ottawa foodies

Gang,

I am 1 for 6 in BBQ (aka brisket on the smoker) The last one turned out good! It was a 50% off item at Loblaws.....and I should have bought a couple. If anyone spots deals on brisket please post to the forum! I am not spending big $$ on premium meat until I get the BBQ techniques down pat.

Krusty,

I think I was quoted $10.59/Kg for beef brisket at Levergne Western Beef Inc.

What was the 50% off price at Blah-blah's ?

I need to feed my new (to me) Weber Smokey Mountain smoker.

I think it was around $3 or $4 per pound in the end. Would try LWB but it is at the opposite end of the planet for me.

Well krusty... Next time you kill a pig, I want some double pork chops and I can pick up some brisket from LWB since it is near me if you want and meet you halfway lol ?

So I bought another hunk o meat from Bob Blah Blahs. Spent some time trying to convince them they should give me a great deal. Turns out they get 2 briskets in a cryopac and they are approx 8 - 10 pounds each. If someone wants a portion they cut it and put the remainder in display and it has 5 days to sell before the markdown.

Took home a 6# hunk and started smoking around 7 pm last nite at 140F. This AM cranked it up to 160F till about 11 am and then around 175F until the internal temp hit 165F. No more smoke after that point. Put it in foil and finished it on the smoker at 325F which took a couple hours to get to being done. It was somewhere between 190F and 200F at done. I was always skeptical of the "you can tell when it is done by feel" statement but now I am a believer. Along with internal temp too :)

Anyways this one was a keeper forsure and now feel like I could cook this for guests and they would be happy. Was so pleased I quickly zipped over to SmokerGuys place with a small sample. He of course rewarded me like a lost dog and gave me a delicious beer.

Someone light me a ciggy.

Which Loblaws Krusty? Mine never stocks it.

Damn that looks good!

The big Loblaws in Barhaven said they pretty much always have it in stock. The smaller ones never do and I asked why. Simple lack of demand. I buy my steaks from Beckwith Butcher and will get one there at some point to try too.

I would really love to learn to do delicious ribs on the smoker too. Right now I broil my ribs in tinfoil in the oven at 250 F for about 2 hours so they are nice and tender. Then slather with homemade BBQ sauce and grill to nicely crispy in spots. The whole dry rub and smoked ribs is appealing too.

Krusty - for ribs google 3-2-1, also Meathead Goldwyn, www.amazingribs.com is a good site. Basically 3 hours smoke, 2 hours foiled, 1 hour sauce @ 220 degrees. Thats for baby backs, maybe an hour more for St Louis, or full rack.

That is a lot of cooking time for ribs. I go one hour smoke and two hours sauced in foil at 220F.

I follow the basic recipe from The Virtual Weber Bullet site.

virtualweberbullet.com

... I also let the ribs rest, foil wrapped and tucked in a blanket that's placed in a cooler. For .5-1 hour to let the meat rest. I get a more tender but still gnaw-y rib.

The site also has a good forum to share ideas, trouble shooting techniques and recipes.

I did some renovations to my smoker. Was using a drum in the past but found it would not get hot enough, plus the issue of thermoclines in it. Hence the need to finish brisket in the oven after an 18 hour smoke. Some thought led me to a cheap broken convection oven locally which I rewired to use my PID controller and my Bradley smoke generator. Worked fine for ribs. Could easily get 6 or more whole racks in there if needed but knew the real test would be BBQ. So started it yesterday eve and wanted it ready for dinner today. The idea behind finishing it in the smoker was to maintain the exterior bark. I found the tinfoil finish in my normal oven to be a bit moister since it does its final cooking all wrapped up but today's experiment was a success. Now I just need to properly integrate my PID into it so it is not an electrical hazard. Oh and also rid myself of my Bradley puck dependency.