Show Us Your Meat, and We'll Show You Ours

[Apoc]

I do love a good charcoal grill. But I love the convenience of propane more.

We have both and I probably use charcoal 70% of the time. With chimney starters, things are pretty painless these days. I also enjoy the process... it's kinda relaxing.

[Steve85]

We've had a few get togethers where we get a bunch of pork and brisket from "Jordan Springs Market" For those of you that frequent Summit Point, if you bypass Crums Church and stay on Old Charlestown Pike, it's the gas station/store at the "Y" where you make a right to get to Winchester. Hole in wall with good BBQ.

We needed a bunch of pork again and when we priced it out, it came to $the-price-of-a-smoker-and-30-pounds-of-raw-meat.99. So we ordered the smoker and hit up Costco for some meat. I did some learning online and hit up my brother for advice. I mean, the best way to learn this is to jump right in trying to feed 50 people on your first smoke!

The rub:


Ground to a fine powder:



I didn't pay attention when I bought the meat and ended up with boneless, woops. Apparently not much difference but I did end up having to tie it up some to hold it together:





They were rubbed the night before so I could hit it early and get them in. Put them in at 225 with some Hickory wood chips and set the timer to 12 hours. Wasn;t sure what it would take but felt that was safe. About halfway in (around 160 degress) I wrapped in foil.



I used a thermometer and pulled them at about 185, about 10 hours, the one closest to the heater was about 190. I set them aside for a couple hours and then started to pull.





So so so gooooood! From all I read, it's pretty hard to mess up pork done this way. It's in the fridge covered waiting to be reheated for the lunch party where I'll use the drippings to bring back some moisture. 

The smoker is an electric by Masterbuilt with a digital controller, it was 179 shipped from Amazon and the meat was $60 for 30 pounds. I will probably pick a thermometer with probe so I don't have to open the door to check it.

Hopefully it will be good tomorrow and folks like it. If not, they're eating hot dogs.

[ScottyB]

So so so gooooood! From all I read, it's pretty hard to mess up pork done this way. It's in the fridge covered waiting to be reheated for the lunch party where I'll use the drippings to bring back some moisture. 

dude yes. nice jerb.

super hard to mess those up. they have a ton of moisture in them so you have to really work hard to wreck the texture. i try to hit 195 with mine but it takes at least 10 hours, sometimes 12, and i don't always have the time. about 190-200 is the sweet spot if you can do it inside of 12 hours so you don't dry it out, IMO.

[Evan]

Yeah I do 203 as my magic number. Usually takes 14 hours for a 8 pound butt and I do it overnight.

[Sully]

What's everyones favorite thing to do in their instant pot? Really need to open ours and use it.

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[JPolen01]

I just made sesame chicken tonight for this week's lunches. Done that a couple times. Shredded chicken for tacos/bowls I do quite a bit. Beef and broccoli has turned out really well. Love cooking rice in it. If you are cooking brown rice the formula I've found best is 1:1 water to rice on high pressure for either 19 or 20 minutes.

I need to look into more recipes.

[Sully]

I was craving ribs so I looked up a rib recipe that I think I'll try this week. Don't have access to my smoker at the apartment or a grill. Or 3 hours after work to cook them in the oven so figure I'll give them a shot. But I do like my homemade beef and broccoli so maybe I'll give that a shot next. It takes rice 20 minutes on the stove...why pressure cooker it. Also didn't you all say that it's tough to cook the rice with the food. Sounds like a lot of extra time to make the rice. Can't be that much better, can it

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[JPolen01]

I'm lazy and don't want to put rice on the stove and have to come back to it. Plus if I do the rice in the instant pot then it's one less thing to clean.

I only tried cooking the rice with the food once and it didn't work. Never tried again.

[Sully]

Isn't it cold by the time you eat your food though? Or the food is cold if you do the rice after the food.

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[JustinG]

Side topic. Got the Weber igrill 2 with 2 probes from an Amazon lightning deal.

It's awesome, did a porkloin, set it to alert at medium, 145°. App sent a notification at 138° saying it was almost there. Viola, perfectly cooked tenderloin.

Carry-on.

[JPolen01]

Isn't it cold by the time you eat your food though? Or the food is cold if you do the rice after the food.

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I make rice for my weekly lunch prep so it goes in the fridge anyway. My wife always makes stove top if we are having any for dinner.

[ScottyB]

i love a rice variety called Calrose. give it a try, its sweet, tender, and hard to mess up. its sort of a sticky rice. you just gotta let it soak in the water 15 minutes before you cook it.

hit up another 3 racks of babybacks yesterday. this is my favorite thing now, over pork shoulder or even steak.

[Sully]

Although I don't find them to be as good as a well executed smoked rack (which I have not accomplished myself) I get really good feedback on sous vide ribs. Homemade dry rub (I found on a BBQ site years ago and just been using since). Bag them up (in sections). Little bit of liquid smoke and 12 hours at 165. I've tried the 36 hours at a lower temp and they actually seemed kind of dry and tough if I recall. But 165 at 12 gives it that just a little tug to separate it from the bone. Once they're done I sauce them and throw in over or under broiler. Whichever I feel like that day. Usually preheat oven and then turn the broiler on after a few minutes of them being in to carmalize the sauce. A grill would work equally well or better but like I've said, I do not have access to one at the moment. Le sad.

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[Deceus]

Been a big fan of this grill. Not the best quality but it was only $250ish. There's a gas side when I'm feeling lazy and a side-burner for the chimney that has me cooking with charcoal in no time. Been using it a lot to sear my sous vide dishes. Tried the side firebox for smoking and it just sucked. Decided to picked up their budget egg smoker and have been breaking that thing in. I've done a small brisket, some ribs and a pork butt so far. It's real easy to get it to hold 200 or 300, but having a really hard time getting anything in the 220-250 range.

[ScottyB]

It's real easy to get it to hold 200 or 300, but having a really hard time getting anything in the 220-250 range.

its tough for me to get my egg under 300 with fresh charcoal, it wants to be up in the 350-400 range.  i have to nearly shut the flue and daisy wheel completely once it warms up, and then come back 30-40 mins later and readjust to get it to settle.  once its in the sweet spot it will hold a temperature for 9-10 hours though without adjustment.

be sure you have your felt lid gasket on with a good seal between the top/bottom.  a gasket leak makes holding a temperature really tricky.

[Sully]

I went to college so I don't have to worry about temperature. My cheap ($250 on clearance at Sam's club a few years ago) pellet grill keeps temperature for me

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[Deceus]

It's real easy to get it to hold 200 or 300, but having a really hard time getting anything in the 220-250 range.

its tough for me to get my egg under 300 with fresh charcoal, it wants to be up in the 350-400 range.  i have to nearly shut the flue and daisy wheel completely once it warms up, and then come back 30-40 mins later and readjust to get it to settle.  once its in the sweet spot it will hold a temperature for 9-10 hours though without adjustment.

be sure you have your felt lid gasket on with a good seal between the top/bottom.  a gasket leak makes holding a temperature really tricky.

Yeah that's what I tried the last few times and it ended up completely dying on me at first. Probably should've let it catch a little longer since the starters I was using weren't the best. Thought I killed it a second time with the ribs. Left it wide open top and bottom and came back to a 400 degree inferno 5 minutes later.  Luckily it was close enough to done to just transfer to the oven at that point. Played with it afterwards and did manage to drop it to 250 on the dot before shutting it down so I think I'm getting the hang of it. Not sure what's my fault or the fault of a $300 knock-off. Think Chargrill just released an actual ceramic version for $500 recently but I'll probably throw down the money for a brand name one if I use this one enough to warrant a replacement.

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Yeah those pellet grills seem kinda tempting. If I can't get this thing to cooperate better I'll probably end up getting one instead of doubling down on something like a green egg. I'll sacrifice some flavor if it means I can smoke during the week without having to walk out to the patio every 30 minutes.

[Sully]

Mine is a little finicky but I love it. Definitely worth it for like 1/6th the price of a treager. I hear you're paying mostly for the name now with their quality kind of dropping off. I'll probably never buy one just because my cheaper version does good enough. There's a ton of brands out there now too that are way more innovative on features and still slightly cheaper. I even saw two different models of some no name pellet grill at Walmart the other day. One was like $250 and I think it was a little smaller than mine which is probably the mid size for pellet grills. Maybe a little on the small side. And then a bigger one with more features for $400. Idk if I'd trust them but it shows pellet grills are definitely catching on

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[Sully]

Haven't been able to put instant pot away since I broke it out last week. Not really even trying and there's just so many things I keep finding to try.

First was ribs. Not sure if it was my fault, the thickness of the homemade BBQ the recipe called for or any number of things, but 4 of 10. Was not a fan. Meat was tender I guess but something just wasn't quite right. Also had a sneaking suspicion they were undercooked but the texture didn't seem like they were. IDK. Not sure I'll try again. I like my sis sous vide ribs better.

Next up, found a chicken breast recipe and just so happened, I needed to make my dog a big batch of chicken and rice. Followed the directions for shredded chicken which has you cook a little longer. Called for chicken placed on the rack. I had like 7 breasts. First time I opened it up, any breast that had another on top of it was still raw. So I should shuffled them about and cooked another round. Reviews on the recipe were mixed from driest chicken to they've ever had to raw. Even after doubling the time, I wouldn't say it was the driest. Definitely shredded super easy. It was reading like 200 degrees in the center of them so they were definitely cooked or overcooked too. But I snuck a few bites while shredding and honestly wasn't that bad. Slightly dry but definitely not the worst I've had and I hate dry chicken. So I'd say that was a success although I need to read more recipes and tweak it. Not sure how they fit theirs in there. I was under the weight for recipe and still had cooking issues.

Took the water left over from chicken and made the rice for the dog too. Really shined here. It was just the cheapest long grain rice which I normally don't care for but it was cooked perfectly although the rice button is super confusing if you actually read the IP article on rice. It says white rice cold cooks in 4 to 8 minutes but normal rice mode is 12. Less brings it to 8 but I think it auto adjusts or something cause I set it to less and when it came to pressure, it said 10. Idk, rice came out pretty good. I don't normally rinse my rice but I followed the directions. I don't think that could make the difference in why it came out so good in the IP but definitely a fan of rice. Can't wait to try some basmati or Jasmine.

Next, we were attending a dinner party and the theme kind of became Mexican after I said I wanted to make my shrimp tacos and someone said they wanted to make Margaritas. So I decided to make flan which everyone was afraid of and didn't eat but I digress. I wanted to try something different than boxed flan. And I had just read a recipe for toasted cream. So I Google toasted cream flan. And there was actually a recipe. Only used the IP for the toasted cream part. Had a mishap where a jar broke on the first attempt. You use Mason jars and pressure cook them with the cream inside. Not sure if I tightened the lid too much or was a crappy jar. Luckily the side just broke off and it didn't shatter and also that I heard it and was able to stop and clean it up which was pretty simple since everything was contained in the IP pot. Just popped it out, quick rinse and back in business. I think it worked pretty well although not sure what the result was really supposed to be like but it didn't taste bad. The flan was good I think. I had one bite after lots of Margaritas and then shortly after got sick (from Margaritas) and the other people threw it out because they didn't want to try it. Going to have to make that one again to see if it's any good. And toast some more cream to try and see others uses.

Then I saw an applesauce recipe. Super easy, would recommend if you have kids although it does make a mess with apple bits all over lid and of course you have to peel and cut the apples. Probably not worth it but if you want to give your kids natural applesauce, it's pretty good. Just throw the Apple chunks in and 15 minutes later, you have applesauce. Just give a quick stir. Recipe calls for cinnamon. I added extra and some other spices and some vanilla. It was still a tiny bit bland afterwards. So I through some brown sugar in but ymmv.

But the Chuck roast last night was where it really shined. Followed wife's family recipe and committed a couple online IP roast recipes to adapt it. Put some of the veggies in for flavor during the main cook but decided to hold most all they didn't get too soft although the online recipe said to put them in. Stopped 10 min early and took out veggies (they were complete mush) and added in the final ones. Even with just 10 minutes, they were too soft. (carrots, celery, and potatoes). So need to tweak that but the meat was absolutely amazing. I had adapted this recipe to crock pot awhile back (they used to boil it on the stove, talk about dry) and it was good but this was awesome and took less than an hour. Just need to cook the veggies a little less and we'll be golden there. Used the IP to cook some garlic and then sear the meat too which worked well enough and then used it to thicken the broth afterwards which it also had no problem bringing it to a boil. One pot is nice but at the same time, I don't think I'd care about searing in a cast iron before and using a small pot after to thicken the sauce.

I think I'm finally ready to take it off the counter for a few days although I may make some rice for dinner tonight.

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[JustinG]

We've been doing spaghetti pretty often in ours, single pot and just set it and grab some wine while you wait.

1lb ground beef or ground Italian sausage, browned on Saute, seasoned however you like.

Then,
1lb noodles, broken in half
32oz jar of sauce (Costco size), or a normal grocery store size jar (24oz?, And 16oz diced tomatoes)
About 24oz of water, or however much you need to cover the noodles.
Stir a bit to get sauce/water on all the noodles.
If you don't the noodles may clump together.

High pressure, for 8 minutes, release pressure immediately. Stir, serve.