Zenware - Shedder Claws For Pulled Pork

I purchased these Zenware BBQ Meat Pulled Pork Shedder Claws on Amazon for only $5.99.  It made pulling apart pulled pork a lot easier than trying to do it with two forks!  For the price, I don't think you can beat it.  It's really sharp too, so be careful!  It would make an awesome weapon...

Body Worlds - Animal Inside Out

Body Worlds -  Animal Inside Out at the Milwaukee County Zoo!  The best part was hearing a guy ask his girlfriend why she wasn't taking some photos with her iPhone.  Her reply, "The lights are too difficult to get a good shot!" - I was thinking, "Uh, not for my DSLR and knowledge of how to control lighting!!!"

Father's Day Present From My Daughter - Cubs Jersey!

My daughter got me a Cubs Jersey with my name on it for Father's Day!  Ok, it's Addison Russell, but hey... it's still my name!

Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker - 22.5 Inch Smoker

I added a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker - 22.5 inch smoker to join my 18.5 inch smoker!

I purchased it used on Craigslist for $225 including 5.5 bags of 18.6 lb Kingsford Original charcoal.  Not a bad deal overall!  I washed it off and cleaned the grates... it's all good!

I'll likely update the access door with a new stainless steel Cajun Bandit door like you see on the 18.5 inch smoker. Other than that, the smoker is in great condition!

I'll use this larger smoker whenever we do ribs or whenever we have family events.  Approximately 40% more space is afforded to the larger 22.5 inch smoker compared to the 18.5 inch smoker.

Edit Note:  Upgraded the door and latch on the 22.5 inch smoker:

Best Selling Kitchen Items

Arlington Park Racetrack

Today at Arlington Park racetrack... third race. We learned to pan our cameras. Good times, but hot. Glad we had a breeze though! Thank to everyone who came to learn and practice with me!

Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker

The Seventh Smoking With The Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker - Country Style Ribs with Apple Wood Smoke

Still on my smoker kick! This time, Country Style Ribs!

Smoked with apple wood with only rub on the country ribs at 225 degrees for 1.5 hours and then removed and placed into an aluminum foil pan and sauced up with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. Aluminum foil was used to cover the pan up tight and then returned to the smoker for another 1.5 hours. Finally, removed the country ribs from the foil and returned to the smoker's grill grate for 15 minutes.

Not bad! I had to do these country ribs since my very first use of the smoker dried out the country ribs a little too much since I didn't know the smoker yet. But since then, every cook for the last six times have been getting better and better! I'm getting used to smoking now.

I have to say, the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker smoker is really nice.  It is actually easier to do smoking than grilling on my Weber Spirit E-310 propane gas grill.  With the gas grill, I have to stand and keep and eye on the grilling all the time.  But with a smoker and a remote thermometer, I don't do anything except spray some apple juice every now and then, go out and wrap the meat and unwrap it in an hour.  One last trip to the smoker's grill grate and it's done!  It may take longer, but it's really easier on the long run.

The Sixth Smoke With The Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker and ThermoWorks Smoke Thermometer/Alarm - Baby Back Ribs

A lot of "firsts" on this cooking of ribs!

I got to use my new ThermoWorks Smoke 2-channel thermometer / alarm.  It worked perfectly!  I was able to stay inside and monitor the entire cooking process without having to run outside and open the smoker to take a temperature.  Every time you open the lid to the smoker, you lose heat and smoke.  By having the remote, I could easily tell how the meat was doing and how hot the temperature of the smoker was at the grate level.

I also got a new access door for the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker smoker too!  Made by Canjun Bandit, this new door and latch is a huge improvement over the standard door from Weber.  Made of a thicker gauge stainless steel, the door helps cut down heat loss and smoke loss.  Through the access door, I got to use my new Panacea Products fireplace poker too.  It worked great by pulling coals towards me when needed.

As for the ribs, I used my fishing buddy Jim's secret recipe again, but this time, we cooked the baby back ribs without wood smoke!  My family decided that the wood smoke actually is not a desired component to this particular recipe, so we used the smoker strictly as a slow barbecue pit.  The ribs came out just great!  Still had a "smoke ring" too!  I suppose it was due to the charcoal.

I am getting better at cooking this way.  The thermometer makes it a lot easier to keep track of the cooking process.  Well worth the money in my opinion.

Panacea Products 15347 - 30" Black Fireplace Poker

Never thought I'd blog about a fireplace poker (especially in June!) but I have to say, this Panacea Products 15347 - 30" Black Fireplace Poker is extremely well made!

I needed something to move the coals around in my Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker smoker.  I first used a long wooden dowel rod because that's all I had available at the time.  Bad idea since the coals started burning the dowel rod!  I decided that the best thing would probably be to look into a fireplace poker, so I went to Amazon and searched and found this high quality, inexpensive poker.

I have to say, it is so well made for an item that's under $17 including shipping!  It's all one piece so nothing detaches or can be broken or lost.  It does the job well too!  The small hook at the end of the poker allows me to pull coals towards me or push it to another location.  The hook on the other end allows it to be hung on something too if I want.

I've put a link to the poker if you need one.  Click on it and order one if you have a wood fireplace or a smoker!

Sabiki Rig Fishing - Catching Bluegills and Crappie at Lake Zurich, IL

I went fishing at Lake Zurich today at 7:30 AM.  I caught a 9.5 inch crappie around 10:20 AM. I also caught a bluegill. My fishing buddy Jim caught a bluegill as well. All fish were caught on a sabiki rig.  I've included a couple of Amazon links to sabiki rigs if you need one.  Great rig to catch small fish that are hanging around the pier!  Seems these small fish can't help but bite on the rig!  

Last year, we did the same thing and caught a number of bluegills on it.  If you are a salmon fisher out of Lake Michigan and want to catch alewife as baitfish, use a sabiki rig!!

ThermoWorks Smoke - Cooking Alarm

Just received my new ThermoWorks Smoke cooking alarm with remote!

I've been anxious to get my hands on this item since getting my new Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker smoker last week!  This two-channel thermometer alarm has a wireless remote that can go 300 ft (line of sight) from the main control unit.  This means I can now monitor the temperature of the smoker as well as the meat that is being smoked while staying inside my home instead of having to run outside to check on the thermometer on the smoker.  Plus, I won't need to even open the cover to the smoker to check the temperature of the meat either!

The base unit updates the remote every 15 seconds.  This is often enough.  If it were to constantly update it in real-time, it would eat up battery power faster.

I'll pass the two heat resistant probes wires through the rubber grommet that is on the side of the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker.  I won't need to close the top of the smoker on the probes because of this.

I'll have an update as soon as I do another smoking in about six days!  My next smoking will be another brisket!  I hope to do a full brisket this time.  Last time, I only did the flat of the brisket and not the point.

The Fifth Smoking - Rib Smoke Off on the Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker 18.5"

Today I smoked up three full racks of ribs to see which recipe for ribs was best for my family.

I used the 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker smoker with Kingston Original charcoal (blue bag) for fuel and Pecan wood chunks for the smoke.  The ribs were cooked for 3 hours and then removed and wrapped in aluminum foil and returned to the smoker for another 2 hours.  While other people recommend an additional hour on the smoker unwrapped, my family and I decided that the ribs were cooked long enough, so we skipped the last step of the "3-2-1 ribs" technique.

One rack of ribs had the secret recipe that was given to me by my fishing buddy Jim.  Another rack of ribs had Pork Barrel BBQ's All American Seasoning & Rub sprinkled on it with yellow mustard as a binder for the rub with Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet & Spicy barbecue sauce added after the ribs were wrapped with foil.  Finally, the third rack of ribs had yellow mustard as a binder and Costco's Flavor Connection Rib Rub & Seasoning on it only.

The photo of the ribs have Jim's rib recipe on the bottom right, the Sweet Baby Ray's ribs on the left and the rub only ribs on the top of the plate.

We all agreed that Jim's Ribs were the best, followed by Sweet Baby Ray's and finally, the ribs with only the rub coming in last.  This is not to say that any of them were bad.  We just had to rank them in order of preference.  However, we did think some modification needed to be done to Jim's ribs.

Jim's ribs has flavor by itself and did not need smoking.  We believe that the smoke from the Pecan wood added its own flavoring that changed the ribs beyond what it should have been.  In the future, we believe the best way to do his ribs would be to use his sauce recipe on the smoker with charcoal, but NO SMOKE from wood.  Essentially, this would be like indirectly barbecuing!

The other two ribs benefitted from the smoke.  The smoke added the quality you'd want in a smoked rib.  Sweet Baby Ray's sauce added a lot to the quality of those ribs.  The rub only ribs while good, just did not compete as well as the other two versions that had sauce on them.  In our opinion for ribs, you need sauce!!

Next week... more brisket!

The Fourth Smoking On The Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker Smoker - Pulled Pork

My fourth smoke with the 18.5 inch Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker was a 5.5 hour cook of a 5.75 lb pork butt.  I've always wondered why this cut of meat was called a butt because it actually is the upper shoulder portion of the pig, not an actual butt.  Whatever... it's what many of us use to make "pulled pork".

I had watched a lot of YouTube videos describing how to smoke a pork butt and it seemed the key was to smoke it at 250 to 275 degrees at one to one and a half hours per pound.  Internal temperature should reach at least 195 degrees to 210 degrees.

I used Hickory wood for the smoking and the usual Kingsford Original (blue bag) charcoal for the fuel.  The seasoning was another rub that I purchased at Costco... Pork Barrel BBQ's All American Seasoning and Rub.  It was less colorful as the Costco rub I had been using for the past three cooks, but it seemed to taste essentially the same to me.  I used yellow mustard as a binder to help the rub stick.  It has been said that you won't taste the mustard after the cooking is done.  So far, I think that's a true statement.

I was able to maintain the temperature of the smoker at 250 to 275 degrees throughout the 5.5 hours.  I suppose I am getting better at regulating the bottom vent's air flow with practice!  It was less windy today however.

I basted the pork butt with apple juice at the first and second hour but by 2.5 hours, I decided it was time to wrap the meat with aluminum foil.  I added additional apple juice to let the meat stay moist in the foil.  I kept monitoring the temperature for the next 3 hours.  I also put some Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce in a cast iron skillet and heated it up in the smoker for about 1/2 hour.

After the smoking was done, I took the butt out of the smoker and placed it on a cutting board and let the butt sit for at least one half hour to let the juices get back into the meat before attempting to pull the meat apart.  The bone from the butt came out easily without any meat on it... a true sign that the butt was done.  The butt came apart really easy.

I guess I'm getting better at smoking!  In a few days, I'm going to attempt three different styles of ribs on the smoker!