Smokin' a Turkey by Ben

Well, you know what they say... and my solution to that is to use really wide rolling papers.

My dad came down the other weekend and so we did a little smoked turkey, which handily served as practice for Turkey-day. Marion did the brine, which despite what you might have heard, did just fine over 36 h (which we did mostly out of necessity versus a real decision of 24 v. 36 h, with no consideration for Alton Brown's <12 h). The recipe for the brine can be found here.

In case you can't tell, the turkey is attempting the chicken dance, and Marion wasn't sure at the time how to make it clap. The tail was lost when the bird was still frozen and I was removing its innards.

We took the 12 lb bird out in the morning and rinsed it and put it in the fridge to dry (in a cauldron in a stock pot). For the cooking, I went for a high temp method, basically following these directions on the virtual webber buller site. I went for 2.5 chimney loads, with one lit on the bottom, then placing the unlit on top. When the coals were all lit, I added one chunk of hickory and two foil wrapped applewood chips (there is a ton of talk on chips and soaking, and I would agree that soaking chips doesn't give the right smoke and soaking a chunk is meaningless). When I do this for real, I am getting my hand on some applewood chunks so I don't have to toss in a handful every 30 minutes (which kind of messes with the temp too as they flare up).

The temp log is below, and you will notice it doesn't line up with the temp log on the afore mentioned directions. I chalk this up to just going with it and basing it on the meat temp, but also the author was using a ~14 lb bird.

Time	Lid Temp	Meat Temp	Vent 1	Vent 2	Vent 3
2:50	410°	55°	50	50	50
3:05	320°	61°	50	50	50
3:20	290°	82°	->100	->100	50
3:35	300°	97°	100	100	50
3:50	320°	122°	100	100	50
4:15	330°	141°	->50	100	50
4:35	320°	158°	50	50	50
4:50	320°	163°	50	50	50
5:00	295°	168°	0	0	0

I left the bird on for 15 minutes, but realized it really needed to come off (and could have come off at 4:50). We took some temps and when it came off the thighs were at ~175° and the breasts at ~165°. Using the rule of thumb below (from VWB):

Roast the turkey at 325-350°F until it reaches 160-165°F in the breast and 170-175°F in the thigh, about 2-1/2 to 3 hours for a 12-14 pound turkey. 

I would say it was done, and we left it slightly covered in foil (not to ruin the skin) for about an hour waiting for sides to finish. By the time it got carved, it was still so juicy you had to be careful to keep your mouth completely closed when chewing. The applewood smoke was perfect and overall, it turned out well.

Renderings of Rendering by us

The four butts in the previous post at one point had fat caps... and those fat caps got put in the freezer.  Mike was in town and it was late Saturday night (after eating bbq), so we decided to try our hand at rendering. This post served as a nice starting point, and Mike really liked this video. The following was our approach (and yes, that is 12am in the picture):

Rendering set-up.

Step 1: Thaw
Step 2: Cut into 1/2 to 1 inch cubes, place in big dutch oven, then add ~ 1/2 to 1 cup water
Step 3: Cook on medium heat
Step 4: After ~1 hour, stir occasionally
Step 5: When rendered (at least two hours), remove large pieces and pour liquid through coffee filter

Fluid before filtering, cracklings removed.

Step 6: Refrigerate, then enjoy.

Lard before cooling; it turned white by the morning.

Supposedly this is good for a few months in the fridge, or 1 year in the freezer. The following morning we had eggs, biscuits (with lard-butter and sea salt), pulled pork (from a reheated batch eaten the night before), and some leftover fried okra. Basically an ambulance showed up around 11 just in case we needed it.

Cooking in the Heat by Ben

Butts before

So there was a work potluck and I decided that would be a good excuse to smoke some pig.  Got the butts ahead of time from Frank at the Pig on Folly (who later received a small bag o' Q for his birthday the following Sunday).  I needed to be ready to pull at 4pm, and was already feeling behind at 10pm the night before. I got the butts all prettied up following SOP (no experimentation this time).

And let them sit a bit.

Butts getting their Q on.

I started the grill using the full on minion method. The last few times I have cooked I have either added the water right when I added the hot coals, or I added the meat. The problem was I could never remember which was correct (the former is correct) and would have to wait hours just for the grill to get up to temp before adding the meat. This method is termed Minion Method - Old School.

I didn't know there was an old school version. So this time I tried the new school version. In a nut shell this involves adding your water and meat right when coals are added.  As an aside, I did not add piping hot water as I normally do.  You can look at the temp log below to see how it worked, but basically it took 1.5 h after adding coals before I was ready to leave it alone for the evening. Not too shabby. One last thing though about minion which I never thought about, it is pretty key to use good charcoal since you are cooking with freshly lit coals and so a cheaper brand might cause taste issues.

Butts wouldn't fit

So I had noticed that the butts looked a bit wide, even for me (and I like big butts).  As I was putting them on it became apparent that I would not be able to fit two on each grill. So I took them off and used to string to make them sit up a bit more. Not perfect but good enough considering I was completely unprepared for this.  Also, I put the one smaller butt on the bottom thinking it would cook slower (heat rises right?)... more on that later.

Time	Vents	Notes	grill temp
9:00pm	na	take butts out of fridge	na
10-10:30pm	na	inject	na
11:30pm	na	start chimney	na
12:00am	All 100%	start all @ once	150
1:00am	All 100%	none	180
1:25am	All 50%	none	210
8:10am	put 1 at 100%	none	210
9:00am	put 2 at 100%	trying to get heat up	210
10:15am	all at 100%	evasive actions; add new charcoal, water and baste	200
11:00am	all 100%	water, baste	<200
12:00pm	all 100%	baste; lil' butt at 153	240
1:15pm	all 100%	baste; lil butt at 162	230
1:30pm	50/50/100	baste	250
2:00pm	50/50/0	water, baste; lil butt at 171, remove and wrap; other lower butt at 174, move to top; move top butts to bottom (170)	230
3:00pm	na	top butt at 280, wrap them all and finish	230

Butts before the start getting basted (to get that bark).

One big conclusion here is that the butts on the bottom cooked hotter than the ones on top. Make sense, but still good to know. Also, the ones on the bottom definitely get a bit more grease since they are being basted with the fat from above. For the record I generally cook two butts on top and that's all.

Second, I would say there was probably some sort of wind during the night which raised the temp. I say this because the coals seemed more cooked through than normal, and my internal temps were higher sooner.

We also made sauces, and it turns out I don't think the vinegar sauce recipe is on here. Here it is below:

Carolina Vinegar Sauce

INGREDIENTS:

    2 cups cider vinegar

    2/3 cup ketchup

    1/2 cup brown sugar

    1 tbsp Louisiana Gold hot sauce

    1 tbsp lemon juice

    1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

    2 tbsps butter

    1 tsp red pepper flakes

    1 tsp dry mustard

    1/2 tsp salt

    1/2 tsp black pepper

METHOD:

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cook for 30 minutes, stirring constantly to blend well. NOTE: Make sure that you make this sauce at least a day in advance so that all ingredients and flavors have time to mellow and meld together.

Marion was actually the sauce stirrer.

Finally we were able to pull the meat, and everyone dug it. I think letting it sit at least 2-3 hours is crucial for good texture.

BBQ with Mike (before "Africa Part 2") by Ben

I meant to post this way back when (March 5, 2011) but forgot to.  Basically Mike came to town and at the last minute while drinking with Chris, I decide I was cooking some butts for Mike's visit.  So about 9pm, Chris and I scour JI looking for butts. We ended up finding some really nice Smithfield ones (~8 lbs each) at the Hairy Teeter.  Chris spotted me some of that wonderful rub, and I got to making it.  The butts went on about 2am, and seemed to cook rather quick even though the temp was under 250: they were finished at the 12 hour mark temperature-wise.

This is right when I got up, so probably 6h. Notice the lack of bark since I hadn't started basting. 

Butts around 8-10h, still before noon.

Mike had showed up and apparently hadn't seen anything this good in awhile.

I kept them on for a couple more hours with the vents essentially shut off, then threw them in a cooler. Turns out it was actually really good.

Moments before being pulled.

Also, Mike whipped up a vinegar sauce which I thought I wrote down, but I have no clue where that is.