Now, of course we will be cooking outside, and in honor of this, below is a great recipe for Beef Ribs, and Herb Crusted Potatoes.

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BBQ Beef Ribs
1/4 cup brown mustard
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbs lemon juice
HomeBBQ.com Beef Rub
4 to 6 lbs beef ribs

Mix all ingredients in a non-reactive bowl. Liberally coat ribs with the wet rub mixture. Let marinate for a minimum of 4 hours (best overnight). Place in smoker (or indirect on grill) at 240 degrees for approximately 2 hours. Wrap in aluminum foil and cook for an additional 1 hour or until ribs are tender.

Herb Crusted Baked Potatoes
12 Yukon gold Potatoes (wash but do not peel)
1 cup EVOO
Herb Mix
2 tablespoons ground sage
2 tablespoons granulated garlic
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons kosher salt
2 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
2 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons paprika
rub EVOO over potatoes, then roll them in the herb mixture. Cook in smoker (or grill indirect) at about 350 until soft (approximately 1 to 1 1/2 hours)

From the Store: Go Home first

When shopping, buy cold food like meat and poultry last, just before your ready to checkout.  Separate meat and poultry from other food in your shopping cart. To prevent cross-contamination (this can happen when raw meat or poultry juices drip on other food), put packages of raw meat and poultry into plastic bags.

Load meat and poultry into the coolest part of your vehicle, and take your groceries straight home. If your drive is more than 30-minutes away, bring a cooler with ice and place perishable food in it for the trip.

When you get home, place meat and poultry in the refrigerator immediately. Freeze poultry and ground meat that won’t be used in 1 or 2 days; freeze other meat within 4 to 5 days.

Defrost Safely

Completely defrost meat and poultry before grilling or placing in the smoker, so it cooks more evenly. Use the refrigerator for slow, safe thawing or thaw sealed packages in cold water (water should changed every 30 minutes). You can use the microwave to defrost, if the food will be cooked immediately.

Marinating

Meat and poultry can be marinated for several hours or days to tenderize or add flavor. Marinate food in the refrigerator, or on ice in a cooler, not on a counter. If some of the marinade is to be used as a sauce on the cooked food, reserve a portion of the marinade before putting raw meat and poultry in it. However, if the marinade used on raw meat or poultry is to be reused, make sure to let it come to a boil first to destroy any harmful bacteria.

Transporting

When carrying food to another location, keep it cold to minimize bacterial growth. Use an insulated cooler with sufficient ice or ice packs to keep the food at 40 °F or below. Pack food right from the refrigerator into the cooler immediately before leaving home. Keep the cooler in the coolest part of the car.

Keep Cold Food Cold

Keep meat and poultry refrigerated until ready to use. Only take out the meat and poultry that will immediately be placed on the grill.

When using a cooler, keep it out of the direct sun by placing it in the shade or shelter. Avoid opening the lid Pokies too Pokies often, which lets cold air out and warm air in. Pack beverages in one cooler and perishables in a separate cooler.

Keep Everything Clean

Be sure there are plenty of clean utensils and platters. To prevent food borne illness, don’t use the same platter and utensils for raw and cooked meat and poultry. Harmful bacteria present in raw meat and poultry and their juices can contaminate safely cooked food.

If you’re eating away from home, find out if there’s a source of clean water. If not, bring water for preparation and cleaning. Or pack clean cloths, and wet towelettes for cleaning surfaces and hands.

Cook Thoroughly

Cook food to a safe internal temperature to destroy harmful bacteria. Meat and poultry cooked on a grill often browns very fast on the outside. Use a food thermometer to be sure the food has reached a safe internal temperature. Whole poultry should reach 165 °F; breasts, 165 °F. Hamburgers made of ground beef should reach 160 °F; ground poultry, 165 °F. Beef, veal, and lamb steaks, roasts and chops can be cooked to 145 °F. All cuts of pork should reach 160 °F.

NEVER partially grill meat or poultry and finish cooking later.

Reheating

When reheating fully cooked meats on the grill, heat to 165 °F .

Keep Hot Food Hot

After cooking meat and poultry on the grill; keep it hot until served – at 140 °F or warmer.

Keep cooked meats hot by setting them to the side of the grill rack, not directly over the coals where they could overcook. At home, the cooked meat can be kept hot in a warm oven (approximately 200 °F), in a chafing dish or slow cooker, or on a warming tray.

Serving the Food

When taking food off the grill, use a clean platter. Don’t put cooked food on the same platter that held raw meat or poultry. Any harmful bacteria present in the raw meat juices could contaminate safely cooked food. In hot weather (90 °F and above), food should never sit out for more than 1 hour.

Leftovers

refrigerate any leftovers promptly in shallow containers. Discard any food left out more than 2 hours (1 hour if temperatures are above 90 °F).

Wash Hands Frequently

When handling food, it is very important to wash your hands frequently, after almost any task. When in doubt, wash your hands.

If you follow, and stick to the above guidelines you will keep your guests safe, from Food Borne Illness.

For more in depth food handling information, please visit the USDA website, here is a direct link to Food Handling Guidelines; http://www.fsis.usda.gov/factsheets/basics_for_handling_food_safely/index.asp

The most notable statistics, to me were as follows;

*More than 15,000,000 grills shipped in 2010, a staggering figure, but gas grills held 57% of sales, while Charcoal had 41%, while electric barely chimed in with 2%.

*82% of North American households own a grill or smoker.

*The majority of grill owners use their grills year round, this was 56%

*The meats that ”.

The most notable statistics, to me were as follows;

*More than 15,000,000 grills shipped in 2010, a staggering figure, but gas grills held 57% of sales, while Charcoal had 41%, while electric barely chimed in with 2%.

*82% of North American households own a grill or smoker.

*The majority of grill owners use their grills year round, this was 56%

*The meats that were said to be cooked (we have some work to do here), burgers a whopping 85%, steak 80%, hot dogs 79%, followed by chicken at 73%. What about ribs? They came in at 53%, and no statistics reported for boston butt, or beef brisket.

* The last, and most notable one for me was, Dry Rub usage was up to 44% from 36% 2 years earlier (this means a crusade for dry rub usage needs to be launched!).

In all seriousness, this is some great information provided by HPBA, and this was just the highlights. You can see the full report by going here: http://www.hpba.org/media/barbecue-industry/2011-state-of-the-barbecue-industry-report

When learning to cook barbecue, the one thing that everyone seems to learn quickly is to use wood, such as wood chips or wood chunks, or wood pellets, to give your barbecue a smoky flavor. What is not learned quickly enough is how much to use and most use too much, creating an over smoked, bitter piece of meat that is not very pleasant to eat.

Wood flavoring has to be considered similarly to a spice.

If you put salt on something, you are careful to add small amounts and taste, until you come up with just the right amount. The same thing applies to smoke flavor, start with a small amount of wood chips, or a wood chunk, and work your way up. You will find out real quick that people have much different opinions to yours, on how much smoke flavor should be there, so starting with a small amount is the best advice to give.

Chips, Chunks, Sticks, or pellets

If you’re trying to figure this out, then my guess is you’re cooking with charcoal and wanting to flavor with wood. However, I will go over the uses for all 4.

Chips – Wood chips are often purchased, and used handfuls at a time. I really don’t recommend using them for cooking barbecue. The reason is they burn way to fast, before getting any real benefit from them. The best use for wood chips is for adding smoke flavor while grilling, where you would add them to a tray, wrapped in foil, or directly over hot coals.

Chunks – If you’re cooking barbecue, and using charcoal as your heat source, then wood chunks would be my choice, and it should be yours also. Wood chunks are big enough to give smoke for a period of time, and if mixed into your charcoal, should last. One thing to make note of is, if you will be wrapping your meat at any point during the cook, I recommend adding chunks as you go, rather than mixing them into your charcoal. You don’t want to be wasting wood chunks, when your meat is wrapped in foil.

Sticks – Can also refer to split logs, so we can obviously be talking a wide range in size and thickness. If they are thin sticks, you can certainly use them like chunks in the smaller cookers. But if you have split logs, then you need to save these for when you are using a large cooker, fireplace, or camp fire. Do not attempt to use split logs in charcoal cookers. You will ruin your cooker, and over smoke your meat. Split logs need a large area for clean combustion.

Pellets – Pellets are mostly used as a fuel source in pellet cookers however, it is getting increasingly popular to use wood pellets in varying flavors, to flavor meats on charcoal cookers, and gas grills.

Types of Wood for Barbecue

The different types of wood can complicate your decision on what to use, we will go over a few here, but if you decide on a single type of wood to use on most of your meats, such as Oak or Hickory, you would be just fine.

Fruit Woods

Fruit woods have always been popular to use, and tend to be milder in flavor. The use of fruit woods is very regional in nature. Here is a brief list of fruit woods used and the best meats to use them with.

Apple – Is a mild, sweet, smoke which is exceptionally good on Poultry. It is versatile enough to be great on pork, and beef, you can’t go wrong with Apple.

Cherry – Is a popular wood as well, especially Wild Cherry wood. Like Apple, Cherry is very well suited for poultry, but in some areas it is just as popular to use with Beef. Cherry can also be used on all meats, but be careful, too much can make your meat very dark in color, especially when using wild cherry.

Peach – This is a southern favorite, a mild very sweet wood is extremely well suited for pork and poultry, although like the others so far, can work great on all meats.

Citrus – Orange is likely the most popular out of the citrus woods to use, but they all are very similar, and you would likely not be able to tell the difference. Citrus is a very light, mild wood, which is great on all meats.

Guava – Even though it is not real popular, I had to include this wood because I feel it deserves to be here. Like citrus, it is a mild smoke, very good with poultry, and it is versatile enough to use on all meats.

Nut Woods

Hickory – This is likely the favorite of this type of wood, and like the oak has several related varieties. Hickory is a bold pleasant flavored smoke which is best suited for pork, and beef, but can be used for poultry as well. If you know how to use it, you can also use it for all meats.

Oak – Even though hickory could be considered the favorite, oak is likely the most used, and this is mostly because of the vast varieties of oak, which makes it the most common based on availability. It is the most versatile, and even though you have mild varieties and not so mild varieties, it can be used for all meats. Oak is an excellent wood for direct grilling.

Pecan – A close cousin to the hickory tree, a little milder, and very popular in the Deep South. Pecan is a good wood for all meats.

Black Walnut – Not a favorite of mine, but it is considered a smoking wood.  It is a strong flavored smoke, and it is best suited, for thick cuts of beef, or pork.

Other Popular Hard Woods

Maple or Sugar Maple – This wood is close to hickory or pecan, but sweeter. It is very popular to use with bacon, and all cuts of pork. It can be used for all meats if desired.

Mesquite – This is a very popular wood, which was fortunate for ranchers in the southwest who consider this to be a weed. Mesquite is strong as a smoking wood, and should be used sparingly. However, I highly recommend Mesquite as a direct grilling wood, in my opinion the best for steaks.

Alder – This is a mild smoke for the most part, and as a result is used a lot for smoking fish. It can be used on all meats, and it is very popular in some areas, and is used as a base in some pellets. Alder does make a great direct grilling wood.

And by the way,by using the coupon code “april” (without quotes) at checkout, you can get 15% off at the HomeBBQ.com online Store (www.bbqstore.co), until the end of April.

HomeBBQ.com Fresh Ham Recipe

Ingredients:
7 to 10lb Fresh Ham (shank portion, if whole ham increase the amount of brine by 50%, and go to max brine time)
Extra Virgin Olive Oil
HomeBBQ.com World famous Rib Rub

Brine
8 quarts water
2 cups course kosher salt
1 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup HomeBBQ.com World Famous Rib Rub
Easiest way to prepare the brine is to heat the water, dissolve ingredients
and cool the brine before using it.

Glaze
1 cup honey
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1- 1/2 tablespoons Rib Rub

(mix until rib rub and brown sugar is dissolved)

This is a quick brine method.

The day before, score all sides of the ham, and place it into
the (cooled or cold) brine, submerged for min 4 and max 12 hours.
I find a 5 gallon bucket works best for this, you can then place
the bucket into a can cooler and surround the bucket with ice.

Remove the ham from the brine, and rinse thoroughly, and pat dry.

Coat ham thoroughly with extra virgin olive oil, then a liberal coat
of HomeBBQ.com World Famous Rub.

Heat smoker to 250 to 275 degrees, place the ham in the smoker, and cook to an internal
temp of 160 degrees. About 15 minutes before pulling from the smoker, coat
with glaze.

Let sit for a minimum of 10 minutes, slice and serve.

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But as usual, I felt this survey had some real interesting points to share, for those of us, that love outdoor cooking. The , has been one of the most popular brands of grills over the years, and this is their survey.

But as usual, I felt this survey had some real interesting points to share, for those of us, that love outdoor cooking. The first and most important point is they say we are using our grill more. Another notable point is we are spending more on our grills, meaning more features, and higher quality grills are starting to get the nod over lower quality grills, driving this statistic. But it is also important to note that 58% surveyed still preferred the taste of food cooked on a charcoal over food cooked on a gas (no surprise here). Maybe one of these years they will include some statistics including smokers.

If your interested in downloading the survey yourself, you can see the results of the survey here http://weber.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=43&item=154