Stone

After two uses, I'm very happy with my Weber Bullet. I really like the fact that it's compact and upright. Yesterday I fit a 7.5 lb pork shoulder on the top grill (with some room to spare) and about 8 pounds of ribs and trimmings on the lower grill. I doubt I will need more meat than that. Notwithstanding my thermometer issues, the heat was pretty easy to maintain. For the first 4-5 hours, it stayed between 220 and 250. I only had trouble when I opened everything up to add the ribs to the lower rack. Adding charcoal is a bit of a pain -- the easiest way to do it is to lift the entire grill unit off the charcoal bin. It's not that heavy -- you just have to be carefull not to spill the water/fat mixture. (By the way, after that cools down, throw it in a blender with some ice cubes and lemon juice for a great dessert drink.)

There are scary animals out there.

Tommy -- that's what the nubbies on the underside of the lid are for. Instead of the condensation running down the inside of the lid to pool up on the side, it drips off the nubbies. (I think you probably know this already, though.) Nubbies on the underside of the lid to my 5 quart dutch oven: (Probably should have gotten an angle view.)

Probably not worth starting a new thread, but here is the results of my thermometer experiement. I've got an oven, a Pyrex Professional Digital Therm (noticed a little melting on the underside), a Taylor analog, and a Nugget analog. For each temp, I waited about 5 minutes after the oven registered the temp. Where it says (door), I opened the door a crack to read the analog therms: Oven P T N 400 Hi 400 Over 500 325 354 375 500 (door) 293 325 400 (door) 336 330 450 250 242 275 350 (door) 213 250 280 I don't think I've learned anything today. (Sorry I can't get it to format better. It pushes everything to left-justify.)

Yeah, I've always wanted one of those big dutch ovens, with the feet for resting in the campfire and the sunken lid for coals. Then I realized that I live in a city, drive a German car, push a button to turn on my stove, and buy meat in foam trays and plastic wrap.

I bet the oven wins. The trick is getting my oven out of the kitchen and into the bullet!

Now you're starting to sound like a seasoned smoker. I'm surprised that a 5 lb butt after 9 hours didn't reach over 200 degrees, really surprised. Unless your smoker temp was hovering at 200, there isn't any reason given that much time for the roast to come to temp. Maybe if the shoulder bone was still in, but the thermodynamics side of me is still confused. As for your slight chemical flavor it probably is your rub. If you smoke with briquettes and you use commercial wood chips you shouldn't have a problem, regardless if you soak your chips or not. 7.5 lb. But I think I got thermometer issues. I'm doing some testing right now. Digitial v. Taylor (analog) v. some other analog v. Oven.

By the way -- my friend's dog (American Bulldog) ate the whole shoulder blade. Didn't just chew on it. Ate it. In about 10 minutes.

Well, everbody loved the pork. Except I wasn't completely satisfied. Ribs: Pile O' Pig: The ribs were my favorite. They may have been a tad overdone -- I definitely had some thermometer issues. The meat was tender, but still had good bite to it. It didn't fall off the bone -- you had to chew it off. I liked that. The spice rub was good and the smoke flavor intense. The red smoke ring penetrated nicely into each piece. The only drawback was a slightly acrid, chemical taste. My first guess is that this is from the briquettes -- I probably didn't get them fully hot and smoking before putting them on. Or, it could have been from the rub. I bought some 90,000 SU cayenne pepper, being all manly and shit. The stuff if friggin hot (I can't even look at the bottle without sneezing), but definitely has a thin bitterness in the aftertaste. The butt, not as good. Everyone loved it, but it certainly wasn't pulled. After 9 hours, my digital therm read at only 167-170 interior. My instant read was closer to 180. ( Test my three oven thermometers in the ove today.) Maybe this is just because it was a big ol' butt. (That baby got back.) My last smoke was with 3.5-4 pounds. This was closer to 7.5 But it was about 150 at 4:00. (I flipped the fellow at 4.) At 7, I sliced the thing in half. I took it off at 8:15. The fat hadn't fully rendered off and there was still a thick layer on the top. (Last time, I had cut off the fat cap and just laid it on top. I think I like that better.) But the outer portion pulled well. The inner was certainly cooked through (not pink at all), but it still had the collegen texture and was, in my opinion too moist. Not that moist pork is not great. But overly moist pork is, to me, like undercooked bacon. It didn't really pull, but certainly sliced up good. Just like a pork roast should. And it sure tasted good. Again, an excellent red smoke ring seeping about 1/4 inch into the meat. Good flavor from the rub. I had made some coleslaw during the day. Not my best batch of Mayo, and a bit too much salt. I decided to go completely redneck and used untoasted cheap buns from costco. Next time I'll get better. They were like sponge puffs. Well, I'll be sauteeing the pork for fake-carnitas lunch. Cheers.

You must be right. And, of course, heat rises.

RU 4 86ing the place right off the bat? Seems like a gimmick to me. If enough models and 25 year old actors show up in the first week, it will be a hit.

According to my instant thermometer, the butt is about 175 ish. I'm hoping to get over 190 in an hour. I wonder if the unintentional high heat created a crust that won't allow the heat to continue penetrating into the center (or is that a myth)? The ribs have been on for about 3 hours, and I haven't gotten a good look at them. I'll give it anohter half hour before taking off the top to peer in. I figure they're below the butt, so probably cooking at a higher heat. I can get at some of the flap meat through the window -- it tastes great, but not tender enough yet. mmmm. (Beer, prednisone, Z-max, cortisone, smoke, hyperventilation -- now that's a Sunday afternoon at home!)

Ooh baby.

Hmmm. The air temp has dropped a bit, and my digital probe was reading 219 no matter what I did. I had a regular oven thermometer in the smoker, all caked up with soot of course. I dug it out and cleaned it off -- just what I thought -- about 240!! I took out the digital probe and wiped clean the end. There we go. So I thought I was at 219ish for about 30 minutes. Actually I was a bit higher. Something to look out for in the future.

Yeah, I know. I closed it only for about 15 minutes to stabilize the temp. Since then, it's been open all the way. Now for the hard part. I put on another half chimney of coals to start. I've got to take off the top and add the new coals; take off the top rack and put the ribs on the lower rack -- all without losing all the heat. Well, I'm going to lose a lot of heat, so the new coals should get me back up quickly.

The smoker's been going well. Hovering nicely between 230 and 250. At 2:15 I added more wood, and it plunged down to 215. I opened the bottom vents to get the heat back up, but I'm thinking I may need more coal. Hopefully, my old natural stuff will burn. If not, a fast trip to safeway will be necessary. I figure the ribs are going on at 3:15-3:30 for a 7:30-8 appearance.

In the olden days, Cairo and the Nile Delta was a major hub of traffic -- coming across northern Africa which was heavily populated even before the many Roman outposts were established (even the early boats could not venture far into the Med. had to stay close to shore) and, of course, the huge amount of trade flowing up the Nile. Egypt has also been a major cultural center -- from the times of the Pharoh, through the Greeks and Romans, dwindling of course with Ottoman rule, but picking up again when the French then the British "administered" the region. Egypt itself was a destination, not merely a way station. Of course, Beirut, Damascus and Baghdad were as well. The fact that it attracts more tourists today is not particularly relevant to the historical development of cuisine.

There is a thread about what you like to eat while you watch. This is devoted to the movies themselves. (Big Night has been discussed to death.) Last night I saw Mostly Martha. A very nice German film about a perfectionist chef whose boss drives her crazy by telling her that she is the "number 2" chef in the city. In one of the first scenes, a customer enrages Martha by complaining that the foie gras is undercooked. She challenges the customer, and after being dragged away by the owner, explains that the customer is not always right, the foie gras was perfect. "It is not a matter of taste." (Plotnicki, are you ghost-writing on the side?) The rest of the movie was a fun yet somewhat sad tale about how she manages her all-consuming work ethic after finding herself entrusted with the care of her neice.

All together now: Duh.

Everything's going much smoother this time. I started the briquettes in the chimney at 9:30 ish, and put them in the bin a little before 10 and topped it off - 10 lbs total. Threw the soaked wood chunks and put the meat on at 10:15. The temp is up to 225 pretty fast, so I've closed the bottom vents all the way, and the top vent 50%. What the hell, I'll open beer anyway. It's Sunday, I've got pneumonia, and 15 pounds of pork.

My Apt in Manhattan has a small balcony, overlooking Broadway (at 8th). I used to grill up there, always nervous that the flames shooting up would get me kicked out of the coop. When I lived on 79th, I had a nice tar-beach on the roof. Held many BBQ's up there. Where there's a grill, there's a way.

Ah. So the cows got two t-bones, back to back, so to say. Two tenderloins and two sirloins (or whatever), one on each side of the spine. (Which I'm pretty sure is made up to vertebrae.)

Then why is the muscle on one side of the T different than the other? Do cows veer to the right?

Yes, yes, but what bone is it? From cow photos I googled, it appears to be the vertebrae? What other bone is back there? It's not part of the hip/pelvic structure? I mean, cows and people have pretty similar bones structures at this level, don't we? So is the "t-shaped" bone the vertebrae hanging down from the spine, the gets cut in half by the butcher? But it doesn't seem that it can be the vertebrae, because I'd expect that the two muscles on either side would be the same, symmetrical and all that. I think I need to spend an afternoon in a butcher shop.

Yet again, to betray my wine ignorance -- If it's undrinkable, how does he know it perfectly expresses a wine's quality? Is he good enough to know exactly what a perfect wine 10 years from now will taste like today?