Recently in smokin Category

today, a lot of things happened.  here are the ones i recall, in the order in which i recall them happening:

entered the final week of the 2010 diet, round 1
i dumped a fairly large pile of stock
hops started her new job
i deadlifted 300 lbs
i enjoyed roast #100 on the gene caffe roaster
the apartment was certified to lack termite infestation
(mailed something at the post office)
my agents picked up 6 lbs of tasty dates
i purchased my first high-grade briar
wrote some pretty good code, with unit tests
(meerschaum arrived from turkey, held at post office)
i verified that the cesare barontini and dominican glory were both good ideas
i resumed, to some extent, blogging.

today saw a fairly conspicuous convergence of major one-time events.

i'm done with my cast iron pan. i'll let hops use it for cornbread but that's all the use it will see. here are its faults:

1) i can never properly season it. there's always a rough spot.
2) it smokes when i heat it. likely a result of #1.
3) it heats up fast and cools off too slowly. cooking is all about temperature control.

and finally, the kicker:

4) i have a set of kickass all-clad pans which suffer from none of the above problems, and maintain all of the benefits of cast iron (except for being cheap). i see no reason to put myself through the trouble of bothering with cast iron's quirks when i've got perfectly nice alternatives that work flawlessly.

but corn bread in the cast iron pan sure looks nice.

second trip to Mack's in san carlos. the ribs were not quite reheated properly, and were not as smokey as i like. however, the food was still excellent by any lunch standard, and the mac-and-cheese had bacon in it! an excellent lunch.

during my voyage related to the TDPS, i sampled three more rib joints.

1) my dad grilled some "riblets" he found at the store. they were good, but not smokey, and i was really, really hungry so my judgment may have been off. the sauce was pretty good.

2) i had some ribs from these jokers during a visit to the Date Festival. these idjits bathed the entire fairgrounds with thick clouds of smoke but somehow managed to get none of it on their ribs or their "pulled pork". both were smothered in respectable but uncomplicated sauce. both were outrageously overpriced, and the bread was stale with the pulled pork sandwich. the texture was of grilled ribs. i'd be less harsh on these ribs if they weren't so overpriced (well, i was at the fair, duh) and they weren't so smoke-less in spite of their producer's smoking out the entire fair.

3) mo's in pismo beach. i've been to mo's many, many times but i don't know if i've had their ribs. the restaurant is peppered with awards for their ribs, enough consecutive years to make one wonder if anyone else was competing in these competitions. the ribs are supposedly smoked, although if you read the descriptions more carefully it seems that they're only promising that hickory is involved in the preparation of the ribs, not necessarily for smoke. one of their sauces definitely has hickory liquid smoke. the ribs were not smokey. i got their sampler rack, with all 4 of their different sauces/rubs. some were good, some were less good, but ultimately it matters not: if i go back to mo's i'm not wasting my money on their ribs. they were competently warmed, had a decent texture, but were grilled (which is appropriate for their "memphis ribs", not so much for their others, which really seemed to just be their memphis ribs with a different sauce) and disappointing. mo traveled to over 180 barbecue joints throughout the south, and the best he could come up with were four sauces to put on memphis ribs? what?

we had to stop at mo's because the grapevine was closed.

anyhow, i can't hardly eat ribs anymore anywhere but at my place.

i've been on a mission this week to find a good barbecue restaurant on the peninsula. i had three failures in a row and then googled for barbecue restaurants in my area. today we went to Mack's and it took the prize, hands down. But not without flaws. Details follow!

Sunday: Windy City Pizza and BBQ. They get lots of bonus points for being walking distance from my house, not that i've ever walked there. the Q is plenty smokey, the sauce is serviceable but not exciting. the meat is overdone and falls sloppily off the bone. the ribs are advertised as st. louis style, but since i have gone to the trouble of edumacating myself on barbecue, i happen to know that Windy City's ribs are not remotely st. louis style. Their greens are flavorful but other sides are nothing special. They get an 8/10, largely because of their proximity and their kickass deep dish pizza.

Monday: Rib Shack. Formerly Jimmy's Rib Shack but Jimmy sold it. I want to like this place. The new owners are super friendly, and very excited about running their restaurant. Unfortunately, their Q is just not that good. The sauces are good, not great. There are three different sauces, and that's good. Their meats, though, are where things fall down -- and if the meat's not great, what kinda BBQ place is it? The meat is clearly not smoked, grilled, or slow cooked. It's tough and listless, dried out and chewey. Now I like that texture sometimes, but it's really not appealing when I'm looking for something on par with what I can make myself. I give them a 5/10. Sides aren't great, meat tastes boiled and oven baked, sauce is okay. As much as I like the owners, I won't be going back -- I've given them too many chances. The meat is presented poorly -- random cuts of various parts haphazardly stacked on a plate. That's fine and that can be part of your panache, but when the plate is supposed to include pork ribs, and all we get are the triangle end of a rack of spareribs, not even cut up, it's pretty lame.

Tuesday: Back-a-Yard. One of the best restaurants in the state, IMHO. Their jerk chicken is some of the best food I've ever had. Corn festivals are amazingly great. The people are good. But I had the ribs, not the jerk. I've been there dozens of times and never had the ribs. They were okay. Well trimmed and attractive, they were not smoked. They had strong grilled flavor, and bore grill marks. The texture was just right, despite a clear lack of slow cooking. The sauce was perfectly serviceable but not great. I enjoyed the ribs very much after the previous two places, and if I were in the mood for ribs but not barbecue, they'd be very good. Back-A-Yard gets an 11/10 as a restaurant, 8/10 for ribs, 7/10 for barbecued ribs. I will definitely be going back but I'll stick to the Jamaican food!

Wednesday: Mack's in San Carlos. I'd not heard of them until my internets search last night. I had high hopes, and though my hopes were not met, I was well satisfied. The ribs were clearly slow smoked. The texture was similar to how I've made ribs -- they tasted like the owners had planned for our arrival and timed the ribs to be done just as we walked in the door. No boiled texture, no chewy, gummy, crusty "cooked last week" feeling. They were cooked today, or they did a great job fooling me. Sadly, if there was smoke flavor, I missed it. There was a smoke ring to be sure, but it wasn't massive , and the flavor wasn't there. The texture said "slow cooked". The sauce was delicious! I prefer my ribs without sauce, and flavor them with rub and smoke, or rub and rub if I'm grilling. But I realize that most places in CA will be saucing their ribs, and so if they must be sauced, I'd hope for interesting sauce. This was interesting sauce, with creamyness, jalapeno flavor, and lots of great color and sweetness. The pulled pork (i ended up with a combo because of the confusing order of my compatriots) was good when doused with this sauce, but I suspect it would not stand up on its own, lacking a good smoke flavor. Still, its texture was good as well. The ribs had a very strong pork flavor, the porkiest of all the ribs, and included the tips, making for

Overall, the best place to get ribs is still my place. But if I'm in the mood for instant gratification, and can get over the lack of smoke, I'll head down to Mack's.

Because of the freshness of the Q at Mack's, I'm going to guess that some days it's smokey and some days it isn't. We'll see.

so far, my morning has been marked by me being covered in one sort of grease or another.

actually, i could say they were really disappointments with my recipe book, "smoke and spice". the book appears to give wildly wrong time estimates, at least at the cooking temperatures it promotes (the latter detail being a given, i suppose).

on friday i smoked a salmon filet. it came out delicious (although it had a mushy texture, i think this was because it was cheap farmed salmon) but the sauce and rub overpowered the smoke. this wasn't the fault of the recipe -- or was it? it did not specify how much wood to use, so i had to guess. not a big deal, that's what experience is about. i logged it and next time it gets more wood and less rub.

last night i made "thunder thighs", chicken thigh+leg pieces coated with a paste of onions, peanut butter, and aniseed. uncooked, the paste was kinda icky. cooked, it was too oniony but still pretty good. but again it came out undersmoked. this was my own fault, i think, for using chips instead of chunks. also, i used what turned out to be just enough charcoal for 2 hours cooking time -- should have been plenty because the recipe called for 1.5-1.75 hours cooking time. but at 2 hours, the internal temp was 150, instead of the USDA 180 reccomendation for chicken thighs.

now, the recipe called for thighs but i used thigh+drumsticks. that will make a difference, i suppose, but it should not be so big a difference.

anyhow, now i know: plan for an extra hour. pork butts always seem to take several extra hours -- and ribs take fewer! cooking's fun ;)

i prepped the recipe for "thunder thighs" tonight. marinating my chicken thighs (and legs, my own addition) overnight in "thunder paste". got the recipe from "smoke and spice", picked it because 1) it's relatively quick and 2) awesome name.

unfortunately, i'm not sure i like the smell of the marinade/paste. it's mostly peanut butter and aniseed.

recipe called for ground anise, i had whole aniseed, ground them. them's the same thing, right?

last week i held a party. about 10 people attended. i smoked 3 st. louis cuts of spareribs, plus the trimmings, plus a 3 lb pork shoulder.

despite the ravages of the sun (keeping my temps 50F too high no matter what i did), despite pathetically bad operator error (top vent closed for first 3 hours of smoking, just when the vent needed most to be open), despite this being only my second use of the smoker, and despite doing far, far more meat at once than i've ever cooked by any method: everything came out awesome.

frustratingly, the pork shoulder wasn't tender enough to pull, so i chopped it, and took quite a lot of guff from my guests. it wasn't as crispy as i'd have liked, either. this may have been because it was on the bottom rack and spent 7 hours being dripped on by the ribs.

the ribs, eh? they came out incredibly well, the best ribs i've made to-date. smokey but not too smokey (due to operator error, the smoke escaped through the door for the first 3 hours, mostly bypassing the ribs), tender but chewy, juicy but not watery. close to perfect.

i got some accolades from the only admitted southerner of the bunch. he's taste-tested most of my ribs and i think these were his favorite so far.

now, i've brought myself up to speed on theory during my grilled rib attempts, so i am not entirely a newbie. i trimmed those three racks like i was a certified butcher. but mostly, it was the WSM making me look good. the next day, i spent 30 minutes cleaning up and that was that. it's really an incredible smoker.

they say water smokers don't make crispy pulled pork. they also said a grill makes a poor smoker and they were right. but maybe they're wrong about my water smoker. we'll see.

after giving my weber gas grill ample and generous opportunity to prove itself barbecue worthy, i admitted, regretfully, that it wasn't going to happen.

now, the website that jolted me back into outdoor cooking bliss contends that it is possible to get smoked meats in a gas grill that will rival any purpose-built smoker. i believed him, and tried my best. i tried this, and that, and the other. and then i mixed it all up and tried it again. i filled my apartment with smoke and burned through tons of wood chips. for my effort, i got really tasty barbecued ribs (yes, barbecued. indirect heat, low temperature, slow cooking). but i could not get any noticeable smoke flavor on my meat. guests with better palettes than i said they could taste hints of smoke -- but i was going for loads! if i wanted loads of smoke, i was SOL.

my dad and my hetero life partner, spu, both got cheap-o (in comparison to the WSM) bullet smokers, and both produce great smoked pork shoulder, with lots of effort . but i'm the sort of guy who will pay more for convenience and quality -- my time is worth it to me. so i shelled out for the new-for-2009 weber smokey mountain cooker. it has several advantages over the cheap bullet smokers:

1) it's made by weber. i called weber before i bought my weber grill and was impressed with their customer service. heck, i wasn't even a customer at the time! they're also produced with supposedly quality parts. after owning a weber grill for some months, i am pleased with its quality.

2) the WSM has bottom vents which can be used to control the smoker temperature. controlling the temp on the cheap bullet smokers is a real pain, involving adding charcoal or propping the door open. the WSM has an enclosed bottom. the cheap ones spill ash and charcoal all over the floor.

3) the WSM has a fan website to help me get up to speed. many of the tips/hints/recipes are equally applicable to the cheap bullet smokers.

anyhow, the smoker arrived on friday. i cooked up a batch of baby back ribs last night (sunday). i followed operating procedures on the virtual weber bullet site, though i used a different rub/sauce recipe. i used 2 half-racks of baby backs, one with mustard and one without, same rub on both. unfortunately, the half-racks were substantially different (from different parts of the full rack, i think, or maybe a slightly different cut of the rack to begin with, before they got sliced in half. it's all part of my butcher frustration) so the science of "does mustard make a difference?" is inconclusive.

i used 4 large chunks of hickory. the internets say 4 chunks of hickory is probably too smokey for most people. good. my gripe with the grill was that i could only achieve "hints of smoke" even if i wanted to produce "too smokey for most people". i wanted to test the WSM for its ability to make "too smokey for most people", since the opposite is already well within my grasp.

i used one 9lb bag of charcoal, plus the 4 chunks of hickory. i lit the charcoal all at once using The Minion Method and put the hickory on top of the pile. i assembled the cooker and Did Other Things for 4 and a half hours, occasionally adjusting the vents to keep the temperature in line. that was it. no opening of the door, no adding charcoal, no making a big mess all over my deck. the smoker was not entirely temperature stable, but it's my understanding that this is expected the first couple sessions, until i get a nice interior coating of smoke/grease.

around 7:30 (having started at 3:15) the meat still did not seem Done (using meathead's bend test, or using the virtual weber bullet's "tear test", or using the "pulled back 1/4 inch from the bone" test). but it was dinner time and i'd be okay with substandard results on my first cook. so i pulled them off and ate them.

oddly, they were acceptably finished. tender, but not overly tender. some of them seemed a little over-done and dry, and i've cooked much more juicy ribs on my grill (not necessarily better! also, those were spareribs). but these were perfectly good, in fact, quite good. but best of all: they were heavily smokey. so smokey, in fact, that the smoke drowned out the brown sugar flavor of the rub. on the grill, the same rub on baby backs last week was plenty sweet, and quite tasty. but i think in this case there was just so much smoke flavor that the rub could not assert itself.

i savored the smoke flavor but could see how it could be perceived as "too much". fortunately, my sauce (my own recipe! hooray!) complemented the oversmokiness quite well, and balanced the ribs out.

overall, i am extremely pleased. i still don't like cooking with charcoal -- i'm really a big fan of the convenience of gas cooking. but sometimes Ya Gotta Do What Ya Gotta Do. realistically, if i want smoked meat, i'm going to have to combust some wood. and as far as charcoal cooking goes, the WSM makes it as painless as it could possibly be.