Summer means smokers!

[Eric]

Well, the pizza oven might be overkill. ;-)

We actually grilled pizza yesterday instead of hitting Famous Dave's.   

Sara's boss gave us a pan that's pretty similar to this one.  I've been doing the two-zone indirect cooking so there's no flame directly underneath.  Leave the lid down and rotate the pizza about 1/4 turn every five minutes.  Very nice crispy crust.

Might take a little practice.  Our first one had wonderful toppings -- on a charcoal crust.   

[TinkTanker]

This was the first time I've grilled anything in probably three years, well over a decade with charcoal. I've never used a chimney before and was amazed how well it worked. It's just like they say: crumple a few sheets of newspaper in the bottom, fill the chimney with briquettes, light the paper, and leave it alone. Check back in 20 minutes and have fun.

This sucker gets hot. I need to get a good grilling glove to dump the coals and to arrange them. Even with long tongs the heat is more than you can stand. The temp gauge on the lid said we were at 500 degrees, so the temp on the grate was a good deal higher.

We went with ribeyes, and had a sack of Vidallia onions that we were going to grill. But upon closer inspection, the onions were mushy, they got tossed. So our backup plan was to grill some sweet peppers we got from Sam's, but they had fur on them. So no peppers, no onions.

I threw the steaks on, cooked them six minutes per side, which evidently was too long. The interwebs said six, but I guess this cooks at lot hotter than what the interwebs says. Next time, four minutes.

But they had a great flavor. Better than the gas grill used to do, certainly better than the broiler inside the house. I'll probably grill some burgers in the next few days and get some fresh veggies.

I do want to get the Smokenator for this. Smoking a 25 pound turkey on a grill sounds like a blast.

Eric, sell your gas grill and get one of these. It's pretty awesome.

[Eric]

Eric, sell your gas grill and get one of these. It's pretty awesome.

You don't know how tempting that sounds!

[TinkTanker]

Okay, the Smokenator is on its way. I guess I need a thermometer and I guess that means you'll suggest I need the Maverick. Good thing Ann has been working all this OT, huh?

[Eric]

Okay, the Smokenator is on its way. I guess I need a thermometer and I guess that means you'll suggest I need the Maverick.

I'd suggest just giving it a whirl w/o spending the extra money.

[Eric]

Okay, the Smokenator is on its way. I guess I need a thermometer and I guess that means you'll suggest I need the Maverick.

I'd suggest just giving it a whirl w/o spending the extra money.

Sorry -- I forgot your grill wouldn't have any built-in thermometer; I was just thinking about meat thermometers.
It's easy to go crazy with all this stuff. 

If you have a standard meat thermometer handy, you could try just sticking it in the vent hole and go by that as a general guide.

Mind you, it'll not be grate-temp, but I'd hate for you to make more investments unless you find you really enjoy smoking foods.

[TinkTanker]

Oh, I'm sure I'll enjoy smoking stuff. One of the nice things (as you know) is you can set things up and tend to them ever so often, without having to hoveer eery minute. Afterwards, you have several meals for several days. With our schedules, I do most of the cooking during the week and I don't always prepare the most creative meals. I set up the grill last night with indirect heat and added a couple of chunks of mesquite and cooked some boneless chicken breasts. I used a rub to coat the breasts, set up a water pan underneath, had the coals piled up on the sides. The grill was going about 350-400, nice amount of smoke. Cooked them for about 15 minutes a side indirectly, brushed them with some sauce and finished them over direct heat. We would have had corn on the cob grilled, but the damn dog thought they were toys and grab them and ran off with them. So I had to improvise and grill some frozen corn on the cob in foil packets. I put a little coconut oil in them, gave it a sweeter flavor. I did manage to get some browning on the corn, which looked nice as well.

We still have five (I think) breasts left, so enough for a couple more meals and some so that Ann can take some to work.

I might tackle some ribs this weekend, or maybe a Boston Butt. Never did ribs before.

[Spooky]

We would have had corn on the cob grilled, but the damn dog thought they were toys and grab them and ran off with them.

You could of had Corn dogs! 

Badumptsssss!

[TinkTanker]

We would have had corn on the cob grilled, but the damn dog thought they were toys and grab them and ran off with them.

You could of had Corn dogs! 

Badumptsssss!

[Eric]

Nice, Tink!  I've only done ribs once, and I used the Amazing Ribs recipe (love that site).

The Maverick Redi-Chek ET-732 is indeed a good thermometer.  It's better than the older ET-73, as that one had some silly design flaws.  The ET-732 range is better but is still not that great through walls. With any of these probe-style thermometers be prepared to purchase more probes eventually.  Pretty neat to be able to glance at either unit and tell how hot the grate-temp and meat's center without opening the smoker lid. 

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