Ordered a Tamale Steamer

[Glenn Baglo]

Can't find the reference in my dozen BBQ books, but one author says, "hickory makes everything taste like ham". I tend to agree. I use hickory on ribs and for pulled pork.
Weber Big Book of Grilling recommends oak for beef brisket. Also, mesquite or apple.

[Casita Greg]

Thanks for the insight Glenn. I do have a lot of Oak, Apple and some Mesquite chips lying around. I'll try the Oak for this instead. I didn't really think much about the wood when I wrote this, because most of my smoking and BBQ'ing is pork, where I usually do use Hickory and Apple wood chips. Good catch. I amended my above post to reflect Oak (preferred) vs Hickory.

[Glenn Baglo]

I recommend Steven Raichlen's "Barbeque Bible" as a reference and recipe source.
https://barbecuebible.com/
Get in hard cover because the paperback will fall apart from generous thumbing.

[Raz]

Both books are good. I used to get a news letter from Weber. The rub recipe I posted originated in one of those or perhaps the grilling book?

[Glenn Baglo]

Yup. I thought the ingredients sounded familiar.

[Casita Greg]

Originally Posted by Glenn Baglo

I recommend Steven Raichlen's "Barbeque Bible" as a reference and recipe source.
https://barbecuebible.com/
Get in hard cover because the paperback will fall apart from generous thumbing.

I have Steven Raichlen's book "Project Smoke," in hardcover, and "Meathead" Goldwyn's book "The Science of Barbecue and Grilling," also in hardcover, among my many various culinary and cook books. I consider both to be excellent resources and have a lot of good information. Here's a link to Amazing Ribs, which is Goldwyn's site. Tremendous amount of information on it. Worth checking out.

https://amazingribs.com/

Also, a few pictures of my cookbook collection and my home kitchen.

[Raz]

Very nice. I'm envious.

[Glenn Baglo]

Must make one hell of a racket getting that saucier from the back of the pot rack.
My wife, Leslie, worked at a retail kitchen store for several years. We were forced to buy everything with her employee discount.

[Casita Greg]

My wife, (well, let's just say I mainly do the cooking in our house,) is always on my case for buying this or that. One of those "what in the hell did you need to buy that for?" kinda things. OK, admittedly, I'm a kitchen junkie, (as if you couldn't tell from the pics.) Always liked cooking, went to Culinary School at the local CC when I retired, and I'm still a card-carrying member of the ACF, (American Culinary Federation.) Ran the kitchen and did the cooking at my local Elks Lodge for a while, but I'm just getting too old to be standing on my feet 12 hours a day anymore, so I gave that up. Still keep my hand in it with small cooking events, like catering the local School Bus Drivers Road-E-O events, Yacht Club feeds, and similar things.
Keeps me out of trouble.

[Jann Todd]

Originally Posted by Raz

This is my favorite rub. It's a variation of a rub published by Weber. Good on pork and chicken, especially beer can chicken. I apply a day or two ahead. Enjoy, Raz

1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp granulated onion
1 tsp paprika
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp granulated garlic
1/2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp pepper

I used your rub recipe today on a corn beef brisket. I rubbed it on and left it overnight. Put it in the smoker in a foil toss away pan and kept adding cherry, apple and hickory chips with an occasional bit of bourbon barrel chips. After it was mostly cooked I covered it with foil and let it cook for a couple more hours. It was so moist and tender you didn't need a knife and the rub was real good. Not to strong but could taste it a little. My smoker has a water pan and that keeps the meat moist. Adding a little apple juice makes a meat a little sweet tasting. I use the juice on chicken and turkey. Thanks for the rub recipe.

[Raz]

[stude]

Originally Posted by Raz

As I said the folks at Weber deserve most of the credit. I've never had a smoker so I can't say what effect the smoke will have on the flavor but it's good on grilled food. Do let me know what you think.

: Build your own make shed that looks like outhouse with shelving on the inside in the lower area, then some strips of wood from side to side at the top set it on the side of hill or man made hill, then cut hole in bottom/floor then run 5 or 6" stove pipe up to it from below install elbow and run pipe out about 2-3' then build fire so that smoke goes up and into the smoke house, this system works great for meat, fish, or what every you want to try. Oh and I'm not about to go and look for pictures as I have thousands of pictures and it takes time to find them all.
Stude

[Rod D]

You're making me hungry on this Sunday evening! You've also reminded me that some of best BBQ I've had was in Cape Cod, up near Wellfleet. I know, I didn't expect to find any of it in MA either, but actually the BBQ found me. There was this familiar aroma as we drove up and down the main road and it finally dawned on me that it was indeed BBQ. The restaurant put their pit right out front, near the road. Talk about a marketing genius! We ate there several times and hope it's still there when we visit again this Fall.

[Raz]

While we've talked of a visit to Cape Cod, we've never been. There's something in the way. Boston.. We'll get down there some day. Thanks for the tip.

[Raz]

My first task in building the smoker was getting the lid to fit on the steamer pot. The pot was a little big but by gently hammering the rolled aluminum edge I was able to reduce the diameter just enough for a tight fit. Next I used the steamer grate that came with the pot to hold the heat diffuser, a terra cotta saucer. Most designs use a 12" saucer. I reduced it to 8". I also increased the size of the holes in the grate to allow for better smoke flow.

Some folks drill lots of holes in the bottom of the pot. I chose to cut the bottom out about 1" in from the edge. A jig saw with a metal cutting blade made the job easy. I used a plate to mark the cut.

To hold the grill, I placed four screws about 3" from the top. Finally I added a thermometer.

[k0wtz]

that is impressive but where is your huge Viking range?


bob

[Raz]

It finally warmed up enough to bar b que. It took a little over 7 hours to cook a 5 lb Boston butt pork roast. The cooker easily maintained a temperature between 200°-250 °. The one problem I ran into was the build up of ash blocking the air supply. I used a long screw driver to clear the holes when I added more charcoal. I want to come up with a better solution. The handles on the tamale steamer made adding charcoal easy with little heat loss. It took about 5 lbs of Kingsford to cook the roast. Pulled pork for supper. It was very good.

We're going camping next month and we'll bring the cooker with us. I want to try beef next. Or maybe ribs. Or maybe turkey breast.

[Dennis mn]

Originally Posted by Raz

It finally warmed up enough to bar b que. It took a little over 7 hours to cook a 5 lb Boston butt pork roast. The cooker easily maintained a temperature between 200°-250 °. The one problem I ran into was the build up of ash blocking the air supply. I used a long screw driver to clear the holes when I added more charcoal. I want to come up with a better solution. The handles on the tamale steamer made adding charcoal easy with little heat loss. It took about 5 lbs of Kingsford to cook the roast. Pulled pork for supper. It was very good.

We're going camping next month and we'll bring the cooker with us. I want to try beef next. Or maybe ribs. Or maybe turkey breast.

Attachment 118070

One suggestion that I would make to reduce ash build-up would be to use Lump Charcoal. Because there are no fillers, the amount of ash is reduced by about 2/3’s.

[Raz]

Originally Posted by Dennis mn

One suggestion that I would make to reduce ash build-up would be to use Lump Charcoal. Because there are no fillers, the amount of ash is reduced by about 2/3’s.

Thanks, I'll give it a try.

[cpaharley2008]

What is the difference between this and the Cobb cooker some of us purchased years ago, it too is a slow cooker but only uses 3-5 briquets, nowhere near the 5 lbs mentioned?