Father’s Day Yardbird

Posted by jer on June 21st, 2010

Hello,

We held a small dinner for my brother-in-law’s first Father’s Day and I made him his favorite dish, chicken. We were talking after Sunday Mass and I told him of my plan to roast a chicken, to which he proclaimed half a chicken was enough to feed him and we might need two chickens for dinner. He owns a landscaping business and works up a HUGE appetite. Ask and you shall receive.

I bought two Smart Chickens from my local grocery store and injected them, instead of soaking them in a brine for 24 hours, since I was short on time Sunday. I also tried to limit the amount of smoke on the chickens since my wife, mother-in-law and sister-in- law are not big on smoke flavor. I used Best Choice hardwood briquettes as my only fuel source, since it is probably re-branded Royal Oak, and was very pleased with the results no matter what the brand. I got a tiny bit of smoke flavor and the briquettes worked nicely.

Here is the recipe for the  injection I used:

I used an equal amount of injection for each yardbird, focusing on the breasts, drums, and thighs. I injected about 30 minutes before putting them on the smoker, just enough time to preheat my charcoal and then the drum smoker. I also sprayed the outside of each bird with a butter flavored spray and used the Left Over rub for seasoning.

I cooked the birds in my drum smoker at 300° for 2 1/2 hours. I took the internal temps of the chicken breasts up to 175° and the drums were 180°. I also used the wiggle test on the drums and juice ran clear from the hole made by the temperature probe.

I’ve smoked a few turkeys and some chicken pieces before ( breasts, drums, and thighs) but I’ve never made whole chickens. I am a yardbird man myself and this was the best chicken I’ve ever had, hands down best!

My in-laws made a request I make this more often and I see no reason not to since it was so easy to make, tasty, and accomplished in such a short amount of time.

I hope you had a happy Father’s Day,

Jer

Grand Champions!

Posted by jer on June 7th, 2010

Hello,

18th & Swine walked away from the Cure` of Ars Holy Smokes competition as Grand Champions! Holy Smokes is my favorite comp of the year because it is held by my parish and I compete against my friends, neighbors, and fellow parishioners. This year carried extra weight since the top three teams go on to compete in an intra-parish competition in September. Like all of the teams competing Saturday, we really wanted to be one of those teams. We’d come close to the top the last two years but not close enough.

All signs pointed towards a horrible showing at Cure`. We usually meet early in the week before a comp to discuss what we need to bring and how we’ll manage the trip, but we did not meet. Thursday night we usually corral everything we need for the competition, including the meat and the smokers, but that did not happen. We showed up to compete on Friday missing some of our necessities and our wonderful family members stepped up to help us obtain what we needed.

Friday night was fantastic. We enjoyed setting up the booth, talking to our neighbors and fellow competitors, and having our family and friends turn out to party. We usually bring in around 45 people and this year was no exception. We had so many guests we spilled out into the walkway. It was a great time.

I started my brisket in the wee hours of the morning and tried to catch a few winks. The drum I use is great at holding temps and I had unfortunately set the airflow too high before I went to sleep. I awoke a few hours later to a smoker at 340 degrees, which is not the temperature I normally maintain, and I’m not sure how long it had been at that temp. I almost choked my fire out trying to bring down the temp and created some harsh smoke. This was not the way I had envisioned my brisket prep for the comp.

One of our biggest fans, Roland, showed up at 8am to make sure we had breakfast and juice to keep chugging along. He also brought his lovable St. Bernard, Zor, along for moral support. Roland comes to almost every practice and competition, which means he’s seen our highs and our lows. He wished us luck and went to mow his lawn before the heat of the day began, which turned out to be a pretty hot day. The temp for Saturday was 91 with high humidity, not including all the smokers, people, and pavement in close proximity of one another.

Later that morning I had two new internal meat thermometers die. My teammates stepped up, helped me cobble together one internal meat thermometer from leftovers, and we pressed on. It was smooth sailing from that point forward. Friends and family popped in throughout the day with water and popsicles, smokers behaved, meats hit their plateaus and gave up the ghost, ribs pulled away from the bone nicely, and sauces came together.

We have really stepped up our presentations and procedures in the last couple of months and it showed Saturday. We waited for the results by talking to our neighbors and friends, sampling each other’s entries, and hoping for the best.

We’ve done well at Holy Smokes the last two years and while we were confident, we knew it was up to the judges to determine our fate. We started out with a bang as Jess got a fifth place call in Sausage and 2nd place in Pork. However Charlie and I did not get a call in our categories of Ribs and Brisket, so we were wondering if this was a repeat of the last contest were we both received poor scores and hurt our overall team scores. Holy Smokes calls out the top ten overall teams and we did not hear 18th & Swine as the team names kept dwindling to the last few calls. I really wanted to represent Cure in September and I sat there listening to the 3rd and 2nd place names get called. My wife looked at me and asked if I thought we won as the second place team received their trophy and I said no, thinking this truly was a repeat of the last comp in Platte City. I thought we turned in pretty good entries but you just never know. It turned out we did just fine.

I was very surprised when Father Greg called our name. We’ve been a team on the upswing but haven’t heard our names called often over the 3 ½ years we’ve been competing so I was shocked. It is an understatement to say it feels great to win a grand championship. It’s a vindication of the hard work and effort for our entire team. It’s been a long learning curve for us, taking our lumps along the way and learning from our mistakes, but we are finally hitting our stride.

The icing on the cake was watching my neighbors win the Spirit of Barbecue award, which goes to a team who demonstrates passion and dedication to barbecue.  Congrats to Two Men and a Fridge!

Happy smoking,

Jer