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