Recipe - Smoked Prime Rib

Prime Rib is delicious . . . boring, predictable, but delicious! I thought I would try to spice (and smoke) it up to add another dimension of flavour. Here are the steps I took and my thoughts at the end . . .

Step 1. Take your prime rib and cut the bone off the roast - this will make it easier for carving after the fact. DON'T THROW THE BONE AWAY - Bone, like Fat, adds flavour. Instead we will tie the bone back on so the roast cooks with the bone. In the picture below, the prime rib I used was 2 lbs 12 oz - My family are not big eaters, but I found this was enough for my Wife, Myself, 3 small kids and enough for 2 sandwiches the next day.


Step 2. Rub the roast with an appropriate rub - check out my Recipe Blog on Beef Rub. It's basic and contains only 4 ingredients. Also, not in the picture how the rib bone is tied back onto the roast and a bit of fat was removed from the top - you need some fat, but not that much.

Step 3. Let the meat rest for 30 mins - any longer will cause the salt to pull out too much of the juices. Also, use this time to prepare your BBQ. Here, I'm using my gas grill - on the left I have a cast-iron smoke box filled with Wet Hickory Chips. On the Right side, I have a drip tray underneath the grill. I used indirect heat on the left side and tried to keep an average of 350 degrees f.
Step 4. Place the roast on the grill and use an internal thermometer. My target temp was 150f. I like it Med Rare, but my wife likes it well done - I thought this would be a happy medium and that the Right Side of the roast might be a little cooler since it was further away from the heat . . . it wasn't :( See my thoughts below.
Step 5. Once the roast reached target temp remove from heat. Then cover with foil and let rest for 30 mins.
Step 6. Take the drip tray and deglaze the tray with red wine. I then used this mixture and added it to the pre-packed gravy I bought - it added a wonderful flavour! (I know I should have made my gravy from scratch, but I was busy).
Step 7. After 30 mins, unwrap the roast and add the juices to your gravy.
Step 8. Carve - here we see the roast turned out Medium-Well. I was a little disappointed as I like it pink, however the flavour was amazing.
Here is the finished product with Garlic Mashed Potatoes (I roasted a head of garlic with the beef - why not!) and some Broccoli, Horse Radish and gravy - tasty!
Final thoughts - The concept was solid, the taste was great, but it cooked too long. I would pull it out at 140 - 145 next time and let it rest only 20 mins - I do like the pink look better! The "Bark" on the roast was full of flavour and you could get hints of smokiness too. The amount of smoke was just right - too much would have been a waste. I used one handful of woodchips and I wouldn't change that at all.

If you try this out, let me know what you think.

Happy Smoking!

Seb

Recipe - Beef Rub

Here is a good recipe to use as a rub on Roast Beef. It combines the right amount of Saltiness with Garlic.

Mix equal portions of:

• Kosher Salt
• Fresh Ground Pepper
• Dry Mustard
• Garlic Powder

Rub liberally over your roast and cook.

Enjoy!

Seb

Recipe - Rub Your Pork!

Here is a rub recipe I came up with that works really well on Pulled Pork:

• 1 cup Dark Brown Sugar
• 1/4 cup Kosher Salt
• 1/8 cup Paprika
  
• 2 Tbsp Cumin
• 2 Tbsp Chili Powder
• 1 Tbsp Ancho Chili Powder
• 1 Tbsp Oregeno
• 1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
• 1 Tbsp Dry Mustard
• 1 Tsp Corriander
• 1/3 Tsp Cayenne Powder

Mix together until combined.

Recipe - Pulled Pork Leg (Fresh Ham)

Loblaw and Real Canadian Superstore had whole pork legs on sale last week for $0.89 per LB . . . that's pretty cheap! I went there and bought a 22 LB leg; not exactly sure what to do, I thought I would smoke it and pull it - I'm glad I did!

Typically pulled pork is made from the shoulder (Front Leg) from one of two cuts - either the Picnic Roast or the Boston Butt. Since I had neither, I used the back leg.

Ready? Here we go.

INGREDIENTS CHECKLIST:

• 2 Cans Apple Juice
• Chili Powder
• Ancho Chili Powder
• Cumin
• Garlic Powder
• Paprika
• Cayenne Powder
• Fresh Ground Peper
• Kosher Salt
• Dry Mustard
• Oregeno
• Ground Coriander Seed
  
• Dark Brown Sugar
• Apple Cider Vinegar
• BBQ Sauce (your choice)
• Pig Leg
  

Here is shot of what the Pig Leg (Sometimes referred to as "Fresh Ham" looks like:
STEP 1: Trim off the skin and excess fat from the leg, but leave a good 1/4" of the fat on top. It should look something like this:
The bottom of the leg should look something like this:
Step 2: Prepare a Dry Rub - check out my dry rub recipe in my other blog post titled "Rub your Pork"
STEP 3: Rub your pork
Step 4: Inject a mixture of Apple Juice, Apple Cider Vingar and Kosher Salt into the Pork. Here was my formula:

• 1 Cup Apple Juice
• 1/4 Cup Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1/4 Cup Kosher Salt

Dissolve the salt into the liquid then use a meat syringe to inject the juice into the meat - DO THIS OVER A BAKING SHEET - IT WIL LEAK!
STEP 5: Cover in plastic wrap and place in fridge overnight
STEP 6: If applicable, shovel the snow around your Smoker . . . (I did this in January)
STEP 7: Prepare your smoker as the instructions say (get it warm and smoking) and place the roast, fat-side up, on the rack. I used a digital thermometer to keep track of the temperature of the smoker. Since I did this in January, it took a couple of hours to reach 225f. After that, the temp seems to hover between 250f and 270f - as soon as I opened the door it instantly dropped to 120f. The pro's say the ideal temp is 225f, however since I had so much heat loss every time I opened the door, I was comfortable with the higher temps.
Here is a pic of the smoker doing it's job - I used Hickory Wood and wound up going through an entire 5LB back of wood chips for this roast.
At 4 hours into the cooking, here is how the leg looked:
After 8.5 hours, the leg has reached an internal temp of 190f. This is how it looked:


STEP 8: Let it rest under some foil for 30-45 mins and then tear apart with 2 forks. Discard as much fat as you can, but try to save as much of the "bark" (the rub that has crusted around the outside).

STEP 9: Add 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar and as much BBQ sauce as you wish - be careful, don't let the BBQ sauce over-power the hours you spent adding flavour the hard way!

After about 30 minutes of pulling, I wound up with 10 lbs of pulled pork:

I made up a simple coleslaw of cabbage, mayo, sugar, white vinegar and toasted cumin seeds and put everything together on some hamburger buns.

THOUGHTS: At first, I was a little unsure that this would actually taste good. I was pleasantly surprised! This is easily as good as a picnic roast or a Boston butt - probably because the leg has a few different cross-sections of meat.

If I were to do this again, I may inject the meat with the Apple Juice the morning of the cook, as opposed to the night before as I lost a lot of juice while the meat sat overnight in the fridge. Apart from that, I wouldn't change a thing.










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Up In Smoke - An Introduction

Thanks for coming over to my little corner of the interweb. I setup this blog as a means for people North of the 49th parallel (Canadians) to get introduced to the art of true Barbeque. There are a lot of resources on the web, but most are American and this causes the following problems:

• Certain ingredients are hard to come by
• We don't have access to certain brand-name goods
• The climate we cook in varies GREATLY - and that can have tremendous impact on the length of time it takes you to cook (don't try to do a pork shoulder in 5 hours, as it is often suggested - it'll take 10-15 in Ontario)

Of course, I welcome the thoughts/feedback/support from our friends to the South - without them, there would be no Southern BBQ!

My plan is to create some really good BBQ through trial and error and I will post pictures, instructions and feedback on the results each step of the way. Given that I have 3 small kids and I'm the only one in my house who really eats Pork, it will take me some time to come up with enough recipes to make this site worth of it's name. Until then, please keep checking back and share with my your experiences - we are all in this together!

Happy Smoking,

Seb