Smokin'

A few months back we were staying at our friends house in Austin, when he introduced us to the world of smoking.

No, not that type of smoking.  Texas smoking.  As in meat.  Delicious delicious meat.

He had just purchased a Trager smoker, technically a pellet grill, and was eager to make some ribs for us.  Using the 321 method (explained below) he proceeded to make the most amazing ribs that I've ever had at someones house.  And that includes my dad's ribs, which are pretty freaken amazing.

I was hooked.

Fast forward 3 weeks and I finally convince Jeremy that we NEEDED one of these for ourselves.

We head down to Costco and 2 trips later (that's a whole other story) we arrive home with 1 smoker and 3 bags of pellets: hickory, apple, mesquite.


First meal: Ribs.




For these we followed the Trager cookbook recipe and employed the 3-2-1 method.

Smoke for 3 hours, wrap and "cook" at 225 for 2 hours, unwrap and continue to cook at 225 for 1 more hour to let the meat tighten.

They were fall off the bone tender.

Here you can see them nicely arranged on the smoker.

We did notice the skin was a little tough, but I think we could avoid that by using a mop sauce as described below.

For the rub we used only a dry rub consisting of Rib Tickler and Joe's Stuff.

Meal 2: Brisket

Let me start by saying, we live in TX and in Texas there is no such thing as a small brisket.  Good luck finding anything under 10 lbs.  For our first brisket experience we chose a 12 lb prime brisket from Costco.  

It fit on the smoker quite nicely don't you think.

Again we used a dry rub consisting of Rib Tickler, Joe's Stuff, and Saltlick dry rub.

We also made a mop sauce of 2 cups of Saint Arnold's Octoberfest, 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce, and 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar.

 
We smoked the brisket for 4 hours, uncovered, coating with the mop sauce (in a spray bottle) every hour.

We then cooked it at 225 for 6 more hours, mopping every 1.5 hours, until the internal temp read about 195 deg.

Finally we wrapped it in foil and old towels and let it rest in a cooler for 30 minutes.

It was awesome.  I'm not a huge brisket fan, mostly because I find it to be too dry, but this was super moist and delicious.  Two thumbs up.

In addition to brisket and ribs, we've also done chicken (cooked at 350) and burgers.  The burgers were okay, but the chicken was very juicy and had a perfectly crisp skin.

I'm so glad we made the investment, and I can't wait to see what we decide to smoke next week!