Barbequed Food

I’ve been wanting to follow-up with more pictures of our big barbecue event at the Open House on Mother’s Day weekend. Here are a few more shots to feed your eyes and make your stomach rumble.

I cooked on my SQ36 offset smoker both days of the Open House, and I enjoyed it thoroughly. We smoked bone-in chicken breasts, Italian sausages, pork ribs, and Boston butts and got rave reviews.

So here is a little to make you wish you were here.   Click a photo to enlarge it.

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Have fun,

Lavern

We are having a great time today with the SQ36 BBQ Smoker and the PR42 Pig Roaster fired up, cooking 28 pork butts. If you doubt the seriousness, come on over and you’ll see what I mean. Cold Springs Garden Center (parent company of Yoder’s Smoky Mountain Barbecue) is having open house and Mother’s Day celebration Friday and Saturday (May 6 and 7).

On the menu is homemade donuts and coffee in the forenoon, pulled pork sandwiches and BBQ samples around noon. If you drop by tomorrow (Friday) we’ll be cooking more pork butts for the next day. We plan to have the SQ36 Offset Smoker fired both days with chicken, sausage, and pork ribs for samples (until they are consumed). All free, by the way.

If you are close enough and it suits, please do come by. While you’re here, you can check out our fresh load of Meadow Creek inventory, watch the Meadow Creek equipment in action, and the best—fill your belly with authentic southern-style BBQ!

Here are some pictures I shot today to show you what’s happening around here.

Click a photo to enlarge it and start the slideshow.

Leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Have fun,

Lavern Gingerich

I hope all this great weather is making you really itchy to fire up and make some ‘que.

If your barbecue has gone to the birds, don’t let that keep you from grilling up some burgers for dinner or smoking some good old butts this weekend.

It would be great if a brand new cooker would keep looking like new, but it’s certainly not the case. Paint peels, metal rusts, stainless steel turns nasty looking, and grates get cruddy. A dirty grill or smoker can be depressing. If yours is in a mess, you know what I mean.

Thankfully, a little scrubbing and polishing and painting can make a real difference. Even then, you might need some inspiration.

Here is a collection of pictures from picnics and cooks we pulled off in the last year. I am running behind in publishing them, so I packed some of the best ones into a photo gallery for you to enjoy.

Be inspired. 

Please leave a comment to let me know what you think.

Lavern

Click on a photo to enlarge it and start the slideshow.

Yes, really, my life just isn’t fair… in an amazing way.

As you probably know by now, I am a serious BBQ fan. Good ‘que is very special to me. Besides, with all the other countless blessings, such as  family and friends, health, daily provisions, and the amazing gift of Jesus Christ to save us from our sins, life just isn’t fair!

The last few weeks, Marlin and I have been cooking a lot of barbecue, including a couple batches of smoked ribs, several turkeys, and grilled steak. Marlin even cold smoked some cheese on his TS60 BBQ Smoker.

So often when I sit down to enjoy some intensely amazing ribs or one of my brand new recipes, I can’t help but think, “My life just isn’t fair!” Really, which one of us deserves any of the blessings we have, let alone the wonderful enjoyment of cooking meat outdoors and eating it in all kinds of creative ways.

Here are some of the “unfair” blessings that have come my way recently. Hope you enjoy them.

Click on a photo to enlarge it and start the slideshow.

Don’t forget to leave a comment below. 

Be thankful!

Lavern

PS. Have some leisure time on your hands? Explore our showcase of revolutionary Meadow Creek Barbecue Smokers.

I am very excited to share with you the next video in the Barbecue Revolution series, Smoke Infusion.

This video is a delicious and mouth-watering demo of the Meadow Creek BBQ42 Chicken Cooker.

If you like the video, click here to check out my chicken cookers page.

Thanks for watching,

Lavern

In my opinion, it’s almost impossible to beat juicy, well-done pulled pork—smoked the authentic BBQ way. And believe it or not, this stuff is very easy to cook and hard to mess up!

So if you’re just learning how to smoke low and slow, a great place to start is with a bone-in Boston butt. I just can’t describe how delicious, fun, easy, and great this whole process is. You have to experience it for yourself to really know what I’m talking about.

Last month, I cooked a couple pork butts for my son Jamin’s first birthday party. Now I want to share some pictures and tips for cooking delicious pulled pork everyone will love.

Some experts will tell you to use fresh butts that were never frozen and some tell you to inject or marinate the meat overnight and some will tell you to let them rest for 30 minutes or so after they’re done before you pull them. This is great, and if you feel like doing the extra work, waiting, etc, you should probably do it.

But I can tell you, some of the best pulled pork I ever had was from a thawed pork butt, and I applied the rub just minutes before I set them on the smoker, and we were in no mood to wait half an hour to eat. And I promise it was extremely edible.

So my favorite theory in barbecue is this: barbecue is easy! (Once you have someone to teach you and you get some practice.) Of course, there are extra things you can do to make it better, but don’t let this stuff intimidate you. It is NOT rocket science, even competition style barbeque.

BBQ is about having a great time with family and friends, making memories, and producing some of the most delicious food on the planet.

Here are a few pictures from Jamin’s birthday barbecue and the train birthday cake my wife made. 

Click a photo to enlarge it.

How to Smoke Pork Butts

Here are a few quick tips on how to make your own outrageous pulled pork.

• Get your smoker up to 225–250 degrees F.
• Start with fresh or thawed pork butt with some nice fat marbling. The fat adds a lot of flavor and helps keep the meat juicy.
• Unwrap the meat, rinse it, and cut off any bloody, nasty-looking stuff.
• Cover it with yellow mustard (the kind you’d put on a hotdog). Sprinkle a generous layer of your favorite pork rub over the entire surface (edges, cracks, and all). Pat it down with your hand. Disposable gloves are handy for this.
• Load the meat onto the smoker grate and close the smoker.
• Add some fruit wood or your favorite smoking wood to the fire to kick up the smoke at the beginning. We smoke mostly with 100% hardwood charcoal briquettes and add a few pieces of wood at the beginning to create more smoke. The meat takes in more smoke when it’s cold than once it’s been in the heat for a while.
• Maintain your smoker at 225-250 degrees F.
• Spray the meat with apple juice about every hour to help keep the meat moist throughout the cook.
• Cook the meat for about 1½ hours per pound or until the internal temperature of the meat reaches about 200 degrees. This can easily take 8 hours or even 12 hours depending on the size of the meat and what the weather is like, etc.
• Extra tip: If the meat reaches the 170s and just hangs there for an hour or two, your butts might be ready to pull off. Sample it for tenderness and see how well it pulls apart. You want to be careful not to dry it out. Ultimately, you will need to determine when it’s done. This takes some skill, but remember, pork butts are easy to cook and hard to mess up if you keep the temperature fairly consistent.
• Pull it into small chunks or strips with forks or gloved hands.
• Eat it with hamburger buns (or homemade bread), cheese, and your favorite barbecue sauce. I enjoy coleslaw (finely-shredded) on my pulled pork sandwiches too.

How to Store Left-Over Pulled Pork

Here’s a great way to deal with left-over pulled pork. Freeze it in quart-size freezer bags. When you’re ready to eat some, thaw one bag in the refrigerator, and then put it in a kettle of water over medium low heat.

Indescribable!

Lavern