Was kind of busy yesterday so I didn't have time to fire up and tend to the Santa Maria pit for tri-tip, so instead I smashed up some mesquite lump charcoal and mixed it in with the pellets on my pellet grill. About 30-35% charcoal, the rest Lumberjack Oak-Hickory-Cherry pellets.

Tossed the tri-tip on at 175ish w/ smoke to an IT of 140 (about 4-1/2 hours). Quick finish with the searzall and holy crap, this came out way better than I was expecting.

Image

Image

Image


(the camera in my phone isn't that great, the color is off in the photos, the meat was actually pink, not brown.)
[Reply]

^^^^ Looks delicious and juicy Adam. Big time yum:-)
[Reply]

That looks awesome.
[Reply]

Tri tip looks great, Adam. Interesting idea with the charcoal.
Was it worth the effort? I wonder how much ash the charcoal generated? Enough to worry about it snuffing out the fire on a long cook? Enough that the ash in the cooker would need to be cleaned out after each use?
[Reply]

Thanks.

Dom, those are solid questions, so here goes...

Worth the effort? I think it was under the circumstances. I wanted the unique gritty flavor that charcoals produce. It wasn't intense like I could get on a webber kettle or burning lump on my santa maria, but it was there. The work involved in making the mix wasn't that much, I had the tail ends of a bag of Lazzari mesquite lump handy and most of what's left in the bag at that point is really small. But there are some extra things to deal with, it's not just as simple as dumping them together. I'll probably do it again, but wouldn't do it for everything.

How much ash... a lot of fine, light ash that gets blown out of the fire cup and all over the bottom of the grill. Smashed up kingsford might be different, this was natural lump.

Snuffing out fire on long cook... Not sure, maybe. There was definately more ash. Might blow enough around that some starts ending up in the bark too.

Cleaned out after every use... Yes. I typically vacuum out my pellet grill after every run anyway, sometimes I skip, but this was definitely a "don't skip the cleanup".

Caveats... If you get a piece of lump that isn't fully charcoal, and has some wood fiber left, and you crush it and it splinters, if one of these splinters works it's way between the auger screw and the auger tube, it could jam the auger. This could result in a blown motor or gearset, in addition to likely ruined food.

Caveats 2... Charcoal doesn't go out that easily. When the pellet grill goes into shutdown mode, it cuts the fuel auger and cranks up the combustion air. The preset time that air runs for is based on tests of how long it takes to burn out pellets. Charcoal on the other hand, might not burn that fast. To shut the grill down and not risk a flameback through the auger tube, I allow it to burn off everything that is in the auger tube. I empty the pellet hopper while it is still running and after I take the food off, I crank the temp to max so that it goes to high feed rate and let it go until it flames out.
[Reply]

Thanks for the insight, Adam.
A little ash on the bark never hurt no one. :-)
[Reply]

Good deal on charcoal if you need it.

http://slickdeals.net/f/9106579-roya...r-5-00-walmart
[Reply]

Pushed the capacity limits of the Traeger this weekend.

Image

Image

Image

I've done many whole pigs in the past but never on a smoker.
I did some things right, did some things wrong.
It came out tasty, but there is some room for improvement.
[Reply]

Nom, nom, nom....:-)
[Reply]

Wow!
[Reply]

Very impressive, Dom. :-)

Since you managed to stuff a pig in the Traeger, does this mean we don't need to go halfsies on the Lang anymore now?
[Reply]

Details, please.
[Reply]

Well, Dom was more successful than I was. I was going for a salt cured / dry brine, cold smoked, long sous vide cooked, and grill finished chuck roast (wanted to try it out before committing the money for brisket).

Ended up with dry over salted pastrami.:-)
[Reply]

That's a great looking pig Dom, and I'm sure everybody enjoyed:-)
[Reply]

How much salt did you use? Percentage by weight?
[Reply]

The prague #1, yes - standard dosing at 1/4 tsp per lb

The normal salt, no - that was by volume and some eyeballing was involved.

Once I got away from the points and into the main body of the meat, the salt level wasn't that bad. It was just I started cutting from the narrow end the other day and it was over salted. It was still a bit dry, but tolerable and needs to be served in a sub sandwich style, in other words, with stuff like tomato, lettuce, optional cheese, etc. which wasn't what I was after.

I think my biggest mistakes were that I had intended to cold smoke it after about 12 hours with the rub/cure, but got tied up with work and had to leave it in the cure for close to 48. It was cured almost all the way through, all I was after was a cure around the edges. Mistake #2 was running the SV at 147, I should have been 10 degrees lower.
[Reply]

Ok, if you're looking only to cure the outside, and not all the way through then equilibrium curing won't help you out much. But may be something worth looking into, as it guarantees you won't oversalt.
[Reply]

What went wrong:
Usually I have the pig butterflied for the Caja China, this time I had it kept whole. That made it really tough to get the injection into some parts. I actually broke an injector trying to push it through the skin.

For the cook I did 6 hrs @225° then bumped it up to 275° until it hit the stall, again bumped up to 325° to get through the stall, and one last bump to high when internal temp was 195°, took off the smoker at 205°. Total cook time was 10 hours. I bumped the temp up at the end in an effort to crisp the skin. I also pierced it with a knife as I do in the Caja China. It didn't work. The skin was rubbery, and piercing it caused it to separate and expose the meat. The bump in temp also caused uneven coloring of the skin. In hindsight, I would've started earlier and just maintained 225° for the duration of the cook, and had a deep fryer ready to go for the skin.

I did a piss poor job of tying the pig. Just getting the pig to bend into position took every bit of my strength. Holding it and tying it was an even greater chore. My bad job tying it didn't hurt the cook, just the presentation.
Next time I'll see if the farm can tie it for me, if not, instead of pre-ordering the pig I'll see if I can get it immediately after it's killed, before it stiffens up. Not sure if the stiffness is from refrigeration or rigor mortis.

Despite the 10 hour cook, the pig had zero smoke flavor. I didn't expect a ton of smoke since I was using the Traeger, but didn't think zero was a possibility.
I was looking for something that resembled bbq and wound up with roasted pig. Not a bad thing, but not what I was expecting. I would've had a dipping sauce and some different sides had I known.

I didn't have enough greens on hand to fully garnish the serving tray. That coupled with the uneven and torn skin, plus add the fact that my pig didn't sit up, I wasn't satisfied with the presentation.

What wen't right:

I guessed correctly on the size of the pig. I couldn't find a definitive answer on what would fit. I ordered a 55 pound live weight. Traeger claims you can do a 65lb dead weight pig on the Texas if you butterfly it and remove the legs at the shins.
That was too much meat for my needs (this time :-) ) and I wanted my pig to sit up. There was room to go bigger left to right in the cooker, but less that 1/2 an inch clearance on top. Maybe with a better tie job you could get the pig flatter and go with something larger.

Pig was cooked perfectly. Even the loin was moist. I usually protect the loin with bacon and sausage meat since it cooks on it's back in the China box. I wasn't able to do that since the pig cooks upright here, but I think the fat from the skin kept it basted.

Despite it being a monumental chore, I was able to get the marinade injected into enough places that you could really taste it.

The only other tip I can give you is to start with an empty grease can, and keep an eye on it. Mine was empty, and was near the brim when I finished.
Had I done the cook @ 225° all the way through, I have no doubt that it would've overflowed. :-)
[Reply]

Thanks, Dom.
[Reply]

No problem! :-)

I forgot to add that I let it rest for an hour before serving.
So 11 hours total. 10 on the cooker 1 tented in foil.
[Reply]