The BBQ Thread

I am grilling ribeyes slathered in the Ajvar spread I made last weekend, and grilling some sliced beets (with olive oil, balsamic, and some Italian dressing mix) to go with. Grilled beets are amazing if you haven’t tried them but they take a while to cook.

Before the cook:

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After the Cook:

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I cooked half inch thick sirloin steaks on the grill at 800 Degrees for half an hour per side tonight

Oh I'm sorry I think that was our team at New England tonight
 
Ashburn Dave said:
Those steaks and beets look fantastic.
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They were really good. The Ajvar spread on the steaks mostly burned off, but left a nice charred pepper and garlic note without overpowering the beef. And the beets were perfect.
 
Some updates to my hot hold test. The brisket is holding currently. The oven temp is 160 and the brisket is currently at 146 IT. I wrapped the brisket with tallow around midnight last night, once it rested on the counter naked until it was at 165 IT. This was nerve racking because the internal temp proceeded to drop all the way down to 143 IT before it finally started to climb back up. At 8am this morning I'm back up to 148 IT.

What a boring day this hot box is making. I have nothing to do today but watch the oven and dinner will be ready at 6pm no if's, and's, or butts.

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18 lb brisket from Costco, rubbed with Goldies and extra pepper. Nice thick flat too.

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Resting until IT reaches 165. Next time I'll stop the rest at 175 IT and then wrap it for the hot hold.

It doesn't have the bark I wanted, even after 13 hours naked on the smoker. This is probably due to my putting it fat cap down on my cabinet smoker where the heat rises from the bottom. Next time I'll put fat cap up regardless of which smoker I use.

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Yeah - that's one of the most even thickness briskets I've ever seen. Most of the briskets I see the point is twice as thick or more as the flat is. I would love to find briskets with a thicker flat like that. I'll be curious to see if the final product is worth all of the trouble.

I don't see myself doing any 2 day cooks. I do think you can get great results by starting very early and wrapping at the end and then putting brisket in blankets and into a good quality cooler for 4-6 hours before serving.
 
Brisket Doctors! 😀
 
I'm sold on the hot hold for two reasons. Even with the bad bark, this was the juiciest brisket I've tasted. Even the flat was loaded with juice. Not moisture but rendered down fatty juice. The second reason I'm a fan was that day 2 (or serve day) was so easy. All I had to do was slice it up.

The hot hold ended up being for 17 hours and the slices were still firm. This was one of the worst barks I've formed but it had one of my better smoke rings.

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Looks amazing. Do you always use beef tallow on yours? I know that's all the rage but I tried it once and I felt like all it did was soften the bark and leave the brisket greasy. I am not at all sold on using it after, granted, just trying it once.
 
Looks so nice. Glad everything worked out for you. I'm a big fan of the long 150F hold, it has always worked well for me. And yes, I do the tallow thing too.

BTW, I'm doing a pork butt today on the charcoal drum. Putting it on in a few mins. Long cook. But easy peasy compared to a brisket.
 
I know many use tallow. My question is - what do you guys think it adds?
 
Mark The Homer said:
Looks so nice. Glad everything worked out for you. I'm a big fan of the long 150F hold, it has always worked well for me. And yes, I do the tallow thing too.

BTW, I'm doing a pork butt today on the charcoal drum. Putting it on in a few mins. Long cook. But easy peasy compared to a brisket.
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I didn't like spending $300 on the new oven but when you consider that I just spent $100 on this brisket at Costco, 300 doesn't sound like so much. This oven is a game changer for me. I had the room for it and there are so many use cases for it like holding sides, etc.
 
IMO, it adds a better mouth-feel to the bite, although it will slightly mask some of the salt flavor of the meat. I will unwrap the brisket, place the brisket on the cutting board, drip the tallow from the wrap over the brisket so that it pools onto the board, then slice. I like to slice one slice at a time. Then dredge the one slice, both sides, through the pooled tallow, then serve that one slice. Then cut a second slice. Dredge, serve. And so on. The tallow also keeps the nice color of the slice. Otherwise, the slice will oxidize and turn grey very quickly. I got all these tips from my boy, Jirby, on YT.

I gotta get off the internet and get that butt on. BBL
 
Well, it is really hard to slice more than one at a time :ROFLMAO:

You guys can have the tallow - to each his own.
 
Tallow is fat. Traditionally fat=flavor. But brisket have lots of fat, so your call. I like a great bark

Butter? 🤣
 
"IF IFs AND BUTTs WERE CANDY AND NUTS, OH WHAT A PARTY WE'D HAVE"

-Ken Beatrice

Yesterday's pork butt. I used Malcom's THE BBQ RUB. I used Jealous Devil lump with hickory wood chunks. 225 F in the drum, water pan below. 12 hours in the smoke. Almost zero maintenance, it just rode along at 225-250 F all day, but I hiked the temp closer to 300 the last hour. No wrap. This is a Duroc "prime" pork shoulder from HT, 5.5 lbs. It's a Boston, but it's been trimmed to make it smaller and easier to sell. Good idea.

This is an Oklahoma Joe Bronco drum smoker. I do have an oversized custom-made charcoal basket which fits in there perfectly. A guy in Georgia was welding them and selling them 6-7 years ago. The stock basket would not have held enough charcoal to burn 12 hours. This basket, if filled with Kingsford charcoal, will burn 32 hours straight.

Didn't even peek at it until after the 12th hour when it was reading 203 F. The bone just popped out when I lifted the butt off the grate.

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First thing I did was separate the money muscle and then I sliced it and I served it separately before pulling the pork. I had actually sliced along the edge of it before I cooked it, so I could easily find it. The money muscle is like a tube of juicy crunchy marbled wonderfulness.

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This is the first stab at the butt using the bear claws. It came right apart. Hot and juicy, nice bark.

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I will be making Cubano sandwiches on the Chud Press in the near future. :D
 
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Damn that looks amazing Mark. You'd think living literally in the Pulled Pork capital of the world I would make it more often - but for some reason I don't. I like to do mine in my BGE which holds more than enough charcoal to get the job done. I try and spritz every hour or so (once the bark has set) with a mix of apple cider vinegar and apple juice with some red pepper flakes in it. I also soak garlic heads in water and throw them in the smoker along with apple wood chunks. After I pull mine (I have a pair of those bear claws too), I usually add a little bit of Carolina-style BBQ sauce to it to give it a little bite. I usually make Eastern Carolina style and Western Carolina style BBQ sauces although my personal preference is Eastern style (without any tomato in it).

Like you said, you know it's perfect when the bones fall out as you are pulling it off the smoker :)

Down here, people don't even use the term 'pulled pork'. In my neck of the woods, if you say 'Barbecue', it mean's pulled pork.
 
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