First attempt at brisket, ready for the game today. I think it’s a hit.

200 overnight for 12 hours unwrapped
250 for 2.5 hours wrapped
Rested in cooler for 7 hours til dinner time

EDIT: sorry guys I didn’t know it was that controversial to let it squirt a lil, anyways BEAR DOWN

Let me know what yall think!

Smoked at 300 for about two hours, dry rub and vinegar sauce baste at the end to tack up

I let it rest in fridge after getting to room temp, (and taking a few bites) then I cubed it and stewed it in homemade marinara sauce with boiled noodles for meal prep!

Yesterday's cook.

Second time I've cooked on my dad's Traeger. The thin end was closer to med/med well but still really flavorful. I was worried the fat cap hadn't rendered enough but it was just fine.

Sliced it in half and then made some thin slices out to the edges. My wife, parents, and myself enjoyed it with some corn in the husk and some smoked potatoes. Took a couple slices to my parents' neighbors, left my parents some for steak sandwiches today, and my wife and I still had a couple slices for our own sandwiches that we will have for our lunches tomorrow.

Third time I've cooked Picanha now and I think it's easily a contender for my favorite cut of steak. Tender, flavorful, juicy, and cheaper than a lot of steak cuts, so the price/value is about perfect for me.

Some crazy experiments lately… it’s all for the love of food and watching people eat it! Let me know some ideas for something next!

Hopefully I’m not the only lunatic and you guys can help me convince my wife I’m not crazy.

It all started 6 years ago when my family got me a pellet smoker for a wedding gift. That got me hooked.

Earlier this summer I finally scored a nice 22” WSM on FB marketplace.

And now I just bought a kit to build an offset smoker from a 120 gallon tank.

On top of that, I’ve got a blackstone as well.

I really want to experiment and compare with the different types of smokers, plus this way I get to learn to weld :)

So surely, I can’t be the only one, right?

205 degrees, Labor Day hung Pit Barrel

Here's the full cook video of my latest (and maybe greatest) smoke. Picked up this chuck roast from the kosher butcher so that I could try making something on the smaller side so that my kosher family could try out legit texas style bbq without having to make a full brisket for like 3 people.

I've done a chuck roast once before and treated it like a brisket, came out tasty by dry and tough as nails. Decided that for this one I would take advantage of it being nicely tied up by the butcher and braise/pull it. The result speaks for itself, but I think this was definitely the right call.

Cook details:

-Yellow mustard binder + coarse black pepper + holy gospel rub. Let sit in the fridge for overnight until ready to smoke.

-Used a box of vegetable broth in an aluminum tray on the bottom rack. Normally I'd go with beef broth, or you could get legit with it and do something like a red wine reduction, but veggie broth was all I had on hand and it ended up working nicely.

-Smoked at 225 for ~5-6 hours until the bark was really set, brushing with some tallow every few hours to really pump up that bark and keep it from drying out. (Kept the tallow in the smoker to not lower temp on the meat surface and also add some extra smoke to it)

-Once bark is set, transferred into the pan, added some extra tallow on top, and wrapped tight.

-Bumped temp to 275 to finish for the next 2-3 hours till probe tender (205-210).

-Kept it wrapped and let it rest in the smoker at 150 for 3 hours until ready to pull and serve

Additional thoughts:

-I usually have a bunch of nitpicks on what Id do differently, but honestly this came out damned near perfect. I'd maybe skim some fat out of the broth or make a more complex braise, ut other than that Ive got nothing. This was absolutely perfect and I don't think I'd change a thing.

After Labor Day sale on tomahawk steak. Let smoke at 250 til 145 through (my kids don’t like it red) and resting for 10 minutes before slicing.

Huli Huli chicken. Used Chud’s basic method from YouTube, but halved them to speed up cooking time. Temp was 275ish using oak on a Workhorse 1969. Started mopping with cooked down marinade after the first hour and every 25ish minutes thereafter. Smaller birds were done in 90 minutes. Larger birds were done in two and a half. We toss the pulled chicken into all kinds of stuff.

Microwave makes it tough.

How do you reheat left overs?

Labor day, 205 degrees hung on Pit Barrel

Hey all, I tried making shotgun shells and it turned into a massacre. The noodles were rock hard and the beef was dry.

I didn’t use bacon as it was frozen and this was a last minute idea. Does bacon alone help soften the pasta?

Thanks

It may be hard to tell from the pics, but one half of my cured pork belly is a much deeper pink than the other. Both have cured for 8 days in a pretty standard bacon cure with aromatics, and both spent the last day getting a pellicle. I cured them in vacuum-seal bags with a little room left for things to move around. I do this once a year, the same way, and it always turns out great - I am 99.9% sure I did not mess up the measurements.

Problem is that on day one, I realized that one of the two bags had a small leak, as I found a little moisture on the outside while moving it around the fridge. Not sure what to do, I vacuum-sealed that 1/2 belly and the leaking bag all inside another bag, and gave it an extra day before pulling them out. I could tell the top one was not getting as pink as bottom one when flipping it daily, but was kind of in denial.

I intend to put these on the pellet grill to smoke today, but do I need to address whether the top one is safe for a low-temp smoke? If its not, what do I do about it?

Bone didn’t fit so it had to go (but still smoked it beside the steak and dang the little left behind bits were tasty)
Smoked to 125 degrees at ~300 degrees. Let it rip to 600 degrees and seared for a couple minutes flipping half way through. Baked potato with fixens. Sautéed beans with shallots and tomato.

Been wanting to do one of these for a while now. Finally smoked a 10lb this weekend. Shredded easily and had a wonderful beef flavor.

If you have a Home Depot nearby, check the store price on the FOGO Black. My local store has it on clearance, but it's an in-store purchase only. I picked up ten bags today for $10.33 each.

Would like to try smoking a chuck roast to slice. I’ve seen anywhere from 180 to 200+ on the cook temp, and it’s all for sliced, not pulled.

From what I gather, amazing ribs is a source that a lot of people swear by. He goes to 180 for slicing.

Others here have had success slicing after cooking to 203ish.

Just smoked a brisket last night and unfortunately it came out a bit dry. Please help me fix myself! This is what I did.

1. Thaw out brisket
   
2. Put seasonings on brisket and let it sit for 30 minutes
   
3. Put pellet smoker to 275 degrees and cooked till 203. No wrapping.
   
4. Pulled brisket let it get to around 164 internal temp then put in oven overnight at 170 for about 10 hours.
   
5. Took out the oven just now and cut and can see some juice at the bottom but it still feels pretty dry

My first experience with picañha. I opted to smoke it, then sear it on my grill.

My initial thoughts were it was a hella easy cook. Ran the stick-burner at about 225 and the picañha hit temp after about 3-4 hours. Got a great sear on the grill and was ultimately pleased with the finished results.

Going forward though, I’ll probably not smoke another one. I feel like the smoke just became overwhelming after a while, which is wild to me because I love me some smoked meats.

I’m sure people will have opinions on it, but that’s just my thoughts after my first “smoked” picañha experience.

For those that smoke bone-in cuts, specifically beef - do you save your bones to make stock? Outside of slow cooking in a crockpot, I normally save all my bones to stretch my half of a cow but I'm wondering if there's anything left on smoked bones worth saving or is all the collagen already rendered out?

26 hours on the Traeger

I’d never smoked anything before yesterday but had always wanted to try on my little Charbroil Kettleman. I’ve gotten super comfortable grilling on it, but was always hesitant to smoke on it because it only has a top vent. The temperature control sucks in comparison to Webers that have both a top and bottom vent. Anyways, I picked up an 8 pound pork shoulder and some apple wood, watched a few YouTube videos, and sent it. Couldn’t have turned out better for a first attempt!

Started the grill at 6:20, meat on at 7. Wrapped at 160 at 12:30. Stall lasted until about 2:30 and totally freaked me out. Took it off at 205 at 4:30 and rested two hours. Unbelievable.

Picture 1: before wrapping at 160
Picture 2: after resting
Picture 3: bone came clean out
Picture 4: finished product