Ribs and Rings

Oh boy, good eats tonight!

I fired up the WSM around 9:30 this morning. I had two racks of ribs that I bought last week for $1.98/pound. I bought one larger rack for us, and a smaller one for the neighbor's son, who's been taking care of his folks' house while they've been on vacation.


I trimmed up both racks. I need more practice at trimming them, but I'm getting there. There's an excellent video tutorial on how to trim pork spareribs into St Louis Style ribs at the Virtual Weber Bullet website.

Rubbed both racks down with Dizzy Pig Red Eye Rub and let them sit in the fridge overnight.


About a half hour before they were done, I put Texas Rib Ranger's Hot BBQ sauce on the ribs for the neighbor, and Rufus Teague's A Touch O' Heat on ours. I also deep fried some onion rings, using this recipe from Ina Garten on Barefoot Contessa.

Everything came out delicious! We ate way, way too much! We ate outside on the deck, making it an even better dinner!


I also threw a boneless, skinless turkey breast on the smoker. I rubbed it down with some Dizzy Pig Jamaican Firewalk rub the night before. After I pulled it off the smoker I did a fine chop on it and Anita made it into smoked turkey salad (by adding S&P, mayo, onion, and celery) for our lunches next week.

Breaded Grilled "almost fried" Chicken Wings

I found this recipe on the Dizzy Pig website.

The final product tastes better than just about any deep fried chicken we've ever had.

We started out with a little over 5 pounds of wings. Trimmed the tips and any loose skin.


Next, we fixed up 3 bowls. The first bowl had 2 eggs and a cup of milk, mixed. The other two contained 1/2 cup AP flour, 1/2 cup corn meal, 2 tsp salt, and 2 Tbsp of either Dizzy Pig Swamp Venom rub or Dizzy Pig Tsunami Spin rub.

We dipped the wings in the egg/milk mixture, and then rolled them in either flour/meal/rub mix.

This is the first time I've tried this recipe or using the WSM as a grill. It was a learning adventure. I took out the water pan and the top grate. I put in one chimney of charcoal, a few chunks of lump charcoal, and two small chunks of mesquite. The goal was to stabilize at 250° F, but I never made it that low. I tended to average around 300° F.


Next, loaded up the wings. About every 15 minutes I'd either rotate the grate 180° or flip the wings carefully.


After about 1 1/2 hours they were done. Maybe even a little over done. Next time I'll either try to get the temp closer to 250° or move to the top grate on the WSM.

The chicken was fantastic. I was thinking of putting some Frank's on them towards the end, but I was right in not doing so. They were outstanding without any sauce, or dipped in Ranch dressing, or dipped in Frank's and melted butter. Just outstanding.


We really like Dizzy Pig's rubs. Give them a try, you won't regret it. We use them on almost everything we grill or smoke.

Fly on the Smoker

I was sitting out on the swing waiting for tonight's chicken sandwiches to grill, when along came this odd looking fellow. He landed on the WSM cover and sat there looking at me with his 1,000 or so eyes for 15 minutes.

Arrival of the WSM

I was going thru some old pics today, and came across this one. I took this the day my Weber Smokey Mountain smoker showed up, on June 23, 2006. What a proud, happy day it was!


I'll be posting many pics and recipes from the WSM.

If you're looking for great WSM tips, recipes, etc. make sure you check out the Virtual Weber Bullet website.

My first smokes were beer butt chicken:


and pulled pork. Now I smoke ribs, chicken, turkey, pork, and fatties. And anything else I can throw on there. Nothing beats smoked meats.

I have a WSM (now 3 years old), a Weber Kettle (now 15), and a Weber Genesis B (now 10). It's getting near time to replace some of them.