Fall, Halloween and the Flea Party

We are in the thick of fall with the leaves almost done changing, ready to drop. The kids are all set for Halloween. The Communist Pinko Flea Party is freezing in their tents in New York after getting pummeled by an early season snow storm. Yep the signs of fall are upon us.

We took a weekend away up in the Blue Ridge Mountains to see the leaves change, relax, and do some apple picking. It was the perfect weekend. We ate at an overpriced, only average restaurant called "Harvest" in Blue Ridge. We purchased an overpriced bottle of wine, we overpaid for apples, and I screwed up Chicken Piccata because I could not keep the pan hot cooking it on the grill they had….and all of it was perfect. We relaxed and played as a family. Got partially lost on a long hike and overall had an outstanding time. It was good to get away, disconnect, and play games like Texas Hold'em together without the interruption of an Xbox. The kids love that poker game! The cabin was beautiful. The view was overlooking Lake Blue Ridge from the back deck and just sitting there, looking at the lake in the cool breeze felt so refreshing. It felt like the weeks of stress were just falling off of me.  The colors of the leaves were really just beginning to change but it was still a site to see….Georgia does not do itself justice in attracting tourism. They should push the north Georgia mountains more. If you like to hike, walk, ride, run, sit, cook or eat (eat BBQ) I would highly recommend the north Georgia mountains to anyone.

With Halloween around the corner the kids are all set to get after some Tricks or Treats. They have both settled on being fans of the University of Michigan Wolverines! Not sure how they come up with these crazy ideas (I am a huge Wolverine fan!). The girl will be a cheerleader and the boy, a "Super Fan". We even got him an afro we are going to spray paint maize and blue. I know the girl is more interested in the candy than anything and the boy just wants to hang out with his buds….and the candy…but I look forward to seeing them both dressed up. They are both completely nuts!

The Flea Party….shit I do not even know where to begin! OK Sure I do! In my opinion, you have a bunch of anti capitalists protesting for one reason. This is the first batch of ass hats that all got a trophy in tee-ball, soccer, football, basketball, or whatever other sport they are in, no matter how much they sucked at their respective sport. We started training these people at a young age, teaching them that no matter what, everyone is a winner! So long as you show up, you get the rewards! I grew up keeping score in my games….and almost every team I was on sucked ass! It did not hurt my ego or psyche! It made me HATE losing! So guess what….YOU WORK HARDER! You change what you are doing when it is not working out for you. You do not sit in the street and cry because Johnny Wall Street actually went to school, worked hard, got the grades, and landed the job that pays the pay scale you wish you could pull down with your English degree. You have a choice of what you want to do with your life and if you choose to cry, whine, piss and moan about where you stand in the economic stratification of this country then either accept it or change it! But for the love of God stop sitting in the street, stinking the place up (worse than New York already smells!) and whining!

We have turned the most innovative, hard working country into a bunch of Sally's that are looking for a free ride because they could not figure out at a young age that their Music, English, Psychology, or Philosophy degree would lead them to be broke more days than not. Hey I have an idea….now that you have your whim out of the way, go back to school and learn something that can make some money! Because, guess what?! If you take away Capitalism, you will have no one to hire your lazy ass!! Keep using your Apple computers, drinking your Starbucks, and complaining how unfair life is…it is really working for you!

3rd Annual Atlanta BBQ Competition Results!

This past weekend I competed in what is the only BBQ context that I compete in every year. The Atlanta BBQ Festival (http://www.atlbbqfest.com/home.php). It is, as the name suggests, in its 3^rd year and I have entered the contest all three years. I only do the one contest because….dammit it is expensive to do more than one a year! We showed some progress this year and we are back in the top 10! The Department of Porks and Rumpreation have had a top ten finish in 2 of the 3 years we have been in the competition….now it is time to break through! I need a win in Ribs and or Chicken…..OR BOTH!

The final results for The Department of Porks and Rumpreation were:

• Anything Butt (Flank steak) – 11^th of 30 teams (pro and backyard teams mixed)
• Sauce – 4^th of 30 teams (pro and backyard teams mixed)
• Chicken – 7^th of 11 Backyard teams (our best finish in chicken)
• Ribs – 5^th of 11 Backyard teams (score of 471 out of possible 500)
• Best Booth – 1^st Place!! Pics will be below…..
• We finished 7^th overall (and got a ribbon for it!)

So overall I am encouraged. We fought the wind and the colder temps all day and that seriously affected the outcome of the products we turned in. True everyone was fighting the same elements but not everyone cooks on a trashcan! Since we are so poorly insulated, I think we had it harder than anyone else. That is the price you pay though for the choice we made to use trashcans as our cooking vessels. I just so badly want to win and know that everyone else is thinking, "DAMN! We got beat by the guys on the trashcans!!!"

It is only 3 days past the competition and the wheels are already turning to figure out how to combat this next time and how to produce more consistent results. I think we will move to Kaowool to insulate the cans and we will rebuild the smoke station to be more efficient….you will be seeing pics of this in the future I am sure!!

Our tent space was by far the best in the house! We had a love seat that had two built in recliners, a lazy boy, a coffee table and an old claw foot cast iron bath tub in the corner that was filled with ice and beer!! There was even an over sized rubber duck floating in the tub and an area rug for that warm homey feel. The tub will certainly return next year but we will have to turn this up a notch to hold onto our 1^st place in Best Booth in 2012….I will let my partner worry about that though….I will be concentrating on the cooking! We are so close!

Chicken box getting ready for turn-in:

Pics of the Booth now.....

Bathtub cooler.....

What we smoke on

Anyone Got A Spare??

I can't believe I did it…or...will be doing it... but it is true! I am switching this year. I am going to pork spare ribs and away from baby backs for the 3rd Annual Atlanta BBQ Competition. I need to work on my rib cleaning skills, but besides that, I can no longer deny that they are a better tasting, tenderer cut for smoking! They are larger, meatier, absorb more smoke taste and overall appearance is like something out of the Flintstones where Fred orders ribs that tip over the car! I admit I tweaked the recipe and process a little but not that much to make this much of a difference….yep I admit it! I shigged Johnny Trigg!!

The spare rib cut is about twice the size of the baby back, however after trimming you are not that much larger than the baby back. You do have more meat though, and the bones are bigger. You have to cut off a flap of meat (which is a taster while you are cooking) and then peel off the membrane from the back. Then find the bones and cut everything off above the bones. This was difficult for me the first time, but after watching a video on U-tube on how to do this….I think I will be much better at trimming right down to the bone going forward. What you are left with is a rack of ribs that has some nice marbling and has a bit more cooking surface than a baby back. 

The cooking process is about the same for me. I borrowed some tips I picked up watching Johnny Trigg on BBQ Pit Masters though. Now I will not call this true Shigging (shigging is where you steal ideas under the false pretense of having a conversation with a fellow BBQ person). I look at this more like educating myself on some different techniques and then fitting them into my scheme of cooking. I mean overall my rub is the same, my sauce is the same, and my cook times are the same. The only thing that really changed is the cut of meat and the "glaze" that I put into some foil when I wrap the ribs for cooking towards the end of the process. See Trigg (as far as I know) invented this glazing technique where you put your glaze ingredients and squeeze butter into the foil right on the ribs so that when they foil cook, they are not getting dry, they are adding flavor, and they look nicely glazed coming out of the foil. I think it worked! In the picture below you can see that these are more red then my previous Ribbage post. This is more the color I am looking for…maybe even redder!! It was not even just the look of them. It was the flavor profile that I really liked. First the spare rib has a better taste than the baby back. Besides that I have layers of flavor that include: mustard, rub (then they sit wrapped in plastic over night), apple and hickory smoke, butter, whiskey, honey, apple juice, vinegar, ScottyQ BBQ sauce (the best sauce there is!!), then finished on hot coals for a little bake on of all that flavor! 

So...yeah, this has pushed me over to the spare rib fringe. The baby back is like the filet of rib cuts and is still a very good rib; however it does not absorb the flavors that the spare rib can pick up. Not to mention the overall difference in flavor that the spare rib already has. I am calling a last minute audible. This is not something I normally do. With the competition this coming weekend, there is no more time to practice. I hope it works out. I really want a pig trophy!!!

Ribbage

Practice is well under way with this past weekend being baby back ribs. After last year's poor showing it was time to make some changes in the ribs so I basically changed everything! New rub, new cooking vessel, higher cooking temperature, different glaze…everything is different! Overall the results were good but I am still not getting the color that I want on the outside of the ribs….so I will take one more attempt at this before I settle on a technique.

The rub has been simplified big time! I had to much going on in there so I took it all apart and almost cut my ingredients in half! I think this rub is much better with far less spice competition going on in your mouth. Now I am not ready to unleash this rub to the public just yet. I fear that once the news got out to my 21 followers that they may all try to hit this Blog at the same time and knock it over (crash the server). I can say that there is, as always, a decent amount of brown sugar. The newest additions are all-spice and crushed red pepper flakes. I like this one a lot because it is sweet and spicy. 

Last year we used the Redneck Green Egg to cook on. The concept is good. The vessel holds the temperature at a good steady 210^o temp. The problems I have with it are that it is difficult to get additional wood down to the fire and they are not very well insulated. I am not totally given up on the trash cans though….but for now I am back to using the Weber. Yes the Weber comes with some space concerns. I can only fit a MAX of 3 slabs on the Weber at a time. I will probably do 6 slabs in order to get the good final turn in ribs from the middle of the slabs. This may force me back to the trash cans, then using the Weber as a hotter, finishing vessel in the last 10 minutes of cooking….more practice is needed here for sure. To turn the Weber into a smoker I wrapped 2/3 of the bottom rack in heavy duty foil and then constructed a brick wall near the open part of the bottom rack. I added about 20 brickettes to the rack (not lit) and then about 20 more to the chimney to light. When those were lit I poured them onto of the unlit coals. I put my wood on that, closed the top cooking grate side and put a bread pan full of water and apple juice above the fire. This helped to keep the temp down and provide some humidity to the smoker.  It stayed at a pretty consistent 300^o for a full 4 hours. I think longer but I was done cooking at that point so I walked away.

The cooking process was a little different too. Here were the basic steps, all at 300^o:

First hour – meat side up

½  hour meat side down

½ hour meat side up

1 hour wrapped in aluminum foil

When I made the pouch I poured melted butter, apple juice and honey. Not sure how much of each but most was apple juice. I really liked this.

10 minutes with glaze to finish.

The glaze was a mix of 3 parts BBQ sauce and 1 part honey – maybe should have gone more honey

The smaller of the two slabs was well over cooked. The meatier of the two slabs was just about perfect.

I was only disappointed about the color of the ribs. I always love the color about ½ ways through the process. The end result always seems to dark to me. It tastes good, which I like, but I think that when the ribs are a dark reddish color, it is mouth watering….I mean I am drooling just typing about it! 

So to correct this, in the next test, I think I just decided, that I will use the trashcans. I will cook them slower and lower at 210^o with these steps:

Meat side up for 1 hour

Then meat side down for 1 hour

Foil wrap for one hour.

Once the foil wrapping is done, they should have another hour to go if at 210^o and this last hour is where I will glaze every 10 minutes.

Hopefully the end result will be a more red rib result. The pics that follow are 1/2 ways done and then the final product. The flavor was, I think, perfect! Now I have to work on the color!

The color I want

What they end up looking like....just a little too dark for my liking:

Camping Like a Sweat Ball

I like to go camping. I really do. What I do not like is getting to a campsite on a Friday at, say, 6:30 PM and then sweating until I leave at 10:00 AM on Sunday morning. Aside from the discomfort of chaffing on 75% of my body, I just do not like being wet all day and then at night while I sleep. 

I get to camp with my son on Friday night. I drop him off on the Scout side, then drive over to the "Chief" side and find my campsite (I would barely see him again until we left on Sunday morning!). I was filled with excitement to see the beautiful background of Lake Lanier as I drove up to the site where I would put up my seven person tent for just me to sleep in…I have a rule about tents. If I cannot stand up in it, I am not sleeping in it! My excitement quickly faded when I got out of my nicely air-conditioned car and started sweating profusely the instant the hot, pea soup like air hit my skin. I proceeded to set up my tent. I thank God that some innovative people have made this tent set-up easy for us. It only took me about 15 minutes and a gallon of sweat to get the tent up, but that included setting up my room divider to separate the living room form the bedroom in the tent. A few hours later I was not-so-fast asleep in the hot, damp, very still air. Yep turned in at about 10:30 PM and quickly fell asleep at about 3:00 AM. 

The Scout blowing the bugle at 6:30 AM came very quickly Saturday morning. However the morning air felt nice. It was cool, with a slight breeze that helped some of the night's sweat dry from my skin and clothing. I am not sure how none of this air made it into my tent during the night. We gathered Saturday for some breakfast. Nice hot eggs and sausage cooked on an open fire. It was very good but I should have been a little smarter and not used the hot sauce that instantly got me to rain sweat again. The damage was done. The day would heat up to about 92 degrees Fahrenheit and the sweat would continue to pour from my every pore. As the Scouts were out on the lake learning about canoeing, I started to become repulsed with myself. I mean if I could smell me, it had to be bad! And I had no relief in my future. The campground did have a shower but on the other campouts I had been on, they were so remote that I did not even think to bring soap or anything to clean myself with. I took a shower anyway. It was the first and last time I shower with baby wipes and face wipes instead of soap and a washcloth. I used a sock as a wash cloth for those tough, ground in dirt areas but it never really provided that good clean feeling that I was craving at that point. I went to bed Saturday night around 10:30 PM, again sweating, uncomfortable, frustrated and of course I did not fall asleep until about 3:00 AM. My only thought was, "Man I have GOT to get an air-mattress! I am too old for this hard ground crap!"

The sounds of bugles at 6:30 AM on Sunday morning made me want to rip my face off and throw it in the lake. Not that I would have been able to get a grip on my face with all the grease and sweat that covered it. I went to bed thinking about that air-mattress…..I woke up thinking, "Screw that air-mattress I need to get a camper with some a/c in it!" The only thing I could draw strength from was knowing that we would be leaving in a matter of hours. I could grab my boy, get in that car, turn the air on and start to freeze as the cold air hit my sweat soaked clothing. Hopefully it would blow some of the foulness off of me as well….all I had at that point was hope. I still had the daunting task of breaking down camp knowing it would produce yet another gallon of sweat. I just bit the bullet and got after it. I had my camp packed up in about a half hour. Although that sounds good it isn't that good at all since I just rolled up the tent and threw it in the back of the car instead of folding it correctly and packing it away in it's carrying case…I HAD TO GET OUT OF THERE!! As soon as I could, I grabbed the boy and we were on the road catching up on all the things he did over the weekend that I missed because he was off with his buds.

Arriving home, I felt the personal comfort that I was in need of. I still had to clean up the camping gear before I could shower but I knew it was just a matter of time before I could scrub the grime and odor off of me. I just stood in the shower. First cold water, then warm, finally hot as I watched the filth whirlpool flow down the drain. One more shot of cold water and I was in my kick-around shorts and a t-shirt in my comfy chair, tired, but a better man since none of this was about me....it was all for the boy and I would do it all over again exactly the same way for him. I love my son. 

And The Practice Begins!!!!!

Sunday was a hot day....with lots to do including practice for the upcoming BBQ competition. So this Sunday I started with chicken. I will definitely have to smoke the chicken again since the only thing I accomplished was that I learning that I need more practice.

The smoked chicken recipe is a brand new one for me. I am scrapping the old Raspberry Glazed Smoked Chicken for a more traditional BBQ flavored smoked chicken. Here is how I did it:

1. Washed the chicken thighs in cold water
2. Removed the skin from the chicken (do not discard)
3. Remove the thigh bone from the thigh
4. Trim all the chicken into uniformed sizes
5. Placed chicken in a zip-lock bag with a Zesty Italian Marinade (I used a different marinade for this smoking but I have to save that secret - oh and store in the fridge)
6. Scrape the chicken skins (this part is NASTY! But a must.)
1. Place skin flat on the cutting board, the outside facing down
2. With a sharp knife start dragging the blade across the skin, sideways. 
3. Little by little apply more pressure until the "stuff" starts coming off the inside of the skin...it will look like a white nasty hunk of pure fat....the skin should be thin enough to see a lime through
1. Reserve the skins to apply back onto the chicken (store in fridge)
7. After you are done marinading, (I like to marinade for 24 hours) remove the chicken from the marinade and skins from the fridge.
8. Apply the rub to all sides of the chicken (recipe below)
9. Roll the chicken up so that it looks like a thigh again, cover with the skin
1. You may have to stretch the skin over the chicken to get it all around the thigh.
10. Take the chicken to the smoker - smoke at about 220 for 2 hours.

Now I like to use apple wood for chicken. It smells wonderful and it is a mild smoke flavor. I only use 2 chunks, right at the beginning and that is it. I do not use anymore smoke after that first burn is done. I like to start the thighs in a pool of melted butter for about 30 minutes. Then I move them to the smoker rack. I also like to glaze 30 minutes before they are done and then again 10 minutes before they are done. Your favorite BBQ Sauce mixed with a little honey will make a nice glaze that will shine. Normally 3 parts BBQ sauce / 1 part honey will do it. The finished product is a beautiful mahogany color. The flavor is sweet, tangy and a little spicy.

Sorry for the picture...it is a little blurry but here is the finished product followed by the recipe for the chicken:

Smoked Chicken

Rub: Mix together thoroughly the following:

• 1/4 cup dark brown sugar (packed). We prefer "turbinado sugar" for ease of use, but either one works fine.
• 1/4 cup sweet paprika (Hungarian, if you can get it)
• 3 tblsp kosher salt
• 1 tblsp ground pepper (fresh peppercorns recently ground!)
• 1 tblsp garlic powder or 2 tblsp granulated (not garlic salt)
• 1 tblsp onion powder
• 1 tblsp cayenne powder

Directions:

Apply rub to the chicken at least a couple hours before cooking and preferably a couple days before cooking.

Soak 2 chunks of Apple wood and 2 chunks of Hickory wood for at least 1 hour before cooking

Set up smoker to reach a temperature of 220 - 225o F

Place chicken in a disposable pan with melted butter for the first ½ hour.

Remove from pan and place on smoker rack

Hit with a finishing sauce in the last 30 minutes

Total time is about 2 – 3  hours at 220F

Now just enjoy!!!!

I Suck at Blogging

Yep, it is true. The one takeaway that I have from creating my own Blog is that I suck at blogging! I do not post enough. Recognizing the problem is half the battle though! So I am recommitting myself to this!! My goal will be to post a blog every Sunday night. I do not think that is to much to ask of myself. I have to start practicing for the BBQ so I should have plenty to write about!

Sorry for sucking...but I will get better! Practicing smoked chicken this weekend!!