Weekend Cooking

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 3:47 pm

Great day on the Cdn Prairies today . Doing a couple slabs of spares on the Pellet Poopin Stumper today .
Gonna grill some Brats to go wit that ribs a little later .

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 4:47 pm

Did 2 butts on the Lil Tex for Big Buck Nite,no smoke taste,too embarassed to put them out.Pizza went O K .What does I do with the butts suggestions?

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 6:26 pm

burn real wood for smoke n not pellets!!!!! haha

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2011 9:34 pm

Im no pro wit a Lil Tex seeing I dont have one . But I know that some pellet cooking dudes set the Traeger to " Smoke " or a lower temp setting , depending on what controller you have . They'll leave it on Smoke or that lower setting like maybe 180 , for a couple hours , then they'll crank it back up to 250 etc ...

As rule , not really knowing where these rules come from ?? They say that the first few hours of a cook is when you meat actually absorbs the smoke . Kinda makes sense . As the starts to bark over the smoke penetration will slow down ..

So for short , make that bugger smoke like bugger for a couple hours at a lower temperature setting , then crank it back up to BBQ temps.

Just my 2 cents is all ..

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 7:50 pm

So how did the ribs turn out Darrel? Trevor??

Nice day here, trimming meat (600 lbs) and prepping for 3 big catering jobs this week. I fired up the FEC and cooked 3 racks of back ribs, 24 thighs, a pan of beans and a big butternut squash.

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:19 pm

Ribs went great , as would be expected .. Cool

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 8:48 pm

Spares being something that I don't cook alot, they went ok. I had a thin rack and a really meaty rack. The bigger rack turned out great, the little one was pretty good. How do you shut the WSM off when you're done?

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 9:19 pm

Just close all of the vents and it will stop burning.

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 9:33 pm

Doug Cox wrote:

Just close all of the vents and it will stop burning.

Cool, that's what I did. Can you then reuse/relight what's left in the charcoal ring next time?

Posted: Sun Dec 11, 2011 10:17 pm

Yes you can.

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 11:48 am

Cooked for a wedding reception for some friends. I had actually cooked a case of butts and a case briskets a few weeks ago. I had pulled the butts and shredded the briskets after cooking. bagged and then froze. Panned everything up after thawing to reheat in the smoker. Ended up with 9 pans of shredded brisket and 7 pans of pulled pork. Also put 4 pans of beans in the smoker. The food came out great and the wedding reception was very nice.

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 3:27 pm

smokinJim wrote:

Yes you can.

Yeah, but. . . I've found that the leftovers absorb a lot of moisture (I'm in Seattle) and it takes much longer to get up to temperature on the next smoke. I do it, but I figured you may want to be prepared, just in case it's extra slow when you relight charcoal.

Jack

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 6:42 pm

I do agree with you Jack. They can be used and that answered Trevor's question. But like you said they don't do as well as some fresh stuff for getting up to temperature.

Posted: Mon Dec 12, 2011 9:01 pm

I'm probably the biggest charcoal waster being that I never leave anything in the clone but never run short during a cook. So, I looked in the WSM tonight and there really ain't that much left. Maybe enough to put in a chimney and light. If nothing else the Lang will eat anything! Thanks guys.

Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 8:45 am

I have found this to be true with briquettes (they can be re-used but they don't burn as well). Lump charcoal is much better for re-using for multiple cooks. Usually I just shake the dust out what's left from the last cook and add fresh on top.

Trevor - one thing that really helps is to wire (or weld) your charcoal ring to the grate underneath it - so you can remove it all at once and shake the dust out.

Jack wrote:

Yeah, but. . . I've found that the leftovers absorb a lot of moisture (I'm in Seattle) and it takes much longer to get up to temperature on the next smoke. I do it, but I figured you may want to be prepared, just in case it's extra slow when you relight charcoal.

Jack