Food thread!

[YzGyz]

There was a food thread a while back but I can't find it. I'm staring a new one in hope of many people joining in and sharing the foodie fun with experience, pictures and fun.

I'll start it off. I'm new to smoking but love me some good Q. I have made ribs and bbq up some good stuff many times but never really tried to smoke any Q to the point where a good bark formed. Anyhoo, being a Texan, I'm on a journey to learn how to make good Q.

I did plenty of research and learned lots of BBQ, grills and smokers. I decided I want to make me a nice stick burner one day but for now, an electric smoker will do nicely. After many many hours and nights reading and researching, I bought what many consider a great electric smoker. I decided on a MasterBuilt Electric Smoker A.K.A MES. The original MES is a good buy with great reviews. The MES version 2 sucked and has many flaws but they company reached out to buyers on its problems and updated to a MES version 2.5.Once that part one decided, the bargain hunt was on. I searched high and low for the cheapest deal and sales around. I was in no rush as I had plenty of food to eat even though it was not smoked meat. A few weeks go buy and I decided Sam's has the best deal so off I went and brought one home.

The MES comes in a 30''' and a 40'' version. Being a Texan and Vietnamese with a big family, I bought the 40''. I have use it once and it worked awesomely well. I later did more research and found ways to make it even better and so I did.

Anyhoo, I bought a slab of pork picnic that was on sale for 99c/lb and put her in a mix of cola and bbq sauce after de-boning it. I let her sit in the fridge for a few days flipping her over everyday. I usually make my own run but I have been tired and especially lazy so I went and used some store bought brisket dry rub (McCornmik me thinks). I took the slabs of meat (I cut it in two since it was a huge chunk at around 11lbs) when I came home from work and set her on the counter to warm up a little. After a little nap (I had worked that night) I went and started up the MES to 275f (it's max temp) and let it sit and warm up for a good 15 minutes as I prep the Pellet tray I made and apply the rub.

I simply took the meat out the bag, blot it dry some but left some moisture on so the rub would stick and sprinkled the 2 pieces with the pre-made rub.

On to the pellet smoking tray. I made my own knock off version of the A-Maze-n smoking try from some nice heavy duty SS mesh my brother in law had at his shop. A few cuts with the grinder, a few bends on the break and some SS wire to tie her together and I was good to go. I had order a 20# bag of hardwood pellets of Amazon for like $15. I took some pellect and set her into a microwave safe tray and ran her for 1 min, stir when it stopped and repeat. This rids of moisture in the pellets so they burn and smolder easier. Once dry I loaded the home made pellet try and lit one end up with my cigar torch and let her burn.

Once My MES 2.5 was up to 275f, I loaded her up with 2 slabs of meat, pushed in 2 therms and placed the pellet tray on the bottom shelf. The MES has a built in therm but I was not sure how accurate it was so I stuck my other hand held one int he meat so I could verify how accurate the built in one was. So far the are within 1 deg of each other so I'll call it good.

The unit and smoker try combo is pretty much a set it and forget it system. The MES maintains the temp while the Pellet try supply the smoke. So far so good. I have a few more hours to go before I can take the pork out and let it rest then pull them for sammiches.

On with the pics!
This is the 40'' MES I got from Sam's for like $380 or something I don't remember.


This is the control unit where you can set the temps, alarm, timer for it to shut off, and bluetooth so that you can connect it to your phone so you can monitor or adjust the MES setting, food temp (it has built in therm) or timer.


The vent is on the top left side but the wind keeps blowing cool air into the cooker so I added a little aluminum ell to block the wind. I get a nice dark condensation of water around the vent. This dark stuff is liquid smoke. Yes, the same thing you get in a bottle at the grocery store to add smoke flavor to your food. I don't harvest it since I have the real deal but it's cool to know I can harvest it if I wanted.

MEAT!! around 3.5 hours. I started it off at 275f when I first placed the meat since the meat was cold and would drop the temp in the cooker fast. After about 30 minutes I turned the MES down to 210 and that is where she sits now.



This is a picture of my DIY pellet smoking tray. I simply made a rectangle and then added a 'upside down 'V' shaped divider so they the tray would have a "U" trough for the pellets to sit in. You load the tray up with dry pellets then light it with a torch on one end of the 'U'. The pellets will burn and smolder creating smoke as it burns it's way from one leg of the U to the other. That picture was at 3.5 hours and only burnt to 1 end of the U.


Will report back with more later.

Please come and join me in the cooking. Post your specialty and recipes for other to try.

YzGyz

[jaytirbhaw]

This thread is going to turn me into an even bigger fat ***

[YzGyz]

The PP was ok. It was not tender enough. Internal temp needed to get closer to 200f for it to really pull easy. I got tired and hungry from constantly smelling the smoke so I pulled them from the MES with internal temp (IT) of 187. That's 10f sooner than I should have but I have been smoking them since 3:30 pm and pulled them right before midnight. They had an awesome bark on them and made the whole kitchen smell like smokey goodness. After I pulled them I placed them in a big container with lid, wrapped the container with a towel and let them sit for 2 hours before I started shredding them. They were tender but not fall apart tender. Some pieces were perfect while other needed more pulling to shred. This is all because I stopped smoking them too early which I knew. Next time I'm defiantly smoking them to an IT of 195f-200f.

Anyhoo, They tasted great in the sammiches. We added a little BBQ sauce or mustard, toss to evenly distribute and lay them in a bun, roll, loaf, taco shell, ect with some fixing and umm good!







Who's next to give me cooking ideas?

YzGyz

[YzGyz]

I guess I'm the only Foodie here. Ohh well, too bad for all suckas that don't know how to eat, drink and share. =^b


It's that time again. I have made great Ribs before, baby back, short (Korean cut), spare and St Louis cut. This is my first try and making BB on the MES ver2.5.

I told my bro to take the meat out the Keggerator and dump the juice and set the meat on the baking sheet before he leaves for work so I could take care of it when I wake up. So 9am before he leaves, he places it on the counter in the baking sheet fore me. 11 am I get up, brush my teeth and stroll to the kitchen and what do I see? 3 racks of BB and my 2 hunks cured Pastrami. Time to make good eats!

The ribs are pretty much set to season right out the package other than removing the membrane on the back. So what do I do fist? Warm up the smoker!! I set the MES to 240F. Then I went ahead and ripped the membrane on the back of my 3 BB ribs. A good spread of el-cheapo mustard as a rub binder and a good sprinkle of off-the-shelf rub (I was too lazy to make my own this time) is lathered on both side and ribs are ready to smoke.


After I was finished seasoning the BB, I stepped outside and pulled the pellet smoking tray (see top post) that I had already filled with pellets out the smoker. I filled it up and set it inside the smoker as I warmed it up to dry out the pellets so they would catch fire and the smolder better. This will increase my chances of good smoke production which is always a good thing when you are BBQing. I then took my handy dandy gigare butane lighter/torch and went to town on one end of my pellet smoker. A good flame started and I let it sit for the 2 minutes or so as I loaded the 2 middle racks of the MES with my 3 racks of ribs. Once they were all in, I blew out the fire in the pellet tray and set it it the MES on the bottom middle in the drip tray. I will me making these ribs following the 3-2-1 method. This consist of 3 hrs smoking, 2 hrs foiled, 1 hour smoke/glazing.

Back inside I went to prepare my other slab of meat. I don't know why but I have never had Smoked cured Pastrami until about 2 months ago. I have had a decent share of Roast Beef or Corned Beef sammiches but never a Smoked cured Pastrami. Well, The fool I am because MY GOD it's divine! It's just so darn friggin good! I happen to buy it to make sammiches for a fishing trip 2 months ago and it has been my go to sammich meat.

Well, with a little research and a few online vids later, I decided to try my hand at making this tasty meat. Today I'm following this recipe with minor changes. I'm using super trimmed Brisket wince it was on sale and available.
Home-Smoked Pastrami Recipe - Barbecuebible.com
The changes I made was I drained the brine out of the zip lock bags last night and filled them with fresh water but left all the veggies and flavor stuff in the bag. Reason? Well, I had use table salt instead of Kosher salt and table salt grain is smaller then Kosher salt. This meant that I would use less table salt vs Kosher salt as the finer table salt will compact more and better in a measuring cup. This meant that I used more salt then I should have.I didn't think about it at the time but I found out and thought about it shortly after I made the brine. So, instead of tossing the whole brine and ingredients away, I decided to simple drain the brine the night before the smoke and let the meat sit in plain water to try and draw some of the salt back out of the meat. It should work, but I wonder if 1 night would be enough. Guess I'll find out. I started the brine/cure 10-19, dumped the brine/cure 10-30 and replaced with H2O and set it back in the Keg fridge.

I placed the meat on a baking sheet and put it in my Keggerator hahaa... I love that thing. I have soda, juice and other drink in there. I pretty much always have cold drinks at the house.


I had a hard time finding Coriander seeds at the local mart. I was able to find some at HEB but there were expensive! They only had Organic and it was close to $5 for 1oz! LIKE WTF! I needed it so I bought it. I went online and ordered 1lb of the stuff for $8.xx shipped to the house so I would have it when I need it. The rub for the Pastrami was all fresh ground from a hand cranked ceramic coffee bean mill. I got it cheat from Amazon.It worked out wonderfully. I was able to adjust the setting to coarsely grind both the Coriander and Pepper. I didn't have mustard seeds but I did have a little mustard powder so I used a little of that instead. Once again I used el-cheapo mustard and a rub binder. It's already one of the rub ingredients so ehh (not that you can taste it when it's smoked).

Once the cured meat was rubbed with the Pastrami seasoning I placed them in the smoker. I will smoke it until internal temp (IT) reaches 174 then wrap it in foil steam it some more till IT is 195.

In case some of you guys/gals did not know, ~195f IT is pretty much the off the bone tender or fall apart on the first bite tender temp.




Here they are resting nicely together in the MES smoking away.


Will be back to update later.
YzGyz

[P's_Z]

Count me in to troll in your thread

Im not a smoker, but i love to eat smoked meats! At home, i mostly throw some cuts on meats like ribeyes & ny steaks in my bbq, but i dont mind reading up and learning on the art of smoking. Everything looks great in the pics!

Good job on starting this thread too!

[/Angelo350Z/]

to this thread

[YzGyz]

BB update:

3hrs of smoking passed and I pull them from the smoker.


The meat has a nice oakish yellowing with smoke on it. Think of semi used motor oil. It's yellowish. Here is a close up.


You can see the team players on the first picture. What I have is butter, brown sugar, and 1/2 water 1/2 bbq sauce (you can use whisky, Apple juice, apple cider, apple vinegar or whatever you savy in the mix). I water the BBQ sauce down so that I can paint the meat easier and so that it don't clump up. It allows more consistent even spread of sauce along with add extra steaming moisture. So I paint the meat side, sprinkle on some brown sugar, and add just a bit of butter. I flip the meat so it is now face down in the foil and repeat on the bone side making sure I get the ends and sides too. I repeated this 3x and back into the smoker they go.



You want to place the Ribs meat side down. This allows all that meat juice, sugar, butter, fat (int he rib itself) to puddle and marinade in all that goodness as it steams. This tenting part (some call it wrapping but it's really called Texas Crutch), is what makes the rib or any wrapped meat really tender. You add a little moister to the meat and wrap it up real tight. The meat steams inside the foil in its own juices and really tenderizes the food making it fall off the bone good. 2 hrs before I pull them out, unwrap and glaze them with the smoker going again.


*As a side note, the meat will not take in any smoke flavors when it is tented. You don't need to burn any pellets, wood ect during this stage. It will be "wasted smoke." I still have my pastrami going (its IT is around 170 right now. It's almost time to tent it too but just a few more deg to go).

Will check back in later, hopefully someone will share some grub post.

YzGyz

[Hotrodz]

Nice job there my boosted buddy. You got my mouth watering and wondering why it has been so long that I haven't done a slow burn on some meat.

I'm more of a dry rub kind of guy myself...my tast are a combo of Texas and Southern BBQ!

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

[Z-Girl 12]

I was going to eat a pot pie for dinner...too lazy to cook. But now I'm headed for ribs. Great pics OP.

[YzGyz]

Well, we had some ribs. The texture was spot on. The taste, not as much. It was still darn good but a little too salty and not sweet enough. Me thinks next time I do ribs I'll make my own dry rub. I usually just wing the rub with what I have but I think I will start logging the actual mix and amounts. I might create a secret recipe.
( I forgot to take a pic of the whole rib all together. Hey, can you blame me for cutting them up and eating them asap?)

I was busy messing around with the local kids giving candy and glow sticks and forgot about my Pastrami. It smoked for about 7.5 hrs @230f before IT hit 179f. I tented the two slabs with a good heavy splash of water before I put them back in the smoker. It took another 2.5 hrs before IT hit 207. I turned off the MES and put the 2 slabs in a small ice cooler to hang out. I'll put them in the fridge before I slice them up and stick em in a sammich.

YzGyz

[YzGyz]

I had me some Pastrami sammich. Pretty good. I think next time I will add some brown sugar to the brine and rub to give it a hint of sweetness.




YzGyz

[Z-Girl 12]

"Sammich" again that looks sooooo good!

[cigarclifford]

Originally Posted by YzGyz

Well, we had some ribs. The texture was spot on. The taste, not as much. It was still darn good but a little too salty and not sweet enough. Me thinks next time I do ribs I'll make my own dry rub. I usually just wing the rub with what I have but I think I will start logging the actual mix and amounts. I might create a secret recipe.
( I forgot to take a pic of the whole rib all together. Hey, can you blame me for cutting them up and eating them asap?)

I was busy messing around with the local kids giving candy and glow sticks and forgot about my Pastrami. It smoked for about 7.5 hrs @230f before IT hit 179f. I tented the two slabs with a good heavy splash of water before I put them back in the smoker. It took another 2.5 hrs before IT hit 207. I turned off the MES and put the 2 slabs in a small ice cooler to hang out. I'll put them in the fridge before I slice them up and stick em in a sammich.

YzGyz

Outstanding BBQ Sir

Those rib's look beyond great

-Clifford

[JARblue]

Sub'd

As a fellow Texan, I love grilling. Most of mine is done for dinner though. I have a dual grill with 3x burner propane grill and sear burner on one side and charcoal grill with a smoke/firebox on the other side. I picked it up for less than $250 on sale at Academy. I made some attempts to seal up the holes to get a better seal for smoking purposes, but I never got around to fabricating a baffle. I tend to always use charcoal (B&B) and check the fire every 20 minutes or so, which gets pretty tedious for a 8+ hour smoke. I grill steaks and burgers and chicken a lot more often.

Here are some pics of my grill when it was still a virgin over a year ago. She's gotten plenty of mileage since then, just like my Z

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[cigarclifford]

Originally Posted by Hotrodz

Nice job there my boosted buddy. You got my mouth watering and wondering why it has been so long that I haven't done a slow burn on some meat.

I'm more of a dry rub kind of guy myself...my tast are a combo of Texas and Southern BBQ!

Sent from my SM-N910P using Tapatalk

Mr Bob that form of BBQ Sir is called Texern had myself a few time's

-Clifford