Bit the Bullet

aaarrrrggghhhh, not Bobby Flay, please tell me he didn't give a Brisket recipe.

You came to the right place. Congrats and welcome to the forum.

With the writers not fully back yet, there is little to watch. No, Bobby wasn't cooking. He was traveling around profiling different people known for good que. Kinda like Diners, Drive-ins & dives. I've already been around the forum to have a good idea what needs to be done to get it seasoned and what to cook for a first run. I have my own rub that friends like well enough so I should be good to go for a start. The cold smoking sounds intriguing. I will be looking for help with that.

Yep,when he used to talk and watch Jack McDavid cook,you could actually learn stuff from a fine cook.

I do remember him taking about a 5 lb flat up to his rooftop patio in NYC,cooking it in about 1 1/2 hrs on a WSM[a fine cooker ,that will do great briskets]

Of course I always admired Tyler Florence.

He liked to grind the brisket point and grill a fine burger.

Maybe that's what helped him catch on with Applebee's?

There we go with Applebee's again...

Welcome to the forum, OakHillSmoke !

Applebee's sucks....I'm just sayin' Ya know?

ok, we get it, Applebee's isn't your favorite...now back to thrashing BF...

IMHO, Bobby Flay is an arrogant jerk. When he was on Iron Chef, right in front of Masaharu Morimoto, who is one of the best chefs in the world, he got up on the counter top and stood on the cutting board, meaning he put his feet on the cooking surface, and did a stupid dance. He insulted Morimoto and all of Japan with that stupid jesture. He then lost the competition and rather than being a gracious loser he complained to the media that the competition wasn't fair. What an ass . . . Give this article a read and you will get the complete picture of what a jerk this guy is.

http://www.flakmag.com/tv/flay.html

-Sravaka

He and Morimoto have long since worked all that out.



I am in NO WAY a fan of Bobby Flay the man. He is a dickhead and there's no way around it. When he came to Asheville for one of his shows several of the people that he worked with those days just wanted to strangle him. How do I know? They're good friends of mine and told me. Hell, they even called to "vent" on the cell phone while it was going on.


What I AM a fan of is the people/chefs he knows. Nobody drops names like Bobby Flay and I'm glad he does. It gives me a chance to see dishes done right before he has had a chance to ruin them with his "spin" and throwing cilantro all over them.

Sure didn't mean to get something started with the Bobby F. reference. Oh well.
Received my 008 yesterday. As in normal fashion from The Charcoal Store (or UPS), the packing box was beat up quite a bit. Luckily the unit was fine. Shipping was fast, less than a week. Kudos to Charcoal Store on that one. I may have to wait till the weekend to get it seasoned. From other posts I think I'm going to add a dedicated breaker to my panel and run a new line to the patio. I do have a question about the patio. I want to keep the unit under some cover but am concerned about the smoke. Will the unit smoke up the covered patio too much? Should I keep it out where it has room to breathe?

1. Season it this week, you'll want to do it during the week incase there are issues (can't get support from Customer Service during the weekend)

2. Smoke will depend. If there's not much airflow, then yes, it will drift up and cling. Just try to put it near the edge so the wind will move the smoke out.

With any air flow at all you should be ok. These units don't put out the smoke like a stick-burner or an old ECB.

Definitely take Smokin's advice. Season it ASAP! Clear up any "potential" issues soon.

Have fun & good luck!

OK. I'm back. Work and various other things got in the way of me getting started. I did give the box a first seasoning. Everything looked textbook. I did not hang a thermometer so I don't know how hot it got. I did run a check on the remote therm. that I bought with the unit, and it checked out fine.
I am going to smoke a butt for Saturday. I have a 6.5lb one to go on tomorrow evening.(Friday). According to the various times I've read about, I have left enough time for it to go 20 hours if need be. If it's done earlier, I'll pull it, wrap and cooler it.
One question. I may have missed it while reading "Butt 101", but I need to know if I should trim off the layer of fat that is on the butt? Does leaving it on help in the flavor?

I wouldn't trim off any of the fat, it will help with both flavor and keeping it moist. I would also suggest orienting the butt with the fat on top while it's smoking.

Don

I started my first Butt at 7:30 last night. Set my Maverick remote thermometer for 195 and my 008 to 250. I figured by previous threads the the first cook might go as long as 18 hours. I checked it at 10:30 and the meat was already at 170 so I turned it down to 225. Figured it would easily go through the night. Put my remote on the night stand. Got up this morning and the remote has lost connection, no readings. Checked the transmitter and it read 225 on the cooker and 210 on the meat. I pulled the meat and stuck it with a kitchen thermometer. I was just over 200. I ate a piece left on the grate and it was smokey and fairly moist. I had my wife pick a piece off the butt and she said it was great but maybe a little dry. If it got to 210, have I ruined it? I have wrapped it and placed it in a cooler. We have guests at 6:00. Should I cover myself with some steaks and just pull this later to use for sandwiches? I hesitate to pull this thing now to see how it eats, knowing I need it for tonight. Thoughts anyone?

I doubt you got it too dry. Keep in mind that pulling a small piece from the outside could be dry but the inner portion will be fine. Just shred the whole butt and mix the outside bark with the inside meat and it should be fine.

If it is dry to you, Dr. BBQ taught me a little trick to put some moisture back in. Use a 50/50 mixture of apple juice and bbq sauce and mix with the pulled pork. It adds some moisture in without changing the taste too much.

Enjoy!

I'll try that. Thanks RibDog.
Have you had any experience with these remote thermometers? Do they lose connection easily. The distance was only about 25'.

Yes they do lose connection. I love mine, but I don't trust it to tell/remind me that the meat is ready or getting cold.

I'm sorry I didn't reply to your post. I was going to mention that a 6.5 pound butt wouldn't take long at all at 250 and you should keep an eye on your first especially. Even turning it down to 225 wouldn't slow it all that much since at 170 it may have already busted through the plateau and the temp rises fairly steady after that.

You have to learn your equipment first. That includes the smoker, thermometer and so on. You then have to learn the meats......that takes a little longer as meat isn't standard and some of us have been doing this for decades and still won't give a firm time on meat.


As "set it and forget it" as these little things are I still can't go more than a couple hours without physically being at the cooker. It must be all the time I've spent on stick burners or I'm just a control freak that don't trust a danged thing.


In the end, you didn't ruin anything. It's just not as good as you would have liked it to be. And that's what will gripe at you and make you a better bbq cook next time.

For examples of what ruined looks like try going overboard with brisket or ribs.

It's not as much the distance the signal has to travel but what obstacles the signal has to pass through. I leave my receiving unit in the kitchen and can hear the alarm in the bedroom if it goes off. Plus it helps to have a small house. Try next to a window in your bedroom and sees if that helps.

You should get a tried and true wired remote temp probe.

200* or 210* is not too high a temp for a fatty pork butt. Very forgiving as you know by now. No doubt it pulled wonderfully and was very moist.

I bought the Maverick which is one I thought everyone was happy with. This was the first outing, I need to give it another shot.
It actually pulled just fine. The apple juice trick worked great, added just enough moisture. Everyone thought it was great. Ribs next weekend.

quote:

Originally posted by GLH:
200* or 210* is not too high a temp for a fatty pork butt.

200 I can agree with, 210 is too high. The meat starts getting "mushy" around 200 and the texture is just not pork anymore. But that's just me.

I'm not sure what this thread originally was about, it seems to have drifted just a tad but I'd like to comment on several of the topics.

Bobby Flake:
From the first time I ever saw Hot Off The Grill I developed a deep and abiding dislike for that arrogant little twerp. I didn't know that so many others shared those feelings. I do like Throwdown though because he almost always gets humiliated in the end. I only watch the last 5 minutes though 'cause that's when the humiliatin' starts.

Trimming the fat cap on a butt:
There are two schools of thought. Some trim others don't. The consensus on this forum seems to be don't trim. I saw Fast Eddie on the tube one night training an amateur and Eddie taught him to trim the fat. The guy who taught me to do butts advised me to trim. His reasons were as follows.
1. There's enough internal fat that the fat cap is not needed to keep the meat moist.
2. The fat won't penetrate the meat and it'll only keep the bark soft and that's not needed since the CS is already a moist cooker. Besides, good bark is hard enough to create already in the CS as is.
3. Without the fat cap on the butt, bark will form on the top area where the cap used to be.
4. If it's left on, the rub will be lost when the fat is discarded.
5. There's less grease to clean up at the end.

I asked Ray Lampe (Dr BBQ) that question and he said,"I dont trim nothin'"

I suppose the actual answer is, do whatever floats yer boat.

Cooking a butt to 200*:
I agree with Smokin', 200* is about the limit. I like to take them to 195 then foil and dry cooler for a couple of hours. The carryover will take it up to about 200*.

Remote Thermometers.
Maverick stinks. Worst product I ever bought. Loses it's signal even when sitting right next to the transmitter. The folks at Maverick told me it's due to interference from other RF signals. Well big whoop, haven't they heard of RF filtration?

I'm outta here. It's time to party.
HAPPY EASTER EVERYBODY!!!!!

I'm a little confused about the subject of the thread,between Mavericks,or trimming butts.

A thought on trimming is that it depends.

A comp cook is looking for something specific,off of as many as 1/2 dozen butts,and will remake them to suit his/her need.

drbbq likes to cook low and slow and figures the fat will render,if you leave it alone.

One of his longtime comments is"cook it until you think it is done,and then cook it three hours longer".

Many of our discussions focus on cooking a single butt,and you can mess with it for hours-if you like.

If you think about cooking an 8 butt case, of 60-65 lbs,how many hrs will you want to spend prepping EACH butt?

If you are going to chop/cleaver the finished product,removing the fat cap,and maybe the gland, could give a better product.

If you are pulling the pork by hand,as Smokin' directs on these forums,you easily slide any unrendered product into the waste foil.

Might you lose a little bark/rub on an untrimmed butt?

Will the finished,unseasoned product be 5% better?

Maybe.

We suggest adding a little of your rub,and maybe a little AJ/sauce/moisture to the pulled product -just as you might adjust seasoning at the table.

Just a couple of thoughts.

^^^ now that was a helpful post. Thanks!!

Yessir,we try to help.