Kevin S. Wilson wrote:


While cooking shows are often enjoyable, it's also important to keep
up with current events.

http://www.nakednews.com

Yeah, but they stick to soft news on that show...

Dana

"Nathan Lau" wrote in message
. com...
Dana Myers wrote:
Michael C. Neel wrote:

I watch alot of their 'BBQ' week or whatever it is. Every show had
'tips
from the pros', and not one show were temps and times mentioned
together.
It was either 'then smoke the ribs for 6 hrs!' or 'cooked at a low
temp'. I
never caught a show where they talked about the rub used, if there was
a mop
or sauce applied, any many didn't even show the grill. No one talked
about
fuel for the fire. No one showed pulling the skin off of ribs or what
a
good fat cap looks like on a brisket. In short the only thing I took
away
from 8 hrs of Foot TV was that there is a Webber Restaurant that has
grills
indoors.

I think on one of the shows they showed the cook scratching off the
membrane after grilling the (previously smoked) ribs. I don't think big
restaurants bother with pulling the membrane - it takes too long.

Right; the television format doesn't allow much time to
go into the details. While I don't watch as much
FoodTV as I used to, they usually have recipes available
online or via postal mail.

Of course, even the recipes usually don't go into much
detail about the how and why, they just basically tell
you how to recreate what you saw on TV.

Next time I have time to kill I'll skim the FAQ =)

Heh; the FAQ will probably impart about 30x as much
information in the same time you spent watching FoodTV,
but it requires more work (you actually have to
*read* it... ;-) )

I wonder if someone could make a TV series called, "Cooking the BBQ FAQ"
or something like that.

--
Aloha,

Nathan Lau
San Jose, CA

#include std.disclaimer



Ok i'm a rookie here, what i saw on the food channel was the guy taking off
the membrain before he cooked it. He said it was so the ribs wouldn't curl
up. Any other reasons for this? Toughness I am guessing?

Dirty Harry wrote:
Ok i'm a rookie here, what i saw on the food channel was the guy taking off
the membrain before he cooked it. He said it was so the ribs wouldn't curl
up. Any other reasons for this? Toughness I am guessing?


Makes it easier for the fat to render out of the meat; makes it easier
for smoke and seasonings to penetrate the meat from the side that had
the membrane; maybe makes it easier to eat (though membrane-on ribs are
no harder to gnaw at than corn on the cob). Some folks, with beef ribs
anyhow, deliberately leave the membrane intact in order to hold in some
of the "juices" (read "rendered fat"), but the ones who do that usually
cook with the bone and membrane side up the whole time, so they're not
trapping all the fat.

"Douglas Barber" wrote in message
news


Dirty Harry wrote:
Ok i'm a rookie here, what i saw on the food channel was the guy taking
off
the membrain before he cooked it. He said it was so the ribs wouldn't
curl
up. Any other reasons for this? Toughness I am guessing?


Makes it easier for the fat to render out of the meat; makes it easier
for smoke and seasonings to penetrate the meat from the side that had
the membrane; maybe makes it easier to eat (though membrane-on ribs are
no harder to gnaw at than corn on the cob). Some folks, with beef ribs
anyhow, deliberately leave the membrane intact in order to hold in some
of the "juices" (read "rendered fat"), but the ones who do that usually
cook with the bone and membrane side up the whole time, so they're not
trapping all the fat.


Good info, thanks.
Dirty Harry

Steve Wertz wrote:
On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 06:42:29 GMT, Dana Myers
wrote:

The best cooking program I've ever seen was on local Vancouver, BC TV;
a young, very attractive couple hosts a cooking program in 'nothing' but
aprons (at least nothing more visible than aprons).

This was featured on one of those Real Sex HBO specials.

I'm not surprised. I can't say the cooking part of the show
was all that interesting, but it was nice late night channel-
surfing. We lodged in a residential hotel about two buildings
from the edge of Stanley Park, for 10 days last June. It was
*beautiful*, though I didn't go searching for Q joints...

Dana

On Wed, 9 Jun 2004 20:58:41 -0400, I needed a babel fish to understand
"Michael C. Neel" :

Since I have been laid up with a injury I have been watch too much
Food TV.

I watch alot of their 'BBQ' week or whatever it is. Every show had 'tips
from the pros', and not one show were temps and times mentioned together.
It was either 'then smoke the ribs for 6 hrs!' or 'cooked at a low temp'. I
never caught a show where they talked about the rub used, if there was a mop
or sauce applied, any many didn't even show the grill. No one talked about
fuel for the fire. No one showed pulling the skin off of ribs or what a
good fat cap looks like on a brisket. In short the only thing I took away
from 8 hrs of Foot TV was that there is a Webber Restaurant that has grills
indoors.

Next time I have time to kill I'll skim the FAQ =)

Mike


Only one I really cared for was Alton Brown, and he did discuss the
creation of a rub... but we all know Alton is a rather specific
person... well to a degree 8 )

On Thu, 10 Jun 2004 16:18:28 GMT, Douglas Barber
wrote:

Makes it easier for the fat to render out of the meat; makes it easier
for smoke and seasonings to penetrate the meat from the side that had
the membrane; maybe makes it easier to eat (though membrane-on ribs are
no harder to gnaw at than corn on the cob). Some folks, with beef ribs
anyhow, deliberately leave the membrane intact in order to hold in some
of the "juices" (read "rendered fat"), but the ones who do that usually
cook with the bone and membrane side up the whole time, so they're not
trapping all the fat.

FWIW, CooksIllustrated also recommends leaving the membrane on beef
ribs.

After about two weeks of watching all of these BBQ shows on FoodTV I'm full
of ideas and ready to pull the smoker out of the garage! I plan on cooking a
variety of meats and a few that I've never done befo

1) Boston Butts are my specialty but I'm doing something different this
time. Since I'm 24 hours away from firing up the coals and my Butt is still
frozen solid, I'm using Alton's simple brine recipe (water, salt and
molasses) to help defrost the meat. I'm curious what kind of flavor the
molasses brine mixture will add to the BBQ. I'll start the Butt around
midnight Friday night. I haven't yet decided whether to put a rub on or not.

2) Most of the BBQ shows on TV have been talking about ribs - something I've
never put on the smoker before. Strange as that sounds considering how many
ribs people seem to eat - when one rack of ribs costs as much as almost two
Boston Butts - I tend to stick to the Butts.

I used some instructions from this newsgroup to trim a rack of spare ribs
into St Louis style ribs. On Saturday I'll coat the ribs with Steven
Raichlen's Basic Rub recipe (using hot paprika). The ribs will go on about
9am Saturday. I would expect them to be ready by lunch, right?

3) Brats are next. They'll go on either for breakfast or for a mid afternoon
snack. I've grilled Brats a hundred times but never low and slow. Should an
hour be long enough for the typical Johnsonville Brat?

I have a pretty good stock of cherry. I'll skip the hickory this time
around.

Cigars, beer, pork and poker. It's looking to be a good day Saturday!

Scott

Scott Randolph wrote:

On Saturday I'll coat the ribs with Steven
Raichlen's Basic Rub recipe (using hot paprika). The ribs will go on about
9am Saturday. I would expect them to be ready by lunch, right?

Kurt Lucas on another mailing list mentioned a technique Kit Anderson
suggested for ribs, putting them in the freezer a little bit before
putting them on the smoker, so that they go in really cold (same purpose
would be served by not quite completely thawing them, if they're frozen
now, I suppose). His theory was that this helped the smoke penetration -
I gather that he'd hit upon the idea when he found someone 3 hours into
doing ribs with a smoker accidentally way down at about 150f, boosted it
up to 300 and thereby accidentally got some of the best ribs he'd ever
eaten, "bacon on a stick". I haven't tried this, but it comes from
people who didn't just fall off the turnip truck, and I'm hoping to give
it a shot.

As to timing, my guess on those St. Louis cut ribs is 4 1/2 to 5 hours
if the temp's fairly steady between 200 and 250.

Douglas Barber wrote:
Kurt Lucas on another mailing list mentioned a technique Kit Anderson
suggested for ribs, putting them in the freezer a little bit before
putting them on the smoker, so that they go in really cold (same
purpose would be served by not quite completely thawing them, if
they're frozen now, I suppose). His theory was that this helped the
smoke penetration -

This has been mentioned twice very recently, both times by you maybe? Anyway
everything I'd previously read had you bringing the temps up. May be that
that convention wisom is wrong? Be interested in anybodies results at any
rate. Don't know if I find the description of "bacon on a stick" something
to work towards though. BG



--

Duwop wrote:

Don't know if I find the description of "bacon on a stick" something
to work towards though. BG

Ah, as a description of a texture, it has all too often been achieved!