Jalapeno Popper Question!

KiterTodd

Threw my first poppers on the egg after a Spatchcock cook this weekend.  Grill was already set at 350ish, raised direct so I just left it that way.   However, you can see that they were sort of indirect based on the home made rack I used.

So, they tasted great.  Bacon was crisp, poppers were cooked, but the cheese on top was burnt.  How do I avoid that? 
It wasn't a distracted burnt taste that took away from the flavor, it was more of a cheese crust.  Tasted fine but didn't look good.

I stuffed the poppers with a mix of cream cheese, mozz, crumbled cooked bacon, and some white pepper.  Wrapped them with thin sliced bacon.  Sprinkled some Dizzy Dust on them for good measure.  Cooked until the bacon was crisp, which I think was about 40 minutes.

Just on the grill -


Left them on for another 5 to finish the bacon -


I'm not sure if this is how they're supposed to look, but they tasted great and people liked 'em.

theyolksonyou

Drape the bacon over the top to protect the cheese. More bacon, no burnt cheese = win,win. 

Dredger

Put the top that you removed (stem) back on top before you grill them. +1 on the bacon too.

Skiddymarker

That's why the peppers split in half like boats a la ABTs are popular, the bacon shields the innards, cheese or otherwise. When I used to make poppers, I left the cheese topping off until the last 20 minutes as it did overcook as you have found out. 

KiterTodd

ABTs just don't seem like a purist's view of a popper! 

I think I need to just put a hat on them or fill them halfway through cooking (seems like a lot of work).

Thanks for the tips.  I was making sure I wasn't cooking at the wrong temperature or you don't foil the top or something.

blind99

OK, so you lost a few points for the burnt cheese, but you are 90% of the way to achieving popper nirvana.  Those things look awesome!  Can you elaborate on the cooking rig you made? 

KiterTodd

blind99 said:

...Can you elaborate on the cooking rig you made? 

Thanks, blind99! 
I think with enough skewers & rods, I could make a nice rig to hold a tray full of poppers!

• The tray is a Weber vegetable basket.
• Along the top are two of the cross bars from my AR with foil drapped over them to keep the peppers from falling over.
• To keep them seperated I then pushed metal skewers through the holes of the grill basket.  Since there are slots about 1" up the sides, it was a perfect lower support for the peppers.

Seemed to do the trick. 

tonyled

Skiddymarker said:

That's why the peppers split in half like boats a la ABTs are popular, the bacon shields the innards, cheese or otherwise. When I used to make poppers, I left the cheese topping off until the last 20 minutes as it did overcook as you have found out. 

i switched from the round upright holder to splitting them like boats and like the latter much better

ads75

I usually wrap bacon around cheddar, and stuff that into a whole jalapeno, sprinkled with some Dizzy Pig. Around 350 for 20-30 minutes. Some Italian cheeses wrapped with some Italian cured meats also work well.

EggPerfection

I like to make the patch go as far as possible so I make it with plenty of peppers.  That was 

Fireman_Joe

Vote for split in half !

Dillonjm

I do them like this...

blind99

Man that is some serious macgyver work. Nicely done!

KiterTodd

blind99 said:

Man that is some serious macgyver work. Nicely done!

LOL, it was pretty quick work.  
I think next time I'll just make a grid of skewers using the two levels of holes and can skip the foil all together.  It'll hold a lot of poppers, has grates to drain the fat, and I don't have to buy a tray for something I'll make infrequently.

Dillonjm, those look pretty darn awesome!

KiterTodd

I threw some more on tonight after a nice Carne Asada cook...  

Took @theyolksonyou suggestion and wrapped bacon over the top.   Came out really nice.  Only correction is the last time I was raised direct and this time I was cooking at the fire ring (for the steak) so it was a little more exposed.  The tips got black but everything else is spot on.







Thanks for all the tips!  Some time I'll try the ABT version.

stv8r

Yumm!  You nailed it!