Get ready for my first iPhone/iPod Touch application with BBQ and food in mind – EstiCalc!

EstiCalc is a simple, easy-to-use, yet very handy food calculation tool for the cook who wants to ensure there is enough food available for their guests.

With EstiCalc, you will be able to determine

how much meat is needed to feed a number of guests.  Whether you are cooking roasts, steaks, hot dogs or ribs; you can be sure to have enough meat to satisfy your hungry family and friends.

Use the “Per Lb. Calculator” for large cuts of meat that are typically sold by the pound such as, Chuck Roast, Pork Shoulder and Beef Brisket.  Use the “Per Piece Calculator” for meats and even sides that are sold by the package or rack such as ribs, hot dogs and hamburger patties.

You can even specify a price per pound or package for EstiCalc to give you the estimated cost of your meat purchase and the estimated cost per guest.

First the chicken.  I got some really nice breasts, really thick because I like to cut them in half so that I get twice the servings and they don’t have to cook so long to get done which reduces the drying factor.  After they are cut, I simply sprinkle them with salt and pepper, then wrap in my favorite bacon slices.  I do a combination of indirect grilling (the meat is not directly over the coals) and direct grilling (the meat is directly over the coals) to accomplish this cook.

I put the chicken on the grill for indirect cooking for 15-20 minutes.  The breasts have been cut in half so they are not very thick and it does not take long for them to cook.  After about 20 minutes I crisp up the bacon by putting the chicken directly over the coals.  This finishes the chicken and crisps up the bacon at the same time.  That’s all there is to it!

Now the Beef.  I went to the Indiana State Fair and tried all the hyped-up food items that were supposed to be the big thing – none of them lived up to the hype.  So, my wife and I were walking near the back of the fairway and I saw a little booth with a guy and his wife selling Cheesy Beef Sticks.  Well, I like beef and I like cheese so this had to at least salvage my disappointing experiences after all the hyped-up foods turned out to be failures!  So, I bought one and took a bite… I heard angels singing, music playing and my whole life began to come into perspective!  Well, that may be a bit much but, these things were fabulous!  So much so, that I bought about 6 of them.  Ok, that’s not what the doctor orders… but the doctor wasn’t ordering that night! lol!

Here is what I did to make mine which, are no where near as good as the guy at the fair but; never-the-less, very good!  I seasoned up some angus ground beef (any ground beef will do) with typical spices: Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Salt, Pepper, Cumin.  Then I rolled out some roughly 4 oz. meat balls and then mashed them flat.  I put some extra-sharp cheddar cheese in the middle then rolled them up into cheese-stuffed meat sticks.  I wrapped half of them in bacon because… well, you know how I love bacon!  Then I cooked these with the same method I cooked the chicken above.

It did not take long for these to cook because the meat is wrapped around the cheese and as the cheese heats up and steams it also cooks the beef from the inside out.  Here are the pictures…

Do yourself a favor… wrap something in bacon and grill it!

In most BBQ restaurants in the midwest east of Missouri and especially here in Indiana, beef brisket is served either sliced or chopped.  There is another way to enjoy brisket that is mostly known to our more southern brother and sisters – Burnt Ends!  Burnt Ends are quite possibly the tastiest morsels of BBQ you will ever eat and enjoy.  So, what are Burnt Ends?  I am so glad you asked.

First, here is a small lesson about the brisket and its parts.  You can buy a brisket whole; known as a “Packer”, or you can buy it in separate parts of which there are two; the “Point” and the “Flat”.  Below is a picture of a whole packer.  The left half of the brisket is the “point” which is distinguished by its rounded end.  The right half of the brisket is the “flat” which is distinguished by its flat end.  Again, you can buy these parts individually from you butcher in most cases.

For this post, we are interested in the “Point” – this is where the burnt ends are made from.  To make burnt ends from a whole packer you prepare your brisket as normal – low and slow!

Rub the brisket with your favorite dry rub, put it on a smoker to cook between 225 and 250 degrees over charcoal and smoke wood.  When the flat of the brisket reaches 185* internal temperature, the brisket is ready to separate the point from the flat.  Remove the brisket and run a knife along the line of fat between the two pieces.  This is very easy to find because the fat literally holds the two pieces together.  This may take some practice and maybe I will write about it sometime but right now I just want to get you through the basics.  Once you have separated the two pieces, wrap the flat in heavy duty foil and let it rest at least an hour before slicing and serving it.  The point on the other hand is to be cut into small cubes, coated with your dry rub and put back on the smoker for 2 to 2 1/2 more hours.  When they are done, they will be smokey, tasty bits of brisket known so lovingly as Burnt Ends!   Friends, there is no better eating!

I Like to drizzle my favorite sauce on them and serve them with potato salad or cole slaw – yum!  Here are a couple of pictures of some I did this past weekend.  They were so good!

Of course there is nothing like homemade BBQ that you make for yourself. No restaurant can come close to the quality, freshness and flavor of the fantastic BBQ that you make yourself. Ok, I said it twice two different ways… Don’t make me say it again!

Authentic BBQ is cooked low and slow over charcoal and smoke wood. But then there is the inevitable question: “what wood do I use with a particular type of meat?”.

Chicken

Let’s start with the most smoke absorbant meat there is, chicken. Chicken soaks up smoke like tossing a sponge into a swimming pool. As a result, you want to be careful not to oversmoke it or there will be a fairly bitter taste to your chicken.

Chicken is best cooked with mild woods like apple, cherry, alder, pecan and oak. These woods are mild and fairly forgiving to the flavor of the chicken if you use a little too much. My personal favorite chicken is apple wood. It has a mild smokey flavor that makes for a tasty piece of meat that your family and friends will rave about.

Pork Shoulder (Butt)/Pork Ribs

Some of the best BBQ you will ever eat is pulled pork. The meat is tender, juicy and very flavorful. With the right smoke wood, you will have all kinds of people trying to sink their teeth into your butt!

Like chicken, pork loves smoke; however, a pork butt is a pretty dense cut of meat. This makes smoke penetration more difficult deep into the center of the meat. Consequently, it’s very important to use smoke wood that will impart deep rich flavor into the cut.

Two options are available but only one is really viable in my opinion. First there is mesquite. This wood is very strong and flavorful but the concentration of it over a 12 to 20 hour smoke will likely leave the crust of the butt too smokey and bitter to be really enjoyed. This is why I use hickory for pork butts. Hickory imparts a deep rich flavor without making the meat bitter due to smoking it over long periods of time. If you want to soften the flavor even more, then use a 50/50 mix of hickory and apple or cherry.

Now, the smoke will penetrate deep into the pork butt if you stick to traditional low and slow cooking techniques. This means a temperature between 220-225 degrees until the butt reaches an internal temp of 195-200 degrees. Yes, this will take time, but your pork will be the best your guests have ever had!

Use the same smoke wood advice for your pork ribs whether they are spares or baby backs.  Your ribs will be to die for and you will probably not go out for ribs again!

Beef Brisket/Beef Ribs

Brisket is my favorite BBQ meat. I like it because of it’s amazing flavor and versatility.  Good brisket can be sliced, chopped and used in all kinds of dishes after the original cook.

I have tried my brisket several kinds of wood.  The fruit woods are too mild. Alder, oak, pecan… all too mild.  Beef needs a bold smokey flavor to make the meat tasty and enjoyable.  That’s why you need either mesquite or hickory.  To me, mesquite is best because of its sweet tartness and bold overall flavor.  Hickory will do just as well, but if you want that additional beefy bite use mesquite.  An option is to soften the smokey blow is to use a 50/50 mix with either apple or cherry wood with the hickory or mesquite.

Again, low and slow is crucial to good smoke penetration and ultimate BBQ flavor.  The brisket needs to smoke at 220 to 225 degrees until it reaches 185 to 195 degrees internally.  The beef will be tender, succulent and mouth-watering for your family and friends.

Use the same smoke wood advice for your beef ribs.  Beef ribs need that deep smokey flavor in order to be great ribs.  You cannot go wrong with mesquite or hickory here!

Conclusion

Well, these are my choices for smoke wood usage and I hope they will give you something to think about. Happy smoking!

I already had some boneless skinless thighs so I took them out of the freezer. I also bought some regular bone-in, skin-on thighs to add to the mix for good measure – and more food! I smoked the chicken indirect on my Chargriller Smokin’ Pro and using Kingsford regular charcoal briquettes. I got the chicken on the grill and threw on two chunks of grape wood.

The smoke that the grape wood produced was like apple wood; in fact, if I didn’t know any better I would have thought it was apple wood. It smelled so good though! So, in about 3 hours at about 250* to 275* and my chicken was done. I glazed it with some Weber Grill Restaurant Hot Hickory BBQ sauce and gave it a little direct heat to crisp up the skin on the pieces that had it. Ok, so I tasted some before dinner time… Excellent, but not much different than apple wood flavor – at least to me. The smoke flavor was light and pleasant; I knew I had a smoked piece of chicken but it was not overpowering. As for the flavor; again, very much like apple wood.

So I chopped up some fresh green leaf lettuce, grated up some fresh sharp cheddar cheese, got out the EVOO and made a nice salad to go with my chicken. This is what it looked like…

I was extremely please with the cook overall. The chicken tasted great; even my youngest daughter the “Chicken Critic” said it was great – now that’s a score… believe me! So, I didn’t find any difference in the flavor of chicken smoked with the grape wood as compared to chicken smoked with apple wood – I don’t think I would be able to tell the difference. This 4th of July weekend I plan to try the other pieces on a small pork butt to see if there is any noticeable difference there.

Here are a few pictures of the grape wood, maybe you have some and don’t know it…

On Friday evening, my youngest daughter took me to play mini-golf which I really, really love.  On Saturday evening, my twin daughters came in from Bloomington, IN to take me to Cosmo-Bowling and on Sunday, my family took me out to dinner at my favorite BBQ restaurant the Weber Grill!

I took advantage of the Father’s Day special which consisted of a three-course meal which had various options.  I chose to start with a terrific Blue Cheese and Apple Smoked Bacon Wedge Salad.  My entree’ was a full slab of hickory-smoked spare ribs which were completely awesome!  I finished with a heavenly slice of Chocolate Cheesecake.

Not only did I eat like a king but I got to spend time with my family with the exception of my oldest son who was out of town handling some business.  I don’t know about you other guys out there, but I had a wonderful time with my family on Fathers Day 2009!

In spite of that, I have to say that the ones I bought were not too bad.  They are not the best quality pork ribs by any stretch of the imagination, but they didn’t turn out too bad for me.

They cost cost me a little over a dollar per pound and the box was ten pounds.  They are not very meaty and in fact there were lots of shiners.  A “shiner” is a bone on the slab of ribs that show through because of the lack of meat.  I think the ones I bought had a little more meat on them than my esteemed colleagues have been accustomed to.

Another complaint is that the ribs can sometimes have an off flavor, but I did not notice anything like that.  My step-father has been buying these for years and they always taste like natural pork.  Maybe not the best quality pork, but still not any “off” flavor.

I smoked them over a mix of hickory and oak and they came out tasting pretty good.  I bought two boxes of them but only cooked one.  I will smoke the second box for our 4th of July family pitch-in.

So I was not blown away by these ribs, but I was not completely turned off either.  I probably won’t buy them again, but when I visit my step-dad and he has cooked some, I will definitely be eating them!

Originally, I thought I would smoke them low and slow hoping to tenderize them like a brisket.  However, my good friends who have been doing real BBQ a lot longer than me said that was not the best idea.  So, I took used a hybrid approach of braising and grilling to come up with a dish that was not only tender but very, very good!

In keeping with my prior performance as a good BBQ friend to many on the internet, I am going to share with you what I did so that you can share in my experience and perhaps have something you can try for yourself.  You will need a few items but not much as this is a very easy recipe – this is what you need…

• Fresh Cubed Steak
• Fresh Onions
• Fresh Green Peppers
• Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt or Salt Substitute
• Black Pepper
• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Italian Seasoning
• Your Favorite BBQ Sauce
• Apple Juice

First, I put my two cubed steaks into a cooking pan and coated it with olive oil on both sides.  Then I seasoned them in the pan on both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and italian seasoning.  After they sat in the fridge a couple of hours, I put equal parts of BBQ sauce and apple juice in the pan with the meat so that they were covered.  Then, I chopped up some onions and green peppers and threw those in.  Next I covered with foil and put them on the grill over medium heat so that the meat could braise done.  This only took about 30 minutes.

After the meat was braised to my liking, I took them out of the pan and finished them on the grill.  All I needed was a couple of minutes per side so that I could crust it up a little bit.  Ok, so I thought this was going to be some very tough and wasted meat but I was very wrong.  I came out pretty good – ok, not perfect, but It was very tasty.  I cut them against the grain into strips, put some swiss and cheddar cheese on top and let the cheese melt.  I created a pretty nice little treat.

Now, inspired by some great great down-south recipes of the past, I decided to do some BBQ chicken for Memorial Day.  So, I wanted to do something a little different because BBQ chicken is one of those dishes that came become fairly common really quick.

My youngest daughter is not a big fan of smoked chicken because she likes it char-grilled; however, I like the taste of smoke on my chicken.  So, I had to come up with a happy compromise – Big A’s Smoked Twice-Grilled Chicken.  Ok, so this is not a rocket-science recipe but it went over so well I thought I would share what I did with my BBQ friends.

You are going to need a few items, so the ingredients are listed below.  Note that I use salt substitute because I have to keep my High Blood Pressure under control and sodium content must be kept to a minimum.  This particular recipe will have a sodium content of less than 100 mg.  Okay, here we go.

Ingredients:

• Fresh Chicken Wings and/or Thighs
• Extra-Virgin Olive Oil
• Salt or Salt Substitute
• Black Pepper
• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Italian Seasoning
• Your Favorite BBQ Dry Rub
• Your Favorite BBQ Sauce
• Your Favorite Smoke Wood

Prepare your grill for indirect cooking.  This means you pile your coals on one side of the grill while the other half has no coals under the grate.  Make sure you get your coals good and hot.

Place the fresh chicken in a large bowl or pot, then coat it liberally with Extra-Virgin Olive Oil.  Lightly salt the oiled chicken – you don’t want too much because your dry rub will be applied later.  Now, add black pepper, onion powder, garlic powder and italian seasoning.  Make sure the fresh, oiled chicken is coated with all these ingredients.

Next, you are going to sear-grill the chicken directly over medium to high heat coals.  Don’t overcook, you just want to crisp the skin and get some grill marks on the chicken.  Then, remove the chicken from the hot side of the grill and put it on the other side because now we want it to smoke for a while.

Sprinkle the seared chicken with your favorite dry rub, throw on some smoke wood and close your grill.  Try not to let the grill get hotter than 300°, we want the chicken to get some good smoking time in before it gets done.  Baste the chicken from time to time throughout the cook to your liking but at least two times.It should cook for 1 to 1 .5 hours or until the internal temperature of the chicken is 170°.  Baste the chicken from time to time throughout the cook to your liking but at least two times.  When the chicken gets done, the skin may have soften up a little, so now you want to put one last blast of direct grill heat on it to firm it up a bit before you take it off.

That’s it!  Plate it up, serve it and take all your bows!

Old school grilling for me is hamburgers, brats, hot dogs, baked beans and either home-made cole slaw or tater salad. I did all that opting for the cole slaw.  I fired up my Chargriller Smokin’ Pro in grill mode and got started with the brats and hot dogs first.  Of course the cook needs a little incentive and motivation for the cook, so I threw on some slices of bacon as treat for myself while the longer cooking items got done.  Then I threw on the hamburgers.  These were a mix of some really good beef I had left over from a 1/4 that I bought last year and some regular Walmart 80/20.  Lastly, I put on 6 ears of corn on the cobb as an extra – what the heck – you can never have too much food on a cookout!

Here is the evidence for all you unbelievers out there…