Better Late Then Never

Morning fellas,

Happy belated 4th!  Based in Jax but originally from Oklahoma.  My nest consists of my wife and two great little girls (4 & 2) and a couple Border Terrier pups.  Spend most of my time with them and when I'm not you can find me with a flyrod in my hand somewhere in Florida or the Bahamas.

Way late to the Egg game but glad I finally jumped in and had a long weekend to get familiar with my new LBGE.  Took delivery Friday of an LGBE, Challenger Spark 48" (already want more space), Innovations by Chance Fishbones, Thermoworks Smoke and ThermoPop, and a few other eggcessories.  This whole journey started with going into the grill store to buy a $1500 Napoleon Gas Grill and leaving with an Egg.




Decided to ease into things Friday night with some simple sliders (and one dog for the littlest one).  Not having a grill for the last few years we've come to prefer burgers on the cast iron so I just threw it on the grill running around 400.  Worker great but will find a larger flatter one soon just to make it easier to access with a spatula.



Saturday I tried a little indirect/direct combination.  Marinated some chicken in coconut milk, rice wine, soy, and some other other seasoning before assembling kebabs with pineapple, peppers and onions over coconut rice.  Ran the egg at about 350 with the plate setter in for about 15mins so the coconut milk wouldn't burn before the chicken was ready, then removed the plate setter and got a nice char on everything to finish it off.  


Monday decided to push the heat up a little and did a couple chipotle rubbed flat iron steaks at about 550 direct sliced very thin and served with a "salad" of grape tomatoes, avocado, red onion, fresh lime and cojita cheese.  


Tuesday morning decided to go the other way and try low and slow with a 4.65lb Berkshire Pork Butt.  I'll start at the end and say I give it a 6.5 to 7 out of 10 and then back into the process.  I can think of a few improvements already but very open to suggestions.  The Mrs. likes me to get meat from local farmers who practically raise the cow or the pig as a pet before eating it (kind of weird in the sense really), so the only pork butt I could find was this boneless 4+ pounder.  I think that's improvement #1, larger bone-in Butt next time.  

In the past we've really liked this local coffee rub when doing pork, but they were out so I went with an unknown coffee rub I found elsewhere...mistake #2.  Should have just used the Dizzy Pig I picked up if I couldn't find the rub I know and have used.  Lastly, I pulled the Butt out of the fridge at 6:00am, applied the rub and let sit while I fired up the egg.  Got the egg to 250 and dropped the Butt at 7:30am.  Used a nice wild apple wood chunk from a local place.  Monitored the internal temp until it hit 195 (about 3:00pm) and immediately pulled, wrapped in foil and a towel and dropped it in the cooler.  BTW can't believe how easy it was to hold that temp all day and how much charcoal is still left in the firebox.

Loaded up the girls and went to the in-laws and pulled the pork onsite at about 5:15.  Had great bark, pulled apart easily, and was generally well received.  I just felt like it wasn't where I wanted it to be...a tad dry in spots, maybe needed a little more salt than expected, and just didn't quite pop like I wanted.  Will try again soon with a better bone-in Butt and a new rub. Anything I should change on the process?


Anyway, glad to be here and looking forward to many more experiments.

KnB