The BBQ Guy Blog 

Brisket for the in-laws

I'm going to be away from the computer for a few days during the holidays. We're traveling to Beech Grove, Tennessee to celebrate the holidays with the my in-laws.

I'm going to cook a brisket for them. It's an excuse to try a new recipe and they make pretty good taste testers. Tennesseeans are pretty good judges of bbq. I've found some of the best bbq restaurants anywhere are in Tennessee along with some of the best competitors.

If the snow doesn't slow us down too much, we should arrive at my wife's former stomping grounds around 8 - 9 p.m.

Merry Christmas too all!

Check back for updates in the New Year!

Iron Chef Japan

I watched an episode of Iron Chef last night and they were preparing chicken. I thought I might learn something to help improve my own bbq chicken efforts.

They were using truffles to help season the chicken. To help the truffles adhere to a chicken breast for pan frying, the challenger brushed the breast with egg yolk and then put it in a freezer. It seemed to work well. He fried the chicken in butter and sliced it prior to serving. He ended up winning.

I've never had truffles, which I think is some kind of mushroom. I'll stick to the basic bbq seasonings based on salt, onion powder, garlic powder, chili powder, pepper, and a little brown sugar (depending on what kind of meat I'm cooking).

If you want to try an experiment sometime try mixing an equal amount of salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and brown sugar. Use it to season a pork butt and see how it turns out. I think you'll probably be surprised how simple it is to create a basic bbq rub.

You can tweak the rub to your own tastes, but within a few cooks you'll have a basic bbq rub customized for your own tastes and preferences. Give it a try sometime.

BBQ Rub and BBQ Sauce

Want to share a good bbq rub or sauce recipe?

I'll share mine, if you'll share yours.

BBQ sauce and rub recipes

Cold smoking?

I've been wanting to try out a brisket recipe this weekend and the weather just won't cooperate. I was all ready to go to Sam's to pick out a 7-8 lb. brisket flat tonight when my wife reminded me that it's going to snow this weekend (1 - 3 inches) and the temps are going to hover in the 20 degree range.

I talked to a lady in Puerto Rico today and it was 80 degrees. In fact she said it's pretty much the same every day--in the 80's with a slight chance of a rain shower in the afternoon.

80 degrees sounds pretty good right now.

A little cold weather isn't going to stop me though.

There's always next weekend.

Competition BBQ

If you've every considered competing in a bbq contest I would encourage you to jump in and try it out. You'll have fun, you'll meet a lot of people, and you'll challenge yourself to improve you bbq cooking abilities. Best of all....it'll give an excuse to cook more often, because you're going to need to practice a lot.

The neighbors will love you for it because there will be lots and lots of leftovers from the practice cooks and from the contests.

You don't have to spend a lot of money to do it either. A Weber Smokey Mountain and a kettle grill or two will get you started. A low budget set-up would be to purchase 2 WSM's and use your kettle grill for chicken, or if you're already an avid qu'er, you could purchase a Backwoods Party or Competitor Model.

I use a Backwoods Party and a WSM, with pretty good results. I've placed well in some contests and can honestly say that I doubt if the cooker has very much to do with the quality of my contest results. I need to better utilize those cookers to their fullest potential.

My wife and I got started with a total cash outlay of about $1,500 and then budgeted about $500 per contest for entry fees, gas, meals, and contest meat.

I know it sounds like a lot of money....because it is. You're competing against 20-50 other teams and the odds of winning grand champion are not very good unless you're on top of your game, but....you should have some fun and learn alot.

Dr. BBQ's Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook : Recipes, Secrets, and Tall Tales of a Bar

I got an e-mail from Ray Lampe aka "Dr. BBQ" explaining that his book "Dr. BBQ's Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook : Recipes, Secrets, and Tall Tales of a Barbecue Champion" will be available on May 1st. I can't wait to read it.

When I receive my copy, I'll post a review of the book here on my site. To purchase the bbq book see below:

Dr. BBQ's Big-Time Barbecue Cookbook : Recipes, Secrets, and Tall Tales of a Barbecue Champion

BBQ Rub

I purchased some bbq rub today from Blues Hog Cookers. I'll post a review once I receive it and have a chance to cook with it. There web site is lsited below:

Blues Hog Cookers

BBQ Chicken Drumsticks

To begin I marinade the chicken drum sticks for several hours, which helps to reduce the tendency for drying out. I learned that from The BBQ Forum also in a discussion about "Jumpin' Jim's" chicken recipe. I don't use the recipe exactly, but use a variation of it with good results.

When I'm ready to cook the drum sticks, I sprinkle them with my favorite chicken rub and place them on the cooker. For better results it pays to take a little extra time and make sure you thoroughly cover the meat.

I use apple chunks and/or hickory chunks for seasoning. If I am cooking a lot of chicken on my WSM I usually place about 12 drums on the bottom rack first and then place the other 12 on the top rack about 30-40 minutes later. The top rack cooks faster and splitting them into 2 seperate groups helps me with the timing so they're all done at about the same time.

I cook them until done (about 2 3/4 hours) and brush them individually with my favorite sauce prior to serving. You could also just submerge each piece in a little tub of sauce, but I prefer "lightly sauced" to "soaked". Others may do it differently, but this process works best for me.

BBQ Baby Back Ribs

I started learning to cook ribs with the now famous B.R.I.T.U. recipe, which stands for "Best Ribs in the Universe". It's a sweet rub recipe that uses sugar, salt and some pepper thrown in. The recipe has become a "BBQ standard" and is readily available on the internet. I learned about it from The BBQ Forum.

I usually rub the ribs the night before I want to cook them and leave them in the refrigerator wrapped in Saran wrap to season for several hours. I have been smoking my baby backs at 220-230 degrees on my WSM for 4 1/2 - 5 hours in a Weber Rib Rack using apple chunks or hickory chunks for flavor. I have had my best luck using 1/2 a chimney of lump charcoal and getting it grayed over before placing it in the cooker on top of about three fire starting chimneys full of unlit lump.

I use a stem thermometer placed through the top vent to monitor temperature. On hot days I will start off with much less lit charcoal to allow my cooker to slowly come up to a temperature of 225 degrees. If it gets too hot, I add a little ice to keep things calmed down.

I put the ribs on and if all works according to plan I shut the bottom vents and leave the top vents open and then I am at the desire temperature. If I am still too hot I place foil around the door opening to form a gasket, which seems to seal up the air intake a little bit on my WSM. I don't open the lid for 3 hours then I spot check the meat temp with an instant read thermometer.

I have this process where it works pretty consistently for me.