Here’s another installment from Arthur Aguirre.  The guy has some serious BBQ (and photography) skills.  In this post Arthur attacks one of the rising phenomenons of BBQing – The MOINK ball.  Not only does he show you how to do it, but he also explains the origins of the mighty MOINK.  These little nuggets of deliciousness are always a huge hit.  From here, I’ll hand it over to Arthur to show you how they’re done…

If you love Atomic Buffalo Turds (ABT’s), you will love MOINK balls. A simple description of MOINK balls are BBQ bacon wrapped meatballs. Without a doubt these tiny tender treats are the biggest thing to hit the grilling scene since ABT’s. The world wide craze of the MOINK ball is credited to a Larry Gaian author of the BBQ Grail.

***Editor’s Note ~ BBQ Grail is an excellent blog/website very similar to what we do here at GrillinFools.com.  I highly recommend Larry’s site***

Since the MOINK balls introduction into the BBQ world, it has earned positive reviews from people all over the world fortunate enough to taste the mighty morsels of smokiness.

The name MOINK is not an acronym, it is the combination of the two main ingredients: beef and pork. When referencing these ingredients, we know they come respectively from a cow and a pig. Hence, the sounds they make are moo and oink. Therefore, the creation was aptly named MOINK ball.

To understand how the MOINK ball was conceived, we need to understand its purpose. First, it was designed to feed the masses. Second, it utilizes two ingredients used often by families – bacon and frozen meatballs. Third, it must be grilled or smoked outdoors. And finally, MOINK balls are aerodynamically shaped for fast consumption.

End of summary.

So, when the 4^th of July came charging upon us, the parties were a plenty. I made a batch of MOINK balls each for two different parties. Unquestionably, MOINK balls are a tasty and an inexpensive way to impress people.

There are five major items needed for MOINK balls:

1. Pre-made, all-beef meatballs
2. Bacon
3. Rub
4. BBQ sauce
5. Smoke wood

When I made a batch of MOINK balls for the first party, I took a conservative approach. This party always had a ton of food and there are plenty of leftovers. Also, early estimates were close to about 60 people attending the party. With that in mind, I bought just a bag of frozen meatballs because I didn’t want to take leftovers home with me, especially when they sit out too long. When I had an idea on how many MOINK balls I’ll be making, I drew up my game plan.

Ingredients:

1 bag of frozen meatballs [approx. 50]
2lb of bacon (2 packages)
John Henry’s Pecan Rub
Blues Hog Tennessee Red Sauce
Hickory wood chunks
Toothpicks

Pre-made, all-beef meatballs are the official meatballs of MOINK balls. BBQ Grail set up guidelines which do not allow fresh meatballs. However, one can definitely make fresh meatballs, just call them meatballs wrapped in bacon. The only exceptions are for international grillers where fresh meatballs are perfectly acceptable.

***Editor’s Note ~ That’s right.  These things are so popular there are purists out there and guidelines that are different for international grillers***

Moving on with our MOINK balls, the first batch is being set up for indirect heat on the grill manufacturer that shall not be named. I’m going with lump charcoal here, so by the time it gets hot enough the MOINK balls will be ready.

First, I have to assemble the meats. The meatballs are thawed but still firm enough to handle without falling apart:

The bacon is a 1lb package of strips, 2 may be needed. Each strip is way too long for one meatball, so cut the bacon in half. It’s easier to cut the bacon when it is semi frozen. The bacon is too much like rubber at room temperature:

I suggest buying the thin cheap bacon rather than the thick cut bacon because it cooks faster and it’s crispier when it’s done.

Use one half piece of bacon and wrap it around the meatball, then stick it with a toothpick to keep it together:

Assembling the bacon and meatballs may take a while. This is a good opportunity to get the kids involved in some BBQ activity:

***Editor’s Note ~ Love the Abita Turbo Dog in the background!!***

Next, I poured the rub all over the meat:

At this point, the grill will be ready to go. I banked the charcoal to one side of the kettle. In addition, I placed the MOINK balls on the grill opposite of the coals so I could indirect grill the MOINKS and keep the temperatures down:

Then, I added some hickory wood chunks. Also, I made sure the lid was placed with the vent over the meat so the smoke would have to travel across the meat before leaving through the vent. I leave the bottom vents open all the way too. The temp range will be somewhere between 350 and 375. Cooking time will be about 1 to 1 ½ hours.

After an hour I check on the MOINK balls:

They look just about done so I brush some BBQ sauce over them. I leave them in a little longer, just enough to crisp up the bacon. As a result, the bacon turned out very dark, almost black:

It isn’t that they are burnt, it’s just the rub and BBQ sauce has lots of sugar in it. It’s almost like bark on a pork shoulder or brisket.

At the time, I thought I really screwed up. I ate a couple of them and they didn’t taste burnt. I put them in a foil pan, brushed more Tennessee Red on them and covered them until they got to the party. Meanwhile, I thought to myself, nobody is going to like these.

So we arrive at the party and I put the MOINK balls on the table and I jump in the pool for a swim. After a while of being in the pool, some brave soul must have tried a MOINK ball because I heard people talking about how others should try these little meatballs. They were a huge hit and the talk of the party. In fact, they were all gone before the main course was served!

The following week, I made a second batch for a family reunion party:

This time, I smoked them for 2 ½ hours at 225 degrees on the smoker with hickory wood:

For me, these were much better than the first batch. Although, the bacon could have been crispier, but I didn’t have time to do it. However, a few people at the reunion who were also at the pool party said they preferred the first batch of MOINK balls.

I used a different rub and sauce for the second batch and I made twice as many for roughly the same amount of people. They too went over really well, but they were not all gone. I love these little succulent samples, I look forward to making more. And so do a bunch of people who loved them at the party.

If you have any questions about the MOINK balls, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email and I will forward it to Arthur.  Although, if he keeps kicking ass like this I might have to give him his own Grillin Fools email address!!

If you are interested in other appetizers and sides click here.

And you can follow the Grillin Fools on our Facebook page and post your own grillin pics just like Arthur did.

Recently, the good people at Charbroil sent the Grillin Fools a couple grills to review.  The first to get a review was the Big Easy Smoker, Roaster and Grill (BESRG) that I used with this recipe and is getting more and more use as I find more and more ways to use it.  I wrote a full review of the BESRG that you can find here.

One of my criticisms was that the grill runs too hot with the low temp being 375.  That I wish it ran lower so I can set it and forget it for smoking say a pork butt or a brisket.  But then I started to think about it.  I don’t do much low and slow anymore.  I use what is now commonly called the high heat method rather than low and slow.  High heat method is somewhat of a misnomer since the high heat method is generally between 275-325 for ribs, brisket, and pulled pork.  That’s more medium.  But if I’m getting great results at 325, what’s another 50 degrees?  So I decided to see if I could pull off pulled pork at 375.  From the pics above I’m guessing you already know the results.  See below to see the pictures and instructions on how to do this every step of the way…

This was sort of a last minute idea so I went to my local grocer to get a pork shoulder/pork butt/Boston butt. All of these are the exact same thing.  The reason a cut of meat taken from the shoulder of a pig is called a pork butt or Boston butt is that back in the day of wooden ships this cut of meat was salted and packed into large barrels, known as butts, for the sailors on long voyages. The shipping barrel, or butt, was often to Boston since it was a major port, and eventually the container name, and sometimes the destination city, were adopted as the name of the cut of meat.  Pork shoulder, pork butt, and Boston butt are all the same thing.

The only variety the grocer had was the picnic butt which has a long bone going right through the middle.  I purchased an 8+ pounder and cut off a 3+ pound section, away from the thick bone, to do for the first time:

Not having any idea if this would work I didn’t want to use the whole thing and waste it if it sucked.  In the picture above you can see the smaller one on the right, that I cooked, and the larger half flipped over to see the fat cap.

I put the bigger piece in the freezer and slathered the smaller with a rub:

Since wet sauces and sugars tend to not do so well with infrared cooking, due to the high temps, my normally sweet rub was replaced by this:

1 TBSP granulated garlic
1 TBSP sweet paprika
1 TSP chili powder
1/4 TSP ground mustard
1 TSP fresh ground black pepper
1 TSP onion powder (I was out of granulated onion)
1/2 TSP celery seed
1/2 TSP cinnamon
1/4 TSP cumin
1 TSP Penzey’s smoke salt (course salt can be substituted as well)
1/2 TSP crushed red pepper (optional)

Use whatever rub you like but make sure it has no sugars in it.  I was worried I was pressing my luck with the cinnamon but it worked well.

I slathered it on all sides and put it in a ziplock for a few hours.  I had some rub left over so I put that on the pork after I placed it into the basket to go into the BESRG:

Then it was time to prep the grill.  Another criticism I had of the BESRG is that the smoker box isn’t all that well designed.  It’s small and not easy to change out the wood chips after they have smoked, so I went with a very easy fix.  Tin foil tray:

Filled with dry hickory chips:

Place the foil tray on the bottom of the grill:

I set the temp on high and cranked the BESRG on.  When I got some smoke out of the chips I dropped the temp to low (375) and got the meat ready to go in.

I inserted a thermometer probe into the thickest part of the meat:

And dropped the basket into the chamber.  After 90 minutes this is what it looked like.  I wasn’t getting any heavy smoke at this point but some was wafting up.  Everything was smelling and looking great:

The internal temperature was up to 139.  So far so good:

Please note, that I wasn’t going for a total temp of 160.  It was the default setting and I figured when I got to that point I could reset it.  The target here is 190-195.

At this point I gave the meat a mopping with apple cider:

I mopped every 30 minutes from this point on.  It was taking much longer than I thought and after 2 hours I kicked the temp up to medium on the dial.  At the three hour mark I kicked it up to high.  You’re not reading that wrong.  I kicked the temp up to high for the last hour.  I hit it with 500 degrees for the last hour and because it’s infrared the end result was awesome.  If I had done that with convection (hot, drying air) I would’ve really dried it out at that temp. But I got away with it with infrared which heats the meat directly rather than heat the air to heat the meat.  And I had to kick it up or I was never going to eat.  It stalled at 160 just like most pork butts do in conventional grill.  See, the clock on that thermometer is an hour slow because I never adjusted it for day light savings time.  I didn’t wind up eating until 10:30 that night.

At at 3.5 hours (approximately 9:30) it looked like this:

It had a nice bark on the outside and smelled amazing. It still has a little ways to go though as the internal temperature is still only 181:

Finally, at just over four hours, the remote I had clipped to my pocket beeped at me.  It finally got to 190:

Here’s the meat at the four hour and 15 minute mark.

Now time for the foil and some resting:

Now wrap it in a towel:

And put it in something that is used to control temp like an empty cooler, an unlit oven or a microwave like I did here:

Why all the hassle of letting it rest?  Resting is very important to maintaining juicy meat.  See, when the meat comes out of a hot grill the juices inside are in an excited state.  The molecules are moving a million miles an hour but contained inside the meat.  Slice into it right away and all those juices are going to have an exit and will quickly run out of the meat all over the plate or cutting board.  Letting the meat rest inside foil and a towel will allow those juices to calm down without the meat getting cold.

After 30 minutes it was the moment of truth.  I easily forked away half of the cut as it fell apart easily thanks to my two forks:

It was completely forked in less than two minutes because it was so tender and juicy:

Normally when dealing with boneless pork butt I use the ziplock bag method of breaking the meat up.  Place the meat in a two gallon ziplock, place it on the counter and then smack the crap out of it a couple times with the back of a frying pan.  But since it was 10:45 when I was finally going to pull the meat I decided against the risk of waking up my 2 year old and 8 week old. But if you want to see how that’s done, check out this video:

The million dollar question – how was it?  It was really good.  The bark was great.  The meat was tender and juicy and pulled easily.  It didn’t have a ton of smoke flavor, but that’s not always a bad thing.  My wife and a coworker are people that don’t like a lot of smoke.  I didn’t think those people existed but there seems to be a lot of them out there.  The flavor was excellent and the maintenance of the cookout was pretty simple.  I put the meat in and mopped twice an hour for the last couple of hours.  That’s it.  I will be doing the other side of the pork shoulder soon enough because this was a home run.

So now I have to wonder if I need to go back and edit my review of the BESRG since it makes some really good pulled pork despite the fact that it can’t get down to 200.  This thing grows on me more and more every time I use it.

If you have any questions about pulled pork done infrared, feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email

For other pork recipes including reverse seared pork steaks click here.

Also, you can follow us on our Grillin Fools Facebook page and post your own grillin pictures.

I didn’t intend on going all mango, all the time with this.  I wanted to try out a few different things on wings.  Something, I’m almost embarrassed to say, I have ever done on the grill.  I’ve done chickens both whole and in parts, but I’ve never done chicken wings exclusively before.  So I thought I would give it a go and try out a couple different sauces and a rub…

I started with a jumbo pack of wings from Sam’s that had 28 wings which was plenty to try a few different combos.  This can be done with chicken legs as well.

First, let’s prep the wings.  For 16 of the wings I doused them with salt, black pepper and Bear Claw Honey Butt Rub:

It’s a rub designed for pulled pork but it can be used on just about anything so I thought I would give it a shot.

First, I put the wings “upside down” on a cookie tray.  I’ll explain the upside down part in a minute.  I put on some coarse salt and fresh black pepper and the rub:

Now I flip them over so that the shape of the wing keeps a lot of the meat from touching the cookie sheet:

If you add the rub to this side first, then flip them over a lot of the rub is going to stick to the cookie sheet or cutting board.  By doing the other side first, the shape of the wing keeps the majority of the meat (and the rub) from touching the cutting board or cookie sheet and thus more rub sticks to the meat.

Once rubbed on both sides, it’s time to get the fire going.  Using my Father in Law’s Brinkman Offset Smoker, I went with indirect grilling here right in the chamber rather than using the smoker box as I will need to do some direct grilling later on.  Coals on the left and nothing on the right where the wings will eventually go:

As you can see, I left the grill grate off the coals on the left side this is so I can add more coals and smoke wood.  The smoke wood for this was hickory.  The pile of coals is pretty good size as I wanted to get to the 250-275 range in terms of temps.

I put my 16 wings on with the rub:

Since the rub has some sugar in it, I put these as far way from the heat as possible.  Then went the wings that had only salt and black pepper that I use for a baseline to do my comparisons:

Drop in a couple chunks of smoke wood and close the lid.  Getting some good smoke:

The goal is to get the good smoke flavor infused into the meat before putting on the glaze.  Basically a reverse sear method like the one I did with these pork steaks that is now my go to method for pork steaks.

After 40 minutes the wings are browning nicely:

At one hour I moved the grill grate over the coals and put the wings right over the heat to crisp up the skin:

Make sure to keep a constant eye on these and have a water bottle or beer ready to put out flare ups.

Don’t stress a little blackening, particularly with the wings with a sweet rub on them.  It’s standard with cooking over high heat like this and is not a problem.  A little blackening is good, a lot can be bad, but don’t stress out if you get some blackness.

At this point you’re wondering where’s the mango?  Well, now that I have the hour of smoke infused into the meat and then got a flavor crust from the searing over direct heat it’s time to slather with the sauce.  The two sauces I used were this mango garlic sauce from Lollipop Tree:

I bought it at a local farmer’s market.  Those of you in the St. Louis area can find it at the Kirkwood Farmer’s market for $6.

The other sauce I used was also a Bear Claw product like the rub:

Both of which I purchased at Saucehut.com.

Once I have the smoke and the sear I brushed the sauces on the meat and put them back on the side with no heat and closed the lid:

I did two different brushings of each sauce over 30 minutes and closed the lid to allow it to caramelize on the wings.  Some I didn’t sauce to get a feel for the taste of the rub.

How were the sauces and the rubs? The mango garlic sauce was sweet and amazing.  My in laws really enjoyed these as did a couple coworkers who got to sample them the next day.

The Bear Claw Honey Butt Rub was really good.  For those of you who don’t want to go through the process of making your own rub and want to keep one on hand that is versatile and will be enjoyed by everyone then this is the way to go.

As for the Bear Claw Mango Chipotle sauce, well, I’m a sucker for the sweet and spicy stuff. The combination of the sweet mango and the smoky/spicy chipotle is really well done.  It’s got some kick to it in terms of heat but it’s not over the top, taste bud numbing, like habanero peppers.  That’s why I love the chipotle stuff so much.  The sweet/smoky flavor is just as evident as the heat from the spices making it well balanced.  I think I might try this on some ribs soon.

A quick note, neither Lollipop Tree nor Bear Claw paid me to make these recommendations or gave me their products to test.  I bought them and am glad I did.

If you have any questions or comments feel free to shoot me an email or simply leave a comment below.

If you like this dish, click here for other poultry done on the grill.

Also, you can follow the Grillin Fools on Facebook and post your own grillin pictures.

Here we talk about the things that have changed in terms of grilling over the years.  I also talk about the thumb test used to determine when a steak is done.  This was my first ever radio interview and I was pretty nervous.  While I didn’t sound nervous I did make a huge screw up.  See if you can spot it in the interview.

Here’s the link to the Thumb Test post.  And here’s a link to that rare steak you saw a picture of at the end of the Thumb Test discussion.

You can follow us on our Grillin Fools Facebook page where you can post your own grillin pictures.

This interview aired on a radio show in the Houston area called Your Livable Garden on 7/3/2010.  Michael Shawn Kelly and Blinda Ann Kelly, owners of Mirror Lake Designs and winners of five international landscaping awards, host the nation’s longest running landscape architectural radio show which currently airs on KSEV AM 700 on Saturday mornings from 6-8 and Sunday mornings on KPRC 950 from 8-10, both out of Houston.  They discuss all aspects of outdoor design and living including our favorite subject – outdoor cooking.

The grilling discussion doesn’t start until about the 2:13 mark.  Until then you can enjoy some good country music, or you can fast forward to the start of the audio clip with the corresponding pictures.

Link to the Clip with Picture by Picture Instructions of the Processes as I explain them

Keep in mind that when we did the two posts below the notion of “high heat” smoking was something of a fad.  Now it’s much more mainstream albeit a bit misnamed.  High heat means around 275-325.  That’s really more of a medium heat to medium low.

Here is the link to the step by step, pic by pic writeup of the pulled pork discussed in that clip, including video of smacking the meat in the ziplock bag.

Here’s the link to the brisket done in that clip and here’s a clip to another brisket recipe.

You can follow the Grillin Fools on our Facebook page and post your own grillin pictures and share what you are doing on the grill.

Better late than never with this one.  This interview aired on a radio show in the Houston area called Your Livable Garden on 3/25/2010.  Michael Shawn Kelly and Blinda Ann Kelly, owners of Mirror Lake Designs and winners of five international landscaping awards, host the nation’s longest running landscape architectural radio show which currently airs on KSEV AM 700 on Saturday mornings from 6-8 and Sunday mornings on KPRC 950 from 8-10, both out of Houston.  They discuss all aspects of outdoor design and living including our favorite subject – outdoor cooking.

In the clip below I discuss grilling seafood:

Click here to see step by step, picture by picture, instructions on how to grill lobster tails, and here for crab legs.  Click here for the seafood delight I mentioned in the clip.

For other seafood recipes done by the Grillin Fools, click here.

You can follow us on the Grillin Fools Facebook Page where you can post your own grillin pictures.

In May the good folks at Charbroil sent the Grillin Fools two grills from their new product line to review.  The new CB940X and the Big Easy Smoker, Roaster and Grill which I will call the BESRG from here on out.  Dad will be doing the review on the CB940X soon.  Below you will find my review of the BESRG after running it through quite a few cookouts in order to give it a thorough testing…

For the sake of full disclosure we did not have to pay for these grills other than the taxes we will have to pay for them at the end of the year.  That being said we were also told we could say anything we want to about them as long as we are honest.  As you will see below, I will do exactly that.

Truth be told, when I used this grill the first two times I was not at all happy with it.  I had planned on not writing a review as I just didn’t have anything positive to say.  What’s the old adage?  If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say it.  So I sent an email to my contact at Charbroil explaining my reservations in very specific detail wondering if I had ruined the relationship with them.  He listened to my concerns and offered a few suggestions.  Of course I didn’t quit playing with the new toy after two cookouts so I took his tips and gave it a couple more tries.  Since the first two cookouts I have been nothing but impressed and have come to find out that my first two horrible grill sessions were from user error and not the grill.  I’ve never owned a gas grill or an infrared grill (this being both) and there is some adjustments that needed to be made on my part.

Once I got a handle on what it can and can’t do as well as make it through the learning curve of what it means to use an infrared grill I have been able to make some seriously great food on it.

A little about infrared grilling.  Originally infrared grilling was achieved by having propane or natural gas heat up a stainless steel or ceramic surface with millions of microscopic holes to create infrared heat.  What happens with this grill is that the flame is isolated from the food by stainless steel  to stop air flow (convection) and thus produces only radiant heat which cooks the meat directly rather than heating the air to cook the meat.  The resulting heat can reach incredible levels.  Infrared temperatures can get as high as 900 degrees although this grill has a max of only 575.  Only?  Seems crazy to say just under 600 degrees is low, but in terms of infrared it is a bit more than us Grillin Fools will ever need.

So why is this so important?

1) Conventional cooking on grills, both gas and charcoal, use convection, or hot air, to do the cooking which wicks the moisture away from the meat that will eventually dry the meat out.  Infrared cooks the meat directly without the drying hot air.

2) No need to preheat, unless you are smoking in which case you need to preheat to get the wood to start to smolder, thus you save time.

3) The temperatures range of the BESRG, and the way infrared heats the meat and not the air, allows for a similar effects to deep frying.  In other words, you can deep fry a turkey or chicken without oil and thus not risk burning down the deck of having an oil explosion.  And with no preheating you save the time it takes getting the oil up to temp.

That is how this grill came about.  It was originally an oil-less turkey fryer that Charbroil decided to make more versatile.

4) With any gas grill, temperature control is much easier than with charcoal.  You set it and forget it.

Now, on to the review.  Before I get into the things I have cooked on it which include two steaks (at two different times which is significant and I will explain later), two chickens, maple plank salmon, two different pizzas, crostinis, ribs twice, and a 9 pound turkey, let me get to the assembly.

You could say this thing has the same birthday as my second son.  My son was born on the morning of May 28th, 2010.  That night, while momma and baby were resting comfortably in the hospital, my 2 year old and I put the grill together.  I was able to put the BESRG together in a little over an hour.  I probably could’ve done it in 45 minutes had my first son not been so “helpful.”  I wish I could find the memory chip that had the pictures of the assembly process.  My son sitting in the lid is priceless.  If I find the chip I will update the pictures.

I was a little leery putting together a gas grill as I’d never done that before but the instructions were very easy to follow and I had no issues whatsoever with the assembly process.  Same can be said for the CB940X but that’s for another review.

After I assembled it I followed the instructions and coated the entire inside of the unit with spray oil as well as the basket and the stainless steel grill grate and cranked it up to high to season it.  I recommend this with any new grill you buy, whether charcoal or gas.  You want to burn off all the oils and lubricants used in the manufacturing process as well as seal the surfaces on the inside of the grill to prevent the inside from rusting.

I actually coated it twice with oil before I put on a big fat bone in rib eye.  I thought my favorite steak cut was perfect for the inaugural cook.  I cranked it up to high and got 575 degrees on my little oven thermometer.  I couldn’t wait.  I figured I would get a nice sear in less than 30 seconds.  The sear that you see on a perfectly done steak is very important to create a flavor crust.  Some say that it’s to seal the juices in, but Alton Brown proved that to be a myth.  Still, the sear is very important for flavor.

Here’s where I ran into my first problem.  Normally when I do a steak over charcoal I get those sear marks after 60-90 seconds.  Then I rotate 45 degrees and get my cross hatch grill marks and flip and repeat.  Max time on each side is 2-3 minutes and my steak is really rare and only needs a couple minutes baking to be perfect for my taste.  At 575 degrees It took three minutes to get the first set of grill marks.  Then another thee to get the other and that’s just on one side.  So that was six minutes on one side and 12 minutes total just getting the sear.  Good by rare and hello medium before I’m even done searing the steak.  This is another pic on the missing chip.  The steak was tender, juicy, and delicious, but I prefer my steaks rare or medium rare at the most.

If you like a rare or medium rare steak you’re thinking that there is no way you would buy one of these.  That would be faulty logic because I made a mistake.  See, while I “seasoned” the grill and the grill grate I really only cooked off the bad chemicals and made the silver grill grate a little less silver.  The clean grill grate didn’t transfer the heat to the meat well.

The problem was that I didn’t do enough seasoning, not the grill.  After I cooked a few more things on the grill and really seasoned the grill grate was black rather than a little off-silver as it was when I did the first steak.  Here is the well seasoned grill grate ready for my second steak:

In the second go round I got grill marks in less than 60 seconds on this sirloin:

I didn’t want to risk overcooking another expensive cut so I went with the much cheaper, yet still delicious, sirloin.  Rather than 6 minutes per side I had my 2 minutes per side, dropped the temp to low, baked for another couple of minutes and I was giddy with the results.  Tender, juicy, delicious and red all the way through, just like I like it.

On to cookout #2.  I decided to smoke a couple of chickens.  I took two good size birds and marinaded each of them – one in the Walkerwood Jerk Marinade and one in Peach and Pepper sauce, both of which can be purchased at Saucehut.com, and I highly recommend both.  After 12 hours in the marinade I put them in the big basket:

I filled the smoker box with wood chips and cranked the heat up to high to get the smoke going based on the documentation and then dropped the heat setting down to low once the smoke started rolling.  Then I put the basket with the birds in the chamber:

Much to my dismay the low temp was only 375:

Hard to take your time and smoke some chickens at that temp.  It’s even harder when the tiny smoker box that I filled with chips, that was supposed to give off 45 minutes of smoke, according to the documentation, stopped making smoke after 15 minutes.  In order to add more chips you have to empty the ash from the box which requires taking the basket with the two birds out, empty, refill (all while not burning yourself on the 400 degree metal), crank the heat back up to 575 to get them to smoke and then drop down to low and put the birds back in.

Rather than risk burning myself or dropping the birds I opted for no smoke.  And it was good that I didn’t risk injury as two hours of smoke wouldn’t have saved these birds.  The skin split on them in less than 30 minutes:

In less than an hour I had some really rubbery chicken.

Again, not a ringing endorsement of this grill, right?  Didn’t I say that I really liked this grill?  I did.  And again I made a mistake, not the grill.  Evidently two things to avoid when cooking in the chamber are liquids on the outside of the meat and sugary rubs.  The liquid marinades that coated the outside of the chickens somehow messes up the cooking process resulting in rubbery, chewy chicken.  I don’t know the science behind it but this is a no-no.  And sugars blacken quickly because of the high temps.  Although the latter isn’t always bad.

On the 4th of July I brined a 9 pound turkey in a combination of apple juice, sprite, water, salt and sugar.  A lot of sugar.  And while I rinsed the bird off thoroughly, patted it dry and only applied a rub of granulated garlic, it blackened pretty good.  I put it in the chamber legs down and breast up:

I turned it on to high and closed the lid for the first 30 minutes as I read doing so really makes the skin brown and crispy.

Well, after 30 minutes I opened the lid and was wondering if White Castle was open on the 4th and how many I needed to feed eight because it was blackening quickly.  I put foil over the top of the turkey to try to slow down the blackening which didn’t help as it’s not going to shield the infrared energy the way it would hot air from a charcoal grill.

After 30 minutes of the foil I pulled the foil off and drizzled olive oil in it every 10 minutes for the next 30 minutes.  The rule of thumb is 10 minutes per pound.  I pulled it exactly at 90 minutes when the temp in the thickest part of the thigh reached 167.  I took it in to carve and had very low expectations.

After letting it rest for 15 minutes, and suffering from the disappointed looks from my friends and family, I carved it.  While carving I sampled a little chef’s prerogative.  It wasn’t dry.  It wasn’t rubbery.  It wasn’t horrible.  In fact it was one of the best turkeys I have ever eaten.  The skin was blackened but by no means burnt.  It wasn’t visually appealing but it was incredibly moist and flavorful.  Even the blackest of the black skin was delicious.  I almost don’t want to post this picture because I’m going to have too many people thinking I’m fibbing on this one.  Some of you won’t believe me that this turkey was delicious but I can produce seven other people that will testify that it was.  But here’s the pic anyway:

I know.  Looks horrendous but it was great.  And here it is resting:

And carved:

I tell you, I got nothing but raves about a bird that looked like that.  I can’t wait to do another one without the sugars in the brine.  I’ll update this post when I do.

The lesson, if you brine, avoid any sugars.  Go with water, salt, and flavorizers that are not sugary like garlic and onions.

So why do I tell you all of this?  Why show the bad pictures and discuss the mistakes?  I do this so you don’t repeat those mistakes.  So you don’t overcook a big steak or make rubbery chicken.  So your learning curve on an infrared grill is faster than mine.  That’s what we have been doing on this site for more than two years.  Our entire goal is to take the 80+ combined years of grilling experience the three Grillin Fools have and help those who come to this site avoid the  thousands upon thousands of mistakes we have made over the years.

So let’s get to some fun stuff I did on the grill and much better pictures.  Let’s talk about all the successes I had since my first two failures.

Maple plank salmon.  I took a salmon steak, slathered it with dijon mustard, sprinkled with brown sugar and placed it on a maple plank I soaked in water for about 60 minutes.  This is a very simple recipe and my go to salmon dish.  I set the temp to low and placed the plank with the salmon on the grill.  The other filet of fish on there is some bassa for my wife who likes lighter, white fishes:

The temp was perfect to smolder the wood without scorching or charring it which invariably happens when I plank cook over charcoal.  It was almost as if the BESRG was designed plank grilling in mind.  The salmon was perfectly cooked and really picked up the sweetness of the maple which perfectly compliments the brown sugar in the recipe:

The grill does amazing things with bread.  I did crostinis along with the maple plank salmon and they came out wonderfully, although you have to be careful in that crostinis are usually done with two zone cooking – toast the bread on each side on the side with the heat and then pull to the side with no heat, cover with cheese, and close the lid to melt the cheese.  There is no cool zone here.  So very lightly toast on the bottom:

Flip to toast the top, flip back over, cover with cheese (in this case Havarti):

Close the lid to melt the and finish toasting the bottom:

I have grilled two pizzas on the BESRG, both using a store bought Boboli crust.  Some will scoff at that, but I’ve got a toddler and a new born, I need to save time.  First I set the grill to high grilled the red onions and yellow peppers to get a little char:

I assembled my pizza with slices of fresh mozzarella and grated asiago:

I set it to low, place the prepped pizza on the grill grate and it cooked like it was on a baking or pizza stone without the stone in about 12 minutes:

Really incredible.  The crust had a crunchiness that I can only get with a pizza stone, but there was no stone.  And the second time I did it I got cross hatch grill marks on the bottom of the crust:

Only my fellow grillin nerds will appreciate that!!

For this second one, I added some smoke wood to the bottom in foil and  gave it some great hickory smoke flavor.

And probably the coolest thing I did on the BESRG was Rendezvous Ribs which need to be cooked between 300-350 for 30 minutes on each side with frequent mop bastings.  I know cooking ribs in an hour sounds nuts to a lot of you, but I highly recommend you try it.  They were incredible:

As you know I’m not going to blow smoke up your butt (pun intended) and say this thing is the worlds greatest grill.  I’ve done some things well on it, but it also has some issues I don’t like:

1) No thermometer.  I have to use a portable oven thermometer.  While one of the benefits of a gas grill is it’s easy to regulate temps, it would be nice to know what those temps are.

2) The smoker box is poorly designed.  15 minutes of smoke is not enough.  But I have a solution that is very easy and cheap.  Aluminum foil pans full of wood chips on the bottom produce well over an hour of smoke:

Hell, the pans are easier than dealing with the box.  When I’m done with them I pitch the pans for easy clean up rather than shake out the ash of a little box into the trashcan:

3) I don’t like the low temp is not all that low at 375.  I would love it if this thing could go down to 225.  Sure, I do most of my formerly low and slow recipes at 275-325 these days and make great stuff in less time but it doesn’t mean I don’t want the option to do low and slow, particularly with a grill that I can set and forget because it’s gas.

I think I might have to rethink the above criticism.  I did some pretty incredible pulled pork at 375 after writing this review.  Here’s the write up of the full process on how I made pulled pork in this bad boy.

4) Size of the grill. I wish it were bigger.  It only has a 15 inch grill surface, which I was wish was larger, but where it makes up for that is that it also has a 16 inch deep chamber.  The size of this thing will be perfect for a lot of folks.  It will fit on the smallest apartment balcony.  I would prefer it be larger, but I know the size will actually appeal to a lot of people, particularly with the deep chamber that can accommodate up to three chickens or a 24 pound turkey.    Think about that!  Most turkeys done on Thanksgiving are less than 24 pounds.  At 10 minutes a pound, you can have a deep fried turkey without the oil in four hours.  Free up the oven for the yams and rolls and do the turkey outside.  Do it one time and you will never go back.  It’s also pretty portable.  I fit the grill in the back of my Ford Escape with no problem.  I had to lean it to the side, but it fit fine and is fairly light, which would make it a really nice traveling grill too.

So all in all, if you avoid the mistakes I made, this is a really nice grill.  It makes a mean steak, awesome deep fried turkey without the oil, and is perfect for plank grilling.  If you can avoid putting sugars or liquids on birds before putting them inside the chamber, like I did, you will be fine.  Oh, and make sure that grill grate is good and seasoned before you hit it with a nice steak.

My concerns for this are pretty minor.  Considering the low cost (reduced to $129 at Lowe’s), and its versatility, I’m finding myself using this thing more and more.  I plan on trying a small pork butt on it soon and see if I can pull off pulled pork at 375 degrees.  I know, I know.  Some of you are saying I’m nuts but I think it can be done.  I will update this post when I do it this weekend or next.  Since I started writing this review, I did Rendezvous ribs on it again for Dad over the weekend as well as tried to do the Rendezvous method on my charcoal grill.  The ribs from the BESRG were amazing.  The ones from the charcoal grill weren’t so good.  It’s VERY difficult to maintain a constant temp of 300-350 on a charcoal grill.  I had temps from 200-400 throughout the process and tons of flareups causing the ribs to be tough.

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I tend to take a break from grilling from about mid November to mid January.  It’s not because it’s too cold.  I like grilling in the cold more than the oppressive heat of the St. Louis summers.  It’s because all the holiday stuff going on that time of the year that I don’t get much time to grill.  Why am I telling you all of this?  Because usually the first thing I grill in mid January is jerk ribs with Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning.

It’s probably my all time favorite thing to use to flavor something on the grill.  I have done it on both chicken and pork with ribs being my favorite.  Here’s a recipe where I did racks of ribs that I marinaded in Walkerswood and slathered it on before I smoked them with peach wood. How do those look:

Walkerswood is the perfect combination of heat and flavor in my mind.  A lot of jerk seasonings lean too far to one side or the other.  Either lots of great flavor but not a lot of heat or so much heat I can’t taste the amazing flavors.

I will give you a bit of warning about this amazing marinade.  When you first open the jar it is not at its hottest. Leave a half empty jar in the fridge for a couple months and it will be twice as hot as the newly opened jar.  I don’t know the science behind it, but it seems like it continues to ferment or something once it gets some air in the jar and in doing so it gets much hotter.  Don’t worry.  Cut it with some olive oil and get the same great balance of heat and flavor when you opened it the first time and the jar will last that much longer.  And when you do open it the first time I highly recommend placing the open jar under your nose and taking a deep breath.  The smell is absolutely amazing.

Walkerswood is not the easiest to find.  I used to get it at the local World Market but they stopped carrying it.  Our friends at Saucehut.com carry it for $7 for a 10 ounce jar.  That’s a pretty good price considering how a little of this stuff goes a long way.

So if you love the spicy food but also like to taste the flavors, I highly recommend Walkerswood Jerk Seasoning.

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email.

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No Mexican food this time, but I got a packaged corned beef brisket (in a brine) at the market. I didn’t know what to do with this piece of meat, so I went online to see what I can do. Lo and behold, I was searching GrillinFools.com and came across a few corned beef brisket recipes. I found that Tom, Scott and Greg have cooked up a corned beef for a St. Patty’s Day trifecta earlier this year. As I went through all the recipes, Scott had the most traditional recipe. For me, the traditional recipe is something I always want to try for any first attempt. In the recipe, Scott mentioned that corned beef brisket is not typically smoked and that smoking it is actually pastrami. I got very excited because pastrami is one of my favorite lunch meats. Scott went on to do a modified corned beef. However, I intend to go all the way with the pastrami.

Inside the package, the brisket had a brine solution and a seasoning pack. This was great because most of the work was already done for me. I tossed away the seasoning, who knows what that stuff tastes like.

Notice this isn’t the whole brisket, this is just the point half of it. The other part of the brisket is the flat.  Any of these cuts or the whole brisket can be used in this recipe. As you can see, it has quite a bit of fat on one side, and generally, the other side is well trimmed:

The first task was to use Scott’s method of soaking the brisket.  To leach the salt out submerse it in water.  Change the water one time for every pound of meat plus one change of the water.

Again, you can see how grey the beef looks when it is done soaking:

The second task is to make the pastrami rub. This rub is almost basic.  I say almost because all you really need is black pepper and ground coriander. I found this rub recipe on a website and I simplified it further:

4 Tbsp coarse ground black pepper
2 Tbsp ground coriander
1 Tbsp granulated garlic
1 Tsp paprika
1 Tsp onion powder
½ Tsp thyme

Mix all the ingredients together and rub it on the brisket:

While the corned beef sits at room temperature, I fire up the grill manufacturer that shall not be named. I fill my smoker accessory with water, charcoal and two types of wood – pecan and cherry:

After about 10 minutes the temperature is in the range I like:

The corned beef brisket is put on the grill and it’s ready to absorb a lot of smoke:

I want to point out that I forgot to put a drip pan underneath the brisket. I didn’t notice this until it was almost done. It was quite messy and the most critical thing was that my bottom air vents were getting clogged. This made air control a little more difficult.

After an hour in the smoke, the soon to be pastrami is cruising along at 230 degrees despite the semi clogged vents:

You can see some spots are starting to blacken a little bit:

At the 2 hour mark, I inserted the digital temp gauge in the pastrami. I want to get the internal temperature up to 160 degrees because I’m going put it in the fridge overnight and serve it for lunch the next day:

After a total time of 5.5 hours, the internal temp hit 160 degrees. The pastrami has a wonderfully exterior dark crust and it smells so good:

I put off temptation to start eating and sealed the pan with a foil sheet:

Into the fridge the pastrami went. My brother and my folks were coming over for a BBQ the next day.  They were getting here early enough for lunch. I was hoping they would get a kick out of having some homemade pastrami. We all love pastrami because we grew up eating pastrami sandwiches at a Southern California chain restaurant called “The Hat”. We’re a long ways from SoCal now, but I’m attempting to create some nostalgia on the grill.

***Editor’s note ~ For those not serving it the next day, let the pastrami rest for a good 15-20 minutes before slicing***

Finally, the next day arrives. One hour before lunch would be served, I fire up the tamale steam pot. About 5 minutes later, I place the pastrami in the steamer. By using the steam pot I am further breaking down the connective tissue in the meat and adding moisture to the cooking process. As a result, the pastrami will be very moist and juicy:

The same result can be achieved in the microwave if you wrap the pastrami in wet paper towels. In addition, this process is great for leftovers.

About 45 minutes in the steam pot on high heat is sufficient. At this point the steam is carrying the aroma throughout my house, it’s amazing!

I started to slice the pastrami into sandwich size portions:

The Hat serves their pastrami in thin slices. Unfortunately, I don’t have a meat slicer or a knife that can get the job done. Instead, I sliced thick chucks because my sandwiches must have lots of meat. In traditional Hat fashion, the sandwich is served on bread with mustard and pickles:

When I asked my Mom if my pastrami reminded her of “The Hat” she said, “Not really”. Oh well, *sigh*, she ate all of her pastrami sandwich…that has to say something:

In my successful attempt at pastrami, I will make a few changes next time:

1) Trim the fat cap to a very thin layer of fat. It didn’t quite melt away as much as I hoped.

2) Put a drip pan under the meat!

3) Try it without the steam (just curious)

4) Stop trying to get my parents approval.

If you have any questions or comments, simply leave a comment below or shoot me an e-mail and I’ll pass it along to Arthur.

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Tamales, Campfire Fish Tacos, Grilled Guacamole, now carne asada? Is there a pattern here or is it just innate skills at work? No matter, in between all the burgers, pork steaks and rib eyes, I indulge myself (and my wife) with authentic Mexican cuisine on the grill. I was inspired to make my own when I just couldn’t find a place in town that makes good carne asada.

It starts with the steak, most restaurants use thin sliced flank steak. Flank is a good steak, it’s easy to find, but it is a tough piece of meat. The perfect steak for carne asada is skirt steak. This is a tough piece of meat too, but it can become very tender if grilled right. Skirt steak is really difficult to find, it’s not going to be in your typical grocery store unless you live in a Latin community. In fact, I found mine while I was buying ingredients for my tamales at the Mexican grocery store. I just asked for it and the cashier asked me “how much do you need?”  They sold it for $5/lb, while just a couple of days before, my butcher told me he could get me some for $10/lb. I took 2 lbs, but I should have asked for more. The skirt steak looked very fresh and it had a nice marbled appearance.

Because of a few nights of inclement weather, the skirt steak had to sit in the freezer for a week. When it thawed in fridge for a couple of days, it suffered some oxidation and started to turn brown around the edges. I recommend using it immediately since it’s a very thin piece of meat. Just to be sure, it still smelled fresh and the steak didn’t feel tacky, a clear indication of spoiled beef. By the way, look at that marbling!

Feel free to trim off the fat and just to clean it up a little. However, to me, you’re just taking away the flavor.

This would be my first time making carne asada and it won’t be my last because it came out very tasty. I’ll show you how I prepared mine, and then I’ll show you how great they came out on the grill.

I begin with a spicy citrus marinade.

Marinade Ingredients:

4 Oranges
2 Limes
2 Serrano peppers sliced
1 Jalapeno pepper sliced
1 Cup of sliced onions
½ Cup of cilantro
2 TBSP of minced garlic
1 Beer
2 LBs of skirt steak

First, slice the oranges and limes in half:

Here is the juice I squeezed from the fruit, hmmmmm….it doesn’t look like enough. I might have to improvise:

Add the sliced onion and cilantro to the juice:

Add the jalapeños and the serrano peppers to the marinade:

Add the garlic too:

This marinade definitely needs more liquids, but I’m all out of juice.

Beer saves the day. I bypassed the flavor challenged Bud Light for the unfiltered wheat pale ale craft brew. This turned out to be a great marinade:

***Editor’s note ~ This marinade being diluted with beer may have saved the dish.  Too much concentrated citrus will cook meat with the acid from in the juice.  I would not recommend upping the citrus in this and skipping the beer as you may pull well done meat out of the ziplock before it ever hits the grill.***

Pour the marinade and add the skirt steak into a one gallon or bigger storage bag. Take out all the air and seal it tight:

Marinate the steak for a few hours in the fridge. I let mine marinate over night. This is going to have some intense flavor!

The day of the cook, my family and I spent the day in Grafton, IL. We did a bit of trolling around in hot humid conditions. We ate lunch at one of our favorite restaurants, Mississippi Half Step. The fried catfish sandwich is good and enormous there! The day ended after cruising along the sparkling river and riding the ferry back to St. Charles. The ferry ride was a bonus, we had to take the extended route because of the low river. The boys loved it, we all did:

After our day trip across the river, we headed back home and started our evening meal. To grill the carne asada, I prepared the grill manufacturer that shall not be named for direct grilling. I filled my charcoal starter up with charcoal:

Unquestionably, I always opt for the charcoal starter. I never use lighter fluid. My poor wife recently had a company picnic where they had grilled hamburgers. She said her veggie burger was ruined because the cooker used large amounts of lighter fluid. Yes, you really can taste the difference.

Moreover, I used red oak chunks for more flavor. Mesquite wood is also a great substitute:

Around this time I noticed a few drops of rain falling down. Rain doesn’t really bother me, I’m committed to the task at hand. Unless there was lightning or severe thunderstorms, I can work through it. While the coals got hot, I prepared the meat. I pulled out a few items.

Fajita seasoning
Salsa
Corn tortillas
Avocados

The skirt steak is now ready to be rubbed down. It didn’t need it, but I wanted to try out the new fajita seasoning I just bought. If you don’t have a rub, just use salt and pepper to season. When I took out the steak from the marinade, it had a citrus and cilantro aroma scent. It smelled delicious. Next, I laid them flat on the table and applied the rub on the steak to both sides:

When I was done with that, I check on the coals which were glowing orange and the rain was coming down a little harder. So I banked the charcoal to one side and now it’s ready to go:

Hoping for a quick grill, I threw the steaks on. And just when I thought I could finish before it rained harder, I was caught outside in a thunder storm:

I didn’t mind, it was a relief from being out in near 100 degree weather earlier. The coals were so hot, the rain evaporated on the lid of the grill manufacturer that shall not be named. During this time, I was unable to take decent pictures, but here is one after about 5 minutes on one side just before I flipped it:

After a few minutes on the other side, I put them on the opposite end with no coals.  I placed them on piece of foil that was cooking onions. Skirt steak is best cooked well done, it has become a very tender piece of meat:

Just as when the rain was starting to let up, the carne asada was done. Let it rest for a minute:

Carne asada is a versatile dish. It can be served as is, but I felt like making them into tacos this evening. First I cut the steak into thin strips. Conventional wisdom is to slice it against the grain, but I sliced it with the grain. I took one bite and the steak was so tender it tore off easily. Against or with the grain is up to you:

Second, put some carne asada on a couple of heated stacked corn tortillas. Two tortillas give the taco more strength so it doesn’t fall apart during the final step. Third, add some grilled onion, sliced avocado and top it with salsa:

Final step, it’s time to enjoy the best taco I ever had:

I’m definitely doing these again. Next time, I’ll marinade the skirt steak using dried chile’s or make some carne asada fries or make more tacos! So many possibilities…

***Editor’s note ~ Awesome job as usual Arthur.  Keep up the great work.***

If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below or shoot me an email and I will forward it on to Arthur.

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