Porkchop

ever see those food-grade 10-gal buckets that restaurants get, like, pickles, or pepperoncinis in? those are dandy for brining, and are reusable. i've also used a cooler, as has been suggested here. i like the buckets a bit better tho. you can generally fit them into a fridge if you move stuff around, and they are easier to clean after. plus, if you have a favorite restaurant (like they know your name, take you to the same table, etc) you could probably get one for free if you ask real nice. brining is defo one of those "magic tricks" that both enhance the food and make it easier to produce juicy results. course, anymore, you gotta watch out for the pork roasts and chickens you get at the wally world and other big stores; they "pre-brine"/"enhance" their meats already. you try to brine one of those, you'll get some salty grub...

foil?!?!? the "texas crutch"? the "security blanket"? foiling is the same as boiling! it kills me how some folks consider it a sign of "awesome" ribs when they pull on a bone and it slides out of the meat. ick. i've cured more than one misguided soul with my ribs. you should be able to bite into a rib and have a nice mouthful of meat pull cleanly from the bone. you want mush? eat a mc-rib. the only time i'm forced to use foil or saran is when i'm hotboxing ribs or butts for a meal set to start hours after i pull ribs off the grill. PERSONALLY, i feel like the ribs are best fresh off the grill. the bark is right, the spices are bright, and the smoke flavor isn't muted like it gets after "stewing" in foil or saran. steaming your ribs, regardless of the mechanism, doesn't just result in bad texture, but also screws up the flavor. i wont continue, to spare the feelings of them that foil; specially since TNW does it, and i hold him in high regard (generally ). but, imo, it is a shortcut, not an enhancement. if i'm gonna invest time and effort into producing excellent ribs, i'm not interested in shortcuts. i'd rather produce a few less-than-perfect slabs in my quest for the perfect rib. from what my friends and family have to say, even my less-than-perfect slabs are no wasted effort

was there ever any doubt junior would be brought up a natural-born carnivore??? make sure he knows that "vegetarian" is a bad word! and that steak is either rare or burnt!

some "fuel" for thought: preheat for 30-60 min first if lighting coals in the cooker (with like a fire starter cube, whatever) my OPINION on this is that, while igniting your initial core of hot coals, you get alot more smoke than when individual coals initial ignite thru the duration of your long cook. iow, once you have your drafts set for your 250 deg cook, you go from igniting a pile of coals to lighting just the edges of a lump or two as other coals in the fire ash out. don't know how you are lighting your cooker, BUT you might try pre-setting your drafts for your target temp and then start a 1/2 chimney full of lump outside of the cooker. dump the hot coals on your pile, and the restricted air enivironment in the cooker should only allow a few coals to ignite in the presence of the hot coals. regardless, for a butt cook, i preheat for an hour, just to make sure i have my drafts tweaked properly. ribs, less so. they can take (even benefit) from an initial spike in temps, while indirect, up to 350, as long as you can get that temp to come down to 250 within like 20-30 min of getting that spike. also, ALWAYS sort thru your lump. all sorts of junk can be in there; moon rocks, PLASTICS!, wood, dirt, etc. finally, if you're like me, and do lots of indirect, you haven't really "cleaned" your heat deflector. grease built up over a cook or two will smoke terribly when you first light that fire, because it's right over the hot pile of coals. either clean off the stone first or just plan to burn the stuff off by allowing the cooker to preheat. i ususally flip the stone so that the, uh, "detrius" from my previous cook is directly over the coals. result? tons of nasty smoke over the next 15-20 min, then all gone. it takes longer to get all the smoking from this fat finished if you don't flip it.

wow! that is DEFO a showpiece! awesome! and, yes, it is SUPPOSED to turn green! i cant wait to see this piece 10 years from now!

does dennis make a grill scraper? i got one on sale at meeee-nards for a buck, and it is a dual purpose. about a 18" handle with an ash scraper/grill scraper head. easy as pie! btw, that's one of the things i like about his design; the lower draft being flush with the bottom of the cooker makes it much easier to scrape out all the ash!

dennis - please don't go to the expense in my case; you've done plenty! besides, larry currently resides on a concrete slab. last i checked, they don't combust all that easily as always, impressed by your dedication to innovation and customer service!

do i sense a "pallet of lump" splitting thread coming soon?

turtle - 3 bucks/lb. for babybacks is a good price! i've been trimming cryovac'd spares so long, it's worth it to buy them that way and put in a few minutes at the cutting board. plus, my favorite is the rib tips; the actual ribs come in a close second. i have also cooked them untrimmed, ie tips intact. they cook way better trimmed down st. louis style. as far as the guru goes, to each their own! you should give a guru-less low and slow cook a try tho, just to assure yourself it can be done easily, just in case the guru malfunctions. oh, and RAH, BLACK VOLCANIC RULES!!

that's man stuff, there! one step away from "throw dead animal in hole, cover with hot coals, and bury. come back the next day and start diggin'" love it!

davidS, that's a beeeyootiful pic of that chuck roll cookin. looks wondermous! tell us how it pulled!

spam fried crisp is better (imho) than bacon for a BLT (or SLT)! spam good! i did do a low and slow with a block once. rubbed it down and smoked for a couple hours. tasted like a spicy sponge that someone had used to clean a pan somebody fried some bacon in...

"there can be only one"... of course, if i turned my head everytime i heard my name called for someone else named the same, i'd have whiplash... them babybacks lookin' good... been too long since i've done them; like to get a bigger bang for my buck with untrimmed spares. but a nice plate o babybacks is nothing to sneeze at! really great pics! smokey bones? please...

good call FM!! that is exact-ily right!

hmmmmm.... maybe pulled pork tacos this saturday?? yum!

and well you should, sir. don't grind up the chops! picture in your head those nice rib chops, but without the rib bone taken off. like a porkchop on the end of a rib. now, go back a step, and just dont cut the loins into chops. BUT take out the meat that is between each rib so it looks like the crown roast in my previous post. all that meat you take out from between the ribs; grind it and combine with herbs, spices, bread crumbs and egg, and plop that into the middle of the crown. basically, what you are looking at is a whole, bone in loin with the rib bones protruding upwards. thats all a crown roast is; a whole loin with the ribs left on. a "rack" of lamb is the same, but not tied and presented like a crown; ususally like below instead... how could someone named PORKCHOP advocate grinding up chops of any kind

here's a mod that might actually make sense; an automotive exhaust therm that goes to 1500deg! http://www.cdtrv.com/r607vwk.htm i DARE you, deej!

actually, i'd be a little nervous about importing something from overseas called "koka"... here's dennis lounging after a busy day selling his extruded koka product... say hello to my little fren'!!

backstrap, cooked hot and fast and served rare! loin chops done the same, or better, smothered in a cast iron pot! or chili from the shank and leg meat.... shoot, they're so small you could almost do a side! kabobs made from the loins and backstrap would be good too! season with lots of garlic, onion, sage, and skewer with tomato and bell peppers... sausages! maybe treat it like lamb; osso bucco, or a crown roast, if you can cut one off the side there. leave one of the loins with the ribs intact, take out all the meat between the bones and grind it for a meatloaf, then take the crown roast, put it in a circle and plop that meatloaf down in the middle! just off the top of my head... i'd go with the crown roast!

i would say that's an inspired move sir! that sliced sometimes needs a little kick!

i start checking when i get curious. maybe an hour before i figure it will finish. i've been leaning towards going higher on temps than lower. 250-275 even. usually, like with butts, i'm finished before i figured. the bone slips out and i usually have to take them off the grill in halves, since they wont hold together.

beautiful bird FV! i'm with your wife; love the crispy skin! if using the drip pan, i would consider it indirect. water in the pan? good that your wife is appreciating your culinary efforts! and, yeah, 430 sounds better than 350 for roasting a bird to get that yummy skin!

nice hunk o chuck. not tons of experience here, but i don't usually check temps for doneness. i let the meat tell me when it's done. while it's still on the smoker, pull at it a little. if it doesn't pull as easy as you like, leave it on longer. sorry to be simplistic, but, with butts, briskets, or ribs (low & slow) i just don't use temps. use the 1.5hours/pound at 250 rule of thumb, and towards the end, check things out. don't rush the meat and don't take it off if you aren't happy yet! that being said, the pull looks really good, and it really does make great chili & tacos! enjoy!

deej, i don't know about all that with how long it'll take smoke. just my experience; you wrap 'em and they kinda steam, and the smokiness is not as pronounced as not-wrapped. more true when cooking (or reheating, which we did in the restaurant) wrapped than hotboxing wrapped, altho it can happen there too. the very best it will taste, smoke-wise, is fresh as possible out of the smoker, or only an hour or two in the wrap. don't know the reason, just my personal experience. i know alot of competition cookers will pre-trim their briskets so that there's like a 1/4" of fat cap on the brisket, and rub it down. then, when it comes out, that fat stays on the brisket. now, when i did them for the store, we never trimmed, but the fat was so soft after cooking, it usually just took a little pressure from your hand to remove it. HOWEVER, whenever i cut brisket for myself, i never cleaned the fat off first and always cut off a fresh brisket, so that the slices i got for myself came off that "toe" that's on the flat! that is the best part! seems to me that most of the smoke flavor (and rub!) is in the fat, so if you can save it on the brisket and serve it, the flavor is better. since most folks (not me!) find a thicker layer of fat on their sliced to be off-putting, it MIGHT be better to trim a little so that the thinner layer of fat combines with the rub as it renders down, and leaves just enough to become a nice layer. also the reason i don't clean all the fat off the top of the point when i do chopped beef; all the smoke flavor is in that fat. i just discard the pieces of fat that are not rendered soft and squish the rest of it into the meat. the fat that you keep should be the consistancy of softened butter. probably not the best for your health, but great for flavor, and keeps the chopped beef moist for reheating. fwiw ymmv