2021 Official Gratuitous Grilling/BBQ/Cooking Thread

[chezuki]

Whatchya making to kick off the year?

No-flip burgers!

 

[maxwelhse]

Your picture failed to post... but I think it's heresey without even seeing it!

...gonna need to provide test specimens before anyone can make a solid opinion.

 

[foszoe]

We had pizza, 7 layer dip, wings, meatballs, sugar creme pie, rocky road fudge

 

[Hoosierdood]

Smoking 2 briskets in the middle of an ice storm.

 

[MontereyC6]

Baby back ribs getting ready to go on the Egg!

 

[Hoosierdood]

Brisket was a success.

 

[hoosierdaddy1976]

Wimped out on using the grill or smoker yesterday for a brisket due to the freezing rain, decided to throw it in the (electric) oven. Power outages made it take much longer than I hoped, but I was able to have some about 9:30 last night. Tasted pretty good, no pics.

 

[Jaybird1980]

We got a deal on chunk of rear beef hind quarter from the butcher.
Trimmed out some 3# roasts, handful of sirloin steaks
and almost 3# I cut into jerky strips, gonna give it a try wed. on the ZGrills



I will try to remember to take pics

 

[chezuki]

So I’m a dipshit and forgot to change the temp to 350 (from 225) for no-flips. I realized the error after about 45 min (when I expected they’d be ready). The result was actually a damn good Smokey burger! Look at that adorable lil smoke ring!

 

[HoughMade]

The igniter on my pellet smoker failed on New Year's day when I was supposed to be smoking 2 pork butts for a (don't tell anyone) family get-together on Saturday. So there I was roasting them in the oven like a chump when an ice storm took out the power.

Thankfully, I was able to complete the cook with a generator powering the stove. I got the new igniter on Sunday and am back in the smoking business.

Ribs this Saturday.

I know...I know....this wouldn't have been a problem with charcoal or wood.

 

[ghuns]

Wimped out on using the grill or smoker yesterday for a brisket due to the freezing rain...

Moved mine into the garage to avoid that s**tty weather. Left the 16' overhead door open about three inches and a man door on the opposite open all the way open with the grill right next to it. All was well till my daughter came home and shut the overhead door...

But aside from a greasy film on the windshields, no harm done. And the baby backs and beef plate ribs were great...

 

[ghuns]

The igniter on my pellet smoker failed on New Year's day when I was supposed to be smoking 2 pork butts for a (don't tell anyone) family get-together on Saturday. So there I was roasting them in the oven like a chump when an ice storm took out the power...

Can't you light it manually?

I've had some trouble with my RecTec igniting lately. My igniter was hot as AF but I had a batch of pellets that sometimes wouldn't take off. I could remove the grates, drip pan, and heat deflector and stick a torch right in the burn pot and light it that way.

 

[HoughMade]

Can't you light it manually?

I've had some trouble with my RecTec igniting lately. My igniter was hot as AF but I had a batch of pellets that sometimes wouldn't take off. I could remove the grates, drip pan, and heat deflector and stick a torch right in the burn pot and light it that way.

I did a deep dive- if the igniter is just bad, but still completes the circuit (burnt out or shorted), I can manually light it and it will work. However, if continuity is completely broken, a broken wire for instance, it shuts down the auger. This is apparently what happened to mine. I bought 2.

 

[Jaybird1980]

I have mine in the shop storage area, just stuck a fan in the window
Jerky has been on about 1.5h

 

[chezuki]

I really need a jerky rack.
This was my makeshift rack setup yesterday:

 

[Jaybird1980]

I really need a jerky rack.
This was my makeshift rack setup yesterday:

View attachment 119996

I feel your pain, yesterday was my first attempt at jerky. Your strips look way more uniform than mine. What cut of meat did you use?

Apparently my ZGrills is really temperamental, was battling falling temps for about 30min.
Who knew you had to add pellets!

 

[chezuki]

I feel your pain, yesterday was my first attempt at jerky. Your strips look way more uniform than mine. What cut of meat did you use?

Apparently my ZGrills is really temperamental, was battling falling temps for about 30min.
Who knew you had to add pellets!

I use eye of round. These I actually cut by hand because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to dig the slicer out. I should have used the slicer as it makes the cook much more uniform.

Did you run out of pellets? If not, how bad were the temp swings?
My ZGrill controller would swing about 20° either way but it was consistent and results were just fine. I installed a Grilla Alpha Smoke controller and that thing is dead nuts on in PID mode, but still has enough swing for great smoke in mode 2.

 

[Jaybird1980]

I use eye of round. These I actually cut by hand because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to dig the slicer out. I should have used the slicer as it makes the cook much more uniform.

Did you run out of pellets? If not, how bad were the temp swings?
My ZGrill controller would swing about 20° either way but it was consistent and results were just fine. I installed a Grilla Alpha Smoke controller and that thing is dead nuts on in PID mode, but still has enough swing for great smoke in mode 2.

I use eye of round. These I actually cut by hand because I was in a hurry and didn’t want to dig the slicer out. I should have used the slicer as it makes the cook much more uniform.

Did you run out of pellets? If not, how bad were the temp swings?
My ZGrill controller would swing about 20° either way but it was consistent and results were just fine. I installed a Grilla Alpha Smoke controller and that thing is dead nuts on in PID mode, but still has enough swing for great smoke in mode 2.

Yeah It made a hole right above the auger in the hopper. It was just steady falling for 30 minutes.
My actual temps appear to be about 30-40° lower than what the controller reads. Had to set it at 225 and it was running 180-190. It only swings 10-15°

 

[chezuki]

Yeah It made a hole right above the auger in the hopper. It was just steady falling for 30 minutes.
My actual temps appear to be about 30-40° lower than what the controller reads. Had to set it at 225 and it was running 180-190. It only swings 10-15°

You might have gotten one of the bad batch of controllers. I still have my zgrill controller if you wanna try it.

 

[Jaybird1980]

It's probably not a big deal, I use a separate thermometer anyways.
I think the probe is reading temps higher in the grill, I put one of my thermometers up on the cooling rack and it was within 5-10.

Thanks for the offer though