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.

Rib Tips, St Louis Spares, and Other Treats

This cook started out as a rib practice cook and just kept growing until I had several other items cooked as well as the ribs and tips. I had a couple of new things to try with my competition ribs as I sure do need some improvement to stay ahead of those dang Shigs.

Here in Central Indiana, those bronto spares have been on sale all Summer for as low as $1.59 a pound to about $1.99 a pound and this is a very good buy if you can find them under about five pounds per slab. I have been filling the freezer with them and decided to see what I could do with them.



I cut them down to St louis cut which gives me a slab at just under two pounds and about 3 pounds of rib tips per whole slab of the bronto's. Got more tips than I got ribs!!

I got them ribs all prepared with some secret stuff and then did the tips with my regular stuff and fired up the pellet cooker with some pecan and loaded them up.



They came out good and I did sample one rib off of each slab and gave them to a neighbor for testing.

Now for me and my lady, I have this 9 pounds of tips ready to go back into the smoker in some sauce and another sweetner to finish them up.



Now that is some good eating!!



I also prepped a whole pork loin which is another great buy at $1.57 a pound at Kroger and cooked it along with the ribs and tips. They can be brined, marinaded, or just rubbed and cooked whole and make a great meat that will go with about anything. I love a couple of slices with my eggs at breakfast. Makes a great sandwich as well.



They slice up nice and are always tasty and juicy.



We usually end up freezing some one pound packages of this meat for later use.



As with all my cooks when I have room, I always do some of my breaded and super hot wings.



This chili-head just can't get enough hot stuff!!

Spamwich and Rooster Booster Wings

I did an interesting cook a few days ago in the Backwoods Party cooker and it came out very well. This cook started out as a practice cook for my upcoming contest season and I also had a few other items I wanted to try on the cooker so I included them as well.



As a chili-head, I usually try to include some hot stuff on about all cooks if I have the room and I did plan for some hot wings of some type. Had a new bottle of Rooster (Sriacha) Sauce and decided to see if I could find a new recipe using this great chili sauce on the web for hot wings. Bingo!!!--out jumps a great looking new recipe at "The Wolfe Pit" (Mr Larry Wolfe) for some Orange Marmalade Sriacha Wings that just looks wonderful to me.

One of the other items that I wanted to cook is my Southern Succor Spam as this is a favorite of ours and always a great treat off of a smoker.



The Southern Succor Rub comes from the great Jamison's book titled "Smoke and Spice" and is a super spicy black pepper based rub that is also great on pork butts. I cut the recipe down a little for this Spam cook.

1/4 cup black pepper
1/4 cup paprika
1/4 cup Turbinado sugar
2 TBL salt
2 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp cayenne pepper



I am now ready to give the two blocks of Spam a heavy coat of this very spicy rub.



Now ready for the cooker.



About done on the cooker.



Now that is some good stuff!

While those items were cooking, I made up the Orange Marmalade Sriacha Sauce from the recipe at "The Wolfe Pit" as I wanted to try it on my Spam Sandwich.



18 oz orange marmalade (not shown in picture)
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup Sriacha Chili Sauce

I did add a touch of cayenne to the mix but would be too hot for most folks.

Heated and mixed it up in a pan and then removed from the heat.



I like to either grill or toast the hoogie bun and then lay down some colby jack slices on one side of the bun. On top of that goes some lettuce, some tomato slices, and some onion slices. Place the Spam on the other side and then I added some of that great looking hot Rooster sauce out of the glass on top of the Spam.



Fold that baby up and enjoy---oh my, that is good!!



I sprinkled on a light coat of the Smokin' Guns hot rub on the wings and placed them on the cooker. I then cooked them until they were done and took them off the cooker, dipped them in the Rooster sauce, back on the cooker until this glaze set up a little and then back off the cooker for one more round. Glazed them a second time and they came out very good but probably not as good as if I would have grilled them as per the recipe.



I made a mistake cooking these wings indirect in a smoker. Larry grills them and I think that would definitely improve the wings. They needed more char from a direct flame to improve the taste and I will do them this way on my next cook. The sauce is out of the world and I can't wait to try it on my pork loin.

Thanks again to Larry Wolfe for this wonderful recipe with the Sriacha sauce for wings as I am sure I will use it for many other cooks as it is just toooo good to not be included in my recipes and trials for hot stuff.