Recently Monica and I went to Perry's Steakhouse at La Cantera for our anniversary.  It was recommended by our friend Dave.  I have to say it was the best recommendation!  Perry's has a long history of providing great cuts of meat as it originally opened as a butcher shop and deli over 30 years ago.  Here is a link to their page if you are interested.

I remember going to the restaurant not feeling like eating a huge steak;  I wanted to save room for dessert!  When I looked at the menu I thought, let me try this pork chop.  A harmless pork chop, how big can that be.  Well, it was huge!  It was, as the kids say, ginormous, but it was the best thing I have ever eaten.  I have been talking about it for weeks.  Here is a picture of it.

So I decided that I wanted to try to make the same thing.  Not recreate the Perry's pork chop, just smoke the same cut of meat.  Saturday we were at the HEB Central Market and I got to talking to the butcher and asked if he could cut that for me.  He did.

The first step was to give it a rub.  I picked up some rub while we were at Central Market.  I put that on and then proceeded to prepare the barrel smoker.









I put water in the pan and fired up the burner.  I got it up to 180 degrees pretty quick and watched it as it settled down and smoke appeared from the smoke stacks.

I kept the smoke can filled with chunks of pecan wood.

I smoked them for 6 hours in the smoker.  I finished them on the grill while I also grilled the asparagus, 400 degrees.  Made for a yummy supper.

I am overall very satisfied with this.  I might try another rub and play with the temps a little more.

On this smoke I also had a problem with the can that hold the chunks.  This one has been used quite a bit.  It had some holes it from repeated heating.  This caused a lot of chunks to catch fire soon after putting them in.  I will be getting a new can for the next smoke.

Oh, and I have another rack of pork in the freezer just waiting to be smoked!

Buon appetito!

Smoked Chicken

One of the things that we miss about being stationed in Italy is going to BeFeds for some chicken. I was stationed at Aviano in 1996 when it first opened. I am tinkering with different kinds of rubs, and decided to smoke the chicken as well in the wine barrel. BeFeds chicken is roasted on racks that rotate over a grill. First the rub.

Today I tried the following spices mixed together. I got the recipe from here.  I mixed all the ingredients and rubbed them on the birds.  One batch was just enough to cover two whole chickens.



2-Tsp Paprika
1-Tsp Cayenne
2-Tsp Garlic Powder
1-Tsp Mustard Powder
1-Tbsp Chili Powder
1-Tsp Salt
1/4-Tbsp Cumin
1-Tsp Onion Powder

 I usually buy the chickens whole, they are cheaper that way.  I use some poultry shears to cut the birds along each side of the backbone and then done the center of the breast.  Now you have two halves.

This is about 3 hours in.

Next you put the rub on the halves.  I like to start with the bottom, then flip them over and do the top.  If you have the equipment, you can also put the rub under the skin with an injector.

Set up your smoker.  My wine barrel is set up with a propane burner.  My target temperature for the smoker is 225 degrees.  The time will depend on your smoker and maintaining the temperature.  It should take 4-6 hours.  I check it periodically and smoke until a thermometer reads 180 degrees when inserted in the thigh.  After about three hours of smoking, I spritz the birds with some olive oil to get the skin crisp.

This is just before I take them off, 5 and half hours.

Today it took five and half hours to smoke our birds.  They smell wonderful and taking a rest from their ordeal until we eat them.  Too bad I don't have smello-vision on this blog!  I made a celery salad to go with it.  The recipe for the celery salad can be found here.

Okay, I am hungry... ciao ciao!

The Very Cool Barrel Smoker

Original Barrel, before project

Every once in a while I get the notion to make something or build something.  As we were a year or so out from our PCS from Italy to the states, I started wondering what cool stuff I could make from wine barrels.   At the time, we were able to get them for around $50 each.  Once some of the wineries caught on to us crazy Americans buying the wine barrels, they quickly went up to $100 each.  For a comparison, I have found wine barrels and whiskey barrels going for $125 in the states.  So, I thought it a good opportunity to pick some up before I departed our beloved Italy.  I have five right now.  I am saving three of them to build a bar with some kind of timber slab for the bar top.  I will build that once we get our home built in Bulverde, Texas.  I have built one into a wine barrel table with a glass top and inlaid corks.  That leaves me with the one that I built into a meat/fish smoker.

The first screw through the band

I am including my photos and steps I used to make it.  My purpose is so that someone else that may have the same idea.  I am also including lessons learned, things I would different or my trial and error ideas that got me to my final product.  Anyone with average handyman skills can build a smoker from a wine barrel.

The picture to the right shows the first screw I used to hold the staves to the steel bands.  The staves are one inch thick, so I went with a #8 screw 5/8 inch long.

I used 1/4 nut driver

Jigsaw to cut the top off.

I went through a few drill bits.  I didn't have a local Home Depot or Ace Hardware to go buy harden drill bits.  I used self tapping screws, so I only drilled through the band and allowed the screws to tap themselves through.  It has been two and half years since I built the smoker.  If I were to do this part again, I may buy one inch screws.  I have had a few pop.  Since this is a smoker, the expanding and contracting of the wood and bands probably took its toll on the screws.  To help with this, I would probably be very careful not to drive them in too hard.  I have to say that this was the most tedious and time consuming part of this project.  I put one screw through the steel band for each stave.

Now the fun part.  The part when you get to see some results for the work I was doing.  I drew a line parallel with and just above the fourth band.  Next time I would probably have cut a little closer to the third band.  It would be a bit of a calculation because you want to make sure you have the diameter to get the grates in.  The reason I would cut it closer to the third band is two fold.  First, it would make the top not so heavy.  Second, there would be more support for the hinges.







As I sit here two years later, the  staves in the top are flexing a bit more and causing the lid not to seat properly.  I will add some support to it, but if I were to do it again, I would make the above adjustments.

The inside of the barrel was a beautiful red the wine and had a great aroma.  The next step is to cut a hole in the bottom that would serve as the chip/chunk door for restocking the pan.

The door took some work and rework.  I used gorilla glue to hold the staves together.  The curvature of the door didn't quite match the curvature of the barrel, but it is what it is.  I ended up added a few screws on the top and bottom of the door to keep the staves tight and together.  The gorilla glue just wasn't enough.

Next step would be to get the grates in.  I used webber grates, 22.5 inch.  Three to four inch lag-eyes were used to hold the grates.  The 'eye' part of the lag screw provided a nice flat surface to hold the grate.  I put enough in there to support three grates, four lags for each grate.  Initially my thought was to use a small pan for the water pan.  After the first use, I realized I also needed something to catch the drippings from the meat.

I found a Paella pan on Amazon.  Those things come in almost any size you would want.  I believe a 26" pan fit the bill for me.  Once I got it, I cut off the handles so it was a nice fit, a perfect fit.  Keeps the water and catches the drippings.  You can also see the burner at the bottom in the picture above.

Originally I purchased an American smoker element.  I found that running this 1500 watt element on the transformer Italy did not produce enough heat.  It worked great for salmon, but it didn't quite do it for meat.  My next try was I bought, at the Italian store, an indoor grill.  It had a 2300 watt element and was 220 volt, so it didn't require a transformer.  It worked better.

I also put some small castor wheels on the barrel.  The first ones I bought at the Italian hardware.  They were a little soft.  I would recommend hard plastic wheels.  Although hot climates may still cause them to get flat spots.

Some finishing touches.  I put a handle on the front of the lid and two handles on the barrel.  I also attached some chains to keep the lid from going back too far.

In these last two pictures you see the electric controller.  This was needed and worked great for smoking salmon.  I was able to set the temp and the controller would cycle on and off to maintain 160 degrees.  Even the 2300 watt element had to run at full power to get above 200 degrees, the controller was not necessary.  This controller was pretty cool for me in that it could be configured for either 110 volt or 220 volt.

The final and sexy touch was to add the tail pipes for the exhaust.  It made for some great conversations. The smoke just poured out of those pipes.  There were many people that were curious about this contraption.  Mostly Italians, they just don't smoke meat like we do.

The last update came as I moved to Florida.  I was back in the states now and switched back to the 1500 watt element.  This is the biggest element you can get.  Sometimes I think we are overly cautious when it comes to safety in America.  I had to come up with another idea.

My first idea was to use the offset firebox that you would use on an offset barrel smoker like the one made by Charbroil.  I used stovepipe to pipe the heat and smoke into the barrel.  It worked, but it was awkward looking.  I think I also lost a lot of heat around the stovepipe.  So I needed to come up with something else.  So I started looking for options in a propane burner.  I came across the V-Burner from a company in Alabama... that is it.  I have great control on the heat and I use a large soup can to put the wood chunks in it.




I am extremely happy with it.  Below are some of the recent items I have made with my wine barrel smoker.  What is next?  Check back to find out.

The ALWAYS popular Bacon Xplosion

Smoked Chicken, upgrade from BeFeds

Pork Shoulder


Here are some youtube videos of the barrel in action.

Maiden Voyage

Smoking Salmon

Double Brisket Smoke I

Double Brisket Smoke II

The World According to my Tummy

The other day someone told me that I always put pictures on Facebook of things that I grill or cook and that I should do a food blog.  Now, I don't consider myself an expert when it comes to food.  I just know what I like, what makes me happy.  Well, and to be honest, what makes Monica happy.

That is why we make pizza on the grill every Friday night.  To be honest, we miss the pizzerias in Italy.  So after my first tour in Italy, I taught myself how to make pizza dough.  We don't make the dough all the time now because the supermarket has it ready to roll out and bake.  So for time sake, we shell out the $2 for the time it saves.

I also taught myself to smoke various meats, fish and vegetables.  I started with smoking salmon.  Then I got the crazy idea to make a smoker out of a wine barrel.  Wow, what a hit that has been.  I have been using it for three years now.  I have smoked everything from salmon, brisket, ribs, sausage, pork chops, pork shoulder and even potatoes.  Not only is it a conversation piece... it is just plain cool.  I will share some photos of the building of the barrel with some lessons learned later.

I will always give credit on recipes that I use and post links.  I love trying new things in the kitchen, taking risks.  I may surprise you.  :)  Feel free to join in the fun.

Smoked Brisket