(or “What I did this summer”)
During quarantine, the family has been doing more barbecues and cooking outdoors. This is great for me. I get to grill or smoke something several weekends a month. The weather has been great as well. We were fortunate to be able to take the time during Covid-19 and quarantine to work on the backyard.
Since staying home or working from home started, I’ve smoked or grilled plenty. We refurbished a patio set. We extended our patio by adding 10′ x 10′ of pavers (see below). We disposed of a dilapidated 14′ trampoline. It was at least 10 years old and seen many a child and grandchild make great use of it. We replaced it with a 12′ trampoline. The new trampolines don’t have and screws or nuts. That is fantastic. I have photos of all the yard improvements below.
My record keeping of my smoking and grilling has been sporadic. I have smoke logs for some cooks, but no photos. I have photos of some other cooks, but no smoke log. For some cooks there are no records at all. How can I improve if I don’t take notes? Below are the cooks I can recall or for which I have notes or photos. I’ve added some thoughts about each one.
- 03/22/2020 – Smoked Pork Butt – I did this in the Bronco drum smoker. I used lump charcoal with very thin splits of madrone wood. I had to add some fuel towards the end. Use briquettes in the drum smoker. The burn is longer.
- 04/04/2020 – Smoked St. Louis Ribs – Play with the 3-2-1 method. Make sure you adjust for the smoker used and weather conditions. Know your smoker. These were Kroger brand pre-seasoned packs. They turned out okay.
- 04/05/2020 – Smoked Cheese – Keep it below 90°. Four hours on. Wrap and refrigerate for a week. This is very easy and very good. This was my second time doing cheese.
- 04/12/2020 – Smoked Ham Shank – I did this on the Bronco. Score the skin beforehand. Glaze. Smoke to internal temp of 140°-145°. On the Bronco, I’ve been using extremely thin splits of wood I already have. I don’t want to go buy wood chunks just to use with a charcoal fire. It works pretty well.
- 04/19/2020 – Smoked Ribeye Roast – I used a rub with chopped herbs, rather than powders. You have two choices. Smoke to 165° for medium to medium-rare or smoke to 200°, similar to brisket. I chose the former. It was perfect. I thought there was no smoke log. In one of the photos I see I had one going. The herb rub was salt, pepper, fresh rosemary, fresh thyme, garlic, lemon zest.
- 05/16/2020 – Smoked Chuck Roast – I did this one on the Longhorn. Smoked until internal temp of 212°; no braising with liquid. I sliced it rather than pull it. It didn’t seem tender enough to pull.
- 05/25/2020 – Smoked Chuck Roast – I did this one on the Bronco. Smoked until internal temp of 212°; still no braising with liquid. This one too was not tender enough to pull. I will do braising next time.
- 07/04/2020 – Smoked Brisket – This is the annual 4th of July brisket BBQ. Two briskets. After the wrap , I raised the smoker temp from 250°-ish to 300°-ish. The first brisket off was the largest and closer to the fire box. The second one was more tender.
- 07/25/2020 – Smoked Pork Loin – No smoke log; no photos. I smoked until internal temp was 145°-150° (the safe temp for pork). It turned out very tender.
- 08/02/2020 – Smoked Chicken – No smoke log; no photos. I smoked it until internal temp was 165° (the safe temp for chicken). It turned out very tender. Even the skin was pretty good.
- 08/08/2020 – Smoked Pork Belly Burnt Ends – I have photos, but no smoke log. I cubed up 7 lbs. worth, applied rub and put it on the Longhorn. After 4 or 5 hours, I put all the cubes in a pan with brown sugar, butter and honey; covered the pan and put it back on the smoker. After a couple hours, I uncovered the pan and applied liberal amounts of BBQ sauce. I put it back on the smoker for 20 minutes or so.
- 08/15/2020 – Smoked St. Louis Spare Ribs – I played with the 3-2-1 method. I still have some adjustments to do. This time I did 2.5-1.5-0.5. I wrapped two with no liquid and one with liquid. The bark on the slab with liquid was more not as tough as the other two. Each time I added wood and logged it, the smoker temp was at a low. In fact the smoker temp hovered closer to 250° most of the time.
- 08/27/2020 – Grilled Tri-Tip Steaks – My wife marinated tri-tip steak strips most of the afternoon. I put these on the Bronco set up as a grill. I grilled them turning often until they reached an internal temp of 140°. I tested often with an instant read thermometer. They tasted delicious.
- 08/30/2020 – Smoked St. Louis Spare Ribs – I played with the 3-2-1 method again. This time I did 3-1.5-45 mins. I used a sweeter run (Rub #68) on one slab. I used Big Baad Beef Rub on the other two slabs. I wrapped all three slabs in foil with brown sugar, butter, and honey. In the third phase, I left all three slabs in the liquid in the foil. I simply opened the foil and brushed on some BBQ sauce.
- 09/05/2020 – Smoked Country Style Ribs – Country style ribs are pork shoulder cuts. They come in value packs from the grocery store. I smoked them to an internal temp of some pieces to 170°; put them in disposable pans with apple juice, BBQ sauce, and brown sugar. Two pans went back on the smoker for about 90 minutes. I checked for probe tenderness. Internal temps of the pieces ranged from 198° to 210°.
I have an 18 lbs. brisket and another 3-pack of ribs in the freezer. I’ll be cooking these at some point. It won’t be this weekend though. In addition to the Covid-19 lockdown, we’ve had really bad air quality from wildfires. It was about 250 in my area; not as bad as Portland, which was about 500. Whippersnappers #8 and #9 both had soccer practices and games canceled last week. The air quality seems to be getting back to normal this weekend.
We also built a 10′ x 10′ paver patio this summer, as I mentioned. We built it to serve as a station for a couple of my smokers. The project took all of July because we are not very fast at projects like this. I watched a few YouTube video on how to do this. We dug the hole. We put down 1/2 yard of gravel and 1/2 yard of sand. The pavers we ordered were 12″ x 12″ x 1.5″. The pavers that arrived were 12″ x 12″ x 2.5″ and weighed 17 lbs. each. It threw off our measurements a bit. And I had lots of issues getting the pavers level. My wife stepped in and devised a system to make the pavers more level than I was doing. It turned out very nice.
The 09/05 cook of country style ribs was our Labor Day celebration. Whippersnappers 4, 6, 7, 8, and 9 live at home. Whippersnapper #2 and her family are in our bubble, as are Whippersnappers 3 and 5 and their boyfriends. That is a normal Saturday evening family get together and dinner for us. There are 13 to 16 people at our house every weekend. Those who don’t live at home don’t socialize with anyone else. We are very confident that this group of family members practices all the social distancing precautions to keep all of us safe.
Now, the weekend comes. Our normal family gathering quickly ballooned into a larger event than I imagined. Friends of ours were on an RV road trip. They asked to park their RV outside our house for the weekend. We would visit a bit and they had errands to run too. We discussed each other’s social distancing precautions. So we felt it would be okay to include them in our bubble for the weekend. Then I learned that Whippersnapper #5 invited my niece and her boyfriend over. They were visiting from NY. When they arrived, they said they were surprised at how loose things were here. The RV friends wanted to invite two other friends over. We discussed social distancing precautions again.
In the end, we had 22 people in our backyard for dinner. We observed social distancing and everyone stayed outside except to fill plates and bathroom breaks. Even then, we allowed only six people at a time in the house. It was a bit stressful for me. We had a great time nonetheless. We quarantined ourselves for 10 days just in case. We did not see my in-laws for 10 days.
Our summer has been mostly family dinners. The kids have taken a couple trips to isolated spots on the river. We’ve visited with my in-laws. I’ve had a great time grilling and smoking all summer. Let the smoke roll!
Small wood splits instead of chunks 
Bronco with water pancan
Pulled pork
On a rack on the smoker 
Very small fire, low heat 
Still below 90° 
Wrapped for a week in the fridge
Big piece of meat 
Glaze: Chris Lilly Apricot 
Rested ham
Ribye rubbed 
Watching 
Three hours in 
Rested ribye 
Perfect medium doneness
The dog likes the dirt 
First attempt at leveling 
Starting over 
Better. Thanks, wife 
Pavers laid 
Polymeric sand 
Paver edging 
Done 
New grilling, smoking area 
More grills 
Patio set is black, new umbrella 
New trampoline
Ribs on the smoker 
A little while in 
BBQ sauce, brown sugar, apple juice 
Not sure where the organic came from 
Ready to eat
spidersgalore 