Category: Uncategorized

The Cost of Grilling – The $100/year Theory

It’s true that I have more money invested in my BBQ pits than I ever did in a gas grill. And when I’m asked for advice on a grill/ smoker purchase, folks often cringe at the cost of the cooker that I like to recommend ( The Big Green Egg).

But I’ve come to a conclusion about what grills cost. You see, before I stepped up to a quality grill/smoker I went through my share of gas grills. I bought cheap units from big box stores as well as stainless steel units from higher end shops.

When I spent $100 on a grill, it would last about a year before it was falling apart and needed to be replaced. When I spent $500 on a stainless steel grill, it lasted about five years before the cost of replacement burners and parts were more than it was worth. See what I’m getting at? Gas grills have an annual cost of ownership of about $100 and it really doesn’t matter how much money you spend.

Sure, I’ve got approximately $800 invested in my large Big Green Egg. But it seems like this grill is going to have a much lower cost of ownership as I believe it’s useful life will be much greater than any gas grill I’ve ever owned.

Of course if you factor in how much more cooking I do now vs. before, my meat costs have gone way up! =)

Cheers,
Braddog

Review: 17th St. Bar & Grill Original Sauce

I’m a lucky man. I grew up & still live within spitting distance of the home of Mike Mills and 17th Street Bar & Grill, one of the best BBQ joints in the country. Mike is referred to as “The Legend” based on his record as a competition BBQ team, his restaurants (So. Ill, New York, Las Vegas), not to mention his outstanding BBQ. I’ve written about the restaurant before, you can find that blog post here.

I’ve become a regular at the O’Fallon, IL restaurant and thoroughly enjoy the ribs there. 17th Street’s ribs are dry rubbed and served with just a touch of their house BBQ sauce, so on my last trip I picked up a bottle of sauce for home.

Since then I’ve tried it on brisket, pulled chicken, and pork steaks. And it’s a great compliement to all of them. It’s a thin, vinegary sauce with just the right amount of pepper & spice. I’ve gone through nearly an entire bottle of the past 2 weeks, so that should tell you something.

It’s avaialble by the bottle or by the gallon at http://www.shop.17thstreetbarbecue.com/ . Give it a try, I think you’ll enjoy it.

Cheers,
Braddog

My “Go-To” Sauce

I don’t usually make my own sauce or BBQ rub, cause I find that there are so many good sauces & rubs on the market.

I’ll bet you’re like me and you find that you have a standard sauce that you go to for most things. Mine is Sweet Baby Ray‘s original sauce. As a result, I typically have a few open bottles with just a little bit left in the bottom.

Recently, I was doing BBQ beef on the Big Green Egg and as I got ready to pull and sauce the chuck roasts I realized that I had 5 partial bottles of Sweet Baby Rays. I snapped this picture of all the wounded soldiers on my Big Green Egg table.

What’s your “go to” sauce? Drop me a comment and let me know.

Cheers,
Braddog

You want my advice, or not?

I’m often asked for a recommendation on a backyard cooker. Many times, I’ve recommended a Big Green Egg to folks who’ve subsequently bought one and seem to be fairly happy with their decision. However, at least twice over the past year I’ve been asked for my opinion by folks who ulitimately didn’t care for my advice.

You see, I don’t have a standard answer to the question “What cooker should I buy?”. I typically answer that question with a question of my own like, “What sort of things do you like to cook?”, or “Do you think you’d enjoy the process of creating slow cooked BBQ?”. Based on how folks answer those questions and how they respond to a quick lesson on the difference between “BBQ” & “Grilling”, I’ve recommended a variety of different cookers.

Sometimes when folks are used to lighting the gas grill and immediately throwing the meat on, it’s hard for them to imagine the planning and time required to turn out great BBQ. To those folks, I recommend that they buy a gas grill and keep grilling. But they don’t always appreciate or like that advice. Sometimes they want me to convince them that they will enjoy the process and that the commitment is worth it.

Frankly, I can’t convince anyone to enjoy the process of cooking good BBQ. If you are unsure about committing to tending a live fire or committing to the time then by all means cook the way you’re used to cooking.

There’s nothing wrong with cooking on a gas grill. Heck, the stores are full of them so somebody must be buying them.

Cheers,

Braddog

Review: Rendezvous – Memphis, TN

I’m reluctant to even write a review of the Rendezvous in Memphis, TN as I’m sure that it’s been done many times given their reputation. But, why stop now when I take every chance I get to review a new BBQ joint.

I can usually coerce my family into eating BBQ at least once when we travel and since we were staying just a block away, it seemed inevitable that this is where we would eat BBQ. I’d received strong recommendations for a couple of other places, but Memphis is just full of too many places to choose from and the reputation and proximity of the Rendezvous sealed the decision.

In any event, we headed over to the Rendezvous on Friday night to find the place rapidly filling up as the dinner hour was getting into full swing. Looks are deceiving, and there is plenty of seating inside. We were quickly shown to a table where we perused the menu. For my family, there was some debate as to what they would order but for me this was a foregone conclusion. So my wife and kids ordered up BBQ chicken platters, while I went for the whole slab of ribs.

The Rendezvous isn’t fancy and the food was served quickly on paper plates with plastic utensils. The family got started on chicken that was very tasty and I paused to snap a picture of my ribs. Now I prefer dry rubbed BBQ and typically turn up my nose at BBQ that is too wet, but I was not prepared for the amount of dry rub & spices that were visible on the surface of my ribs. My wife took one look at my ribs and said, “Those don’t look like Braddog ribs”. I was flattered and didn’t bother to try to explain that these ribs are char grilled as opposed to the way I prepare them.

The ribs were tasty, but due to the chargrilling they were chewier than I’m used to. The beans were very good and the slaw was sweet and vinegary (the way I like it). Service was top notch and the we were in and out in a very short amount of time. I’d read enough about the place beforehand that there were no surprises and all-in-all I enjoyed my trip to the Rendezvous.

There may be better BBQ in Memphis, but based on reputation and notoriety you’ve got to give the Rendezvous a shot when you’re in town.

Cheers,
Braddog

Recipe: Pineapple, Shrimp Kabobs

Every year, our neighborhood puts on a block party. There’s always lots of side dishes and someone is drafted to grill burgers, brats, & hot dogs. This year, I decided to take something a little different to the party. I pondered my patience for putting together dozens of ABT’s, stuffing a half dozen fatties, or grilling a hundred chicken wings.

In the end, I decided pineapple shrimp kabobs would be super easy, colorful, and significantly different from the appetizers that I typically churn out on one of the Kamado style cookers that I use.

So here’s how I put them together:

100 frozen shrimp (defrosted of course)
Cut red, orange, and yellow bell peppers into pieces ~1″ sq.
Prepare pineapple into ~1″ cubes
Alternate shrimp, pineapple, & peppers on bamboo skewers (I did 2 shrimp per skewer)
Grill over a hot fire
I applied a warm mango salsa that I picked up at Sam’s Club.
Enjoy!

Tip: Soak the bamboo skewers in water for at least 30 mins. prior to assembling. Otherwise, they can burn in half over a hot fire.

Review: Stump’s All Natural Briquettes

On an impulse, I picked up a bag of Stubbs 100% All-Natural Charcoal Briquettes at my local Lowe’s the other day. I’ve used sauces from Stubb’s and found them to be pretty good and I thought the charocal might be like the Kingsford Competition Briquettes that I’ve read so much about (but never seen in a store).

So when I got home, I fired up the cooker with a small pile of the Stubbs briquettes and had the cooker going pretty quickly for some pineapple shrimp kabobs. My first reaction was that there’s no difference in appearance or smell to any other briquette that I’ve used. And, given that I cook on Kamado style cookersthe last thing I wanted was the extra ash that comes from briquettes vs. lump charcoal.

In the end, the fire burned fine but didn’t have the nice smell that I’ve come to expect from burning lump charcoal. It also created the ash that I had hoped to avoid and did not extinguish cleanly with the ability to relight again. In short, this was just charcoal briquettes that I’d expected something more from because Stubb’s had put their name on the bag.

I don’t know about you, but I’m sticking with all natural lump charcoal.

Cheers,
Braddog

Brisket Fail

Like most bloggers, I like to post about my successes. However, this weekend I didn’t fair so well and had a brisket that was a bit of a disappointment.

I’d been reading about a “quick brisket” (and a “quick pork butt”). The recipe claimed that you could cook at a higher temperature than normal and by cooking in an aluminum fan with a little beer you could turn out “fork tender” brisket in just 5-6 hours. These were the steps that I followed.

Cook indirect at 350* in an aluminum pan
When the meat reaches an internal temp of 140* cover with aluminum foil and add a can of beer to the pan
When the meat hits 170*, uncover and let the bark form until the internal temp hits 190*

I followed these steps, but what I ended up with was more like pot roast than BBQ. The meat hit 190* in about 3 hours but it was far from tender. I backed the temp down to 250*, and the meat temp fell back to ~180*. I let it cook for several more hours until it was tender. But as I said, it was more like pot roast than I’d hoped for.

But you know what the best part of a BBQ mistake is? You still end up with something that’s pretty tasty. I enjoyed roast beef sandwiches for a few days after this effort.

Cheers,
Braddog

Review: Peace, Love, and Barbeque

I grew up in southern Illinois and was attending Southern Illinois University about the same time that Mike Mills was opening his first restaurant, 17th St. BBQ, in Murphysboro, IL. My roommate and I would occasionally make the trip to Lake Egypt to eat BBQ at a place that we liked, but we were totally unaware of the happenings less than 10 miles away from campus.

Mike Mills is an author, a restaurateur, a Memphis in May Champion, and is referred to as The Legend in BBQ circles. This book, Peace, Love, & Barbecue: Recipes, Secrets, Tall Tales, and Outright Lies from the Legends of Barbecue, is his perspective on the culture of BBQ.

Peace, Love, and Barbecue isn’t an autobiography, though it tells Mike’s story from his viewpoint. It’s not merely a cookbook, though it’s chocked full of awesome recipes from some of the best BBQ’ers in the country. It’s not an instructional guide, but there are lots of tips and recommendations throughout the book. It’s not a travel guide, but you could use it to locate the best BBQ joints in the country. This book is all of those things and more.

For every beer you drink, throw on about 6 lumps of charcoal or one small stick of wood – Mike Mills

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the book, hearing from the who’s who in the BBQ world, perusing the recipes and planning my next BBQ experiment, and getting a deeper look at the culture around one of the most uniquely American foods, BBQ. This is a must read for anyone who cooks as a hobby, aspires to cook competitively, or simply enjoys good BBQ.

So here’s wishing you Peace, Love, and BBQ!

Cheers,
Braddog

Tip: Ceramic Repair on a Big Green Egg

I knew there was a reason that I didn’t simply throw away the platesetter that I busted last year. I kicked it over and had to replace it, but I just couldn’t bring myself to discard it.

Lo and behold, I added a Bubba Keg to my arsenal this spring and needed a way to cook indirect. I finally got around to repairing the old platesetter (I had bought a new one for my Big Green Egg) for the purpose of using it with this cooker. I’d read quite a bit on the inte

rwebs about using JBWeld to repair busted ceramic, so I picked some up at the local do it yourself store.

I simply followed the directions, mixing together equal amounts of JBWeld from each of the tubes in the package. I applied it generously to the edge of the broken platesetter and let it cure for ~18hrs. It sure seems to be a solid “weld”, but the real test will be how it holds up to the temps on a BBQ smoker.

I’ll keep you posted on how it holds up, but as for now it’s doing fine with a load of pork steaks on the Bubba Keg.

Cheers,

Braddog