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so, my brother's birthday rolled around, and i stuffed 25lbs of brats and made 30lbs of pulled pork. the pulled pork was on point, and it's a good thing too. the brats were all beef with pork back fat added. they were awful - not only did they sit in the warmer too long and get all dried out...

so, my sis-in-law reached out and wants me to cook for my bro's birthday bash. am super excited that they think my smoked meats and homemade sausages are good enough for the masses, but also nervous to cook for so many. clearly he has way more friends than i do, as they're expecting 50 people...

hey y'all, just wanted to heck in mid-summer and see how your peppers are doing compared to what i've got going on over here in illinois. pictures or it didn't happen! my jalapenos are maybe 2' tall and lots of early fruit... the rest are 12-18" or so and am having mixed results.

sooooooooooo ... what's next? mexican/spanish theme for cinco de mayo? are we waiting for fireworks on the 4th of july?

sooooooo. some years ago i built some raised beds out of cedar - 2x8 double layer 3'x6' area. they're great. heavy, and a pain to move. $200 apiece to build. here they are this year refilled with ... well ... fertilizer. this year i wanted to add 3 more raised beds - to triple my cucumber...

soooooo i need some advice from the sausage masters... i'm mixing up some italian sausage, and at this point i sent it through the grinder, mixed in the seasonings and the water... but it still feels lumpy. it'll be bulk packed (not cased), so i guess its not the end of the world if i have to...

gave the onions a trim and put pepper seeds in pots to start. it's going to be a good year :)

ok ... so, i love me some pastrami. so, i took those 2 briskets that came off that cow i bought. stay tuned for updates ... again, thanks pops for the recipe. RIP pops. they came from the butcher looking like this: after trimming, they looked like this: like, thinnest briskets ever...

so... last thursday i wandered down to the freezer to find something to smoke for saturday, and found a couple chuck roasts that were maybe 4 lbs each... i thought "hey these'll be a pretty fast cook, i can be lazy and still they'll be great as sammiches or just sliced". got up at 4 and...

hoo-whee it's brisk out there this morning. 36 degrees too cold to smoke meat? i think not! smoking meats is a year round activity in this house! i stopped by a local bbq store and picked up some glaze... and wanted to try it out... so, fire up the pit! on we go with some ribs. i think...

so, there i was today getting ready to grill some brats and pork steaks, and i open the door to my fired up offset and flakes fell from the door. guess it's time to give this guy a once over. any advice from the veterans? should i take a scraper to it before power washing it, or just go at it...

so ... i'm googling recipes for snack sticks. i'm finding many results that include prague powder but no mention of time needed to cure. is there some magic with these that i'm not aware of? only 1 out of 10 had an ingredient that'd activate the nitrites right away. in related news - i'm...

ugh. and jeez. maybe even jinkies. bought a whole cow... now i have 160+ lbs of ground beef, so, i went down the sausage rabbit hole since i don't use much ground beef. bought a stuffer on amazon (hakka - highly recommend). picked up bratwurst seasoning from amazon. last weekend cased up...

no pics - apologies to those folks that like to drool on their keyboards. this isn't really a post of what not to do - but i'll have some gems along the way. anyhoo - i cooked a brisket yesterday... 18.8lbs before trimming. trimmed maybe 3 lbs off total between the deckle fat, silverskin, and...

so... last year i bought a beswood 10" slicer based on reviews from several sources online... $350 seemed like a bit much for something that i'd use occasionally, but i wanted something better quality than the garage sale ones i had in the past. turns out i actually use the thing enough that it...

calling all brisket gurus -- so, i'm doing 2 briskets this weekend - they're thawing in the fridge as i type this. thinking about dry brining them before the cook. have questions, though... like... do i dry brine with just salt then add my rub spices (maybe with a binder) just before putting...

soooooooooo ... what's everyone planting this year? i'm doing cucumbers - for pickling, along with jalafuegos for stuffed peppers, some radishes for general munching, cayennes for fermented buffalo sauces, and maybe a couple bell peppers to accommodate some recipes i've picked up over the last...

sooo... donated yesterday... and typically use firefox for my daily browser. after upgrading, i get a blank grey page in firefox. chrome works fine. i've cleared my history... and i can load pages before i log in, but once i log in i get the grey page of death. thoughts? can i only use...

well, i bought some lavalock gaskets and put them on the thing. afterwards, i noticed on the firebox that there's a 1/8" gap at the top of the firebox lid. on my old one, i could just bend it into shape while it was cool, but this is 1/4" steel - i'm not sure if i have enough oomph to bend...

finally found a local butcher that had some short ribs. been wanting to try them for a while now. got 2 slabs - one i trimmed pretty aggressively, the other i mostly left alone except to round off the corners a bit. salt n pepper rub for the first time - will experiment with more interesting...