hello my friend!

life has been keeping me pretty busy lately. havent really had a chance to park my ass in front of the computer in some time. hope all is well with you bro, and i will tell them hello for you.

... dam i need to smoke some meat!
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Scheduled to die tomorrow night :

1 each Ribs, Pork, Baby Back, rack
1 each Ribs, Beef, rack, small
12 each Wings, Chicken, Miss Goldy

:-)
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Is it good enough to spend $40 for a 5# bag of the yardbird?
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That is how I buy it. I used to buy it straight from Todd, the guy that makes it, but after a while he told me to use http://www.bbqaddicts.com/rubs-sauces/plowboys-rub/

They have a two shaker deal where you can try Yardbird and Bovine Bold. I don't use as much Bovine Bold because I use the Yardbird on so many things, but for a beef rub I absolutely love it as well.
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Finished off and smoked two cured bacons yesterday, a savory Garlic/Pepper/Juniper/Sage, and a simple brown sugar.
Also made sausage for the first time, garlic and red wine. I think I overstuffed the collagen cases a bit, but the taster I fried up last night was a hell of a flavor bomb.
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I've heard great things about the Plowboys stuff so I just bought a shaker of the Yardbird and a shaker of the Jerk seasoning. Been craving some Jerk wings!
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Homemade sausage is the bomb, and it's so frickin' easy to mix up too.
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Was bored last night - thought a batch of mesquite smoked ABTs might go good with the wine.

Image

They did.
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any good tricks to twisting links? I probably over stuffed my collagen casings, and I know that certainly didn't help. I imagine natural casings probably twist better, because they are much thinner? I ended up just tying off the sausages with some butchers twine to keep them in shape.
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I think twisting the casings properly/easily is one of those practice things. I enviously watch how fast and well the butchers do it at the places around here that have handmade sausage, but then I remember that's all some of these guys do all day long, day in and day out.

One of the butchers who makes all the sausages at the co-op market is also a bartender at the brewery, next time I'm in there when he's tending, I could ask him if he has any tips / tricks for working with the casings. I wouldn't mind knowing myself, actually. Especially since I do such a bad job of it, I typically only make bulk (uncased) sausage.

I've never worked with natural casings.
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Some nice tips here.
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Haha, if you've got a few days to read the whole thread.....
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Picked up 2 butts and a brisket at Sam's Club today. I will be using an actual thermometer fo show this time. Planned to fire up tonight, but it's just going to be too cold/rainy for me to do it overnight, so I think I'll be firing it Sunday night.

I picked up a Weber's Kansas City rub at Sam's as well to give it a shot and will use a rub recipe I found on the virtualweber site on the brisket.
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I cooked up a rack of babys and a half-rack of dino bones last night, wanted to give my man Bill86 some ribs.
Once the Daiquiri machine kicked my ass, though, I was NOT a good chef and I think I over-smoked em.
All I know is they were pink to the freaking bone, lol. Bill will have to say if they were good or not. All I know is
I ALMOST forgot to snap em again, I cut the rack in two pieces and thought CRAP, I forgot the pics.
It also may comfort many of you to know that the dino bones are NOT as burnt as they look. This carmelized
fat looks like black coal but it's a light trick. I also added a blurry pic in true color to show how freaking pink
these ribs were, CLEAR to the bone. Amazing. But again, I think i threw a few too many pecan branches
on the coals before I went into he house and forgot about the pit....a LIL too smoky for my picky tastes.
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I came to this thread just so say not only were they good but damn if you couldn't literally eat every piece of meat on the bones. I cleaned those off as soon as I got home.

Not to mention these were meaty as hell. Definitely a full meal out of those. mmmmmmmmm ribs :-) :-)

MUCH thanks Brad!
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Gonna be breakin' in my smoker tomorrow with 2 Tri Tips (weighing in at 3lbs and 3.5 lbs each). This will be a first for me so keep your fingers crossed:-)

Looks good from this side Brad:-)
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My meat monger is kind enough to dispose of them before I start smoking them. :-)

Looking good! :-)
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Looks great Brad. Photos are fine.

How long did you soak those ribs in potassium nitrate to get that lovely color? :-)
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I'm quite the smoking noob, but I didn't realize there's such a thing as too much smoke. I could certainly see if you had a particularly strong smoke that it might overpower the food though compared to what I've come to hear about a "lighter" smoke like you might get out of apple or oak I guess.

The first time I set up my WSM, I put down a thin layer of charcoal, put down a few pieces of wood, another thin layer, few more pieces, and put a top layer of charcoal filled by a few more pieces. I then put my chimney of charcoal over the top and then just let the smoking begin as the Minion method got to them.

I feel this way it's getting smoke through the entire process, but it's not a really high ratio of wood/charcoal by any means.
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Hahah, Adam, I just dump em out of the bag, wash em, shake rub on em and cook em.

Thanks, Bill, I thought I would just let em go yesterday, i was worried when I left that
the ribs would be in danger in a car(temps), but it never got over 40-sumpin yesterday,
so I think i just blew that off...plus they were smoked, so they were not gonna go bad.

Duane, I call too much smoke when they smell like doofus ribs, where you can tell people
have the desire to create great food but just drown the ribs in smoke, thick, chokey, white
wood smoke. I like to use a thin vapor of pure, blue smoke coming out of the
chimney. It makes a difference in the aroma of the cold meat. When you get the hang
of your machine and figure out the ins and outs, the do's and don'ts, you will begin to taste
the difference. You will have good cooks and bad cooks, just like everybody does.
A good way to describe too much smoke, when it smells like a house fire and not food.
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