I found it at the dump, dragged it home in the trailer and and spent about an hour unscrewing and cutting off all the dodgy burners and metal frame etc, and cleaning it up with the angle grinder. All I wanted was the plate which is sooooo good for Big BBQ with lotsa people. Enough room for everything most of the time, although I still sometimes get the Keg going as well if necessary.

 

I wouldn't grill without long tongs, paper towels and spray-oil

And an apron saying FIBBQG-JAM

Edited January 10, 2018 by Halcyon Daze

[Gimli]

Feb 10-11th, the next BBQ event will be on in Freo, at the park that backs onto clancys fish pub, princess may park

 

Tips for treats on the sunday at 1pm, $5-6 per sample.

[Siggor]

Not quite American but looks awesome, seen it on man fire food, Building a horno (mud oven)and cooking pork carnitas anybody has experience building mud ovens?