Cook, Grill, and Bake/Char-Broil CB 500X

This is a mixed cook, grill, and bake in this fine little cooker and the meat used in this cook are two nice pork steaks cut about 1/2" thick, two rib-eyes cut about 1-1/2" thick, three burgers at 1/3 pound each, and I also added some no knead bread which I decided to bake in my small Dutch oven. Here is a teaser from this cook.



As you can see, these rib-eyes look great!

I started this cook by setting up the cooker for a low and slow type of cook for the pork steaks. I loaded the right side of the cooker with some Stubb's charcoal. I then added a couple of Weber fire cubes. I placed a half size drip pan on the left side to catch the drippings and to also add a little moisture to the cook. Added about a cup of water to the drip pan to keep the drippings from burning. Placed my cooking grid over the drip pan and I was ready to load the pork steaks. I fired off the cooker and brought it up to about 230 degrees and loaded the pork steaks which had been rubbed with my low carb rub.



I added a couple of chunks of hickory wood to the fire and let the cooker do it's thing.



Was a pretty nice day with the temperature around 40 degrees which was melting all our ice and snow.

I smoked the pork steaks about two hours and glazed them and removed them from the cooker. I then added the second cooking grid right over the fire as I planned to cook the burgers and steak both direct and indirect. I also opened up the front service door on the cooker to bring up the temperature for the grilling.



I seared my 1/3 pound burgers over the fire on the right side of the cooker and then placed them on the indirect (left) side for a few more minutes to get them done.



I sprinkled some garlic salt and fresh cracked black pepper on my steaks. I then placed them on the direct side and over the hot coals in the cooker for a sear. Seared both sides and then placed them on the indirect side to cook them to about medium rare.



I added a few more pieces of charcoal and loaded up my no-knead bread in my small Dutch oven. Opened up the service door on the front of the cooker all the way as I wanted the cooker to run hot as possible with what I had left of the charcoal. Would have been nice to have started with a fresh load of charcoal as the bread is better baked above 450 degrees but we came out pretty good with the temp around 350- 375 degrees as my charcoal was about used up. Took a little longer but the bread was just as good.

Now, for the money shots!









I added a small cuke and onion salad in vinegar, and some tomato slices and a piece of lettuce, and then cut me a slice of the bread and spread on some real butter, and plated up my steak.



WOW!!



The old fatman got that steak cooked just right....eat your heart out!

I think I am gonna like this cooker.....

Chicken / Auto Temp Control / CB- 500X

I'll start with a few small modifications that I have made to this slick little tailgate cooker to improve the overall use.



The cooker comes with holes for a rotisserie in the hood and I plug these with a couple of balls of tin foil.



This hole in the lower right side of the cooker is for a gas burner and again, I plug it with some tin foil.

With the above mods, this little cooker will run the indirect low and slow temps for hours and I use the service door to run the higher temps used for baking pizza and bread. Works great!

Now, to set the cooker up with a Pitmaster IQ 110 Auto-Temp Control.



I removed the tin foil plug from the lower right side gas burner hole so I could mount the standard manifold from the auto control. For the unit to work correctly, the blower must be below the charcoal grate level. There are three mounting holes for the gas burner and I drilled out the top one with the next drill size so it would fit the toggle bolt on the manifold.



The Pitmaster IQ 110 is one slick control if all you want is cooker control. It doesn't have any probes for the meat that goes on your cookers. It is also about half price as compared to the other units on the market. The unit in the picture with this standard manifold will fit WSM's, Weber Kettles, my two classic Char-Broils, and with another adapter will also fit both my ceramic cookers and my Backwoods cookers. I believe it could be adapted to most all charcoal cookers. Not shown in the picture is the 110 volt power adapter which also comes with the control.



I used the toggle bolt to mount the manifold to the Char-Broil 500X. I then setup the cooker for an indirect cook by loading up the right hand side with a full load of Stubb's Brickettes charcoal.



I placed two Weber fire cubes in charcoal and lit them off. I placed a half pan on the left side for the drippings and added about a cup of water to keep them from burning. If you look close, you can see the probe connected to the back of the cooking grid. This probe controls the cooker temperature.



I hooked up the Pitmaster and decided to use my 12 volt Jump-Starter to run the unit. I used a Radio Shack 12 volt adapter cord to power it up. It was cold with a light snow and I didn't want to fool around with running 110 out to the cooker so this hookup worked fine.



After my starter cubes went out, I set my Pitmaster control to about 245 degrees and started it to bring the cooker up to cooking temp. I then opened up the left side exhaust vent in the hood so I could pull all the smoke and heat across my meat during the cook.



While the cooker was coming up to temperature, I prepped my four pound fryer by cutting out the backbone and then breaking the breastbone so the chicken would lay flat on the cooker. Some folks would call this spatchcocking but I prefer the word "butterfly." I then sprinkled on my low carb rub and it was ready for the cooker.



I placed the chicken on the cooker and added a few chunks of smoke wood.



This picture shows the chicken about halfway thru the cook.



The chicken just off the cooker.

Me and Mommy split this treat as she made chicken salad with her half and I made pulled chicken with my half.



I toasted up a piece of low carb bread, added some pulled chicken, then sprinkled a little of my low carb bbq sauce over it. Added some salad stuff and cheese and made a great low carb (6 grams) meal out of it.

The Pitmaster IQ 110 temperature control is a fine product and very low cost compared to other units on the market.

Beef Ribs on the Char-Broil 500X

I did another learning cook on my CB500X cooker. I found some beef ribs with a little bit of meat on them and snapped them up. Meaty beef ribs in my area just doesn't happen very often and these looked fairly good.



These ribs were the bone in beef back ribs and this slab weighed 4.19 pounds. At a $1.98 a pound the slab cost $8.30. You know, a fellow will only get about 65% of this weight after cooking so this would be about 2.7 pounds. Now, take out the bones and gristle and you have about 6 to 7 oz of actual meat left out of this whole slab of beef ribs. Very costly but sure worth it in my opinion.



I sprinkled on a generous coat of my no carb rub and got them ready for the cooker. I had to trim off one bone to get them to fit the cooking grid.



I set the little cooker up for an indirect cook and loaded the charcoal tray about half full of lump. Filled a small charcoal chimney up with lump and when it was ready, I poured it on top of the lump in the cooker. I added about 1-1/2 cup of water to my drip pan to keep the drippings from burning.



I added the slab of ribs and it sure filled up the grid. I had the cooker at about 275 degrees for the start of this cook.



I cooked the ribs for about two hours at around 275-300 degrees and then took them off the grill to wrap in foil.



I brought the ribs in to wrap and added about 2-3 oz of beef broth to my foil boat and about 3 TBL of Splenda to the mix. We are low-carbing.

The ribs went back on the cooker for about two more hours in the foil until they were done.



They came out of the foil looking good. I added a generous coat of my low carb bbq sauce and they were ready to eat.



Plated one of these big ribs up with a small tossed salad and some fried apples.



There might be a better dish out there than these ribs but I sure don't know what it would be.

Pizza, Calzone, and Flatbread on a Char-Broil 500X

I decided to test my new Char-Broil 500X portable cooker with some higher temp bakes to see if it would put out a product as good as I can get off of my other smaller cookers. As you will see, it did quite well.



I started by making enough dough in my bread machine for about three of these treats. I used a standard bread mix but also added some Italian herbs and spices to the dough. I then divided the dough into three equal pieces.

I chopped up some onion and bell pepper, got out some fresh basil, pepperoni, marinara sauce, mushrooms, an Italian 5 blend cheese, some Romano cheese and then sliced up a small tomato.



I got the cooker out and loaded up the charcoal rack about half full with lump charcoal. I then used a small charcoal chimney to light off my fire. Placed my 10" in diameter hearth stones right on the cooking grids. The outside temp was about 13-15 degrees during the bake.



I rolled out the dough and then brushed on some of the marinara sauce, added some onions, mushrooms, and bell peppers.



I finished the pizza with some cheeses, pepperoni, and some tomato slices. I also added some fresh basil. It is ready for the cooker.



Did the calzone next. I used the same ingredients that went into the pizza.



Next came the Italian Flatbread. I brushed some evoo on the dough, sprinkled on some Italian herbs, and then added some Romano cheese. On top of that was some tomato slices and some fresh basil. Man, we are ready to bake now.



I filled the charcoal tray about half full of lump and then loaded up a small chimney of lump for this bake. I poured this chimney over the lump in my tray and placed the cooking grates back on the cooker and added two 10" in diameter hearth stone which I stacked for a thicker hearth.



When the temp got up to about 375 degrees, I loaded the first pizza. I did have to open the service door on the front of the cooker about an inch to get enough air to keep my baking temp in the 400-425 range.



This pizza took about 17 minutes to get done and I took it off.



I loaded the calzone on the cooker and it took about 15 minutes to bake.



Next came my Italian Flatbread and this baked in about 13-14 minutes.



The pizza looked good just out of the cooker.



I couldn't wait to try the flat bread as it is one of my favorites.

I didn't get a picture of the whole calzone.



This is the results of my first bake on this fine little portable cooker.

The cooker did a fine job with a task it probably wasn't designed for and I was happy with my first bake.

Char-Broil / Classic Cooker

I stumbled onto this slick little cooker a few months back while doing some research on the much larger Char-Broil 940X which is one of the Classics. It is called the Char-Broil 500X and is a smaller version of the CB 940X. Like it's bigger brother, the CB 500X just looks like quality with both cast iron and heavy steel going into it's production. You know, it's just not "tinney" like many of the cookers out there today. I really liked the looks of it, the design and features, and figured if I could get it to do half of what I can do on my Weber kettle, it might be a great purchase. And then I find it on sale for 1/2 price....Bingo!!



I just got this grill on Wednesday so I put it together and then got it ready for the first seasoning and the first cook.



Very neat little grill with the pre-seasoned cast iron grates, pull out ash pan, adjustable fire grate, and a service door in the front of the grill.

I slopped on a heavy coat of vegetable oil on all the inside parts and areas like the manual suggested and then took it outside in the cold (13 degrees) for the first fire.



Placed about 3 pounds of charcoal in a chimney and fired it up and then dumped it into the cooker for a two hour seasoning session.

When that was done, I set the cooker up for my big chuck roast that I planned to use for my pulled beef.



I trimmed all the fat off of the outside of the roast and sprinkled on a heavy dose of my low carb rub.



I moved all the charcoal to the right side of the grill and then added a drip pan with about 1-1/2 cups of water to help keep it moist and prevent the drippings from burning.



Added a few more brickettes and some chunks of hickory for smoke and then placed the roast on the cooking grid.



I smoked the roast about 3 hours at about 275 degrees and when it looked right, I took if off to wrap in foil for my braising period which will tenderize it enough for pulling.



I added about 1/2 cup of beef broth to the foil and wrapped up the meat and placed it back on the cooker.



When the internal got to about 205 degrees, I pulled the roast off of the cooker being very careful to not tear the foil as I need the juice for my meat. The total time was about 5 hours for ths smoke. Sure looked good!



I pulled the meat and then added the juice back into it and it was ready for serving.



I toasted up a piece of low carb bread, added some of that pulled beef, drizzled on some of my low carb bbq sauce, added some salad and cheese, and I had myself a great meal.

You know, this cooker at half price right now has got to be one great bargain for the folks that do like charcoal. I would think it would be perfect for tailgating.

Pizza Next.....