I had some packs of steaks in the freezer that I wanted to go ahead and use to make some room. I had never actually made burnt ends, but they look so good. So I figured I might as well try making some poor man burnt ends. Plus I was going to have the smoker fired up for some chicken thighs I already had deboned and seasoned. It would be a crime not to use the other side of my smoker grates when there is perfectly good meat for the cooking. I cut all the steaks into about inch wide strips and put some of my home made rub on them, used a little Worcestershire as a binder, and let that sit for about a half hour while I got the grill fired up. Everything was wet from some rain overnight, I didn’t think much of it. I kept the smoker between 250-275 with royal oak briquettes and some pecan half splits.
I put all the meat on and everything was coming along fine. It started raining again, wind picking up. It didn’t hurt my temps at first. Thank god for my covered porch. As things were getting bad outside my wife tells me there is a tornado warning in the area, even some touchdowns nearby, and the sirens went off a few times. The rain and wind started coming right in at the smoker. I opened up the fire box ash tray more for a little more air and put a hot split in to try to minimize temp loss, at least as much as possible. It dipped down pretty good but as the storm let up it recovered pretty quick. Luckily it didn’t ruin the smoke.
As for my first time poor mans burnt ends, they got about an hour and a half in the smoke, then put them in a pan with some bbq sauce, a little brown sugar, a little honey, and some more of my rub ( has some heat to balance all the sweet ). I covered with foil and popped in the oven at 350. I would have smoked longer but I was running late and had to get ready for work tonight. They got about an hour and a half in the oven as well. I was pretty happy with the outcome. Very tasty, and pretty tender. I think next time I’d want to put more smoke on them, and a little more heat, but all in all it was a success.
BTW, the thighs came out great too.
