Home Cookin' The BBQ/Smokers/Smoked Meats Thread...

Interesting article about the myth of resting meat before serving.

Here are the high points:

1) The difference between the amount of juice spilled with resting and without resting is insignificant especially when one considers that juiciness depends on many other factors such as water that remains bound with proteins, melted fat, collagen converted to gelatin, and even saliva.

2) Far more important than resting the meat is cooking it to the right temperature. Once you get beyond 140?F, the moisture from water in any meat drops precipitously. The ultimate folly is the diner who orders a medium steak (140?F) and insists that it rest for 20 minutes. As meat sits around it can easily overcook from carryover. The best way to make sure you cook it properly and use a quality digital thermometer. I cannot stress this enough. Follow the red link and buy one that I have tested and recommended.

3) Season your meat properly with adequate salt, then, when the meat hits the proper temp, dive in while it is hot and crisp! Sizzling crisp crust is a major pleasure factor, perhaps more important than the small amount of water spilled. Chef Dave Arnold, author of the blog Cooking Issues, The International Culinary Center's Tech 'N Stuff Blog, says "Extra juice makes meat taste watery and bland. Moisture isn't necessarily your friend; delicious is your friend."

4) Juices lost in the grocery case, after thawing, and during cooking are far greater than those spilled after cooking.

5) In tests like Kenji's, five minutes rest was all that was needed to stanch most of the flow. In Blonder's tests, resting made no significant diff. If you still think resting matters, rest assured your meat will rest while you move it from cooker to the table, while you wait for everyone to be seated, while you taste all the other foods and drinks, and by the time you're into it more than a slice.

6) But most important, leave no juices behind! Blonder proved that meat will soak up almost all the juices spilled, rested or not. Pour the juices over the meat, and mop the rest up with the meat on your fork, with potatoes, rice, bread, or make a board sauce with it.
 
Doing the pulled pork yesterday was fun! Rubbed 5 lb. butt (from Whole Foods) at night then put in plastic wrap. Got up at dawn, smoked it for about 3 hours with apple juice spray, transferred to (fresh juiced golden delicious) apple juice bath and steamed on and off while still maintaining a nice bark. It stalled at about IT 160 for a few hours then crept up to 190. It was done about 5 PM. Let it rest, chopped it up with 2 forks and added more rub and some of the apple juice bath. Had sweet bbq sauce and also a Carolina vinegar sauce (web recipe) on the side.

It was SO TENDER and flavorful. Can't believe I made it at home, and watching it cook all day was a blast! (I am easily entertained.) Plenty of left-overs and some to share too.
 
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Love doing pork shoulder. I start mine at about 11pm and let it go until about 4pm the next day.
 
3) Season your meat properly with adequate salt, then, when the meat hits the proper temp, dive in while it is hot and crisp! Sizzling crisp crust is a major pleasure factor, perhaps more important than the small amount of water spilled. Chef Dave Arnold, author of the blog Cooking Issues, The International Culinary Center's Tech 'N Stuff Blog, says "Extra juice makes meat taste watery and bland. Moisture isn't necessarily your friend; delicious is your friend."
I take the steak out, oil it up, salt it up, then let it sit while I go get the smoker started. it'd be roughly 30 minutes, long enough for the salt to get the meat tenderized.

4) Juices lost in the grocery case, after thawing, and during cooking are far greater than those spilled after cooking.
depending on what cut of meat you get, keep the juice and make a dipping sauce or gravy out of it. cook it up first, you know.
6) But most important, leave no juices behind! Blonder proved that meat will soak up almost all the juices spilled, rested or not. Pour the juices over the meat, and mop the rest up with the meat on your fork, with potatoes, rice, bread, or make a board sauce with it.
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if baking in a dish, just spoon up the juice left there and drizzle it over the side dishes where ever the need for more kick in the flavor is. the meat that rests on the plate will still produce more juice.
 
Big cook this weekend. On deck for smoking are:

6 slabs of St. Louis cut spare ribs
2 Boston Butts
2 whole chickens cut into pieces (16 total)

Trying to figure out timing and holding. May need to do the butts first and hold them in a cooler while the ribs cook. Not sure how I'm going to handle this and serve everything hot at once. Will be running a pellet smoker and a Weber genesis at the same time, so lots of cooking space... just not enough for everything at once. Should be fun. Will post pics.
 
Big cook this weekend. On deck for smoking are:

6 slabs of St. Louis cut spare ribs
2 Boston Butts
2 whole chickens cut into pieces (16 total)

Trying to figure out timing and holding. May need to do the butts first and hold them in a cooler while the ribs cook. Not sure how I'm going to handle this and serve everything hot at once. Will be running a pellet smoker and a Weber genesis at the same time, so lots of cooking space... just not enough for everything at once. Should be fun. Will post pics.

I'd definately do the butts ahead of time and load up some chafing dishes
 
When the butts are almost done, put them in a good caserole type pan, apple juice in bottom, cover with foil tightly and place in oven @180-200 until you are ready to serve. They will only get better.

Big cook this weekend. On deck for smoking are:

6 slabs of St. Louis cut spare ribs
2 Boston Butts
2 whole chickens cut into pieces (16 total)

Trying to figure out timing and holding. May need to do the butts first and hold them in a cooler while the ribs cook. Not sure how I'm going to handle this and serve everything hot at once. Will be running a pellet smoker and a Weber genesis at the same time, so lots of cooking space... just not enough for everything at once. Should be fun. Will post pics.
 
where are you folks getting your charcoal? What brands and type are you using? I am using standard kingsford i get at target.
 
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I'm a creature of habit when I find something I like. BGE charcoal is VERY good quality. The ratio of big chunks to tiny chunks is good (meaning there's very little to sift through to build a good low-and-slow fire). The flavors it imparts to the meat are very mild, and can easily be manipulated by adding chips to the pit. I'm sure there's stuff out there that's just as good, but as I said...this stuff burns really evenly and I've learned to set my vents to it's characteristics. I'm stuck on it. I've always got four or five bags in reserve.
 
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Doing the 3, 2, 1 baby back ribs today.

3 hours smoke
2 hours apple juice steambath
1 hour 'grill' @250
 
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Oh, yeah!

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2nd try is 100x better than the first thanks to some changes.
 
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2nd try is 100x better than the first thanks to some changes.

What were the changes?

I use the crutch on my baby backs. Not ashamed. Although I don't like a full two hours in foil, as I feel it makes them just too "fall-off-the-bone." I check mine after an hour in the foil to see how they're pulling. Sometimes they go as long as an hour-and-a-half.

Watching BBQ Pitmasters this morning, I realized that I have NEVER done beef ribs. EVER. I think it's because I prefer the flavor and juiciness of pork ribs. I may have to remedy that inexperience, soon. Maybe the end of September, as I've got two racks of pork ribs in the deep freeze that I've gotta use first.

They were also doing something called "beef shoulder clod." I imagine that's just beef shoulder, low-n-slow like pork. Wonder how that'd be??
 
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I just did my babybacks @ 225 for four hours. Bit tough and probably could have used another 30min. I didn't crutch em. Overall they were just ok. They didn't have much of a smoke ring but they did have good smoke flavor.

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