There are some things that even the best grill – gas or charcoal – just can’t do well. Like make a hamburger with a nice crust on the outside. Or make hash browns. The usual way to overcome this flaw is to use a pan or some sort, like a cast iron skillet. Or to get a fancy new grill with a side burner and some kind of cheap accessory griddle. My grill came with one – it’s about the size of two postage stamps and has a cheap non-stick surface that barely browns anything.

And those are the major problems with most solutions that try and address this issue: they’re either too small or they don’t really brown things. What I’m talking about of course is a real restaurant style griddle. Having one of these really opens up cooking possibilities – especially if you can use it with your grill. I mean, a lot of things that are typically cooked on a griddle can be stinky or spray grease, so all the better if they can be cooked outside. Especially in the summer.

Enter the Little Griddle Company, makers of the Griddle-Q and Sizzle-Q grilltop griddles.

These are advertised as restaurant-like griddles for your grill. I first heard about them on the BBQ Source message boards that I frequent and a few guys there have them liked them. So this summer I took the plunge.

I looked at the Griddle-Q site and almost choked … the smallest one costs $169.99! for a 12″ x 16″ surface. Whoa! I understand that they are thick stainless steel and have a lifetime warranty and all, but wow. For some reason that was just more than I was willing to spend. And, the sizes didn’t really work for my current grill. The 12″ x 16″ was too small for what I thought I’d be cooking and the 21″ x 13.5″ was a bit too wide.

Fresh on the Sizzle-Q

Thankfully, they also make a model that is much less expensive: the Sizzle-Q. 18″ x 13″ for $69.99 MSRP. Now we’re talking. I looked around online to see if I could find it anywhere less expensive and I did – on EBay. I picked one up, brand new, for $59.49, shipping included from a seller called CSNStores.

So- how does it work? Great. Exactly as advertised. My first meal was a couple of frozen hamburgers and they turned out just as I hoped. Medium rare but with a nice crust on the outside. On a cheap white roll they are the perfect all-American diner burger. There’s a picture of them on the left. Later I also made an ambitious meal of grilled sausages, peppers, onions, and hash-browned potatoes. Although this size is somewhat constrained in space, it did an admirable job with the peppers and onions – certainly better than anything I could have done on the grill itself.

Even though the Sizzle-Q is the cheaper model, it feels and looks plenty sturdy to me. All the welds look well done and the finish is very good. I honestly can’t imagine that the Griddle-Q really improves much in this for almost three times the price.

My advice is this: if you like to cook outdoors and are looking for a way to expand what you can do, the Sizzle-Q is a great accessory. On my grill it covers about 3/4 of the grill surface so I still have some area left for regular grilling. The stainless surface of the Sizzle-Q cleans up easily just by spraying it with a little water and hitting it with a scraper. And the stainless surface really browns and cooks food much better than any non-stick surface out there and cleans up just as easily. Is this really that much better than a cast iron pan? I think so – the squared corners and larger surface make moving food around a little easier, and the clean up is easier. I’m satisfied that this is worth the $60 I paid for it. But I still balk at the $190 or $200 prices of the Griddle-Q models. I’m not sure those can be justified.

So I say go ahead and get a Sizzle-Q and expand your cooking options. Happy grilling.

My New Favorite BBQ Accessory

24 quart Party Stacker

I wrote a little while ago that finding equipment for handling full-size bar-b-que cuts of meat can be a royal pain. Not to mention finding insulated containers for all your bar-b-que’d goodness when you want to take it to someone else’s place. For prep work I’ve been a big fan of using commercial food containers and pans I’ve collected from EBay and other places. But while I was browsing through my local BJ’s Wholesale Club the other day I saw a special on Coleman “Party Stacker” coolers. The bundle came with a 24 quart and a 33 quart model together and was only $38.

And I have to say I love these things. For carrying food or drinks, these things are perfect. For serving drinks, they’re pretty good, but other coolers may be better.

Coleman claims to have designed these with beverages in mind. The smaller cooler holds 12 cans (and some ice) or a couple of 9″ x 13″ pans stacked. The larger cooler holds either 12 longneck bottles or 24 cans (or again, a few 9″ x 13″ pans stacked). Pretty good sizing, but I wish they could accommodate standard steam table pan sizes rather than home baking dish sizes. Oh well. A 1/3 size steam table pan might fit, though it might slide around a little.

What makes these coolers so good for handling food? First the lids are completely removable, so getting things in and out is easy. Second, there is no drain plug to leak and therefore no grooves or channels to have to scrub out. The inside is smooth and easy to clean. The lid is also well designed – not only does it securely hold other Party Stacker coolers, but it’s flat and has a good drainage notch so it can be used to hold wet stuff while it drains.

The 24 quart size is great for brining large amounts of chicken or holding ribs while the rub is working. They’re great for holding all kinds of food after it comes out of the smoker and is resting.

So – get yourself some of these. They’re great and inexpensive.

For Bar-B-Que That Is

If you’ve decided to tackle bar-b-que, particularly spare ribs, you will eventually run into a problem that has vexed many a home cook. That is: home cookware wasn’t made to deal with large slabs of meat. A trimmed St. Louis cut rack of ribs is more than 22 inches long. That’s wider than a half sheet pan (a large cookie sheet) which is only 18 inches edge to edge. So if you intend on seasoning a rack of ribs and giving them eight or more hours in the refrigerator, you need something substantial to hold it. And if you want to do two or three or even four racks at a time … well, you’re into commercial equipment.

My favorite container for large slabs of ribs or multiple shoulders or bellies is a commercial 18″ x 26″ x 6″ food storage box. I have a clear Lexan version but you can also get them in white polyethylene. The whole rig cost me $43.99 including shipping from EBay. The only downside is that these boxes are actually 26¼” wide. That’s a problem for me because my second refrigerator is exactly 26″ wide inside. So I need to put the box in a little slanted to fit. When something drains liquid this can be an advantage, but it is a pain in the ass. So I suggest you measure your fridge before you go and buy something like this.

But in the end, it is really convenient to have a container large enough to accommodate full racks. I recommend a little EBay shopping of you have a refrigerator big enough to hold one of these tubs. It’ll make your life easier.

I’ve written before about how most bar-b-que cooks are secretive about their rub and sauce recipes. I’m not. Even if I were cooking competitively I’d tell you 99.9% of what I do. But I’m not cooking competitively (yet – I need something to save for retirement 20 years from now) so I’ll tell you 100% of how I do things and you can use my recipes as a base from which to experiment.

My wife recently had her Aunt and Uncle here in the US from Germany. For the first of several dinners I thought I’d introduce them to something uniquely American. And what’s more American then bar-b-que? I’d argue that even the Hamburger has been exported so much that it’s lost its unique American-ness. You can get a hamburger in any country in the world now. But bar-b-que? That hasn’t been exported yet.

So I decided to make real spare ribs – using a rub I’ve been working on for several months. I also did these in my Bradley smoker since I wanted to actually be able to sit and talk to my guests rather than spend my time tending a fire.

Here’s how I did it:

Smoked Pork Ribs in a Bradley Smoker

Ingredients:

• 2 racks of St. Louis cut Spare Ribs. (I buy whole cryo-vac ribs and trim them myself. See my BBQ guide for a good video link and explanation, including how to remove the membrane from the back of the slab.
• ¼ cup molasses or Grade B maple syrup
• ¼ cup BBQ sauce (I use Sweet Baby Ray’s sauce)
• 1 T Dark Brown Sugar
• 2 T Apple Cider Vinegar
• Rib Rub (see recipe in this post, about half way down the page. Basically 6 parts Brown Sugar, 3 parts salt, 1 part other spices.)

Preparation (12 to 24 hours before smoking)

1. Pat the ribs dry.
2. Mix molasses, BBQ sauce, and 2 T vinegar together until blended. Use the brown sugar to sweeten to your taste if using molasses. Probably not needed if using maple syrup. Brush the mixture over the slabs until completely covered.
3. Sprinkle rib rub liberally over the surface of the ribs.
4. Wrap in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for at least 8 hours and up to 24.

Smoking

I used the 3-2-1 method on these ribs. Especially because I had people eating who have never had ribs before and might not appreciate the chew and pull of regular smoked ribs. I use hickory smoke as always.

1. Remove ribs from refrigerator at least 1 hour prior to smoking and let them come t room temperature.
2. Set Bradley Smoker oven temp to 220° F. Timer set for 6 hours and 40 minutes.
3. Let smoker warm up for 40 minutes.
4. Place ribs on Bradley racks.
5. Set smoke generator for 3 hours of smoke and start. (You’ll need 11 bisquettes in the tube for this).
6. After 3 hours, remove ribs from smoker and wrap in aluminum foil. I add a splash of cider vinegar to each foil pouch at this point.
7. Put foil covered ribs back in smoker for 2 hours. No smoke during this time.
8. After 2 hours, remove foil packs from smoker. Unwrap ribs and place back on Bradley racks. Be careful to reserve the liquid from the foil pouches – collect it in a small saucepan.
9. Start the smoke again for one hour (5 bisquettes).
10. While smoking, reduce the collected liquid to a glaze by heating until reduced by half. Mix this with any additional sauce or spices that you prefer. It will be the final finishing sauce.
11. After the final hour, remove the ribs from the smoker (they may fall apart at this point, so handle carefully). Brush on your reduced glaze and serve.

They were a hit! I think I may have started a German BBQ cult. Hope this recipe works for you too.

The Final Product

I’m a big fan of dry-aged beef. At least compared to wet-aged beef. But I was always under the impression that individual cuts couldn’t be aged by themselves — whole primal cuts were the smallest that could be safely aged at home.

But in the March 2010 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine, they talked about a method of aging individual steaks at home (membership required)  by wrapping them in cheese cloth. From their article:

To try replicating these results at home on a smaller scale, we bought rib-eye and strip steaks (each $10.99 per pound) and stored them in the back of the refrigerator, where the temperature is coldest. Since home refrigerators are less humid than the commercial units used for dry-aging, we wrapped the steaks in cheesecloth to allow air to pass through while also preventing excessive dehydration and checked them after four days (the longest length of time we felt comfortable storing raw beef in a home fridge).

I thought I’d give this a try, at least for a couple of days at first, rather than four.

After 2 Days in The Fridge

And believe it or not, it worked well. I took a nice organic t-bone steak, wrapped it up in cheesecloth, and put it in the back of the bottom shelf of my refrigerator. I left it for two days and then salted it and cooked it up. And I felt that it was comparable to dry-aged steak that I buy from my local Whole Foods. It was definitely richer and more tender than a regular steak. As Cook’s said:

Sure enough, four days of dry-aging in a home fridge gave the steaks a comparably smoky flavor and dense, tender texture. As long as you remember to wrap the meat in plenty of cheesecloth, place it on a wire rack for air circulation, and store it in the coldest part of the fridge, you can skip shelling out extra money for commercially aged cow.

I will definitely do this again — in fact, I may never eat another steak without aging it for at least a little while. I suggest giving this a try if you like dry-aged beef.

Update 6/5/2010

Alton Brown recently aired an episode of Good Eats (“Porterhouse Rules”) where he described a similar method. Only he made  a home made rig to hold the steak using pie plates and wrapped it in paper towels instead of cheese cloth. But with two of my favorite sources of food information agreeing that this will work, I’m satisfied that it will work. You can find the recipe for the episode here.

Now What?

Get out there and grill some steaks! Yes, that is a picture of my own grilled porterhouse at the top of this post. Interested in grillmarks? Read about my opinion here.

What Good is a Smoker if You Can’t Make Bacon?

Among all the visions of pulled pork and spare ribs that I had when I bought a smoker, the main thing I wanted to do was make bacon. There really isn’t a greater food than bacon … fatty, meaty, salty goodness kissed with a bit of smoke. And bacon isn’t the most complicated preparation either. With just some basic ingredients and a little time, bacon is pretty easy to make.

But First … To Cure or Not

Commercial bacon is a cured product … meaning that it it treated with nitrite salts to help preserve the meat. And these compounds are somewhat controversial due to their potential direct and indirect effects on health. I say potential because I am not convinced of their harm and I think the worry is overblown. What these compounds do is threefold: deterring the growth of botulism toxins, preserving the red (pink after smoking) color of meat, and subtly altering the flavor of the cured meat.

The Nitrite Concern

There are actually two concerns surrounding nitrites in meat … their direct toxicity and the potential formation of compounds called nitrosamines when nitrite cured meat is either cooked at high temperatures, as bacon usually is, or exposed to a low pH environment like it is in your stomach. The amount of nitrite needed to be directly toxic is pretty high, so I’m not really worried about that. Studies in the 1970s first identified nitrosamines as carcinogenic. Subsequent work has confirmed this. However, there are steps which can be taken to reduce this risk, including cooking bacon at lower temperatures and to a less done final state, as well as adding certain anti-oxidants (like ascorbic acid) to the curing salt.

There are several very good resources describing this on the web, from reputable sources including the University of Minnesota, Oregon State University, and in this Wikipedia article.

So, in the end, I decided to cure my bacon. For me it comes down to flavor. I’ve tried uncured bacon and it’s just not the same. It’s more like … well, roasted pork. I like roasted pork, but not when I expect bacon. I used a commercial cure with a nitrite concentration in the acceptable range, and I didn’t use more than recommended. Additionally, I don’t cook my bacon to anything near well done, preferring it just short of crispy. And finally, I will be adding some ascorbic acid to my cure mix, just to be safe.

An interesting note – much of the “uncured” bacon that one finds in the organic section of the market these days in fact contains just as many nitrites as cured bacon. By law, “uncured” means no additional nitrites were added beyond what occurs naturally in the ingredients themselves. Now look closely at the label of your uncured bacon. You’ll probably see “celery juice” as an ingredient. Wonder why celery juice is in bacon? Because celery juice is naturally high in both nitrates and nitrites. So, by adding it, manufacturers can claim “no added nitrites” or “uncured” while still adding nitrites and getting a cured product with the taste people expect. But don’t take my word for it. Consumer Reports was one of the first to catch this trick when they tested hot dogs. They said:

While the three uncured franks might boast of “no added nitrates,” our testing found that Applegate Farms, Coleman Natural, and Whole Ranch contained nitrates and nitrites at levels comparable to many of the cured models.

And

While a hot dog can be labeled uncured if no nitrates or nitrites have been added, that does not necessarily mean the product is free of them. The three uncured models we tested contained nitrites and nitrates because the compounds occur naturally in spices and other natural ingredients added during processing.

So keep that in mind if you’re buying “uncured” bacon. You just might be fooling yourself.

The Process

The Meat

American Pork Cuts (adapted from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:American_Pork_Cuts.svg)

American bacon is made from cured pork belly, the meat outside the ribcage and extending around the stomach or belly of the pig (labeled “side” in the diagram to the right – don’t ask me why). As far as I am concerned, anything else isn’t bacon, it’s some other form of cured pork. I’m all for that … I come from New Jersey, the home of Taylor Ham after all, just don’t call the other things bacon. For instance, there’s some bullshit abomination popular with home smokers that they call “buckboard bacon.” But it’s not bacon; it’s a cured and smoked pork shoulder. Lose the smoke, chop it up and form it back into a loaf, and you have SPAM. And SPAM ain’t bacon.

So when I call something bacon I am referring to cured, smoked, pork belly.

Getting pork belly can be a bit of a challenge depending on where you live. My normal meat market, which even sells goat, doesn’t carry it. They offered to order some belly, but I would need to take a whole case of three bellies, or about 30 pounds. I really want to perfect my recipes before I tackle 30 pounds.

I did find pork bellies at one of the best specialty markets in Boston, Savenors, but that’s a 40 mile drive from my house. For my first time, I wanted to start making Bacon now, not in a few days when I picked up some belly after work (I work a few blocks away from Savenors). So I tried my local, tiny Asian market. And sure enough, they had some small 1 lb. pieces tucked int their freezer case. I can’t say that these were the best looking specimens I’d ever seen, but they were worth a shot. So my first test batch was made with frozen pork belly.

Dry Curing

Rather than making up my own recipes, I decided to go with a commercial cure mix. This would let me learn about the differences caused by curing time rather than worrying if I had my mix correct. Based on some recommendations on various message boards, I went with a regular and a maple cure from the Butcher and Packer company. For about $5, I got enough cure to dry cure 100 lbs. of meat. Not bad.

You need a surprisingly tiny amount of cure for bacon. The Butcher & Packer instructions say to use 2 pounds of cure per 100 pounds of meat for a dry cure. That equals 0.02 pounds of cure per pound of meat, or just above 1/3 of an ounce of cure per pound of belly.

As for the vitamin C to add … the Oregon State reference lists the effective concentration as 550 ppm (parts per million). So assuming that’s ppm of the total cure weight, I need 550 mg of ascorbic acid per Kg of cure. I’m going to keep these tiny numbers in grams … So 550 mg per Kg is 550 mg per 2.205 pounds. That equals 249 mg per pound (550 / 2.205). That means I need to grind and evenly distribute one 250 mg vitamin C tablet into each 1 lb bag of cure. Simple.

That done, I measured out the correct amount of cure by weight using my kitchen scale (ended up being less than a teaspoon for each piece, but do your own math) and evenly sprinkled it over the pieces. I placed them in a Ziplock bag in another plastic container (just in case) in my refrigerator. And for the next 5 days I simply rotated them each day. Some liquid was released, but not much more than a few tablespoons.

Smoking

Many people online complained that bacon cured too long turned out too salty. So I was scared into leaving my first batch curing for only 5 days. Turns out the people online were either full of shit, overly sensitive to the taste of salt, or used way too much cure. Because my 5 day cure tasted barely salty. But it did have that characteristic red color, so I went ahead and smoked it.

Anyway, I took the bacon out and rinsed it well in cold water. Some people advocate soaking and all sorts of treatments, which I’m glad I didn’t do. I let it sit for several hours to reach room temperature and let a bit of a pellicle form.

I am a fan of real smoke flavor, so I used hickory only and ended up smoking my pieces for about 4 hours, starting at 120° F for the first 2 hours and then stepping the temperature up to 150° and 170° in the third and fourth hours respectively. I kept it in the heat until the internal temperature was just past 140° F and let carryover take it almost to 150°.

The Result

Whole Bacon

I know it might not look like much in this view, but it really did look sooooooo much better than that slimy pre-sliced stuff you buy in the supermarket. And once I cut into it, well, my effort was immediately worth it. Even the cheapo $1.99/lb belly I got from the freezer of my local Asian market was a better quality (read less fatty) than the typical bottom-of-the-barrel belly that becomes mass produced bacon.

The smoke flavor wasn’t too apparent on the first day, but like all smoked foods, really benefited from a few days in the refrigerator. It seemed that the smokiness really bloomed after that. Enough that I might cut the smoke back to just 3 hours next time. As for the flavor, I really didn’t think there was a strong cured, salty, or sweet flavor at all. Either immediately out of the smoker or even several days later. It just didn’t seem to be thoroughly cured. I’m sure this was the result of the limited curing time. I will at least double it to 10 days next time, or perhaps as long as 14 days. I also didn’t detect any difference between the maple cure and the brown sugar cure. So to enhance some maple flavor in the next batch I think I will brush the bellies with some actual maple syrup. Hopefully that will improve the character.

It's What's Inside That Counts

The Recipe

As of right now, here is my recipe, and the one I will follow for the next batch of bacon (I have 5 pounds of belly from Savenors ready to start curing tonight).

1. Wash belly and pat dry. Leave skin on.
2. Brush belly with thin layer of maple syrup.
3. Measure proper amount of cure and sprinkle evenly over all surfaces.
4. Place in Ziplock bag and allow to cure 10 to 14 days in refrigerator, turning bag every 24 hours.
5. Remove belly from bag and rinse quickly in cold water.
6. Allow belly to sit in the air for several hours until a pellicle forms.
7. Place in smoker at 140° F. After 2 hours, increase smoker temp to 150° F. After 1 more hour, increase temp to 170° F. Allow smoke for three or more hours depending on wood and your taste.
8. When internal temperature reaches 140°, remove, slice, cook, and enjoy.

Some Resources

Along the way to this recipe I found a couple websites that were very helpful. So thanks especially to Dave Selden and his blog and the “Makin Bacon” post. And also to the 3 Men site and their bacon page.

Springtime is just around the corner, and just as I am often asked about what equipment someone should buy for their grilling friend/spouse/neighbor, I am also asked by people about what kind of grill someone should get. Gas grill, charcoal grill, wood smoker, electric smoker, or some hybrid device? Believe it or not, this can be a complex question. Hopefully, I can help sort it out for you.

Your basic choices are:

Grills

• Charcoal
• Gas
  - Traditional
  - Infrared

Smokers

• Vertical/water
• Horizontal / dedicated pit
• Electric

Hybrid

• Ceramic
• Grill/smoker Combinations

As always, there are myriad factors effecting this decision. Each of the devices listed above is better at one aspect of cooking than another. Rarely can a single device prove competent at the wide range of tasks from cold-smoking salmon and sausage to hot-smoking ribs and pulled pork to grilling vegetables and fish at low heat to searing a steak. So the first question to be answered is this:

What kinds of food will you cook and how often?

The main division is between grilling and smoking, because these techniques are done at such divergent temperatures – grilling typically above 350°F (and searing meat above 700°F) while smoking is done at or just below 250°F. With few exceptions, a grill with the burner capacity to heat to 700°F will not easily maintain a low temperature of 225°F. And of course, having multiple specialized devices is best, but other considerations will affect this.

Next, you need to answer the one question that affects everything:

How much money are you willing to spend?

The simplest small charcoal grill can cost as little as $20 and make a decent steak once and a while. Yet you can also drop $20,000 or more on a large custom BBQ Pit. The amount you spend is limited only by how much you have.

Finally, there are some logistics that come into play:

How much room do you have?

Most people are limited by the space available to store their toys. Either the size of their deck or patio or the space in the garage is going to limit the number of pieces of equipment you’re going to buy.

The Pros & Cons

So, factoring in all the information above, what’s the recommendation? That’s still a tough decision. I’ll start with what I own and why, and then make some recommendations.

My Stable of Grilling and Smoking Devices

1. A Char-Broil RED 4-burner infrared gas grill. I bought this grill three years ago when the 2008 models first came out and I have been absolutely thrilled with the results. This is the first grill I have ever personally used that can get to 800° F and sear a steak, and also hold a steady 250° F temperature and turn out competent bar-b-que. I have written extensively about this grill in the Char-Broil forum on my favorite message board, the BBQ Source. Since this is such a versatile grill, it’s a good foundation to build from.One word of caution: after the initial debut of this grill in 2008, several quality problems have been reported, particularly with the similar but smaller 3-burner model of this grill. The issues are well documented in the Char-Broil forum mentioned above, but please check into the issues before buying!
2. 

   Modified NBBD Smoker

   New Braunfels Black Diamond smoker. I bought this in 2002 when I moved into my current house. It has taken some modification, but it’s now a competent bar-b-que pit. Every year I break it out in the summer to smoke for my Carnivore’s Carnival. The first five years I did four racks of pork ribs at a time. Last year I added pulled pork to the menu and did two shoulders and four racks of ribs. The smoker performed flawlessly for two days straight (14 hours for the shoulder and 6 hours for the ribs). This smoker is now sold as the Char-Broil Silver Smoker mentioned above.

3. Brinkmann Smoke-n-Pit vertical water smoker. I’ve had this for about 10 years now. The Smoke-n-Pit was the first real wood smoker I ever had the gave me the first confidence that I could produce real bar-b-que ribs by myself. Unfortunately, I haven’t used it since I bought my Black Diamond. But this was the device that got me and my friends hooked on bar-b-que, so I make sure it stays sheltered in my garage. At one point in my life, this was also the grill that let me eat good food when I had, literally, no money to my name. My first one was a gift from a friend and was well used. But an hour with an electric drill and wire brush and one can of high-temp paint and it was back in working order. When the food budget was low, I cooked hamburger and cheap pork cuts over a fire built from branches from the trees in my yard. I had several apple trees and the apple-smoked pork loin was amazing.
4. Bradley Digital Smoker. This is my newest purchase, and it’s only a month old. But I already love it. The Bradley is, IMHO, better than the Mastrbuilt because the smoke generator is a separate unit and this facilitates cold smoking better. It makes a decent hot smoker, but is really the only choice (other than a custom built device) for cold smoking. In fact, I have a nice salmon fillet that cured in salt and sugar for 12 hours waiting to go into my Bradley as I write this.

Great, So What do I buy?

OK – here are my recommendations.

If You Want to Cook and Hot Smoke

If your budget is unlimited, you can have the best of everything. Of course I recommend the equipment I have – a good quality gas grill, a dedicated smoker, and a nice electric smoker for convenience.

But if you have a medium budget — like $400 to $600, I recommend starting with a good gas grill with at least an infrared searing burner. Many people have luck with Chinese produced grills from the big-box stores like Lowe’s and Home Depot. Just read the imported grill message board at the BBQ Source forums and you’ll get an idea about what’s working in any given year.

If you are really limited in budget, I recommend a good charcoal grill, like a Weber kettle. A One Touch Silver starts at $89.99 retail, and as long as you are willing to put in the work, you can learn good fire control techniques and sear steaks and make passable bar-b-que all on the same grill.

The Only Thing I Smoke are Marlboros … What Grill Should I Buy?

If you want to improve your grilling technique the single best thing you can do is invest in something that allows you to really control the heat. Most cheap gas grills don’t allow this: even turning their knobs through a full range only changes the burners from really hot to very hot. So, if you have the budget, I’d recommend a good quality gas grill. And note that good quality doesn’t mean stainless steel. Stainless is a convenience feature — it does nothing to aid cooking. Weber gas grills have a great following. Jenn-Air used to have a loyal following, but I’ve read that their grills have declined in quality over the last couple of years. A company called Nexgrill makes a few models under different brands (sold at Costco and Sam’s Club for instance) and while a lot of their stuff seems like junk, a number of the people on the BBQ Source seem happy with them. Realize though, that a decent grill these days starts at ~ $600 and goes to $2000. If your budget is more modest, I recommend looking for a used deal on Craigslist and putting a little elbow grease into cleaning it up.

I Have the Grill … I Want to Smoke.

If you just want the end product and have the budget, an electric smoker can allow you to experiment with everything from sausage to ribs to shoulder to fish. For versatility and convenience, an electric smoker can’t be beat.

But, electric smokers aren’t the best for real, large cuts of bar-b-que like ribs and shoulder. For this you need something that burns wood (or charcoal). A cheap offset horizontal smoker is usually the way to start, but you can buy a pit that stretches any budget. Running a wood pit requires a commitment … smoking shoulder can mean 14 to 18 hours of tending a fire every 30 minutes to keep a constant temperature. But the reward is worth it. Nothing makes the great tasting bark on a shoulder like a long slow smoke over real hardwood.

The first week that I got my Bradley smoker, I made two racks of spare ribs, which turned out really good, if a bit salty. The experience was enough to help me start learning some of the Bradley’s quirks. So this week, I thought I’d attempt some pulled pork.

Things turned out reasonably well, but there were definitely some bumps in the road.

The Plan

Since I was going to be up on New Year’s Eve anyway, I figured I’d throw the shoulder into the smoker around midnight, and let it go for 12 or 14 or 16 hours — whatever it took. That way I could have a later New Year’s lunch of fresh smoked shoulder.

The Meat

Of course, since I wasn’t going to smoke a bunch of shoulder, I wasn’t going to buy the giant pack at my local wholesale club, and I didn’t have time to get to Fairway Beef either. So I had to take what my local supermarket had on New Year’s Eve, which was bone-in picnic ham. I’ve used this cut of meat before, and while it’s not my preference, when smoked slowly, it works very well. So I took what I could get.

The Prep

Based on the saltiness of my first ribs, I changed my rub a bit, cutting the salt in the the first part and increasing the brown sugar. Unfortunately, because of the timing, I was unable to let the rub sit for at least the twelve hours I like. It only got about eight hours in the refrigerator — but this was a learning experience about smoke and timing, so I was OK with it.

The Error

Around 11:15 PM on New Year’s Eve I plugged in the smoker and let it heat up to 260° F (it was about 20° F outside so I knew the oven would drop when I opened it again). Just after midnight, I stacked fifteen hickory bisquettes in the snoke generator tube and powered it on. The feeder cycled a couple of times moving bisquettes forward, and then just kept going. After a couple of cycles I was greeted with a loud beeping and an “E” on the smoker generator display. Crap. I unplugged everything, then plugged it all back in again. I restarted the smoke generator and got the same problem. It just kept cycling over and over again. What the hell was I going to do at midnight with a picnic ham ready to go?

I quickly went to the Internet and looked up the error. Thankfully, the Bradley Smoker has a huge and hugely helpful following on several message boards, including the official http://forum.bradleysmoker.com/ Bradley forums. Between the Bradley boards and a site run by one of the active members (with some helpful FAQs) I learned that the “E” error is generated when the bisquette feed motor can’t locate itself at startup. (And is different than the “E1″ error which is caused by a broken temperature sensor or a bad connection on the sensor wire). The FAQ on the E error had a helpful picture, and so I found myself with screwdriver in hand, disassembling the smoke generator and taking my ohm meter to the microswitch which signals the travel limit of the feeder arm. I quickly determined that there were no loose connections and that the switch was working. So, figuring that I must have a fried control board, I blew everything clean with compressed air and put it back together again. I gave it one shot and I guess I got lucky — it worked. So my take away is that cleaning the bisquette dust out of the smoke generator is pretty important, because stray parts can jam the feed mechanism.

Anyway, after a 35 minute detour I had the generator assembled again. But my bigger problem was that the smoker box was already down to 45° F. So I was going to be well behind schedule.

The Cook

But I gave it a shot anyway. I loaded the fifteen bisquettes back into the smoker, put the meat on the lower shelf, added my remote thermometer, and fired it up. I set the smoker for four hours and twenty minutes of smoke and the temperature to 220° F. I waited 30 minutes to make sure that the smoke started, set the top vent 1/2 way open, and then went to sleep.

When I woke up about five hours later, the smoker was holding a 210° F temperature, and  the meat had risen to about 130° F. But anyone who has cooked shoulder before knows that the first few hours are the easy part. Somewhere north of 140° F (often in the 160° F range) the internal temperature “stalls.” After climbing steadily for five or six hours, it just stops for five to six more. It’s really disconcerting the first few times it happens because you’re sure that you’re doing something wrong, and many inexperienced cooks take the meat off too early assuming that it won’t get any warmer. But it will — with pork shoulder, patience is truly rewarded.

I let the temperature climb slowly for the next few hours, and it did indeed stall at 165° F. It hit this plateau around 10:30 AM, and then stayed there until well past noon. Then it slowly started creeping up again. By 3 PM it finally crossed 185° F and I started the oven for my cornbread. At just before 4 PM it finally hit 190° F and I pulled it out and let it rest in foil for 30 minutes.

The Results

I’ll put it this way — the results were good enough that after waiting close to 16 hours I didn’t stop to take pictures. I pulled it with two forks (it was tender enough to fall right off the bone), grabbed my cornbread, and dove right in.

As expected, without a full twelve hours to sit with the rub, the overall seasoning was light. But that wasn’t the fault of the smoker. The smoke flavor though, was also light and this surprised me. Most of the information I read said that people were happy with four hours of smoke — I think it needed much more. The next round I will go for at least six hours.

There was also no smoke ring, which is the result of the electric heat versus heat generated by the combustion of either gas or wood. Essentially, the combustion creates various nitrogen oxides (abbreviated collectively as NOx) which react with the myoglobin proteins in meat to form a red layer.This layer is akin to meat cured with nitrite salts. (See http://www.karubecue.com/smoke_ring.html# for a good explanation.) So this is something that I think I will need to get used to:  in an electric smoker — without the combustion of fuel, the “cured” layer that forms right under the bark just won’t be the same, so the texture and taste won’t be as intense as it gets in a real smoker.

Otherwise, this cook turned out well … the meat was tender, there was a light smoke flavor, and again, I didn’t have to watch the damn thing for 16 hours. So I’m still happy …  and after I finish off a few more pounds of pulled pork I’ll be experimenting with longer smoke and maybe some different rub treatments to try and improve the bark.

So, you’ve read my core-dump on the basics of bar-b-que, right? Or maybe you got here after reading about my Bradley Digital Smoker. Maybe you’ve even decided the type of pit you’re going to use. Now it’s time to really get started.

One of the questions I get asked a lot is what other stuff do you need to create bar-b-que? Mostly, I get this question around Father’s Day or at the beginning of Summer, when people are looking for gifts. So I thought I’d take a look in my grilling and bar-b-que toolbox. (Yes, I’m including grilling in this.) And for what it’s worth, mine really is a toolbox. I keep everything I commonly use in a Stanley Fat Max toolbox which lives during the summer in a storage cart on my patio.

The good news is that you don’t need much. Like everything else in the bar-b-que world, things can be done well with little expense.

So here’s my list, in rough order of importance:

1. Instant-read meat thermometer. I currently use a splash-proof Thermapen by ThermoWorks, which I must admit is a fantastic thermometer. It’s faster than any other I’ve used, and the thin tip really allows an accurate temperature in cuts of meat that are thin (like spare ribs). But at $96 list price, you have to really like cool gadgets to want it. Don’t get me wrong, the NIST traceable calibration certificate you get with the thermometer really appeals to the chemist in me, but you can get more than satisfactory results with a less expensive thermometer. Prior to the Thermapen, I used a cheap Polder instant-read, which they don’t make anymore. But the next generation replacement is only $19.95.
2. Remote thermometer. You don’t really need both kinds of thermometers, but a remote thermometer is nice to have, especially for shoulder. I use a RediCheck Remote when I want to monitor the pit from a distance. With this kind of thermometer you can monitor the temperature of your food without disturbing the temperature of the pit by constantly opening and closing the door.
3. Silicone Gloves. Bar-b-que involves holding a lot of hot greasy stuff. For my money, nothing beats a nice pair of silicone gloves. Not only do they protect you from heat, but they clean up in the dishwasher so all that grease and sauce isn’t a problem. I use a set of two like these for ~$20.
4. Basting brush. Most people are going to want to mop their meat at some point. And I find that a silicone basting brush works best for this. It can handle the heat of a grill  and is easy to clean in the dishwasher. I’m currently using a couple of different ones I picked up at the hardware store or supermarket.
5. Towels. Speaking of messy … there will be a lot of mess to clean no matter what you’re making. So rather than using roll after roll of paper towels, I simply bought a bag of utility towels at BJs (I think I paid $45 for a bag of 50 towels 5 years ago) and I’ve been using them ever since. I still have 35 of them. They clean up in the washer and are way more useful than paper towels. Not only do they absorb more, but they can also be used to grab hot things. Absolutely indispensable.
6. Cooking spray oil (like PAM). Useful mostly for keeping things from sticking on the grill or smoker. I buy the bulk size at BJ’s.
7. Spatulas & Tongs. Not much to say here. There are millions of different brands. Buy something strong and cheap.
8. Radio. I keep a Sirius satellite radio receiver in the box because bar-b-que is a slow process. And there is always a need for tunes while waiting 14 hours for a shoulder to cook.

Bonus tool: an infrared thermometer. I have a cheap Harbor Freight infrared thermometer that I keep around. It’s useful for judging whether there are hotspots on the grill or in the pit.

So there you go … you really don’t need any of this stuff, but it’s all helpful and relatively inexpensive and it can make your life easier.

I’ve brought my new smoker home and smoked my first ribs. And I’ve learned a few things about the smoker. Here’s the quick summary for anyone looking for just some basic thoughts.

1. The smoker needs handles! I didn’t notice this until I was cleaning up, but handles would be welcome since most people will be moving this cabinet around a lot.
2. Speaking of cleaning, everything cleans up in the dishwasher. This is a first for me … with the drip pan in place, there’s no more scraping congealed pig jelly out of the bottom of the smoker. Excellent!
3. The shelves in the smoker will each fit one full rack of St. Louis cut ribs.
4. The temperature controller held the temperature I set +/- 15° F.
5. I used hickory bisquettes and the smoke generator worked great. It takes between five and ten minutes for the first bisquette to start smoking. The all seem to burn completely with no waste.

Basically, the smoker worked just as advertised. I can’t wait to try something cold smoked — bacon, here I come!