During the time I was experimenting with smoking, we were, and still are, trying to little by little upgrade things in and around our home. One of these little projects included cleaning up an area where a metal storage shed was located and turning it into a patio and outdoor sitting area. The original idea eventually morphed into plans to add a brick fire pit and maybe even a Dutch Oven pit and brick smoker. This didn’t end up happening, as I will explain more later, but we went as far as to obtain the bricks for this purpose.
An acquaintance of ours had purchased a piece of property about 30 minutes away from us and the previous owners had left several pallets of red clay bricks. He was in a hurry to get rid of them so we were able to get all the bricks we needed for very little. It took three trips with the tired old truck I have to get them home, but it eventually happened and we were primed to get started, but this all happened during the winter months so we had awhile before we could get going.
However, since I was in the process of honing my skills in the Barbecue arena, I had an epiphany. I decided to make a “pilot unit” to hopefully give me an idea of what a brick pit might be like. I found a few cinder blocks and some concrete fence caps and used them for the bottom part of the pit. I then clabbered a bunch of the bricks on top of the cinder blocks and created a small, square structure with an interior dimension of about 12" X 12” X about 28” high that looked promising. I stacked the bricks in no particular way other than I left a few of them pointing inward so I could place one of the racks from my gas grill on them. This left the rack about 16 inches from the bottom, hopefully giving me enough room between the fire and the meat.
I had an old lid from a steel drum and it just happened to be the right size to completely cover the top or be moved a little to the side if need be to help regulate the smoke and temp. I also left a small opening in one corner near the bottom of the cinder blocks as an air inlet. I covered the opening at the bottom with an old floor tile and could also move this side to side to regulate the air into the pit.
Eventually I was happy with the design, even though it was anything but pretty, so I made a small fire with some chunks of wood and charcoal to see what the temperatures were going to do. I bought a cheap oven thermometer and placed it on the grate and spent the next few hours opening and closing the inlet and outlet to see if it was going to work. To my surprise, once the coals and wood burned down a bit, the temperature was actually fairly simple to maintain.
This little experiment gave me the confidence to go ahead and give it a try. I wanted my first test to be with a relatively cheap cut of meat so I found a decent cut of London Broil, thinking that it would give an idea of what bigger and better cuts would do. I used a rub that I had been developing over the last few months specifically for beef and was confident it would add a good flavor. I settled on my typical apple/pecan mix of wood in the chip pan. I added a small quantity of charcoal to the bottom and once it was ready I placed the chip pan on top. It didn’t take long before the smoke began to waft from the pit so I wasted no time and put the meat on.
Surprisingly the temps were easy to maintain even though I had the idea that I had to fiddle with it too much, but nonetheless I was able to keep it between 225 and 250 degrees on the grate. Being that it was my first time using the pit, I was leery of under cooking it so I left it on a bit too long and since this particular cut had very little fat, it turned out a bit tough. However, even though it was a little rough to chew, the flavor was wonderful.
Over the course of the next little while I tried several different cuts and sizes of meats, mostly beef, and learned a lot about relying less on time and more on look and texture when it came to knowing when it was done. Much trial and error netted some great meals and some not so great meals, but gave a huge sense of accomplishment. Another thing I began to use was the “Minion Method” for the charcoal and this helped the consistency of the cooks immensely. So, the time came to try something I had shied away from until now…Pork Spare Ribs.
I had been working on a different rub for pork and I felt it was time to try it. I left the ribs pretty much untouched other than removing the membrane and the flap. My research had told me that it was best not to rub the ribs too early but early enough that the meat would absorb it so I got the pit fired up and gave it a try. Reading through the sites on the Internet convinced me that I would start right off using the Trigg method of 3-2-1, 3 hours in the smoke, 2 hours in foil, (which I added a little butter and apple juice in the foil), and one more hour out of the foil in the smoke. The results were nothing short of amazing. I have always liked pork, but the flavor the smoke and method added to the ribs was incredible. I waited until about 30 minutes into the last hour of cooking and gave them a light coating of bottled BBQ sauce. They were not overly done but came away from the bone very easily. They may have been a little too done for a competition, but for my first try I thought they turned out very good.
The next several months saw many small but effective changes to the methods and format of my cooking, but little by little I got very comfortable with how things worked.
This is where some more thought had to be given to what we wanted to do for the patio and what direction I wanted the cooker and method to go…..
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