Well, the camping trip is done. We ended up coming home a day early due to chilly temps, rain, and a statewide ban on open fires in Delaware due to recent windy and dry conditions. Ironic, huh? Thankfully they did allow controlled charcoal fires, so we were able to use the mini
WSM. One of the guys had a family emergency, so it was just 2 of us. I still think my wife was more excited than I was about me going away for a few days :)
We took off Thursday after assembling the jigsaw puzzle that is a tiny 2 seater and a whole bunch of camping gear.
Here's my buddy Blind Willie O'Shea getting ready to leave. He's neither blind nor actually named Willie O'Shea, but for 30 years or so that's been his nickname. Don't ask me why.
The first night we got a late start on dinner, so got a whole chicken cut into parts to make Peruvian style. Marinated it on olive oil, vinegar, cumin, garlic, paprika and some Tony Chachare’s salt free seasoning to give it a little heat. While it was marinating, I fired up the mini with a whole chimney full of Stubb’s natural briqs dumped in the basket on top of about a cup of cherry chips. Would have liked chunks, but that’s all I could find. For the charcoal basket I ended up going with the stainless colander. It worked well, but I still wanna make the expanded steel basket for better ash management. I also got the terra cotta saucer as a heat sink, but for this first cook left it out to let it get in the 350˚-400˚ range. It easily settled in around 380˚ A little over an hour and the largest piece hit 165˚, and I pulled it all off to let it rest. WOW!! It was incredibly tender, moist and juicy, with just a nice hint of smokiness. Only complaint is that the skin, while very tender and not rubbery, was not crispy. Maybe this is due to the wet marinade, but next time I’ll just pull the pot off the smoker and put the grate over the coals to to crisp the skin. All in all, I’d give this inaugural cook on the mini a 9. Sorry no pics, but it was late and we were hungry.
The next night was ribs. All i could find was a rack of enhanced St. Louis ribs. They were expensive and not trimmed well at all, but we made the best of it.
Rubbed them down with my basic rub (turbinado, garlic, paprika, cumin, ginger, salt, pepper and some red pepper) while we fired up the mini.
Amazingly, the previous night’s cook had used hardly any of the basket of coals. Seriously, maybe 10%. So I added more chips and set up for the Minion method. Fired up 15 briqs and dumped on top of the left over coals. After maybe 20-25 minutes the mini hit 200˚, so I dialed back on the vents. A few minutes later, it locked in on 225˚, and for the next several hours it varied little more than 7˚ degrees in either direction, except for one little spike to 261˚, which was easily solved by opening the lid for a few seconds, then replacing it and shutting down all the vents for a few seconds, then dialing it back in around 230˚
I’m telling you, after struggling with 2 different ECB’s over the past couple years, this thing is just too easy!! One thing I did notice is it’s fairly susceptible to wind, presumably due to the aluminum smoker body. However, it did seem to settle back in on it’s previous temp a few minutes later each time. The temp really only dropped 4 or 5 degrees with each gust, so I’m not worried about it.
My buddy named the mini Sputnik, due to the foil gasket between the pot and the coal pan, and it’s overall space-age appearance.
Here you can just make out the TBS which rolled effortlessly throughout the entire cook. You can also see the thick coating of pollen that covered EVERYTHING.
Did a modified 3-2-1. 3 hours smoke, 1 hour 30 minutes foil, 45 minutes back on the grate then a quick sear directly over the coals.
The result was incredibly tender but still meaty. Nice tug. Great smoke flavor, but as I said, they weren’t really trimmed very well, so the ends with the cartilage and fat were still there. For dessert, I removed the terra cotta saucer and got the mini up to about 360˚ to bake a peach cobbler (dump cake). It took about an hour and was delicious. Didn't get any pics of it as it was getting later and a sizable dent had been put in the liquor supply by that point in the evening.
I’m giving this second cook a 9.5, since the little cooker really showed it’s versatility, going from smoker, to grill, to oven mode easily.
It's weird, it looks like something was written on the ribs. The N shape is just grill marks. Or maybe someone's trying to send a message from beyond?
They look a little dry here, but they were extremely moist. Nice little smoke ring too!
There were no leftovers. The ribs look raw in this pic for some reason, but they were definitely done. Shortly after this pic was taken, Willie nearly bit his finger off in the feeding frenzy. Ok not really :)
As for a post-mortem summary, I'd say the mini is easily worth twice what it cost me to make it. It's wonderfully simple, stable and seems quite frugal on fuel. The Stubbs charcoal may have been part of that, as it's easily twice as dense as Kingsford. Only drawback on the Stubbs is it's a little stubborn getting started, but makes up for it in long burn time, good heat and very neutral flavor and aroma. All in all, I'm EXTREMELY pleased with the mini and would suggest anyone skip the cheap ready made smokers and jump directly into building one of these. Capacity's a little tight, but with a 2nd rack I have no doubt you could easily fit enough food to feed 10 or so people.
