Anyone else here barbecue?
 

The real thing - low, slow and woodsmoke?

Oh yeah.

low slow but because I like to eat the same day I cook, I usually use chicken. I know I know, brisket, pork butt, rubs mops, yeah yeah. but it's still pink and fallin off the bone. bbq enough for my appetite.

One of these days I want to get a *real* rig, like a 55 gal drum split and hinged with an outboard firebox. *sigh*.. someday.

i'll throw a brisket or a whole chicken or turkey or snapper....ohhhhh me vewy vewy hungwy now.

last memorial day weekend

edit:added pic

BigV - you should try ribs. Baby backs only take four hours. Spares only take 5-6 hours.

I had an Oklahoma Joe smoker, but I finally had to retire it. I now have one of these. I can highly recommend them.

Well I try http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=6277 and http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=7377 Maybe some more in the food thread. My grills might be in Dodads, but I'll try to move them to http://www.flickr.com/photos/busterb along with some food. The 4th coming up and my Bday the 7th, might be a cooking time. :lol:

Nice work buster. As it happens, I am doing my first beer-in-the-butt chickens this weekend. I hope they turn out as nice as yours looked.

I just bought a weber charcoal grill last summer. Can it do the long slow type of bbq? I've only had that kind at bbq places.

There was this one place where you could eat the chicken bones they were so tender. I think the guy parboiled the chix in bbq sauce, but I'm not sure.

Can you give me some pointers?

If I need a new rig I can build one this summer. I've got a couple of brick/stone projects coming up so I could divert a bit while I'm in mason mode and make a small bbq pit. specs?

Man, now I'm hungry thinking about it.

time to forage in the fridge.

Yes, but not easily. True BBQ requires temps ~ 225 to 275. That's a fair amount of work to do in a Weber grill.

Having said that, I did BBQ ribs in my weber for years before I bought a smoker.

Here's the gist:

• Buy some baby-back ribs. These are the easiest to learn on.
• Look in a book like "Smoke and Spice" for recipes for rib rubs. Prepare the ribs for BBQ.
• Build a small fire on one side of the weber.
• Add a couple of lumps of hickory or other smoking wood. DO NOT USE SOFT WOODS!!!
• Put a water pan on the other side.
• Put the grill back in the weber.
• Put the ribs in a rib rack over the water pan.
• Put the lid on with the vent over the ribs..
• Stand a candy thermometer in one of the lid vent holes.
• Start with all vents completely open.
• After 15-30 minutes close bottom vents as needed to keep temps in BBQ range.
• Try to remove the lid as little as possible.
• On the other hand you have to add charcoal and wood from time to time to keep the temp.

If you have any taste buds at all, once you've done your own BBQ, you will become a BBQ snob. Very few BBQ places do as good a job as you can do at home.

BBQ is much easier to do in a decent smoker. I really like the Weber Smokey Mountain for convenience, but there are a number of other options out there. I recommend you avoid the cheepie $39-100 water smokers. They take as much work as the weber grill.

Building your own is non-trivial as you need to have a separate firebox and smoke chamber. There's one description here. You can find others by googling "brick smoker".

Thanks Dar,
I can get hickory up here, I'm about at the edge of its growing range. Lots of hard maple, though.

Never had a chance at maple. I hear it's really good for pork.

We're thinking of digging a BBQ pit this summer. However, we're afraid it will become/stay wet inside and become a breeding ground for mosquitoes (we live in West Nile central), and just generally be more trouble than it's worth.

busterb, you're a Mississippian in good standing, how do they do pits down there? Anyone else have experience with this?

BBQ pits are (or should be) mostly closed systems. The only openings should be an air intake vent next to the fire, an exit vent for the smoke, and a drip drain for the fat that comes off the meat. Most smokers have a method of closing the exit and intake vents. And the drip drain exits down. So if you close the vents when you're done Qing, you should be ok if the pit is well designed.

you can also find fab shops that dabble in making pits when they're not building something else. i don't have a decent pic here at work but if you look at the link to the pit i have on post #3 you can get an idea. this pit was made in luling texas by a tank manufacturing company. the cooker box is 1/8" steel 24"x18"x18" and the fire box is 18"x18"x18" with a 3 foot by 4"+/- exhaust stack. I think it was around $200 bucks. my dad had bought it for me for my birthday one year. hehe, damn thing almost got me kicked out of my apartment i was renting at the time for smoking a few turkeys and smoke damaging the patio ceiling......all in all, i LOVE this smoker.

We have one of those bullet shaped smokers , they do a good job but take work , keeping the fire rite , and the water changed .
Oh smokeing a goose is an experance i DON'T think i will try again , TASTY !!! But these fuckers have MORE grease than a Jiffie lube !!!!!!!
Fucking domestic goose !!! I May try a wild goose one day , AFTER i finaly get the greese stain off the back porch

Beer butt chicken , we got on of those racks a wally-world a while back , it was SOOO GOOD and soo easy , that when i saw this in a Cabelas catalog ,
http://www.cabelas.com/cabelas/en/te...075&hasJS=true
My wife Had to have it for her Bday !! ( HER idea , not mine )
we have used it VERRRRRRY Happly for about 6 months now , this thing ROCKS !!!!!!!
The instructions say to get it up to 350 deg for 1 1/2 hr , personaly I have NEVER been able to get it over 300 deg , but after 1 hr the chicken is falling off the bones !!!! We have tryed a few different recipe's .
This weekend we are doing 3 birds at once , one with dry 'Q rub , one cajun butter , and one like hot wings ( HOT chicken !!!) ,
I will take pics of the process and post them .

Someday, when I have a house and space and time to kill, I will own one of <a href="http://www.biggreenegg.com/">these</a> and start smoking beef brisket like a mad bastard.