Edwood

Wow.

Um...........wat..............

Crimes against bacon........and food in general.

I'm over Kickstarter and other crowd source funding, wannabe "investing". At best it's full of morons that have no clue how to manufacture anything, have endless delays, and falling short. At worst it's full of complete bullshit like the $50,000+ Potato Salad joke. Yeah, it's kind of funny, until you realize people paid over $50,000 for basically nothing. OK, maybe some shitty T-Shirts, but really in the end, it's the Potato Salad guy that's doing all the laughing, all the way to the bank.

MOA IV: Moar Marvelous Meat Meet

4th of July BBQ. Simple stuff this time. Smoked Chicken. Bacon and Corn roasted in Bacon Fat as well.

Update on my Smoke Daddy. I've had problems with pellets not maintaining burning and going out in the middle of the cook and I've had to relight it a lot. I ended up leaving the bottom open and putting an ash catcher and ceramic tiles around the bottom area, and put a small fan to direct a little bit of air to feed it. Worked really well. Too well, in fact with pellets, really burned through them fast. So I tried smaller pieces of apple wood chunks, since there are a lot of smaller chips, slivers, and small chunks in a bag of wood chunks that go to waste normally. So the forced air fueling the Smoke daddy with solid wood chunkettes seems to work the best. I got a really nice smoke ring on my last Pulled Pork smoke. It does get my Smoke Daddy blazing hot, though, so hopefully it holds up to this method. It's kind of a miniature offset smoker this way. If I had it to do over again, I'd have a coffee can sized smoker attachement made from Stainless steel rather than a thick aluminum tube the size of a pint glass.

Also on cook times. Brisket is done when it's done. The last one I did was a smaller, 11.23lb one and it took 18hrs, which included 3hrs rest time. Fattier USDA Prime Briskets seem to take longer than leaner Choice cuts for me. The recent pulled pork cook I did took 22hrs for one butt, and 24hrs for the larger piece. But that was 17.36lbs total.

Really good video showing how to prep a brisket. I don't bother with letting the meat rest at room temperature at like Franklin does. I go straight from fridge to smoker. When he shows the marbling difference on the edge of the Flat and Point, you can see how lean the Flat is on his brisket. That's too lean for me, I pick one that has more marbling than that in the Flat area.

More dinner rolls.

It's a bourbon BBQ sauce I made.

I base my brisket cook off of this recipe. http://amazingribs.com/recipes/beef/texas_brisket.html For the Big Bad Beef Rub, I use half the black pepper it calls for. And it used to call for Salt in the Rub, but now calls for Salting separately. I just use 50/50 mix of Salt to Pepper ratio, which works for me. I inject with watered down beef stock from concentrate. Basically make some beef stock with beef bullion and taste it to where it tastes like watery soup. Make sure the liquid is cold when you inject. Best to make it ahead of time and chill in the fridge, or use ice cubes if you're in a hurry. Also different from the recipe directions, since I'm smoking in the Keg, I don't use water in the drip pan, it's just dry. Also, I do a foil wrap starting at 160 - 170F internal temp, later than the recipe calls for because brisket doesn't get a decent bark until then. Then I wrap in double layered foil with the probes still in. No water, juice, or anything added. Just plain foil wrap, nice and tight. A really important factor in smoked brisket is a very long rest in faux cambro. Basically putting it into an insulated cooler with a bunch of towels (or newspaper) for wrapping for more insulation. I found 3 hrs rest time to be the best, with 2 hrs being the minimum. But the most important part is selecting the best brisket you can. Whole packer cryovac. USDA Prime, with a rectangular shape, where the flat end is as thick as possible. Also, check the side of the flat part of the meat for marbling if you can. Push on the side of packaging if needed. It's pretty difficult to see, so otherwise check the top of the flat for marbling. So my Brisket smoke steps are: Day 1: -Trim all fat down to 1/4" - 1/8" thick, remove as much of that enormous deckle fat that you can (don't cut too far into the meat, though). -Inject with watery beef stock. Pat dry -Apply Rub (don't put it on as heavy as you would pork, though) -Cover and let sit overnight Day 2: -Fire up the grill / smoker. If your smoker / grill can put out clean blue smoke when it's colder, then put the meat in early, before it's up to temp. -Put in remote probes into brisket. If you have two put one in the thickest part of the middle of the Fat area, and the other probe in the middle of the thick Point area. -Put brisket in grill / smoker, pretty much straight from fridge to smoker. Don't let it sit out at room temperature, we're going for a cold smoke initially. -If cooking in anything other than a Big Steel Keg or BGE, you'll have to spray the meat and use water pans (with hot water, not cold) periodically, Otherwise, I don't touch it until it hits 160-170F. -Wrap in foil when the bark is nice deep, dark mahogany color after it hits 160. -Open foil pouch and probe test when the internal temps hit 195F in the Flat Area. Should slide in like buttah in the Point end. The Flat will always be much stiffer. If you can get the peanut butter feel, then it's perfect. Otherwise, close it back up and let it go to 205F, then pull it. -Put the sealed foil brisket into faux cambro insulated cooler for 2-3 hrs. -Unwrap, drool, slice, and eat.

Pics from yesterday's feast.

Yay for cracking, then.

I've have smoking brisket down now. If we can find a decent whole packer brisket at MOA4 we'll have smoked brisket as well.

I love how we cook completely opposite of each other. With meats you use high tech machines, I use fire and wood (OK with the help of a little computer controlled fan). With breads you use your hands, I use a high tech machine.

Does it foam up better with Brilliant Pebbles?

Is there a good way to avoid the top of the loaves cracking wide open like that with 9x5 Loaf pans? Both my coffee cakes turned out like that as well. Or I guess it's just adding to the homemade look?

I've made some Sour Cream Coffee Cake, but opted against using my bread machine. (definitely cake since it had 1 cup of sugar) Amount is too small for the machine, even with taking the paddles out before baking. I had mixed results with making blueberry cake/bread before. Couldn't get it out of the pan in one piece. Ended up being more of a blueberry cobbler sort of. More work mixing by hand, but with a standard 9x5 loaf pan, it baked up nicely in my toaster oven.

Damn, those chickens look fantastic, Al and John. Getting another pair of Butts ready for the BBQ. Bone in Pork Shoulders this time. (From Restaurant Depot) Trying a new technique. Dry Salt Brine the night before. Then oil and spice rub (minus the salt, since it's already on) before it's into the Keg. Mighty big butts this time. 17.36 lbs

Saw those on Facebook along with your other baguettes, looked awesome, Jacob.

So far Trader Joe's Uncured Apple Wood Bacon is my favorite, best bang for the buck. But I have been toying with the idea of curing and smoking pork belly myself. Being space limited in my fridge and freezer is my main problem. Although I don't think any bacon I'd make would last that long.

LIES! FUCKING PETA CONSPIRACY!

So, my first attempt to make wild yeast sourdough starter ended up making wild penicillin.

Wow, now THAT'S a BBQ pit / spit !