Well, here I am...I didn't take much for pics, I actually regret a few I didn't (We did a changing of the guard for another empty bottle of W-Man's Aggravated Assault to a discordant dirge based on Darth Vader's Imperial March, classic PLUS!), but yet life perseveres...
I only do stuff like this to distract y'all while I kype TD recipes, right? So kindly view on as such...
My POL 'gredient pics from earlier
My beans benefitted from additional additive add-ons, I have a bad habit of thinking of things after the fact. Like bacon.
The big boy all dressed up and ready for me to *DOH!* Clean the damn grates in the smoker. Why did I overwinter dirty, greazy, moldy grates?
So I'm not Iron Mike, ok? Everyone got that? I don't do all nighters, haven't in
years...But I can still get up pretty early, and did so Sunday morning, after tossing and turning and worrying about getting up early enough ALL NIGHT...But enough about me--Brisket actually wound up in the chamber at "around" 6 am. Please don't ask me to explain "around", it has to do with grate cleaning and coffee grinding and stressing on the process (FIRST packer cook, y'all)...
I did learn a valuable bit to add to my habituals on future cooks: B&B Chunk Oak Charcoal RAWKS, dudes und dudettens!! This is my small coal-fired smoker (12X12X12 firebox, 12X18X 22 smoke chamber) after 4 hours
on one load of coal!!! There may be better out there, but the heck if I'm going to waste any more time lookin' for it!!
I think this was 6 hours in, don't test me, I'll say 5 next time or 10. It was a long creepy day with little good beer (Fat Tire?
Really?)...But I impressed myself prematurely with how my cook was coming along...
Here's where the
nightdaymare started. My smoke chamber is 18 inches wide at the widest poi---oh, nevermind. My brisket was much wider. So I "trimmed" about 5 lbs of flat from the big guy and commenced to make the mistake of cooking on a lower grate at the same time as the point. After my 176 degree reading on the big'un, I failed to check the Lil'un. When I did an hour later, the flat was at 219 degrees. I "thought" that was a good thing, wrapped 'er up in foil and set 'er in a foil lined Igloo cooler for a couple hours. But enough of dropping balls and overcooked brisket...I caught the point right at 203 degrees, wrapped it up, set it in the Igloo with the earlier flat, and answered my phone, which I guess
someone had to do. It was my 22 year old boy, having "car (Prius
) trouble" on his way for brisket dinner. He said the car smelt of burnt rubber, so he pulled over. So I went into rescue mode, got to the scene and found he had a simple flat tire. Except...
Come to find that he'd been driving on that flat tire FOR DAYS. Totally oblivious, until the sidewall burnt through via friction on the rim. THAT was his indication that he had "car trouble"...No thing, right? get out the jack, get out the 4-way, a-a-a-a-a-n-n-n-n-d...One of the FOUR lugnuts had welded itself to the rim. You already know why, simple physics. My boy borders on book genius, but he has no capacity for common sense...I tried a cheater bar, tried a propane torch, that bastige would. Not. Budge...This was an hour and a half later. I called Fail and we came back to the house without the car. It in fact, due to the holiday, sits there yet, on a shoulder on a country farm road, being babysat by mosquitos and ticks, who I told when we left that if they could fix it, they could have it--I'd even pay the first gas tankful...
But this is what we're here for, yes? I watched an Aaron Franklin vid on
his techniques, and he at one point suggested cutting the point down the center thusly:
Man, it comes so close to looking like something Iron Mike or Ragun Gardener or Sobelri would do, and it came out of that Igloo almost 2 hours later as hot as it went in....
But wait!! There's not just the cookin', there's the EATIN'!!
I'd like to dedicate this pic to Hogleg. No one even has to ask why, ain't that neat? Dude, you WILL be assimilated. Resistance isn't exactly futile, but the day is coming when you eat it and you like it...Well, we can dream, right?
As a send-off, with a borrowed POL mask that he actually bought in London 6 years ago, my son Dylan, and his profusely plated numminess (it was firsts, he was civilized for seconds)...
Awright, I've distracted you fine people long enough...
THP ROX, and PPATB!!!