Recent content by Matthew Turner

Before I got my Ranch Kettle, I used to pre-grill hamburgers and brats at home on my Genesis Silver for HS football game concessions. The last game I did on the Silver was homecoming so I had about 200 Sam Club frozen 1/4# burger patties. So much grease was rendered from those awful pucks that I...

...and baking soda because science.

We had boneless CSR quite a bit when I was a kid. My parents were very cheapfrugal so when CSR went on sale, look out. It was one of the few meals my mother cooked that was decent. Braised in Open Pit sauce in a pyrex and grilled over propane and lava rocks. Usually served with Minute Rice and...

I use disposable aluminum dutch oven liners. They are usually dry unless I'm doing Pastrami and then they get the water bath. After a lot of trial and error, the water bath just works for Pastrami. I also smoke Pastrami on the bottom cooking grate.

Sauce is simple. A 28oz. can of San Marzano tomatoes. 2 cloves of garlic, minced. 1T dried oregano. 2 anchovies fillets, minced. Salt and pepper. Take it for a whirl in the food processor until smoothish. Every once in a while I'll add up to a teaspoon of sugar if the tomatoes are on the acidic...

Last Night (Friday) was Chicago style deep dish in cast iron. Fabulous. Tonight is simple baby backs on the kettle with vinegar slaw and charred corn on the cob on the Silver B. Tomorrow is pastrami, both a flat and a point, on the WSM served on rye with mustard and Swiss with kettle chips and...

When serving with BBQ, I always make a vinegar slaw or substitute 2% milkfat yogurt for the mayonnaise if going creamy. BBQ is so rich and fatty, the the mayo is really overkill.

I love pepperoni (usual) and spinach (not so usual). I also love the crab rangoon pizza at Fongs in Des Moines. That whole pie is unusual. Though unusual for many, all of my pizzas get anchovies. They get processed into the sauce. All those unsuspecting people who think they don't like...

Say less.

Microplaned garlic is way more potent, even spicy, than minced. That microplane creates way more cell damage than a sharp knife. I use the microplane for garlic a lot but it doesn't not do subtle. Even tiny amounts of microplaned garlic are bold. Microplaned fresh garlic in a basic Franks and...

I love this thread. My mother wasn't much of a cook so I didn't learn much from her except that a jar of Ragu is a pretty dismal pasta sauce. I learned from TV chefs; PBS when I was young (Graham Kerr, Paul Prudhomme, Jeff Smith, Martin Yan) and then Food Network and the like as an adult. I...

A thermometer on a 22" makes some sense. It will never measure cooking grate temps but will serve as a fine point of reference. A lid thermometer on a 37" grill is just stupid. Who cares what the dome temp is when the cooking grate temps might vary by 100° or more given the size? Plus, the...

Here's the odd thermometer mod.

So much for breaking it in with an easy burger/dog cook. Bone in ribeye and a grilled salad. Amazingly held rock steady at 345 and rebounded quickly when the lid was removed.

A few burger/hot dog/sausage cooks before anything serious should help dial it in. I'm sure the top venting is a lot more useful in temp management than on the WSM or kettle. I might add some extensions for the bottom daisy wheels. I've seen some daisy week mods using generic hardware store file...