It's Grilling Time! The Official Stangnet Grill/Smoke Thread

Ronin38 · Apr 25, 2020

You know those are ready to harvest when your garden spontaneously ignites itself into a fireball, or dragons are sighted in your neighborhood...

Davedacarpainter · Apr 28, 2020

Here we go again, springtime in oklahoma. This is what I call redneck hail coverin’.

Storms are supposed to be pretty strong with winds up to 70-80 mph, otherwise i’d use a tarp.

The storms are developing just west of us right now. It’s been real hot and humid today, prime weather for storms.

I hope not, but I bet it’ll be ugly south west of oklahoma tonight.

Noobz347 · Apr 28, 2020

When a tarp and just the 4 tires will not do

Davedacarpainter said:
Here we go again, springtime in oklahoma. This is what I call redneck hail coverin’.

Storms are supposed to be pretty strong with winds up to 70-80 mph, otherwise i’d use a tarp.

The storms are developing just west of us right now. It’s been real hot and humid today, prime weather for storms.

I hope not, but I bet it’ll be ugly south west of oklahoma tonight.

Doesn't look like much now but at night time:

redNfast · Apr 28, 2020

Oklahoma yikes ! Work there for a week years ago, filling in for guy on vacation. What sticks in my mind even to this day. Every office, hotel & public building, next to the front entrance. Steps down to an under ground tornado shelter .

Here is a did you know, all the computers that service US flight reservations. Are located underground there , very large data center. They weigh people and tools when they enter and again leaving ........ what a trip?

Alabama same deal, every home, I can handle hurricanes . Give plenty of time announcing they're coming......... tornados vicious .

Tuff place to live Oklahoma ..hope your garden will be missed, first hail then the tornado.

pep

Olivethefet · Apr 30, 2020

My wife went a little crazy today and bought some mega steaks! This is 7.5 pounds of steak in 3 steaks.

Its gonna take a while to cook these things!

Having to flip and rotate to try to get the core temp up.

Davedacarpainter · May 1, 2020

Olivethefet said:
My wife went a little crazy today and bought some mega steaks! This is 7.5 pounds of steak in 3 steaks.

Its gonna take a while to cook these things!

Having to flip and rotate to try to get the core temp up.

7.5lbs in three steaks! She bought you three roasts!

How‘d they turn out?

Davedacarpainter · May 1, 2020

Thats right y’all, It’s smoked brisket time!

I‘d cook it starting tonight, but it’s been a looonnnggg day. This baby is for saturday night/sunday morning.

That beauty is 15.2lbs of bovine bliss in waiting.

Davedacarpainter · May 2, 2020

So I trimmed about three pounds of fat off the brisket and seasoned it with coarse ground pepper and kosher salt.

While i trimmed it the smoker was stabilizing for about an hour at 250. Brisket in.

Here‘s what it’ll look like for about the next 13-14 hours. There will be one brake when the brisket hits 165, then it’ll get wrapped in butcher paper and back in the smoker till it hits 200-205.

Then a three hour rest in a towel inside a cooler. Then we eat!

Davedacarpainter · May 3, 2020

Okie dokie, I made it through the night and into today.

At about 3:30 this morning I finally reached the 165* point and I wrapped the brisket in butcher paper at that stage. Then back in the smoker and head towards 200*.

The brisket hit that goal at 8:45, so I pulled the brisket out of the smoker and wrapped it in a towel and put it in an ice chest (with no ice, ok?).

The brisket rested in there till 11:30. This is what it looked like after removing the towel and butcher paper.

I cut the cap away from the flat and sliced the pieces up from the flat and cut the cap into beautiful burnt ends.

It turned out excellent . Super tender, super juicy. The meat was still so hot after the three hour rest that it would burn your hands.

I got about fifteen burnt ends out of the cap, they were the best part of all. Very nice smoke ring of about 1/4” all the way around as well.

What I think I’ll change for the next time is to maybe use Lawry’s Seasoning Salt to rub the meat before cooking. I really like that flavor. I won’t use much, the meat was very flavorful. Plus I think I’ll pull it from the smoker at 195*. I can’t say it was overcooked really, but it was so tender the slices were falling apart as I would try to pick them up. I think the extra 5-7* cooler would allow it to maintain connective integrity better.

So, an excellent first brisket. Plus I learned some new things I want to try next time.

Did I mention how good the burnt ends were?!

Olivethefet · May 4, 2020

Davedacarpainter said:
How‘d they turn out?

Welllll.... They weren't bad, but they weren't nearly as good as they should have been. I've been busy and neglected updating my post. So what had happened was... pineapple. Yes, pineapple. You remember the other day I tenderized a couple of steaks using pineapple. They turned out great. You have to be careful using pineapple. This stuff is powerful I tell ya! I'm just learning about using this method, but I'd say 1.5 to 2 hours in the pineapple is the max you want to do. The wife picked up those beautiful rib-eye roast, as you put it, and then decided she would get the party started by putting them in pineapple. Thats great! No harm in that. The only problem is she put them in there about 4 hours before I got home to cook them....

They were falling apart BEFORE I put them on the grill. Like I was having trouble just getting them on the grill in 3 pieces. Once cooked the outer layer had a weird texture to it. It was so tenderized by the enzymes in the pineapple it broke down to the consistency of sand. It wasn't gritty I just can think of a better way to put it.

No one went hungry though! They were good eating. They should have been phenomenal! There was a good lesson learned there. We confirmed what we though about going to long with the pineapple, and it wont happen again. Just like with all things you live and you learn!

Brisket looks excellent Dave!! Maybe even phenomenal....

Noobz347 · May 4, 2020

Olivethefet said:
Welllll.... They weren't bad, but they weren't nearly as good as they should have been. I've been busy and neglected updating my post. So what had happened was... pineapple. Yes, pineapple. You remember the other day I tenderized a couple of steaks using pineapple. They turned out great. You have to be careful using pineapple. This stuff is powerful I tell ya! I'm just learning about using this method, but I'd say 1.5 to 2 hours in the pineapple is the max you want to do. The wife picked up those beautiful rib-eye roast, as you put it, and then decided she would get the party started by putting them in pineapple. Thats great! No harm in that. The only problem is she put them in there about 4 hours before I got home to cook them....

They were falling apart BEFORE I put them on the grill. Like I was having trouble just getting them on the grill in 3 pieces. Once cooked the outer layer had a weird texture to it. It was so tenderized by the enzymes in the pineapple it broke down to the consistency of sand. It wasn't gritty I just can think of a better way to put it.

No one went hungry though! They were good eating. They should have been phenomenal! There was a good lesson learned there. We confirmed what we though about going to long with the pineapple, and it wont happen again. Just like with all things you live and you learn!

Brisket looks excellent Dave!! Maybe even phenomenal....

It is a thing with how you like the consistency of your beef to be. I knew a guy once that would order his steak well done and crispy on the outside, wherever he went.

If you like for the steak to be tender and still possess the consistency of steak versus pot roast, I would try this:

Get your steak and spend the couple extra bucks on the premium. Walmart, Cosco, Sams... They all have a brand that is a bit better than the rest. Refrigerate overnight or cook that day.

2 to 4 hours before cooking: Set on the counter and cover with a hand towel. That's it. Don't embellish.
Juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust before you put it on the grill, salt and pepper both sides. Not an hour before, not 15 minutes before but just before.

If it's a thicker steak, toss a piece of foil down on the grill (spray lube optional) and add "foil minutes" to each side fo the steak to make up for the thickness tomahawk steaks, for instance, get an extra 3 minutes.

Otherwise, cook it over an open fire to a doneness that you like (those little remote temp probes work really well).

I could probably do a whole thread on charcoal but for steaks and your average size home charcoal grill: Briquettes for thicker steaks, burgers, chops etc. and Hardwood charcoal in varying quantities for pretty much everything else. Mixtures work well too.

The moral of the story is to get the center into your desired range without overcooking or drying the rest of the steak. Don't' flip steaks. Fine for chicken and pork, not fine for steaks and burgers and beef in general.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rq-nNfUrgNc

Davedacarpainter · May 4, 2020

I believe I’m going to cook another brisket the weekend after next.

I’ll get pictures of it sliced up this time.

I cooked this one yesterday since it was my brother’s 60th birthday. He and everyone else came over early before I sliced it up, so things were kind of crazy. Hence not many pictures of the finished product.

So I’ll smoke another brisket just for you guys to see........ok maybe I’ll eat a little bit of it......

I’ll try to download some scratch and sniff pictures, @Noobz347 ?

Olivethefet · May 4, 2020

Honestly I think the pineapple thing would work best on lower grade cuts of meat. You know to try to make it tender like a more expensive cut. We have actually been getting all of our steaks from a local butcher. We live in Enterprise, obviously, and he drives somewhere in Georgia every week to get his meat for the week. So far they have been excellent. We just over did it on these.

When we lived in Baton Rouge I could get prime select filet mignon. OMG that stuff was good! But ridiculously expensive. Same for the Rib-eye.

I love messing around with the grill and trying different things, as a lot of us do! For Christmas I got a Thermapen. This thing is great!

Thermapen® ONE

Specializing in cool, unique and professional temperature tools. Super-Fast thermocouples, thermistors, infrared thermometers, data logging and more.

www.thermoworks.com

I've been working on cooking the meat in indirect heat until I get it close to core temp. I have the other side of the grill very hot with the coals close to the grates. The last couple of minutes I throw the steaks on that side of the grill to give them some char and to pick up some nice grill marks.

I like my steaks medium rare at most, so I go for a pretty low core temp. 118 or so when I put them on the sear side of the grill. I also use charcoal or a mix of briquettes and hardwood lump charcoal.

It always blows me away when someone orders a steak well done or crispy. Then they usually want something link 57 sauce to coat it in. If someone is coming to my house that I know likes there steak that way. I will cook it for them that way, but I make them bring there own meat. I refuse to destroy a good steak that I paid good money for.

I do have the gas grill but I haven't converted it back to propane, so I cant use it at the moment. I like it best for cooking vegetables or larger pieces of meat that require a lot of time to cook. It's an indirect grill and is either on or off. No in-between.

I've got to get that ceramic grill fixed!

A guy here at work got a ceramic just like mine with two DigiQs for $400. Mine was free, but its broke, and it didn't come with a DigiQ...

Davedacarpainter · May 4, 2020

I want one of those thermapens!

IIGood · May 5, 2020

Got my grill back together with the new igniter, burners, flavorizer bars, and grates. Cleaned it up a little bit on the outside and in the cabinet.

Cleaned the firebox a bit more with a wire brush:

New burners and igniter system in place, control panel reattached:

Went with stainless steel flavorizer bars as opposed to the porcelain-coated cast iron ones:

New grates and final reassembly:

I fired it up and it got nice and hot. Now we're ready for some good grillin' again! It's so nice to just be able to push the button and it fires right up again; I've been having to stick a long lighter down by the burner to get it to light for a few years. I do want to get a new catch tray that goes underneath in the cabinet as the current one has rusted out. Also might consider the pan at the bottom of the firebox, but that's a bit pricey.

Noobz347 · May 7, 2020

Combine your hobbies

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAEXuONMJCQ

Ronin38 · May 8, 2020

I would have cooked faster on an Intel processor. Just sayin...

Noobz347 · May 8, 2020

Ronin38 said:
I would have cooked faster on an Intel processor. Just sayin...

Single-core performance is key when cooking beef.

Olivethefet · May 10, 2020

I had to redeem myself this afternoon. These turned out perfect!

Davedacarpainter · May 11, 2020

Olivethefet said:
I had to redeem myself this afternoon. These turned out perfect!

That beats my weekend meal!

I had bacon wrapped kielbasa.

It's Grilling Time! The Official Stangnet Grill/Smoke Thread

Blow all the things!

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

Active Member

I will own your nuts! LOL

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

I will own your nuts! LOL

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

I will own your nuts! LOL

Chicks can make things hard if they’re inspired...

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

Blow all the things!

Stangnet Facilities Maint Tech... Er... Janitor

I will own your nuts! LOL

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