Looking good! Oink.

What is cheyanne sauce?

I think it's made from hot Native American women.

Sausage stuffed bacon wrapped pickles

Fired up the WSM yesterday for a turkey! I was kinda excited to try out a new setup for my coals for a medium length/higher temp cook.... the 'vortex' i made out of a popcorn tin just wasn't doing it, so I went with my gut and made something I knew would work.


Basically trying to keep the coal bed gathered tightly with a good depth. I didn't measure out how much coals I put in there - but I figured it was ~1/4 of a 20# bag of unlit coals with ~1/2 a chimney of leftover lit coals to start it. I was shooting for a hotter burn in the 275-325 range --- seemed to burn ~280ish for the first 3 hours, then settled back to 260 for the rest of the 6 hours. Finished strong with some coals left over to use to start the next cook. That amount of coal spread over the grate would have been only one coal deep and would have burned like shit.... this setup would have burned completely if hadn't stopped it at the end --- Nice!

I'm realizing that the 18" WSM just does NOT like to run much hotter than that --- I'm concluding that even with the lower vents wide open, its the single 3 hole top vent that restricts the air flow that keeps the temps down. I was noticing that every time I opened the lid, I'd get a nice spike up over 300 - but it was short lived and settled right back down again. I've seen it mentioned on the virtual weber forum that people will prop the lid to get higher temps - some resorting to adding a second top vent for 350+ cooks. I don't think I'll go that far --- I'm happy being able to keep ~270-280 for long durations without burning a shit ton of coal. I see too many vids where people are just dumping a whole bag of coals in the ring for a cook.... for just some wings or thighs.... Thats just too wasteful for me.

Pretty happy with the new setup --- should make smoking whole chickens really easy now with minimal coal consumption.

Anyways, heres how the 15# turkey turned out....

I was a little disappointed in the results..... I'm pretty confident I did a good job smoking it, but it just didn't seem that good last night.... No where near as good as the one I did at TG.... I'm guessing it has something to do with it being a Kroeger turkey vs nice pricey 'boutique' turkey. Or maybe that is was stored poorly since the tag on it said best before 12/31/21..... too many freeze/thaw cycles? I'm not saying it was BAD.... it just wasn't as good as I was expecting....

What really surprised me is that I broke it all down right away while it was still hot.....

Doesn't really look like a lot of meat from a 15# turkey --- does it? I'm guessing there was probably around 6-7 # of meat when all was done --- and I did a pretty good job of picking the carcass clean. My neighbor even commented when he came up to look "Thats a 15# turkey?" My bet is it weighed 15 # WITH all the ice in the cavity AND the neck and giblets AND the 1# gravy pack....

Either way.... $4.29 for ~7 pounds of turkey for sammys is still a pretty good deal!

It is. Nice score.

Well, I got a hankerin' to try something I hadn't done before, and bought some of Porter Road's Dino Ribs. According to da innernet, they are the best BBQ cut ever, and also the easiest to cook, yadda yadda yadda.

Anyhow, it's a three-bone section of beef ribs that weighed 6 pounds. Here's the underside:



And here's the top, with Meat Church Holy Cow rub applied. No trimming, just apply some Worcestershire sauce as a binder, add rub and go!



It sat in the Recteq pellet smoker for an hour at 180, then at 275 for about seven hours, then at 350 for a couple of hours because dinner was approaching. Total cook time of about 10 hours . . . no moving, no wrapping, no messing around.



And in the end, this is what we had:



Usrifle and his better half came over to help judge. The bark was great, some of the outer meat was a bit dry, and the inner meat was super moist. All in all I was really happy with it, and I think the leftovers were even better than the original meal.

Next time I'd do it the same way, but start earlier so I could keep it cooking at the lower 275 temp for longer.

The bark was AWESOME and that sucker was a roast after the meat pulled back.! Those Ribs were HUGE and they had really good flavor. I have to give a shoutout to his beans too. I'm not a beans guy, but they were stellar!

Thanks for a great evening with you and Tera, we really enjoyed it.

Nice! It would be interesting to know what the ratio of starting weight to finished meat you had there.....

I have to correct my initial disappointment with my turkey the other night ---- I made a sammy last night that was just fantastic!!!
I'm thinking that my initial impression was clouded/swayed by the fact that I was eating some of the skin off the bird and on pieces while I was breaking it down --- the skin - while crispy - did pick up a bitterness to it that I'm sure stayed on the palette and over powered the taste of the meat. After sitting in the fridge overnight, the meat is nicely smoked and tasty!

I'm happy again.

Excellent - I think most all smoked birds are better they next day. Smoked chicken is for sure.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Want to double smoke a ham soon.

Oooooooo...... I'm twitching on this......
Someone with an offset should grab this....


https://seattle.craigslist.org/see/zip/ ... 37948.html

I'd jump on it.... but I've got enuff for the next 2-3-4 years. I am curious about 'yellow plum'..... the stuff I picked up was just 'plum'. If I had a place to store it and keep it dry - I'd do it. If you slice it into ~2" slabs, its ready to go in ~2 months.

I'd rather find some peach or some pear at this point. I did see some fig today that I thought about.....

I am 6 sammys into that turkey I smoked.... they just seem to keep getting better and better everytime It is just NOT getting old --- such a tasty meal! Running low on chips and mayo tho.... picked up some bacon ranch dressing in case I can't find mayo on sale soon... While I don't think its really needed, I've been putting a slice of provolone on the sammys now..... just to use up the provolone thats been open for a while --- it actually makes it REALLY nice.... Almost done with the malformed and disfigured loaf of bread that I got for it --- backup waiting.

Lots left to go --- I was going to give some to my neighbor yesterday - ran into another neighbor on the way up with Wolfy - the husky - had to give them both a taste..... Wolfy wouldn't leave my side as I walked up to the neighbor's house ---- 'Moar-moar-moar' in that typical husky growl talking - which is really odd because Wolfy hardly ever makes a noise (mellowist husky you've EVER seen). After realizing that the intended neighbor had left for his cabin (without telling me), Wolfy's owner was the lucky recipient from the meat fairy. She seemed REALLY happy - will have to see how well she and her husband liked it --- I felt bad for giving her a small piece.

Knotty Woods pellets on sale for $15/bag TODAY ONLY at Home Depot!!!!!!!!
Got it in an email.... Order them online for in store pick up..... its saying free delivery too!
https://www.homedepot.com/s/knotty%2520 ... any?NCNI-5

Dammit..... I was trying NOT to order any more pellets..... since I've got 4 half bags of pellets left for the smoke tube....

But I was chatting with my neighbor and he said he'd split a bag of both plum and almond with me ---- so I have to do it now....
I really wanted the almond.... and I would have been bummed not being able to combo of the almond/plum.... so thats the way it has to be

My plum and almond pellets just showed up!!! I wasn't expecting them til friday.....
Gonna try to get some legs thawed out for tomorrow ---- I can't wait to try this almond ---- the pellets have such a deep gold color to them..... I'm betting they are going to be good!!!!

Flavor report soon.......

Tried the almond pellets last night...... WOW!!!! Very nice! I'm impressed. Its hard to state what it tastes like.... but its just so good!

Did some legs just like I always do..... rub and glazed with SBR at the end..... Sooooo tasty --- can't wait for leftovers tonight!


Gonna try and score some flats legs or thighs at SW from their Friday $5 deals.... need to try the plum pellets to see if they are true to the plum logs I got for the WSM --- I'm betting they will be really good too.
I HAVE to try a mix of plum and almond now....

Edit to a add --- just got back from SW --- scored a 4.98# flat of thighs and a 4.89# flat of legs for $5 each ---- more smoke testing to come!