David
TVWBB Pro
After several weeks of replacement parts, moding,and even thinking about swapping for a 18 WSM I hit it today with a not so common first meat selection. I had posted in a post about the mods on my 22WSM that I was going to do a turkey first. Well, that's a funny story, told below along with a pic. Anyway, I had also planned to do a brisket in the near future as my second cook, but here again is yet another funny story, or maybe not.
When wife and I went shopping at Sammy's club I reached into the big bin of turkey breasts, selected one and toss into the basket. Looked over some of those giant pork loins, but decided later. I then ambled over to the brisket section and just did not feel like cooking a 15lb monster, but then my wife, said, hey, there's a smaller one, and sure enough just over 5 pounds. Perfect I say to myself, having read somewhere in these parts, don't do one less than 5 lbs. Got home threw the brisket into the fridge as I knew it was going to be a week or so before I cooked it. So I do a little research to do the turkey. I've done lots of them, but it was well over 15 years ago when my last smoker died. Since then it has been indirect on my charbroil, but mostly small stuff, ribs,chicken, loin.
Anywho, I pull the turkey out of the fridge, slice open the package and I'm looking at what appears to be a big slimy shaped football with a faint resemblance of a turkey. More like a big *** whitish hard ball of jello. I reach for the package and there in fairly plain but subdued lettering is the fully cooked slicing turkey. I'm like *** and any other adjective one can think that I might have said, and I said it. Wife comes, what the hell is wrong with you. Anyway, I get out the knife slice off a piece. Yuck. Tastes like school lunch turkey sandwich. I'm still cussing at this time and then the light goes off. Slice some put it on the grill to see if it could be made fit to eat. So I cut off several different of different thickness, hit 'em with a spray of OO, salt & pepper, and commence to grilling. After about 10 minutes or I pull it off and the thin slices were ok, not great, ok. So I sliced up this entire so called turkey breast and freeze it in small packages to use from time to time.
So, now nothing to smoke. Ah, I say to myself, thaw out the brisket, so I get it out of the freezer, and toss in the fridge and delay my first smoke a day or tow. So last night I pull it out and discover, this AIN'T NO BRISKET, IT'S A TOP SIRLOIN ROAST.
So, I go looking in the archives of this site and find a thread about cooking one of these babies from way back in 2004. And here it is, not exactly a 10 hour smoke, even shorter since I like it medium rare. So I fire up the WSM and get on with it.
The temp came up pretty fast to the high 100's and I shut down one vent. At about 225 I shut down another, and as it eased up to the 250 level, I closed down last one to about 1/3 open. She hung around 250-260 (top of grill reading). I kept a fairly close watch on it being my first cook. Now, I haven't got around to buying one of those fancy dan digital therm's just yet, so I knew I would have to peek at it to take a poke with my hand-held old fashion gauge. About and hour or so into the cook, I say, hey, throw on a package of that stuff that buttlerballl called turkey and see if I can improve on crap. Smoke it about 30 minutes, and it was ok, smokey but just ok. Hard to recook cooked crap.
Since this was only a 5lb piece of meat I was figuring 4 hours tops, especially cooking over at over 250. So on my first temp check at about 2.5 hours, I get a reading of 130 and know that I've overshot my goal by a few degrees and yank it off, foil it, and let it rest in a chest for 2 hours. Just before eating, I take it out and do a quick high temp sear on my Genesis heated up to almost 800 degrees. Perfect. Made a nice horseradish sauce and it was good, a bit over medium rare, but good nonetheless. Pic's follow.
Here she is on a hot Sat. afternoon in Fl.
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Well, guess what, those wheels do come in handly as a storm came rolling in with high winds and lots of rain. Had to move it back under cover. That's rain that looks smoky as it cuts through the screen around the pool.
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As I mentioned, I threw on some of that turkey loaf crap to test it out.
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After letting it rest for a couple of hours, I put it back on the Genesis to give it a sear.
[/IMG]
So the first cook is under my belt on the WSM, learned a few things, more to learn. Toward the end I left the lid off too long and the temp shot up to the 315 level, so I closed it up and about 20 minutes later I was done. Even closed up, it was at least two hours before it dropped down to the 170 level, and at this time I haven't opened it to see how much charcoal is left. I started with a grate about 90% full with 10 lit ones scattered on top..............d
When wife and I went shopping at Sammy's club I reached into the big bin of turkey breasts, selected one and toss into the basket. Looked over some of those giant pork loins, but decided later. I then ambled over to the brisket section and just did not feel like cooking a 15lb monster, but then my wife, said, hey, there's a smaller one, and sure enough just over 5 pounds. Perfect I say to myself, having read somewhere in these parts, don't do one less than 5 lbs. Got home threw the brisket into the fridge as I knew it was going to be a week or so before I cooked it. So I do a little research to do the turkey. I've done lots of them, but it was well over 15 years ago when my last smoker died. Since then it has been indirect on my charbroil, but mostly small stuff, ribs,chicken, loin.
Anywho, I pull the turkey out of the fridge, slice open the package and I'm looking at what appears to be a big slimy shaped football with a faint resemblance of a turkey. More like a big *** whitish hard ball of jello. I reach for the package and there in fairly plain but subdued lettering is the fully cooked slicing turkey. I'm like *** and any other adjective one can think that I might have said, and I said it. Wife comes, what the hell is wrong with you. Anyway, I get out the knife slice off a piece. Yuck. Tastes like school lunch turkey sandwich. I'm still cussing at this time and then the light goes off. Slice some put it on the grill to see if it could be made fit to eat. So I cut off several different of different thickness, hit 'em with a spray of OO, salt & pepper, and commence to grilling. After about 10 minutes or I pull it off and the thin slices were ok, not great, ok. So I sliced up this entire so called turkey breast and freeze it in small packages to use from time to time.
So, now nothing to smoke. Ah, I say to myself, thaw out the brisket, so I get it out of the freezer, and toss in the fridge and delay my first smoke a day or tow. So last night I pull it out and discover, this AIN'T NO BRISKET, IT'S A TOP SIRLOIN ROAST.
So, I go looking in the archives of this site and find a thread about cooking one of these babies from way back in 2004. And here it is, not exactly a 10 hour smoke, even shorter since I like it medium rare. So I fire up the WSM and get on with it.The temp came up pretty fast to the high 100's and I shut down one vent. At about 225 I shut down another, and as it eased up to the 250 level, I closed down last one to about 1/3 open. She hung around 250-260 (top of grill reading). I kept a fairly close watch on it being my first cook. Now, I haven't got around to buying one of those fancy dan digital therm's just yet, so I knew I would have to peek at it to take a poke with my hand-held old fashion gauge. About and hour or so into the cook, I say, hey, throw on a package of that stuff that buttlerballl called turkey and see if I can improve on crap. Smoke it about 30 minutes, and it was ok, smokey but just ok. Hard to recook cooked crap.
Since this was only a 5lb piece of meat I was figuring 4 hours tops, especially cooking over at over 250. So on my first temp check at about 2.5 hours, I get a reading of 130 and know that I've overshot my goal by a few degrees and yank it off, foil it, and let it rest in a chest for 2 hours. Just before eating, I take it out and do a quick high temp sear on my Genesis heated up to almost 800 degrees. Perfect. Made a nice horseradish sauce and it was good, a bit over medium rare, but good nonetheless. Pic's follow.
Here she is on a hot Sat. afternoon in Fl.
Well, guess what, those wheels do come in handly as a storm came rolling in with high winds and lots of rain. Had to move it back under cover. That's rain that looks smoky as it cuts through the screen around the pool.
As I mentioned, I threw on some of that turkey loaf crap to test it out.
After letting it rest for a couple of hours, I put it back on the Genesis to give it a sear.
So the first cook is under my belt on the WSM, learned a few things, more to learn. Toward the end I left the lid off too long and the temp shot up to the 315 level, so I closed it up and about 20 minutes later I was done. Even closed up, it was at least two hours before it dropped down to the 170 level, and at this time I haven't opened it to see how much charcoal is left. I started with a grate about 90% full with 10 lit ones scattered on top..............d
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