Kiloh Smith's BBQing Adventure

We recently purchased a more robust smoker. Kiloh Smith & Anne Daniels just LOVE smoked meats & fish. The old, box, smoker was at the very, very end of life with Kiloh having to patch the bottom with scrap sheet metal. His wife, Anne, said to "Get rid of that *ghetto* smoker!" Here it is pictured and one can see that it truly was a *ghetto* smoker. BUT, it had provided years and years of good service and worked well still.

As you can see, this smoker was beyond needing some TLC. I had to prop the door shut with a shovel. But there it is, working for us still. Anne didn't like how it looked and was concerned about people coming over and seeing it. My thought were; if they can't handle a *ghetto* smoker then screw 'em.

That smoked mozzarella cheese, that the white suburbanites couldn't get enough of, was probably smoked in a garbage can with cut up New York Daily News strips as the combustion. This was told to me by my old friend, and actual Italian deli owner, Joe Ditamasso years ago.

Annnnnyway, we purchased a new smoker a few months ago. It sat in the box for about a month because it had about a million pieces. And the directions were obviously originally composed in Chinese and then translated to English.

Our friends, at Impact Builders, kept asking us when we were going to have them over for some BBQ. We finally admitted that we couldn't negotiate the assembly. One of the brothers came over and him and Anne put the thing together. I lay on the couch and remained quite, hoping that they wouldn't call on me to do anything. And they got it together! Anne and a Contractor made a good team; they both worked it out.

One thing, if any of our Maricopa County friends are looking for a Contractor, I highly encourage them to call Impact Builders. Just click the blue link in their name above. It's two brothers, and their crew, and one of the brothers is commercially licensed. This means that he KNOWS his stuff. Their quality of work and integrity I can attest to.

Anyway, Anne and one of the brothers got the smoker together. See it on the right. It looks easy but this thing was some Chinese torture puzzle from hell. It was completely broken down into washers and screws with stoopid directions originally written in Chinese and translated poorly. I was impressed with Anne. I mean, my other friend was a friggin' Contractor and you would expect him to do well. But Anne was just as responsible as him for this assembly.

Anyway, after two missteps, I think that I have this smoking thing down. The first misstep was smoking a whole pork butt. I took it out a little early and the very center of it was still pink. We did a "Texas band-aid" on it. I went and bought a bottle of beer and we put the butt in a covered roasting pan. I poured the beer over it and then cooked it on 400 degrees for another hour. It came out great but the damage was done. This was cooking for a whole roomful of people and I was the goat. I screwed up the meal. It didn't matter that it, ultimately, came out great. There it is on the left, looks done right? Nope. And my crowd is a tough crowd.

I had one more misstep with two chickens. This time, I was going to be sure to get the food done and I ended up burning the chickens. I mean, it was good but you had to just eat the breasts, The legs and wings were jerky. But I did that because I was the goat the time before and, damn it, I was the goat again! See one of the pitiful chickens pictured to the right.

So, my next attempt was with two racks of ribs. Anne took them and pulled the sinew off the back and then soaked them in Italian dressing overnight. I bought some chunks of apple wood that I soaked overnight in water.

I got up, early on Saturday morning, and had everything

on by 8:30 am. See a picture of them to the left. I smoked them until 3:30 pm and threw the apple wood on around 11:30 am. Anne made sweet potatoes, cole slaw and something else.

We took the ribs off at 3:30 and let them sit until 5:30 with BBQ sauce on them. And they came out great! I am back to being the BBQ King and I am not the goat anymore! Check out some pictures below. Before that are some images of the apple wood, soaking, and then smoking away in the firebox.

My next project is a pork shoulder; very, very similar to the butt that I didn't get quite done the first time. But, I am confident in my skills with this new smoker. I just had to get used to it; it was like having an old, automatic, compact car and then, suddenly, being given a manual transmission sports car.

But I feel much more comfortable with this new smoker. I am thinking of using this for a few years and then buying a more robust one. This one works fine, for now.