Smokers (BBQ - not grilling)

[Fred W]

Clean-up? You mean you are supposed to clean-up inside the smoker? I thought that was what the grease drain was for.

Which reminds me, I need to fab up a ball valve for the grease drain on the OK Joe. I just have a wad of foil jammed in it now to stop the air flow during cooking. How tacky!

We've taken to freezing the leftover PP in 2 serving foil pouches. Ready to reheat and eat whenever the mood strikes. Or just enough for adding to another dish (like PP Mac 'n Cheese) with a little snack left over.

 

[El Toro Joe]

The Boston Butts came off the smoker in time for dinner. They rendered out a bucket load of fat and "gravy" into the foil roasting pan I keep below on the heat deflector. Saves a lot of cleanup. Delicious. I didn't pull it until about 8 PM. As said above, if you want some thing easy to smoke that will feed an army cheap, get the boston butt or picnic ham. I kept one for lunches, and froze the other for a future picnic.

...no pictures? I know you've got a camera...must have never happened

 

[Fred W]

Yeah... show us your Butts!

Porkography!!

Hanging around in my "office" waiting for calls today, it's a little slow this week. Some of my guys are out on vacation so they can't screw anything up at work.

So, plenty of time to knock out a couple more smoker farkles.

On my foray into stick burning last weekend, I ended up over heating the bottom of the firebox and all the paint cooked off of the bottom. I think that was because I burned the wood on the plain flat grate that came with the grille.

To fix that I decided to try lining the bottom with some 1/2" thick pieces of flagstone I had laying around from a prior project, cut them 4 1/2" wide and as long as the width of the fire box (15 1/2") with a diamond wheel in my angle grinder. Came out great. The five pieces cover almost the entire bottom 1/2 of the FB and are just dropped in and held in place by gravity.

Here's looking in from the top loading door

And here's peeking in from the end door

Not sure how the slate will hold up to the heat of the fire, but the price was right for the materials.

I was going to use fire brick, and still may end up going that way eventually, but those are over an inch thick and are going to make the firebox awfully crowded.

With the flat grate in for stick burning

And there's still plenty of room for the Minion box for burning lump charcoal

Next little project was to make a rain hood for the chimney. Cut a piece of heavy aluminum sheet and made a cone, drilled and screwed it together, and bent up some steel straps that are a slip fit into the 3" Chimney (or extension pipe if I use it)

That exhaust extension looks ridiculously long and dorky as hell. I'm going to need to trim that down in length a bit if I am actually going to keep it. If I decide not to use it, the rain hood will slip into the OE chimney just fine too.

 

[Bounce]

Function over form, my friend.

The slate might not hold up well to heat though. You'll know soon enough.

 

[Fred W]

Yep. Could have a pile of rock chips in the bottom. But it will still be insulating the metal.

 

[BackintheSaddle]

So, no cooking last weekend but I did fab up a new basket for the firebox. Since my smoker was (well) used when I got it and had some damage in the firebox already, I did a similar add on as Fred to the bottom with firebricks. You can see those in the pics too.

As to the previous discussion about charcoal - lump vs. briquette, I've used both and lean towards the briquettes, if only for consistency. I found a new one (to me) made by Stubbs and sold at Lowes that I plan I trying this coming weekend. Supposed to be "all-natural" with no fillers - we'll see.

One thing that's always bugged me is the recommendation to always add hot, ashed coals. Seems like a reasonable idea but when loading for a long cook and using the Minion method or similar, you are deliberately making use of cold coals and igniting along the way. So, then what? I haven't noticed anything off about my food nor heard any complaints but the cold charcoal does smell odd.

 

[Fred W]

Yep, that odd smell has to be altering the flavor. I think it is sulfur from the soft coal they use. It also seems to create a spicy smoke flavor on the tip of my tongue that I haven't been getting with lump or sticks. I too would be interested in using briquettes other than Kingsford if it is all natural and no coal or other fillers and doesn't have the off flavor. Briquettes do burn much more consistently.

 

[Bounce]

But, in my experience, lump burns more cleanly (less ash left behind).

 

[Knifemaker]

The less ash is a big advantage for long cooks...on my first rib cook using briquettes I actually had to pull the basket out and shake some of the ash out because it looked like it was smothering the added coals. (And these were the "Lump Briquettes" that were supposed to be the cross between lump and regular briquette charcoal.)

If I tossed unlit ones into my firebox they did smoke, and smell "chemically". Our noses are pretty good at telling us stuff, and if your smoke don't smell right there's something wrong. This is why I'm not overly concerned about "thick white smoke" for short times coming out of the stack, as long as it smells right.

If you read the bag on almost any brand of charcoal briquettes, it says to start the coals and let them "white over" before tossing on your meat. My only thought as to why there's not many complaints using the minion method is that the briquettes are slowly being ignited, or that perhaps being in the hot surroundings of the fire box before starting to burn has some effect....but I'll keep using lump in the smoker and buy briquettes only if I'm using a Webber style grill....

 

[Fred W]

Damn, sorry to hear the lump briquettes do the same thing. That was one of the ones I was hoping might be different. How about the "Competition" ones? Or maybe the Stubbs brand? I like Stubbs sauces a lot, especially the Spicy.

Edit - Just did some googling on Stubb's brand Charcoal. Sounds promising and is available at Lowe's. Going to snag a bag and give it a whirl. Not much more expensive than Kingsford and claims to be all natural, no additives.

Going to do up a mess of pork ribs for Pappy's Day this weekend. Kids should be home for a Saturday night feast, and then a nice big brunch the next morning before they have to head home for work on Monday. Ironically, on Mother's Day we all take our Moms out, or cook for them to give them a day off, but on Father's Day we all want to be the ones doing the cookin' (out on our grills).

Haven't decided yet whether to go w/ whole Spare Ribs, St Louis cut, or Baby Backs. Guess I'll see what looks good at the market on Friday when I go shopping. It's a little easier to jam a bunch of baby backs into limited space on some rib racks.

 

[ionbeam]

This site reviews charcoal, be patient it's even slower than the Forum on a busy day. I have another site bookmarked at home which also shows the contents of the bags which often contains a lot of extraneous items including rocks, I'll look for it when I get home.

 

[Knifemaker]

https://www.nakedwhiz.com/lumpindexpage.htm?bag]This site[/url] reviews charcoal, be patient it's even slower than the Forum on a busy day. I have another site bookmarked at home which also shows the contents of the bags which often contains a lot of extraneous items including rocks, I'll look for it when I get home.

Yep, I have that site bookmarked on my phone....and used it to pick out the last bag of lump I bought (the one with the smaller rock in it..) The review however, was favorable, and other than the rock, no real complaints on the coals... But do wish they didn't bag tiny pieces, just large ones. Only real ***** is about the rock....these bags are sold by weight, so a little pissed off here......
As far as regular charcoal briquettes go, Kingsford seems to be a clear favorite. As a human in this 21st century marketplace .... I tend to take claims of something being "All Natural" with some skepticism. There are thousands of "natural" things that are quite toxic ....

 

[rushes]

Thinking about the chemical taste.

I wonder if anyone has tried heating charcoal enough to bake out any oils before use?

I have to heat carbon enough to burn out oils before I can get wire edm to cut it.

Not sure what temp charcoal ignites tho. Might be too low.

I don't know. I'm trying to be helpful..

 

[Fred W]

Well, I'm going to go score a bag of the Stubbs briquettes, and on Saturday I'll light a chimney of them up and smell the smoke. If it still smells sour and weird like the Kingsford, I'll use some of the Royal Oak Lump Charcoal I have on hand for the cooking. If it smells better than Kingsford I'll give it a try and see how the ribs come out. I'll be using some Hickory Wood Chunks for the flavor wood. And of course, either way I'll let all a youse guys know.

 

[rushes]

Got my controller today.

Now I'm wondering if the probe will work in air the same as liquid.

I guess I'll find out unless you guys tell me first.

 

[Knifemaker]

If it reads from say zero to anything over 212, it should register air temp. I assumed this is what you were going to use the probe for, to monitor the cooking surface tempature.

Be advised to mount the probe so it's not touching the food grate, and that the wire touches nothing but the sides of the cooker where you likely will drill a hole to install it. You may need a tray or small table to put the unit on.

 

[rushes]

Scrambling. it's going to cook today regardless.

Yes. cooker temp

I'll lay the probe out there on the lower rack and see what happens.

Thanks!

 

[Cav47]

Fred, you alluded to the potential of having a pile of rocks at the bottom of your firebox. When you are checking the compatibility of the Stubbs charcoal, I would think that may give you a good test for the durability of the flag stone. Since it is a natural stone, you already know the likelihood of heat related fractures. I would be very cautious about where my face was when opening the firebox door. Heating natural stone to the fracturing point produces nasty shards. I know this the hard way. Good luck.

 

[Knifemaker]

I put my starter chimney on a porcilan tile, and it exploded. So yes, be careful heating up stone a...and even tiles...

 

[Bounce]

Yep. Put mine on a clay patio pot dish and it cracked it. Still use the 2 halves but put that on top of a pair of fire bricks. Don't want to mess up the patio but lighting it on top of the grill seems best.