The Grilling, Smoking & BBQing Thread of 2013!

It's a +3 degrees celsius here in balmy Calgary Alberta, and that means I get a chance to do some BBQing! So I thought I'd kick off 2013 with the first BBQ of the year!



Baby Back Riblets, a few are a bit more burned than I like, but I kinda like them that way.

Carnitas tossed in a bottled General Tso's sauce. Gettin' all multicultural up in here.

That looks amazing, but is it accurate to call that carnitas? To my mind carnitas is a very specific preparation of pork, that involves slow simmering.

That's the traditional method, yes. Here, the term is used more to describe the cut of meat as opposed to the cooking style. The packaging says "carnitas" and people around here cook them every way from slow simmering to grilling/smoking, to frying. I've had carnitas tacos with pork prepared with all of those methods.

Made slow cooked ribs on the smoker for the Superbowl. Took about 4 hours, they were fall off the bone tender, so tender that the meat came off just by putting them in your mouth.

Before cooking, with the rub.



After a slow low heat for 3 hours and about an hour with a lower temp smoking.



The smoke ring, took the pic with a crappy cell phone camera.

Those looked good. I fried mine, pic is in the non-grilling thread.

I posted these yesterday, but I guess the board ate the post.



Tried doing ribs for the first time, or at least the first time that I can recall. I cook boneless pork ribs all the time, but I've never done racks of ribs. St. Louis style, in this case.

A couple of Christmases ago, I got a rib rack and was going to use it to cook these, but when I cut the ribs into sections so they'd fit better, I ended up making them too short and they wouldn't fit in the rack.










Last weekend my wife took a road trip with some friends of hers and, on the way back, she picked up some chicken sausage at a store where they stopped. It was...okay. The local grocery chain sells much better chicken sausage than this.




Due to oversleeping on Saturday, by the time I bought the ribs, started a fire, peeled the membrane off the ribs, mixed the seasoning, rubbed the ribs, and waited for the fire to get to the right temperature, I ended up not being able to cook these ribs as long as I would've liked. I was trying for falling-off-the-bone tender, but these didn't cook long enough to get *that* tender.

But they were still delicious and tender as hell. Almost gelatinous they melted in your mouth so well.



I'm going to do more and more of these in the coming months.

After applying the rub wrap the ribs in foil, leaving them sit over night. After getting the fire going put them on the grill still wrapped in foil for about 2 hours, longer if it's a larger rack or has a rather thick portion. I keep the temp around 220 or so. Then open the foil at the top leaving the foil on the bottom (bone side down) and keep the heat around 200 for another hour with a heavy smoke going.

I leave the membrane on to keep the juices in to make the ribs even more tender.

This thread greatly complements THIS thread:

http://wordforge.net/showthread.php?t=96067

True. I drank a couple of IPAs and a few Sierra Nevada Pale Ales while I was cooking.

Grill/BBQ fare & brews go together like peanut butter & jelly!

I've started using this new rub for ribs, and it's excellent - salt and pepper, cumin, paprika, onion powder and garlic powder. After the rub down I slow cook them in the oven at 230 degrees for about 4.5 to 5 hours, take them out and put a little BBQ sauce on them and then cook them on the BBQ for a few minutes on each side to get a little charred action. The meat just falls off the bones.

I don't use foil for anything but potatoes.

The best "smoke" is where there's almost no visible smoke at all. Heavy smoke just tastes...sooty...to me.

Like in the M*A*S*H* episode, DON'T forget the coleslaw, & more importantly ice cold beer!

Odd... I never get a sooty taste. Just the smoked flavor to the food. And I've had several people try my grilled/smoked food and they've loved it.

Curious though, could it be because I use a smoker box, with a smaller pile of charcoal to maintain the heat inside where the meat is? It seems from your pics that you keep a bed of charcoal under the food.

I see. In that case, your "heavy"smoke isn't all that much then compared to using actual wood. I cook with oak logs, not charcoal. Burn them down to coals to establish the starting temperature and then tend the fire periodically to maintain it.

My barbecuing setup is basically one big box, large enough to build a fire at one end and put the meat at the other with no direct contact with the fire (unless I want it that way, when I'm grilling so much food that my smaller grill can't handle it).

I use logs too, oak, hickory, and if I can find some I'll also use fruit wood. I should have said coals, not charcoal in previous post. I do use charcoal to get the initial fire going, just a chimney charcoal starter worth.

My set up then goes like this, I use the smoke box to get a fire going. Once I get a good fire going I transfer some of the wood over to the larger box where the meats are. And have that off to one side away from the food, to keep the heat consistent. Then in the smoker box I'll add more wood to keep a smoldering fire going to have more coals ready to transfer over and a steady smoke. By keeping a supply of air through the smoke box the fire will stay going enough to have the coal supply available. When the food is nearly done, I'll lower the air supply to the smoker to get the heavy smoke going.

I should have said coals, not charcoal in previous post. I do use charcoal to get the initial fire going, just a chimney charcoal starter worth.

Bought a couple of roasts to cook for dinner.







And because my wife has given up meat for Lent, salmon for her (enough for leftovers).

One time I was watching Rich Raichlin's Barbeque University on PBS where he made grilled pizza. It looked really good. Anyone here ever had grilled pizza &/or made it?

I make pizza fairly often, but only grilled it once. As a general principle, the trick with pizza is in the dough. It needs to be stretchy enough not to tear, but not so much that you can't pull it to the size and shape you need. I've had my greatest success with doughs I make myself, but also my greatest failures. Dough is definitely an art.

Anyway, as far as grilling it, I don't think it's worth the trouble. I did get a nice smokey flavor, and the crust had a nice, slightly charred crisp texture, but it cooks very quickly, and then you're done. If I'm building a fire, I want to do something a bit more substantial than 5 minutes worth of cooking.

I am going to explore this grilling pizza thing further!

Moar ribs.

Four hours later.

Some amount of time later.

Chicken.

Moar.

Yep.

Anyone here ever make grilled desserts? I Googled grilled desserts & found alot, surprisingly (to me).