Turkey Day

This is our turkey from Thanksgiving this year. Of course, we decided to try smoking it on the Big Green Egg. And it was wonderful. The skin turned out really brown because we tried to inject it with a combination of chicken stock, lemon juice, melted butter and spices. But the butter kept thickening when it came into contact with the cold turkey flesh, and it wouldn't pass through the syringe. So, Bryan & his mom ended up pouring the solution over the turkey, and putting some of it just under the skin too. And butter really browns.

But the flavor of the turkey was really good -slightly smoky, but not overpowering. The thing I liked best about doing the turkey on the BGE was that Bryan took care of cooking it and I could focus on making all of the other side dishes. ;)

Lollipops

At the Eggtoberfest a couple weeks ago, the guys discovered a new twist on one of our favorite foods to cook on our BGE. They're called "Lollipops," and they're basically chicken wings wrapped in bacon. Yes, bacon makes everything better!

We did some with maple syrup (Nathon & my favorite), teriyaki, BBQ, and Butt Rub. They were a big hit with our small group.

(I can't believe nobody has posted the highlights and pictures from Eggtoberfest yet!)

Pulled Pork

Well, just so I don't leave ya hanging...

We finally did smoke that pork last Saturday. It took a good 12 hours, and even then it wasn't quite up to the right internal temperature. We had rubbed one with Bad Byron's Butt Rub seasoning, and the other with a homemade rub from my new Sandra Lee Semi-Homemade Grilling cookbook. (Couldn't really tell much difference in the end result, though.) Plus, we sprayed both with apple juice every so often during the smoking process, of course. They were cooking in our V-Rack with one of those disposable aluminum drip pans. But at midnight, we were extremely tired and wanted to go to bed, so we pulled it off the Egg and put them each in their own aluminum pan and covered them in foil to keep them cozy and moist (at 200F) in the oven overnight. Sunday morning, when Bryan went to shred it, the meat was falling-apart, peeling-off-the-bone tender. And yummy too!

Anyway, Sunday evening we fed it to our new Journey Group friends, and I must say -- it was a HUGE hit! Even better than Jim & Nick's BBQ (local restaurant), they said. And, of course, since we smoked TWO pork butts, we're STILL eating leftovers! Oh, yes we are...so hurry on over while I make some sweet tea to go with it.

Too Busy to Cook?

I don't know about any of the other contributors to this blog, but we haven't posted anything in quite a while because our Chief Egghead has been out of town a lot lately. Not to mention, everytime we think about smoking something on the BGE, it starts raining again. So, we haven't tried anything "new," just burgers and steaks in the last few weeks. Oh yeah, and some pizzas while my parents were visiting. I actually broke one of my Pampered Chef stones doing that. Good thing it's still under warranty!

Hopefully tomorrow will be a nice day. We're thawing out some pork butt just in case...

We tried Ribs

Sunday afternoon we put 3 racks of pork spare ribs on the BGE. We had a hard time getting that stubborn membrane peeled off, though. All the instructions sound so simple, but it took us forever. Maybe we misunderstood what we were supposed to be taking off. Anyway, I think next time, we'll ask for an expert demonstration (from Mike, or our neighbor Mike).

Once we got the ribs prepped, we smeared them with olive oil, coated them with Butt Rub and put them on the Egg in the (inverted) V-Rack. That worked pretty well to be able to fit all 3 racks of ribs on our Egg at the same time. Didn't have to flip them over during the cooking process either.

So the ribs cooked at about 275F for about 2 hours, then we sprayed them with apple juice. Then they cooked for almost another hour. Then I pulled them off, spread some KC Hickory sauce on them and wrapped them in foil. I put them back on the Egg and left the draft door and daisy wheel barely open so the temperature would stay low. They sat there another hour or so and then we ate them up.

BGE Pizza!!

This afternoon, we made two pizzas on the BGE. One word -- Yuuuuummmmmmmm!

I mixed up some Pampered Chef Pizza Dough & Roll Mix in the bread machine, then turned it out and kneaded it in flour. Then I divided it (one was smaller than the other). The small one I placed on my 13" Pampered Chef pizza stone, rolled it out and topped it with pizza sauce, and cheese. Then Kirstyn put pepperoni on her half, and left Hayden's half cheese.

Next, I rolled out the larger dough on my 15" PC pizza stone. This one I topped with homemade BBQ sauce (leftover from Brisket night), colby-jack cheese, and shredded chicken (from a can). Then I sprinkled it lightly with chili powder, since I didn't have any bacon bits or green onions in the house today.

We preheated the BGE with the platesetter inverted and the grid on top. We placed the 13" pizza stone directly on the grid, and the 15" pizza stone on top of the extender. Pizza recipes usually say to bake at 425F for 18-20 minutes, but we never got the BGE to go above 375F or so, even with the draft door and daisy wheel fully opened. So, it took about 3o minutes for the pizzas to be done to perfection. We thought the bottom pizza might finish faster than the top one, but both finished at the same time. That platesetter must have been doing a good job.

Anyway, the pizzas tasted really good. A little smoky, but not too much; the crust was crispy on the bottom and soft on the inside; the cheese was bubbly and melted; and the pepperoni & chicken were slightly browned on top.

Beef Brisket

We tackled our first Beef Brisket in the BGEgg today. Kelley and I searched high and low for some good how-to's but found that everyone does something different. Here's what we decided to do...

Marinate brisket overnight in:
1/4 cup Soy sauce
1/4 cup Worchestshire sauce
1 heaping (dinnerware) teaspoon garlic
rounded up to 3/4 cup with lime juice

THE PLAN: Cook at 250F for three hours flipping the meat in the V-Rack after two. We planned to start out with the fat side up, and then flip the brisket over after the first two hours, (thinking the layer of fat would protect the bottom of the meat from drying out in the end). Bring the meat temperature up to 180F, wrap in foil for 30 minutes in a cooler then prepare to serve with the heavily guarded "family Bar-B-Q sauce" on the side. Serve also with grilled corn and some millionaire potatoes. (Green vegetables, what are they?)

THE PREP: We bought a Brisket "flat" from Costco, 6.36 lbs, placed it in a big "Ziplock" bag and marinated it in the fridge overnight. I flipped the meat over first thing in the morning, thinking we could get a more even soak. (The brisket was the perfect size for laying flat in an aluminum 9x13 drip pan.)

I got the fire going and added Mesquite chips, which were soaked in water for several hours. We placed the brisket on a V-Rack, which was sprayed with PAM grilling spray and sat into a drip pan with the left over marinade. Kelley poured some water into the drip pan just so the entire pan had some moisture in it. (We debated whether or not to use the platesetter and decided against it this time around.)

THE SMOKE: The brisket smoked in the egg between 240 and 260F, mostly sitting at 250F, but I was always afraid the fire was out because the smoker would stop smoking at 250 or below. Most of the time the draft door was opened to about 1"and I kept messing with the top daisy wheel to keep the fire going. The fire actually did go out after about 8 hours, and we added more charcoal to get it going again.

REALITY CHECK: Unfortunately, we grossly underestimated the brisket cooking time. We put the brisket on the BGE at 2pm, thinking it would take between 3-4 hours to cook. But the brisket reached some kind of "temperature plateau" at around 150 degrees (internal meat temperature), and wouldn't budge for a very long time. So, we ate Mike's yummy ribs for dinner instead. Then we went to watch fireworks in the cul-de-sac. Finally at MIDNIGHT, the brisket finally reached 200 degrees. It had been in there for a full TEN HOURS! When we stuck a fork in it, we could twist it and pull the fork out. We pulled it off the grill and each had a couple bites before we had to put it into the fridge and save for tomorrow's dinner. When we sliced it up, it had a very distinct bright pink "smoke ring" just beneath the dark outer layer. The meat inside had good flavor, and it was pretty tender. (Kelley took some good pictures - hopefully we'll be able to post them soon.)

I am really struggling to know how to keep the egg going at such a low temperature. How open can you keep the draft door and/or daisy wheel without the fire going out or getting too hot? As soon as the temperature went below 250 the smoke stopped coming out of the top. I'd open up the daisy wheel a little bit and the smoke would start up again after a few minutes. I haven't decided which is more important -- the daisy wheel or opening up the draft door more. Fortunately, the egg would stay consistently warm while I messed with the wheel and draft.

NEXT TIME: We may try and use our "FoodSaver" vacuum sealer next time we do an overnight marinade. We think it will force the marinade into the meat even more than just sitting it in the juice. Another thought was to use one of those marinade injectors into the meat. We'll probably just cook it fat-side-up without flipping it over. Next time, we may play with the flavors in the marinade. We saw some interesting ideas in the BGE cookbook -- (onion soup mix, etc.). Obviously, we'll also plan a longer cooking time.

One thing at a time, though. We'll figure this thing out sooner or later.

chicken wings

Today we cooked lunch on the BGE. Three kinds of chicken wings. 30 wings fit on the large BGE easily (Bryan thinks we could've crammed 10 more on there, but they would've been really close). We seasoned 10 with BBQ sauce, 10 with Frank's Red Hot Sauce, and 10 with Bad Byron's Butt Rub. Surprisingly, we all liked the Butt Rub ones the best. (www.buttrub.com)

The BGE cookbook said to cook the wings at 300 degrees for 30 minutes, turning them over half-way through. We did that and they turned out good, but they could have been a tiny little bit more cooked on the inside. So, maybe extending the time a bit or raising the temperature a little are things we will try next time.

Sorry...we gobbled them up so fast that we forgot to take pictures!

By the way, there are a TON of great BBQ themed shows on this weekend - Food Network, History Channel, etc. Happy 4th of July!!

BGE DVD

Mom wrote:
When I took the DVD out tonight, I noticed that it is a 2 sided one. Check the cover; side 2 is an interactive CD. You can print out the recipes that you see on the video.

Well, today we cleaned out Brown's Pools in Dallas, GA. They had 3 large Big Green Eggs in stock, and the Burwicks bought them all! Here's where we're all going to post about recipes - when they go really well, or even when we mess them up...