u/mecosmo2004

Title says it all Beautiful blue bird skies here in Da U.P. today. So we put a pork loin on the pellet grill..... Marinated the 5lb loin overnight with a mixture of Bachman's Japanese BBQ sauce and Kinder's Chilpote Pineapple seasoning. First time using this BBQ sauce in a Marinade and I was pleasantly surprised as how well this mixture tasted. Started the grill at 185 for the first hour then bumped the temperature up to 250 for the next hour and the last 30 minutes I turned it up to 375 pulled the loin at 135 internal temperature, rested for 30 minutes. Hickory pellets used, and a smoke tube with real Hickory wood chips as this helps to boost the smoke flavor on a short cook time wise. Sorry for my adding a non-cooking picture of my new yard art, I just thought some of you might like it?

• Mecosmo2004

Well it's been a minute since my last post, I guess life gets in the way sometimes.....lol

 I'm starting my official summer cook doing a difficult cut of meat for BBQing, it's an 6.69lb eye of round roast, relatively cheaper cut as its a leaner tougher cut.  I've decided with this cook to hopefully controll the narrative by thinking outside the box on this.....

As stated earlier starting with a 6.69lb of Eye of round roast, I trimmed some silver skin and seasoned the roast with my homemade blackened seasoning mix, along with some extra kosher salt and fresh cracked black pepper just for good measure. This is where we now start the journey of thinking outside the box with the normal BBQing tactics.

I browned this roast on the stove top in a roasting pan using butter and garlic infused oil, after the browning I then injected the infused Butter/garlic oil and pan drippings from the pan into the roast, my thinking is that the injected butter/oil will not only add internal flavor but also add fat/moisture to an otherwise lean tougher cut of meat?

Now it's time to fire up my Zgrills 7002c2e filled with Hickory pellets and set the temperature at 225, I also added a smoke tube to the grill(loaded with Hickory chips) ** fyi I'm using the smoke tube knowing this is going to be a quick smoke on this lean cut, I'm thinking like only 2 - 2 1/2hrs max as my target temperature is 130ish before wrapping and holding at 140 for a few hours minimum before slicing ultra thin for some smoked beef sandwiches!

So the experiment "outside the box" part of this is the browning the meat before going the smoker and injecting the butter/garlic oil into the roast.......ha ha in my mind it should work but the proof of if it's good bad or indifferent will come later tonight? , so wish me luck!

• Mecosmo2004

 

Ok as a life long Chicago fan true and blue that has spent years going sporting events in Chicago i.e. life long Cubs fan, I remember going to the "Hot Rust On Slush Black Hawks", So Hell Yes I was pissed about the Indiana move!! But then as a blue collar fan I saw something that made me change my mind about this whole Indiana deal, please humor me just for a minute or two and compare the two stadiums renderings side by side and tell me what's the first thing you notice(Please be for real and no bullshit, just the truth). You know what I see with the Arlington site, it has no on site parking for the common fan which means no pre-game tailgating and tells me imho that the all important fan experiences are not in the foreground of that stadium it's just another corporate business venture(greed) i.e. just retail stores, hotels, restaurants, etc, etc etc.......so when you buy a ticket in Arlington you'll probably need to take shuttle bus from the parking lot to the entrance of the stadium! Now look at the rending from Indiana and you'll see the opposite parking lots for the fans and I need not really say nothing more as the pictures speak for themselves. But I'm going to say more anyways!!........So if or when you spend the 100's of dollars per person it takes just to go to a NFL football game I would certainly want to go to the place that wants me there enjoying the whole game day experience and for the whole day if I want too!....and if I really wanted to go shopping, then I would go TO THE FIPPLING MALL and not an NFL stadium!

So almost every NFL stadium has tailgating for it's fans enjoyment right up front close the stadium(walking distance) It's all about fan Fun, and its what football is all about and that's basic 101 fan appreciation thru and thru and please remember this all starts as early as pee-wee football to High-school football, certainly college, semi-pro all the way to the big time NFL! Oh the smells and sites of game day at your teams stadium parking lot is as importantas the game itself, The smoke from grills, kids playing catch, chanting & cheering, telling stories, carrying on family traditions, great food, and yes maybe few adult beverages too! So now were talking about something that at least gets a little closer to be worth the money you spend to go to that game as you'll get the whole fan day experiences......AND NOT SHOPPING!!!.....YUCK YUCK YUCK!

• Mecosmo2004

I set up my experimental raised shelve on.my zgrill 7002c2e, warmed up the grill up to 225, I then trimmed up my 2 racks of spare ribs, then lightly seasoned the ribs on both sides with my own personal blackened anything seasoning mix(no binder needed) I have never used tjis mix on ribs before, just another experiment. I then put the racks on the grill at 225 for 3.5 hours with Hickory pellets, I this time I rotated the racks and raised the temperature to 250 for another 1.75 hours, no wrap and no sauce just meat seasoning and smoke and ribs turned out fantastic! And the best part is in the process of experimenting I found my new favorite rib seasoning mixture. The raise rack did not disappoint either, but to be honest the jury is still out as this is only the first cook with this set up. More experimental cooks to come, and of coarse I will share those cooks with you all when they happen.

Thanks for reading/looking my friends!

• Mecosmo2004

As usual I'm experimenting and trying new things and new ways of Cooking/BBQing Today it's my shelve placement on my zgrills grill, so over the winter I made an extra stainless steel shelve which I'm using for today's cook it's temporarily sitting on empty cleaned tuna cans just to raise the shelve an 1 1/2" higher then the original lower shelve, thus giving my ribs a little more distance from the heat source.....dont get me wrong I was happy before with my 7002c2e zgrills but without experimenting you'll never know if you can improve on something or not? So maybe next time the shelve experiment will need to be higher like 3" or maybe I'll find out that this experiment is just a wasted effort?.......hmmmm, One will never know unless we try.....right? So later tonight I'll post my results....please wish my ribs good luck....lol

• Mecosmo2004

This story of mine starts with me buying three bags of Royal Oak's Charcoal and Hickory blended pellets, the bags apparently came from a bad batch that had no charcoal pellets mixed in and thus was all Hickory pellets. I email Royal Oak and sent the info about the bad bags that all came from the same store and Royal Oak's customer service team responded the very next morning. First by showing a concern for their customer with their speedy response, next sending their apologies by fixing this mistake no question asked by sending replacement coupons for all 3 bags. Next they focused on resolving the bad batch that apparently had slipped though their quality controll process, and by doing this they show another level of great customer service to make sure that no one else would receive and or buy these bags from that store again!.......I feel that great customer service like Royal Oak displayed should be shared with our BBQ world, especially in this crazy negative world. I believe that good company policies and customer service like this should be shared and spread much faster then the bad! So I'm posting this just to shine the light on a company in our BBQ world that deserves a big mention and thank you!

"SO GREAT JOB ROYAL OAK!"

I'm sure there are many more great customer service stories out there, so lets start sharing and or spreading the good news about these companies in the BBQ world that deserve a big mention and thank you too!

• Mecosmo2004