I am a smoker, the BBQ type.

[ponyo]

I've had the Blackstone griddle for several years now; it's a beast. My FIL just got one too; the burners appear to be upgraded because it gets a lot hotter a lot faster than mine does. It's awesome if you want to do meal prep or just cook a ton of food at a time.

My other buddy has the Blackstone pizza grill & it is amazing. 6 minutes per pizza using Mark Bittman's 2-hour dough recipe. You really can't beat it. His has been in use for about a year and a half now with great results. I recommend them to people all the time. Alternatively, a Baking Steel is a good investment if you don't want an outdoor pizza grill.

If I didn't have the Weber Genesis S-330, I would buy the Blackstone griddle. But Weber sells the griddle accessory for the Genesis so I can't justify Blackstone griddle purchase. And I have outdoor terracotta pizza oven so I can't really justify another pizza oven either. I used to own pizza restaurant so I can make decent pizza from scratch.

 

[Kaido]

If I didn't have the Weber Genesis S-330, I would buy the Blackstone griddle. But Weber sells the griddle accessory for the Genesis so I can't justify Blackstone griddle purchase. And I have outdoor terracotta pizza oven so I can't really justify another pizza oven either. I used to own pizza restaurant so I can make decent pizza from scratch.

Well, it depends on how often you want to make pizza. The Blackstone pizza oven is a unitasker. I am a big fan of unitaskers if they do their job really well. With the Blackstone, you let it preheat for 15 minutes & then cook each pizza for 6 minutes on the auto-rotating stone. It's very straightforward & gives awesome results. It wouldn't be much harder on the Weber, although you'd have to rotate the pizza yourself & you'd have to load the griddle on the grill every time you want to use it, so while still easy, it's not quite as convenient as the Blackstone. Personally, I've found the more convenient a tool or process is, the more likely I am to use it, especially on a regular basis. Downside is I have very limited deck space in my present housing situation, so I can only keep so many toys outside

 

[ponyo]

Tonight I smoked some bratwurst and chicken wings. Smoke it with apple wood at 275 F for one hour and removed the bratwurst. I increased the heat to 325 F and smoked the wings another 30 minutes to crisp up the skin. Bratwurst and wings were excellent. Ate the wings with Chick-fil-A sweet and spicy sriracha sauce.

 

[Jeeebus]

back in Houston for a week, but probably no time to explore the city for bbq places. unless these folks decide to settle I'm stuck eatung in the hotel.

 

[ponyo]

I smoked more pork brisket. I call this the pork chicken wing. I'm seriously addicted to this cut of meat. It's the perfect portion and I always loved the end rib tips on the spare ribs more than any other part. It's the perfect late night snack food to cut up and eat with beer or glass of white wine. I used salt & pepper rub on two pieces and didn't season the remaining three. Again, the best pork brisket turned out to be the one with no rub or seasoning and nothing added. For this cook, I decided I wanted less dirty white grease smoke flavor from the fat rendering hitting the charcoal. So I put a grate on top of the charcoal basket and placed an empty water bowl on top of the grate so the grease drippings wouldn't hit the coal. That worked beautifully since the pork brisket isn't as long as spare ribs and doesn't hang as low. I smoked it at 275 F for around 3.5 hours. What I noticed was the finished pork brisket color wasn't as dark and there was less smoke ring. Which I expected. But I was intentionally trying for lighter smoke flavor profile and trying to avoid the heavy dirty white grease smoke flavor so I succeeded. This is seriously good eats.

 

[Fritzo]

Did 90 lbs of pork shoulder for a party. First time catering a party in years...felt good to get back in the game again!

 

[Squisher]

I've got 2 shoulders going in my cheap bullet smoker as we speak.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Guys, is a Weber bullet smoker a good place to start? Is that going to get me satisfactory results? I'd look to do brisket, ribs, and probably some whole chicken.

AND CHEESE.

 

[Drako]

Guys, is a Weber bullet smoker a good place to start? Is that going to get me satisfactory results? I'd look to do brisket, ribs, and probably some whole chicken.

AND CHEESE.

Yes, I would recommend the WSM 18".

They are really easy to use, you just have to get used to adjusting vents to get the temperature you want.

 

[NetWareHead]

Id recommend going up to the full sized 22.5 instead of the 18. I have one myself and love it. There is a learning curve related to using solid fuel and how much to open/close each damper but you will learn.

I say skip past the smaller 18 because I would have a hard time putting an entire brisket in an 18. The extra room of the 22.5 helps. Plus I like to cook for armies of guests and have had up to 9 pork butts/picnics in my smoker at one time.

The weber smoker (and most others) most likely will not give you the result you are looking for with cheese. You need to cold smoke cheese; it does not need to be cooked just exposed to smoke. There are cold smoking setups you can create that use a weber smoker...

 

[NetWareHead]

I smoked more pork brisket.

Where do you get pork "brisket" and what is the name of the cut that a butcher might know it by and be able to order it for me?

 

[Kaido]

Where do you get pork "brisket" and what is the name of the cut that a butcher might know it by and be able to order it for me?

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/the-butchers-cuts-pork-brisket.html

Pork brisket is simply a substantial part of a boned-out picnic ham. (A picnic ham, as we discussed in a Nasty Bits post regarding the primals, is the lower half of a full shoulder on a pig.) I'm calling this cut on the pig a pork brisket to emphasize that what we value on the beef brisket—the fatty marbling and connective tissue that breaks down with cooking—can be found on the the pig as well.

Though it's sometimes dismissed as too fatty, a pork brisket is actually an ideal cut to roast or braise. Roasts, whether dry-roasted or braised, can be tricky to get just right. Unlike soup bones, which can be cooked for as long as you like, or steaks, which are generally better on the undercooked side, a roast must be perfectly tender and juicy to be good at all. A well-crafted jus can mask some of the problems with an overcooked or overly lean roast, but there's really no hiding a large hunk of meat that's too dry to be palatable.

More on pig breakdown:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/the-nasty-bits-how-to-break-down-a-pig-deep-fried-pigs-tails.html

 

[NetWareHead]

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/the-butchers-cuts-pork-brisket.html



More on pig breakdown:

http://www.seriouseats.com/2010/05/the-nasty-bits-how-to-break-down-a-pig-deep-fried-pigs-tails.html

Thanks so its just a deboned picnic. Is it worth deboning or just cooking it whole with bone in?

I usually make pulled pork with a mixture of half butts and half picnics in my smoker. I find the picnics less fatty and taste meatier than the butts. I pull all the meat and combine in a huge bowl.

 

[Kaido]

Thanks so its just a deboned picnic. Is it worth deboning or just cooking it whole with bone in?

I usually make pulled pork with a mixture of half butts and half picnics in my smoker. I find the picnics less fatty and taste meatier than the butts. I pull all the meat and combine in a huge bowl.

I haven't done it, but I'm curious to try it...I hate beef brisket lol. Just never had brisket that I liked. Everything else is great, just not a brisket fan, but I'd imagine pork brisket would be pretty dang awesome.

I'll have to try doing a mix on my next smoke, thanks for the idea!

 

[ponyo]

Where do you get pork "brisket" and what is the name of the cut that a butcher might know it by and be able to order it for me?

Costco calls it "pork spare ribs brisket bone-in." https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/*Pork-Spare-Ribs-Brisket-Bone-In,-6-lb-avg-wt.product.11889110.html

It's the trimmed part left over after they cut the spare ribs into St. Louis style cut. It's basically rib tips from spare ribs. This cut is great because it only has one bone. The rest is all meat and soft white cartilage bones. So you get the maximum meat to bone ratio out of all rib cuts. Rib tips are my favorite part of untrimmed spare ribs. So being able to buy just the rib tips is great. And it's only $1.19 /lb since it's the throwaway cut and they can't serve this at restaurants. But for home eating, it doesn't get better. That's why I call this pork "brisket" the pork chicken wing. People used to throw away the chicken wing and now it's the most expensive part of the chicken and many people consider the best tasting part of the chicken. I think pork "brisket" is the best tasting part of the pork rib and second only in taste to the pork belly. I've only seen this cut sold at Costco Business Center. Regular Costco only carries the baby back and St. Louis style spare ribs.

 

[ponyo]

Guys, is a Weber bullet smoker a good place to start? Is that going to get me satisfactory results? I'd look to do brisket, ribs, and probably some whole chicken.

AND CHEESE.

WSM is great. If you want easy dedicated charcoal smoker, that would be my recommendation. I have the 18.5" WSM. Pit Barrel Cooker is also great cooker and the same $299 price as the 18.5" WSM. PBC is probably easier to use to complete novice since there's really no temp control other than the single bottom vent. But you can mimic PBC with WSM if you get the hanging accessory. I have the official Weber Expandable smoking rack accessory for WSM but Weber discontinued it so it's pretty much impossible to find one now. But Gateway Drum Smokers makes hanging kits for their drum smokers and the 30 gallon kit will fit the 18.5" WSM and the 55 gallon kit will fit the 22" WSM. The kit comes with 6 solid hooks so you don't even have to buy the PBC hooks like I did with the Weber accessory. https://www.gatewaydrumsmokers.com/category-s/131.htm

If you want the Cadillac of drum smokers, the best are Gateway Drum Smokers and Hunsaker drum smokers. Of the two, I would go for the Hunsaker as I think it's better built and I really like their Vortex charcoal basket.

If you want to cold smoke cheese, you can add one of these to any smoker. https://www.amazon.com/Amazen-Pellet-Tube-Smoker-12/dp/B00CS6YFIC

 

[ponyo]

Tonight I cooked 6 lbs USDA prime beef top sirloin on the Weber Smokey Mountain. I sliced the whole sirloin into three pieces, two large and one small and hooked it. I used one small piece of cherry wood for smoke.

I removed the smallest piece of meat when the internal temperature hit 135 F. I was going to let it rest and do a finishing sear when the other two larger pieces of meat was ready but my daughter was hungry so I let her eat. I tasted a piece and it was as tender as filet mignon but with much better flavor. My daughter loved it.

The other two larger pieces took another 30 minutes or so to hit 125-130 F internal.

I wanted to do a finish sear on the top sirloin steak so I removed the WSM middle section and placed the cooking grate right on top of the charcoal basket.

I seared for couple of minutes and rested the steaks for about 10 minutes.

The top sirloin was about perfect. It had the right amount of charcoal and smoke flavor and the steak was juicy and tender. I love my Weber Smokey Mountain.

 

[Fritzo]

^^^^

Nice execution!

 

[JM Aggie08]

back in Houston for a week, but probably no time to explore the city for bbq places. unless these folks decide to settle I'm stuck eatung in the hotel.

Did you end up going anywhere? Corkscrew is the best in Houston, IMO. Gatlins and Killens are excellent as well.

 

[ponyo]

^^^^

Nice execution!

Thanks. It was little tricky because I only had two temp probes so I could only monitor the temps on the two big pieces of meat and nothing else. My WSM is the first gen model so it doesn't have the thermometer on the lid. So I couldn't check the temp of WSM but I know from my experience how many charcoals I need to light and how open the vents need to be if I want to cook at 275 F. It was my first time cooking beef by hanging. I only tried chicken and pork. But it was fabulous. I think the hanging method cooks the meat better and more evenly than cooking on a grate. And the meat is always juicy. I don't know if it's from the fat rendering and the grease dripping down the meat but it's almost like the meat self bastes when cooked on the hook. And the smoke and vapor from the grease hitting the coal gives the food a distinct taste.

 

[Jeeebus]

Did you end up going anywhere? Corkscrew is the best in Houston, IMO. Gatlins and Killens are excellent as well.

Unfortunately, my meals were pretty much relegated to Chinatown in Houston so god knows what I was actually eating.

 

[ponyo]

Local Korean mart had the beef short rib bottom cut with the bone on sale for $3.99 /lb. I thought that was decent price so I went there to see if they would sell me the whole cryovac package rather than the small cut ones. I spoke with the butcher there and he went to the back and grabbed me three. Each package is around 10 lbs so I got 30 pounds of beef ribs. I'm thinking of cooking one tomorrow but I don't know if I should smoke it on the Big Joe or WSM. It'll be my first beef rib smoke. I'm leaning towards using the hook and hanging on the WSM.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Unfortunately, my meals were pretty much relegated to Chinatown in Houston so god knows what I was actually eating.

Where did you go over there? HK Dim Sum and Golden Dumpling are excellent. Banana Leaf if you like Malaysian, and Nu Ice for somethin' sweet.

 

[Jeeebus]

Where did you go over there? HK Dim Sum and Golden Dumpling are excellent. Banana Leaf if you like Malaysian, and Nu Ice for somethin' sweet.

don't think we went anywhere with an English name or with anyone that spoke a word of English. I relied on my Chinese clients to guide me through. I was amazed by the sheer number of Chinese restaurants in any given plaza. It seemed like 10-15 Chinese restaurants in any given plaza. Wild.

 

[HomerJS]

Local Korean mart had the beef short rib bottom cut with the bone on sale for $3.99 /lb. I thought that was decent price so I went there to see if they would sell me the whole cryovac package rather than the small cut ones. I spoke with the butcher there and he went to the back and grabbed me three. Each package is around 10 lbs so I got 30 pounds of beef ribs. I'm thinking of cooking one tomorrow but I don't know if I should smoke it on the Big Joe or WSM. It'll be my first beef rib smoke. I'm leaning towards using the hook and hanging on the WSM.

I would try not hanging first. Have done short ribs a few times. There could be enough shrinkage at the hook where they could fall. Second putting them bone side down could render the same result has hanging since meat is effectively suspended supported by bone. I've done both these size and cutup pieces.

Made a balsamic/red wine reduction to drizzle over meat when served. Came out pretty good.