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.

Hasty Bake / Classic Cooker

You know, Jimmy Carter lusts after beautiful women and I guess I lust after some of the older and more classic cookers and smokers. Cookers like the smaller 15" WSM, a Charbroil CB940, Cajun Grill, Hasty Bake, the two smaller Jedmasters, a Weber Performer in Red with the stainless steel table, and even a less expensive PK Grill to name a few.

I check the Craig's List about twice a week for some of these hard to find units and had been looking for one of the larger Hasty Bakes for about 3 years in the Indiana area. Last week I decided to look farther out and set my Search Tempest to 1000 miles from Indy and bingo, I got a hit in Mount Cory, Ohio! Heck, that is only 250 miles from the Po-Farm.

Some of the information in the ad stated the following...Made in USA. Been in dry storage the last 20 years, needs a good cleaning but this is a very nice large charcoal cooker. On it's way to the scrap yard, thought someone might appreciate it for what it is. The price was $10.00 dollars. Had these two pictures enclosed.





I called the gentleman and he told me that the cooker had been in his Mother's garage for about 20 years and other than a little surface rust, the cooker was in pretty good condition. I told him that I would take the cooker and asked him to hold it for me for a few days until I could get over there with some help to pick it up.

A few days later and early one morning, I picked up my good friend Jeff Toler (Anchorman) just North of Indy and we went over to Ohio and picked up the cooker and I had it back home at about 3:30pm in the afternoon. Pretty good for a 500 mile round trip.

All this time, I thought the cooker was the smaller Suburban size but after I got to checking it out, I found that it was a model 130 which is the larger and more desirable Legacy size model.

Looked it over good and it did need a good cleaning and had a broken firebox fire grate and was missing the heat deflector. The gentleman had told me that it did still have some ashes in the firebox when he rescued it from the garage and that did worry me some but the ash pan was fine and not rusted out.

With a few replacement parts, a good cleaning and reseasoning, some wire brushing and sanding, and a new paint job, I will add this cooker to my arsenal. Might be a great ending for a cooker that is probably near 30 years old at the present time. And yes, this is one fellow that will appreciate this old cooker as the seller had asked!



I am not sure I can get it to look as good as a new cooker as seen above and priced at about $1100.00 dollars but I'll bet it will cook just as good as a new one. As you can see, there has not been very many changes in the life of this 30 year old cooker.

Hasty Bake is a smaller company has been in business since 1948 and that is even longer than the Weber company and have built several models of these fine cookers over the years. They have a wonderful reputation and are a rock solid company. If they don't have a replacement part, they will make one up for you. They do treat their customers right.

I called the head guru, a Mr. Adam Myers at Hasty Bake and we talked about the age of this cooker. It doesn't have the indicator to show the height of the firebox and also doesn't have to pull out firebox feature. Other than that, it is the same as a new cooker. He figures it's an early 80's model cooker. I then ordered the three replacement parts I needed along with some accessories I wanted for this old classic.

The first thing I did to the cooker was to take it apart and then I scraped the inside down and removed some of that old grease and sludge. I then washed it all out and I put it back together and oiled it down good and then lit a hot lump fire and reseasoned the inside of the cooker. Now, I got parts coming in about a week but I couldn't wait and wanted to cook something in this old cooker.



I covered the ash pan with foil, and then placed two fire cubes on it, and then loaded up the right half of the firebox with some good Ozark Oak lump. I added 3 big chunks of hickory to the top of the charcoal. I then lowered the firebox right down and on top of the fire cubes and it lit off quickly and I had a hot fire in about 20-25 minutes.



I left just the one cooking grid in the cooker for this cook. I then raised the hot firebox up to about 9-10 inches under the cooking grid



This old chili-head does like his hot stuff and I rubbed these wings with a heavy dose of the very hot 80 grade cayenne pepper. I also made up some glazing sauce with about a half stick of butter, about 10 oz of Franks Hot Sauce, and about 2 tsp of the hot ground cayenne pepper.



I moved the cooking grid over to the left side of the cooker so it wasn't over the fire and loaded up my wings. Since I don't have the foggiest idea of what I am doing with this cooker, I guess you could say I was "winging it". I know, that's bad but I had to say it! Anyway, I let them cook indirectly like this for about 30 minutes. Slopped on a heavy dose of sauce, turned them over and slopped on another dose to this side. Slid the grid over to the right side and over the fire for some direct cooking and to set the glaze. I kept moving the grid back and forth and turning and saucing the wings until my sauce ran out and the wings were charred up to suit me.



Worked nice for this first cook and I removed the wings and shut down the cooker.



Love my hot wings!!

Will be more coming on this old classic cooker in the future.