1st Run on the New Smoker

Wow - what a new concept. I remember my dad had a purple box-like metal thing that we used as a kid, that's my only experience with charcoal. While I do remember going outside to toast marshmallows over the still-hot coals for dessert, as well as making "banana boats" in that unit, I was WAY to young to figure out how it worked and it was a charcoal grill, not a smoker with an offset firebox...

I preloaded the firebox with about 60 pieces of lump charcoal (as opposed to briquettes) and then fired up my Weber chimney with another 30 or so. Once a grey ash formed on the coals in the chimney, the hot coals were placed on top of the fresh coals in the firebox - apparently this is called the "Minion Method." To me, that lets me add enough coals to get the smoker going for a good 4-5 hours without doing much else to it.

The first project? Carri brought home something she wanted to try for "beef on a bun" - a 3-pack of AAA Sirloin Tip roasts from Costco. Good stuff, but not the "already tender" kind of meat you'd normally have if you were to just cook it normally for a medium rare roast.

I wanted to get my hands on some apple wood to try that flavour for smoking the meat. Searching Google, I came across an ad on Kijiji for "free apple wood" - couldn't resist contacting them, and sure enough, they had just hired a company to cut down a 30 year old apple tree in their yard and figured they'd try to get rid of it themselves rather than paying the company to haul it away. I swung by on Thursday and grabbed as much as I could fit in the back of the Avalanche (ok, some in the cab as well...)

Carri sliced me up some chunks out of a smaller piece of the trunk - she made me 6 pieces that would be roughly 3 inches in diameter and about 3 inches long. I ended up using them all over the course of the 6 hour cook. The roast turned out VERY tender, but in all honesty - a bit "too smokey" for my liking. I think I'll try one or two chunks next time, but for my first attempt with the new rig, it turned out to be a success!



Pulled it off the smoker at 4pm and let it sit for 75 minutes wrapped in foil. Carving it showed me the most-amazing smoke rings I'd ever seen. A deep "purpley" ring went around the entire roast - almost a centimeter deep. We'll be trying this again, but with a little less smoke. I may go a little longer.

The average cook time at 225F is 1.5 hours per pound, so for 6 pounds of roast, that should have taken 9 hours. Due to the fact there is WAY more surface area and WAY less depth to 3 small roasts than 1 large one, I assumed it would take less time. I think it still could have gone a little longer - the internal temp got up to 150F, and it stayed there the entire time it sat foiled on the counter.

That would indicate the meat was still on the "plateau" -this is the temperature at which the meat remains while all the connective tissues are rendered and broken down. At this phase, even though heat is being added in the smoker, the temperature of the meat remains constant and all that energy goes to breaking down that connective tissue. I've heard meat can actually stay at that level for up to 4-5 hours!

Anyone that's ever had a pulled pork sandwich is familiar with the OH SO TENDER meat that results. Next time, I think we'll do a pork shoulder or maybe a pork "picnic" roast, a little more time and a little less wood. All in all, what a great way to spend a relaxing day off!!!

Almost there! Cleansing and Fat Burning System Worked!

After only a few short months, I find myself within 2 pounds of reaching my goals. In late 2008 when I started, it seemed like a pipe dream, that I could shed that much weight and do it in such a short time period... I wanted to be back to 190 by my birthday, which is now just ten days away.

Even a month ago, I was skeptical I could reach it, but looking at the progress, it was a steady and progressive reduction in weight, inches and body fat percentage. The Isagenix system, (referred to as the "Accelerated Program") was designed for me by my coach Barbilee Hemmings. I met her almost 3 years ago now at a networking function. I only wish I'd paid more attention then, so I could have had a better last 3 years.

I'm coming off the accelerated program and moving to a 'standard' program next week, and from there, we'll see what happens. Now that I'm in the right weight range, I'll be more in-tune to looking at myself in the mirror, judging how clothing fits and deciding when I've actually reached my goals. the scale isn't moving all that quickly now, especially since I've added weight training back into the mix. Now that I'm adding muscle, my body composition is changing, I'm just not "losing weight" -which is completely fine with me!

I'm feeling great, have more energy and looking forward to playing ball again this year!

Almost crawling....

Miller is doing so well lately - he's finally over a cold he picked up when he last visited a local playgroup. This weekend, we're enjoying a visit from Auntie Jodes. When she heard that my parents weren't coming up this weekend for a visit, she jumped at the chance to hang out with Miller one-on-one (and Carri was happy for the "break" that provided - as a matter of fact, she's out and about in town right now... something that is much easier to do without a 20 pound "assistant" tagging along.)

After we had Shane and Brielle over for dinner two weeks back, Carri has been bugging me to get something smoked on the bbq for her. Last time, we had a AAA Top Sirloin roast that I dry-rubbed and smoked for about 4 hours using a mesquite smoking pellet kit my parents got me for Christmas. This thing was amazing - SOOO tender, wonderful smokey flavour - the meat just melted in our mouth.

Today's challenge is a bit different - Carri couldn't find spare ribs I was wanting to do the other day, so she picked up pork short ribs instead. Beef short ribs are traditionally done on the smoker, but pork short ribs are a different animal. We're going to give it a go and whip up a homemade bbq sauce to accompany them. They've been sitting in the rub for about 2 hours now, I should be getting them into the smoker around 2:00 and we'll see how they turn out. I figure a little beer basting probably will help keep them nice and moist.

I'm going to adapt a technique from the BBQ Pit Boys - if you haven't heard of these guys, just google them, or even better - search youtube for them. They have a recipe for every kind of meat (even soups) you could possibly try to smoke. (For the uninitiated, "smoking" refers to a bbq technique that cooks food "Low 'n Slow" for long periods of time.) We did some pork back ribs the other day that were on the grill for 10 hours, even chicken takes this long. A lot of people assume cooking for that long would dry out the meat, but simply the opposite is true.

Now that I've got the pellet smoker, I can infuse apple wood, hickory, mesquite or even a Jack Daniels flavour into the meats. I can't wait until summer comes and this can be done a little more leisurely outside. For now, I have to just be satisfied running in and out of the house to our snow-surrounded BBQ.