First brisket of the season is done. The flat got a bit more done than I would have liked, but nobody else seemed to care since the whole thing was gone in under an hour. Good trial run for next month when I've gotta do 2 briskets, 3 shoulders, and 4 chickens all in one day for multiple parties.
Did a full pastrami brisket on the weekend. Let it brine for 2 weeks. Injected it Day 0, day 7 and day 10. With the 2 weeks and the multi injections, it was so dam good.
Looks amazing. Never scored the fat before. I did pulled pork about 2/3 weeks ago. It was the best i ever had. Didn't want to rush it, so i put it on super low before i went to bed, got up, wrapped it, turned it up. Then let it rest for way longer then i normally do. And it was the best i ever made.
These both had super thick fat caps on them, so rather than trim them down, I just did the scoring you see here so I could get the rub to penetrate, but also made it easier to just pull of the non-rendered fat before pulling the meat.
I do like the idea of using those disposable containers. Keeps all the juices in so you can mix it all together when you pull. I normally use just big tinfoil but that would work way better
Did almost 16lb's of chorizo on the weekend. Ground up a bunch of pork shoulders that i have been buying when they are on sale. Rehydrated some peppers, mixed it all together. Stuffed some sausages then smoked them the next day.
Doing some significant renovations and additions to the house, the relevant part of which is putting a shed roof over the majority of the patio. Since this will reduce the amount of space I have to BBQ greatly, I'm now looking at getting rid of my vertical smoker and offset, then going to the dark side and switching to a pellet smoker. What can y'all tell me, and which brands should I check out/avoid?
Sorry to hear about you and your wife but hope the best for you and the new boyfriend. My brother did a fuck-ton of research and ended up with a Yoder. He had a BGE but after getting the Yoder, he ended up selling the BGE because the Yoder can low and slow and sear at temps near 700*. I'd never go pellet because I enjoy people knowing that I'm a real man and not a pussy, but if you put a gun to my head and made me choose, I'd go Yoder. Pretty sure this is the one he has The YS640s Pellet Grill - Yoder Smokers Also, in Napa during a late season heat wave and been having pool beers all day so take all the misogynist pellet jokes with a grain of salt
I went with a gravity fed charcoal smoker / grill. It's this one here. Gets you the offset box for smoking, while also allowing you to crank up the heat and sear a steak. Being from the Northeast with humidity, pellet smokers just gum up the auger and fail constantly. https://www.masterbuilt.com/products/gravity-series-1050-digital-charcoal-grill-smoker
See funny thing is, we regularly sit at 70to90 percent humidity. We are at 69 right now, and I never have problems. I don't empty my hooper between uses. I just let it sit in the car port and turn it in the next time, wether it has been a couple of weeks or couple of months.
I should have thrown my pellet smoker in the dumpster the second time the auger froze from humid cement pellets.
The worst is when it gums up mid smoke and the pellets are literally on fire and you have to empty it out and refresh them to get it going. Until they come up with a better design then the auger delivery system, I won't touch a pellet smoker again. I don't know how you've never had that happen with that level of humidity?!? I had one pellet smoker and maybe the particular one I had was designed even more poorly than usual, but it gummed up 3 times and after that I just took the loss and bought something else.
After unclogging my shit the second time and it froze up a 3rd when I forgot to run it completely dry I dont even care to troubleshoot. If they had a design where you could break if free without completely disassembling everything it'd be much easier to deal with. You have to supplement with an extra smoke tube to get true offset smoke flavor anyway. I just got an electric fridge style smoker. Much less headache.
Just took delivery of a Yoder 640s pellet smoker. We were gonna buy one ourselves, but my parents got wind and made it an early bday present. Still gotta fire it up the first time to burn off all the packing oil and crap before I do anything, but I cannot wait to break it in with maybe a pork butt or some ribs.