The BBQ thread

All this BBQ talk is making me horny.

I mean hungry.

 

I am not prone to envy, but this post makes me envious.
I want to have some smoking equipment and a better grilling set-up.
I want to develop some of ability with the former and improve my ability with the latter.

I don't care about the ability to refurbish equipment on my own. I cannot do anything like that. I can barely change a tire or hang a picture, 'upgrading' a smoker is not in my range of abilities. I do not aspire to acquire such ability nor envy those who have such ability.

 

In my father's later years he really got into the charcoal-in-the-chimney (with wine and music on the side) ritual with a full-sized Weber. Now that he's long gone I keep the memory alive (a bit) by following his lead with an 18.5-inch Weber someone had left on the street for trash. All it needed was a new grid and I was in business.

I am curious about your smoker. Is it charcoal?

 

Yes, I have a charcoal Brinkmann. This one:

 

Problem is, there are two ways to get good equipment. You can cheaply upgrade inferior equipment (such as the Brinkmann above) or you can spend thousands on great equipment. All you really need is Big Green Egg felt liner to close up all the gaps on the Brinkmann's doors and you're more than halfway there. I stuck a cheap pizza stone on the bottom for better heat retention. A put my regular pizza stone on top for the same reason when I use the smoker. Then you need a good digital thermometer that measures both the temperature of the meat and the temp inside the smoker (two separate probes). I did all that for under $200. Just have to redo the felt every so often.

 

You say that because you are the type of person who can think of such things and accomplish them.
I tried to mount a guitar hook on a wall, used the stud finder and everything.
I put the guitar on the hook and ripped out a piece of wall the size of my fist.

No matter how simple you might think it is, it is beyond my ken and even further beyond my execution.

People like me have to pay.
Sadly, which means maybe I can save enough to get a smoker in my retirement.

 

This is the first chapter of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." There are two types of people in the world: People who fix things and people who just replace them or live with them being broken.

I didn't use my gas grill for a year because it stopped igniting. My brother came over, took a one-minute look at it, and asked for a Double A battery.

My high school friends are all blue collar tradesmen, and they think it's an absolute riot that I can analyze "Moby Dick" or Jon Lester's BABIP with authority, but I can't fix a leak if my life depended on it.

 

I would reiterate the mention of Aaron Franklin. His PBS show is online.

Watch Full Episodes Online of BBQ with Franklin on PBS

A few of the episodes deal with equipment and the different uses. In one such episode, he builds an offset smoker. So if you have an old oil drum and a blowtorch, you could do it too.

As for style, he is a very strict traditional (central?) Texas BBQ chef. Nothing but salt and pepper on his meats. I think he would die before he put sauce on anything.

Another PBS show is Project Smoke. The host, Steven Raichlen, is less dogmatic and cooks in a bunch of different styles with a bunch of different equipment. Former journalist, too. Mr. Gee might know him.

 

I have never read that book, although it's been on my list since high school.
Author died recently?

Anyway, it is true. I can buy tools. I can watch instructional videos and read instructional materials.
I cannot fix anything. It never, ever works.

 

A lot of modifications are as simple as rolling up a piece of aluminum flashing ($10 at Home Depot) and sticking it up the chimney chute to lower the exhaust intake and balance out the heat in the cooking chamber.

I did that for my last brisket, and it was the fastest and most efficient cook I've done yet.

 

Maybe it just comes with being a city kid at heart, but the only time I remember seeing oil drums lying around waiting to be repurposed was while playing Double Dragon.

 

Probably going to ribs this weekend.
Favorite recipes welcome.

Also tried writing down my BBQ sauce recipe a couple weeks ago. Didn't go well. Because I never measure things traditionally, when I tried to guess how much it was (hmm, maybe I use a tsp of this, or a cup of that) I...struggled. Had to do a lot of tinkering afterwards to get the flavor right. Basically, I suck as estimating volume.