MilitantSquatter
Moderator
OK.. Sean and I stuck to our plan of cooking ribs & chicken and setting up a lot of our contest equipment for the first time. Things did not go as good as planned... although much of the ingredients were first time experiments for us...
This was a set back in many ways after a number of successful cooks together.
We made 9 racks of ribs and 27 chicken legs ( all ribs had a different rub and and we used five different brines on the chicken legs with about 6 different rubs... We also tested 6 or 7 sauces that we had not opened or tried before.
Problem # 1 - Ribs were going great but thens some of the ribs ended up getting very "toasty " on the bottom and got too overcooked. Weird thing was pit was never over 235-240 and generally in the 220 range and were only on for 4 hrs and were foiled after two. This was the most ribs I've ever had on the pit at any time and some of the ribs were very close to the firebox. While we had a plan to rotate when we noticed the well done pieces, it was too late. At the same time, the problem may very well be related to certain rubs that were tried for the first time.
Problem # 2 - Chicken did not go smoothly today. Based on schedules yesterday, we ended up having chicken in brine for 15 hrs !!!!!!!!! Very unique brines but the extended times killed it and all way too salty....Even worse, at the very end of the cook during the last rotation of the chicken legs, our log book of postioning that was critical to tracking what each brine/rub combo was got out of whack and we ended up not exactly knowing what rub was on each chicken other than guessing the looks. Then we tried crisping the skin on the Kettle grill and they got too charred...
We got our new canopy up for the first time along with two 6 ft tables which was good. We tried to prep and stay outside as much as possible.
Overall - 3 postives... We know what new rubs we will not use for contests in ribs & chicken, we nailed down the favorite sauce too. We learned what improvements we need to make next time for ribs & chicken to prevent overcooking next time and we had a good time.
I'll chalk this one up as a bad cook and move on.
Here's the good (the start to mid point), the bad (the worst of the worst that got too well done) and the ugly (Sean and I looking all calm and collected) pics...
This was a set back in many ways after a number of successful cooks together.
We made 9 racks of ribs and 27 chicken legs ( all ribs had a different rub and and we used five different brines on the chicken legs with about 6 different rubs... We also tested 6 or 7 sauces that we had not opened or tried before.
Problem # 1 - Ribs were going great but thens some of the ribs ended up getting very "toasty " on the bottom and got too overcooked. Weird thing was pit was never over 235-240 and generally in the 220 range and were only on for 4 hrs and were foiled after two. This was the most ribs I've ever had on the pit at any time and some of the ribs were very close to the firebox. While we had a plan to rotate when we noticed the well done pieces, it was too late. At the same time, the problem may very well be related to certain rubs that were tried for the first time.
Problem # 2 - Chicken did not go smoothly today. Based on schedules yesterday, we ended up having chicken in brine for 15 hrs !!!!!!!!! Very unique brines but the extended times killed it and all way too salty....Even worse, at the very end of the cook during the last rotation of the chicken legs, our log book of postioning that was critical to tracking what each brine/rub combo was got out of whack and we ended up not exactly knowing what rub was on each chicken other than guessing the looks. Then we tried crisping the skin on the Kettle grill and they got too charred...
We got our new canopy up for the first time along with two 6 ft tables which was good. We tried to prep and stay outside as much as possible.
Overall - 3 postives... We know what new rubs we will not use for contests in ribs & chicken, we nailed down the favorite sauce too. We learned what improvements we need to make next time for ribs & chicken to prevent overcooking next time and we had a good time.
I'll chalk this one up as a bad cook and move on.
Here's the good (the start to mid point), the bad (the worst of the worst that got too well done) and the ugly (Sean and I looking all calm and collected) pics...
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