Smoked Turkey Snow Day

Had a little snow today. Temps were around 20* and windy. So I smoked a turkey.

Brined 8 hours in 2 gallons of water, 2 cups kosher salt, 1 cup of brown sugar, and an undetermined amount of leftover hog rub.

Smoked 2 hours @ 300-350 with Wild Cherry chips (thanks Diva Q!)

Finished in oven for 1.5 hours @ 325.

I'm going to let this thing sit and will finally get a bite of it when I get back from work tonight.

Until next time....

The UFC meets BBQ - A match made in heaven!

My competition BBQ team, Holy and Oly's BBQ, is sponsoring Nate Mohr in his UFC 93 fight on January 17, 2009. The fight is taking place in Dublin, Ireland. Nate is an undercard fighter so his will be one of the first shown. The fight can be seen on pay per view. Look for our name on his trunks!

I'm not sponsoring Nate for any exposure in the BBQ world. Fact is, our team doesn't even have a webpage. But I believe in him - and I have known him since he was in high-school. Join me in wishing him luck - and praying that neither Nate, nor his opponent, suffer an injury.

Here is a video of some of his fights:

Brew -n- Q

 Smoked chicken and my home brewed Dunkelweizen.

Thighs
Legs

Raspberry Wheat Beer.

Things have been weird lately. There's a negative vibe in the air. Maybe it's the weather, maybe the economy - but I've had enough. So I took the morning to bottle a Raspberry Wheat beer that's been in the fermenter for a month. The abv is 6.29%. That ought to do it!

Checking the final gravity. 
Transferring from the fermenter to the bottling bucket
Mid-transfer. 
Getting ready to bottle.
Some of the final product.

Now I condition the beer for 3 weeks. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Off-set fire maintenance

I have been doing a lot of practicing with my off-set in order to find the most efficient way to burn wood. In the past I have made my fires like this: This is a flash fire and it is a good way to bring temps up fast. However, the temps spike quickly the fuel is consumed quickly. The result is a loss of temperature control and more effort loading logs.

I tried another method last weekend on a 24 hour cook and was really suprised how well it works. This is a compact fuel load.

The advantage of this type of log fire, according to www.woodheat.org (where I found these images) is as follows:
Placing the pieces close together prevents the heat and flame from penetrating the load and saves the buried pieces for later in the burn cycle. Open the air inlets fully for between 15 to 30 minutes depending on load size and fuel moisture content. When the outer pieces have a thick layer of charcoal, reduce the air control in stages to the desired level. The charcoal layer insulates the rest of the wood and slows down the release of combustible gases.

I found that if I added a log every 45 mins the fire burned in a controlled manner with little to no need for adjustments.

Sopa de Poblano

Grilled Poblano chiles 
Sopa de Poblano - out of this world good!

I took this recipe from Chile Pepper Magazine (November 2008) page 56.

A great day - and lessons learned

This is all that was left over!
Here's the birthday boy - with one of his brothers and a cousin
Here is the hog after we wrestled it out of the cooker. The shoulders have been removed and pulled. It could have use more time as the hams were only 140* - after 24 hours!