...was a great success! Thanks to everyone here that had the patience in answering my sometimes redundant questions
.
We had a small gathering in the neighborhood for one of our neighbors' birthday's and I volunteered to do the meat.
I did 2 racks of spare ribs, 4 birds, a fatty and 3 dozen ABT's.
Mama-Fokker had to work both sat and sun so I had Baby-Fokker to chase around during the daytime, which limited my long cook time ability....so I ended up cooking in 2 batches.
I did the ribs sat night and the rest on sun afternoon.
Sat. night - I prepped all the food sat. morning so I would be ready to go later. M-F and I went to a movie and when we got back it was time for me to get busy! For the ribs, I did the 3-2-1 method. I got the box heated, water pan in and smoke going in a matter of minutes and the ribs went on at 11pm. I called a couple neighbors over and we commenced to doing some damage to a half gallon of Captain Morgan and some of my secret recipe Southern Peach and Juicy Pear Mojito's.
I opened up to check the wood and spray some apple juice every hour and by 2am I had both racks out and wrapped them up in foil. Back into the box by 2:15 (boy were we feeling good by then) and at 4:15 I pulled the ribs, sprayed them, re-wrapped them and called it a night (or morning) and decided to continue the "1"hr leg the next day.
Sunday, mama let me sleep in as she didn't have to be to work until 1p so I was up at 11, and back in the kitchen prepping my ABT's. I halved and cleaned 2 dozen, filled them with Spicy Cajun Crab dip and the wrapped 1 doz with regular bacon and the other dozen with turkey bacon (I'll splain later).
I ran out of filling on the first 2 dozen, so for the 3rd dozen I filled with a mixture of lowfat cream cheese and chive cream cheese. I sprinkled in some of my homemade rub and filled em' up. This last dozen I wanted to try whole, so I cut the top and then made a slice from head to tip. With my thumb at the tip and forefinger at the top, I squeezed and got the pepper to open up (like those old plastic change holders) so I could scrape the membrane and shake out the seeds. For these I also did a 50/50 bacon/t.bacon wrap.
By 3p mama was gone, Baby-Fokker was napping and I had the box fired up again. With the chickens halved, rinsed, dried, rubbed and probed I was headed out to do some more damage. I have 2 Taylor digitals and one probe was in a thigh on the middle shelf and the other was in a breast on the top shelf. Wierd, but the top shelf (breast probe) read exactly 10* hotter the whole time! Mind you, I installed some temp gauges on the side of the GOSM to monitor inside temps and the top was reading 50* lower than the bottom
.
At any rate, with 3 gauges all reading 25* different...I figured I had the box at an average of 325* for the whole time. The birds went for about 2 hrs. 15 min. (B-F is awake now) when I remembered to look out at the probe therm readouts...They were now within 3* difference...but the lowest was at 173*! I had intended to pull them at the recommended 168* so I put B-F in his exersaucer (excellent distraction by the way) and pulled my birds. I transferred to a couple of broiler pans, tent foiled and put them in the oven to rest.
Mama came home around 5:30 so I put the rest on. ABT's, fatty and 2 racks of ribs went in for some heat time. Uhhh...ABT's....AWESOME! I'm not a big fan of turkey bacon..in fact, I've been known to get pushy in a buffet line when they bring out a fresh pan of pork bacon...but, I digress...The turkey bacon ABT's came out much tastier than the pork bacon wrapped ABT's! I'm still trying to figure that one out
.
Anyhoo, everything came out great. The ribs were so tender that all I did was go down the line and slide the bones out one by one. I tried to pick the slab up at first and move to the cutting board but they started to fall apart, so that's why I just de-boned them.
The birds...had to be the brownest, juiciest, most succulent fowl I've ever eaten! I'm gonna have to give ALL the credit to the brining. That was my first time brining..and that was my first time pulling chicken off the grill THAT D*MN JUICY!!! Coincidence...I don't think so..!
Now to splain about the pork and turkey wraps...the gentleman we were having the cookout for doesn't eat pork
so I've got alot of ribs left over here
.
Thanks again to you all for your help and suggestions. Special thanks to Jeff for this site, DeeJayDeb for her site and recipe cards, Watery eyes and Peculiarmike for going the extra mile with links websites and all that good stuff
Okay, time for me to shut my stinkin' pie hole and show the money shots!
We had a small gathering in the neighborhood for one of our neighbors' birthday's and I volunteered to do the meat.
I did 2 racks of spare ribs, 4 birds, a fatty and 3 dozen ABT's.
Mama-Fokker had to work both sat and sun so I had Baby-Fokker to chase around during the daytime, which limited my long cook time ability....so I ended up cooking in 2 batches.
I did the ribs sat night and the rest on sun afternoon.
Sat. night - I prepped all the food sat. morning so I would be ready to go later. M-F and I went to a movie and when we got back it was time for me to get busy! For the ribs, I did the 3-2-1 method. I got the box heated, water pan in and smoke going in a matter of minutes and the ribs went on at 11pm. I called a couple neighbors over and we commenced to doing some damage to a half gallon of Captain Morgan and some of my secret recipe Southern Peach and Juicy Pear Mojito's.
I opened up to check the wood and spray some apple juice every hour and by 2am I had both racks out and wrapped them up in foil. Back into the box by 2:15 (boy were we feeling good by then) and at 4:15 I pulled the ribs, sprayed them, re-wrapped them and called it a night (or morning) and decided to continue the "1"hr leg the next day.
Sunday, mama let me sleep in as she didn't have to be to work until 1p so I was up at 11, and back in the kitchen prepping my ABT's. I halved and cleaned 2 dozen, filled them with Spicy Cajun Crab dip and the wrapped 1 doz with regular bacon and the other dozen with turkey bacon (I'll splain later).
I ran out of filling on the first 2 dozen, so for the 3rd dozen I filled with a mixture of lowfat cream cheese and chive cream cheese. I sprinkled in some of my homemade rub and filled em' up. This last dozen I wanted to try whole, so I cut the top and then made a slice from head to tip. With my thumb at the tip and forefinger at the top, I squeezed and got the pepper to open up (like those old plastic change holders) so I could scrape the membrane and shake out the seeds. For these I also did a 50/50 bacon/t.bacon wrap.
By 3p mama was gone, Baby-Fokker was napping and I had the box fired up again. With the chickens halved, rinsed, dried, rubbed and probed I was headed out to do some more damage. I have 2 Taylor digitals and one probe was in a thigh on the middle shelf and the other was in a breast on the top shelf. Wierd, but the top shelf (breast probe) read exactly 10* hotter the whole time! Mind you, I installed some temp gauges on the side of the GOSM to monitor inside temps and the top was reading 50* lower than the bottom
At any rate, with 3 gauges all reading 25* different...I figured I had the box at an average of 325* for the whole time. The birds went for about 2 hrs. 15 min. (B-F is awake now) when I remembered to look out at the probe therm readouts...They were now within 3* difference...but the lowest was at 173*! I had intended to pull them at the recommended 168* so I put B-F in his exersaucer (excellent distraction by the way) and pulled my birds. I transferred to a couple of broiler pans, tent foiled and put them in the oven to rest.
Mama came home around 5:30 so I put the rest on. ABT's, fatty and 2 racks of ribs went in for some heat time. Uhhh...ABT's....AWESOME! I'm not a big fan of turkey bacon..in fact, I've been known to get pushy in a buffet line when they bring out a fresh pan of pork bacon...but, I digress...The turkey bacon ABT's came out much tastier than the pork bacon wrapped ABT's! I'm still trying to figure that one out
Anyhoo, everything came out great. The ribs were so tender that all I did was go down the line and slide the bones out one by one. I tried to pick the slab up at first and move to the cutting board but they started to fall apart, so that's why I just de-boned them.
The birds...had to be the brownest, juiciest, most succulent fowl I've ever eaten! I'm gonna have to give ALL the credit to the brining. That was my first time brining..and that was my first time pulling chicken off the grill THAT D*MN JUICY!!! Coincidence...I don't think so..!
Now to splain about the pork and turkey wraps...the gentleman we were having the cookout for doesn't eat pork
Thanks again to you all for your help and suggestions. Special thanks to Jeff for this site, DeeJayDeb for her site and recipe cards, Watery eyes and Peculiarmike for going the extra mile with links websites and all that good stuff
Okay, time for me to shut my stinkin' pie hole and show the money shots!
