Grilled or Smoked foods

[Stranger]

Since there were a few fast food threads I thought I'd start one about some good old homemade food. Ones done on the grill or in the smoke. Maybe post up any special recipes or cooking instructions you use along the way.

A while back I had posted a thread about getting a grill and smoker. Well I bought my grill last summer and my wife bought me a smoker for Christmas and I got to use if for the first time last weekend. First off, ill say that my smoker is just a cheap electric and I know its not a real good one, but I just wanted one to try my hand at smoking and this one will do for now.

First smoke was a few slabs of baby back ribs.. I first marinated them in a mix of ginger ale and Orange juice for 4 hours, pulled them and put on a barbeque rub that I got from the local meat market. Turned on the smoker and got it to settle in at around 230 degrees. I used some applewood wood chips and filled the water bowl with apple juice. Put the slabs in the smoker and let them sit. I filled a spray bottle with a mix of apple juice and white wine vinegar and would spritz them every 30 minutes. I let them sit in there for just about 4 hours before pulling them. it was a little cool outside so I was having some troubles getting the temp to stay steady, when I would open it up to spritz them the temps would drop and sometimes would shoot up to almost 250 degrees afterwards. In the meantime I made up a glaze to put on the ribs, I kinda prefer the ribs to be dry but my wife likes them with BBQ sauce on them so I decided this would make a happy medium (more on this glaze later). Well after all this prep and mouth watering work I pulled them out and sure enough, the bottom sides were burned.. BAD!! I ruined our dinner! The top sides of the ribs were somewhat edible, but that's it. The flavor was great but the burn was bad. So I knew I was on to something as far as flavor but I just burned them.

I figured there were a few things that were the issue. First, me opening the door and spraying them and letting all the heat out would just make the electric coil turn on repeatedly and that's just putting direct heat to the under side of those ribs. Second, when I put the thing together I installed one of the racks just above the coil, DUH! why did I do that? I swapped the ribs on the racks half way thru but never thought of the consequences of having them sit that close to the burner. Third, I've read that the thermometers on these smokers aren't exactly the best things there are and I'm pretty sure mine is reading 20-30 degrees lower than actual temp, BAD!

So yesterday I decided to change a few things and try it again. This time I moved the racks as high as I could away from the direct heat of the coil and also as an added protection I wrapped each rack in tin foil to keep any and all direct heat away from the meat. I turned the heat down, I trusted that when i saw smoke coming from the thing that it was hot enough to go. Turns out mine was showing about 200 degrees when this happened so i left it at that for the duration. Also, i simplified it this time, i didn't marinade or bother spritzing them. I just used rub, meat and smoke nothing more. Let these cook for 4 hours and pulled them. What a difference! not burned at all and the taste was great! Not as tender as i might have preferred but i know the ribs shouldn't be fall off the bone, then that would just be pulled pork. I think next time i'll let them cook a little longer to tenderize them just a bit more, i think i was just a little nervous of burning them again.

So that glaze that i was talking about earlier, you must give this shit a try! It was fantastic, a little sweet a little hot. Gonna leave this recipe here for any and all who wanna give it a try.

first you need to make a basic vinegar sauce:
- 1 cup apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 cup ketchup
- 1/4 cup Franks Red Hot (or any hot sauce)
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
- 1/2 tablespoon crushed red pepper
- 1/4 cup sugar

cook vinegar, ketchup and hot sauce over medium heat then add the rest of the ingredients.

This should make a little more than one cup of the vinegar sauce.

Mix 1 cup of vinegar sauce, 1- 18oz jar of apple jelly, and 1 cup light corn syrup while the vinegar sauce is still warm and enjoy! SO GUUUUUUUUUUUUUUD!

[TheCatt]

Meat thermometers are definitely more accurate than the cheap thermometers in grills/smokers, get one.

I prefer my ribs sous vide now. It takes 1/2 to 2 days, but worth it.

[Leisher]

Meat thermometers are definitely more accurate than the cheap thermometers in grills/smokers, get one.

I prefer my ribs sous vide now. It takes 1/2 to 2 days, but worth it.

Explain the process.

[TheCatt]

Meat thermometers are definitely more accurate than the cheap thermometers in grills/smokers, get one.

I prefer my ribs sous vide now. It takes 1/2 to 2 days, but worth it.

Explain the process.

Set water bath to 140 degrees.
Rub ribs with spices.
Put ribs in a ziploc bag. Insert bag into water bath.
Wait 36 hours.
Take them out, slather with sauce, finish in oven for ~60 minutes, slathering every 5 to 15 minutes, depending on how you like them (Assumed wet).

Most fall apart, tender, delicious ribs I've ever had.

[Malcolm]

There are fancier devices you can use to do it, but the gist is: payload enclosed in plastic inside warm water. They had that shit on the good Iron Chef back in the day.