Madpick those short ribs look delicious! Did you really drink the meat juice you animal?

Hadati those hams look incredible! I just put one on an hour ago. Hope it turns out half as good as those look. What internal temp did you pull them off at? Uncovered the whole time? Rest?

Oh hell yeah . . . and I'm looking forward to the other half of it as leftovers! That'll have to wait a couple of days, though, I've got fresh stuff brewing for today.

Well, like many of you, today for me was more Eater than Easter.

I started by beefing up my supply of homemade rub #2:



Then I started project #1, which was a rub experiment with a 10-pound Costco pork belly cut into quarters:



They went onto the Recteq pellet smoker at 250, straight through without wrapping until they were probe tender at about 206. And after resting:





That's some good shit.

My lessons learned?
- All of the rubs were good, it's hard to pick a clear winner.
- I was worried that Rub #3 would be too spicy, as it has chipotle powder in it and it's pretty spicy if you just lick some out of your palm. On the meat, it wasn't spicy at all.
- The pork belly was slightly crispy on the bottom, I had to work to get the knife through that bottom layer. I cooked them fat side up; in hindsight, I should have cooked them fat side down because the heat is directly below the meat on a pellet smoker.

I ran Project #2 concurrently, which was a first-ever for me: ox tail.



And hey, you can play reconstruct-the-cow with it! Fun times with the kids!



The pieces got coated with Rub #2, then they went onto the SNS charcoal grill with wood chips, running about 250 until the larger meat pieces were 165 internal:



Then I put them into a covered foil pan with some tallow and beef broth, and back onto the grill for two hours. The end result, minus a couple of pieces, hehe:



This was very good, and exactly what I hoped it would be. It's easy to pull the meat off of the bones, and it isn't just lean meat -- it's a mix of lean meat and collagen. As you eat it, you can feel something else inside the meat, but it's not like gristle and it's not unpleasant. There's some serious nutrition here!

This was really good, I'll do it again.

That all looks really good!

I like making my rubs from scratch, too.

I’m surprised you did fat side up, only because you pointed out to do it down to someone here awhile back

Yep. I've learned that lesson with brisket, but I failed to carry it over to pork belly.

There are a few other options, some people like.

1 is easy, just flip it over periodically.

2 is is to take an aluminum pan, put a bit of water in it, then put a rack on it, then the brisket on that.

That way, you can have the fat cap face up, and diminish the hotspot underneath.

Oh, 1 other is to use the bread trick and find the hot spots, and try to avoid…

I smoked my first Brisket this weekend.


Mmmmmmmm...

I thought I'd post this from another forum.....

TempSpike blue tooth wireless probe for $36.
Pretty compelling if you wanted one.... thats the lowest price I've seen.

https://www.amazon.com/ThermoPro-TempSp ... ag=tvwb-20

Nicely done!

That looks great

I know we've debated this before, but I recommend that you skip the cheaper ones, and get the Typhur Sync.

I have the TempSpike Plus. Yeah it works, but it's a pain in the ass dealing with that bluetooth connection -- and what I have has a better connection than what is linked above.

Buy once, cry once with this stuff.

I know......
But at that price you can put up with some shortcomings and still be happy. Not everyone is willing to drop $75++ on probes. I'm sure it would more than meet my needs but I've already got enuff probes to do what I need.... wants vs needs.

On another note...... I was annoyed that the last couple of cooks on the kettle seemed to be more 'trying' than the past --- difficulty getting temps high where I haven't had problems before..... Tonight is garbage night and I decided to clean out the grill - good scraping (that hasn't happened for a while) and emptying the ash bucket under the kettle..... Holy SHIT that thing was full!!! I had no idea it was THAT full!!!! I'm pretty sure I found the reason......

Steve Gow just did a pretty good review of a bunch of wireless probes.....



There is also talk on the weber forum that Sam's Club is blowing out the TempSpike for $20!!!!
Too bad there aren't many/any SCs around here.....

Yeah, I just watched that video . . . daaaamn, that's a long and comprehensive video! Kudos to him, that's a lot of data!

I can see his concern about ambient temperature accuracy and responsiveness with an offset smoker, if he's using the thermometer to determine if/when to add another stick to the fire. For me, with a pellet smoker and a charcoal grill that hold very steady, I'm not as concerned about that particular aspect.

If anyone gets excited about the ChefIQ thermometer based on that video, Costco has a 2-probe version of it for $99.99: https://www.costco.com/.product.4000227273.html.

The Costco product description doesn't say anything about wifi; I'm going to assume that it has it like the single-probe version does, but I wish it explicitly said that.

EDIT: You can see the back of the package in the video below, and yes it has wifi.
https://youtu.be/hyr8ZCHrGQI?si=Rp48nmY2kluigl1X&t=70