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Big Green Egg

Renzatic said:
My hatred of mayo stems back to my younger days. I could even remember the traumatic experience that lead up to it. I was about 4-5 years old, hanging out with my dad, who was out helping one of his friends do some hefty home repair work. My assigned task was to be the gopher, grabbing hammers, nailguns, or whatever else was needed at the moment.

It was when lunch came around that my life was forever changed. It was a little after noon, when I was handed a baloney sandwich that ended up being...fateful. Now I loved baloney sandwiches back then, so I didn't even give a moment of consideration or second thought before biting into it.

...that's when I experienced it properly for the first time. That cloying, nasty taste filled my mouth. I tried to soldier on, chewing stoically through it, but I couldn't endure the taste. I had to spit it out, tears streaming down my cheeks all the while.

Turned out the nice lady who made the baloney sandwiches smeared the damn things down with mayo. Considering my family adhered to a staunch ketchup and mustard regiment, I didn't expect it, wasn't used to it, and ended up hating it.

I haven't liked mayo since.
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I had a bad episode with clams once. Puked my guts out, multiple times, over the course of the following night. Couldn't eat them, or or even smell them, for years afterwards.


But a Greek yogurt tuna salad? That could be interesting. I'll have to try that out.
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Add a little mustard, to taste. I like a nice zingy Dijon, or a shot of spicy brown mustard. YMMV.
 
chown33 said:
I had a bad episode with clams once. Puked my guts out, multiple times, over the course of the following night. Couldn't eat them, or or even smell them, for years afterwards.
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Yeah, food aversions are a helluva thing. Something similar happened to me back when I was a teenager, after eating some Fritos, then suffering through those brutal first stages of a stomach virus later that night. The overwhelming aftertaste of processed corn consumed me while my gut heaved and swayed like a tugboat lost at sea during a hurricane.

To this day, I still can't eat Fritos.

Add a little mustard, to taste. I like a nice zingy Dijon, or a shot of spicy brown mustard. YMMV.
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I'll keep that in mind.

And I'm still going to try JamesMike's suggestion of salmon and mayo, just to see if I'm missing out on something.
 
But can you eat tortilla chips? I can't remember if mayo was eaten when I was really young, but I recall enjoying it when we moved stateside and fell in love with it. Anytime young me made a sandwich, I'd slather it with mayo thick enough to choke a small dog. I'd layer it with tomato, salami, lettuce, cheese, some nice mortadella, maybe some parm ham, and then more salami of various types, savory pickle, cilantro, red onions, splash of malt vinegar here and there, salt, cracked pepper, good dijon mustard, smashed olives kind of like a tapenade but not, horseradish, and maybe if I was a bit daring, sardines. Quite logical when you think about it. And oh so bloody delicious.

I quite like tuna salad, but much prefer warm tuna tahini, which is a Levant dish, IIRC. Anyway, thread wise, I'm debating whether to do slow smoke/roast pork butt or ribs this weekend. Decisions decision, especially as the weather's cooling up. I've also got a small lamb in the deep freeze, albeit portioned out.
 
Yeah, I can eat tortilla chips. Do it all the time. Tortillas and Fritos taste quite a bit different in practice.

Though saying I still can't eat them to this day is a bit of a stretch. I can eat them now without feeling nauseous. I just don't like them nearly so much anymore.
 
First try at pulled pork. Two boneless pork butts from Costco, just about 14lbs. Went pretty simple, homemade mustard as a binder, salt and pepper rub. Took about 14hrs between 230-250 with hickory and maple. Used a vinegar and mustard sauce after I pulled it.
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Welcome MattG!
[doublepost=1477254794][/doublepost]Hey is Renzatic still around. Is he using an aka? I hope he is.
[doublepost=1477255005][/doublepost]Acorn squash and charred corn.

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Guac with the chard corn.
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Pork loin.
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Coming soon: lobster tail.
 
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Renz finally met his maker when he decided to remove that giant hornet nest from his home's exterior wall. I'm kidding. I haven't seen him in at least a month.

I haven't BBQ'd much in recent months. It was either too hot or too wet. I made a few racks of ribs weeks ago that were fantastic. It was difficult to remove them from the grates because they'd fall apart. I did a lamb leg in a pan last week for six hours at low heat. Incredible. All the fat was rendered and the meat was as succulent as slow cooked pork butt.
 
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Zenithal said:
I made a few racks of ribs weeks ago that were fantastic. It was difficult to remove them from the grates because they'd fall apart.
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I alway foil my ribs for the last hour of the cook to prevent this. Just a shot of Pam on the foil and wrap them and you won't have any issues.
 
Herdfan said:
I alway foil my ribs for the last hour of the cook to prevent this. Just a shot of Pam on the foil and wrap them and you won't have any issues.
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That's what I usually do or have them in a shallow foil pan. I ran out of the heavy duty stuff and don't use regular foil for stuff like that. It didn't stick to the grates. Everything simply wanted to fall apart. You could grab a rib bone and crush it by squeezing with your fingers.
 
Yesterday was my dads birthday so I wanted to make him some ribs for the big day. It was an interesting test for me since we spend Sundays at his place for a day of football but our game was at 9:30am and the plan was for a family breakfast. These ribs were for a late lunch/supper but it means I had to smoke them here and then finish them on my dads Weber.

Using St. Basil's BBQ Chop and Rib Rub from Oakland Spice Shop (my sister in law sent it, figured I should try it).

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3 hours later and they are off to be wrapped. Normally I go around 2 hours wrapped here but I went short here slightly and only went 90 minutes to see how it would go with them saying overnight before being heated/sauced.

Also new is I'm using some Date Sugar and more of the rub for the wrap. I couldn't taste anything different, but also didn't taste anything bad so...draw?

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They came out okay, a little dry and flavor didn't pop as much as I was expecting even though I sauced them. My dad enjoyed them and that's what counts. Overall I think the delayed finished was just fine if needed but obviously would prefer them come off the Egg fresh.

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I'm not sure how I missed out on the BGE club after all these years.

I've had mine for almost 4.
XL in a nest on the patio.
Done pretty much anything in it. Being from TX, brisket is what is in it more than any of food type.

Last year I did get the BBQ Guru DigiQ and for someone that cooks food over night and wants consistent temps, this thing is good.
Glad I came across the thread.
 
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mmomega said:
I'm not sure how I missed out on the BGE club after all these years.

I've had mine for almost 4.
XL in a nest on the patio.
Done pretty much anything in it. Being from TX, brisket is what is in it more than any of food type.

Last year I did get the BBQ Guru DigiQ and for someone that cooks food over night and wants consistent temps, this thing is good.
Glad I came across the thread.
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Welcome! XL? Congratulations. I love the look of it. I have the L which is big enough (I'm a party of one), but I'd always like to go larger. Ha ha.

I've made a few briskets, but being from Texas I'd like to hear how the home team does it. Do you mind sharing, please?
 
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Gutwrench said:
Welcome! XL? Congratulations. I love the look of it. I have the L which is big enough (I'm a party of one), but I'd always like to go larger. Ha ha.

I've made a few briskets, but being from Texas I'd like to hear how the home team does it. Do you mind sharing, please?
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Well my main recipe is fairly simple. (Lots of practice and some ended up looking like meteorites) But it usually takes me a good 10+ hours.
I set the egg at somewhere between 225-230. Go trim the brisket. I really just trim off any large pieces of fat. Anything over 1/4 or so and it's not really going to cook down enough to eat.
Rock salt and fresh ground black pepper, lightly covered.
I mainly use only the BGE charcoal and add in a large amount of oak wood chunks for the smoke.
Then let it smoke for a good 4 hours. Usually it's around 160'ish.
I'll take it out then wrap in heavy aluminum foil and you can then either put it back in the egg or in the oven at this pint and let it go till about 190-195.
Then I'll pull it, set it in an empty ice chest to let it rest for a couple hours. Unwrap and only slice off what we're eating and wrap the rest back up.

Brisket dries out super quick so if you pre-slice the entire thing you need to wrap it in either butcher paper or foil immediately.

Some times I'll switch up and do a ground mustard over the entire brisket, same salt and pepper and then instant coffee grounds like folgers and put this on last, lightly cover the entire brisket. It all makes a nice salty, smoky bark.
 
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Very nice Zach. Do you mind sharing how you cute?

I made bacon last weekend. I've never cold smoked though.
 
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This is my first time making bacon this way, so if it goes horribly wrong, well then it is what it is.

I got a good looking 11.5# pork belly from Costco and split it in two for easier handling. Using this calculator I figured out the amount of Cure #1, salt and sugar to use as a baseline. I ended up trying two different styles. First I used just honey, salt and cure. The other slab I used regular sugar, salt, pepper and cure. I wanted to see if there was any flavor difference with the addition of pepper and if honey made a noticeable difference as well.

http://www.diggingdogfarm.com/page2.html

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After getting everything trimmed up and measured out I put the bellies in Food Saver bags, put on the respective rubs (making sure all the cure stayed in the bags), labeled and then sealed.

These sat in the fridge for 13 days. I only went this long (I planned to pull them at 11 day) due to a sick child and just not having the time to make the next step.

After 13 days I pulled them out, rinsed them off and did a fry test (no picture, sorry). I ended up soaking both bellies for an hour to bring the saltiness down a bit.
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I put them on a wire rack over a cookie sheet (and took up the entire bottom of our fridge, my wife is good to me!) for 2 days. I once again went longer than I planned, was only going to do it for 24 hours but we had a nice little "heat wave" come through that pushed the outside temperatures above where I wanted to cold smoke.

My A-Maze-N Pellet smoker at the bottom of the LBGE with Cherry pellets (which are really cherry/oak)
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This is where I ran into my first "I didn't plan this as well I thought" moments. The slabs were bigger than the real estate on my Egg! This took some moving around, but I checked and rotated them on a regular basis so hopefully I got even-enough smoking on both pieces. I will need to get myself a second gate. Oh. Darn.
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I ended up doing three 10 hour smokes (that's about as long of a burn as I get from the AMNPS, give or take 30min)
Various attempts over the course of the smoke to get good coverage, this was as I started my second 10 hour run.
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Finally just jammed them together for my last run.
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After the final smoked I pulled them off and put them in Food Saver bags and sealed. These are going to rest probably for 2 weeks until I can get my slicer back and get them cut up and frozen. I've seen many people who go from the smoker, back to the wire rack and let them rest uncovered in the fridge but I just don't have the time with the holidays for that.
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Thanks for looking, I'll update again once I can slice and get a final taste test.
 
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It sure looks good. Let us know how you like it!

I cure for five days, smoke at ~210 until 150F. I toss it in the freezer until almost frozen then slice and seal it.

When curing I've used molasses, sugar, and coffee; and another recipe using pepper, brown sugar, and maple syrup. I want to give the second one a try with cayenne.
 
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