Slow Bone in Hawaii

 

https://www.slowbone.com/

We sent our friends Diane and Larry in Captain Cook, Hawaii some Slow Bone BBQ for Christmas.  They sent back these pix (along with a bunch of goodies from Hawaii).  We do this cultural exchange every year.

Give the gift of BBQ!

Just a reminder, many great Texas BBQ joints will ship worldwide.  Texas BBQ is a welcome gift almost anywhere!  Not only will you make your friends happy but you will be supporting some great Texas businesses who could really use your help.  Give the gift of BBQ!

The great smoked turkey experiment 11/25/20

 

Since we're staying away from everyone this Thanksgiving,  just for grins, we decided to smoke a couple of 4 pound turkey breasts.  One was prepped and brined overnight using Aaron Franklin's brine recipe.  The second was prepped straight out of the bag.  Both got a good dose of North Main BBQ All-N-1 seasoning.  The plan is to smoke for 3 hours, check the temperature, then finish wrapped in the oven with a lot of butter.

In the zone.

3 hours in and we are here.  Temperature is only around 130, so time to butter 'em up and into the oven for another hour or so.

The final results.  Fabulous.  My Mrs and I agreed the brined turkey was a bit juicier, but it was also a bit salty (well, duh).  Both had excellent smoke flavor and sliced like butter.  As we discovered with salmon filets, sometimes all the extra prep doesn't add much.  We will definitely be having a happy Thanksgiving with these smoky meats and some extra happy days as well.

Pot infused beef jerky

Yes, it's a thing in Colorado.  Can pot infused brisket be far behind??  Thanks to my buddy Dave in Austin for the link.

https://www.aspentimes.com/news/high-mountain/

Green's Texas BBQ, 11/21/20

 

http://greenstexasbbq.com/

My brother wanted to do a social distance get together this afternoon in their back yard so we loaded up with Green's to take over to Oak Cliff.  Mighty fine.  He now has something similar to North Main's "All N 1" spice and I look forward to trying it out once he offers it in larger bottles.

I was first in line today at about 10:15.  By the time I left, about 11:15, there were about 30 folks waiting.

Another pork belly experiment, 11/1/20

 

We visited our friend John out in San Angelo earlier this week and he gifted us a 5 1/2 lb slab of apple wood smoked bacon.  Our freezer is full, so we had to cook it this weekend.  Dang it.  I'm still looking for the tenderness Don Green gets on his pork belly bites so this will be an experimental batch.  Previously we had smoked the pork belly then wrapped tightly in foil and finished in the oven.  That still didn't have the tenderness factor.  This time we will smoke for 3 hours, chop them up, then finish in a crock pot for as long as it takes.  We'll see how that works out.

We sliced it as super thick bacon slices, maybe 3X extra thick bacon.  We are smoking with oak and pecan from our yard, as usual.  We'll add sauce once it hits the crock pot.  

After 3 hours on the smoker here's what we found.

A few samples found that some more tenderizing was needed so we chopped it up into small bites.

Into the crock pot they went along with my last bottle of Dr Pepper BBQ sauce.  We'll let the crock pot work its magic for a couple of hours and check and see how they're doing.

After 3 hours in a crockpot tenderness was achieved.  However I learned we should probably leave the bites un-sauced til the very end.  We'll be enjoying the experiment with some rice for the next few days.

$50/lb brisket

Daniel Vaughn reports Franklin BBQ is now shipping briskets.  $250 for a 5 lb brisket, postpaid.  Yow!  For those far from Texas who can never taste one any other way, probably a better deal than a trip to Austin and standing in line (whenever their dining room reopens), but still, Yow!  Oh yeah, when I looked they were SOLD OUT.

https://www.goldbelly.com/franklin-barbecue

smoked salmon redux 10/24/20

 

Easy and delicious.  Cut 'em in half so they fit on our little bullet smoker, smoke 'em about 2 hours, enjoy.  Hard to beat.

Dallas Observer/Pecan Lodge contest

 

Enter by October 30th

https://www.dallasobserver.com/free/pecanlodge

Smoked Salmon time 10/13/20

 

Yay!  Salmon fillets have been on sale so we grabbed 2 to smoke and 2 for the freezer.  6 lbs went on the smoker this afternoon.

Two hours on the smoker straight from the package.  No brining or other fussing other than cutting each fillet in half to fit our little bullet smoker.  Smokey and delicious.

Smoked salmon may not be BBQ, but it pretty good stuff.  I foresee a big pot of smoked salmon chowder in our near future.

Brisket nachos 9/9/20

 

Mighty good.

Red Dirt postponed to 2021

I think we all knew it was coming, but it is now official.  The Red Dirt BBQ Fest in Tyler has been postponed to May 1, 2021.  If you have tickets, they will still be good.  If you want a refund, you can get one up until January 22nd.  We have VIP tix so we will hang on to them and hope we are done with this Covid crap by then.

Brisket smoke 8/30/20

 

Brisket went on sale again this week for $1.77/lb for choice Angus beef.  That seemed like a pretty good deal so my Mrs snagged a 13 lber and we gave it the usual treatment.  I took off about 2 lbs of fat before splitting to go on our little bullet smoker.  The last couple of briskets we have smoked ranked up there with the $20-$25/lb brisket we have been getting at our favorite Q joints.  Hopefully we won't mess this one up.

When we got up this morning, early, to start smoking we were surprised to find it raining.  The weather guessers missed again.  We decided to smoke for 6 hours this evening and finish wrapped in the oven overnight.  After 6 hours on the smoker, this is what we had.

These were tightly wrapped in aluminum foil, then into a 225 degree oven for another 6 hours.

We got up this morning and put the wrapped brisket in a towel lined cooler (Vencil Mares' old trick) and went back to bed.  It was still hot when we got up later, so we let it cool down a bit before slicing.  We are very happy with the results.  

A little heat, some oak and pecan, finish in the oven, and you can turn $1.77 lb brisket into $20/lb brisket.  We'll be eatin' high on the cow for a week or so.

Support Your Local BBQ joint, Green's Texas Bar B Que 8/8/20

 

Scott was going to be over in this part of DFW on Saturday and asked if I wanted to go to Green's.  Silly boy, of course!  I got there a little after 10:30 and was 8th in line.  I loaded up with 10 orders of pork belly bites, a pound of brisket and sausage, a couple of brisket biscuits, and a bottle of sauce.  All very delicious.  I won't be surprised if he makes the next Texas Monthly top 50.  Even though he is only open for 4 hours each week.  It's that good!

Support Your local BBQ Joint, Green's Texas Bar B Que, 7/18/20

http://greenstexasbbq.com/

Today I got there at 10:30 and was still 5th in line for the 11 am opening.  Dagnab it.  There were more than 20 in line when they opened.  Grabbed a feast to take to a social distance visit with some friends, including pork belly bites and brisket biscuits.

Smoked Burgers 7/14/20

Yes, here's another non-BBQ post, but smoked burgers are oh so good!  They take a lot longer than grilling, almost 3 hours, but they're so worth it!

Brisket Nachos 2

Those brisket nachos we had on the 4th of July were so good, we had to do it again tonight.  With more cheese.