paul6057

I'm disappointed you don't have some home brew on the go... 🥴

Hi - I know I'm way late to this discussion, and this question is slightly off-topic but related. I've always kind of wondered what kettle barbecues are for, and still not really clear on their purpose. Can someone please elaborate for me? Are they intended for one thing over another, or are they a good hybrid that can be used for direct grilling and indirect smoking? I'm curious as I've always had oil drum style barbecues. I like with them there is a large cooking area, and a warming rack which hangs in the lid too, which you don't tend to get with kettles. I purchased a WSM at the end of last year for those long slow smokes, and I've previously been using a Landmann offset smoker (but with that, I've mostly been using it to add smoke flavour for a few hours, but having to do the bulk of the meat cook in either the over or the sous vide). I also bought a second cheap oil drum from Argos last summer, primarily for quick direct grilling when I'd run out of space on my Landmann. I guess I'm curious what the benefits of a kettle are over a bullet smoker or oil drum barbecue.

Has anyone cooked, or had picanha before? There's a Brazilian barbecue restaurant near my office in London called Omnino which does incredible meat. For anyone in the area, it's well worth checking out! https://www.omninorestaurants.com/stpauls_index.html By far the best meat they do in my opinion, is the picanha steak. I'd never heard of it before but it's a rump cap cut, and the flavour is incredible and the fat cap is so tasty! Has anyone had this or tried cooking this? I'm going to plan to do some of this over the summer, so I'm really hoping my local butcher can get some. This website gives a little bit of info, but it's for sure one that I'm going to experiment with this year when the weather improves. https://overthefirecooking.com/blog/what-is-picanha/ Or this site: https://howtobbqright.com/2018/09/13/sirloin-picanha/

Question for people here after reflecting on my weekend smoking. What amount of coal do you tend to use for long cooks? I reckon I probably used about 6kg of charcoal to keep the temperature going for about 10 hours. I guess that being pretty cold out as it was January which would no doubt have an impact on this, but if I'm thinking about doing 12 - 16 hour smokes over the summer, should I expect to be use roughly that amount of charcoal, or would two or three (4kg) bags be needed?

Never done a beer can chicken before, but I highly recommend it. Even in the WSM, I cooked it for about 3 1/2 hours at about 120 degrees, and it was fantastic.

I was also test driving my new iGrill. Seemed to do a good job and had much better Bluetooth connection than my Meater.

Final results. Some of the pork shoulder was a little dry, but still very tasty. Hard to tell whether that was over cooked or needed mor cooking to break down the meat fibres. I suspect it could have done with another hour, but we were hungry and didn't want to wait. The chicken was probably the best chicken I've ever cooked. It was so so tender!

Just taking the meat off the barbecue now...

Cooking temperature, I'm trying to keep it around 120 degrees. Internal temperature, I need my pork to get to 88, but it's stalled recently at around 77. Chicken is going well though.

Temperature has been pretty consistent for the last 5 hours or so. I had to give the coals a bit of a mix to bring some of the edge ones back in as the temperature was gradually going down. I think because I went with the massive smoker, and it's pretty cold outside, it takes a bit more fuel than I had expected. I'm doing a "beer can chicken" as well, which I'm kind of winging, because the book cooking temp is 60 degrees higher than my cooker. It's looking good though and the internal temperature is going in the right direction.

I was reading about some "modifications" that people have made to their WSM, or certain upgrades. I'm not going to start drilling holes or anything like that, but what I did buy was this stuff - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Gasket-Door-Ceramic-Oven-BBQ-Sealing-Tape-Self-Stick-Antiflaming-Guard-Adhesive/163908717700?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649 I put it around the lid and around the door, and it does a really great job of helping to seal those gaps and stop the smoke from escaping where you don't want it to. I had to do two layers around the door because the stock "fit" on that thing is terrible! So far, so good though.

I'm wondering whether it took so long to get up to temperature, because I filled the water bowl with sand, and it had been out during the night and obviously got cold. That's going to take a lot of heat to warm up the sand I expect so maybe the reason for the slow start.

Here we go... Taking a bit of time to get up to temperature, so I added more coals to the middle.

What sort of temperature would you be looking for for that cook and for how long would you expect to cook it for? I have an iGrill (which is also new) so should be able to monitor temperatures, both ambient and internal, relatively well. How long would you expect one 4kg bag of charcoal to cook for using the minion method? My coconut shell briquettes say 4 hours, but I'm presuming that's fully lit in a chimney. Would you double or treble that time cooking minion method?

Hi all, I got a 57cm WSM at the end of the summer that in yet to use, but thinking of cracking it out over the next few days. I'm thinking of doing a pork shoulder and probably spatchcocked chicken add they're both ready to get hold of, rather than ordering a full brisket from my local butcher. Any tips, advice, or warnings would be appreciated. I also have a question. What fuel do you use in your WSM or bullet smoker? I have a few bags of heat beads and a couple of coconut shell charcoal, but what about lumpwood? What is most effective and controllable? Thanks, Paul

Well, I added a little bit of garlic powder, onion powder and celery seeds (just because I had them) to the brine, and the chicken is cooking now, so I'll see how that goes this evening. The first thing that I've noticed is that the skin has browned up much more quickly than usual. Perhaps because there is less water in the skin so it crisps quicker now.

Does anyone add any herbs or spices to their brine, other than just sugar and salt? I saw one video where the guy used apple juice in the brine as well which I guess adds to the sugar content.

I'd love to have time to cook more than I do, but by the time I get home from work, it's too late for that. I do however have an Anova sous vide, which I'm a big fan of. I've used that in the past to do briskets and pork shoulders prior to then smoking them for a few hours. The brisket was in the sous vide for 50 hours, but it tasted fantastic at the end of it! I also did a boneless turkey crown in the sous vide last year for Christmas. The one thing I've learnt from that is that the sous vide doesn't cook at a high enough temperature to really mellow out the raw garlic that I put in the butter as a rub and flavouring. I'd definitely recommend roasting off the fresh garlic if using it in a sous vide. I do also have a couple of different sized slow cookers which I try and use a bit more during the week. The whole notion of cooking slow to make food fast is one I appreciate. Chuck everything in the slow cooker the night before and shove it in the fridge. Put the slow cooker on before I leave for work, it's ideal. I also added a Hive plug to this set up so that I can switch the slow cooker on from my desk mid-morning, if I want something to be cooked for 7pm and it only takes 8 hours. I did an awesome Chinese beef a few months ago.

Hi All - I'm going to cook a 4(ish) kg chicken for Christmas lunch (not massive turkey fans and turkeys are pretty large), and I've seen a few things in videos, and general discussions about brining. Has anyone tried this, and if you have, what were the results? Also, I don't have a brining bucket, so what recommendations do you have for how to successfully brine a bird? How long do you have to do it for, and what recipes have worked well? The videos I see from the US all use pre-made brining powder which I obviously can't get in the UK, so any recommendations or thoughts would be appreciated.

Salt is salt, but fineness at the point of measuring it makes a difference to how much actually goes in. One teaspoon of course salt will be less salt than one teaspoon of table salt. It might only be a small difference but is imagine it to make a big difference to overall taste.

Also...

Just reading through some of these rub recipes, and I have a question. What type of salt do you use? Loads of recipes talk about kosher salt, but I've not easily or affordably been able to find that in the UK. Is regular sea salt flakes like Maldons a good substitute? I've also got some course sea salt crystals. This is the biggest concern I have with following recipes to make my own rubs, because getting the salt wrong, using one that is too fine and therefore you get too much of it, just ruins everything.

I was a little shocked that it was the same size as my 6 year old when I was constructing it, but it's got loads of cooking space for lots of meat. It won't be a frequent use thing by any stretch, so it seemed ideal. And I figured it was a good next step, rather than jumping from £200 Landmann to £2,500 Kamado Joe... I've watched a few Troy Cooks videos to get some tips and inspiration on how to use a WSM. All useful stuff.

I bought a WSM recently so I guess the comment was related to that, rather than my current set up. I presume then what you're explaining is acting like the ceramic plate that goes in a Komado above the fire. Makes sense to help distribute the heat a bit more evenly, rather than having hotter areas. I'll try with water first and see how I get on. Water is easier to get hold of than sand is, that's all.

What's the idea behind the sand rather than water? I thought the purpose of the water pan was to stop the air drying out too much so the meat doesn't dry out in turn. What does the sand do instead?