The BBQ Thread

Ashburn Dave said:

Interior is 17x11.5 but you don't want any food touching the sides. Comes with a rack to keep food off the bottom. Not bad for $50 and it will cook turkeys plus all kinds of other stuff.

The exterior is 21x14.5 not including the handles or control knob.

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Thanks!
Much appreciated!

Mrs. Skinsfan & I agree that these are the beef ribs that we've ever had. So friggin' tender and delicious!
They will be known in our household as, "Mark The Homer" ribs
Thanks Mark The Homer !!

Wings!
Check out the "secret" ingredient Mark The Homer

Mark The Homer said:

WTF????????????????

What kind of sadistic post is this above???

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No...I didn't figure out the recipe. He had made a big batch for some function and had some leftover.

Skinsfan1311 said:

No...I didn't figure out the recipe. He had made a big batch for some function and had some leftover.

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... and you're shipping a bunch of it to me, right?

Mark The Homer said:

... and you're shipping a bunch of it to me, right?

Click to expand...

Sure!
I saved you some. Rub, not wings!

I only do two or three smoked briskets a year. The last half dozen years I've been responsible for smoking a big brisket for my old-school neighborhood buddies whom I've known since Junior High School. We meet at OBX - a beach house on the beach - in late September, and I like to do a dry run to remind myself of what the heck I'm doing.

Here's the tree fort we built in the woods when we were in our mid-teens. Best tree fort ever! We made it out of four trees. It was pretty high. We made it high on purpose to protect it from invaders. It had a ladder on a hinge. It was my job to shimmy up the tree and then lower the ladder on a rope. During the time we spent in the tree fort, doing what teenage boys do, we became very close.



And half a century later, we're still like brothers.

These are guys I knew growing up - we have all known each other since at least the early 70s. Some have known each other since the mid-60s. We get together once a year which is pretty special considering we've known each other for over half a century and we still hang out. I met all these guys in '71 or '72. Four of us grew up on the same street. We're still real tight. We were all Redskins fans. Still are. Interestingly, it looks like I'm wearing DH's ES ball cap in this photo from 2013.



That's Mike, Dave, Pete, Gerry, Tom, Mark, and another Pete. Seven of use. We were the core members of the group, although it's expanded to about a dozen. As you can see, I'm doing a little 50# pig in the above photo. I'm using a La Caja China Box. I was doing them on a spit before then.

Three of us travel from Maine, Florida, and Georgia. The rest of us are still relatively local.

We even made a logo.



So this Labor Day weekend, I needed to do a brisket dry-run before our week of Shangri-la at OBX. No women. The wives cooperate for the most part. They're actually a little jealous of our camaraderie.

So I started this process Sunday morning.



Flat and point, patted dry.



It was a nice packer - full fat cap. But then my very first slice, I skinned down to the meat! I won't make that mistake at OBX.

Trimmed...



Not a perfect trim. Ideally, I'd have trimmed the fat down to a quarter inch, and I did for the most part, but in the middle towards the flat it was as much as 3/4 inch as revealed after the cook. I'll do better at OBX.

Rub...



Let's get that lump ready...



I like a nice, insulated firebox. I've modded this with seven fire bricks. It keeps the paint from peeling and allows the firebox to last significantly longer. My firebox still looks great after six years. The top of that fire brick on the left is used to hold a split to heat it up before adding to the fire. That way, it bursts into flames within a second or two. The lit coals and wood are kept near the door and the intake.



My wood splitter - highly recommended.



The fire is ready!



Let's get the brisket on first.



I've got cooker probes in front of the brisket and behind the brisket. I've got two more probes in the thickest part of the brisket, which is to say the point. Most backyard smokers at bottom up. But on mine, the heat comes from the top down - I modded it that way. This is 30 mins in...



The site won't let me add any more photos to this post. To be continued...

Nice trim job and I love the splitter.

Made a burger with some of the beef trimmings. I melted the fat down for tallow. Then I saved the non-melted fat for fat smoke.

This is Swiss. They say you gotta use American because it's so melty. I say BS. All you need is a melting dome.



About three hours in...



The best kept secret in BBQ - fat smoke.



Nice yellow flames - you need yellow flames in an offset to produce the best smoke...



Brisket is starting to sweat at around 150 F, so I do the foil boat... and jack the cooker temp to around 275 F.



It hit 190 F after about nine hours. I removed the brisket from the foil boat, wrapped it tight on tallow-soaked butcher paper, placed it back into the foil boat, placed that into a tin foil tray, added a half cup of water to the tray but under the foil.



Then I double sealed the tray and crimped the edges with HD foil



I put that in my Jenn Air kitchen oven (electric) and set it at 150 F. I actually aimed for 145 F. It sat in the oven all night and I didn't take it out until about 2 PM Monday afternoon. Here I am Monday morning sipping a Bloody Caesar. Very delicious!



Okay, it's 2 PM. Let's check it out.



Hmm. Is it jiggly enough? It is floppy enough?



Here I'm slicing off a few "burnt ends" although they're not really burnt.



Initial slice into the middle of the brisket. So the point is on the left and the flat is on the right. Or, the "fatty" is on the left, and the "lean" is on the right...



Here's the classic shot of the "hang" test, drooping the slice over one's finger. It should droop straight down but not break.

Served on butcher paper! That's so the brisket slice doesn't lose its warmth from the room-temperature dinner plate.



The end result turned out very nicely and so I'm pretty confident going to OBX, even though I'll have to smoke it on a drum - my Bronco.

Ashburn Dave said:

Nice trim job and I love the splitter.

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My first splitter was just me and an axe but that was difficult. Then I bought a manual splitter from Harbor Freight.


I paid $130 for it five years ago. Worked very nicely, but large and cumbersome and heavy.

Then I got this



Sooo much simpler. Definitely a game changer.

Mark The Homer said:

My first splitter was just me and an axe but that was difficult. Then I bought a manual splitter from Harbor Freight.

https://www.harborfreight.com/10-ton-hydraulic-log-splitter-67090.html

I paid $130 for it five years ago. Worked very nicely, but large and cumbersome and heavy.

Then I got this

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Sooo much simpler. Definitely a game changer.

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I have to check that out. I'm still swinging a sledge and wedge. For smaller pieces for the fire pit, I use a hammer and hatchet.

Mark The Homer said:

Made a burger with some of the beef trimmings. I melted the fat down for tallow. Then I saved the non-melted fat for fat smoke.

This is Swiss. They say you gotta use American because it's so melty. I say BS. All you need is a melting dome.

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About three hours in...

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The best kept secret in BBQ - fat smoke.

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Nice yellow flames - you need yellow flames in an offset to produce the best smoke...

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Brisket is starting to sweat at around 150 F, so I do the foil boat... and jack the cooker temp to around 275 F.

View attachment 12573

It hit 190 F after about nine hours. I removed the brisket from the foil boat, wrapped it tight on tallow-soaked butcher paper, placed it back into the foil boat, placed that into a tin foil tray, added a half cup of water to the tray but under the foil.

View attachment 12574

Then I double sealed the tray and crimped the edges with HD foil

View attachment 12576

I put that in my Jenn Air kitchen oven (electric) and set it at 150 F. I actually aimed for 145 F. It sat in the oven all night and I didn't take it out until about 2 PM Monday afternoon. Here I am Monday morning sipping a Bloody Caesar. Very delicious!

View attachment 12577

Okay, it's 2 PM. Let's check it out.

View attachment 12578 View attachment 12579 View attachment 12580

Hmm. Is it jiggly enough? It is floppy enough?

View attachment 12581

Here I'm slicing off a few "burnt ends" although they're not really burnt.

View attachment 12583

Initial slice into the middle of the brisket. So the point is on the left and the flat is on the right. Or, the "fatty" is on the left, and the "lean" is on the right...

View attachment 12584

Here's the classic shot of the "hang" test, drooping the slice over one's finger. It should droop straight down but not break.

Served on butcher paper! That's so the brisket slice doesn't lose its warmth from the room-temperature dinner plate.

View attachment 12585

The end result turned out very nicely and so I'm pretty confident going to OBX, even though I'll have to smoke it on a drum - my Bronco.

Click to expand...

Great bark!

How many hours did you hold it in your Jenn Air Oven?

Twenty.

Thanks. Yeah, the bark was good, pretty thick, but it wasn't hard. It was somewhat soft due to the long hold within all that moisture. I have the cookbook by Meathead, he says you can dry out and harden the bark a little by placing the brisket in the oven at 225 F for about an hour after resting. Sounds like a good idea, but I've never seen or heard of anybody doing it.

I would use less tallow in the wrap before I would reheat it in the oven. My last bark was soft after 17 hours hold at 150 F and I added tallow to the wrap. For my next brisket I'll cut back half of the tallow.

i don’t think my oven will go down to 179 but am gonna check. I had a thought - I have a very large food dehydrator that you can set much lower than an oven that might work for a brisket…

Ashburn Dave said:

Testing my new hot box this week. Brisket to follow next week. So far so good. The only negative is that it runs hotter than its set setting. Some reviewers had pointed this out but that wasn't a showstopper for me since I can work around that. A setting of 134 on the oven equates to 150 degrees. Temperature swings are only 1 degree also, so I'm impressed so far.

Now the whole purpose of the long hold (12+hours) is so that I don't have to stay up all night tending the brisket to have it ready for a 6pm dinner. Below is what I'll test next week which will end up being a 17 hour hold. After 20 hours the brisket starts to mush.

1pm Smoke it 12 hours naked
1am Rest on counter until internal temp is 165 degrees (about one hour)
2am Tightly wrap brisket with tallow and hold in hot box at 150 degrees
7pm - Slice and eat

The only negative is being up until 2am but that is an improvement over starting a brisket at 2am to have it ready for dinner.

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Dave,
Thinking about trying your hot box hold technique. What size brisket did you use with the general timing you describe here? I assume you wrapped in butcher paper?

Yes - last year at OBX the oven would only go down to 170 and the brisket after a long hold was way too soft. That's what I'm trying to avoid this year. Jirby holds at 140 or even 130 on some briskets. Then he says, "I hope I don't get into trouble."

As I've mentioned earlier in the thread, some modern ovens can be calibrated to cook lower. In other words, you can fool with the calibration so that it thinks it's at 170 but it's actually at 150. Depends on the oven though. Some only adjust by 10 degrees, some 20. Etc.

I'm hoping this year to hold it in my drum with a huge custom charcoal basket. There's a guy on YT who tested it and he kept the heat up at 225 F for 32 hours straight without adding charcoal. So I'm hoping to hold it at 150 or 140 in the drum.

I'm going out this morning to try to find a Prime brisket for OBX.

Edit: Gaithersburg Costco didn't have any prime briskets. I did get some prime ribeyes though. I went to Sam's and they had seven prime briskets! So I bought the biggest one they had which was 16 lbs, and then I got a second one for the family - 11 lbs.

That brisket was 18 lbs. I used to wrap in butcher paper but for this extended hot hold, everyone I saw was wrapping in foil, which is what I did.

If I could go back in time, I would have only bought that $50 turkey roaster I pictured from Walmart instead of that bigger oven.

Today is the big day for me. Like Mark's dry run for his OBX trip, my brisket a week or two ago was my dry run for my fantasy football league draft which is tomorrow. I'm commish of a local league that used to be all my bud's from SallieMae. The league is 35 years old and we get together at my house for the draft. This year we're doing brisket.

I'm a little nervous this time though since the smallest brisket Costco had yesterday was 23 lbs. I've never smoked a 23 lb'er before. At least I have two days to get it done.

My last picture has my timeline for both days. I used hot sauce for the binder, goldies for the rub and added some extra pepper on top.