BBQ and smoker thread

So could a BBQ restaurant in the UK make it or has anyone tried that you know of?

I remember an episode of "Ramseys Kitchen Nightmares" that was about an American BBQ joint somewhere in the UK that was in trouble.
 
I have a pizza stone so I decided to grill a couple pizza's for tonight at work.

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So, recently I decided to try my hand at smoking some stuff too. I got a small Weber Firespice starter kit, with 6 types of wood, and started trying out a few things, mostly just adding the chips to a lit bbq with meat on it. Then I decided to get a bit more serious. A couple weeks ago I smoked some spare ribs, bought them pre-marinated from the supermarket and smoked them for a good three hours at low temps. This is how they came out.
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They tasted so good that I decided to try something a little harder next time, and I decided to try my hand at some pulled pork. I researched lots of things in the mean time, how to best turn my Weber-style bbq into a smoker, what meat to use, brine or not, etc. In the end I decided to start with a smallish cut of pork shoulder (2kg), no brine, and the same set-up of my bbq as with the ribs, with a couple tweaks.

The pork shoulder how it came from the butcher. This guy really knows his trade.
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The rub, consisting of dark brown sugar, smoked paprika (bottersweet and hot), onion powder, garlic powder, ground cumin, ground coriander seeds and salt.
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The meat with the rub applied. This was then refigerated for 22h
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The bbq pre-lighting, the tinfoil wrapped stones were one of the mods I tried, but since they interefed with the placement of the water bowl, I removed them before lighting. I will try smaller bricks next time, because they are a good way of splitting up the bbq. The wood chips are Hickory, Pecan and Beech, the three flavours left in the Weber kit mentioned earlier.
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The lit bbq with the meat in place.
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Smokin'!
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The meat, after smoking for almost 6h, until the inside had reached 80C, and resting in a lukewarm (75C) oven for 1.5h. Since I didn't know exactly how long it would take to smoke such a hunk of meat I had calculated in a bit of a safety margin.
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I forgot to take any further pictures, but the meat tasted epic, there was a nice, albeit a bit shallow smoke ring of about 5mm, because the small wood chips burned up too fast (in less than 2h they were completely gone.) I made fresh coleslaw to go with it and served them together on bread.
 
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Wow, you?re really inspiring me to try something similar.

Can you provide more detail or somewhere I can look it up?
How do you make the chips smoke? Put them there wet? Stones? Water bowl?
The exterior looks quite black, do you scrape it or eat it?
 
Wow, you?re really inspiring me to try something similar.

Can you provide more detail or somewhere I can look it up?
How do you make the chips smoke? Put them there wet? Stones? Water bowl?
The exterior looks quite black, do you scrape it or eat it?

The chips were soaked in cold water for about 45 minutes, then put on top of the coal, als you can see in the picture. I always use briquettes, they're all the same size and consistency, so they burn quite evenly making it easier to control. The chips smoke because the coal don't burn hot enough to actually burn the wood chips, but just smoulders them, providing the smoke. The soaking in water has a couple purposes according to the sources I've read. First, they make the chips last longer. Second, because of the steam it produces, it lowers the temperature inside the barbecue. And third, they produce more nitric oxide laden smoke, making it penetrate the meat more, and giving the nice smoke ring effect to the meat.
the stones were an attempt to create a barrier in the fire pit of the bbq, to create a "hot" half, where the coals were burning, and a "cold" half, over which the meat would sit. It also makes stacking the coal easier, because it's got a barrier on all four sides. Sadly, the stones I had acquired were a bit too large, so I need to acquire some smaller ones. The tin foil you can see under the cold half is also tied in to that, to make sure all air that gets pulled into the bbq goes past the coal, so I got a nice smoke chimney effect, with only the ventilation holes over the meat open.
The water bowl is mostly there to collect the drippings from the meat, so they don't burn up and create nasty side-effects (smoke from burning fat is nasty), and also has a cooling and moistening effect on the inside of the bbq as the water inside it boils.
The blackness on the outside is mostly from the sugar in the rub that caramelized, you can see how glossy it is, and perhaps some of the other spices in there that got blackened during smoking. Contrary to how it looks it doesn't taste burnt at all, just smokey, and spicy and sweet.

A couple things I've learned from this one:
I need more rub, and more spices in there. The outside tasted nice, but a bit more rub and some more spiciness would've made it even better. Still, it's best to err on the side of caution than to completely overdo it on the first try.
Instead of wood chips, I should look where I can source chunks of wood. I have already discovered that Weber sells chunks of smoking wood, but as with anything Weber-branded, it's kinda overpriced. Might try contacting a couple local orchards to see if they sell chunks of their wood.
I should look into a starter, so I can place the hot coal on top of the coal stack, to make it burn even longer and controlled.
 
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Thank you for the in-depth answer! :D
Someone please +rep this guy for me?
I?ll try to source the wood and see how things go.

Also: I have to point out a cultural difference:

The water bowl is mostly there to collect the drippings from the meat, so they don't burn up and create nasty side-effects (smoke from burning fat is nasty), and also has a cooling and moistening effect on the inside of the bbq as the water inside it boils.


The way we do BBQ around here, that smoke is an instant drool-inducer. :lol:
 
Also: I have to point out a cultural difference:

The way we do BBQ around here, that smoke is an instant drool-inducer. :lol:

The smoke from burning fat that drips on hot coal is quite nice indeed. The smoke from fat dripping on a hot surface, slowly turning into charcoal itself isn't.
 
The smoke from burning fat that drips on hot coal is quite nice indeed. The smoke from fat dripping on a hot surface, slowly turning into charcoal itself isn't.


Herpaderp, you are 100% correct, obviously. I forgot we were talking about fat dripping on the stones, etc.
 
A monthy ago I scrapped my El Cheapo Electric Weber for a MUUUUUUCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH nicer Masterbuilt 30 inch smoker. It has features my old Weber never could of dreamt of, temperature controls! An actual gasket seal! The ability to add more wood without disassembling the entire thing!

Someone please +rep this guy for me?

Done.
 
It?s done.

I bought it.


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It?s already assembled and will be used probably tomorrow, most likely Sunday.
 
I need a bigger house before trying that. those look awesome indeed..
 
I'm kinda curious how much they go for in your neck of the woods.


You wanna make me feel depressed or just laugh at me? :p

The model I bought (Weber Silver One-touch 22 1/2") has an MSRP of around USD435, I got mine for USD300.
Amazon has it for 99 bucks. :|


Also, I looked into the starter you mentioned and apparently they?re non-existent in Brazil, but it seems simple enough that a fabricator could make one for me with enough incentive and instructions.
 
My objective was neither, it was merely out of curiosity. And if it makes you feel any better, such a Weber would set me back at least ?150 ($200), so considering the availability of such things in Brazil, what you paid isn't bad.
 
My objective was neither, it was merely out of curiosity. And if it makes you feel any better, such a Weber would set me back at least ?150 ($200), so considering the availability of such things in Brazil, what you paid isn't bad.

I know, I was just playing the Third-world country victim. :lol:

Honestly, considering the options available for this kind of product and the way things are taxed here, a three-fold increase is not that bad.
Hell, 99 dollars only gets me crappy knock-offs around here.
 
My objective was neither, it was merely out of curiosity. And if it makes you feel any better, such a Weber would set me back at least ?150 ($200), so considering the availability of such things in Brazil, what you paid isn't bad.

I got the pro version for around that last year, end of summer sale!
 
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Things I learned on first use:
-This thing cooks meat fast.
-When not using briquettes, the smaller ones fall through the lower railing. I will need to select them before use.
-The suggested amounts of coal are pretty accurate.
-Sweet potatoes taste awesome.
 
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