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.

Portabella Pizza

I was cruising around the bbq forums a few days ago and on the "Addicted To BBQ" forum, I found this great looking treat. A gentleman who uses the handle of "a26guy" put up a post with pictures of this great looking personal sized pizza.



The unique part of this pizza is that the crust is just a plain portabella mushroom which makes it great for all low carbers as it is about impossible to make a low carb pizza crust out of anything that is edible. It is just great for your regular pizza as well and should please all guests.

Anyway, after seeing the post, I couldn't wait to try it for myself. I also did a couple of regular pizzas with this new treat in the pellet cooker using pecan for wood.



I started by using a mellon baller to cut and scrape the gills from out of the underside of the portabella caps. I then cut each stem off down to the caps. For my toppings for the six portabella pizzas and the two regular 14" pizzas, I browned up a mixture of one pound of hot sausage and one pound of hamburger. I then cut up some onions and bell peppers and opened a can of black olives and the sauce to go on the pizzas. I also used 6 cups of mozzarella cheese on the pizzas.



I sauced the caps and then added the blend of hot sausage and burger.



I added the onions and bells peppers.



Next came the black olives and plenty of cheese and then I added a piece of pepperoni on top.



The six portabella caps ready to go on my pellet smoker.



I brought the smoker up to about 350 degrees for this treat and it took about 18-19 minutes to get the pizzas done to my liking.



This is just before I pulled them off the cooker.



Sure did look great!

After the portabellas came off the cooker, I raised the temp to about 425 for the regular pizzas and loaded them on the smoker.



These things are KILLER!!



Was a little cold outside to screw around setting up a couple of baking hearths so I did the regular pizzas on a pan.



Good stuff!!

Holiday Appetizers / Pig Candy

Pig Candy is a great sweet and spicy treat to have around the house for the holidays. It is fairly easy to make and is a great snack and goes well with my other appetizers of Jerky and Smoked Cheese.



This cook is my no-carb low calorie version and I used the following ingredients.

4 pounds of the thick cut Country Bacon from Sam's Club

Sugar Twin Granulated Brown Replacement Sugar (Calorie free-no carbs)

Ground Cayenne pepper

Crushed Hot Red pepper flakes (in black pepper container)

I start by adding some Sugar Twin to a bowl and then adding enough ground cayenne pepper to make it as hot as I want it. I like it SCREEMING HOT and use way more than most folks can handle. For you folks that don't like it very hot, just add some cayenne and taste it and then get it as hot as YOU want. Some of the mix will cook and wash off of the bacon so do make it a little hotter at the start.



I would normally smoke this in one of my Backwoods cookers like you see in the picture but I cheated this time and did it in the kitchen oven so it won't have any smoke flavor but I was pressed for time and just didn't get the smoker out and fire it up for this treat. The Shame of it.....much better in a smoker.



I don't like this treat cooked in it's own grease so I use raised cooling grids in the pans to keep the bacon up and out of the grease.



After I apply the hot spices & sugar to the top side of the bacon, I placed it in a 350 degree oven for about 30 minutes.



I pulled it out, and then turned the bacon over, and added the spices again, and placed it back into the oven for about 25-30 more minutes or until it is done to suit me.



This is the final product just out of the oven and cooling on the top of the stove.



I then cut each strip of bacon in half and this picture shows the results of my 4 pound cook.



I bagged up the Pig Candy and have it ready for the holidays.

Good Stuff!!