lancastermike

Don't have a whole lot to add to my list above from last year. If you have some specific question about were you are staying and how much you may wish to spend I could narrow things down for you.

We ate at Tinto on Friday and walked through the square afterward. Parc was an absolute mob scene. If they can put out good food with that sort of throng, I would be very impressed.

I do brine chicken for the smoker. Usually just spatchcocked and smoked in the WSM they come out fine.

Sitting in Rittenhouse Square reading the paper and drinking coffee on Saturday we saw the vendors setting up. Walked over and bought a few peaches from a farm in Lititz. We came to Philadelphia to buy peaches from a farmer who lives about 6 miles from us. There was a nice bit of produce and also some baked goods and one fellow had grass fed beef. The flower seller was doing a real good business as many folks were strolling the Square with bunches of sunflowers

On Friday night we did the Tinto-Capagiro double. I think you would indeed be hard pressed to top this. Lots of good at Tinto. Baby artichokes with black truffle butter and the duck confit were highlights. Had a blackberry and vanilla double at Capogiro and that was a perfect combo. Wanted to try the sea salt, but it was not available when we were in Not sure how your trip will pan out, but the Tinto-Capogiro combo worked for us.

Susan and her kettle. A match made in smoking heaven. And to think some of us tried to get you to replace her the other year. What were we thinking? I do not brine pork butt, save for once and that one, to me, was no improvment. Poultry for the smoker gets a salt water bath but not pork

Katie Meadow shows true wisdom in the above statement. Good food can be made using either method. I encourage all to make those grates hot, using whatever source you have, and cook something good on it.

I just tried Zero Vanilla for the first time. This was pretty good stuff unlike the earlier generation Vanilla Coke products that were just plain awful. Still Zero remains my soda of choice.

Kingsford is most certainly not junk. Go to any professional smoking contest and observe what they are using. Lots of pros use kingsford. It is a reliable consistant product. Some were apoplectic a few years ago when the "new" Kingsford came out. Just beacuse it is a mainstream commercial product does not mean it is junk. Here is proof of my above comments. Lots of money has been won by pros that use Kingsford

There is no question that a wood fire or a natural charcoal fire will give you a higher temperature than a gas grill. However, grilling can be done with great success on a gas grill. I have a four burner gas grill with cast iron grates. If I let that heat up for a while my grate temperature is very, very hot. I can sear with the best of them on it. I also have a charcoal fired WSM I use for smoking and slow cooking at low temperature. Both gas and wood can be used. The purist insists on wood. I guess I am not one as I am happy with my gas grilled food. If one wants to impart a smoke flavor to their grilled foods a foil pouch of wood chips on the gas grill will give it to you. Please consider those grilled items you order at you favorite steak house or other restaurant. You think they got a wood fire going back there? Very, very few places do. Even most BBQ -places, even some of the famous ones, are cooking that pork shoulder or ribs with gas, and in some cases electricity. My only real point here is this. Let us not be snobbish about it. Good quality food can be made using either source. The skill of the griller has something to do with it as well.

Good luck, Susan. My first smoker was a Brinkman and I hated it and soon discarded it. No way to regulate temps as it had no vents. Perhaps your loaner is an upgrade from the one I had. In any case, have fun! 30 lbs of butt is nothing to sneeze at no matter how it is done.

3/4 lb per person may be a good average. Just don't expect ME to only eat that much. I would imagine there are a few non-meat eaters in Susan's crowd to help out the averages so that may be spot on but I would tend to think it may be just a bit low. However, I could eat smoke butt for a long time till I get tired of it

Crap. I'm thinking 50 kids and 40 adults. Oh me, oh my! Can anyone guess what I'm doing this next week? I'm actually thinking about augmenting with a chuck roast braised dish from one of Bayless's books that is augmented with onions, tomatoes and lots of jalapenos. No reason not to do that with the mess of crock pots I can procure at a moments notice. And, those teens can sure stash it away, can't they? ← For that big of a crowd have you thought of doing a whole pig? It won't fit in your kettle, but pig cookers are usually available for rental, at least around here they are. For 90 people though, even a whole P-I-G hog will come up short. For 90 people I would think you need 120 lbs or so uncooked weight of butt. And that's a lot of pork to smoke. I have total faith that you can pull this off in a positive fashion. But you will be smoking a long time to produce that much butt in the ol' kettle.

Many years ago one of the first places I worked at had an outdoor terrace with tables set for dining. We used to say that anyone sitting outside was "eating with the Italian" The Italian was named Al Fresco. My question is this. Do you like dining outside? On a patio, a terrace, a streetside table? Unless I'm having a hot dog, or BBQ or food of that type. I do not care for it. If having a nice meal out, I like to have a roof over my head. If I want to eat outside I can do so on my own patio at home. Do you diners really like dining outside? And what do servers and culinary staff think as well?

Nice job, Susan. Even them non-meat eaters cannot resist the allure of smoked pork. In my time I have had some pretty good food. One look at me would confirm it. I must say that a nice plate of pulled smoked pork butt is very near the top of my list of best meals ever. Smoke on smokers, smoke on

As stated above I have become a wood scrounger. However, I did order some from these guys several years ago and found it to be of good quality at resonable rates. They also have just about any kind of wood you could imagine. barbecuewood

Wes Stepp who owns Red Sky Cafe in Duck does personal chef work as well. The dude knows how to cook

Pecan is a wonderful smoking wood. Very similar to hickory, must nut woods work well. Oak is great for pork, prefer the fruit woods, apple and cherry for poultry

That's damn fine looking pork there, professor. Professor of Pork is a highly honored chair to hold. I don't use an offset smoker, like yours, but I have heard that ash buildup in them can be an issue so you may be on to something there. I believe I have read of guys doing modifications to their firebox to help solve this issue. And Andrew, when you start doing "mods" to the "rig" you have really entered the smoking world. I have never found rain to be an issue in temp control for me and I have smoked in some fairly steady rain. And I do believe you are correct that your best temp controls are your dampers and not through adding fuel. Lots of butts have finished in ovens so don't fret over that. You have, I'm sure, warmed the heart of Snowangel. Nothing like a new convert to the smoking world to make her smile

I don't have a hook up in your area but I suggest seeing if you can locate an orchard . I have a garage full of apple and cherry wood trimmings I get at a local orchard and it is my prime source for wood. Another possible source for cheap wood is golf courses. They are always doing tree trimmings and if you go get it they may let you have it. Furinture or cabinet making shops can also be a source of smoking wood, but you need to make sure the wood scraps they have were not treated with any chemicals. Some municipal parks can also be a good wood source as they often have trimmings as well. As the previous poster suggested there are a bunch of internet places that will sell you wood. And if you really want alder or mesquite or another more obscure kind of wood they are a good thing. Welcome to the smoking world Andrew. Lots of good smoking tips in the various smoking topics on EG

I must be partial to the maryland style as I the Pikesville is my favorite rye

I am a late comer to this topic. Just yesterday I bought a bottle of Campari and it was the new stuff with the artificial color. My bottle at home which was damn near empty was the old kind. I had enough left to do a taste test. The new and old taste a little different to me when sampled neat. But not to any degree. And I would be more than willing to accept the Kinsey concept that the age of my open bottle, which certainly is into the years, would cause this. In a Negroni, it would take a far more educated pallet than mine to taste any difference. I did not try a side by side with just soda as I did not have enough left. I use Campari in cocktails, mostly Negroni's and I just don't think the difference, whatever the cause, is discernible.

I would think a real bagel place would kick ass at RTM.

so how do you compare the torani amer to an orange liqueur like cointreau or creole shrub? is it just orangey with a small additional bitter element or am i under estimating it? ← Yeah it's not as clean as Cointreau and def. has the caramel aspect to it. The bitterness hits the palate in a different way than most other things I've had, more on the back of the palate almost. There's also a strange and oft-noted celery note that I find not entirely pleasant. Apparently Torani Amer + dash or 2 of orange bitters = something close® to Amer Picon. ← Torani Amer and 2 dashes of orange bitters is what went into the Broollyn I mixed last night and I liked it very much. I'll ask the experts this: Sweet or dry vermouth in the Brooklyn? I have always used dry, but see here others calling for sweet. Is there an answer or is it two versions of one idea? It certainly changes the drink

There is no reason the method Mr. Brown showed would not produce good result. What one needs to produce good smoked pork is a constant low temperture sustainable for a long period of time and a source of smoke. I use an WSM but there a a million ways to do it and AB's would work fine as do Chris's Bradley, Marlene's Vermont Casting smoker, and Susan's plain old kettle grill.