Jamaican Jerk Turkey.... it's all in the brine.

My Go-To Turkey Brine

1 cup kosher salt

1 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp peppercorns

1 orange

1 apple

2 heads of garlic

½ large onion

Bunch of scallions

6 sprigs of thyme

1 carrot

Instructions

In 3 quarts boiling water, dissolve the salt and sugar. Then add the remaining ingredients and allow to boil. Turn off the heat and allow to steep for 15 minutes. Pour the brine concentrate over sufficient ice to cool the brine. When the brine is cold, submerge the bird to brine. If the brine isn’t sufficient, add water until the bird is covered. Brine for at least 6 hours, but overnight is best.

Remove the bird from the brine about 4 hrs before cook time. Rinse the bird in cold water thoroughly to remove the extra briney taste from the surface. Pat dry and rest in the refrigerator, open to the air, to dry out the skin. This helps you not have rubbery skin. Just before cooking, remove from the refrigerator and oil the skin lightly. Season lightly with a sprinkle of sea salt, fresh cracked pepper, and some dry jerk seasoning. Do not over season the outside since the brine has already flavored the meat. The Jerk seasoning used is also low in sodium.

This was cooked over charcoal in a drum smoker. The temperature ran between 300-350°F until the breast meat was between 160-165°F internally. Rested for 20 minutes tented with foil then carved and served.

You can find more recipes on my website.

Whole lamb, about 35 lbs. Cooked over lump charcoal for around 6 hours.

Rub: Salt, cumin, black pepper, paprika, garlic powder. Kept it simple.

Heat: Stayed around 275–300°F the whole time. Adjusted the vents a few times to keep it steady.

Wood: Added a few chunks of apple wood on top of the charcoal for smoke flavor.

Process: Butterflied the lamb, rubbed it down the night before and let it sit in the fridge. Flipped it once halfway through.

The skin came out super crispy and the meat was falling off the bone.Next time I'd start the hind legs closer to the heat , they took a bit longer than the rest.

Just salt, pepper, garlic powder, and paprika for the steak. Sausages are straight off the grill

Yeah I know, probably not the place but I’m so excited to share my first pork belly burnt ends that I made today. I know, Im terrible that I didn’t use my grill and I used my oven but I’m just so excited to share this with everyone. I’ve been a long time lurker with the occasional comment or two but this is my first post on this sub. I used the KC sweet dry rub that I had in the cub-bard and used sweet baby rays original and jack Daniels honey bbq sauces. I cooked it at 265F for about 2.25 hrs. And other .5 hrs with the sauce.

Do you think dry brining makes a difference?

I was asked to cook some ribs for a baby shower and ended up cooking 15 racks of baby backs! My biggest cook to date but it was fun! I totally failed to get final pics…sorry in advance lol. Total time was 6 hours and I covered them with some with sweet baby rays and some with a homemade cherry chipotle sauce I made. The party had about 20 people mostly women and when it was over they told me there was only one small pan of ribs left. They were a hit!!

Different was for some pork belly.

Halved the belly, quartered 2"x 2" cubes, dry-brined SPG overnight fridge. Offset @ 250° till the srasoned suet tops got bubbly. Pulled off and rested.

Inside whipped together a red pepper flake & orange sticky drizzle. Coated the cubes, served over white rice w/ broccoli.

Turned out pretty okay.

Smoked country style boneless pork ribs for an hour and a half in a mini kettle using hickory wood chips and the snake method, finished the ribs by braising in a chipotle raspberry bbq sauce.

Had a rare nap Sunday, woke up at 5 with no time to run to the store. Open the freezer, move the Dino nuggs and bagel pizzas. What do I find, a 4.5 lb slab of Pork belly. Pull it out and run it under hot water for 2 mins. Just to get the ice off and get the skin tacky. Pat dry, couple sprays of avacado oil. Completely laced Carolina Seasoning and Brown sugar maple bourbon rub. Directly in the oven, on a shallow pan with soy sauce and water. Set to 375° F. Set a timer for 2 hours 30 min. Came back, temped at 175°F. Put on a lil soy garlic ginger glaze with a little sweet chilli Sriracha Tobasco. Turned up to 400°F for 15 minutes. And hocus pocus cooking frozen didn't fukus. Lol

I've come across a recipe that might be interesting to some folks. From the The Saint Louis Cookbook (Bicentennial Issue) published in 1964 it has a recipe from Stan Musial on how he makes BBQ sauce.

I gave it a try mostly following the recipe as written. The only part that I changed is I grated the onion using a box grater rather than try to dice it fine enough for a sauce. For the "2 bottles of catsup" I assumed that was two 14 ounce bottles and used 28 ounces of ketchup. For the Brown Sugar it doesn't say packed or loose so I went with packed. For the 1/2 cup bottled Barbecue Sauce I used Sweet Baby Ray's.

I cooked the onion in the butter for about 15min over medium heat. Added the White Vinegar and White Sugar, then got it to a boil, then removed it from the heat for 5min. I then added the rest of the ingredients and whisked them together.

It says the 1 cup of water is optional but its way too thick without it. Trying to get that sauce to a boil just made it piss hot BBQ sauce all over my stove. So I added 1 cup of water and lowered the heat to medium-low and slow simmered it for 25min, stirring occasionally to keep it from burning. Then I lidded the pot, turned off the heat, and let it set for another 25 min before bottling it up.

The sauce was rather nice but didn't have much maple flavor to it. The sauce went great with some pork steaks and had about the same performance as standard Maull's Barbecue Sauce.

Side Note: I don't think it needed the bottled Barbecue Sauce but thats how it was written so thats what I did.

hot honey lemon chicken legs. stuffed jalapeno. bacon wrapped imitation crab legs with kinder Japanese bbq sauce. spam and pineapple Hawaiian Mac salad.

Got some T-bones from my CSA. I usually reverse sear a t-bone but they are borderline on the thickness. They are about an inch thick. When I reverse sear I usually go to 110. Maybe go to 90?

Smoked this skinless belly over post oak for around 5 hours. Seasoned with black pepper and Goldees seasoned salt I put together. 225ish for an hour or so and then around 275 for the rest. Smoked using my Workhorse 1975 offset.

Aggressive trim, salt/pepper/garlic rub with no binder. 275 with oak and pecan to the stall, foil boat until 195ish, then held at 150 in the oven for ten hours.

For the sausage did kind of a bastardized Texas hot guts flavor profile but added high temp cheddar and ECA. This was my first time using collagen casing and they held up really well. Didn't bother linking but I can see where that kind of casing would be a pain in the ass.

Brisket and mac for just twenty bucks? Yes, please!

For how busy this place is, the organization and quality they are putting out at a high level is honestly astounding. Plate was $67. The jalapeño sausage is next tier level good and I’m not normally a big sausage guy, pork ribs were solid, and brisket was good. I would rate the meats on today’s visit in that order