Dose look real meaty em em

It's Sunday! Got the smoker warmed up to 225F, and the ribs are on! Smoking with a Mesquite wood/charcoal mix.

Making Jerky today, but trying something different.
Pork Loin Jerky using Yoshida's as the marinade. Just a test batch, Pork Loin is cheap.

The Pork loin Jerky...It smoked up just fine, but took longer than beef.
It was marinated in Yoshida's for about 14 hours and the flavor was....Meh.
It needed a whole lot more flavor. I used the Yoshi's on beef and it was great, but not strong enough for Pork. I would use pork again, but definitely amp up the seasoning with stronger flavors.
Oh well, the dogs really liked it.

None of this is rocket surgery, so the pro chefs among you will sneer, but I felt good about my chicken adventure today. I'm not really a "chicken guy" -- I like it, but I've never really cooked much of it in recognizable form, just diced up in curries, stews, etc. I've never been confident cooking it on the grill, even though I know it's one of the basic-bitch skills that every 'Murican should possess.

Today usrifle and I braved the aisles of Winco, and one of the things that I bought was a whole chicken. $1.28/lb, can't go wrong. I got a refresher on how to break it down from Kenji's video, then I did exactly that except that I didn't have the bones sticking out of the breasts ("airline breasts") like he did. I especially liked his little trick to remove the tendon from the chicken tenders, which I did successfully. This alternative method with a fork is probably worth a try, too.

So there I was, chicken all broken down. I put some rub all over the chicken pieces, smoked them on "Low" (about 200 degrees) on the Recteq Bullseye for a while, maybe 45 minutes, then cranked it to 350 to finish them all off. I brushed some BBQ sauce on some of them towards the end.

And lo and behold . . . this chicken was damned good! Definitely the best that I've ever made. Now I'm not claiming to be in the WW or JMB classes, I'm just saying that this was impressive FOR ME. The dark meat especially was fantastic, nice and juicy and with good skin.

Meanwhile, I salvaged some aging carrots and celery from the fridge, smashed up the carcass like Kenji did, and started some stock simmering on the stove. When it was done, I pulled the carrots out as well as any decent-looking meat, and put it in a bowl to feed the dogs later. I ended up with 2.5 quarts of good-looking yellow chicken stock.

Like I said, none of this was anything too fantastic, but I felt pretty good about that $8 worth of chicken.

Well done Steve! I have never had much luck with Chicken either, and don't generally even bother with it. I may give it another go though based on your results.
Maybe i will try to smoke one whole...
At that price, how can i go wrong? Wifey is headed back to Winco tomorrow, i think she will be grabbing a couple more packs of the Chuck eye Steaks too.
The Boneless Skinless Chicken breasts were a deal too at their price, i'm sure she will grab some of those too.

That’s fantastic!

Nice multiple uses from the chicken

Breaking down your own chicken can save a lot of money.


My wife hits Winco & H-mart most of the time for us, 8 don’t have the patience


Nice job!

You could also smoke it spatchcocked…

WinCo and patience...yeah, most of the time I'm not allowed to go with her.
I tend to voice my impatience with stupid people who block the whole aisle. I was good today though, Steve might have pistol whipped me if I got uppity.

Or beer can style.

I was thinking splitting it down the middle into halves would be a good alternative also.

It's Jerky tomorrow, but I'm going to try to be a a Chicken master soon.

You tend to forget how good GOOD chicken is.... its really hard to find it anywhere. But once you begin to master the combinations of seasoning, cooking, saucing and smoke ---- its really fantastic. Mom used to whip up her own rub and bbq sauces and I always got the job to cook it --- some of the best chicken in my memories, even tho I didn't know what I was doing on the grill -- thats what I've been striving for.... I'm sure I got it and more --- mom would be proud of me.

I went for years cooking only 1 or 2 pieces at a time - usually breast - without really knowing what I was doing and it was always disappointing. When I got back into grilling ~'17 I got into the b/s thigh and breast thing for making teriyaki chicken for a good long time.... I got bored of that and started playing with grilling legs and thighs - figured that out, then moved onto seasoning it properly --- the key thing was to cook batches of 4-8 at a time and see what made for better leftovers --- that was the key. Happy but bored with that --- thankfully I ran into a smoker in early '20 and that took me down a whole new wonderful path! I too was always intimidated by whole birds --- never really wanted to mess with them.... then my neighbor gave me a whole turkey that just HAD to be smoked - it turned out so good - I figured whole chickens would be just small turkeys. Now I actually think its easier to smoke the whole bird over cooking parts, but you are limited to how effective the seasoning is and there is no reason to sauce it ---- the smoke pretty much makes up for ALL of that tho! I would never buy breasts for grilling, but having two from a whole bird was a gourmet treat for making sammys --- best $1/# sandwich meat EVER! Best PRO TIP --- cut up/breakdown the bird on the first night while its still warm ---- once it goes into the fridge, it makes it soooooo much harder.

I've learned ALOT in the last 2-3 years and its been keeping me fed very well very cheaply --- I can't bring myself to spend $15-20 on a meal out when I know how much good tasty meat I can cook for that same amount. I wish I would have learned all this many years ago....

Now I'm looking forward to mastering the Kettle so I can fill out my man card. I think that there is a lot of potential to tweak things in all sorts of ways on that.... Searching for a cheap SS bowl to make a vortex out of currently --- may have to break down and just use a popcorn tin or coffee can for now.

Continuing on the jerky train . . . today I smoked three pounds of Malaysian Pork Jerky, made with pork loin from the bowels of usrifle's freezer.



It's good. A little spicy, not too much. I'll withhold final judgment until tomorrow, and collect some opinions from folks in the office. So far, though, a couple of conclusions that I think I can draw:

- I like the base flavor of beef better than pork
- I love spicy foods in general . . . but I'm not sure that spicy is my thing when it comes to jerky.

I tried something new today. I got these massive beef ribs from Winco. They didn't have a lot of meat on them, but they were HUGE (aka "fun") and they were cheap.





Mrs. usrifle came over for dinner. She may have had someone with her, I'm not sure because I wasn't really paying attention to that.

Anyhow, I smoked those ribs all day, including a wrap at the end, and ended up with this:



"Which plates should we use?" "The big ones."





Yeah, not too much meat -- but the meat that was there was good. Each of us had one rib, and that was enough along with the side dishes.

Will I do them again? Yeah sure, why not -- the size alone makes them a good conversation piece!

I think the instructions to drag behind your car for 5 miles was just in jest?