All Things BBQ

3rd Annual Smoke on the Prairie BBQ Contest

All Things BBQ — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Last night, Don moseyed on down to El Dorado, KS, for the 3rd annual Smoke on the Prairie BBQ contest. Many of our BBQ friends were out there gearing up for a smokin' competition to be judged today (August 21).

Here are a few photos from his adventures:

The previous three were Terry Phillips (of Hedge Hogs competition team) smoking bacon wrapped jalapenos on his Yoder Smoker.

The previous two were of steaks Chad Miller (a friend of the Bellies by Traeger team) cooked up. Word on the street is they were amazing.

Thanks to everyone for the hospitality and all the good eats! Good luck on the results this afternoon.

How-To: Beer Can Chicken

All Things BBQ — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Grill Recipe: Beer Can Chicken

There's nothing quite like the moist, flavorful meat of beer can chicken. Many people think this approach seems too complicated, but here is a quick how-to so you have no excuse not to try it!

Beer can chicken sitter or roaster rack
1 can or bottle of your favorite beer (we like Dundee's Honey Brown)
1 whole chicken (3-4lbs)
1/4 cup Plowboys Yardbird rub
1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup Pappy's Chipotle sauce

1) Preheat grill to 450ºF/230ºC (a gas or charcoal grill will work well for this recipe).

2) Wash chicken inside and out with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Rub the chicken inside and out with the Plowboys Yardbird rub. The secret is to also get the rub under the skin as best you can.

3) Pour your beer into your sitter or rack and place the chicken cavity down on the opening. It should be pushed far enough down to stand up on its own.

4) Place the chicken on the grill, close the lid, and roast for 20 minutes per pound (60-70 minutes approximately).

5) Melt butter and mix with Pappy's Chipotle sauce. Baste chicken liberally with this mixture two to three times during roasting.

6) Chicken is done when a meat thermometer is inserted and reads 160ºF (71ºC). Remove from heat, cover, and let rest 10 minutes before carving.

Fourth of July Pork Recipe - Mojo Pulled Pork

All Things BBQ — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 00:00:00 +0000

It's not too late to fire up the smoker for a DYNAMITE pork recipe for the 4th of July! We are currently in the process of smoking two pork butts prepared to the specifications of the following recipe:

Step 1: The Paste
The first step in making this Mojo Pulled Pork is to make a spice paste that you will use to marinate the pork butt.

Ingredients

7-8 pound pork butt
3 Tbsp ground cumin
3 Tbsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp salt
1 Tbsp dark brown sugar
2 Tbsp crushed garlic
1 tsp Cholula Chipotle hot sauce (the small bottle to the left of the olive oil)
4-5 Tbsp olive oil

Directions

Prepare the paste by combining all the ingredients, adding enough oil to make a thick paste.
Save 2 Tbsp of the paste for making the sauce later.
Rinse the pork butt and pat dry. Place the pork butt on a platter, fat side down. Apply all of the past to the top and sides of the pork butt.
Cover the pork butt with plastic wrap. This will allow you to push the paste around to get even coverage, and it will make sure the paste is kept in contact with the pork.
Refrigerate the pork butt for at least 4 hours.

Step 2: Smoking The Butt
Once the pork butt has marinated in the paste for a good long while, it's time to smoke the pork butt. This is done just like any other low and slow pork butt smoking you have ever done. We smoked our butt at 230 degrees for about 15 hours to a final temperature of 200 degrees. We happened to use four fist-sized chunks of maple for this particular pork butt, but use whatever wood strikes your fancy.

The set up we used in the photo below was a large Big Green Egg ceramic cooker, a plate setter inverted on the fire ring, a drip pan sitting on the plate setter, a grid on the plate setter, and finally the pork butt goes on the grid.

When the pork butt is done smoking, you don't really need to do any wrapping in foil or resting. We just took the pork butt out of the cooker and pulled it. You are going to drench it in Mojo sauce (the next section) so you don't really need to worry about juices redistributing or anything like that. (You should prepare the sauce during the last 2 hours or so of smoking the pork butt so that the sauce is ready when you are ready to pull the butt.)

Step 3: The Mojo Sauce
Like we said before, you should make the sauce a couple of hours before the pork butt is done cooking. It will take some time to assemble and reduce.

Ingredients

2 cups orange juice
1/2 cup lime juice (about 6 limes)
1/2 cup lemon juice (about 3 large lemons)
1/3 cup dark brown sugar
1/3 cup beer
1/3 cup Pyrat Pistol rum
1/2 cup Pinot Noir red wine vinegar
1 Tbsp crushed garlic
5 bay leaves
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1 packet Goya Sazon con culantro y achiote (see the photo of ingredients)
20-30 whole garlic cloves, peeled
2 Tbsp of the reserved paste from step 1

Directions

Add all the ingredients to a medium sized sauce pan.
Bring to a boil and let simmer, stirring often. Allow the sauce to reduce by half. The sauce should begin to feel a bit thicker than it started at this point.
Pull the pork and place it in a aluminum or glass baking dish large enough to hold it all. Make sure you get all of the bark broken up and mixed in with the pork.
Pour the reduced sauce over the pork. Stir it into the pork to make sure all the pork gets coated.
Allow to rest for an hour or so.

Serving Suggestions

You can serve Mojo Pulled Pork on a plate with some appropriate rice dish, but we prefer on a bun with some basic slaw, fries and a cold beer.

Pulled Pork Sandwiches Recipe

All Things BBQ — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

1 boston butt (pork shoulder)
Classic yellow mustard
John Henry’s Texas Pig Rub
Big Moe’s BBQ Sauce

The day before cooking: prepare the rub, rinse the pork butt, and pat dry with paper towels. Lay the pork butt on plastic wrap and thoroughly coat with yellow mustard and then evenly apply the rub around the pork butt. Wrap in plastic wrap, place in a foil pan and refrigerate overnight. Prior to placing pork on the pit, give it an additional application of the rub.

Start the smoker with lump charcoal and add the flavor wood of your choice. Apple or other fruitwoods compliment the pork nicely. Once the fire is ready to cook, place the pork butt on the pit and adjust the temperature (grate level) to 225 - 240 degrees. Cook at this temperature until the internal temperature reaches at least 150-degrees. At this point, pull the meat and double wrap it in foil and place back on the pit until the internal temperature reaches 190-degrees. Then pull the meat from the pit and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Next, pull the pork with gloved hands or Bear Paws pork pullers. Serve with bbq sauce and buns!

Fire Wire Skewers - The last kabob tool you'll ever use!

All Things BBQ — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Fire Wire Skewers

Choosing wood for smoking

All Things BBQ — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

At All Things BBQ we get a lot of questions about which wood to use for different types of meat so here are some basic guidelines:

Apple delivers a sweet, mild flavor which goes well with poultry and pork.
Cherry also has a sweet, mild flavor that goes well with virtually everything. This is one of the most popular smoking woods. Hint: often combined with hickory.
Maple, like fruit wood, gives a sweet flavor that is excellent with poultry, ham, and salami.
Pecan imparts a rich, sweet smoke flavor. It is similar to hickory yet a bit milder,
Hickory produces a robust smoke flavor with just a hint of sweet. A good choice for pork, beef, and lamb.

Ask around and see what wood your favorite BBQ restaurant uses and then do some experimenting in your own pit. Don’t be afraid to start with hickory and then mix in some fruitwoods to produce a lightly mild, fruity flavor.

Obie’s Always Juicy Fajitas MADE WITH FAJITA FABULOSA

All Things BBQ — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Courtesy of Obie Obermark and www.obiecue.com

An unconventional recipe that yields exceptionally juicy fajitas.

INGREDIENTS

Roughly 3 lb. Skirt Steak trimmed of excess fat and membranes
½ cup Beer or 2 Tbs. lemon juice (mixed with 6 Tbs. of water if using lemon juice)
2 Tbs. Cooking oil
2 Large Onions sliced
2 small Green Peppers sliced

DIRECTIONS

Lightly dampen the meat with beer or diluted lemon juice and heavily coat with Obie Cue’s Fajita Fabulosa/Picosa Seasoning. Fold the skirt over 3 or 4 times and place in a gallon Ziploc bag with beer or lemon juice. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or preferably overnight, to give the tenderizer time to work. For quick tenderizing, after seasoning the meat, fold it in thirds over itself, cover with a piece of plastic film and pound it once from one end to the other with a rolling pin. After you work one side over, then flip the skirt over and pound on the opposite side. Marinate as above for 45 minutes before cooking.

Remove skirt from bag and drain. Slow grill over low very smoky fire to warm pink center. Remove from fire and cut into 4 equal pieces. Cut each piece into ½” strips longways, cutting across the grain of the meat.

To keep from overloading the skillet, cook your fajitas in two batches. Over high heat, in a large heavy skillet heat the cooking oil to near smoking then add half the sliced onions and sauté, tossing or stirring vigorously until the onions begin wilting, then add half of the green pepper(s) and continue stirring until the peppers start to wilt. Add half of the meat strips and stir well to combine. Turn heat down to medium and cook 3 minutes with occasional stirring. Add one half of the tomatoes, stir well and transfer to serving platter and keep warm. Repeat with other half of veggies and meat. Serve with flour tortillas for rolling, and lots of salsa picante.

News: BACK-TO-BACK BBQ SAUCE AWARDS FOR WEST DES MOINES COMPANY RUSS & FRANK’S

All Things BBQ — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

(November 24, 2009) It's back-to-back first-place finishes for Russ & Frank's Sassy BBQ Sauce. Sassy won both the 2010 Scovie Award for the American Style Mild BBQ Sauce category, and the Tomato Base Mild category at the Best of the Best BBQ Sauce Competition at the National BBQ Festival in Douglas, Georgia. (See http://www.nationalbbqfestival.com/_pdf/2009/2009%20Sauce%20Winners.pdf) “I’m not surprised that Russ & Frank’s is achieving recognition on a national level,” stated local Des Moines chef Shad Kirton of Smokey D’s BBQ. “It’s a high-quality product that tastes great – that’s the reason Smokey D’s uses it exclusively.” Russ Cerniglia, the “Russ” of Russ & Frank’s stated, “I think it showcases the versatility of the sauce in that it can hold its own at competitions throughout the country – it transcends regional BBQ preferences.”

When the results of the 2010 Scovie Awards, the world's leading recognition for hot and spicy products, were announced, Russ Cerniglia was excited to get the call from the competition organizers. West Des Moines based Cerniglia Enterprises LLC which manufactures Russ & Frank’s Barbecue Sauces, received two 2010 Scovie Awards. In the industry's most rigorous blind tastings, a panel of the country's top culinary experts sampled hundreds of the world's most lauded gourmet foods, and the top scoring products each won a coveted Scovie banner, which is proudly displayed on www.russandfranks.com.

Russ & Frank’s Sassy Barbecue Sauce took 1^st place in the American Style Mild BBQ Sauce and Russ & Frank’s Fiery took 2^nd place in the American Style Hot BBQ Sauce competitions. Over 600 products from around the world competed for top honors. Dave DeWitt, the nation's leading author on fiery cuisine and founder of the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show created the Scovie Awards. The awards are named for Wilbur Scoville who pioneered a rating scale for spicy foods. The Scovie Awards have become the industry standard for excellence in more than 60 categories of fiery foods.

"This year's entrants really represented the cream of the crop in fiery foods products," notes Dave DeWitt, dubbed by The New York Times as the "Pope of Peppers." "Our 2010 winners represent some of the largest companies in the industry, such as Pace Foods, Buffalo Wild Wings, and Garden Fresh Salsa, as well as start-up companies just getting off the ground. The common factor is their commitment to excellence and the real quality of the products they produce."

DeWitt was also pleased with the geographic diversity of the winners. "This year, our winners represent companies from 32 different states and countries and provinces as diverse as Panama, Australia, Japan, Antigua and Canada," lauds DeWitt. "Scovie winners truly exemplify the diversity and quality of this industry."

Many of the Scovie award winning products, as well as thousands of other products, will be available to both trade buyers and consumers at the 22nd Annual National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show, March 5-7, 2010 in Albuquerque, NM. For information on the National Fiery Foods Show, call 505-873-8680, or visit www.fiery-foods.com.

Russ & Frank's Mild also took 9th at the National BBQ Festival in Douglas, GA and the Fiery took 8th in the Tomato Base Hot. “When I started making BBQ sauce as a hobby, I never dreamed it would turn into an award-winning product. I couldn‘t be happier with these three, top ten finishes,” stated Russ Cerniglia.

Our "Guide to Sauces" is Now Available

All Things BBQ — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We're really happy to announce that the All Things BBQ Guide to Sauces is now available for your perusal. If you've wondered what the differences between Kansas City sauces and Alamaba Sauces are, this will be an informative read for you. It will also help you find categories of sauces you're likely to enjoy based on the ingredients in the sauces. Check it out!

Free Starter Kit Promotion

All Things BBQ — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Hello everyone! We just wanted to give you a heads-up on a new promotion we've just rolled out. From now until December 31st we're giving away a "starter kit" for every Yoder Cheyenne, Wichita, 16" or 20" Durango, and Santa Fe Smoker we sell. This starter kit consists of some hickory split wood, lump charcoal, a sauce and rub selection, a wood poker, a grease bucket, and a copy of the "Sublime Smoke Cookbook". Check out the full details of this promotions here!

Grand Opening Contest Winners

All Things BBQ — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

Our Grand Opening celebration was a huge success! We smoked about 80lbs of pulled pork and brisket and served it on Saturday 9/26. Many people came out and enjoyed our new store!

This week we drew winners for the Weber 22.5" One Touch Gold Charcoal grill and a Yoder Smokers 24" Fire Pit. Our lucky winners are featured above.

Thank you to everyone for making it out to the event and if you didn't, we hope to see you soon!

It's our grand opening celebration!

All Things BBQ — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

It's time to celebrate our grand opening! We're having an open house starting today. We will have samples, cupcakes, daily door prizes, and two GRAND prizes: a $319 Yoder Smokers Firepit, and a $160 22.5" Weber Gold Kettle. Come enter to win and check out the one and ONLY BBQ supply store in Wichita! We begin our celebration today (September 24th) at 10:00 AM and wrap things up on Saturday, September 26th at 6:00PM. Come, join the fun!

We're Open!

All Things BBQ — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 00:00:00 +0000

We're here! You've been hearing the buzz, and we're now truly excited and proud to announce the launch of our new website. So now you can order everything you need for delicious BBQ from the comfort of your own home, or come on down to the store while you're in downtown Wichita.