Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler Question for the BBQ experts

I haven't had much time to post lately; still don't.
Been following this thread as it comes in email though.
My quick thoughts for you michaeld (have i ever led you astray?):

That link bridgman put up is fantastic info. I either posted it before or someone has since spread it around because i've had that webpage for several years now in my recipe box.
Follows those directions for brisket and you will be fine.

A person CANNOT tell when a piece of meat hits a certain temp.
They can only guess based on weight, temp and time. A temp probe is more accurate and takes away any guessing. I usually do my slow cooks around 250F. You can use lower temps but it is unnecessary and just takes longer to cook. Above 275F (upper 300F max) and your meat cooks too fast on the outside compared to the inside.

Yes, use a "Texas crutch" at the stall point around 150F-160F. It will help get the temps up more quickly past the stall and cut down the cooking time, plus retain moisture! The meat should have enough fat to keep it moist in the crutch, but we usually put a half cup of beer or apple juice in a pan, add a short grill, place the brisket on the grill, then wrap the whole pan tight with foil. This is WAY better than having to baste the brisket all day long to keep it moist. The pro bbq guys on tv usually have so many chunks of meat in their cookers, they don't need to add more moisture in the system, but a piece of meat alone in a large enough unit can start to dry out.
Ribs are the same way. If you don't foil them and cook them longer than 2 hours, pffft.
Dry cracked ribs is what you get.

Cook the brisket the rest of the way to 195F. Some same 200F but i found the brisket started to dry out when we pushed the last one longer.

Take out and let sit 'tented' or in an ice cooler (without the ice).
The temp will climb a bit on its own at this point before cooling down.
Afterward follow that link's info on how to cut a brisket properly!
There are two parts to a brisket and you want to be cutting against the muscle grain.

I've done two briskets now, greenhorn off the bat and both were excellent. Just followed those directions.

Woods definitely carry different flavours, but they can be subtle. Hickory and mesquite, not so subtle.
Maple does kind of need a certain meat to make it work (salmon for example).
Maple blends are nice though; not as sharp as hickory or mesquite.

Will try to post some food pron when i have time. Got some good pics of ribs this summer and brisket last summer on the Big Green Egg.
I also have a pic of myself drinking beer while smoking a pork butt in -30C. My beer was freezing faster than i could drink it.

Got another bbq tomorrow at a friend's place.
Likely the last of the summer days as last night dropped to 2C here.
Fall is a comin.

Thanks for the info Chess.

And Mark, not a smokers are hippies.

I can't stand the Amazing ribs web site. Not the content, but the never-ending bombardment of trying to get you to donate or buy something. I've grown quite tired of internet sales.

I'll read the article anyway. sigh....

The two chickens I smoked yesterday came out phenomenal. Super juicy, great flavor, nice crisp skin.... yummmmmm

I used a 50/50 blend of mesquite and apple wood pellets. Cooked them at 225 for about 3 hours till the breast was 170. Mixed honey and bourbon and slobbered that over the birds about two hours into the smoke. Cut some thick slices of sweet white onion, and poured the honey glaze over them with a dust of cayenne pepper, and through them in the smoker for an hour too. The onions turned out to be quite tasty. I'm going to keep experimenting with them.

Oops, quoted old post...

Food grade means its being marketed to you by a pellet smoker company at a higher price.


It burns the same as the expensive pellets and costs me $5.50 per 40lb bag. Works for me.

That sounds very tasty.

I'm going to experiment with injecting the spices into my lunch meat this go round. Cutting into the meat and wrapping it is a pain and makes it much harder to slice when cooked.

I may try the same with my next butt to see if I can get a bit more of the spice flavour to come through into the meat. I'll be careful not to use too much spice though as I don't want to fundamentally change the flavour, just enhance it a little.

BBQ - time to upgrade;

I have finally decided to put the Canadian Tire 13 year old propane bbq to rest this fall, it was long over due. After some research over the net I’ve decided on GMG but need an advice on the following;

1) stainless cover or not ( disliked the last stainless bbq, always had to spend so much time to make it look stainless- btw I never cook outside come winter time)

2) Daniel Boone or Jim Bowie model ( we are only 2 ¼ people at home if you count the little yapper but flexibly for putting bigger items like pizza and also when invites show up)

3) Remote or Wifi or nothing (wi-fi option seems more of a gadget but the remote seems an interesting option for the price)

Unless the stainless lid is more durable, I would not bother, particularly because you want to keep it looking nice and shiny.

Wifi is not particularly useful for me as it is less than a dozen steps to the balcony to see what's going on in the smoker if I need to look. Hmm, other than firmware updates that is.

I was able to do smoked butts for 10 on my little Davey Crocket and could have managed another 4 lb butt without difficulty. You can always buy a rack for ribs for a larger crowd.

I would think the Daniel Boon would be plenty large enough. Measure the size of your pizza pan to see if that size will fit in the Boon. If I want to do Pizza from scratch, I'm going to have to find a square stone that fits my little Davey because my current stone is 3" too large.

One thing to note is that you probably won't want to grill steaks of burgers on the pellet grill. It just doesn't sear well enough. I'm keeping my inexpensive kettle grill for this.

Correct, but they can tell how done a piece of meat is.

I have no trouble grilling tenderloin by feel. Now, if I changed to another cut of steak, I'd be in trouble.

When you cook something often enough (and with the same equipment), you can get a very good feel for how done it is by various sensory inputs.

Thanks for the Info FredK, the wifi option seems to have a few glitches and the only accessories I can see using is the exhaust cap http://greenmountaingrills.com/shop/chimney-cap/ & the bbq cover, don’t know why they didn’t make this cap standard

How well done it is and its appx. interior temperature are pretty much the same thing, right? I was a restaurant whore for long enough to see chefs press an index finger or thumb on it, only, even though there was a thermometer clipped to their coat pocket. How they could keep track of different donenesses of so many things at once always impressed me.