Feed the Addiction
Ever since the EAT Barbecue sauces and rubs made their way into our warehouse last week, I’ve been anxious to give them a test run. Their arrival just happened to coincide with Memorial Day weekend, which also happened to be a rare off-weekend for our competition barbecue team, Burnt Finger BBQ. Since I’m always looking for reasons to fire up the smoker, we decided to use the long weekend to put the EAT Barbecue products to use and see how they perform first-hand.
Birthdays only come once a year, and milestone birthdays only happen once in a lifetime. It just so happens that I recently passed one of those milestone birthdays and ticked over into the big 30’s. Some people like to spend these occasions relaxing on a beach, or sulking about father time catching up with them, but I saw this as a prime opportunity to expand my barbecue horizons into a category of cooking that every great pitmaster must dabble in. So I treated myself to a pre-birthday present by purchasing a La Caja China hog roasting box and set out on my first pig roast!
This weekend I was watching reruns of Alton Brown’s Good Eats (one of my all time favorite cooking shows), and I caught an episode that was completely dedicated to cooking with alcohol…well, mainly wine and beer. Lately I have taken an even more increased interest in incorporating these flavors into my own cooking, so I quickly hit the record button on my DVR. Coincidentally, Alton proceeded to breakdown the science behind two specific recipes that I have been experimenting with extensively myself; wine marinated lamb steaks and beer bread. But that wasn’t the nugget of information that piqued my interest.
Recently we got our hands on a Maverick Laser Surface Thermometer to test out and provide our thoughts. Of course we wouldn’t want to dangle a brand new piece of equipment in front of our readers without giving you a chance to win one, so we also have another thermometer that we’ll send off to one lucky reader! Keep reading and we’ll let you know how you can get your hands on one of these guys.
This Thanksgiving I made my way to the Denver area to visit my brother, and I decided to touch upon the topic of grilling at high altitudes (5000-8000 feet above sea level). At higher altitudes, there is lower air pressure and as a result the boiling point of water drops. At sea level, water normally boils at 212′ F while at 7,000 feet water boils at 198′ F due to the fact there is less pressure to inhibit the boiling of the water (this can fluctuate due to the additives in the water, barometric pressure, etc). Another side effect of the high altitude is the liquids will evaporate more quickly so you’ll need to take this into account as well.