Chochinita Pibil and more

[Harold C]

I did Cochinita Pibil (Yucatin Pork) yesterday. The original recipe calls for charring the veggies in a dry skillet before combining with the marinated pork chunks, wrapping in banana leaves, and roasting in a covered foil pan in the oven (like a pot roast). I adapted the recipe.

I marinate the pork overnight. Then build a roaring fire on the Weber and char the pork and the veggies, before putting it all in a foil pan with the marinate and slow cooking it uncovered.

 

[Harold C]

Then, I pushed all the charcoal to the center and surrounded it with Kingsford for a slow cook. Then the heat shield (cast iron tray and pizza stone), followed by my war ravaged water/drip pan). While I had the smoker going, I put a slab of baby backs and some beef short ribs on one of the lower rack.

 

[Harold C]

And some shots of the delicious eats in progress, coming off the grill, an on my plate (the short ribs):

 

[Harold C]

The music video version. Go full screen high def on the YouTube and you can practically smell it:

 

[Tony R]

Nice sett up.

 

[Cliff Bartlett]

Beautiful, Harold. I love complex cooks like this. Everything looks delicious!

 

[Harold C]

My fire went 8 hours without touching it (other than tweaking the vents). It was still going strong, but looking at the charcoal this morning, it was close to the end. If I really filled it with charcoal, I could get 12 hours without touching the fire.

Had baby back ribs tonight. They were awesome. Beef short ribs last night were awesome, too. Fall off the bone, tender, although next time I do them I'll probably pull them off sooner. I left them on four 4 hours (at 250). I think 3 hours would be just about perfect. I think the picture of them partially cooked on the smoker above was at about the 2 hour mark.

Baby backs went 6 hours. The slab was crazy thick. I thought I was getting two slabs in a cyrovac. Turned out is was one gigantic slab.

I sampled the cochinita pibil last night at 10 pm (8 hours on the smoker). Unbelievable. I was waiting for a chunk to get to 195. Never quite got there, so I think these are done before a pork butt -- probably because they are braising in liquid. I would say that anywhere from 4 to 8 hours would be long enough cooking them this way.

Cochinita Pibil could be easily cooked the same way, indirect on a regular kettle. Because it's in liquid, it really doesn't have to be "low and slow".

 

[Jerome D.]

Lots o' fantastic looking food in this post, Harold. As a fellow Granite Stater, you've done NH proud.

 

[Clint]

nice video. What's with that center piece - looks smaller than the cajun bandit ring & about double the size of the rotisserie ring - is it custom?

 

[Harold C]

I made it about 12 years ago. It's two rotisserie rings that can be separated, but have always stayed in one piece. It would have saved me a lot of work if the Cajun Bandit had been around at the time! Actually, I think I posted info on this little DIY project here back in 2002 when I built it for a 1st generation Performer. I may have been the inspiration for the Cajun Bandit.

There's comfortable room for three cooking grates, although I only used two for this cook. You have to be doing a boatload of food to need all three grates.

It is very handy to have the Performer serve as a grill and a smoker. I also use this setup for Thankgiving turkey on the rotisserie. Gives plenty of room for a pan to collect drippin' for gravy or a pan of extra stuffing on lower grates below the turkey. When not in use, the extension rings and assorted accessories sit on a small round patio table under a Weber kettle cover, with room underneath for a charcoal chimney, spare propane tank, etc.

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One rotisserie ring would work fine for a single rack smoker on a kettle. All you need for a heat sheld is an old rusty cooking grate and a big pizza stone -- or even just a big pizza pan. Just something to block the direct heat from the fire and limit airflow a bit.

 

[Jim Lampe]

very nice indeed!

however... this guy ▼ looks like he's a life-support....

 

[John Solak]

Awesome looking stuff and very cool setup too!!!

 

[Harold C]

It's got three holes for thermometers. One between the bottom and middle grate. One between the middle and top grate, and one just above the top grate. I built this back in the day when Maverick probes burned up if you looked at them sideways, so I got the idea to protect them from the heat rising along the sides with metal tubes, that can be pulled out or put in as desired. Originally I used corks to plug up unused holes, but I recently found these high temp silicone stoppers that work great! The same size fits the holes in the smoker or the bushings on the ends of the tubes when it's time to put the fire out.

I had an ET-732 with two grate probes and an ET-733 with two food probes yesterday. The bottom one in pic above is just below the cooking grate with the ribs, with the probe right in the center of the grate.

Here's a picture showing three of the four probes in action. Not seen in here is the fire probe just below the bottom grate.

And the Mavericks:

The worst thing is the rats next of probe wires. But, it beats having to go check the grill every half hour all day. I did almost no adjusting yesterday.