Dabaras
Knows what a fatty is.
- Joined
- Aug 29, 2013
- Location
- McKinney, TX
So my daughter (19) leaves for Navy boot camp (following the family tradition) tomorrow afternoon. I decided to throw her a going away party and smoke some food. With it being Mothers Day weekend and also her old high schools graduation weekend, we had a whole lot of maybe responses to the RSVP requests, so we were expecting somewhere between 20 and 40 people. That's a hard number to cook for, so I planned on 35.
Originally planned on brisket, butt and ribs. Brisket prices being as outrageous as ever, we scrapped brisket and switched to turkey. My daughter actually prefers turkey to brisket, so this wasn't too terrible. Got all the meat prepped and injected on Friday afternoon. The party is schedule to start at noon on Saturday, so start times are a bit limited. 10:30 Friday night, the pellet smoker gets started up and the butts are on at 220 to try and keep things slow.
Woke up at 3 and decided to check the pellet level. It was only down an inch. Went ahead and bumped up the temp to 240. Got a couple more hours sleep, then got up at 5:30 and started up the backwoods party for the ribs. I didn't start enough coals, so even with the guru, it took almost 90 minutes to come to temp. It was loaded with water, but it was just shy of boiling water when I loaded it.
Now that the fridge was empty of most of the meat, had to make a run to the grocery store to get some rabbit food.
About 8:30, started up the Akorn for the turkey. Just before 9 it was chugging along at 250 at the grate.
I'm not sure how much hotter the second level is, but it is quite a bit since that turkey (about a pound lighter) took about an hour less than the lower level.
Now I've got all three smokers going, and I don't have that big a back porch.
Right at 12, things start coming ready. The first butt was ready right at 12 (sorry, no pics of that). First turkey breast right after that.
One rack of ribs was ready right then, the other five took about 30 minutes longer.
I put a slab of salmon on (no pics of that) for the fish eaters of the bunch, and they said it was fantastic.
We wound up with only about 25 people, so of course I am going to be eating BBQ for a few days. I froze the extra butt meat, since it freezes the best of all the meats. The ribs will be gone today and the turkey should be gone tomorrow.
I am getting more confident with the party. I have only used it a handful of times since I got it in November. I've had trouble keeping the temps stable when running it without water. I ran it with water yesterday with the auber ATC, and it ran at 225 dead stable for eight hours before I took the ATC off after all the food was all done, and the front thermometer still said 225 dead on.
Now it is just a matter of taking my daughter to the recruiter tomorrow afternoon and she will be on her way. I've prepared her for boot camp as well as I can (I went through it in '92) and she is moving on with her life, which is the best we can hope for as parents.
Originally planned on brisket, butt and ribs. Brisket prices being as outrageous as ever, we scrapped brisket and switched to turkey. My daughter actually prefers turkey to brisket, so this wasn't too terrible. Got all the meat prepped and injected on Friday afternoon. The party is schedule to start at noon on Saturday, so start times are a bit limited. 10:30 Friday night, the pellet smoker gets started up and the butts are on at 220 to try and keep things slow.
Woke up at 3 and decided to check the pellet level. It was only down an inch. Went ahead and bumped up the temp to 240. Got a couple more hours sleep, then got up at 5:30 and started up the backwoods party for the ribs. I didn't start enough coals, so even with the guru, it took almost 90 minutes to come to temp. It was loaded with water, but it was just shy of boiling water when I loaded it.
Now that the fridge was empty of most of the meat, had to make a run to the grocery store to get some rabbit food.
About 8:30, started up the Akorn for the turkey. Just before 9 it was chugging along at 250 at the grate.
I'm not sure how much hotter the second level is, but it is quite a bit since that turkey (about a pound lighter) took about an hour less than the lower level.
Now I've got all three smokers going, and I don't have that big a back porch.
Right at 12, things start coming ready. The first butt was ready right at 12 (sorry, no pics of that). First turkey breast right after that.
One rack of ribs was ready right then, the other five took about 30 minutes longer.
I put a slab of salmon on (no pics of that) for the fish eaters of the bunch, and they said it was fantastic.
We wound up with only about 25 people, so of course I am going to be eating BBQ for a few days. I froze the extra butt meat, since it freezes the best of all the meats. The ribs will be gone today and the turkey should be gone tomorrow.
I am getting more confident with the party. I have only used it a handful of times since I got it in November. I've had trouble keeping the temps stable when running it without water. I ran it with water yesterday with the auber ATC, and it ran at 225 dead stable for eight hours before I took the ATC off after all the food was all done, and the front thermometer still said 225 dead on.
Now it is just a matter of taking my daughter to the recruiter tomorrow afternoon and she will be on her way. I've prepared her for boot camp as well as I can (I went through it in '92) and she is moving on with her life, which is the best we can hope for as parents.
