Double Smoked Ham / Bloody Mary

I am always looking for an excuse to do some rotisserie smoking on the Weber kettle and did another ham a few weeks ago and here are the results.

I started with a Cumberland Gap Hickory Hills hickory smoked boneless ham that weighed 10.46 pounds. These are great for a rotisserie setup.



Wasn't much to do to prep the ham other than to sprinkle on a little Smokin' Guns hot rub and place it into my EZ-Que 6" rotisserie setup. A real shame that this company went out of business as they made great products.



I decided to use the Performer as it was closest to the door and got it all setup with a drip pan and lit it up to have ready for the ham. I used some cherry wood for the smoke and used my battery powered motor for the rotisserie and then covered it with a plastic bag since it was raining.



Checked it a little later and it was going good so now it was time for a drink and wouldn't you know it, there is a story behind this drink.

As a competition cook, we usually pick parsley (and all the cooks will know what I am talking about) about 7 to 8:00am on Saturday morning at a contest. My friend Jeff Neals from the Shigs in Pit would bring me a great Bloody Mary drink that was very hot and spicy (he knows I am a chili-head) about this time in the morning and it was wonderful. I really don't do very many mixed drinks as I do like my beer but this was an exception. I asked him to give me the recipe or teach me how to do this great drink as it is killer!

Jeff told me that the first thing I had to do was to infuse the vodka and he got me started with this step.



I purchased an infusion jar that holds about 1-1/2 gallons and loaded in several kinds of peppers. Mild peppers like ancho, bell peppers, and bananna peppers, hot peppers like the hot bananna, jalapeno, seranno, and a couple of habenero peppers. Looks better if you select some for the color. Then I added some onions, baby carrots, celrey, and a couple of cloves of garlic. I then filled it up with vodka and let it infuse for about 4 days. I poured it back into the bottles and I was ready to go with the infused vodka. Them used up veggies would probably make a heck of a good pot roast!

For the mix, Jeff suggested several different brands but after trying them all, both Jeff and I prefer the Mr & Mrs T's Bold and Spicy.



Jeff would suggest that you garnish the rim of a 16 oz cup with lime juice and maybe a rub of your choice or some celrey salt but I usually leave this step out. I usually just fill up the cup with ice and then pour about 1/4 of it into my shaker. I then add about 1-1/2 oz of the infused vodka and about 6 oz of the Mr & Mrs T's Bold and Spicy mix to the shaker. Next comes a 1/4 tsp of celrey salt, and a 1/2 tsp of celrey seed and then a very generous shot of Tabasco sauce. I then grind in generous amount of fresh ground Telecherry black pepper to the shaker. Shake that all up and pour into the cup. Then add a celrey stick, or maybe a Slim Jim sausage stick or pickle or whatever you have.



I don't think you can drink a better Bloody Mary. I think the infused vodka makes all the difference in the great taste of this drink.



I made up a glaze with some bbq sauce, real maple syrup, and some honey and brushed it on the ham about 30 minutes before it came off the cooker.



Looked pretty good coming off of the Weber kettle and I let it rest covered with foil for about 30 minutes.



Set my slicer up for thin slices and started slicing up the ham.



Made up a nice plate of sliced ham and then I got it ready to send out.



Placed it into another container, added some pineapple slices and juice along with some cherries and sent it on its way.

Pit Beef/Roast Beef on the Weber Kettle

Wife wanted some roast or pit beef and I was looking to do a rotisserie cook of some type so this cook just went together like peaches and cream. I decided to do it on my EZ-Que in the old stand by Weber Kettle which always gives me great results. Never had a bad cook with this setup.



I started out with two beef bottom round roasts from Sam's Club with one weighing in at 3.58 pounds and the other a little larger at 4.11 pounds. I like the smaller roasts as it gives me more of that great outside crust after cooking. This meat should make for some wonderful sandwiches!



I cut the hard fat off of the fat side and then sprinkled on a generous dose of garlic salt and black pepper.



I got the cooker out of the garage and loaded up the charcoal chimney with enough Rancher brickettes to fill the two charcoal baskets in the Weber kettle. I then lit up the chimney full of charcoal. Was a cool morning at about freezing and with some misting rain and fog in the area. As you can see, we still have some snow on the ground.



I got my 6" EZ-Que rotisserie basket out and loaded up the two rubbed bottom round roasts and got them ready for the cooker.

Went back outside and poured the charcoal into the baskets inside the cooker and added the drip pan with a little water and got the cooker ready to load for an indirect hight temp cook.



I loaded the meat into the kettle for this short cook.



With the freezing rain I decided to use my tailgater battery operated rotisserie spit motor for this cook and I replaced the D batteries and installed it and it worked well.

I wanted to cook this meat as hot as the cooker would get and I opened up all the vents and had a lid temp of around 425-475f degrees which should get these roasts done to medium rare in about an hour. Then the wife told me she didn't want them "moo-ing" so I decided to cook them a little longer.



I ended up cooking the roasts for about 75 minutes which gave me an internal temp of about 155-160f which is about medium done. It sure looked good and should make for some great beef.

Brought the meat inside the house and removed it from the EZ-Que basket.



The smell was wonderful and I couldn't wait to get some sliced up. Wrapped them in foil and let them cool some before I put them thru the slicer.



The meat coming off of the slicer.



It sure makes up a nice plate of thin sliced roast beef. Me and my lady fought over each of the last 1/4" thick crust pieces off of each block of meat that went thru the slicer as the slicer won't cut the meat all the way to your fingers! ouch! These thin crunchy chunks are to die for!!

Take a fresh onion bun, cut it in half, wrap it with a wet paper towel and place it into the nuker for a few short seconds to get it steamed and warmed up. Place a big pile of this roast beef on one side of the bun. Add a couple of slices of Swiss cheese on top of the meat, back into the nuker for a few seconds to melt the cheese. Add a big dollop of horsey sauce to the top of the meat and add the top of the bun for one great sandwich.

We did freeze the remainder of the meat in pound packets for future use.