Category: BBQ

After some thought, I decided it was all to common to roast a pig. Every one seems to be doing it these days. With the big bash coming up, scheduled for June, something different is in order. Something that would compliment the half pig or Boston Butt as our American chums call it (The shoulder half of the pig). After a trip to my butcher, I discovered what he could and could not supply. He can supply the half pig and a shoulder quarter is on order to pick up next Friday for the practise run on Sunday. A visit to Little Miss Sunshine revealed she had a source for whole goat and after a few phone calls I have now ordered a whole goat to go with the Boston Butt. I have no idea how big the thing is and no idea of what it tastes like but it should be a voyage of discovery not only for me but for everyone who attends on the day. One thing is for sure, the menu will be different to most other peoples!

My branding iron arrived this morning, and pretty good it looks too! I have for now given up on the idea of trying to build a smoker on bits I can find lying around, its too far into the season for that. So with my credit card at the ready I went hunting the net for a decent ready made smoker. After some reasearch I decided I was going to buy a Brinkman, they seem to give the best guarantees on their products. Two hours later and one credit card begging for mercy and I am now awaiting delivery of my very own Brinkman Cimmaron Ltd edition smoker. (See photo in gallery alongside a pic of the grill I use) It has to be said its a beast and with a 75 year guarantee it should be here long after I am gone. That alone makes it worth every penny. Exactly how I am going to pay for it is another matter entirely but I am sure it will all be worth it in the end.

A pratice run for the spit has been scheduled for the weekend of the English May bank holiday. Its now Thursday 17th May and I have nine days to have the spit up and running and so far I am on schedule. All being well a huge chunk of pig will be ordered next Tuesday and delivery should be on the Friday giving me two days for marinating and creating dry rubs etc. I am still waiting for the beancounter to stitch up the dungarees (well she did offer). Combined with my grillslinger, my machette (for chopping up bits of wood for the smoker) and my branding iron, hat and dark glases I should look like the ultimate pro and ready for anything. My gut feeling is I will look like a right twat but what the hell its all good harmless fun.

The steel was delivered to Ted Magnums this morning and some major design changes were decided upon. As a result the welding is now finished and the steel is now in the process of being painted in a fetching shade of black for the lower stanchions and silver for the upper with the roller bearing caps being finished in red. It may not be professional but it looks good and is as Heath Robinson as we can get it. The target of it being ready for the May bank holiday is looking good and a quarter pig for practise is on target. Photographs of the finished assembly will be placed in the gallery as soon as a working model has been constructed. All in all its amazing what you can do with some pre planning, determination and some cold steel!!!

I managed to pick up the steel I ordered yesterday, so far so good. The bad news is the estimate I was given was wildly out and for what I thought was going to cost me 25 pounds actually cost me 50. The construction will start some time next week when Ted Magnum has practised with the welding kit he bought from EBAY. Things are still looking good for it to be ready and up and running for the May bank holiday. With this in mind I think its time to go and stock up the beer supplies in anticipation.

Sunday… oh bloody Sunday. Well the bits I remember were good anyway! After a few beers at the pub prior to picking up the bean counters car from the night before and then speaking to the Tiler on the phone with a few more beers, I decided to spark the grill up and invite a few friends around. This is where it gets a bit hazy. I decided I desperately needed a machete for the purpose of chopping up small logs to go in the smoker. I contacted my mate Ted Magnum who duly turned up with a selection for me to try out. The instructor came along with a mutual friend and his wife. It seems everyone ducked when ever I drew the machete out of its scabbard but I discoverd it did indeed do the job and for an hour or so as I was knocking back Bourbon and coke I pretended I was Errol Flyn at his swashbuckling best until someone took the big knife away and hid it. I must admit not only does it chop trees, logs and small branches, its sharp enough to cut a steak. It now has pride of place on my Grilslinger utility belt and will get used on many occasions during this years season.

So onto today. I got up early this morning, this being my day off work, and went and ordered the steel for the spit. Ted magnum and myself then went to the beancounters place of work and loaded up a trailer of hewn timber which had been chopped down from the surrounding woodland. There was so much we went back for another trailer full. I dont remember having so much fun chopping trees down and there is at least another trailer full of timber to be picked up at another date. There is to be a big barby at Ted’s place sometime this year when we test out the spit and we need a big bonfire to accompany the proceedings. It would appear that at the last one Ted had he managed to burn over a ton of dried and seasoned logs in a period of five or so hours. Ted does not do small fires, no these are more like pyres and huge at that.

I pick the steel up tomorrow evening and then with the aid of Teds welding gear we will attempt to assemble the final article. I am convinced my design will work and be strong enough for a 160 pound pig. We intend to address the problem of motorising the spit when its built. If we use a 240 volt motor then we are limited to where we can use the thing as we will be bound by the lenght of electricty cable. Ideally what we need is a 12 volt motor with lots of torque that wont drain a decent car battery in a few hours. With two batteries we should be able to make it through the end of the session before each is flat. Well that is the reasoning anyway. The spit should be built by the weekend and we can cross the bridge that is the motor issue a few days after that. More news as it happens. PS its raining and has been for the last few days with lots more to come, the April showers are late this year!

I just remembered, a decision was taken, mainly by me but with just as much enthusiasm by my drunken mates, that the theme for this years season will be redneck country hicks. Mainly because we are going to be smoking so much stuff (no, not drugs) and roasting a whole pig and drinking lots of Bourbon we decided that we should use a Southern US dress code. This means cut down dungarees and straw hats for the guys and plenty of gingham and kerchief neck ties for the women. Hats are optional but the music will be American blues.

The following year, if any of us are still left, we are going for the Hawaiin them. Food will be pigs and pineapple, Mailbu and the dress codes will be grass skirts and garlands for the women, nothing else mind except for come hither smiles and maybe some Channel No 5, and garish shirts and long shorts for the guys. Obviously this seemed like a great idea when we were all three sheets to the wind and it remains to be seen if we pull it off or not but keep a look out for new photos in the gallery.

Cook em Dano……

Hi again, I know I sometimes bang the drum for the “Save the planet” mob, but after my smoker arrived, I knew I would not be able to power it with gas. I went to my local hardware store and priced up some charcoal which is something I have not done for a long time. It was with some sadness that I discovered that sustainable charcoal from managed copse’s is something like three times the cost of charcoal that does not. This caused something of a panic as it was then down to conscience over costs and my pockets are not very deep. I wish I could afford to be “green” but the charcoal has completely priced me out of it and any credentials I may have had have now been blown away by my lack of resources to be “green”. Anyway until I become a man of means I shall continue to use charcoal at a price I can afford.

On the plus side a delivery wagon turned up on my doorstep this morning with my grillslinger. For more details please go to this site, http://www.grillslinger.com , if only to see what I am on about and no I am not endorsing this product but it looks so cool I just had to have one. After trying it on and adjusting the belt for comfort I drew the speed tongs out of the holster and practised pulling the knife and the speed pro burger turner out of the holsters. Only time will tell if this thing really works and is of some use or is more of a novelty. As usual I will keep you lot informed with regular updates and details but I must admit that with a decent leather hat I could honestly say “Move over John  Wayne“. ………

 

 

 

Sunday morning arrived and with the sunshine cracking the flags I sparked up the new Brinkman smoker. Its only small but for the amount of meat I intended to cook I figured it would do the job. I had previously marinaded some ribs in “Kansas City Sloppy Rib dry rub”. I had also marinaded a pork shoulder in some “Jakes Boss Barbecue Rub”. To compliment the dry rubs I took some of the rib rub and placed it in a pan alonside come cider, bourbon and liquid smoke and boiled it til it was runny, I did the same with the pork rub but ommitted the Bourbon.

At 11am I lit the smoker and filled the water tray and placed some wood chips in it and waited for the smoker to come up to temperature. This took nearly an hour and it was noon before any meat entered the compartments in the smoker. One of the design flaws with the Brinkman is that there is only one door into the cooking compartment and this only allows you access to top up the fuel grate. To baste any of the meat you need to remove the lid and take out whatever food is in the top cooking rack and then remove the rack to get at any food on the lower rack. While this does not require any huge physical effort it does mean that a lot of heat is lost while the lid is off. The meat took some five hours to cook and then it was quite rare, safe to eat but too rare for some of the people who had called around for a demonstration and a taste test. Another side effect of a smoker is you have to have understanding neighbours. It does what it says on the tin, it produces smoke, lots of it.

Bearing this in mind a larger smoker is required with easier access to the food and one that doe not lose as much jeat when you open the cooking compartment for testing and basting. I have decided that this particular smoker will only be used occasionally as it is too slow and small for large gatherings. I have also noticed I have not seen any of my neighbours on either side since I lit it on Sunday morning. It looks like while I have been smoking they have been smouldering. I will have to ask them around to the next one.

The summer is almost here and judging by the weather records its going to be a hot one. Bearing this in mind I cleaned up the grill, sorted out the garden and last weekend started to create culinary alchemy aided of course by a few beers or so. I have now made so many different things using so many different rubs and marinades that I have forgotten which ones worked and which ones didnt. So I am going to (hopefully) write the name of the marinades and rubs etc along with what cuts of meat I used with the results, good or bad, and use this blog as a record.

Last week I cooked a brisket marinaded in Stubbs beef marinade for 24 hours and then used Willys onederfuel dry rub and smoked it in a roasting tray on my grill for 4 hours. I used wet wood chips wrapped in silver foil to give it some smokey taste and basted it with Stubbs till it was cooked. The result was fantastic and the meat just fell apart and was served sliced and pulled in sandwhiches. I also cooked some chicken portions in the same manner on the grill but I used a bourbon marinade and baste. The marinade consisted of Soy sauce, Whiskey (because I had run out of Bourbon), lots of garlic and spices and some liquid smoke to compensate for the lack of Bourbon. Again this was deemed a great success by all those who tried it. For the coming weekend I am smoking some ribs and a pork shoulder. Naturally I will let you all know how it went.

Due to circumstances all attempts at building a smoker have been suspended and so during the week I bought a Brinkman smoker and I hope to use this instead of the grill for smoking large chunks of meat. Feeling rather pleased with myself and to the great hilarity and amusement in some quarters I also ordered a Grillslinger (check it out on Google) some rib racks for cooking ribs, a meat thermometer and for sheer indulgence I have ordered a steak branding iron with my initials in the brand. Is that class or what?

Not a great deal has been accomplished in the last two weeks. I still have not found any one who can cut up the gas bottles to make fireboxes despite numerous enquiries. I do however live in hope, the grill has not been cleaned on account of when the weather has been good I have been somewhere else like work and although the designs for the spit roaster are completed work has still not started on it yet. The spit roast was supposed to be up and running and in test mode by this coming Sunday, however it will be a few short weeks late but nevertheless it will still be built in time to enjoy the best of the coming summer.

Despite or perhaps in spite of the inclement weather and lack of opportunities I have spent some time watching various cookery programmes mainly hosted by so called celebrity chefs. There is such a glut of them although I do have some favourites. I particularly like Hugh Fernley Whittingstall and Rick Stein. These are such laid back characters that I reckon you could spend a quiet afternoon with and learn a lot. Then there is St Delia herself and the absolutely Gorgeus Nigella Lawson, The Domestic Goddess, who cares what she cooks! Along with Jamie and a few others though they all have one thing in common and that is a love of fresh ingredients. They all seem to spend hours at Farmers markets or butchers where you can buy pheasant with or without the feathers and speciality wild boar sausages. Its all a world apart from where I live. There are no farmers markets anymore and even the local market gardens have become trendy garden centres that no longer sell fresh produce.

Not only do I not have the time to search for the same ingredients they do, I am reliant on supermarkets that have dominated my shopping habits for the last 20 years or so. The butcher at the local Tesco looked horrified and then amazed when I asked him if he could get in a whole pig because I wanted to spit roast one. It goes beyond availability, for instance I have tried to be green and not buy things in packages that cannot either be recycled or are superfluous to requirements but its difficult to buy mushrooms that are not prepacked in plastic cartons any more. It almost the same with vegetables, the’re all prewrapped in cellophane. If the government really want us to be green why dont they ban the sale of anything that cannot be recycled? Its all very well saying that shopping revolutions are consumer led but if you can only buy what the shop sells then what choice do you have? I used to use a lot of charcoal years ago until I heard that a lot of forests are being cut down to supply the western appetite for cooking outdoors and so I moved onto a gas grill to stop trees being cut down from unsustainable forests. Some quarters accused me of using a “cheating barbecue” and for being lazy but that is not so. It was about the same time I read about the effects of methane on the ozone layer. Huge swathes of forest in South America are being cut down to provide grazing land for cattle so they can be turned into burgers for McDonalds. We lose the the lungs of the trees and gain the methane emitted by all those extra cattle which is truly staggering. ( Cows fart a lot and I mean a lot)

I suppose that is why the spit and the smoker are being made from recycled material and the fuel to power them will provided from sustainable woods and copses where the trees are managed. This is why I did not walked into a fabrication shop and asked for something custom built. I want to make it myself out of materials that I have acquired or would have otherwise gone into a landfill. I have only just begun to realise how serious about this I am becoming.