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A BBQ thread

Not cooking yet, but my BBQ rig is due a rebuild. She won 3 brisket cook offs and has fed my family for 27 years. You can tell by the pic of the firebox it was time for a makeover. Plan is a rectangular firebox of .375 plate. Will build it to be used as a smoker/ modified Santa Maria style grill. With 27 years of cooking residue in the smoker it smelled delicious as I cut it apart! I'll try to post updates as I go.
 

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I rebuilt a tiny little offset a few years ago, it was fun. By tiny, I mean I can't fit 2 racks of ribs without them touching. Its surprisingly good at smoking once I added thermal mass in the form of bricks. Its just about perfect for doing a single pork shoulder or a couple whole chickens. I'd like a bigger fire box on it just to not worry about it every 15 minutes, but cooks a damn fine bird. That's a 15lb turkey on it.

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So I reconfigured the brick Oven Smoker to a double side fed unit
Wood box on each side, works excellent, provides a nice consistent even heat that now I can bake with it.
So I decided to try a Pot Pie with some
leftover Smoked Chuck Roast mixed with some Babyback Pork Rib meat I tested in this setup
Took approx 1/2 Hour to bake
The crust turned out "Perfectly flaky"
----------------
This turned out so good and was easy to make I am doing this again soon
I used a jar of chicken gravy, egg noodles, canned carrots, and Peas
Toasted Coriander, and Cumin and Coarse ground pepper spinkled over the bottom crust
Shredded Parmesian and Swiss Cheese sprinkled over the top
 

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Not cooking yet, but my BBQ rig is due a rebuild. She won 3 brisket cook offs and has fed my family for 27 years. You can tell by the pic of the firebox it was time for a makeover. Plan is a rectangular firebox of .375 plate. Will build it to be used as a smoker/ modified Santa Maria style grill. With 27 years of cooking residue in the smoker it smelled delicious as I cut it apart! I'll try to post updates as I go.

That is a long hot box. I bet that works well.

My wife and I got a new warehouse space and one of the projects is to make a smoker. I'll post some pictures of the project. It's not going to be a barrel type smoker though it's going to be more of a cabinet type with pull out racks. I'll have to show you what we have so far it's pretty cool. My new landlord gave me a stainless steel storage cabinet from an aerospace customer he had that used it for storing airplane parts. It's all stainless steel and I'm figuring it will make a wonderful outside.
 
Today is birria. I somehow had an abundance of beef broth spread across multiple cabinets, so picked up some beef shank, cubed chuck trimmings, made up a nice traditional sauce and now it's going to simmer for the next 3ish hours. I'll make my home made blue corn tortillas to go with it, street taco style.

4 tomatoes, 1 medium white onion (mine was very large so used only 3/4) about 6 cloves of garlic, 7 guajillo, 7 ancho, 3 arbol chilies stemmed and seeded. 3 bay leaf, 1 stick ceylon cinnamon, 1tbsn peppercorn, 1tsp coriander seed, 1tsp cumin seed, 1/4tsp ground cloves. Salt to taste.

I used 2.5lb cubed chuck, 1.25lb shank steaks. Leave the bone in with the meat, the connective tissue and marrow make for a silky texture.

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simmer all ingredients in water for about 15 minutes. Strain, remove cinnamon stick, add 1tsp ACV and blend with about 1C beef broth or the water they were cooked in.
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brown your meat in small batches to get it good and brown.
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Add sauce to meat, another 2C beef broth and can braise at 300°F in the oven or simmer covered on stove top for about 3 hours.
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I'll update later once the tortillas get started.
 
Looks good. We used to do this every time we slaughtered a chiva. Been a couple of years.

Seeing yours makes me want to go see my goat guy.
 
Looks good. We used to do this every time we slaughtered a chiva. Been a couple of years.

Seeing yours makes me want to go see my goat guy.
I also love chivo, but the kids don't like the idea of it, so I just do beef. Thankfully shank and trimmings of tougher beef are still pretty cheap. I might even make a ensalada de nopales to go with it. Another summertime favorite. Ive still got an hour before I even think about making tortillas.
 
Decided ensalda de nopales was a good idea. Also got enough stuff to make a pico de gallo for the tacos. Nopales are salt soaking and draining all the "snot" out of them now. Usually takes an hour or so for that.

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Not cooking yet, but my BBQ rig is due a rebuild. She won 3 brisket cook offs and has fed my family for 27 years. You can tell by the pic of the firebox it was time for a makeover. Plan is a rectangular firebox of .375 plate. Will build it to be used as a smoker/ modified Santa Maria style grill. With 27 years of cooking residue in the smoker it smelled delicious as I cut it apart! I'll try to post updates as I go.
You got your work cut out for you, no pun intender. Just finished build a Santa Maria type grill. The metal cost wasn't all that bad.
 
Pico de gallo and ensalada de nopales are both done. Got the masa de azul soaking right now for tortillas. The comal is heating up and things coming along nicely!

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Finished up a "Thor's Hammer" yesterday evening. Cooked it to somewhere between plate ribs and brisket.
Use the probe test for tenderness. Taste somewhere between plate ribs and brisket.
Was good enough I would do again.
 

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