Adventures in Amateur Barbeque Part Two:
“The Meat Guy Learns the Hard Way”
©2011 F. Gordon Hubbell
Note: In the last episode Chuck, our bumbling Pit Master to be, experienced a strong desire for barbequed meat but had trouble obtaining stock for his smoker in the wee hours of the morning. Finally, he has meat and a little hangover, and he’s ready to cook . . .For barbeque gear I have a big old smoker made out of a defunct propane tank. I also have a Weber kettle. My brother-in-law won the smoker in a poker game but didn’t really want it. So, he sold it to me for two hundred bucks since he knew I did pretty good burgers on the Weber and I could use the big cooker to expand my operations. There were no instructions with the unit but I’ve done some Internet research. Plus, I’ve watched all the Pit Masters episodes. I can handle it.
The way this thing works is you build a fire in the big square box at the end. Then, the smoke from the fire comes through the propane tank part and goes up the pipe. Couldn’t be simpler.
What kind of fire, though? Well, I’ve got a bag of charcoal so I’ll try that. I pour the whole bag in the square box because there seems to be plenty of room for it. Next, I’ll light it just like I do on the Weber, adding a lot more lighter fuel because there’s a big batch of future coals here. Luckily I had close to a whole quart.
Now, where is my fire lighter gun thing? The kids must have used it for something because it isn’t on the shelf by the Weber. Ten or twenty minutes of frantic searching later, I find a pack of matches in the pocket of an old pair of golf pants I wore back in the eighties when I played golf and smoked cigarettes. Hope they’ll still light!
Returning to the smoker I smell lighter fluid from fifty feet away. The little door to the square part doesn’t ventilate very well, I guess. Makes sense that it restricts air and keeps the charcoal burning slower. There’s a small puddle of lighter fluid under the box and drops are still falling into it. This thing’s gonna fire up real quick!
I’m in luck! The thirty year old match scratches on its cover and lights instantly. So I toss it into the box.
POPPPPPBLAAAAATT -- FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Nothing seems to be damaged despite the intensity of the blast and the garden hose was nearby so I put out the little grass fires easily and quickly. Somebody on the Internet said I should light charcoal with a chimney thing and I think I’ll get one next time I’m at the store. I don’t think they explode. The hair on my hands and arms will grow back in time.
Using a garden spade my wife keeps propped by the back door, I pick up the briquettes that blew out and pile them back in the box. After doing this I note just a little gray tinge on some of the charcoal. Eureka! Time to load the meat in, I guess? I think the heavy petroleum smell will be gone when I get back from getting the meat ready.
Uh-oh, I remember my problems with rub ingredients at the store last night. The Pit Masters on TV all had their own special rubs. I even saw a recipe somewhere but I haven’t got the time to find it right now. Lets see . . . No paprika, of course, but I’ve got a full box of salt and a can of ground pepper and there’s some sugar. All the other stuff in the spice cabinet seems to be baking soda, baking powder, gravy mix, tea, and a big jar of Tang. What the hell? Experimentation often yields tasty results, so I put all this stuff in a big bowl and stir it up. Looks sort of gray, but it burns my tongue a little when I taste it so it must be close.
Knowing my charcoal will be glowing hot real soon, I rip the wrapping off of all the briskets, butts, ribs and chickens. The trash can is overflowing with shrink-wrap and both sides of the sink are piled high with critter parts. I hit the button on the sprayer and give it all a good shower for sanitary purposes.
Gotta remember to clean all this stuff up before my wife wakes up.I find several cookie sheets and some baking pans and a few big pots and start chucking meat into them along with large amounts of my new experimental rub, which I first sprinkle then sort of dump all around. When the excess rub hits the water on the counter and floor it sizzles then foams up. Man, this is going to be good stuff!
“What the hell are you doing?” comes a familiar voice as I’m wrapping up the rubbing chore. “It’s seven in the morning and you’re cooking all this stuff for breakfast?”
I utter a polite, dignified and professional, “No, dear.” “Remember, we’ve got a lot of folks coming for dinner tonight and I’m smoking a bunch of stuff. You can make a salad. It’s gonna be a magnificent feast!”
Crossing her arms and glaring at the accumulated meat she asks, “Where’d you get all this?”
“The store.”
“When?”
“A few hours ago” I reply factually.
“Where’s your car?”
“I sort of loaned it to a butcher named Homer.”
She’s so cute when she rolls her eyes up like that! She also has the cutest little “harrumph!” she utters when I’m testing new territory in our relationship.
“You make the salad . . . and, for God’s sake clean this mess up!” she barks just a little too loudly as she whirls around and leaves the room, the heels of her bunny slippers flapping on the lino.
Oh well, excuses, explanations, and promises to repent and change my ways will have to wait – I’ve got barbeque to cook! Good barbeque smoothes a lot of rough spots in a marriage. Read that on the Internet.
Struggling under the weight and bulk of many containers of meat I manage to make it out back while only dropping two chickens and a butt in the grass. I can hose them off and I’ve got a little rub left so it’s no big deal.
What is a big deal is the smoker. The square box part is glowing bright red and the thermometer on the lid of the propane tank part is pegged out. Of even more interest is that there isn’t much smoke. How do you get that?
The briskets, birds, ribs and butts all get grill marks as I toss them on the grates in the smoker’s big, yawning cavern. Because it is so hot in there I decide to leave the doors open for a bit. My eyebrows are singed and my face is bright red from the heat.
“Smoke,” I start thinking to myself “Comes from wood”. I scare myself sometimes with my advanced intelligence and deductive reasoning capability. I also deduce that I don’t have any wood. Or do I?
In the back of the garage, under my crowded workbench, there are some cut off ends of two-by-fours that are left over from a table I tried to build. I scoop them up and run back to the smoker.
“Need to lift that little door to get them in,” I think as I grab the handle . . .
“HAAAAAUUUUUUUGGGGGGHHHH, that’s hot!
A few minutes of cold water from the garden hose and my palm isn’t quite as red and painful as it was before. And, I find I can pry the little door open with the garden spade. In goes the wood!
Pretty flames and wisps of black smoke erupt in the boxy part. Once I get the door closed (this time with the spade) I get what I’d call a moderate amount of black smoke from the stack. Doesn’t last long, though. Smells a bit like new tires. “I need some serious wood!” I aptly deduce. My Internet education is kicking in again now.
Oak, hickory and most fruit trees are what I can remember. There was this guy on TV that mixed some different logs . . . I start to scan my yard.
Out in front there’s a Bartlett Pear. I’m no arborist but I think it isn’t really a fruit tree. There are cedars beside the house. But, there are really nasty wasps in them so I discard that thought. I’m pondering the rose bushes when I just happen to recall my neighbor’s mighty old oak. Yep, that’s the ticket! It’s so big he won’t even miss a limb or two.
Back at the workbench I wrestle out my chainsaw. Today is my lucky day because it has gas in it and starts on about the thirtieth pull. BAAAAAAAARRRRRRAAAAAKKKKKK, RINGADINGDINGDINGDING goes the saw. This is real man’s work, now. I’m in my element.
Sneaking into the neighbor’s yard I notice that there’s one sort of low-hanging branch on the old oak. “You’re all mine now, baby” I say out loud, revving the saw a little to punctuate my macho message.
Standing on tip-toe I can just reach the base of the limb. BAAAAARRRRRRAAAAAKKKKKK SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE goes the saw. I’m getting a lot of sawdust in my eyes and I think I’ve swallowed some, too. The stuff going down the neck of my shirt is going to itch later, I’m sure.
All of a sudden the limb breaks free with a resounding crack and lands right in front of me, the heavy part mostly landing on my left foot. “Pain,” I think “is just part of being a professional” so I shrug off what will later be a really impressive bruise that will cause a significant limp and start dragging my prize toward my back deck.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I hear for the second time in the same morning. This time it is a gruff male voice. He has the same skeptical tone my wife did, though.
Now, my neighbor and I have never been what you’d call close. Our relationship got off to a bad start a few days after we moved in and I tore down the crummy old fence between us. Turned out it was
his crummy old fence, not mine. The new one cost quite a bit and it’s still his fence even though I paid for it, my lawyer says. There’s also the minor matter of his giant dog that greatly prefers my lawn over any other place in the world for a latrine. The day I bagged up several of his dog’s donations and heaved them back over the fence is still a bone of contention between us. Some folks just aren’t neighborly and he’s one of ‘em.
“You’re one really lucky S.O.B.” he informed me as I sized him up, deciding I could take him if I could get the chainsaw started again pretty quickly. “I was about to trim that branch myself and just hadn’t got around to it.” He continued. “Whatcha gonna do with it?”
Suddenly, I felt magnanimous and empowered. I also felt relieved because I’m a lover not a fighter. “Pop over about six tonight for some great barbeque,” I sang merrily as I pulled the huge branch toward my smoker. “Bring the family, too” I added since I knew there’d be lots to spare. Who knows, maybe we could bury the hatchet. Good barbeque makes good neighbors I think I heard somebody say one time.
After cranking the chainsaw another few hundred times I finally got it going and cut the branch up into small “sticks” that would fit in the box thing. Actually, I had quite a pile and was proud of my efforts. Smiling inwardly, I popped a chunk of oak on top of the glowing coals, being careful to open and close things with the spade.
Nothing. No smoke. I waited and waited. The temperature thing on the propane tank side was down by about half now, but I still didn’t have any smoke. With some apprehension I pried open the little door. What I had was steam! My little log was sputtering and hissing but refused to burn.
My feeble memory returned to the days of my youth when, as a Boy Scout, I had to light a fire and cook my lunch using only what wood I could scrounge and no more than three matches. This was a bad memory -- Bee Ay Dee. Green wood won’t burn and poison ivy leaves make sorry kindling, I’d discovered. The other guys took pity on me and shared lunch, but I didn’t get my merit badge.
On the theory that the continued heat from the charcoal would eventually dry out the wood, I headed back to the kitchen to clean things up. If my wife happened to come in while I was at it I could let her know I’d invited the neighbors, too.
Next time . . . Chuck gets his just rewards.