GrillinFools.com

The Grillin Fools have moved!!!

2009-05-25T17:24:00.003-05:00

If you have found this page you have need to know that we have moved our website to a new provider. I will always leave this information here but I have moved everything over to www.grillinfools.com and all new content will be at that location.

I regret that if you are a follower that our new site home does not provide that service. If you want to continue to follow the site you can follow us on Twitter. I promise never to hit you with a tweet that is not grilling related. Mainly you will just get updates indicating new content on the site.

The newest content on the new site will be pulled pork, brisket that was so tender and moist we called it pulled beef, as well as grilled melon. We look forward to seeing you at our new home...

Low Maintenance Grilling for a Crowd

2009-05-21T11:40:00.014-05:00

Myself and my fellow Grillin Fools will be asked to cook for large groups quite often over the next few months. My family needs no more than word that the sun is going to rise as an excuse to get together for a family function in the warm months. And with us that means grilling. With Memorial Day a few days away, graduation parties, pool parties, and 4th of July right around the corner we find ourselves cooking for a crowd much more often than in the cooler months.

Sometimes we find ourselves seemingly strapped to the grills while the party goes on around us, only able to mingle with the people that wandered over to us to see how the food is coming along. We may be at a party but sometimes we feel more like hired help than party attendees. This post is all about ways to cook for a crowd and still be able to join in the festivities. To be able to feed the group but also have fun with them at the same time. Click below to find a number of possibilities for low maintenance high yield grilling recipes.

Brats and Dogs

The first thing that comes to minds of most people when it comes to feeding the masses at a cookout is brats and dogs. Both cook fairly quickly over high heat. But cooking 30 brats and 15 dogs can take quite some time. This is where the beer bath comes in. Grill your brats and dogs prior to your guests arrival. Buy a high sided disposable aluminum pan, pour in your favorite beer, some slices of onion, maybe a garlic clove or two, place directly on the grill, and put the brats and dogs in the new beer Jacuzzi you just made. Place the pan over enough of the coals to get a simmer going, or put it in the oven at about 200. Now, go get a shower and when the party starts the grilling is already done. If someone does not want the beer dripping off their brat, just throw the brat back on the heat for a couple minutes to steam that off.

How about taking those brats and dogs to the next level? Walk right past the meat cases with the Johnsonvilles and the Oscar Meyers. Go to the meat cutter at your local grocer and see if they have specialty brats and dogs they make in house. They will be better than the mass produced stuff in the cases. Even better. Go to a local butcher and see what they have. Throw a few Jalapeno brats on. Maybe a garlic brat. Try some Italian sausages or some other ethnic sausage like an Irish banger, Polish Sausage, Chorizo, Greek brat, Cajun brat, or Hungarian brat. How about my favorite the apple brat? Natural casing hot dogs are heads and shoulders better than what Oscar Meyer makes.

Now that you have your primo tubular meats, how about taking them to yet another level - at least for the brats. I have not tried this trick yet but Dad swears by it. While it may say that a brat is a beer brat do not believe that till you see it soaking in beer yourself. So pick your favorite brew and soak the brats in beer overnight. Sure that’s not all that interesting in terms of taking brats to the next level, and not my Dad's trick, but this is. Take a needle and insert the blunt in into a cork from a wine bottle. Then use that needle to poke tiny holes in the brats. Some will scream that this will allow all the juice to run out when grilling them. That will happen if a knife is used to poke holes. But the pin prick will allow the beer to be infused into the meat over night but not allow the juices to leak out during the cooking process. Or so Dad says. But has he been wrong so far?

Burgers

Next up, Burgers. Everyone makes burgers. Everyone knows how to make a burger. But does everyone know how to make a good burger? First, don’t thaw out any meat for this. Go buy it fresh. The morning of the event would be best. Think of the hamburger meat as the vehicle to get all the extra goodies you can mix in with it to your mouth. Put the bulk burger in a large mixing bowl and make that boring meat into much more than a boring old burger. There are all sorts of things you can add:

Garlic
Onion
Diced bell or jalapeno peppers
Grated asiago/parm/romano
Blue cheese
Ground pork
Even better, ground chorizo
Herbs like basil or oregano
Hot sauce
BBQ sauce
Worcestershire sauce
Andrias Steak Sauce
Snd of course salt and black pepper to taste.

This is not an all inclusive list. Get creative. Just don’t spring a new combo of those ingredients on a group of people without trying it out first.

Get your hands dirty. Mix it all together and then make the patties. Another big time saver is to make up the patties the night before and put them in the fridge.

Now that the burger is done right, don’t scrimp on what goes around the burgers. Next to the meat, the single most important item on the burger is probably cheese. Get exotic here. Don’t settle for simple American or Cheddar. Try smoked cheddar on a burger. It’s amazing. Or maybe a Lorraine Swiss? Pepper jack provides a nice kick. Blue cheese crumbles are incredible.

Don’t go with basic buns. Get a good quality bun. My favorite is the onion bun. Also, have good ripe tomato. If you have access to vine ripened tomatoes at you local grocer but still buy the cheaper ones, I beg you to try the vine ripened maters one time. You will not go back and gladly pay the extra. Even better, grow some yourself. I’m not much of a gardener yet I was able to grow them quite successfully the last 3 years. Here is the second year I grew tomatoes. They were so big the first year I helped my FiL build a trellis for them. Here they are on August 9th of 2008. The top of the trellis is 7 feet tall and these are 5 different plants:

Back to the burgers. Skip the iceberg lettuce. Get a leafy lettuce and go with some sweet Vidalia onions. Don’t forget the pickles, both kinds - the sweets and the regulars.

Top shelf compliments to the burgers (wine optional):

Tomatoes from my Garden:

Burgers are not as low maintenance as some of the other items I will mention in this post. But something can be done to make them lower maintenance. Again, the high sided disposable aluminum pan is your friend here. Place BBQ sauce in the pan and submerge the burgers in the sauce. You may want to cut the sauce with beer as to not overpower the burger. Burgers will not remain as juicy in the sauce bath as say a brat will but it will save some time to allow you to mingle.

With a relatively short cooking time cooking them during the party is not all that bad. One way to be more part of the party is not to throw them all on a platter and take them inside. Have people come to you. As you are cooking have the party guests get their sides on a plate and come to you for their burger. Do a little chit chatting while the cheese is melting.

While this is not low maintenance I do love a toasted bun:

Gotta love cross hatch grill marks on a bun!?!?

If you want the toasted bun but not the extra work of tending to two sides of a bun for every burger, throw the buns on a cookie sheet, bread side up, and put under a broiler till golden brown.

In the end here we have garlic, basil burgers on toasted onion buns with green leafy lettuce, fresh tomato and Loraine Swiss cheese:

Ribs, Brisket, Chicken, Fatties

If you have a relatively stable smoker that holds the temps fairly constant there is no reason you couldn’t smoke ribs, brisket, chicken, fatties or a combination of these. If all it requires is adding more fuel or smoke wood every 30-60 minutes and maybe a location adjustment of the meat then smoking these items is extremely low maintenance. Maybe go with a beer can chicken. Or even better the Grillin Fools new and improved beer can chicken - beer can chicken stew:

While ribs are not always the cheapest alternative they sure are divine and very easy to do:

Or maybe some brisket. How good does that smoke ring look?

Or ribs and a brisket - Brisket on the upper rack, ribs below:

Fatties

One way to cut the cost of ribs for a crowd is to supplement the ribs with a lower cost alternative. Instead of making enough to feed everyone ribs make less ribs and throw on a few fatties. Generally fatties take just as long as ribs to cook. As long as the space is there, go with a few fatties which are always a hit.

Rib Eye Steak Sandwiches

Something that is not all that common and will likely blow the minds of your guests – Rib eye steak sammiches. Go to your butcher, have him/her thinly slice a rib eye into 1/3-1/4 inch thick sliced of rib eye. Marinade in Adria's (Worcestershire and emulsified garlic for those not able to get Andria's), coke, garlic and black pepper. Grill over high heat for just a little bit and then throw then in an aluminum pan with more of the marinade to keep the meat warm and moist. This is not a cheap alternative to cook for a crowd but definitely low maintenance.

Grillin the rib eye slices:

In the pan to simmer. These will get a tin foil cover and be thrown in the oven on low heat. They could be left on the grill but this was shot the day of the 2009 Super Bowl so it was a little chilly outside:

After being in the oven a couple of hours they are ready to serve:

A bun, some cheese, a little mayo for me and I had heaven on a plate:

Pork Steaks

And now we come to the pork steak. What an amazing cut of meat. Not all that prevalent outside of the Midwest but this is a true gem of low maintenance BBQing. Click here to see how to not only ask for pork steaks at your local butcher but one of the many ways of cooking them. Speaking of the many ways to cook pork steaks, you can smoke them slow and low for many hours. You can BBQ them at a medium heat, indirect for a couple of hours with some smoke wood or you can grill them hot and fast. For me, I go the indirect route for a couple of hours on the side with no heat and some good smoke wood on the coals. Sort of the best of both worlds.

At the end, a BBQ hot tub in a (you guessed it) aluminum tray will keep them warm and juicy for hours. The high fat content makes it very difficult to dry them out and it also keeps them oh so tender. You can feed an army with pork steaks and do so really inexpensively.

Pulled Pork

Some would argue that pulled pork is a cheap and easy way to feed a crowd. Total work is less than 90 minutes but that is stretched out over 8-12 hours. It can be started the night before but if the smoker has a hard time keeping a constant temp then it will require some maintenance in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn or both. For the upcoming Memorial Day Weekend the GrillinFools will be attempting a quicker method for making pulled pork. Total time about 6 hours. Sorry, no pics just yet as we haven’t done it. But if you want to give it a whirl the method is this:

Rub the pork shoulders with your favorite rub and then head out to get the grill going. You could rub the shoulders the night before if you want to.
Get the grill up to 375-400 – the temp will drop down to the desired temp of around 350 once the meat is added
Place the pork shoulder(s), fat side down, in one of those disposable aluminum pans you’ve heard so much about in this post.
If the temp drops below 350 be ready to add more fuel to the fire
Smoke for 3 hours at 350
Cover the pans with foil
Cook for another 2 hours until the internal temp reaches 195
Remove from heat, wrap in foil and place in a cooler to rest for 1 hour leaving the thermometer in the meat
When the internal temp reaches 200 it’s time to pull
Cut the meat into large chunks and let cool a bit before pulling. This will make the pulling process much easier.
Or you can try another method my Dad just heard about. Place the cooked shoulders after resting into large ziplock bags and than smack the crap out of them a couple of times with the bottom of a large frying pan. Cast iron is recommended. The jolt seems to make the pulling process much easier.

I will try to update this thread with pics of the pulled pork process soon after the holiday weekend… But until then, enjoy the holiday weekend and happy grillin!!!

Grilled Romaine Lettuce. That's right, Salad on the grill!!!

2009-05-11T11:19:00.003-05:00

I got this idea from the NetCookingTalk.com Foruns. I spend a lot of time in their BBQ forum, but they also have a lot of other great sub forums on the site.

Back to the grilled salad. Sounds nuts right? I thought the same thing but a few people tried it on NetCookingTalk and they raved about it. So after grilling burgers and brats for the fam on Mother's Day, I decided to give it a shot. I am extremely happy I did. This will become a regular staple at future GrillinFools cookouts. Something about the combination of the charred flavor, the crispness of the lettuce and the fresh grated Romano cheese that was simply amazing. Click below to see how you can add it to your menu too....

This is so easy that and so incredible. The ingredients?

1 head of Romaine Lettuce
Enough olive oil to slather both sides
1/2 cup of fresh grated Romano (Parm or Asiago could also be used, just nothing from a green can)
Pinch of salt
Couple turns of black pepper
A dusting of granulated garlic

That's it.

Prep and cooking is even easier than compiling the ingredients. Start off with a head of Romaine Lettuce rinsed and dried:

Slice the Romaine in two length wise and pull away the few leaves that will separate when you slice it:

Drizzle liberally with olive oil and put a little coarse salt, fresh cracked black pepper and dust with granulated garlic:

Repeat on the other side:

Grate about a half cup of a hard cheese like Asiago, Parmesian, or Romano. In this case I used Romano:

Now off to the grill:

You didn't think that all I made was grilled lettuce did you? We did burgers and brats as well. The lettuce thing was just something I wanted to try. But I think I lose all credibility as a serious griller if I don't show some meet on the pit. Brats, resting in a beer bath:

Burgers:

Place the Romaine right over the hot side of the grill. This doesn't need to be high heat for say searing a steak. Medium hot is about all it needs:

This only takes a couple of minutes so keep checking the underside. Look for the lettuce to blacken a bit. A nice char is the desired result without having the lettuce wilt too much under the heat:

After about 2-3 minutes on each side I now have a nice char on both sides of both halves:

Now, place on a platter, sprinkle the cheese on and eat:

This was devoured in pretty short order by about 5 or 6 people. All those that were sort of chuckling at the notion of grilling lettuce raved about it. This may be the perfect side to go with a steak. Once the steak is pulled off to rest, throw the lettuce on. The steak, depending on thickness, should be perfectly rested when your grilled salad is ready to be plated.

Smokin some Fatties, again, not those kind of fatties, and some grilled beans

2009-04-29T12:55:00.018-05:00

This is not the first post I have done about smoking fatties on the grill. You can see the write-up of previously smoked fatties here. And I will say again that they are not that kind of fatty. A fatty is simply smoked bulk sausage. Often it is breakfast sausage. Sometimes they are stuffed and sometimes they aren't. Sometimes they are sweet and sometimes spicy. The number of different ways to cook fatties is limitless.

I smoked two fatties in this cookout. One is the recipe that I get the most raves about; sage sausage stuffed with cheese, and a new recipe that I created on the fly; regular sausage stuffed with yellow pepper, white corn and cheddar. I also grilled some beans.

In the spirit of trying to be more quantitative I actually did some measuring and wrote down amounts for the recipe. Click below to find those measurements...

Here are the basic ingredients I used for the two fatties:

In the picture above are two different kinds of sausage. The sage sausage was used with the garlic, asiago, havarti and garlic. The regular sausage was used with the garlic, asiago, yellow pepper and sweet white corn. What I omitted from this picture was granulated garlic that I used as a rub on both fatties.

Let's start with the sage fatty first. The ingredients are as follows:

1 LB of sage breakfast sausage (other types of sausage can be used)
1/3 LB of havarti cheese (I have uses white cheddar in the past)
2 heaping tbsp of minced garlic
1/2 cup of loosely packed asiago cheese
10 turns of a pepper grinder
Enough granulated garlic to dust the outside

Combine the sausage, garlic, asiago and black pepper in a mixing bowl. Sausage and garlic:

Now the asiago and black pepper:

Using your hands mix the ingredients together well. Really get in there and squish it all up. Then spread the meat on a piece of wax paper and spread out evenly:

Chunk up the havarti and place in the middle of the sausage leaving plenty of room around the edge to seal the cheese in. Here I chunked up an entire half pound of havarti. I know I said only a 1/3 pound above. I had too much:

When I tried to roll it over to seal the cheese inside the sausage I realized I had either too much cheese or not enough sausage:

So I pulled some of the cheese out:

That's more like it:

I simply rolled the sausage up and patted it really well to get rid of any cracks or crevices. Then I dusted the outside with granulated garlic:

I placed the fatty in a gallon plastic bag and put it in the freezer to firm up a bit and on to my second fatty; yellow pepper, sweet white corn and cheddar stuffed fatty:

1 LB of regular breakfast sausage (again, use what you like, it's your fatty!!)
1/2 yellow pepper chunked
1 small ear of white corn with the kernels sliced off (you can used canned or yellow corn, but fresher is better)
1/4 pound cheddar cheese
2 heaping tbsp of minced garlic
1/2 cup of loosely packed asiago cheese
10 turns of a pepper grinder
Enough granulated garlic to dust the outside

Here we have the yellow pepper chunked into half inch chunks and the kernels from a small ear of white corn.

These ingredients are not going to cook enough while insulated inside the sausage so I precooked them a bit. First the yellow pepper in a skillet in a little olive oil over medium heat for 5 minutes:

Then add the corn for another three minutes:

While the corn and pepper are sautéing, mix the sausage, garlic, asiago and black pepper up in a bowl very well and place on a piece of wax paper as before. Then place the cheddar along the middle of the meat:

Spoon the peppers and corn over the cheese:

Roll up the sausage and pat it well anywhere there seems to be a crack or a crevice and dust with granulated garlic.

I put this fatty in gallon plastic bag and into the freezer as well to firm up. I left both in the freezer between 20 and 30 minutes. Then I got to work on my beans. Here is a shot of the ingredients:

2 - 1 LB cans of just original baked beans (you can use other varieties but you will be adding tons of flavor on your own that you don't need any other varieties but it is up to you)
2 heaping tbsp minced garlic
4 heaping tbsp of brown sugar
1/2 cup of maple syrup
1/4 cup of honey mustard
1/4 cup of honey
2 tsp of hoisin sauce (optional and not in the picture)
10 turns of a pepper grinder
2 sliced of maple bacon (other bacon can be used and you will need enough to cover the top with one inch square pieces so this number may vary)

Dump all ingredients except the bacon into an oven safe pot and mix together well as this will be the last time you stir them until they are ready to be served:

Slice the bacon up into one inch squares and cover the top leaving gaps between each piece. If you don't leave a gap the pieces will insulate each other and take much longer to cook:

Now out to my smoker. I made a few modifications to my offset in order to keep the temp up and more constant and this was my first chance to try them out. You can see the modifications here.

For this session I will be using apricot wood. Very similar to apple:

There are a bunch of different woods you can use for this. For a pretty extensive write up about different smoke woods click here.

After spending some time modding my grill to keep the temp up a windy day wiped that effort away in seconds. After 30 minutes I was getting a boatload of smoke but the temp was struggling to get to 150:

I needed 300 for these for 2 hours. If I left it at 150 it would take closer to 8 hours so it was time to improvise. I took the grill grate off that was on the opposite side of my firebox in the main chamber and added a pile of hot coals:

Within minutes the temp started to climb:

After an hour of heavy smoke at 150f (took me another 30 minutes to get a half chimney of coals hot) I was cooking at close to 300 at which point my cheese started to ooze out of my sage fatty which is why both are sitting on foil to save that cheese:

My pepper and corn stuffed fatty is doing just fine:

While carrying my chilled cheese stuffed fatty outside I bumped it and split it open a bit. Trying to pat it back together when that cold didn't work all that well so I had the foil under it from the beginning.

Here are both fatties with some smoke rising up:

About 90 minutes into the process the bacon on the beans is browning up as are the fatties:

Now I am building up quite a bit of grease in the foil:

This is easy solved with the probe from my remote thermometer. I just poked a hole in the foil of each fatty to let the fat drain out:

Here we have 2 hours in:

At 2.5 hours everything is ready to come off the grill. Remember, they only need 2 hours at 275-300 but I got off to a slow start:

Here are the fatties resting. Despite the cheese oozing out of the one already, I let them rest for about 10 minutes. If I were to slice into them earlier the hot cheese would run right out:

Here are the beans. That bacon has rendered its fat into the beans during the cooking process to add that extra flavor punch that only bacon fat seems to provide:

Here are my fatties ready to be sliced. The cheese has cooled enough on the outside that it actually stuck to the meat rather than the foil:

Here we have the sage cheese stuffed fatty:

Here is a close up so you can see the nice smoke ring:

And here is the yellow pepper/white corn/cheddar stuffed fatty:

These are so much fun to do and so simple. You really should try one. Follow one of my recipes or try your own. The possibilities are endless!!

As for what I would do differently, well, I may be at my wits end with the offset smoker. I may be in the market for a vertical smoker in the near future so check back to see what I can create in one of those…

Time to Demystify Prime Rib. It may be expensive but it's also very easy

2009-04-23T10:13:00.007-05:00

Prime Rib is another one of those things that people love to eat but are afraid to cook. We've already gone over how easy Lobster Tails are to cook on the grill as well as boil in a pot. And while it is the perfect time to practice on lobster as the prices are at an all time low, Prime Rib is still, well... Prime. It's not cheap. So that fear of screwing up an expensive cut like that is still there. I'm asking you to face your fear. It's not hard. Do it just one time and I guarantee that you will wonder why you hadn't tried this before. You will also laugh at yourself for that fear you had of Prime Rib.

My Dad done this for years and has it down to a science and has documented it perfectly in this post. Just follow his lead and you will be blown away by the results. Click below to see how he does it and just how simple this is...

Many are intimidated by the thought of placing this large expensive cut of meat on the grill. Inspired a few years ago, by Master Raichlen, I've tackled this numerous times with repeated success ( I've never had a bad result ). It's a simple indirect grilling method that requires the time and/or temperature to be monitored to achieve the desired outcome. The Standing Rib Roast can usually be obtained 'bone-in' or 'boneless' at most markets however it is not frequently displayed in the meat case until winter holiday season arrives. If your store doesn't display this item just ask the meat cutter to prepare one for you. It's simply a sliced chunk of whole rib eye:

Should your choice be a 'bone-in' roast ( G-Fools always prefer this but boneless will do also ) then the ribs should be 'frenched'. Cut the layer of fat covering the ends of the rib bones all the way to the bone:

Upon reaching the bone twist the knife toward the end of the ribs and cut this section away and remove as shown:

Next trim the pieces of meat between the bones and retain ( Mimi says they should become 'nibblers' to be enjoyed while the roast is cooking--she is her father's daughter indeed ):

Should your roast have a heavy layer of fat you could remove that at this time. This one was well-trimmed already and a little fat melting and basting over the roast while grilling is a good thing.

** Editor;s Note - Frenching the Rib Roast is not required. The presentation is better this way but some would argue that the fat rendering down over the roast during the cooking from that section can add flavor as well. This is your personal preference. If for the first time you don't want to French the roast you do not have to by any means**

Next, using a sharp knife, make slits about an inch apart and half inch deep over the prime rib. Insert slivers of sliced garlic cloves into each slit.

Time to make the Rub. Here are the ingredients:

2--tsp. garlic salt
2--tsp. onion salt
2--tsp. hickory-smoked salt
2--tsp. dried rosemary
1--tsp. black pepper
2--tsp. Canadian steak seasoning ( optional )

Another option is adding a tsp. of dried mustard--strictly a taste preference.

** Editor's Note - I prefer to use granulated garlic and onion or powders rather than salts and simply add some coarse salt to the rub myself. I have a hard time gauging exactly how much salt is in the premade salts. The roast will require some salt. It's up to you to decide how to apply it. Also if you use fresh rosemary increase the amount 50%. Dried herbs are more concentraded than fresh **

Pat the rub into the entire surface area of the roast.

The old Charbroil was set up for indirect grilling method--coals on the left and right with the roast in the center. Several cups of hickory chips were soaked in water an hour or so before grilling and were added frequently during the grilling time. Adjust the amount of wood chips to your tast. We don't want to overpower the meat but we are trying to achieve that special hickory smoked flavor into the roast. Other woods may be used such as mesquite ( I'd leave the hickory-smoked salt out of the rub if you go this route ).

** What a view, huh? **

Here are the 'nibblers':

Cooking time for this 6 lb. roast will be approximately 2-21/2 hours or until 145 degrees internal temperature if using a thermometer ( medium rare ). Cooking time may vary depending on the heat efficiency of your grill and number of coals added. The Charbroil charcoal grate was set on the lowest level for this session.

** Editor's note - A piece of meat this large will require a good deal of resting time after it is removed from the grill. In this case 10-15 minutes. Resting allows for the internal juices to settle down and not run out of the meat as soon as you cut into it. If you cut into it right away that is exactly what will happen. While the roast is resting it will continue to cook. So if you like your prime rib medium, you may want to pull it off a little short of medium so when it is done resting you will have it just the way you like it **

Now it's time for the 'chillin' side of the evening ( my favorite part sometimes ). The wine selected for the event was a 2005 B Side Cab. Sauv. I hadn't sipped a cab for a while and thought it should pair nicely with the prime rib. It was corked and poured to 'air a bit' prior to the photo. Of course I had to take a sip to see if it was a worthy choice. It says on the cork 'music to your mouth,' and it was. I didn't wait for dinner with this one and began enjoying it during the entire grilling process. On the back label of the bottle it states the wine is vinted and bottled by 'Three Loose Screws'...how appropriate for 'Three Grillin' Fools'?!?

While the prime rib is gently smoking preparations are begun for the sides and garnish. Horseradish sauce made with sour cream and horseradish was prepared ( mixed to taste ). Yellow squash was washed and sliced then drizzled with olive oil and sprinkled with sea salt and coarse ground pepper to be 'skillet-grilled' later while the roast is resting. During the last half hour of the grilling session Mimi was busy preparing risotto with roasted pine-nuts ( might be our favorite dish ever ).

One hour into the process the prime rib is browning nicely and the 'nibblers' are crispy. A few more coals are added along with additional hickory chips. The 'nibblers' were delivered to Mimi and disappeared quickly between the two of us:

Two hours into the process and ready to be pulled from the grill:

Here's the finished product that will rest on the cutting board under a tent of aluminum foil. The aluminum foil keeps the heat in while the juices come to a rest. A roast this size needs between 10-15 minutes to rest properly:

** Editor's note - Nice job centering the empty part of the cutting board in the pic. How much of that wine did you have by this time? **

The result was medium-rare to rare and was very tasty when combined with the horseradish sauce. Note the rib bones were removed to enable smaller slices to be made ( we intend yield 3 meals from this for the 2 of us ). Leave the bones in and you will get much thicker slices. While the roast was tented and resting the yellow squash was skillet-grilled just to the point of retaining firmness but still picking up that delicious grilled flavor:

Mimi's risotto was finished and this is what the plated effort looks like:

Don't let this meal intimidate you any longer. Sure it is expensive, but it's much cheaper to do it at home than it to order it in a restaurant. Dazzle your friends and relatives by grilling this very tasty roast.

** I'm so jealous I wasn't able to be there for this!! **

Beer Butt Chicken.......Stew?

2009-04-11T11:34:00.014-05:00

Most people perusing this site have heard of beer butt or beer can chicken. This is our version. Beer Butt Chicken Stew. One note here, if the idea of using beer is a turn off, simply substitute a can of soda.

The idea behind beer butt chicken is simple enough. Take a beer can, cut the top off, fill with beer (and herbs if desired) and push the can into the cavity of the chicken. Use a beer can chicken rack or just position the legs to keep the chicken upright. The beer will steam throughout the cavity and essentially constantly baste the chicken keeping it moist and tender.

Now for our twist. When doing beer butt chicken the traditional way all that glorious fat runs off the chicken down into the bottom of the grill. We harness that wonderful flavor that normally goes to waste by placing the chicken inside a roasting pan full of vegetables. Click below to see how my father accomplished the Grillin Fools twist on Beer Butt Chicken...

Recently, during a road trip with business partner Don, the subject of grilling came up ( we had a bit of highway time after business was concluded ). Don mentioned that he had done Beer Can Chicken before but with a different twist. He indicated he placed the chicken into a pan and the filled the pan with assorted vegetables. He said his dinner guests always raved about the flavor of the vegetables. So, with this inspiration ( it didn’t take much for a Grillin’ Fool ) I decided to give ‘Beer Can Chicken Stew’ a try.

First, at the prompting of the Original Grillin’ Fool, I decided to brine the chicken overnight ( just about 12 hours or so ). Locating a pot large enough to hold 2 birds and a couple of gallons of brine that would still fit in the fridge was a challenge. A trip to the garage was rewarded with an alternative anyone can use, a beverage cooler. The recipe for the brine follows:

( 1 ) gallon apple cider

( 1 ) gallon water

( 2 ) cups table salt

( 2 ) cups brown sugar

( ½ ) 2-ltr. Bottle Sprite

(1 ) cup molasses ( or syrup )

( 2 ) sliced large oranges ( add any other fruit you desire )

( ½ ) bottle of previously opened red wine ( found in the fridge and thought ‘why not?’ )

( 1 ) bag of ice

***Editor's Note - This is not a hard and fast rule for how to do a brine. The basics are these: 1 cup of salt per gallon of water. With the extra fluids here (2 liter of soda, bag of ice, and half a bottle of wine my dad probably could've used another cup of salt here.

Add some fruit (I've used apples, oranges, lemons, limes and peaches but just about any fruit can be used - the riper the better), add some sweets (syrup, brown sugar, regular sugar, molasses, are all good candidates), some soda for some acidity (dark or light are fine but don't go with diet because the sugar is desired). You can also add garlic, onions, shallots, leeks, etc. The final key is to keep it cold overnight either in the fridge in a pot in a cooler or with a bag of ice.***

Now for the ‘birds’. I purchased 2 whole fryers at a local grocer ( about 4 lb. each ):

Here’s a view of the brine cooler. Rather looks like Sangria to me:

The next morning I removed them from the brine, rinsed, and patted them dry:

In order to maintain moisture and add flavor the birds were stuffed under the skin with garlic butter. Getting under the bird’s skin can be a bit of a challenge but just keep working your fingers carefully between the skin and body until you create enough room for the garlic butter. One stick of softened unsalted butter combined with a heaping tbsp. of minced garlic was sufficient for both birds:

For this recipe I decided to forego the typical rub normally applied. I wasn’t sure how the rub would affect the flavor of the vegetables ( perhaps I’ll give it a try in future episodes ). The outside of the birds was given a coat of olive oil to reduce burning of the skin ( yeah, that worked well as you’ll see later ).

Notice the ‘churchkey’ on the counter? It was used to completely open the top of the cans to allow more moisture and steaming from the beer. Each can was about 2/3 full ( had to have some for the griller! ):

The birds are prepped and mounted on their can stands and ready for the vegetables to be added. Don't forget to add the extras that come with the chicken to the roasting pan. They pack a lot of flavor too.

***Editor's note - Is it just me or does it look like these chickens are posing for the camera?***

Stew ingredients were very simple:

( 5 ) lb. red potatoes chunked

( 2 ) large sweet onions chunked

( 1 ) stalk of celery hearts chopped ( don’t discard the leaves—they add a lot of flavor )

( 2 ) lbs. baby carrots

( 4 ) cans chicken broth ( the photo shows 3 but one was added later )

Smoking wood chosen was apple chips that were soaked for about an hour before grilling. This seemed the natural thing to do since apple cider was used in the brine and the sweetness of the apple flavor would be readily accepted by all dinner guests.

Here is the grill I will be using. And the view ain't bad either:

Next in went the broth, potatoes, onions, celery, and carrots and were ready for the grill. In retrospect I would put the carrots in first next time as they require more cooking time and then add potatoes about a half hour into the grilling process. It still turned out fine but this is all part of the learning experience as this was the first time attempting this recipe:

Here’s the process about 45 minutes in. The birds are browning ( perhaps a bit too quickly? ) so I wasn’t sure how much the olive helped but it was a hot fire. I set the grill up for ‘direct’ cooking believing the large pan would deflect the heat but the vegetables would cook better than with the ‘indirect’ method. Once the fluid began bubbling I gave it a stir and did so every 15-20 minutes from this point forward. I was concerned about the doneness of the carrots and, as time would tell, this was not an issue. A few more coals were added about every 45 minutes and additional apple chips every 20 minutes. The soaked chips disappear rather rapidly but no chunks were available for this effort:

Another photo an hour and a half in shows the vegetables cooking down a bit and the top of the birds really getting dark and almost looking burnt. Perhaps a small foil tent could’ve been added to the top of each bird to minimize scorching once they began to brown. Please note that this old Charbroil grill has 4 settings for adjusting the coals and it was set on the lowest setting for the whole process. Total cooking time was 2 ½ hours:

The finished product is at hand and the birds were removed 10 minutes earlier than the stew to allow them to rest before carving:

Close up of those nicely browned birds:

The Big Green Egghead, Tom ( the third Grillin’ Fool ), was in attendance and performed the carving ritual aptly:

The stew was very tasty and the flavor imparted to the potatoes and carrots was as good as Don said it would be.

Mimi Linda ( G-Fool’s Pappy’s wife ) completed the menu with Cheesy Garlic Biscuits ( similar to what you find at Red Lobster ). They were really delicious and easy to prepare. Just follow the regular instructions on a box of Bisquick then add chopped green onions, a couple packages of shredded cheddar cheese, and minced garlic to taste:

Six adults and two kids were fed with significant leftovers. Everyone in attendance rated this recipe a success and I look forward to doing it again:

Note: please use caution when removing the bird from the hot beer can. Boiling beer can ruin your grilling enjoyment so use insulated gloves and tongs and I suggest making this a two person process just to be safe. Also remember to wash your hands immediately after handling poultry and before handling other food or utensils. The Food Police are out there, they know who they are, but they are right about this. Should you use a cooler as shown here it should be sanitized and air-dried before the next use. Be safe out there and hope you have time to grill this dish for yourself soon.

***Editor's note - awesome job as usual dad...and mom***

Fajitas on the Grill!!

2009-04-07T16:26:00.010-05:00

OK, some will argue that these are quesadillas and not fajitas. They look like quesadillas but the ingredients are all fajita. And you know what they say - it's what's on the inside that counts.

I love making fajitas. Easy, relatively healthy compared to the bacon wrapped stuff I am normally doing, and delicious. I always make them inside but it can't be that different to make them outside, right? And thus I did just that. Grilled up some fajitas right on the grill. So click below for all the crunchy, gooey, delicious details...

First the ingredients to serve 2:

2 Chicken breasts
2 Bell peppers (any color will do)
1 Medium onion
4 Tortilla shells
1 Bag of shredded cheese of your choice (I used Colby Jack)
Chipotle Tobasco Sauce - for marinade
1 Tsp minced garlic - for marinade
1 Tbsp minced garlic
Olive oil
Fresh cracked black pepper

Non food necessities
Pastry/Grill brush
Vegetable/fish grill pan

Place the chicken breasts in a zip bag with garlic, black pepper and enough Chipotle Tobasco to coat. It will not be as hot as it seems. Marinade overnight.

The next day slice up the peppers and onion:

Get the grill ready by building a medium hot fire and while this is still two zone cooking my hot zone is larger than usual which is necessary for the grill pan and the chicken to have enough room to cook:

Open a nice bottle of chard like this 2007 Jekel:

While I was pouring the wine I poured a little olive oil into a bowl:

Take a grill pan such as the one blow and brush some of the olive oil over the bottom and put the peppers in. I also brushed some oil over the top of the veggies hoping to get a little flare up:

Wait on the onions as the peppers take longer to cook. Don't worry if you get a little flame action. That's a good thing:

Once the peppers have been on 3-4 minutes throw the chicken breasts on next to them:

After another 2-3 minutes put the onion in with the peppers:

Cook the breasts till they firm up and produce clear juices. How about those crosshatch grill marks on those chicken breasts?!?!

The peppers are getting some nice blackening. Peppers contain quite a bit of sugar and thus blacken easily. That is OK. We want them blackened a bit:

I pulled the chicken when they were done and put them on a cutting board to slice. The peppers/onions are done too at this point. I stirred in a nice table spoon of minced garlic and leave on the heat for about 1 more minute then pull to the side to stay warm.

Now I take my grill brush and brush some olive oil all over one side of a fajita shell and place it directly over the heat. Do not walk away at this point. Need a refill or to get something do so before putting the tortilla shells on the grill. They will cook in a matter of seconds. The olive oil slows that down just a bit:

Brown one side of all four tortillas. Apply olive oil to the non browned side and then place tortilla brown side up (that is not a typo) and I will explain why in a minute:

Now layer on some shredded cheese and then peppers and onions:

Then a layer of sliced chicken:

Then more cheese:

Then put the other fajita shell on top of with the browned side down and brush more olive oil over it:

Repeat this process for the other fajita.

In the mean time I condensed my coals to a smaller pile that will keep the heat up. I don't need to keep the grill pan and chicken breasts on the grill so I don't need that much cooking space and it will save me some time waiting on extra charcoal from catching and producing heat. I just need room for one fajita at a time:

I place one of them directly over the coals again checking frequently that the tortilla does not burn:

Once it is nicely browned flip it over with a large spatula. This seems like it would be a huge mess but the cheese melts and binds it all together. More nice crosshatching:

Once it is browned on both sides I pull it off to the side with no coals to stay warm and repeat the process with the second fajita:

Now that both are browned on all sides pull them to the side with no coals and close the lid for a few minutes to make sure they are both warm for serving:

And finally bring them inside for cutting. Cut them just like a pizza:

We serve ours with a side of salsa and sour cream to be added separately but feel free to change that up. If you want to go with salsa in the fajita while cooking it - go for it. Want to add some fresh tomatoes or corn - then by all means. Want to add some jalapenos - knock yourself out. There is not right or wrong way of doing these. I've even done these with turkey, swiss cheese and basil pesto. Sort of a Bistro Fajita.

Now the reason to brown one side of each fajita and then place the browned side inward toward the fajita filling is to make the shell extra crunchy. If I were to just toast the outside of the tortillas they would have some crunch, particularly around the edges but would be pretty soft in the middle and get even more so as it sits on a plate with the juices from the meat and the peppers oozing over the tortilla. With this method it will be very crunchy the entire meal.

Grilled Bacon Wrapped Shrimps

2009-04-07T14:31:00.007-05:00

A very common item on the Grillin Fool's menu is bacon wrapped shrimp but for some reason I have very few pics of this incredible and easy side or appetizer. One of the reasons I make these so often as that they are so versatile. I can all kinds of things with these from a sweet glaze make them flaming hot on the spiciness scale. I can make a crazy sauce to glaze them in or simply baste them in some melted butter....

I asked for 6 U14-18 shrimp. I usually go with the U10-12, but the ones in the U14-18 looked ever bit as big as the more expensive U10-12. Oh, for those that don't know, the U numbers stand for approximately how many units of shrimp make up a pound. And while I asked for 6, I was given 8. No big deal.

Some of you are thinking that those big shrimp are really expensive. The 8 were right about $7. So it was $3.50/person. Couple that with two 8 ounce lobster tails for $10/person and a box of rice and the meal was less than $15/person for a lobster tail, 4 large shrimps and a side of rice. That's pretty good considering the meal. I can drop more than $15 on a single steak.

So consider doing a couple of fat shrimps as an app or side. As an app, they may cost you $1/shrimp but if you go with say two per person and are feeding 4 that's only $8.

Here we have the shrimp with my celly for perspective:

First thing with prepping shrimp is to shell and devein them. Dad and I thought we took some great footage of the process. Shot it more than a few times but we had a slight problem. Originally I was going to film it and turned the camera to record and then we decided he would film it so I gave the camera to him which was recording. So he gets all centered in on the shrimp and hits the record button which stops the recording. Then at the end of the demonstration he hit the record button again starting the recording. I grab another shrimp, he gets it centered, hits the record button stopping the recording, I run through the process of deveining a shrimp and then he hits the record button turning the camera back on, and on and on for about 5 shrimp. The next time I do these I will get some footage and insert it in here. I have a couple of pics to help demonstrate the process but the vids would've been much better.

First, take the shrimp in your hand and put the legs toward your palm, or the exact opposite of what my dad is doing here:

Then hold the shrimp so the back is sticking up. Take a paring knife with the sharp edge of the blade away from your palm and insert it stright down from where the head of the shrimp would be:

Run the blade along the back to split the shell. When you get to the last section of the shell stop, pulld the shell off and then remove the tail. Pinch just above the hard section of the tail while gently pulling on the body of the shrimp. Now look into the cavity just created for the vein or any other dark matter. Remove that and you have a deshelled, deveined, butterflied shrimp ready for the grill. Or in this case, ready for the bacon!!!

If you go with smaller shrimp you may need to precook the bacon just a bit. Also, go with a third to a quarter piece of bacon. This bacon wrapped around the shrimp twice.

Here are all the ingredients used to make the shrimps:

I did them two different ways but to start all eight got a half strip of bacon wrapped around them and then skewered with a toothpick. From there half of them were destined to simply be braised in the drawn garlic butter I did with the lobster tails. The instructions on doing the drawn butter as well as the write up on how to grill lobster tails can be found here.

For the other half of them I did them in a honey/honey mustard/garlic sauce. And no, that was not a typo. Honey mustard plus more honey:

3 tbsp of honey mustard
1 tbsp of honey
1 1/4 tsp of chili powder
1 tsp of minced garlic
Couple of turns of the pepper grinder.

Combine all ingredients and wisk together. If you have more shrimp to do than four just try to keep the honey mustard to honey ration at 3:1. Once the sauce is made apply liberally to the shrimps with a BBQ or basting brush:

After my lobster tails had been on for about 3-4 minutes I threw on the shrimp over medium high heat. With the size of these shrimp, when the bacon is done the shrimp are done. Here are the shrimps next to my lobster tails. I left both on the grill for about 6 minutes from this point:

Here are the shrimps plated with the main course and a closeup of the shrimps:

I put the closeup in here so you can see that the honey mustard will blacken a bit due to the high sugar content. This is not a big deal. It will not taste burnt.

Other methods that I use to do bacon wrapped shrimp. I take a sprig of rosemary (not a woody sprig) and place it in the crevice created by butterflying the shrimps and then wrap in bacon. Or take a whole basil leaf, wrap it around the body of the shrimp and then wrap in bacon. I have braised them in sweet BBQ sauce. I have dredged them in chipotle Tobasco sauce for an incredible flavor that is not too hot.

Get creative. And by all means share your creative ideas in the comments section below!!!

Grilled Lobster Tails!!!

2009-04-07T11:54:00.010-05:00

Some of you may be intimidated by Lobster. Some of you love the stuff but rarely eat it due to the cost. The cost leads to that intimidation. Do these questions pop up when considering Lobster:

What if I overcook it?
What if I under cook it?
How do I know when it's done?
What if I screw it all up and that money spent on that expensive seafood will be wasted?

I've asked myself those same questions. I've had those same fears. How does one eliminate those fears? Practice. But this is such and expensive food item to practice on, right? Wrong. This is the best time to get that practice. Due to the economy being in the crapper nobody is buying such luxuries like lobster. The lobster vendors have slashed prices. What better time to practice on lobster than right now? Those two tails above were $20. Not apiece. Total. They were $20/pound and each of those is 8 ounces. Show me a good steak that you can get for $10? I saw a place in St. Louis that has 2 pound live lobsters for $14/lobster. That's not per pound.

The time is now to conquer your fear of this delicious crustacean. The time is now to get your practice in. The time is now to realize that a lobster tail is just a really big shrimp. If you can grill a shrimp you can grill a lobster tail....

Dad ponied up the lobster tails. These were $20/pound as I mentioned above, but the next day Dad went back for a couple more and they were marked down to $13/pound. $6.50 for an 8 ounce tail? Are you kidding me?!?!?! Oh, how I wish I had the freezer space!?!

And while lobster tails are just large shrimp in terms of cooking they do require a bit different preparation. The main problem being splitting the tail open. Some suggest to split the bottom, much softer section of the tail. Some split the top. I went with the latter. A pair of kitchen shears made quick work of those shells but this can be done with a sharp knife too. Simply start with the sheers (or knife) and split the shell all the way to the tail:

Then slice the meat in half along the split shell. Try not to cut through the bottom shell:

Now for the cool part. I put my thumbs into the newly created slit that runs the length of the tail and pulled it apart. The bottom shell holds the two pieces together and now the meat is butterflied for maximum surface area:

The lobster tails will be braised with drawn/clarified garlic butter which is so simple to make:

2 stick salted butter
1 heaping tablespoon of garlic
1 spoon

Bring the two sticks of butter to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. After the foam dissipates on top you will notice some white clumps floating to the top. Spoon them off the top while trying to leave as much of the remaining butter. A sieve could also be used for this. Right before the butter is to be brushed onto the lobster tail (and a few shrimp in this case) put the garlic in. The longer garlic cooks the less flavor it has so do not boil the garlic the whole time.

Two sticks of butter seems like a lot but what will not be slathered onto the seafood while cooking will used as a dipping sauce during the meal.

Now that the lobster tails and garlic butter are ready for the grill, Dad and I cracked open a great wine that was on sale at the local grocer. Normally about $23 this bottle was on sale for $13:

Cooking Method:

I set up two zone cooking here almost out of habit but it is not really necessary. Just get the grill to a medium high heat. Not quite steak flame searing temps, but still a hot fire. There is no need to indirect these. Just keep them over the heat the whole time. The 2nd zone could be useful to keep the tails warm if there was something else that was not quite done and needs a little more time.

Brush the lobster meat with a healthy dose of the butter and place meat side down over the heat. Be careful of flame ups from the butter dripping into the fire. I had to readjust the location a few times due to flame ups as you can see below with the flames licking the tail on the right:

Here are the tails moved a bit to avoid the flare ups. I put the butter pot right on the grill to keep it warm (lower right):

The tails need to be over the heat for only about 3-4 minutes. Here are the tails with the shrimp added to the grill. I flipped the tails immediately after placing the shrimps on the fire (I will talk about the shrimp in another post):

Once the tails are flipped the shell will disperse the heat quite a bit but they still only need 5-6 minutes on the heat shell side down or a total of about 10 minutes cook time. This will vary depending on temp and size of the tail. What to look for is the consistency of a cooked shrimp - white, firm flesh, but not rubbery. Once the tails are flipped give them another slathering of garlic butter.

Here is Dad's tail plated. Notice the flesh is a little browned from being over the heat but not charred. That is nearly perfect:

And here are a couple of shots of my tail. Mine charred just a bit on the right side but it was still fantastic:

Now is the time to get over the fear and anxiety of grilling lobster. When prices go back up you will be a seasoned vet with these and not worry at all about grilling them...

Smoke Wood? What kind is Best? Well it depends...

2009-04-01T14:49:00.010-05:00

The art and science of smoking meat on a grill centers around the smoke. In particular what to use to produce the smoke that imparts that wonderful flavor to meats, fish, and cheese. Not all wood is suitable for smoking and not all types of wood are suitable for all types of meat. There are even ways to produce flavorful smoke without using wood at all. More on that below.

There are many types of wood that can be used to smoke meat. Everything from Alder to Walnut. Cherry to Mulberry. Lilac to Lemon. But which is the best wood? Different regions swear by different woods. Some say mesquite is the only way to go. Some say hickory. Some say that fruit woods should never be used. The Grillin Fools actually prefer the fruit woods. My cousin Tom and I prefer apple wood. My Dad prefers cherry. Cherry is my second fave while Tom claims he doesn’t like it all. Although he did strike out on knowing which ribs were done with apple and which with Cherry at the poker party at the end of Feb.

The point is there are a million different opinions on the subject. You need to find out which is yours. The good news is the only way to find out is to spend a lot of time grillin, chillin and thrillin while trying different types of wood.

Click here to see a synopses of just some of the different woods available and what they pair well with…

First a little about smoke woods. The Grillin Fools recommend wood chunks over wood chips for a couple of reasons.

Wood chunks will last much longer than wood chips no matter how long the chips have been soaked ahead of time.
Chunks do not need to be soaked. In fact we don't recommending soaking chunks at all. Soaking chunks will delay the wood from producing any smoke at all as can be seen here at our rib cook off in Michigan last summer. Dad used soaked chunks in his grill. Tom and I used non soaked chunks in ours and the two community grills. Guess which one had the soaked chunks:

Chips require soaking. As soaked wood chips get hot the water that they soaked up is released in the form of steam. That steam condenses at the top of the grill. There is a chance when enough water has accumulated under the top of the grill that it could drip down onto your meat. Take a look at the underside of the top of your grill and ask yourself if you want to risk some of that dripping down on your meat? One tip. If you are going to soak the chips, use hot water. Opens the pores/fibers of the wood more and allows more water to be absorbed thus making the chops last longer once exposed to heat.
Wood chips generally need to be added to the fire many more times than chunks and with each time the grill is opened it releases all its heat which will extend grilling times.

We understand that chips are much easier to find with many grocery stores even carrying apple and cherry chips but if you can find chunks of your favorite wood we recommend going with them over chips.

For those with gas grills we recommend placing a handful of dry chips on a sheet of tin foil, form it into a ball and then poke holes in the foil with a thin knife. The tin foil will act as a heat sink as it dissipates heat rather well thus negating the need for soaking the chips. Place the ball right into the flames from the element. The holes in the foil will allow the smoke to escape and fill the cooking chamber. In the very near future I hope to borrow a friends gas grill and show how to use it as a smoker by using this method.

Bark or no bark. Another great debate. Some swear that bark puts off a different smoke than the wood and does not give the meat a good flavor. I have smoked with bark and without. I have never noticed any difference.

Now on to the typed of smoke woods and other smoke producers:

Acacia
These trees are in the same family as mesquite. When burned in a smoker, acacia has a flavor similar to mesquite but not quite as heavy. Acacia burns very hot and should be used sparingly.
Good with most meats, especially beef and most vegetables.

Alder
A sweet, musky smoke that is the traditional wood of the Northwest and pairs particularly well with salmon
Good with fish, pork, poultry, and light-meat game birds.

Almond
A nutty and sweet smoke flavor. Very similar to pecan
Good with all meats.

Apple
The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory. It will discolor chicken skin turning it dark brown and the favorite of myself and my fellow Grillin Fool, my cousin Tom. Dad’s second fave.
Good with all meats.

Apple on the left, cherry on the right:

Apricot
Great substitute for apple as it is also milder and sweeter than hickory

Ash
Fast burner, light but distinctive flavor.
Good with fish and red meats.

Bay
Medium floral smoke with hints of spice & cinnamon
Good with most meats and veggies.

Beech
A mild much used wood like oak.
Good with meat and seafood.

Birch
Medium hard wood with a flavor similar to maple.
Good with pork and poultry.

Blackberry
Much like the woods provided from fruit trees, the small diameter trunks of the Blackberry bush provides a slightly sweet and delicate flavor.
Good for grilling poultry and other meats, such as small game birds like grouse, pheasant, partridge, and quail.

Butternut
Strong smoke, like walnut, bitter when used alone
Good on red meats like Beef, Pork, Venison and other game meats. Can easily overpower poultry.

Cherry
Slightly sweet fruity smoke that's great with just about everything. Along with apple probably the most popular fruit wood to smoke with. Dad’s favorite and my second fave.
Good with all meats.

Smoking ribs in my Weber Kettle with cherry:

Chestnut
Slightly sweet nutty smoke flavor
Good with most meats.

Corncob
Although not considered to be a true wood, the heart of the cob that holds the kernels is the fuel section of this alternative for wood. It is ground into small granular bits that can be added to a smoking box or it can be combined with other woods such as woods from fruit trees, to impart several flavors. The Corncob provides a sweet flavor that may overpower the food if too much is used to season the food as it cooks. Begin by trying small amounts until the desired flavor is achieved.
It is often used as a smoking chip when grilling foods such as poultry, fish and small game birds.

Cottonwood
It is a softer wood than alder and very subtle in flavor. Use it for fuel but use some chunks of other woods (hickory, oak, pecan) for more flavor as it is extremely mild. Don't use green cottonwood for smoking.
Good for all smoking, especially pork and ribs.

Crabapple
Is essentially interchangeable with apple
Good with poultry, red meats, game and lamb.

Fig
Mild & fruity like mulberry
Good with all meats.

Grapefruit
Produces a nice mild smoky flavor.
Excellent with beef, pork, fish and poultry.

Grapevines
Tart. Aromatic, but can be a heavy flavor so don’t overdo it.
Use sparingly on poultry or lamb but otherwise if used in moderation is good with red meats, pork and game.

Guava
Flowery fruity taste
Good for all meats,

Hickory
The most common wood used. Sweet to strong, heavy bacon flavor. This great flavor works well with pork, ribs, hams, poultry, and beef.
Good for all smoking, especially pork and ribs.

Kiawe
Kiawe (pronounced key-ah-vey) is a wood that can is only found in one state in the U.S. Hawaii. Very hard to come by. The wood is dense with a dark thin bark. It is similar to mesquite with a sweet strong flavor
Good for beef, fish and pountry

Lemon
Medium smoke flavor with a hint of fruitiness.
Excellent with beef, pork and poultry.

Lilac
Very subtle with a hint of floral.
Excellent for smoking cheese. Good with, pork and poultry.

Maple
Mildly smoky, somewhat sweet flavor. Maple adds a sweet, subtle flavor that enhances the flavor of poultry and game birds. Smoke a pork roast with them for a sensational taste experience.
Mates well with poultry, ham, cheese, small game birds, and vegetables. Wonderful for smoked turkey!

Mesquite
Strong earthy flavor. One of the most popular woods in the country, mesquite is a scrubby tree that grows wild in the Southwest. Sweeter and more delicate than hickory, it's a perfect complement to richly flavored meats such as steak, duck or lamb. Burns hot and fast and it probably the strongest flavored wood.
Good with most meats, especially beef and most vegetables.

Mulberry
A mild smoke with a sweet, tangy, blackberry-like flavor. Similar to apple
Good with Beef, poultry, game birds, pork (particularly ham).

Nectarine
The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.
Great on most white or pink meats, including chicken, turkey, pork and fish.

Oak
Most versatile of the hardwoods blending well with most meats. A mild smoke with no aftertaste. Oak gives food a beautiful smoked color. Red oak is believed to the best of the oak varieties.
Good with red meat, pork, fish and big game.

Olive
The smoke favor is similar to mesquite, but distinctly lighter.
Delicious with poultry.

Orange
A tangy, citrus smoke. Medium smoke flavor with a hint of fruitiness. Orange gives food a golden color. Produces a nice mild smoky flavor.
Excellent with beef, pork and poultry.

Peach
Slightly sweet, woodsy flavor, milder and sweeter than hickory.
Great on most white or pink meats, including chicken, turkey, pork and fish.

Pear
A nice subtle smoke flavor much like apple. Slightly sweet, woodsy flavor.
Good on Poultry, game birds and pork.

Pecan
Sweet and mild with a flavor similar to hickory but not as strong. Tasty with a subtle character. An all-around superior smoking wood. Try smoking with the shells as well.
Good for most things including poultry, beef, pork and cheese. Pecan is the best for that beautiful golden-brown turkey.

Persimmon
A strong, sweet, and dry smoke that is popular in restaurants as it is said the dryness of the smoke increases drink orders of patrons.
Excellent with beef and pork.

Pimento
Also referred to as Allspice, Jamaican Pepper, Myrtle Pepper, or Newspice. This wood adds a natural and somewhat peppery flavor that may also include flavors of several spices combined, such as cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, similar to the flavors provided when allspice is used as a seasoning to enhance the flavor of various foods.
It is a common wood used in grilling Jamaican foods such as jerk chicken. Often used for grilling poultry and fish.

Plum
The flavor is milder and sweeter than hickory.
Good with most meats, great on most white or pink meats, including chicken, turkey, pork and fish.

Sassafras
A mild, musky, sweet smoke with a root beer aftertaste. Some say this is not a good candidate for smoking. Others love it.
Especially good on beef, pork and poultry.

Seaweed
The seaweed is washed to remove the salt and air or sun dried before use. It provides a somewhat spicy and natural flavor to the foods being smoked or grilled.
Commonly used for smoking shellfish such as clams, crab, lobster, mussels, and shrimp.

Walnut
While pecan is hickory's milder cousin, walnut is the strong one. Often mixed with lighter woods like almond, pear or apple. Intense and can become bitter if overused.
Good on red meats like Beef, Pork, Venison and other game meats. Can easily overpower poultry.

Italian Herbs
A strong smoke flavor that is completely unique! You can use fresh oregano, rosemary, thyme or any combination of them with oak wood to give zesty and robust flavors.
Especially good for lamb, pork and poultry. Good for pizza too, when you cook it on the grill.

Oriental Herbs
A strong smoke flavor with oak that's truly amazing! A blend of Sesame seeds and Ginger Root with oak wood or Mesquite gives a nice oriental BBQ flavor.
Especially good for beef, pork and poultry.

Onion and Garlic
Soak garlic chunks and/or garlic cloves in water for 60 minutes. Plop the onion and/or garlic right over the coals. Add more when smoke stops. Does not need produce a lot of smoke like typical woods but it doesn’t need to in order to add an incredible flavor to any meat.
Great with all meats, seafood and game.

Other Woods
Avocado, Carrotwood, Madrone, Manzanita, Hackberry, and willow. The ornamental varieties of fruit trees (i.e. pear, cherry, apple, etc.) are also suitable for smoking.

Wood that should not be used for smoking
DO NOT USE any wood from conifer trees, such as pine, fir, spruce, redwood, cedar, elm, eucalyptus, sycamore, liquid amber, cypress, or sweet gum trees. Cooking salmon on a cedar plank is not the same as using chunks of cedar to smoke meat.

Never use lumber scraps, either new or used. First, you cannot know for sure what kind of wood it is; second, the wood may have been chemically treated; third, you have no idea where the wood may have been or how it was used.

Never use any wood that has been painted or stained. Do not use wood scraps from a furniture manufacturer as this wood is often chemically treated.

Never use wood from old pallets. Many pallets are treated with chemicals that can be hazardous to your health and the pallet may have been used to carry chemicals or poison.

Avoid old wood that is covered with mold and fungus that can impart a bad taste to your meat.

Seafood Delight!!!

2009-03-30T10:39:00.014-05:00

Inspired by a story from someone about being in the Caribbean and having shish kababs right on the beach I decided to follow suit. He said that basically the guy glazed the kababs with butter/garlic sauce and indirected the seafood for a few minutes and then finished them over the heat with a BBQ sauce glaze. I basically followed this method without the BBQ sauce because to me with seafood, butter is all I need.

This is such a simple recipe that anyone can do it. And with Lent here it might be the perfect meal for Friday night the next couple of weeks...

Near my office in St. Louis there is an area that is as close to a China Town that St. Louis will ever have. I took a trip down Olive in University City and stepped into 3 seafood markets and one seafood restaurant. I didn't realize it was a seafood restaurant until I stepped inside.

I wound up getting the seafood for this dish at two different places. At one place I got the Shrimp, scallops and conch (this was an experiment). At another I got mahi mahi and grouper. I had planned on doing monk fish but with none to be found I went with the mahi and grouper as it looked the best.

The first place had incredible deals on shell fish including 2 pound lobsters for $14 each. That's each, not per pound!?!?! We will be doing those very soon so stay tuned. But their fish was not the freshest. It was hard to find any Grouper or Snapper that did not have their eyes clouded over which is a sure sign of the fish not being fresh. So I picked up some black tiger shrimps, U20-30 scallops (pound and a half of each or about 40 each) and 1 conch. Then I went down the street and got some wild caught gulf grouper and mahi mahi (a pound of each) . Oh, this may seem like a lot of food but I was feeding six.

To go along with the seafood I picked up two yellow peppers, a whole pineapple, and a pound of yellow squash. Yes, it's a yellow theme. Now you can use canned pineapple but fresh is so much better and so easy. Lop of the top and bottom. Slice down the sides to remove the tough exterior. Turn on it's side and cut into one inch thick slices. Cut the tough center out and chunk up. It's a little more work than opening a can, but the extra effort is well worth it.

I know people have asked me to be more quantitative with my posts with detailed recipes and cooking times, but there really is not recipe for this. Pick whatever ingredients you want. I originally wanted monk fish but couldn't find any so I went with what was available. You can do these with chicken, beef, pork, sweet onion, whole water chestnuts, zucchini, other seafood/fish, red/green/orange peppers, mushrooms, just whatever you want. Avoid potatoes (take too long to cook) and fish that is flaky like roughy. Mahi is ideal for this. The grouper started falling apart a bit as it cooked through. Swordfish, shark, monkfish are all good candidates. Just as the fish monger what s/he recommends for kababs.

Ingredients for the kababs:

1.5 pounds of shrimps
1.5 pounds of scallops
1 pound of grouper
1 pound of mahi mahi
1 pound of yellow squash
2 yellow peppers
1 whole pineapple

Feeds 6

Ingredients for the garlic butter sauce:

6 sticks of salted butter
2 large tablespoons of garlic

For braising the kababs and for dunking during the meal

Here we have some of the mahi mahi:

The scallops, fish (mahi up high in the dish and grouper down low) and black tiger shrimps. Outside of a royal reds, black tigers are pretty much the best tasting shrimp out there, but any shrimp can be used. Also remember to pull the tough muscle off the side of the scallops as demonstrated here:

And here we have the yellows - yellow squash, yellow pepper and yellow pineapple:

Here is everything together starting from the left and going clockwise - Pineapple, squash, scallops, mahi, grouper, shrimps, and yellow pepper. And don't forget the Now and Zen Wasabi White that dad brought over. Amazing wine and only $10:

Make sure to soak your skewers ahead of time or you risk them burning up on the grill. These soaked for maybe 3 hours, but an hour is about all they need:

At first I went with kababs that were a variety of all the different ingredients as seen below:

Dad pointed something out. The items on the skewer are going to cook at different rates. The veggies will take much longer than the seafood. So I took a new approach. Skewers of the same ingredient. So a few skewers of just pineapple, a few of just shrimps, etc.

An another tip from dad. Instead of going with just one skewer per kabob he recommended doing two per kabab to make it easier to flip them over. If it's just one skewer and you flip it over some pieces may rotate on the skewer so the side that was just over the heat is back over the heat again. Here is a pic of some scallop kabobs on the grill done with two skewers:

While the coals were getting going in my chimney outside I prepped the garlic butter sauce inside. I simply melted 4 sticks of butter in a pot and tossed in a couple heaping table spoons of minced garlic after the butter had boiled. I would up using another two sticks of butter after this pic was taken. I know that sounds like a lot, but a great deal of it was lost when I brushed it on the kababs. And I wanted some at the end for people to dunk their food in during the meal:

My wife made her amazing cheesy biscuits for the event. Here they are awaiting a 450 degree oven (sorry but no after pics):

I did two zone cooking for this in my large offset smoker which was used just as a regular grill here. I started off with the veggies on first indirect with lots of butter glazed on and the conch on the upper rack to the left directly over the heat. This was an experiment to see if it's any good. Didn't want to serve my guests something without knowing if it sucked or not:

The reviews were mixed on the conch. A couple of the pieces were tough. The flavor is reminiscent of lobster but it would seem that one side of the conch is tougher than the other side. The pieces cut from the upper right of this chunk below were tender, but the pieces cut from the lower left were tough. I don't know if I bought a tough one as I have never bought conch before or if they are all that way. Either way, I will revisit this again as the tender pieces were pretty good:

BTW, just to give you a little idea as to the conditions for the grilling - that blizzard that hit Denver was on its way and we were grilling on my front porch in the rain at about 35 degrees. Overnight we got 2 inches of snow on March 28th:

After about 30 minutes of indirecting the veggies and the three skewers that I did the hodgepodge of ingredients I put the kababs over the direct heat to finish them up. The peppers went first and are on the upper rack on the right in the pic below to make room for the squash. I liberally applied the butter/garlic sauce every time I opened the lid to every kabab. I also had to add charcoal a couple of times to keep the temp up so keep that in mind:

Another little treat for the chefs. Pineapple on the grill is absolutely incredible. The last slice of pineapple I left whole so it could be grilled for dad and I to have a snack (we call this a chefs prerogative. Other good candidates for this are rib tips, chunks of a smoking bologna chub, and any pork product used to braise meat like bacon, salami or pepperoni):

The three kababs with the hodgepodge of ingredients were sent inside as an appetizer and the veggies to a baking dish covered with some tinfoil. Since the biscuits were in the oven, I had to rewarm the veggies right before dinner by placing the baking dish right over the fire for about 3 minutes.

Now on to the main event - the seafood as well as the pineapple. I indirected the seafood for just a few minutes (maybe 5) and then put them right over the heat. While the seafood was indirecting I had the pineapple on the upper rack directly over the heat. Here we have a shot of the seafood right after I put it over the heat:

I doesn't take long for seafood of this size (namely chunked up fish) to cook. For the fish, once the grouper started to flake off a bit the fish was done. When the shrimps turns orange and firms up they are done. Another feature of black tiger shrimp is they turn much brighter orange than any other shrimp. And when the shrimp are done, small U20-30 scallops are done as well. Just look for them to firm up a bit. Scallops really only need about 2 minutes per side over medium high heat to be done depending on the size. And remember that it is perfectly acceptable to serve scallops medium rare and over cooking them makes them rubbery so make sure to lean towards undercooking when dealing with scallops.

Here we have a closeup of the those beautiful shrimps:

And here we have the seafood on a platter ready to be passed to the people at the table:

In the end we had some veggies and pineapple left but no seafood whatsoever. Kababs are a bit of work but so worth it.

A Midwestern BBQ Staple - Pork Steaks

2009-03-25T13:12:00.010-05:00

If you are not from the Midwest you are probably asking what exactly is a pork steak. Originally considered just a St. Louis thing it is now pretty prevalent throughout the Midwest due to its low price, ease of preparation, tenderness, great flavor and the vast multitude of prep options with them.

The pork steak is cut from a pork shoulder, pork shoulder butt, pork butt or Boston butt which are all the same thing. The reason a cut of meat taken from the shoulder of a pig is called a pork butt is that when meat was shipped back in the day of wooden ships this cut of meat was salted and packed into large barrels, known as butts, and bound for Boston. The shipping barrel was known as a butt and pork shoulders were shipped in them (often to Boston) and eventually adopted the container name as well as the destination city.

A pork steak can be prepared in a multitude of ways. It can be marinated, rubbed, brined prior to grilling. It can be rubbed, sauced, left naked, smoked, indirected or grilled directly during the grilling process. It can be made spicy or sweet or salty. One of my favorite ways of cooking these is indirect with nothing more than salt and black pepper. The most common method of grilling pork steaks is to slather them in your favorite BBQ sauce. Another beautiful thing about pork steaks is they hold up well for large groups in that they can be stacked up deep in a disposable aluminum pan, slathered in sauce and kept warm and tender for hours.

For this post it will be a tag team between my Dad and my Cousin. Dad will go over exactly how to get a pork steak in areas that carry pork shoulder/butts but don't have pork steaks and Tom will go over one of the many ways to cook pork steaks....

What’s a ‘Pork Steak’?

Outside of the Midwest region of the country (where pork steaks are an extremely popular grilling staple) they aren’t well known and retail grocers do not offer this particularly tasty cut of pork. My cousin, Carol, lives in Maryland and has used the information provided here to obtain pork steaks in her area where they are not normally available. You can obtain them most everywhere if your local purveyor handles ‘Whole Boston Butt’ or ‘Pork Butt Roast’ or any of the myriad of other names such as the 'Pork Shoulder Butt' shown below:

Pork steaks are also known as ‘Blade Steaks ‘ and simply put, Pork Steaks are merely a sliced Boston Pork Butt.

I visited a local Save-a-lot Food Store (known for value, quality, and low prices) where the head meat-cutter, Mike, agreed to assist in illustrating how Pork Steaks are cut:

This is what the Whole Butt looks like prior to Mike performing his craft with this tasty cut:

Mike trims the end and any excess fat to fit the steaks to the tray used to sell at retail :

The Boston Butt is sliced into steaks (usually ½” to 1 1/4” thickness) on the saw:

Mike does not slice the whole butt into pork steaks. He saves a portion of one end to sell as a small roast (the back of the pic below) and sells the small end pieces as 'Finger Ribs,' which Mike thinks are the tastiest part, (the front of the pic below). What's in the middle of the two are known as ‘Center Cut Pork Steaks.’ Some grocers slice the entire Butt and that’s referred to as ‘Whole Butt Sliced into Pork Steaks’ and usually offered at a lower retail price since the end pieces are included:

Finally we have view of what the end product looks like before wrapping, pricing, and offering for sale in the display case - small roast on the upper left, finger ribs on the upper right and center cut pork steaks down the middle:

Our thanks to Mike who is a very accomplished griller in his own right (and a pretty good Texas Hold ‘Em player) for helping out with the explanation of what exactly is a pork steak.

Hopefully you’ll be able to take this information to your local butcher (careful here, they usually prefer to be called meat-cutters!) and obtain Pork Steaks in your area. Watch your local ads for the roasts to be on sale to save a few dollars during these difficult economic times and approach your retailer then. I’ve had them many ways—thick-thin-marinated-glazed-simmered in sauce and so forth and they are always enjoyable.

**Editor's note - now Tom takes over with the cooking of the amazing pork steak**

For a very long time I did not realize that bar-b-que pork steaks were a regional treat. That is until I moved a few states away and the butcher had no idea what I was trying to purchase. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of enjoying a pork steak slow cooked on the grill and slathered in BBQ Sauce, I hope that you will try this and enjoy!

This is a dish I have spent many years trying to perfect. My father-in-law was the master of bar-b-que pork steaks and he set the bar very high. I have cooked these many times and my wife finally told me these are as good as her dad used to make.

A pork steak is just a whole pork butt sliced into steaks (bone in). I typically ask the butcher to slice the pork butt approximately 1 1/4" thick (they shrink a little when fully cooked).

The first step is to use our standard rub consisting of onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper, raw sugar and ground red pepper. Click here to see the exact measurements. Rub generously onto the steaks and place into ziploc bags and refrigerate three hours to overnight.

Ready to go on the grill the next day:

Grill is ready:
I cooked these on the Big Green Egg, but you can do this on any grill. I like to start with the coals medium-hot to quickly sear the steaks:

Then close off the air flow to the grill so that the temp drops to a medium-low heat (approximately 250 degrees). Then continue to grill the pork steaks, turning occasionally for approximately ninety minutes:

**Editor's note - cooking time will vary from grill to grill as well as based on the thickness of the pork steak. These are pretty thick. Most of the time pork steaks are cut an inch thick or less and need much less cooking time. The good news is practicing on pork steaks to perfect them does not cost a lot**

During the last 20 minutes of cooking, brush bar-b-que sauce onto the steaks (10 minutes on each side):

So far, I have not been too impressed with bottled bar-b-que sauce. We usually purchase the bottled kind and doctor it up a bit. Here is my recommendation.

KC Masterpiece Bar-B-Que Sauce
1/2 onion finely chopped
1/2 fresh jalapeño pepper finely chopped (ribs & seeds removed)
1 stalk celery finely chopped
1 clove garlic minced
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 dark beers (one for the sauce and one for the cook)

Saute the onion, jalapeño and celery until tender and slightly caramelized. Add the garlic and continue to cook for another minute or two. Add the brown sugar and stir until incorporated, then slowly stir in the beer. Cook over low heat for thirty minutes.

Along side the pork steaks we did some crostinis:
1 loaf french bread in 1" slices
olive oil
minced garlic
muenster cheese, grated (or your favorite cheese, creamy cheeses that melt well work best)

Turn the bread in the olive oil so there is a light coating on both sides. Spread minced garlic on one side of the bread. Grill until golden brown on both sides, then top with grated cheese and continue grilling until melted. These are a great appetizer or served along with the meal.

**Editor's note - for step by step instructions on cooking crostinis click here. Also, the basic process outlined here and in the link is an original recipe of the grillin fool. There are many variations but the concept is an original of mine and one of my favorite things to do on the grill and is always a crowd pleaser**

And here is the final product plated and ready to eat:

**Editor's note - Awesome job Tom. Can't wait to have these at the next big family function. Maybe my house on Mother's day?**

Mediterranean Feast - Lamb and Couscous

2009-03-20T16:03:00.011-05:00

Yes I know I have a lamb addiction but I can't help it. It's just that good. And with any new thing I come across I have to share it with Dad. So he and I did guy night again, but this time with a Mediterranean theme. Grilled French Cut Lamb Chops on top of a bed of Couscous. I cannot come close to expressing in words how good this stuff is but hopefully my words and a few pics will help convey the message...

To start I picked up two packages of French Cut Rib Racks from the local Sam's:

Each package contains two half racks:

I was looking at the skin along the meaty side of the racks and thought it looked like silver skin from a loin which is very tough. I decided to remove it from one of them to see if it made a difference:

Don't worry about this. It made no difference at all. Skip this part.

I did two different marinades - red wine/honey mustard/fresh rosemary and basil pesto/garlic - as I have done before to see which one Dad liked better. The ingredients for both marinades are below:

For the red wine/rosemary marinade I combined:

1 half cup of honey mustard
1 quarter cup of red wine
2 teaspoons of rough chopped fresh rosemary (You can use dried rosemary but use less as dried herbs are more potent than fresh herbs)
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
3 turns of a pepper grinder

If marinating more or less lamb just keep the mustard to wine ratio at 2:1. You can add more or less rosemary or garlic as you feel appropriate according to your taste.

Since I let my rosemary bush die (sad) I had to buy some from the store. I'm not someone who stresses about organic products but it was all they had that was fresh. As you can see below the rosemary was quite woody so the stem could not be used for this:

Peal the leaves off:

After a quick rough chop the rosemary is ready for the marinade:

Now combine the rosemary with the mustard/red wine/garlic concoction and whisk or fork to mix well. I realize the color and consistency of this is not the most appetizing, but have a little faith and you will be blown away:

The other marinade was simply enough of the pre-made pesto to coat each side of each half rack and a teaspoon of garlic per side per rack as well. I ran out of gallon ziplocks so I had to marinade those two separately. Place the lamb in the bag, spoon in the garlic and pesto to each side, close ziplock and smoosh (yes, that's a technical term) the pesto around to get complete coverage. The mustard marinade is much less dense and will coat much easier:

Put these in the fridge for a few hours up to 24 hours. These were done overnight.

The next day I pulled the lamb from the fridge and let them come up to temp in the kitchen while I prepped the grill and lit the charcoal:

While the charcoal was lighting Dad and I were partaking in a little vino. Rombauer merlot for during the meal as lamb is not a very overpowering meat and neither is merlot in terms of wine so they pair nicely together. We got into the Water Wheel Shiraz after dinner during the Dark Knight but did not finish it. That stuff is stellar but maybe a little too bold for Lamb. Oh, and both bottles were provided by Pappy:

Again, two zone cooking, coals on the left nothing on the right. Normally when I do lamb I put the fat part of the lamb rack over the heat with the skinnier part (closer to the bones) towards the edge so that the skinny part does not overcook. Well, as you can see below I did not have enough room on my Weber for that so the thickest one went right over the coals with the other three conforming to my usual method:

As you can see below the one right over the heat cooked the fastest and was flipped first:

In order to keep the heat away from the thinner part of the rack I propped the meat up against the other rack with the mustard/red wine marinade:

All I'm looking for is a nice char to the lamb. The lamb will not be finished over the high heat. I want to caramelize and char those amazing marinades onto the outside of the meat.

The two marinades provide two little snags when cooking due to their nature. The honey mustard marinade has a lot of sugar in it so it will blacken more quickly than the pesto marinade. A little blackening is OK. Just be mindful not to let it burn.

The pesto marinade represents its own problem. It has a lot of oil in it and can easily cause flare ups in the charcoal so you need to keep an eye on it and rearrange accordingly so that the pesto marinated lamb does not burn.

Once all 4 racks have a nice char Ipulled them from the heat and put them on the side with no coals. If one half rack is nicely charred, then pull it to the side while the rest get to that point. This does not have to happen all at once.

Make sure to put your largest racks to the outside, closest to the heat, and close the lid:

They baked about 250-275 for about 15 minutes. Since they were touching they insulated each other. If I were doing just two half racks and had room for them to be apart I probably would've only needed about 10 minutes.

In the mean time, time to make the couscous. First off, couscous is a grain. Do not look for it in the pasta aisle as I did. It's with the rice. Pine nuts are in the baking aisle with the other nuts.

Ingredients:

1 ten ounce box of regular couscous
1 three ounce package of pine nuts (could use two of these if you really like pine nuts)
1 32 ounce container of chicken stock
1 tablespoon of minced garlic
Couple turns of black pepper

Put a little olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Put in the pine nuts:

As the nuts start to brown add the garlic, shaking the pot periodically to rotate the nuts so they don't burn:

Once 1/2 to 3/4 of the pine nuts are browned add the chicken stock. If you wait any longer you risk burning some of them. Bring to a boil:

Once it comes to a boil, stir in the couscous:

Remove from heat and cover. Every couple of minutes stir up the mixture. In around 5 minutes the stock will be completely absorbed. Remove the lid, stir up again a couple of times to fluff and it is ready to serve. At this point I put the lid back on to keep warm until my lamb was ready.

And here is that lamb inside resting for about 5 minutes:

Here we have it plated on a large scoop of couscous:

Dad preferred the pesto marinade just slightly over the honey mustard. I'm the opposite. Wanna know how much he liked it? He cooked it for mom about 3 days later. This stuff is a sure fire home run.

I realize that french cut lamb rib racks are not cheap. These ran about $10 per half rack. But if you have a special occasion and want something that is low risk with very high reward I highly recommend this...

Roast Beef on the Grill?

2009-03-16T16:12:00.010-05:00

Been to the grocery store lately? Have you seen the astronomical cost of lunch meat these days? What used to be $5/pound is now $9/pound. Roast beef is just plain ridiculous these days. What if you could make your own roast beef for under $3/pound? It's really not all that hard. Think I'm kidding? My cousin Tom did it and will show you how you can do it too. Click below to find out just how incredibly easy it is...

Last weekend I cooked a 15 pound top round roast. The rub is pretty standard in my kitchen with slight variations based on what is in the pantry.

The Rub
2 Tbs onion powder
2 Tbs garlic powder
1 Tbs kosher salt
2 Tbs ground pepper
1 tsp red pepper
1 Tbs raw sugar

I massaged the rub into the roast and placed it back into the refrigerator overnight.

The next day get the grill going:

I set up the BGE for indirect cooking and this can also be done on a standard grill. On the BGE this means filling coals to the top of the fire ring, then the place setter goes on top of the fire ring. **Editor's note - for those of us mortals that do not have the amazing egg, the fire ring acts as a heat shield so that the meat can be placed directly over the coals without cooking the meat directly** To accomplish on a standard grill build the fire as usual, then place the coals around the perimeter of the grill with a drip pan in the center. You will need to add coals and monitor the temperature when using a standard grill.

**Editor's note - for beginners, it might be easier to maintain consistent temps by putting coals on one side of the grill. Placing them around the edge will be get better heat distribution but will require more maintenance than putting the coals to just one side. In a smaller grill like a Weber it would be prudent to use a heat shield. To do so place the meat in a double layer of high sided disposable aluminum pans with holes poked in the bottom through both pans to allow the fat to drain. If the grill is a wider, rectangular grill the aluminum pan/heat shield may not be necessary**

Place the roast, fat side up on the grill and cook at 225 to 250 degrees for five hours or until internal temperate of roast is 150 for medium rare.

Let the roast rest for 15 to 20 minutes, then slice and enjoy.

Cooking time and resting time should be reduced with a smaller roast.

**Editor's note - I told you it was easy. The biggest cut of meat to date on the site yet the shortest write up.

Offset/Horizontal Smoker Modifications

2009-03-16T14:53:00.012-05:00

Do you have a grill like the one above? These are commonly called Horizontal or Offset Smokers. These types of grills have some advantages over the vertical smokers in that they can be used as a large standard grill by just using the large cooking chamber to grill food over coals. So if you want a smoker that will allow you to also grill burgers and brats for 20 an Offset is the way to go. Vertical smokers have an advantage in that they hold the temp much more constant and thus make them easier to use when smoking for long periods of time.

Would you like the best of both worlds? Would you like an offset that will keep the temp more constant and even rival the consistency of the vertical smokers as well as have that large cooking area if needed? Would you like the temp on one side not be as much as 100 degrees different than the temp on the other side? Would you like the thermometer in the middle of the grill be at least somewhat accurate which is impossible when the thing is assembled out of the box due to the temperature fluctuations from left to right.

With less than $30 in materials you can do all of that. Click below to see how I did it.

The first mod I did to my grill was for the rotisserie attachment that is available for the Chargriller Smoker pro that I have and is in the picture at the top of this post. While the website does not say that the rotisserie really isn't designed for a grill with a fireside box, a couple of quick modifications solved this problem. One thing, you will need a Dremel or some other device that will grind metal. Dremels are not all that expensive and are extremely handy around the house so go get one.

The main problem with the rotisserie and the firebox is that the bracket that holds the rotisserie motor is supposed to go on the side with the firebox. With the firebox attachment there the bracket must go over to the side with the shelf. But the shelf does not leave enough room for the bracket. The shelf has three slats. Removing the slat closest to the grill makes room for the bracket. Makes the shelf a little smaller but you will survive. Here is a shot of my two slat shelf and the bracket in place:

The next problem is that the bracket props the lid up quite a bit. Doesn't allow the lid to close all the way. The handy dandy Dremel made quick work of this problem by grinding the bracket down a bit to make room for the lid to sit down completely. Make sure to wear eye gear and take all necessary precautions when grinding metal. Sparks will fly:

Here is the lid now sitting flush:

OK now on to the first modification to get the temp stabilized and evenly distribute the smoke. The problem with the firebox design is all the heat is concentrated right next to the firebox. Temp gauge on the grill might read 200, but it could be close to 250 next to the box and close to 150 on the other side. That heat cooks the meat on the right much faster than that on the left. Constant jostling of meat location will help offset that but that requires opening the lid numerous times and thus allows that great smoke to escape as well as the heat. Frequently opening the lid on the cook chamber will make cause the meat to take much longer to cook.

Time to install a baffle between the firebox and the main chamber. The baffle performs two tasks. First it shields the meat closest to the firebox from the direct heat from the fire. Aluminum is not a great conductor of heat and thus it acts as a heat sink between the fire and the meat. To do this I bought a disposable aluminum high sided pan that can be found at any grocery store. The sides are about 4 inches tall. I cut the pan essentially in half at a 45 degree angle. The angle of the cut goes along the bottom of the grill. The sides of the pan cover the hole between the firebox and the main chamber. This does not look pretty, but the inside of a BBQ rarely does if it has been used at all:

Here is a shot of the baffle from inside the firebox. You can see the small gap along the bottom which forces the fire down to the bottom of the chamber which is the second task the baffle performs:

Why is it a good idea to push the smoke down along the bottom of the chamber? Simple. Without the baffle the smoke rises out of the firebox, heads straight up and then travels the length of the chamber along the roof and exits the chimney. Everything right next to the firebox cooks faster and gets more smoke but requires constant jostling of the meat to get everything done at the same time. Two disposable aluminum cookie sheets, along with the baffle resolve this problem.

Take the two sheets and poke holes in them with a sharp. pointy knife. Here is the underside of one of my cookie sheets. As you can see the smoker gets a lot of work since the cookie sheet has a smoke ring!?!?!

Place the two cookie sheets sideways across the bottom of the chamber side by side with the edge of one being over part of the baffle:

The smoke is forced down by the baffle and under the cookie sheets. The smoke escapes from under the cookie sheets evenly throughout the chamber rather than just on the side with the firebox and along the roof. This is a pic of my first smoke after I made this mod and I was blown away by the results:

The smoke/heat baffle made the temp much more consistent throughout the chamber as well as the smoke distribution but it came with one downside. While the built in thermometer is much more accurate now that I made this modification, the temp is much lower. I was forced to start using lump charcoal to get the temp in the cooking chamber hot enough to smoke ribs for say 6 hours. And I was going through a ton of charcoal.

The firebox on this grill does not do a good job of keeping the main chamber hot. See the charcoal essentially sits in it's own ash and chokes the fire out the longer the session. I tried a couple of things that did not work or were dangerous. Finally I bought this at Lowe's:

How does one use a veggie grill basket in an offset smoker to increase the temp in the main chamber? Well this mod requires some mods to the basket before it will modify the grill. See, even without the handle (which detaches easily) the basket is too big for the firebox:

On the right it is being held up by the metal lip over the ash drawer:

And on the left side the other end of the basket is being propped up inside the cooking chamber:

So out comes the Dremel again:

In a matter of a couple of minutes, the wire metal arc is no longer attached to the basket:

And a few more minutes later the metal wire arc on the other side is gone too:

Now I have a metal basket but I need to elevate it off the bottom of the chamber to eliminate the problem with ash build up squelching the heat of the fire. Four 1.25 inch screws, some hex nuts and some washers solves that problem:

Place the screws, washers and nuts at the four corners of the basket near the bottom and now the grill basket is suspended over the ash drawer:

Here is a shot of from where the ash drawer would normally be showing how much space I now have between the bottom of the basket and the firebox. The coals will now be safely elevated above the ash:

If the ash does build up and gets close to the bottom of the basket with this grill I can simply slide out the ash drawer, dump the ashes, and reinsert the ash drawer.

Now one final mod. In order to keep the smoke from escaping out of the chimney too quickly I have extended the bottom of the chimney down to close to the top of the grill grates/cooking surface. This way the smoke cannot simply rise up and evacuate the chamber. The smoke needs to come back down to find the exit through the chimney and consequently pass over the meat a second time. With this model all I needed was a three inch diameter flexible aluminum duct that cost all of about $8:

Since the bottom of the chimney is nearly exactly 3 inches I broke out the Dremel yet again (See how handy this thing is) and cut a slit straight down at the top of the duct in order to get the duct around the chimney base:

Then I attached the end with the slit around the base of the chimney at the roof of my cooking chamber:

I stretched and bent the piece of duct around the raised shelf in the back of the cooking chamber on this model and cut off the the rest of the duct leaving the bottom just about an inch above the top of the grill grates:

Here is the grill lid being propped open by the Dremel to get a shot of how close the chimney comes to the top of the grill grates when the lid closed:

Next up: Covering the holes created for the rotiserrie with some sort of flange to seal them when not using the rotisserie:

Also, I may look at going reverse flow and actually moving the chimney to the side closest to the firebox and forcing the smoke to travel the length of the chamber along the bottom and then up and back across the meat. But that is an entirely different animal as it requires a cutting torch and some welding skills two things I do not have. That is for another post if my $30 mods are not enough.

How to tell when a steak is done?

2009-03-12T13:01:00.015-05:00

Many people have asked me to be more quantitative in the posts I put on this site. I've been asked to give more exact times, temps and amounts. My Dad and Cousin are much better at this than I am. This is a hard thing for me. I don't cook with recipes generally. I use a recipe once and then it's sort of committed to memory. I don't use meat thermometers. I decide when a piece of meat is done based on feel and practice. I don't measure things out when I am making a rub or a marinade. And therein lies a problem - How do I teach feel to someone else?

For the most part I can't. So I need to be more diligent in my prep work. I need to actually find the measuring cups and spoons that I'm pretty sure are in my kitchen somewhere and measure out my ingredients to be relayed to you through this site in a more quantitative manner.

While for the most part I cannot teach feel there is something I can teach in terms of feel and that is how to tell a steak is done without a meat thermometer or slicing into it. It is said that there are only two ways to tell if a snake is poisonous in the United States - if it's got a rattle or if it's got fangs. Finding out if a snake is poisonous using the latter method is akin to slicing into a steak on the grill to see if it's cooked properly. By the time you know it's too late!!!

So if you are cooking steaks for 6 people and only have one meat thermometer how can you tell how all six steaks are cooked to the proper doneness? Simple. Just use the thumb method:

Click below to see the thumb method in action...

What is the thumb method? The thumb method is so simple you will wonder how you had never heard of it before. Simply touch the tip of your forefinger to the tip of your thumb to make the OK sign.

Now pinch the meaty part of the thumb close to the palm and wrist:

See how spongy that is? Take your tongs and push on the top of the steak in the middle (do not squeeze the steak as it will not give the same results). When a steak is as spongy as this it is rare.

Now touch the tip of your middle finger to the tip of your thumb:

Again, squeeze the meaty part of the thumb by the palm and wrist:

The meaty part of the thumb is a little more firm that it was when you were touching your forefinger to your thumb right? A steak that is about as firm as the meaty part of your thumb here is medium rare.

Now touch the tip of your ring finger to the tip of your thumb and squeeze the meaty part of the thumb:

The meaty part of the thumb is a bit firmer yet again, right? That is the equivalent of a steak that is medium.

Now touch the pinky to the thumb and squeeze the meaty part of the thumb:

That is the equivalent to a medium well steak.

Since the vast majority of us are out of fingers at this point how do you tell if a steak is well done? For that just squeeze the sole of your shoe. When it is that consistency it is well done!?!?

So take your tongs and give the steak a little push to see how spongy or firm it is. The firmer it is the more done it is. It's just that easy.

A Taste of Jamaica ~ Jerk Chicken, Rice and Beans, Braised Kale with a Jamaican Rum Dessert

2009-03-09T13:51:00.016-05:00

This is the first contribution from the newest Grillin Fool, Tom. Tom has been getting a boatload of use out of the mother of all grills - The Big Green Egg - and it seemed only fitting that he join the Grillin Fools family. So click below to see how this island adventure can be captured no matter where you are...

For the first time in more than a decade my wife and I did not take our annual February vacation in the Caribbean. So to help overcome the winter blues we decided to create a meal with the flavors of our favorite destination ~ Negril, Jamaica. Jerk Chicken with all the trimmings including rice & beans alongside some braised kale. And of course some good Appleton Jamaican Rum.

The first step is the marinade for the chicken. This is best marinated overnight, but if you are not the type to plan ahead no worries mon. This will still be good if you marinate for at least three hours.

Jerk Chicken - The Marinade
1 large onion
2 cloves garlic
2 Scotch Bonnet Pepper (if you can't find this at your grocery use a fresh jalapeño)**
1 Tbs allspice
1 1/2 tsp ginger
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp dried thyme
1 Tbs brown sugar
1/2 cup white wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup dark rum
juice from one fresh lime
juice from one fresh orange

One chicken butterflied or chicken pieces

**Note well: For a spicy recipe keep some or all of the ribs and seeds from the scotch bonnet or jalapeño, otherwise remove all the ribs and seeds. Also, the spice combination might sound a little strange, but trust me when this hits the grill you won't believe how amazing it smells!

Combine all of the above ingredients (except for the chicken) in a food processor or blender and pulse until smooth. Rub marinade into chicken pieces and place into ziploc bags. Marinate in refrigerator at least three hours (overnight is best).

The last time I made this I butterflied the chicken, but this time we had some leg and thigh quarters and that is what we used. Either the butterflied chicken or pieces will work, just use real bone-in chicken.

As Scott mentioned in a previous post - "I am the Egg-man" and like to cook on my Big Green Egg so that is how I cooked this chicken. However any grill can be used, you just want to cook it low and slow. I recommend approximately 300 - 325 degrees for approximately 60 to 90 minutes. I am a fan of natural charcoal, not the perfectly square pressed stuff you typically find in stores. **Editor's Note - Regular charcoal briquettes are perfectly fine for this recipe. Tom has become a fan of the natural or lump charcoal once he got a BGE that recommends against using standard charcoal briquettes in the BGE. Regular briquettes may actually lend themselves more to slow and low process like this as lump charcoal tends to burn faster and hotter than regular briquettes**

And I use the charcoal chimney to start my fire as I am not a fan of the taste of lighter fluid.

**Editor's note - most Jerk recipes have some sugar involved which burns rather easily so some blackening of the chicken is to be expected and in fact adds to the flavor. But if you are turned off by the blackening you can remove the brown sugar and replace it with Turbinado Sugar or Sugar in the Raw**

My lovely wife prepared the braised kale and the rice & peas - this is her spin on a Jamaican staple.

Rice & Peas
1 cup white rice (not the fast cooking kind)
1 can kidney beans, drained (fresh red peas are used on the island)
2 cloves garlic
1 uncut Scotch Bonnet Pepper (again use fresh jalapeño if you can't find Scotch Bonnet)
1/4 cup sliced leeks
3/4 cup coconut milk
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tsp dried thyme (or 2 sprigs fresh)

If you have not cooked with leeks before, give them a try. They are milder and smoother than onions. However, they come with a little sand / dirt embedded. So cut off the ends of the leek (discard the ends) and cut into thin slices. Pull the rings apart and place into a bowl of water and swoosh it around in order to remove any sand or grit from the leeks. Then remove the leeks and drain on paper towels.

The coconut milk is a little different too. We buy it in a can and it is somewhat solid when opened. Pour the coconut milk into a bowl and stir until the solids and watery portions are smooth before measuring out for this recipe. The coconut milk adds a nice creaminess to the recipe so I really encourage you to try it.

Crush garlic and add to boiling chicken broth. Add coconut milk, salt, pepper, thyme, leeks, beans, rice and uncut pepper to the chicken broth. Cover and reduce to a simmer for approximately 30 minutes (depending on the rice you use). Because the pepper is uncut, the rice will have the flavor of the pepper without being overly spicy.

Braised Kale
Okay, so this may not be a caribbean recipe. But we needed something green so went to this hearty, southern soul-food.

1 Tbs olive oil
2 slices bacon
1 pound kale
1/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup leeks
fresh nutmeg (just two swipes over the microplane)
salt & pepper to taste

Saute the bacon in olive oil until almost crisp, then add leeks and cook a few more minutes until they are tender:

While the bacon and leeks are cooking the kale needs to be prepped. The thick rib that runs through each leaf needs to be removed from the kale (fold the leaf and remove the rib by pulling it out or cut it out with a knife):

Then roll the kale and slice into ribbons. This is not difficult and the prep of the kale takes approximately 5 minutes:

Add the kale and chicken broth to the pot, cover and cook for approximately 30 minutes. Kale is a very hearty green and takes a while to become tender. The volume will reduce by more than half when fully cooked.

Now it's time to combine the three. Here we have the chicken fresh off the BGE:

The rice and beans in the pot ready for the plate:

And all three plated:
And what Jamaican meal would be complete without some Appleton Rum?

And a bonus. To complete the meal, how about a traditional Jamaican dessert **Editors Note - Pictures to be added soon**

Rum Raisin Ice Cream with Sauteed Bananas
2 Tbs raisins
3 Tbs rum**
3 Tbs butter
3 Tbs brown sugar
1 banana sliced in half lengthwise
vanilla ice cream

Soak the raisins in rum for fifteen minutes.

Using a skillet over medium heat melt the butter, then stir in the brown sugar. When this is combined add the banana slices and cook until nicely caramelized (this takes approximately 3 - 4 minutes):

Add the raisins and rum and stir until combined:

Spoon hot mixture over vanilla ice cream, top with whipped cream and enjoy!

**Not a desert for children!

**Editor's note - glad to have you aboard Tom...as well as your lovely wife!!!

Old School Ribs - Excellent Read for Rib Novices Out There

2009-03-03T14:13:00.006-06:00

Over the weekend we celebrated the Grillin Fool's birthday with some serious grillin, chillin and poker shillin. Ribs, Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin, Grilled Beans and an entire Chub of Bologna. Dad did the ribs as well as the prep work on the Deer Tenderloin. For the ribs he didn't bother with the latest Rib crazes right now like the 3-2-1 method or trying to produce a flavor "bark" with loads of rub. This was simple, indirect grilling of ribs along with some fruit wood smoke for extra flavor. Would you believe that the smoke ring above was produced in less than 2 hours on a grill that is not a designated smoker?

This is the perfect post for those of you that have not done ribs or are new to cooking ribs. I took some pics of what to look for to figure out when your ribs are done (hint the top pic above is a good indicator). Also, for those of you without dedicated smokers this proves that you can cook some mean ribs without having to have a special grill for it. Click the link below to see what I am talking about.

It was quite a gathering at Fool’s Pappy’s house for the Fool’s birthday and what else would occur but firing up a few grills? Fool indicated he would like ribs for his big day and I obliged (since I’m the supreme griller of ribs among the Fools).**Editor's note - The other two Grillin Fools beg to differ**

Very meaty baby back ribs were obtained from a couple of local grocers and the stage was set. Five full slabs were cut into ten ½ slabs for easier handling and fitting into the rib racks on the grill. The Ribs prior to being sliced in half:

Prep was very simple but the first step is very crucial to having a good result. The ribs must be ‘skinned’. This is mandatory if you want to have tender tasty ribs. ‘Skinning’ the ribs refers to the removal of the membrane (skin) on the back or bone side of the ribs. Getting this started is sometimes difficult. I usually insert a finger between two bones at one end of the rack and work the skin loose. Occasionally a knife or opposite end of a spoon is required to get it started. I then grab a paper towel to grab the skin (it’s naturally slippery and the towel enhances the grip) and peel the skin the length of the rack as shown. Removal of the skin eliminates toughness when you bite into it and the skin really has no flavor. Removal also allows what ever dry rub used to penetrate the meat (also the wood smoke) thus enhancing flavor. For maximum flavor and tenderness, ‘skin your ribs’:

The dry rub spices were applied next with the first application being a light dusting on both sides of granulated garlic. This was followed by a light application of KC Sweet and Smoky Rub (Master Griller Steve Raichlen’s recipe with a bit less salt). The spices were then ‘patted’ into the meat and not actually rubbed. Some experts I’ve read suggest ‘patting’ the meat aids in preserving tenderness as opposed to actual ‘rubbing’. I don’t know if there is a lot of credence to this but I’ve been doing it for quite a while with good results. Utilizing a ‘light’ amount of spices enhances the flavor of the meat. Many grillers ‘cake’ the ribs to the point of obtaining an overpowering crust on the ribs. I try to avoid that. The rub was applied a few hours before the ribs hit the grill:

Did anyone notice the big candle on the platter of ribs before cooking? It was just the special touch befitting the Grillin’ Fool on his birthday.**Editor's Note - the candle would've been more recognizeable had he actually gotten the flame in the only pic he took of it**

Before using a rib rack, always spray with Pam or a similar product prior to placing the ribs in the rack. This will make cleanup later much easier:

The fire is ready on both grills and it’s time to grill. Two grills were used as half the ribs were smoked with cherry chunks and the other half with apple wood just to have bit of variety. Cooking time was approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes using the indirect method (I had the coals on the left side of the grill and the ribs on the right).

Closeup of ribs on left grill:

Closeup of the ribs on the right grill:

Notice how the ribs are staggered in the rack? The first slab is pushed farther to the back, the next farther to the front, the next farther to the back, etc? This is to allow the heat and smoke to penetrate the meat better. While rib racks allow for more ribs per square inch of grilling space, they also inhibit the permeation of smoke and serve to insulate the ribs against each other. Staggering them like this helps to alleviate both problems.

45 minutes later the ribs on the left:

The half rack in front is cooking at a much faster pace than the rest of the ribs. Time to rearrange:

Not only did I put the half slab that was cooking too fast to the back, I turned the other ribs to be perpendicular to the heat and put some space between the slabs to allow the smoke to circulate in and around them better - basically the theory of staggering them taken a bit farther with the extra room in this rib rack. Here we have a shot that shows how much room there is between them:

And while that half slab that was on front was cooking faster than the other four, the ribs on the other grill were cooking faster as well, but not as quickly of the darkest slab in the pic above:

A pic from above even shows a slight bit of meat separating from the bone:

**Editor's note - Some are going to ask at what temp the grill on the right was cooking at. Well that's a little tough to tell. Here is a shot of the grill on the right with the lid closed:

And here is a close up of the thermometer:

good luck checking the temp on that thing.

Here is the grill on the left:

And the temp on the side with the coals:

And the temp on the side with the ribs:

The true temp of the Brinkmann is somewhat higher than these thermometers indicate considering the cold weather we were grillin in. The Brinkmann was probably over 250 and the old Charbroil on the right was hotter than that. Probably at the 275-300 range on the side with the coals.

Wish I had some solid numbers here. This was my fault. I forgot my remote thermometer**

30 minutes later (75 minutes in) ribs on the left along with the Chub of bologna and the beans (more on those later):

Those are coming along nicely but the ones on the right are doing even better:

This pic is a bit dark so I hope you can see the meat pulling back from the bone. This is what you are looking for:

20 minutes later (95 minutes into the process) the ones on the right are looking fantastic. Meat is really pulling away from the bone:

10 minute later (105 minutes in) I pulled them out of the rib rack to get this pic before taking them inside:

I took the half racks above along with the the half rack that was cooking too quickly from the left grill and placed them into disposable tin trays with a little beer in the pan and foil on top and into a 150 degree oven to keep warm:

The other slabs were placed over on the grill to the right in order to finish up as that grill stayed hotter than the Brinkman. Those 4 slabs took about a total of 2 hours.

When served the knife went through them like they were warm butter, not falling off the bone though. Properly cooked ribs should not fall off the bone. They should maintain a texture that is pleasing, tender, and slightly chewy. Usually if you are served ribs that fall off the bone they have been cooked improperly or parboiled (ugh!). This batch came out perfect as many of the guests that night exclaimed. You may have noticed the lack of barbeque sauce. There was none offered and certainly none needed. Occasionally I will add sauce to the mix and try to ‘glaze’ a coat or two on the ribs as some prefer that addition.

Money shot: Notice the meatiness of these ribs! They were very tasty and the smoke ring was readily apparent as you can see. There were no leftovers on this evening!

**Editor's note - Excellent Job Dad!!!

Bacon Wrapped Deer Tenderloin - It just wouldn't be my birthday without something wrapped in bacon!!

2009-03-03T12:59:00.011-06:00

One of the main dishes for my birthday was bacon wrapped deer tenderloin. I've had deer in the past as I have many friends and family that are hunters, but it's always been a bit of an after thought rather than something I have taken a lot of time to prepare and cook. More like an appetizer or a chef's prerogative. This time we put some time and effort into the venison. For this dish, Dad and I did a tag team. He did the prep and I did the cooking. The outcome was pretty stellar. Click below to see the how we pulled it off...

Part I: The prep by Fool's Pappy

Whole Deer Tenderloin was generously provided by Adrian, a high school classmate of Fool’s Pappy:

Adrian is a hunter supreme with duck and deer being his specialties. We invited him to the party (he has poker fantasies!) and he volunteered this beautiful venison tenderloin.

Most wild game require a marinade of some sort and this recipe was obtained from Adrian’s acquaintance who was a previous Illinois State Game Cooking Champion. **Editor's note - I'm not exactly sure how one attains this title**

1-tbsp minced garlic

1-tsp ground black pepper

¼ cup olive oil

1 cup soy sauce (we used ‘lite’ soy sauce to reduce sodium content and it worked well)

juice from one lemon **Editor's note - when adding the juice of a lemon run the juice through your fingers so that the seeds do not make it into the marinade**

Marinade in a gallon Ziploc bag several hours or overnight (we did overnight) then remove from marinade and wrap in bacon (we just can’t stay away from that pork fat thing!).

Grill over medium hot coals till bacon is crisp.

Prep: notice the ‘silver skin’ or membrane in the picture below when the loin is turned over?

That must be removed (it doesn’t chew well and would greatly detract form the tenderness of the loin). This is no different than what is found on a pork tenderloin sometimes, or on whole beef tenderloins for that matter.

Use a sharp knife to begin the process with upward pressure on the ‘skin’. You don’t want to remove too much meat while performing this. The next few pictures will give you an idea of how to properly remove the silver skin:

Once the ‘silver skin’ is removed I sliced the loin in half to fit easily into a gallon Ziploc bag. The marinade ingredients were mixed and poured into the bag over the deer loin. Then it’s into the fridge overnight awaiting the bacon wrap tomorrow and ultimately the grill:

Adrian was kind enough to perform the bacon wrapping of the Tenderloin he was gracious enough to offer. **Editor's note - please note the lemon seeds we had to pull off the loins that wound up on the right side of the cutting board in the next three pics because Dad didn't bother with running the juice through his fingers**

Part II: The cooking by the Original Grillin Fool

By this time the sun had set and a chilly, sunny afternoon had turned into a very windy and bitterly cold evening. I loaded the grill up with more charcoal before adding the venison to the grill. Once the coals got going I added the loins directly over the heat as evidenced by the red embers visible directly below the meat:

Venison or deer should be treated just like beef in terms of cooking. Maybe cut back cooking time just a bit as there is less fat in venison but treat it like it is beef in terms of method. To that note, I cooked them over high heat and then pulled back to bake till finished. Normally I don't cook beef or venison over high heat with the lid closed as it could lead to burning the meat pretty quickly without constant monitoring particularly with bacon grease dripping down onto the fire.

But I didn't have a choice here. It was just too cold and windy to try to cook these things without the lid down. What I did to compensate is I listened closely. When I heard it flare up inside I opened the lid and moved the meat away from the flare ups. I must've done this about eight times. Once the bacon crisped on the bottom I flipped them over. Here is a close up of one after I flipped it:

The bacon unraveled a bit with all of the moving of the loins that I did. Don't let that bother you. Once the bacon was cooked I tested the firmness of the loin and it was still extremely rare. So I pulled it off to the side to bake with the lid down. But I didn't push it off to the side with no coals. I put them right on the edge of the coals. One in the front and one in the back. The other side of the grill was only running about 150 degrees. So I had to leave them right next to if not over some of the coals. About 10 minutes later they were done. The bacon was a little over done but the meat was perfect. Here they are resting (sorry about the poor lighting):

After 10 minutes of we gave Adrian the honor of slicing into those beauties. Here is the one that is a bit more done than the other - a nice medium:

And here are a couple shots of the one a little closer to medium rare. I had a hard time capturing the color of the meat. The flash washed it out but without the flash it was pretty dark. Hopefully you get the idea of how great this was:

What I would do differently? I probably should've moved the grill over to the side of the house and used the house as a wind break. Otherwise I wouldn't do a thing differently. These came out incredibly good. Everyone was surprised to find out it was venison rather than beef. There was no gaminess at all. These got nothing but raves...

Who needs Baked Beans when you can have Grilled Beans!!

2009-03-03T11:11:00.007-06:00

Baked beans have been a standard staple in terms of a side dish for BBQ seemingly forever. But why settle for baked beans? The grill is already up and running, why not use it to take baked beans to the next level. Why not impart some of that amazing smoky flavor that we so desire permeating the meat into the beans? There are a million ways to do grilled beans. This is just one of them. This is the simplest side dish. The prep time was all of 10 minutes and made a great side dish for a group of 20.

Let's start off with the ingredients. Here we have three large cans of Bush's Original Baked Beans. You can use anything here. There will be so many more flavors added that I don't bother buying something other than the original as the added flavors will overpower any specialized beans. Along with the beans there is garlic, olive oil, brown sugar, maple bacon and apple pie stuffing. That's right. Apple pie stuffing. Bear with me:

If I'm doing these for say 4 or 6 I would pick a pot with a metal handle and do all the prep in the pot and transfer it straight to the grill. But with 20 people coming over I needed something bigger to go on the grill. What I did in this pot on the stove was transferred to a double stack of a good size disposable tin tray. First things first. Throw in a little olive oil and garlic into a pot and get that garlic sweating over medium heat:

Add about a half cup of brown sugar and more olive oil as the sugar just soaked it up:

While the garlic is sauteing, as well as the sugar, chop up the apple pie stuffing into smaller chunks.

Then add the chunks to the pot to cook them down a bit:

While this is simmering I dumped the contents of the cans of beans into the disposable trays. I doubled them up to give the beans more support. After the garlic, brown sugar, apple concoction had simmered for a few minutes, I dumped them into the pan with the beans along with a healthy dose of fresh cracked black pepper and mixed it all through:

At this point I pulled out a few slices of maple bacon and sliced into one inch squares. You won't need the whole pound. This is a healthy version of the other things I normally prepare with bacon!!

I placed the bacon squares along the top of the beans but left a little space between each one so they wouldn't insulate each other and thus cook more quickly:

Depending on how much time you have you can place these directly over the heat or off to the side to slow cook. When I do ribs for say 6 hours I put them off to the side for 5 hours or so. We didn't have that kind of time so 2.5 hours on direct heat will have to do. Here are the beans next to the ribs with the Bologna Chub in the background:

Here are the beans simmering on the grill about 90 minutes later. The bacon is cooking nicely and the whole dish could be eaten at this point. But the longer they stay on the more flavors infuse into the beans:

And here are the beans ready to serve. The reason I don't use whole strips of bacon is because when they are ready to serve I just stir the bacon into the beans.

Now I will admit that I had never tried the apple pie stuffing in beans before. Normally I make this recipe exactly the same but without the stuffing. Sometimes I mince up some sweet onion, but this is usually my recipe. I had seen the apple pie stuffing on a couple of sites and decided to try it.

After the food was served and everyone was well on in tearing into their respective plates I asked the crowd for feedback. After a bit of goading I finally got a little more than, "everything is great." I had to assure them that they would not insult their hosts by giving constructive feedback. I was worried that it would be too sweet but I didn't get much of that. Even had a suggestion to add molasses next time. A couple people felt that it needed more salt. I figured the salt in the bacon would have taken care of that but maybe I need to add a pinch of salt next time. A couple people thought they were a bit thin. With a shorter cooking time the beans did not cook down as much as my usual beans do. I could've poured off a little of the sauce prior to cooking next time if I don't have as much time like I did here. So plan accordingly on that front.

What I would do differently next time:

Add a little salt. With a pan this big a pinch or two would do the trick
If I only have a couple hours of cooking time I would open the cans halfway with the can opener and pour a little of the sauce off the top using the top of the half opened can as a sieve so I don't lose any beans. If I have more than a couple hours then I skip this step and just let it cook down normally

Grilled Bologna? Not slices, an entire chub of bologna

2009-03-03T10:32:00.008-06:00

I got the idea for grilling an entire chub of bologna from Net Cooking Talk.com in the BBQ Forum. Simple enough recipe to try. Take an entire chub of bologna, slice off the bottom so it stands upright. Score the sides. Smoke/indirect for a few hours. To me, it hearkened back to college and fried bologna sammiches. This takes the fried bologna sammich to a whole other level and is so easy to do. Check the link below to see the rest...

Here we have the entire sealed chub of bologna:

Simply slice off the bottom to allow for it to stand upright:

Remove the plastic "skin" and score about every inch vertically:

Then repeat the process horizontally:

That's it. We didn't do a rub. Not salt (the sodium in this chub was off the chart), nothing. Just stood it up on the grill:

Here is where we ran into a few problems. After 45 minutes of indirect heat we were getting nowhere in terms of this thing cooking:

So I cut it in half to speed up the cooking process and scored the top of the newly sliced in half section at the top of this picture:

After another 90 minutes it was looking better but not the same as what I saw on the forum so I moved them closer to the coals on the left side:

At this time we had 20 ravenous people that had been smelling the ribs inside and ready to tear into some good Q. I didn't think these were done yet and left them on the grill. I had planned on just abandoning them for the evening, eating, and settling in for a poker game. But periodically I found myself outside throughout the night and rotated them a couple of times so they would cook evenly. The fire slowly died so they were not getting cooked quickly. About 7 hours after we put the bologna on, someone asked about it. So I went outside and pulled it in:

I got a couple of pictures and then in about 10 minutes half of that thing was gone:

People were making sandwiches, eating it in chunks, putting it on crackers. Either way, it was a big hit. We will do this again. And probably about the same way. I don't know how much of it would've been eaten with the main course with ribs, deer tenderloin, beans, and sides all available, but it made an excellent dessert!!

Things I would do differently next time:

I would do a rub on this. Nothing fancy. But I think a rub could enhance the flavor even more. And I think I would apply the rub more than once. As the crevices form as the fat renders out I would add more rub. More surface area, more flavor.

The Fool's Pappy's Inaugural Post - Rotisserized Pork Roast

2009-02-26T14:51:00.008-06:00

**Editors note - This is the first contribution by the Fool's Pappy, now a fellow GrillinFool, to GrillinFools.com. I have to say he did a phenomenal job. The grilling is the easy part. Taking pictures of the process with a crappy digital camera so that they look as good as the shot above is the hard part. If you want to read more about how he prepared and grilled what is in the money shot above please click the link below...

The roast was caught on sale at a local grocer and as you can see is ‘netted’. Occasionally this is offered in half at sale pricing and you could purchase and tie together with butcher twine yourself and save a bit of cash.

Ingredients: Pork Roast, Garlic Cloves (sliced thin), sliced Red Onion, and KC Sweet and Smoky Rub (courtesy Master Raichlen).

Prep: Once the garlic and onion were sliced and the rod inserted I then placed the garlic and onion in between the pieces of roast **Editors note - as you can see below he left the garlic and onion slices sticking out in order to show where he was able to insert them between the two roasts. After the shot was taken he stuffed them all the way into the space between the two roasts.**

And then sprinkled rub liberally all over the roast:

Grill: Stainless Steel Barrel fabricated circa 1970 by G-fool’s Grandpa Russ. Russ is no longer with us but his memory lives on each time we utilize the grill he made and passed on to G-fool’s Pappy ( to be inherited by G-fool when Pappy moves on ). Many slabs of ribs were enjoyed over the years grilled at his lakeside home. We know he would be proud to see the grill still in use and treasured by us:

Coals were prepared and a simple drip pan created from aluminum foil was placed under the roast. I guess this achieves sort of a semi-indirect method:

Smoking Wood: For this one I discovered I was out of apple chips which I normally use (good prep eh?) but decided to use a blend of soaked wood chips I had consisting of sassafras, hickory, wild cherry, and apple. The flavor was quite tasty but I still prefer apple or cherry alone. Here is the loin on the rotisserie in the grill:

Soaked wood chips were added and the lid went down. I checked it about every 30 mins. to add additional charcoal and wood chips. This left significant time to enjoy a glass or two of a nice everyday white wine I’d recently found—Wine 4 Chillin’—at World Market. Believe it or not it was a box wine and wasn’t’ bad at all. They also offer a red blend—Wine 4 Grillin’—which is really nice (we had this one super Bowl Sunday). I’ve often been a fan of 'premium’ box wines and I’ve had many disagreements with G-fool about them but he drank his share Super Bowl Sunday. **Editor's note - thanks for pointing that out dad. I'm so embarrassed**

If you’re looking for a decent wine for an outdoor event with a group and looking to keep costs down they are a great alternative. These wines will be my everyday wines at the beach on vacation this year. The portability (4 bottle equivalent per box) is an important factor. I used to haul 3-4 cases of bottles each trip for the 8-10 of us that go and that really filled up the vehicle. Some others I’ve tried that are recommended are Black Box, Hardy’s, and Trove but just remember all box wines are not created equal. Expect to pay $15-22 per box—less than that usually indicates inferior quality in my estimation (just my opinion explore for yourself).

Cooking time: An hour and 15 to and hour and a half regardless of roast size as thickness is usually about the same. I don’t use a fancy-schmancy thermometer because I know it’s what works after many efforts over the years. The roast will arrive at the plate juicy and flavorful, not dried out and tough. Hint: spray rotisserie rod with cooking spray before using to aid in cleaning later. An electrical outlet is required or proper extension cord to reach your outdoor grill. ** Editors note - many modern rotisseries are battery operated**

30 minutes in:

60 minutes in:

Ready to pull from the grill:

Roast was allowed to rest ( foil-covered to keep warmth in ) for about 15 minutes prior to carving. Cut to desired thickness for dinner serving. I usually leave remaining portion intact and slice it thin for sandwiches later or chunks for pork hash. We ultimately produced 4 meals from this roast ( depending on number of diners ). Two adults and two kids initially were fed and the remainder provided 2 batches of pork hash ( a simple recipe to follow ) and enough to slice thin for a couple of hot pork sandwiches.

And here we have the money shot:

I was going to wrap the roast in bacon but after a near heart attack from the Bacon Explosion I decided to forego that idea and stay traditional.

Pork Hash Recipe: This would be a carryover from my youth when my folks were trying to stretch their food budget. It’s very simple. Boil a few potatoes (peeled and sliced into chunks) for 10-12 minutes till fork tender. Drain water and place in a warm skillet with a few dabs of heated bacon grease (pork fat does still rule) **Editor's note - this from the guy who decided against wrapping the roast in bacon but uses bacon grease to warm the pork up** and grate fresh pepper over them. Fry the potatoes til they gain that special crispness on the outside then add pork (cut into chunks or cubes) and a cup or so of diced onion. Fry together till all is browned and serve (salt to taste). If the bacon grease is not an option for you olive oil can be substituted. This simple creation remains one of my all-time favorites.

Pork Sandwiches: This is REALLY simple. Slice remaining pork into thin slices, drop into skillet with a bit of butter or margarine, and heat till edges begin to brown. Serve on bread with your favorite condiment ( I like a little salt, pepper, and mayo on mine ).

There you have it. G-fool’s Pappy’s first solo effort. **Editor's note - and a fine effort it was**

We are now the Grillin Fools

2009-02-26T10:15:00.013-06:00

GrillinFool.com is now expanding to GrillinFools.com. That's right. Been having so much fun with this that my father and cousin want to get involved. Here we have the three fools themselves on Superbowl Sunday. Me on the right, Dad in the middle and my cousin Tom on the left. Tom seems to be a natural for this considering he has a pair of grill tongs actually embedded in his shoulder. He has a heckofa time getting through security at airports with that thing!?!

What does this mean for you? It means that there will be even more content streaming into this site that we hope can help enhance your backyard grilling experiences.

But why should you listen to us? After all we are just three idiots with a couple of grills, a digital camera, and a glorified blog. We aren't trained chefs. We've never taken a grilling class. So why should you listen to us. I'll tell you why. We've literally got decades of combined grilling experience between the three of us. That's a lot of trial and error. And hopefully we can impart some of our knowledge on you without you having to make the same mistakes we have along the way.

I thought I would go through a little history of the Three Grillin Fools so everyone can get a better idea of who we are. Click the link below for more information about us fools...

Let's start out with Tom. Phenomenal Grill man. Here he is in Michigan in the Summer of 2008 tending to some dear tenderloin and salmon caught from Lake Michigan the day before. There is no better salmon than salmon straight from the water to the grill.

Of course Tom does not normally use such a crappy grill as the one shown above. That's just what we have available to us in Michigan. Normally Tom grills on this bad boy:

Is there a sexier grill out there than the BGE? I'm not sure there is. The ultimate in set-it-and-forget-it. He can throw a pork butt on that thing, get the temp where he wants it and come back in 9 hours to a perfect pork butt. He has told me that he almost misses the little tweaking and maintenance that other grills require. He also has a standard Charbroil identical to the one my father has. Speaking of Dad. Here he is in Michigan learning from the master:

This was during the Rib Off we were having between the three of us. These succulent slabs of Tom's won:

Those don't look too bad considering the grills we had to work with huh?

Dad works his magic on three grills. This is the Charbroil both he and Tom have:

He also has this nice Brinkmann Pro that he is grilling some sliced rib eye steak for sammiches again on Superbowl Sunday:

Here is a better shot of the Brinkmann:

If you look over the shoulder of that Brinkmann in the above pic you will see a very special grill:

What's so special about this grill? The above pic was taken early in February, 2009. And here is a picture of that same grill pushed by my Grandfather...BACK IN 1985!!!

Here it is in action in 1985 being tended to by the Man himself.

The grill looks pretty good for being 24 years old right? Well, consider this, the grill was not made in 1985. No one knows exactly when it was made except for this guy:

This is my Grandfather on my Mothers side, Russ, who completely fabricated the grill from stainless steel. He is no longer with us so he can't tell us how old it is, but I know this. I am 36 years old and the Grill is older than I am. Its heritage and longevity are the reasons it's such an amazing grill.

We have Christened the grill as "The Russ." One thing the Russ will never do is rust. It hasn't in the 36+ years it has been around. I will own this grill one day and so will my son who one day, I hope, becomes the 4th Grillin Fool.

My father still has the original rotisserie that my Grandfather built the grill around and it still works like a champ. Here is my father using it in what will be his first contribution to GrillinFools.com - Netted Rotisserized Pork Roast:

This is not the only fabricated grill our family has ever made. My cousin Tom made this Bohemouth many years ago - that's him on the right (check out those socks!?!?!):

Tom basically took a 200-300 gallon metal container and converted it into a grill. This picture was taken before he added a counter weight to the lid. At the time of this pic it was a rough getting that thing open. While it was tough to get open it was great for grilling for 70-80 of your closest friends. This was taken in the late 80's at my Uncle's club house along the Illinois River about an hour from St. Louis. I'm sad to say that the flood of 1993 took the grill with it.

And finally I leave you with this pic taken in Michigan the day of the Rib Off. This is what happens when three guys who have been grillin (and chillin) all day are asked to pose for a picture. I guess we were going for some sort of Iron Chef look. All I know is my dad has the worst farmers tan on the planet!?!?!

There you have it. The Three Grillin Fools. We invite you to please come back and visit us often as we plan on adding a ton of content to this site. We hope to make this the one place you go for step by step instructions, including lots of pics and vids, of everything that has to do with outdoor cooking. We aren't there yet, but give us a few years!?!

If you have any questions about anything on this site, please, feel free to post a comment below the post. We normally get the questions answered within a day or so. Or you can email us at Scott@GrillinFools.com, Greg@GrillinFools.com or Tom@GrillinFools.com. We look forward to hearing from you..

Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin

2009-02-23T12:59:00.021-06:00

Inspired by the bacon explosion I decided to try a bacon weave wrapped around a pair of pork tenderloins tied together. As the saying goes, everything is better with bacon. I also have some pics from a fellow grillin fool who also did a bacon wrapped pork loin a few weeks ago that I had the privilege of sampling...To see pics and the write up of both, check the link below.

Having done the bacon explosion on Super Bowl Sunday and not being all that impressed with it other than the bacon on the outside I decided to try to incorporate the part I liked about the bacon explosion into something better than a sausage fatty wrapped in bacon. A buddy of mine and follower of this site did this a few weeks ago and it was outstanding and he was kind enough to share some pics of his so this is a two for one post.

First off the weather had a lot to do with the end result and even influences the loins that I bought. Usually when you buy a pork tenderloin the bag has two loins, one shorter and fatter and one longer and skinnier. Considering the temp was only supposed to get to about 35 I decided to get two tenderloin packs of similar size so that I could tie the two longer/thinner tenderloins together in order to reduce cooking time. I didn't want to spend 4 hours freezing my butt off tending to the grill so I went with smaller cuts.

Here we have the two bags of tenderloin that I bought. You can see one is 2.02 and the other is 2.05 pounds:o

Here we have all 4 tenderloins on a big cutting board. The bottom ternderloin of each pair is the shorter/thicker of the two:

Here are the two shorter thicker ones together. These two were destined for a marinade bath in a gallon ziplock and then a stay in the freezer for grilling later:

And here are the two that I planned on grilling:

I marinaded both sets of loins. As I mentioned earlier, the shorter/thicker ones went to the freezer. The others to the fridge. The marinade consisted of garlic, John's marinade and flavorizer, black and white pepper and some olive oil. Nothing acidic in this marinade. No need tenderizing the meat anymore than it already is:

The following day I pulled the Tenderloin from the fridge as well as this beauty:

Yes that giant beer has a cork:

Now that a proper beverage is on hand, time to get to the bacon weave. It's not rocket science but it takes a few minutes. Basically a typical pound of bacon has 16 slices. Lay 8 slices side by side and then interweave the other 8 slices perpendicular to the first 8 slices. In the end it should look like this:

Here are my two tenderloins ready to be tied up next to the bacon weave:

Next step is to tie the two tenderloins together. Usually each tenderloin has a fatter end and a skinnier end. Put the fat end of one tenderloin to the skinny end of the other so it is a uniform thickness throughout. To tie them together simply get some cooking twine:

The cooking twine also works wonders in tying tomato branches up to a trellis as you can see with the 'maters I grew last year. Those plants are close to feet tall. Just another reason I can't wait for the weather to warm up:

Here we have the tenderloins tied together. Normally I would add some salt to the meat right now if I were not wrapping it in bacon. Even though I used low sodium bacon it still has plenty of salt:

And here it is wrapped in the bacon weave:

I learned a little trick this last week about using a remote thermometer in a grill. I try to keep the remote thermometer as close to the meat as possible to know what temp it is cooking at. But if the thermometer touches the meat it will report a false temp as the meat will insulate the probe. Solution - stick a cork from a wine bottle onto the end of the probe. Problem solved:

You can see the temp in the picture above. The thermometer is set for beef but that doesn't matter when I'm just checking the temp of the grill and not the meat. The temp shows 73 inside the house.

And here is the bacon wrapped tenderloin on the grill with the thermometer to the side. Coals on one side the meat on the other so the meat cooks indirectly:

And from here on out I had some issues. The temp fluctuated all over the place inside the grill. From 205 to 340. What was supposed to be a cold day but not windy turned out to be a cold and windy day and thus the temperature went all over the place. So in the end I have no idea at what temp I cooked this. I indirected it for about 3 hours and the temp for a lot of that was about 280 but I'm not entirely certain.

Here is the loin an hour into the process:

And here we have about 45 minutes later. You will see that the color of the bacon has not changed much. It was at this point that I found the temp had dropped dramatically:

After I took the pic above I added more charcoal to bring the temp back up. 45 minutes later, and the sun going down, we have the bacon darkening up nicely:

At this point the tenderloin has been on for 2.5 hours. My wife was ready to eat. So I decided to speed the process up a bit and put the loin a little close to the coals:

15 minutes later I turn the loin 180 degrees so it would not burn the bacon on the one side and then pulled it off to rest:

The bacon is lookin good!!!

I let it rest for about 10 minutes and then sliced:

And here we have it plated with some candied carrots and some pasta salad:

Things I would've done to improve the process:

First and foremost I would cook the loin first and not the bacon. What I mean is I was more worried about what the bacon would look like in the resting picture than what the meat would taste like. I like Pork Tenderloin to be pink in the middle. A good medium. Pork does not have to be well done anymore. This was well done. The flavor was great but I don't prefer my tenderloin done this way. So mind the tenderloin and not the bacon. I think if I had pulled it off prior to moving it closer to the heat for that last 30 minutes it would've been perfect.
If I want the tenderloin to be medium and bacon to be done perfectly I should've gone with the thicker tenderloins. Going with the thinner pieces meant less time on the grill but it also meant that the tenderloin was done faster than the bacon. So go with a bigger tenderloins than what I went with. At least 2.5 pounds.
And finally, just because I am sick of winter and really want warm weather to do long grill sessions like this, I shouldn't force it and pick a day where the weather wreaked havoc on my grilling temp.

And now to a bacon wrapped tenderloin done to perfection. Actually it's three bacon wrapped tenderloins. Jason Butler was kind enough to provide the pictures of the process. Having gotten a chance to taste these I will say that they were done to perfection. Here are the tenderloins wrapped in bacon ready for the grill:

Jason went a little slower and lower than I did and with thicker tenderloins. He kept the temp between 200 and 250 for around 4 hours. How good do these look:

At the end he slathered a couple in sweet baby rays. The front left one was slathered with a thinner homemade sauce. Both were excellent:

And as you can see in this money shot, that is a nice shade of pink in the middle. This stuff was so good it was ridiculous.

Props to Jason for the job well done as well as some pics for the site.

Bison Steaks

2009-02-16T14:57:00.011-06:00

This is the first time I have ever done Bison steaks. I've had Bison burgers but only prepared for me at a restaurant. I'd heard good things about it and wanted to give it a try. And I have to say I was not at all disappointed. The steaks were very similar to beef but they had a heartier consistency than beef. And despite having very little fat they were just as good if not better than beef in terms of flavor. For the rest of the pictures and the write up click below...

I want to start with a little about Bison before I go any farther. First off, Bison is not cheap. I bought two Rib Eye steaks at $18.99/pound. Second, the steak is very lean. There was very little marbling if any in these steaks. The NY Strips had a little marbling but were and extra $1/pound. They say that the lack of marbling is due to the Bison being grass fed over corn fed like most of the beef we buy, but I don't know if that's true. I want to apologize for not getting some pics of the meat before I threw it in a marinade. I was distracted when I got home and was prepping them for the following evening and totally forgot to get some pre shots.

Here are the steaks after I pulled them out of the marinade. Decent size but if you have been here before you know these pale in comparison to some of the other monsters I have done on this site:

The marinade was as simple as can be. Garlic, fresh ground black pepper, and this marinade:

I gotta say I like this stuff. It's milder than Andria's so I didn't feel the need to cut it like I do Andria's with coke or oil. It has much less sodium than Andria's as well. I'm gonna add this to the repertoire as a regular. Expect to see more of this stuff on this site.

One thing I was disappointed in was the wine:

The Gallo Reserve stuff is really good normally. And this got a 90 point rating and was only about $11. I was very excited. Love to find good 90+ pointers for $10. But I gotta wonder if they got the labels mixed up with a batch of merlot. Zin is supposed to be meaty, spicy, hearty. This was very smooth and velvety, which is all well and good if one is drinking a merlot. I wanted something to stand up against the Bison. This was not it. I wonder if somewhere there are people drinking a Gallo Reserve Merlot and wondering why it is so spicy?

People ask me all the time how I know when the coals are ready to dump. Well when doing steaks the cook time is only a few minutes of searing and a couple of minutes of baking, if necessary. So you don't need to save the charcoal for a long grill session. You want hot and fast not slow and low so no need to save the charcoal. So when the charcoal chimney looks like this you are ready to go:

After dumping the coals you can see that they are ready to go for a high heat sear. This is a HOT fire:

Same as always, coals on one side for the searing. No coals on the other side for the baking.

My wife likes her steak a little more done than I like so hers went on first:

Seared for about 60 seconds, rotated about 60 degrees and seared some more and then flipped:

Here is a close up of a great sear:

Put hers off to the side to bake. After a few minutes of baking here comes mine for the sear:

Different flash setting along with the edge of my wife's steak which is off the heat but I have it close to the coals as it was a cold and windy night. If I had it all the way over, as far from the heat as possible, it would completely stop cooking while I flame seared mine as there would be no heat anywhere near it for about 4 minutes:

I only baked mine for maybe 2 minutes. The steaks were thinner than I normally make and Bison is supposed to be cooked for a little less than beef. If it were a hot summer night with no wind, I probably would've just seared and pulled mine off. But here we have both on the cutting board ready to rest - hers on the right, mine on the left. Hers has a little better sear than mine as the fire was hotter when I did hers. While hers baked the fire died a bit:

After taking this shot I threw some foil over the top to let them rest and retain some of the heat:

And here we have the money shot of mine. My wife does not care for me delaying dinner with the taking of pictures of said dinner so I didn't risk upsetting her by making her wait while I got pics of her steak. But here is the money shot of mine. Grey around the edges. Pink to red in the middle. Almost perfect where I am concerned:

Now, I want to talk about the differences between Bison and Beef. Bison is meatier, leaner, more expensive and maybe a little tastier. Although that could be the new marinade I used. I need to marinade a steak all night in it to see if that is the difference. Remember I only marinaded the Filet I did a few days ago for a couple hours. But the question that begs to be asked - does a meatier, leaner, more expensive and a little tastier Bison steak warrant the extra cost over a beef steak? Do the Bison benefits merit paying $8/more per pound? Probably not. I liked it a lot, but I also have a little boy that my would like to one day send to private school. I will do it again. I want my dad to try it. But I can't see myself doing Bison very often. But if you have the means and want a healthier steak then this is the way to go.

Filet Mignion that almost wasn't - Many videos of the process

2009-02-12T13:03:00.025-06:00

Grilling is not a science. Some may call it an art. But one thing is for sure, sometimes things don't go as planned and improvisation is required. This was one of those times. The conditions outside were not ideal for grilling. 40 degrees and the wind was blowing strong. Keeping a grill at the proper temp can be tough in a situation like that. Normally with a Filet Mignon like this I would sear on each side for 2 minutes and bake for another 3-4 minutes on the side with no coals. The conditions this night changed that time frame and the method pretty dramatically. Click below to get the details.

But first let's start from the beginning. For this session I cooked a very nice size Filet Mignon. Stopped by John's Butcher Shoppee off 270 and St. Charles Rock Road and was delighted to find that they had Filets on sale for $8/pound. This bad boy on cost me $8.31:

Yeah, that is a new cell phone for reference. The old Razr is no where to be found.

While at John's I picked up some of their Marinade:

I am a bit partial to Andria's (something John's carries) but I decided to give their "marinade & flavorizer" a go... Here are the ingredients for their marinade:

The main reason I decided to give this a shot is when I saw the Sodium in this and the Sodium in Andrias. Andrias has almost 3 times the sodium John's does. And I have to say I'm happy I bought the marinade. It was really good. Can't wait to have it on something that is marinaded overnight such as the Bison Steaks I'm doing on Friday.

I threw the Filet into a ziplock with some garlic, black pepper, olive oil and the marinade and put it in the fridge for about 90 minutes:

The reason I used oil instead of my usual cola is because I don't want to ternderize the steak anymore than it already is. For tender cuts you want to go more towards oil based marinades rather than acid based marinades.

After 90 minutes or so I pulled it from the fridge and let it come to room temperature on the counter. You can see how the red steak has browned a bit by pulling in the marinade from the bag into the steak:

Time to find the proper wine pairing with my steak. Rosemount Shiraz should do the trick nicely:

This was the bottle that started it all. Different Vintage, but it was about 10 years ago that I was at a house warmin party and someone walked in with a 1998 Rosemount Shiraz. The guy said, "I realize it is Australian but go ahead and try it. It's great." Now at the time I thought of Australians and wine about the way I felt about the French and cars. Despite that I tried that wine and it was incredible. Turned out that 1998 was the best year Australia has ever had in recent history and they were churning out fantastic wines. I was buying it and giving bottles away to people. And thus began the shift in my family from a bunch of beer drinkers to wine drinkers.

Now out to the grill. With more than a few people mentioning how dark some of my outside shots are I attempted to rectify that with a 500 wat Halogen light. Seems to have worked better than the mag light I held under my arm for the last video I shot!?!?!

And here we have a grill set up for two zone grilling. Coals flaming hot on the left, nothing on the right. Oh, and as I always do just before I grill, I give the grate a good cleaning.

Now to those videos I promises in the title. This is me searing the Filet on one side. For some reason in this video it looks like the flames are hitting me in the face. Trust me, that didn't happen:

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And here we have me searing the other side of the steak:

How do I tell if a steak is done? By feel. I push on the steak. The harder it is the more done it is. As you can see in this video, after a full 5 minutes the Filet was just not cooking. The wind was whicking the heat away too fast so I put the steak closer to the coals:

I pushed it closer to the coals and cooked it 2 minutes on each side and it was still way too spongy so I had to transfer it to right over the coals if I wanted the thing to be more than raw. So much for those beautiful grill marks. Time to form a nice tasty crust:

One little trick here. I needed to get air to the coals to keep them hot but keep the heat in and around the steak. To do so I just cracked the lid a bit as seen here. Some would say that with a weber I just would need to open the bottom vents, except I hadn't dumped the ash in a while and those vents were under a couple inches of ash and not much use:

And here we have the steak on the plate and ready to rest for a little while. As you can see in this video that the steak is much firmer than it was when I was testing the doneness after 5 minutes of baking on the side of the grill:

I let this guy rest for about 4 minutes under foil while I got the movie ready for the evening:

With Pitchers and Catchers arriving in Jupiter tomorrow I felt a baseball movie was in order. Sure half the movie is a chick flick but it's still a great baseball movie:

Same ritual every year. In the weeks leading up to opening day I run the gamut of my baseball flicks including Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, the Natural, and For the Love of the Game. And no, I am not some Kevin Costner nut. The only other move I own that he is in is Silverado, but he makes great baseball movies. Back to the steak

Here we have the Money Shot:

And a bonus money shot of an awesome, tender, and juicy bite:

How the GrillinFool celebrated the Super Bowl - Part I - Bacon Explosion

2009-02-02T12:56:00.018-06:00

Oh, what a joyous day. I love the Super Bowl. I love the culmination of the NFL season. I love the commercials. I love that it is practically a holiday that everyone gets together for. And most of all I love the food. And this year we may have gone a little overboard. If you are a health nut, this is not the place to be.

Here is the main event. This thing is all the rage right now so we decided to give it a try. What's not to love? Bacon wrapped sausage wrapped bacon? It's a cardiologist's dream. And what a perfect time to try one of these monsters - Super Bowl Sunday?

We started with two pounds of Italian Sausage, a pound of thick cut bacon (formed into a weave), a half pound of cooked bacon, a half shallot, some garlic, black pepper, some KC sweet and smoky rub (courtesy of Mr. Raichlen), BBQ sauce, some cheddar and provel cheese.

Mix up the sausage, garlic, shallots, black pepper in a bowl:

Then spread the meat out flat on a piece of wax paper. Here we have the rub applied to the sausage:

Then layer the bacon:

Add some roped provel:

Add some sharp cheddar:

Drizzle on some BBQ sauce of your preference:

You will notice that I did not apply the stuffing ingredients all the way to the edges. This is so the stuffing can be sealed within the fatty.

Since this has cheese in it it really needed to be smacked around pretty hard to make sure there are no cracks and crevices. My dad was having a hard time grasping the concept behind why we need to smack the crap out of the sausage so my mom stepped in to help out.

Once the sausage was thoroughly assaulted time to wrap it in the bacon weave that my dad prepared earlier:

There is no easy way to do this. I just picked up the far side of the bacon weave and pulled it over the top of the fatty and voila, we have a bacon wrapped sausage wrapped bacon. Looks great from this side:

From this side we need a little work:

A few toothpicks later and that bad dog was wrapped well:

Off to the grill. Going for indirect here and some good smoke action. My dad does not have a dedicated smoker but he does have a couple of grills that will suffice. For this job we went with the 20 year old Char-Broil. So how do we turn this grill into a smoker:

Coals on each side, a make shift drip pan made of tin foil and a chunk of cherry on each side. Instant smoker:

And then we have the Bacon Explosion on the grill:

About an hour in we have this:

Two hours in:

It is starting to look and smell really good right now. So much so we started attracting a crowd:

Hmmmm....Future entry on GrillinFool.com? I've got a rotisserie just waiting for one of those guys. That will have to wait for another time. Back to the grilling. Here we have the GrillinFool tending to the Fatty and some ABT's:

Three hours in:

Another 30-40 minutes later:

And here we have the Fatty on the board to rest:

Remove the toothpicks, add some foil:

15 minutes later, time to slice:

How about a closeup of that smoke ring with a different flash setting:

I gotta be honest here, this thing was good, but wasn't all that. The bacon on the outside was amazing but the rest of it was sorta, well, meh. With all the hype I just expected to be blown away. I wasn't. Not by a long shot. Here's what I would've done differently:

The Italian sausage was a little overpowering. Probably should've gone with some generic bulk sausage rather than the Italian.
It needed more cheese.

Will I try this again? Yes. With a different kind of sausage and more cheese I expect it to be better, but I still don't think it will live up to the hype. I do plan on doing the bacon weave around a pork tenderloin in the near future. This thing is a lot of work for something that just wasn't all that great.

How the GrillinFool celebrated the Super Bowl - Part II - Sliced Ribeye Sammiches

2009-02-02T12:33:00.013-06:00

Normally this is just served on Christmas Eve but my dad broke this out for the SB. This is an excellent recipe for feeding a lot of people as it is simple and once the meat is cooked it can remain in a warm oven for quite some time while the rest of the meal is prepared. This is so simple and so flippin good!!!

Basically go to your local butcher and ask him or her to slice a ribeye cut wafer thin. We're talking about right at a quarter inch thick. While traveling for his job my Dad got the meat at the Save-A-Lot in Princeton, Indiana for $3.99 per pound. And the meat cutter there, Jim, sliced it perfectly for this. When you get home put those slices in a ziplock with some Andria's and coke and allow to marinade overnight.

If you don't have access to Andrias, Worcestershire, garlic and cola will suffice. You could do Dr. Pepper if you want as well.

The next day, set yourself up a grill with high heat on one side of the grill and low on the other. One side to quickly sear the meat and the other side for a nice ribeye spa which is where you put the marinade in a disposable tin pan. Once the steak is cooked, toss it in the pan to keep it warm:

Let's get a look at that succullent meat. How good does this look:

Once the grill is hot, slap that meat on the heat:

Sear it quickly on one side:

Then flip and repeat:

It doesn't take very long. 60 second on each side should do it if the fire is hot enough. Remember this stuff is very thin. As the slices finish cooking transfer them to the spa where you can see the sauce is steaming:

As the pan fills apply more of the marinade as you can see here. That black stuff is extra marinade:

Despite it not taking long to cook each slice, there are a ton of slices and only so much grill space so to finish all of the meat it might take an hour or two. In a situation like this, that just means more time for drinking as my father was demonstrating as he was tending to the meat:

Once the pan if full, slap some tin foil over it and throw it into a warm oven. When it's time to feed the masses, pull off the foil and set next to whatever condiments you desire.

For me all I need is some mayo or sometimes a slice of cheese: