Today's Cook: Homemade Bread and Beer Butt Chicken

beemrider

So today we thought we'd try homemade bread on the Egg. My wife is an excellent bread maker and we were anxious to see how the egg worked out as a bread oven. While the Missus was getting the bread dough ready, I set the egg up using the plate setter with the legs up and the grill on. Got it stable at 375 and when the dough was ready to go on we slipped the bread pan onto the grill. Using the grill allowed air to circulate around the pan ( as opposed to going legs down with the plate setter.). Needed to fiddle with the air flow to keep the temp in the 350 -375 range. Here's a pic of the loaf It was delicious as usual. The recipe was one of the ones my wife routinely uses in our indoor oven. Quite frankly, however, it didn't taste any better or worse than her usual excellent product. It was a novelty to cook it on the egg but there's really no reason to do it again ... She'll just use the gas oven we have in the house. OTOH I could see giving a try at doing a free form artisan style bread on the pizza stone just for fun but that will be for another day. Now to the protein. I have an old Weber vertical roaster that I've had for a couple of decades. Thought I'd give it a go today. I prepared the bird with Mickey's dry rub, put some beer, garlic and rosemary in the liquid cup and plopped the bird on. I set the Egg up for indirect cooking at 325 with hickory chips on the charcoal. Looks good going in ... Notice the Bloody Caesar in the background ... Can't cook without a libation! Coming out of the Egg the bird looked great On the table the bird pulled apart nicely and the meat had a good smoke colour and flavour ... But ... It wasn't as nice as the spatchcocked bird I did last week. Don't get me wrong it was tasty but not as good as had expected based on my last bird and the skin was rubbery. Think I'll return to spatching the next one.

NPHuskerFL

@beemrider‌ Tell the Mrs her bread is :-bd and your yard bird looks awesome! I love Mickey's on yard bird. I've also tried it on pork ribs, Boston Butt, brisket. Good stuff. Again great looking cook.

Mattman3969

Fantastic looking meal!!

beemrider

NPHuskerFL said:

@beemrider‌ Tell the Mrs her bread is :-bd and your yard bird looks awesome! I love Mickey's on yard bird. I've also tried it on pork ribs, Boston Butt, brisket. Good stuff. Again great looking cook.

Thanks. I appreciate that

beemrider

Mattman3969 said:

Fantastic looking meal!!

Thank you.

Dobie

I'm surprised the bread didn't pick up any smoke at all. Gotta love fresh baked bread. I have one of those Weber chicken racks and have been spatchcocking them instead also. Nice cook sir.

NPHuskerFL

@Dobie‌ this is one of the many reasons for a neutral burning lump. I've baked pies, pretzels, etc and they're great. Use a Smokey acrid lump and that enthusiasm quickly turns to...man this is way to Smokey or bitter. It definitely makes a difference.

Dobie

@NPHuskerFL I'm quickly falling into that same category with the neutral heat source. I cook outside about 5 times per week and while the distinct smoke flavor is desirable at times with the amount I do it its overdone night after night. Definitely moving away from the BGE charcoal and  turning to more neutral fuel. Can always use something else on cooks I want to bring the smoke or add wood to punch it up.

Griffin

Bread and chicken both look :-bd to me. Nicely done.

Mickey

Very nice cook

johnmitchell

That all looks awesome..I love the pic of the cooked bird with your garden in the background.. Great back drop..

Laxin16

Looks Great! Nicely done. 

TexanOfTheNorth

Nice work! I've baked bread on the egg before too... nice to not have to heat up the kitchen with the oven,

beemrider

Dobie said:

I'm surprised the bread didn't pick up any smoke at all. Gotta love fresh baked bread. I have one of those Weber chicken racks and have been spatchcocking them instead also. Nice cook sir.

Thank you. Funny thing is I didn't notice the smoke on the bread I guess because I'd been standing in it and the chicken was full of it ... today, however, when we opened the package to get a few slices for supper it was really apparent.

Dobie

@beemrider‌ I figured it must unless it was some very mild coal. @NPHuskerFL‌ and I have been discussing neutral charcoals for cooks that should not be overpowered with smoke and your post made me curious.

cook861

Nice looking spread cant wait to try making bread on my egg and some other baking  goodies

NPHuskerFL

@Dobie‌ even on a neural lump you'll get a certain amount of wood fired flavor which is something that should be somewhat desirable even on breads, baked goods and desserts when making them on the egg. Otherwise we just as well go inside and use the oven. When I say neutral I mean I don't want it to look like Willie Nelson & Snoop Dogg are all up in my egg. You follow my drift. Using neutral lumps allows you to add different flavors when it's desirable (chunks of different woods) or nothing added when less smoke is desired.

caliking

Love the bread. Chicken looks good too.

And nice backyard BTW

DMW

Looks great! I agree that the egg doesn't add anything to loaf bread. But for artisan boules I think it does. Get the stone as high up in the dome as possible, the reflective heat from the dome helps I think.

Be sure you have clean lump in your egg. If you cooked any meat on that lump before, empty it out and use clean lump. With bread it is very important to make sure you get a clean burning fire. Also when baking artisan bread I usually run at a higher temp, around 450-475. I think this helps clean the smoke out faster. Also, check your dome before starting, if there is black build up, take a ball of wadded up foil and give it a cleaning. I have done bread that tasted of smoke (especially the next day as you described) and also had some you could not tell from the flavor where it was baked.

tulocay

Looks good from here.

Dobie

@NPHuskerFL I don't expect to not have any added flavor from the fuel as you said.
I can break out the Weber Genesis for that clean burn. Funny you mentioned Willie and Snoop,
I was thinking Cheech & Chong. Old school I guess.

NPHuskerFL

Dobie said:

@NPHuskerFL I don't expect to not have any added flavor from the fuel as you said.
I can break out the Weber Genesis for that clean burn. Funny you mentioned Willie and Snoop,
I was thinking Cheech & Chong. Old school I guess.

Damn that's some smokey lump. ) RO---That would be like Cheech & Chong along w/ Willie & Snoop >:)
Side note: My wife and I went to a concert at the Comedy Zone a few years back (before he went to jail/prison and even before he appeared on That 70s Show). Tommy and his Wife were hilarious!

beemrider

DMW said:

Looks great! I agree that the egg doesn't add anything to loaf bread. But for artisan boules I think it does. Get the stone as high up in the dome as possible, the reflective heat from the dome helps I think.

Be sure you have clean lump in your egg. If you cooked any meat on that lump before, empty it out and use clean lump. With bread it is very important to make sure you get a clean burning fire. Also when baking artisan bread I usually run at a higher temp, around 450-475. I think this helps clean the smoke out faster. Also, check your dome before starting, if there is black build up, take a ball of wadded up foil and give it a cleaning. I have done bread that tasted of smoke (especially the next day as you described) and also had some you could not tell from the flavor where it was baked.

Good advice. Thank you.

tksmoke

Very nice cook.  The bread looks great!! 

As far as not tasting the smoke initially - I'm convinced that while cooking on the Egg, your olfactory sensors become saturated, and you miss out on the smoke the first day.  When your sensors recover, you get to enjoy an entirely new flavor profile. 

Using a more smoke neutral lump allows you to apply the smoke profile you desire with smoking wood, rather than relying on that provided by the lump.

Enjoy!!