Meat Loaf on the grill

Many people think of Meatloaf as some sort of blah food. It is what it is. Hamburger, some onion, an egg, maybe some ketchup or BBQ sauce, maybe some breadcrumbs, etc. Nothing all to exciting. Well, if your meatloaf is missing that certain something that you can't put your finger on, then take notes. It's pretty amazing what a grill and a couple apple chunks can do for meatloaf.


Here is the process for making the meatloaf. I made two small meatloaves. About 2 pounds each. I started with two pounds of ground sirloin and two pounds of ground chuck:
I added just a little garlic:
Some fresh grated Romano:
Half a diced medium onion:
Then I added some ketchup and a beaten egg:
Worcestershire sauce with some emulsified garlic:
After that I added many turns black pepper, about a teaspoon and a half of salt, and a few squirts of Chipotle Tobasco Sauce and then mixed it all together with my hands.

***One very important note for meat loaf. Do not knead the meat too much. Mix the ingredients all together but do not mash the meat up too much. You actually want the meatloaves to remain porous. It should have cracks and crevices (unlike a stuffed fatty).

Here are the two loaves in their perspective pans:
The one on the left I slathered with regular tobasco. I was out of my fave, the Chipotle, so I added some Penzey's Chipotle powder on top of the Tobasco. Since the wife isn't into hot food I put a toothpick in that one to differentiate that from the one I did not spice up.

I was heading to probably the only place in St. Louis that sells Halloumi cheese when I stopped in to my favorite wine store in the St. Louis area - Grapevine Wines. At first I got a rather quizzical look from one of the proprietors when I asked what would pair well with grilled meatloaf. I was thinking a merlot but he recommended a French Red to me. As I have said on many occasions that I am not someone that drinks European wines as I just don't know that much about them. I will drink one on someones recommendation but I don't really touch them much. But these guys at Grapevines know what they are talking about. They have never sent me astray. They don't run a store where they push something just because they have a lot of it. When they recommend something I know it's going to be amazing. And as usual they were correct:
I was told that this Vacqueyras Red Rhone would be spectacular and that the last glass would be the best due to aeration of the wine. So I decanted the wine for about 30 minutes so it would be well aerated for every glass:
I have to tell you the wine was spectacular and paired perfectly with the meat loaf. Just to be honest, I do not have any marketing agreement whatsoever with Grapevines. I just love the store and the people that run/own the place are top notch.

Enough gushing about Grapevines. Time to go check on my fire. Seems that it just may be ready to dump my charcoal chimney into the grill:



While the wine was aerating I put the meatloaves on the grill, coals to the top with a chunk of apple and the meatloaves towards the bottom so that I get some smoke flavor while taking some time to cook the meatloaves:
Despite the high wind and cold temps I was able to keep the temp at right about 300 for most of the session:
I would've liked to have gotten the temp to 350 for 60 minutes. But I just couldn't get the fire that hot in that wind. So I went with 300 degrees for 90 minutes.

About an hour in the loaves are looking pretty good (as well as some Halloumi cheese I added which I will talk about in another thread):

After 90 minutes I pulled the loaves off the grill to rest inside. I took these pictures before I drained the fat out of the pans:
My wife was kind enough to offer this wonderful bowl full of mash potatoes as her contribution to the meal:
My favorite comfort food in the world is meatloaf and mash potatoes. I was about to be in heaven.

And here we have the meat loaf plated over a pile of those excellent mash potatoes:

What I should've done differently:

1. My dad suggested I mix a pound of sausage into the meat instead of going all beef. I probably should've done this. I needed a bit more fat since half the meat was ground sirloin.
2. With that in mind I should've done a second egg. A meat loaf should be a bit wet after everything is mixed together and this wasn't. The flavor was still great, it was just missing a bit of the fattiness that would've made it stellar...

I almost forgot the movie for the festive evening so close to Christmas:


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Fall Off the Bone Baby Backs

Since nothing says Merry Christmas like smoked ribs, I thought I would share the last time I did a big batch of ribs.

When it comes to ribs I think there are two kinds of people - those that like them to fall off the bone and those that like them moist and chewy. I fall in the latter category, but I have no problem with those that are in the former. And if I cook my ribs a bit too long and they are fall off the bone I will still enjoy them a great deal. I mean if the worst thing that happens to me in a day is that I have to eat ribs that fall off the bone I've had a good day!?!

On this such occasion I was at my in-laws. My in-laws like fall off the bone, sauced ribs. Since that is what my audience wanted, that's what I gladly made. My FiL is the type of guy to get up at the crack of dawn and smoke ribs for 8-10 hours. I just don't have that kind of time. And I can provide them with exactly what they want in under four hours. That's right, four hours for fall off the bone ribs....

The ribs were marinaded in apple cider, garlic and black pepper over night. The next day my MiL made her wonderful Cumin based rub. Cumin, garlic, some brown sugar, onion powder and black pepper. I'm sure I left out some ingredients so I will check with her and update this post when I know more.

I salted the ribs with some coarse salt and then applied the rub and threw them on the my FiL's sweet Brinkman Offset Smoker. I held back one half slab for myself for a little while so they would not be fall off the bone. Here they are with all of the slabs on the grill:


I know some of you are looking at that pic and see that the coals are actually in the cooking chamber rather than the firebox. This was required to achieve my goal of fall off the bone BBRs in under four hours. To do so I needed to raise the temp from the standard 225 to closer to 275. In order to accomplish this I needed the fire in the cooking chamber rather than the firebox. I slid the grill grates over to the right to have easier access to the fire to add wood and more charcoal.

I was having one problem at this point. The ribs were practically stacked on top of each other which would slow the cooking process as they would insulate each other. I had a couple of options, try to transfer red hot coals from the cooking chamber to the fire box (and add a ton more charcoal to get the temp up) or find away to separate the ribs. After a little digging in the garage I found a rib rack. Problem solved:

In the above pic you can see the lead from my thermometer that leads to the base (out of the pic). With long cooking chambers like this, the thermometer built into the middle of the top of the grill can be off by more than 50 degrees or so from the ends of the grill. I wanted to see what the temp my ribs were at right near where they were cooking.

After 2 hours on the grill, it was time for the foil. Put the ribs on the foil bone side down, slather with either honey or syrup. For a really great bark add more rub but it's not necessary. These were getting sauced so no extra rub:


After I took this pic I just stacked them on top of each other, folded up the foil around them and back on the grill. After 45 minutes or so in the foil I pulled them, and dunked them in a disposable tin foil pan full of sauce.

The sauce was kicked up Cattleman's. I took a sauce pan, added some oil, brought some minced garlic up to a sizzle, added some brown sugar and syrup, as well as fresh cracked black pepper. Cooked that for a bit and then added the sauce. Half a pumpkin ale and cooked it down for about an hour to thicken.

While I was doing all of this I also threw on some rib tips. While I normally cook those as a chef's prerogative and enjoy them throughout the smoking process these were for my BiL's girlfriend (now fiance) who likes ribs but doesn't like the bones. Here are the ribs in their BBQ sauce bath, the tips off to the side and my half slab in foil. I hadn't gotten to removing my slab from the foil yet:


I put the ribs in the sauce right over the heat so they would cook some more in the sauce to guarantee that fall off the bone consistency. Here is a closeup of the ribs in the BBQ bath:


I left the ribs in the sauce for about 30 minutes. So total cooking time was just under 3.5 hours.

This was the second time in about a month I was to grill ribs. I didn't get a chance to do this method the time before as my FiL's neighbor started the grill up and put everything on about eight in the morning. When we ate at 6 that night, they were great. I kept telling my FiL that I could do the same in four hours.

So there we are, sitting around the table chowing on ribs and sides. After a few bones, my FiL, looks at me and says, "four hours?" After a couple more bones says it again. All in all I think he said that about 6 times. He just couldn't believe what he was eating only took four hours.

Now don't get me wrong. I am not a proponent of rushing anything on the grill. Less time grillin meand less time chillin. But I just can't do 10 hours on the grill. Maybe in a Big Green Egg where you set it and forget it, but not with the equipment available to me.

BTW, I did this method with spares about 6 weeks prior. No pics. The wife had obsconded with the camera. I'd heard about this higher temp shorter time method and wanted to see if it worked. I did two hours in the smoke, and then 90 minutes in the foil. As I was pulling one of the half slabs from the foil, one of the bones hit the edge of the foil that was sticking out and the bone actually fell out of the meat!!! Think about that for a second. How much resistance does tin foil have? Next to none. And the entire bone fell out of the half slab. I almost laughed outloud and was really sorry I didn't have the camera!?!?

To finish the spares I put them back on the grill for 30 minutes. I realize that the meat was done after 3.5 hours, but I needed to caramelize the bark as they were sauceless ribs. At the higher temp that only takes about 30 minutes. So for Spares, four hours is all you need for fall off the bone ribs.

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Anyone want to smoke a fatty?

For some of you that means something very different than what I will discuss in this entry. This is not a something related to sparking up a blunt. This is simply sausage smoked on a grill. There are a million ways to make fatties. Fatties can be sweet, stuffed, spicy and all things in between.

To make a fatty, one must purchase some sort of loose or bulk sausage. I've made them with one pound breakfast sausage as well as bulk sausage from the meat counter at the grocery store. Here is a cheese stuffed Fatty:

Click below if you want know more...


The first fatty I ever made was the same day I did the spiral sliced and stuffed pork loin. For that fatty I took a one pound tube of maple breakfast sausage and put it in a mixing bowl. I minced up some of the following: garlic, vidalia onion and about half a honey crisp apple and added that to the mixing bowl. A little cracked black pepper and some brown sugar completed the ingredients. I mixed all of that together and then reshaped the sausage into the form it was in when it was in the plastic tube. Then I applied a sweet rub of paprika, brown sugar, granulated garlic, chili powder and black pepper. The fatty is on the left:
No salt at all on this. There is plenty of salt in the pork.

There is nothing to cooking these things. Throw them on the grill for about 3 hours between 225-250. When it firms up it is done. You don't really have to flip them over or turn them. You can put bacon on them to baste the meat, but it is not required. Having a second level rack in my offset smoker is a great place for fatties to cook. I like to put them over something else I am cooking so the fat drips over the other meat or dish. I've put these over baked beans and in this case I put it over the pork loin:
When I close the grill lid that rack moves forward a few inches and the fatty is right over the loin. I've also put them over ribs:

After a couple of hours the fatty and the loin are coming along nicely:
Here are the loin and the fatty resting:
And here we have the loin and fatty plated:
I have also done stuffed fatties. Fatties can be stuffed with anything, cheese, potatoes (someone just mentioned to me Tater Tots which sounds divine), peppers, proscuitto, fruit, veggies, pretty much anything that floats your boat.

For these two fatties I did one identical as above but I forgot the rub. But the other I decided to stuff and use bulk sausage rather than breakfast sausage. I bought a pound of bulk sausage and put it in a mixing bowl. I added minced garlic and onion as well as some black pepper and grated asiago cheese. Then I spread it out on a piece of wax paper and added a couple slices of prosciutto:
Then I added some chunks of blue cheese:
Then I rolled it back up and put it on the platter with the sweet fatty. The stuffed fatty is on the right:
I didn't think there was much difference between bulk sausage and breakfast sausage but the difference it pretty startling. Here are the two fatties resting (along with some baked beans):
The stuffed fatty is on the right again. Uncooked the breakfast fatty was much larger. When cooked it is much smaller and also much darker. The stuffed fatty looks like it is still raw compared to the other but it cooked through. Here are a couple shots of the stuffed fatty sliced:
When stuffing fatties with cheese you really have to pat the hell out of them as if you are pounding out hamburgers. You can't have the meat be loose and have cracks form as the meat firms up as the fat renders out. So, I'm telling you that spanking your sausage is required when stuffing fatties with cheese. I mean really give it a good beating. If not you may have some premature cheese leakage.

Here are two stuffed fatties I made for a buddy's bachelor party (along with ribs and beans). One I spanked harder than the other. Can you see which is which in the upper right?
Here is a close up of those fatties:
When the fatty on the left started oozing I threw a piece of foil under both of them to save the cheese.

Some recommend putting the fatty in the fridge for a while before cooking so that it is easier to manipulate on the grill. I really have not had a problem putting a warm fatty on the grill. As long as it is not touched for the first hour it will firm up enough to be moved without risk of it falling apart.

While I am not a proponent of drug use I am a big fan of smoking fatties so by all means everyone, go smoke some fatties!?!?!

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Essentials for Grillin and Chillin

I have talked about a number of things that I have grilled/smoked/BBQ’d in the past. But I want to address some of the necessities around the grill. Can someone produce fantastic Q without these things? Absolutely. Does Tiger Woods need custom fit, ridiculously expensive, golf clubs to be a great golfer? Could he grab a set of clubs off the shelf at Wal Mart and shoot under par? Probably. I am not saying I am the Tiger Woods of the grill, because I’m still the equivalent of a guy shooting 100 on 18 holes!?!? These are the tools that I use to make my Grillin and Chillin experience a better experience.


First off you need a grill. That is an entirely other discussion. Charcoal vs. Gas. Smoker vs. Non Smoker. If a Smoker, Vertical vs. Horizontal vs. Closet Smoker. Porcelain vs. Metal. I will go into this with another post. And I would guess that the vast majority of people that are coming to this site already have a grill.

Let’s start from the beginning. In order to Grill/Smoke/BBQ, one needs a heat source. Each of these methods will require a different amount and intensity of heat but they all need heat. If you have a gas grill this is provided with the flip of a switch. For most of the rest some sort of charcoal is used. This can be in the form of standard fluid lit charcoal, match light charcoal, premium briquettes, cheap briquettes and lump charcoal. One could also simply use chunks of hard wood to grill but that gets expensive fast. What do I use? Cheapest Briquette I can find and a Chimney Starter:


With a Chimney Starter I dump in charcoal, put some newspaper in the bottom and light. 20 minutes later I have red hot coals. Considering it is December and here in St. Louis it has been really windy getting that paper lit can be a PITA for many people. Not for me. I bought one of these to light the paper:

This thing does a couple of things that are very helpful. First, it is not affected by the wind. I can get that torch going in a Hurricane. Second, it really makes my inner pyro happy!?!? I bought this thing at Home Depot for $12 with the can of fuel. New fuel cans are about $3 and last almost a year. It’s also great for lighting the outdoor fire pit. And yes I realize that is overkill, but that’s not the first time I’ve been accused of that!?!

Now that the paper is lit we have 20 minutes to prep the grill and the food. If the plan is to smoke some meat then some smoke wood is required. I am fond of the fruit woods – Apple and Cherry – but I have been known to use all kinds of smoke wood from Hickory, to Apricot, to Mesquite, to Oak. Right now I have Apple, Apricot and Cherry chunks:
When smoking small batches like a couple of slabs, a whole chicken or a turkey breast I use my Weber One Touch Gold. I have already discussed how I turned that grill into a smoker in another post. The gist is that one needs charcoal baskets to keep the heat away from the meat:
And a grill grate that folds up on each side helps a great deal in adding charcoal and smoke wood:Without the flaps you will need to lift up a very hot piece of metal that has meat on top of it. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

While the charcoal is lighting let’s prep the food. I use a lot of spices in my grilling and do a variety of rubs which is a whole other thread in itself. But no matter what spices you use, Penzey’s is the way to go:

Speaking of necessities for rubs. Have you ever made a sweet rub or BBQ sauce with brown sugar only to have the sugar burn and blacken well before the meat is done leaving you with a burnt outside and an underdone inside? There is a solution. Turbinado Sugar or Sugar in the Raw. This stuff has a much higher smoke point and will not burn nearly as brown sugar. This is a must have for any Pit Master:


Another necessity would be a really good knife or two. I am partial to the Kershaw Shun Classic Series. The knives are ridiculously expensive but are well worth it. The two I use the most are the 10 inch Chef:

And the 6.5 inch Santoku:

The Chef is great for slicing, particularly large cuts of meat such as the Spiral Cut Pork Loin I showed in another thread while the Santoku is great for dicing, mincing, chiffinading, and juilianning.

Now that the food is ready to go on the grill, one needs an implement to get it to the grill and manipulate it once on the grill. I highly recommend tongs. A grill fork is a bad idea for just about any meat. There are all manner of tongs out there. My favorites are the Good Grips Tongs seen here:

I’ve tried many types and these to me are the very best. If anyone knows of any better, please let me know. I want to try them.

Now that the meat is on the grill, we need to make sure the temperature is what we need it to be. If we are just grilling steaks that temp is as hot as you can get it. But for smoking and BBQing that temp needs to be within a specific range. For smoking I like to keep the temp between 200 and 250 with 225 being pretty ideal. For BBQing I want to keep the temp around 275-300. My smoker has a built in thermometer but the temps in the cooking chamber can very greatly in a horizontal smoker. I like to put an extra thermometer near the heat source to know what the temp is for the meat closest to the heat. That way I can make sure that the meat in that area doesn’t get burned or overcooked. While my thermometer is not wireless like this one, I plan on getting this one after the Holidays:
The one above is wireless and would allow me to leave the grill for extended periods of time. An alarm will tell me if it is too hot or too cold. Some ribs I did recently were overcooked because a temperature spike to something like 280 overcooked them because I was inside. If I had this wireless thermometer that wouldn’t have happened.

Now that we have addressed some key items for the Grillin part of Grillin and Chillin, let’s discuss the later. Here are two things I need to satisfy the latter:





You may want to check back to this post periodically. As I find more grilling essentials I will add them here.


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