Birthday BBQ

The family dinner for my birthday was at my place this year. After watching Man v Food episodes, I thought I'd try my hand at brisket again. I found that the local Asian butcher could actually supply me with a whole brisket and I picked one up last Wednesday. All 7kg worth! This is about a third of the whole 7kg, with the other two pieces flatter and thinner. This one had a little more fat through it, so I chose this one to rub and smoke. I trimmed nearly 1 kg of fat too. Before smoking, I rubbed Dijon mustard, Worcestershire sauce and some BBQ rub, and left it overnight.

Yesterday morning, I lit some 15 heatbeads and poured those onto 60 or so heatbeads in my cheap Weber kettle BBQ. A few chunks of hickory and 9 hours later and this is what ended up. I tried to keep the temp down to under 250 deg F but the kettle climbed to over 300 deg F and stayed there pretty much all day, probably due to too much charcoal being lit (might try 10 next time). I also had to pull off the meat at an internal temp of ~180 deg F instead of the generally agreed temp of 190 deg F, so I thought it would end up being tough.

After cutting, I was happy with the smoke ring. I had a small bit and was surprised it was quite tender. Overall, I'm happy with the result, but next time, I'll be sure to get the temp lower and cook it longer till it hits 190 deg F. I don't have the real deal to base my results off, but the meat was quite tender, smokey and the dry rub provided a decent kick (with the chilli powder).

Pork Hocks (Schweinshaxe Round 3). This time, I dried four in the fridge for a couple of days, rubbed oil and salt, and put them on the warming rack on my gas BBQ. Turned on the outer burners on high, all inner burners on low, and the temperature hit ~170-180 deg C. I turned these fairly often to try and get them crisp all over. It turned out better than I expected. This will be my new method for making these.
I left these on the warming rack whilst doing the chickens (see below), to give them a chance to cool (I learnt from last time). This was the resulting crackling and meat after pulling them off the bone. Very delicious if I say so myself, although probably not very healthy.


Roast potatoes and pumpkin cooked in the dripping pork fat. Very tasty and unhealthy.


Butterflied brick chickens. These were marinated in oregano, chilli and lemon. Half an hour on each side (the presentation side was pressed on the grill with a brick) and these were done.

I quartered each chicken and then halved the breasts, resulting in slightly smaller chunks.

Also served up for dinner were some homemade baked beans, coleslaw and my interpretation of Greek salad. I used a goats milk fetta and wasn't a big fan of the goat flavour ...