Jeff's Mother's Day Cook Thread

[Jeff_in_KC]

OK I'm ready for the pre-dawn hours tomorrow morning! On the menu:

Brisket
Pork Butt (pulled and lightly sauced)
Babyback Ribs (4 slabs)
Whole Chicken (with Scott's Brine)
JD Maple Fatties

Will get the fire going by 6am in the morning. Wood of choice this time? Cherry! First on will be brisket and butt and fatties, followed later in the morning by ribs and chicken.

Photos of prepped and rubbed meat here.

 

[Bigmista]

Never cooked a brine before. I'll have to try that. I'm guesing that aside from the salt content and the brown sugar, that would be a pretty good vegetable stock.

 

[kcquer]

Never cooked a brine before. I'll have to try that. I'm guesing that aside from the salt content and the brown sugar, that would be a pretty good vegetable stock.

Exactly what I do except mine is usually a chicken stock. When I prep split breasts for brining, I remove the ribs as this makes the pieces more compact and easier to fit in the cimarron. The ribs go in the stock pot as well.

 

[BBQchef33]

My .02.

I always at least heat the brine to dissolve the sugars and salts, then add that to ice water. But the herbal brine i make, I steep for a while to extract the flavors. Its a fruit juice based brine though.

If i were to look for a stock base though, I think i would use "better than Boullion" or a premade stock as a base if i was looking for that. But moswt of the time Its apple juice mixed with other citrus fruits.

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Yee Haw! Chicken is in the brine. I'm farkin' goin' to bed! I'm beat and 5:30 am is EARLY! Just got home from a party (where my little 4 year old sweet daughter told her little friend to "shut up you crazy bitch" - dad's road rage has GOTTA stop or so the OL says. Always MY fault :roll: ) Anyway, it's farkin' raining here so I spent the last 30 minutes out in it getting a tarp strung up from the deck privacy lattice out above the smoker so I'll be ready in the AM. G'night you crazy bitches! Oops!

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Good morning my brothers of different mothers! Pit temp is almost 200 and I can't wait to go get a little more sleep after the brisket and butt go on!

 

[icemn62]

Shhhhhh Jeff is sleeping

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

No I'm farkin' NOT! I'm having trouble with pit temps again. Some of it is my own screw up (forgot to open the damper back up when my temp spiked. Almost killed the coals! LOL! Anyway, I think I've gotten it under control and if I can figure out when to get this bird on, I'm gonna grab an hour sleep.

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Not going badly... It's 11:20 AM and the brisket is at 154* (foiling at 170*) while the butt is at 161* (foiling at 165*). The ribs will be foiled in about 20 minutes on the 3-2-1 method.

 

[The_Kapn]

Great Looking deck.
Great Looking load of Grub
Mama's gonna be happy :lol: , happy :lol: , happy :lol: .
TIM

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Thanks! I'm proud of the deck. All we had before was a 10'x12' slab of concrete. This monster is 21'x13'!

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

CRAP!!!! It's farkin' POURING down rain! The wind is kicking up too... hope my tarp holds so my smoker doesn't lose temp! Brisket still at 152* and Butt still at 163* (almost ready to foil that).

 

[The_Kapn]

CRAP!!!! It's farkin' POURING down rain! The wind is kicking up too... hope my tarp holds so my smoker doesn't lose temp! Brisket still at 152* and Butt still at 163* (almost ready to foil that).

If it don't hold temp--foil the Butt and Brisket and move it to the oven.
They will finish off just fine there.
Once you lose temp and the meat starts cooling, it is a bear to get going again--don't ask me how I know
Just foil them now--they will do OK.
TIM

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

I foiled the butt and moved it lower in the smoker. Hope that helps. The brisket is stuck. Figured it would be foiled before it got stuck! LOL! Tim, I will probably get them in the oven soon. But my wife has some dessert in there and it's at 375*! Can't have that. We aren't eating for another 3 hours.

 

[icemn62]

Hope everything turned out okay. Nothing worse than Mother Nature to decide that you are not going to smoke today. Of course I live in So. Cal. what do I know of bad weather.

 

[mrkkti]

Is that bird and fatties right on top the water pan with another rack?

Any particular reason you do that?

 

[BAG3]

Scott's Brine that you used looked and sounded great!! Is that in the recipes or did you get it from Scott??
Does it make a flavor difference if you chop up the veggies?? I was thinking it might be more intense???

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Mmrkkti, yes, it's another rack on top of the water pan. The reason I do that is that I use the grill grid from the fire box as a third rack. Problem is, it isn't quite wide enough and so the water pan helps support it. I'm looking everywhere that carries the BSKD but no one carries replacement racks so I can add to mine.

BAG3, I don't know if Scott uploaded his recipe thre. The files are still farked so who knows? Scott just kinda told me what he does. The difference is I didn't have rib bones from split boobs to dump in since I was doing a full bird. I cut the veggies up because I thought they'd boil down more quickly, which they did. I did carrots, celery, onion and 3 garlic cloves. I also put in kosher salt and brown sugar. I think it made a difference in taste and I'm tellin' ya, the breast was really moist and very tender. It literally melted in your mouth.

 

[Jeff_in_KC]

Icemn, thanks! Everything turned out pretty good! The ribs were better than any I've done IMO. The pulled pork was my first effort and I was thrilled with the results! I think I like it better than brisket (blasphemy, say the Texan brethren! LOL!). I wasn't really happy with my brisket this time. The bark was soft and I messed it up when I foiled it. I would have been pounded in competition with that dino-turd! Not sure what the reason was. I didn't mop it at all. I used a rub with turbinado sugar in hopes I'd get a nice crusty bark. Didn't happen. It was tender but not as much so as my last one. As for the pulled pork, I did not pull the gray colored meat near the bone. My wife thought it was OK but I heard too many horror stories here to try it. There was PLENTY anyway even without it. I mixed a couple of my favorite sauces and thinned with some juice from the foil I had wrapped the butt with. I mixed this in to give the pork a light sauce flavor. Awesome! I finished off the butt in the oven for 30 minutes. Everything else made temp on the pit. Here's a few final photos...

 

[Bill-Chicago]

I got her to pell the membrane off the babybacks (I hate that!)

Jeff

Do you use the paper towel method? I hated doind the membrane also, then Phil showed me to just start one end under the first bone with a knife.

Grab a paper towel, and grab that small area you started to peel.

Then just pull, using the paper towel to hold the membrane. Takes about 8 seconds a rack. Use to take me 5 minutes farking around with it.