Tag Archive for ‘cooking’

New York Style Pizza Dough Recipe for the Halo Versa 16

A New York style pizza in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven

A large New York style pizza with pepperoni, Italian sausage and mushrooms on top of whole milk mozzarella directly out of the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven.

Halo Products Group burst onto the scene earlier this year when they brought the Versa 16 into the outdoor pizza oven world. A few years ago, it appeared that Ooni had a stronghold on the outdoor pizza oven, but these days there are so many options to choose from if you are delving into making pizza at home.

The problem with most of the outdoor pizza ovens on the market is that they are geared towards making pizzas in the range of over 850 degrees. Perhaps that is what you are looking for, which is great if you want to cook a Neapolitan pizza in 90 seconds, but to me, there are two problems with that. Those ovens are one dimensional right out of the box (without some fine-tuning of the heat settings to lower the temperature), for one, and the other problem is a personal one: I like Neapolitan style pizza, but it is not my favorite.

New York style pizza is my favorite. However, up until recently, I have never been able to create it at home. My home oven is inadequate; it is old, the heating is uneven and spotty, and the crust has never come out the way I want it to, despite using a pizza stone (I have never tried to make it with a pizza steel). My outdoor Bertello pizza oven runs far too hot (and is too small) to even bother attempting an NY style pie.

Enter the Halo Versa 16, which entered the outdoor pizza oven market earlier this year. As of my most recent post, I have not minced any words about the Halo Versa 16 being an optimal vehicle for creating New York style pizza.

To make this pizza dough, it is imperative that you own a scale that can weigh flour and water, and a gram scale that can weigh minuscule amounts of yeast and salt. Kitchen scales are inexpensive and will upgrade your pizza game tenfold.

What Makes a Great NY Style Pizza Dough

My first taste of NY style pizza has its roots from my childhood in the 1990s in southwestern Virginia. Raymond Schiano, along with help from his brother Geno, opened a restaurant called The Italian Village about 40 or so years ago. The long, thin slices and the slightly crisp but chewy texture of the pizza was featured in every bite.

New Yorkers might tell you it is in the water. That is absolute hogwash. Countless scientific studies have proven otherwise, and in blind taste tests people have not been able to tell the difference from pizza dough made with water from New York or otherwise. You do not need New York water to make a great New York style pizza. Claiming that, “it’s in the water!” is a slap in the face to all the preeminent pizzaiolos today and the generations of pizza-makers who taught them the craft.

The principle ingredient that gives New York style pizza its taste is the use of high gluten flour. A horde of NY pizza restaurants are in possession of a great deal of General Mills’ bromated All Trumps flour. This flour is made from hard red spring wheat and it features a 14.2% protein content. This is higher than what you will find in a general grocery store, but the high protein is what delivers that classic chewiness, which is what you are looking for in an authentic New York style slice. All Trumps also has diastatic malt in it, which not only achieves more rise in the crust but also aids in browning.

If you are wondering, “what the heck is ‘bromated’ flour?” Hey, I wondered the same thing when I ventured into the use of All Trumps flour. Bromated flour refers to the ingredient potassium bromate, and it is a compound that strengthens dough and provides increased oven spring* and higher rising in an oven.

(*Oven spring: The rapid increase and final burst in the expansion of dough once it is loaded into the oven. The dough expansion will cease as soon as the temperature of the dough reaches about 140℉, at which point the yeast dies. There are many factors that influence the degree and quality of the oven spring when baking pizzas, including overall dough quality (it should not be stiff or overkneaded, and it should have good hydration), the degree of fermentation (it should not be underfermented or overfermented), and oven temperature. The manner in which the pizza is baked, that is, whether using a pan, stone/tiles, or pizza screen, will also be a factor. Source.)

You can find All Trumps flour at, perhaps, a restaurant supply shop. That is where I found mine, at a place called The Stock Pot in Johnson City, Tennessee. You can order it online from various retailers as well. In the event that you cannot find it, elect to use King Arthur bread flour. It has lower protein content (12.7%) but still delivers on the chewiness. I use All Trumps flour with my recipe, but feel free to give bread flour a shot. I have used it in the past for this same recipe, and it is similar enough.

NY style Margherita pizza baked in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven

A New York style Margherita pizza that was baked in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven.

Cornicione or crust of a Margherita pizza

This is an example of why I love the higher (65%) hydration of this dough, from the Margherita pizza above. I love that open, airy structure.

Hydration, Salt and Yeast

There is a small debate online over the hydration level of a New York style pizza. Some say that 58% is authentic while others argue that 65% is the way to to go. My recipe is a 65% hydration dough, because that is what I personally prefer. I like the puffy rise of the cornicione (rim of the pizza) and I feel that the higher water content protects the dough from drying out during the longer bake. I say these two things as a pizza enthusiast, as I am not a scientist nor an expert baker, so take my words with a grain of salt.

Feel free to lower the hydration percentage (I will provide a lower value for those of you who want to do so, because lower hydration dough is easier to work with) if you feel more comfortable doing so. Because you can bake a New York style pizza in the Halo Versa 16 in about four or five minutes, I wouldn’t worry about the hydration percentage values as a hard rule.

I use 2.1% salt (fine sea salt) in my dough. I feel like this is the best of both worlds. The salt is not too low nor is it too high. If your salt is too low, the yeast can go crazy and your flavor will be lacking. If the salt content is too high, the yeast can be inhibited from doing its thing and you will have a tough time stretching the dough because the salt will cause it to become more elastic. Salt provides flavor and aids in the fermentation.

You can use whatever kind of yeast you want, but this recipe is geared towards instant dry yeast. It is easy, can be mixed right into the flour and — unlike active dry yeast — you don’t have to activate it in water to get it ready.

But What About Sugar and Oil?

If you are making this dough for your home oven, you might want to consider using both sugar and oil, which aids in the browning of the pizza, but the Halo Versa cooks at temperatures over 600 to 700 degrees. I feel that sugar is unnecessary completely for that reason. Furthermore, not every New York pizza restaurant is using sugar in their dough.

Oil is up for more of a debate. Oil can not only help your pizza be more chewy but help you stretch the dough when you get to that point. However, I am leaving it out, at least for now. If you do decide to use oil, do not use more than 2% of the total flour weight.

Troy’s NY Style Pizza Dough Ingredients for the Halo Versa 16

I have droned on for far too long, but I feel like the above explanations are necessary to get to this point. One more thing to know before you get started: this dough is meant to be used as a 72-hour dough. You can use it after 48 hours, but I prefer the flavor of a 72-hour cold ferment.

This recipe is meant for two dough balls weighing 425g each, which results in 15-16″ pizzas.

Flour (100%): 507g
Water (60-65%): 305-330g
IDY (0.4%): 2g
Salt (2.1%): 11g

Mixing/kneading by hand:
1.) Place water in a large bowl
2.) Add flour and yeast
3.) Using a wooden spoon or your hands, mix to combine thoroughly for a few minutes
4.) Add salt and continue to mix
5.) Dump out onto surface and, once the dough comes together, knead for five minutes.
6.) Place the dough into a closed container and allow it to sit on the counter for an hour at room temperature.
7.) Divide the dough into balls, place each into a 6-cup plastic Gladware (or similar) container and toss it into the fridge to cold ferment.

Mixing/kneading with a mixer (my preferred method):
1.) Place water, flour and yeast into the bowl of a mixer
2.) Using the dough hook attachment, mix on low for 1 minute
3.) Add salt and continue mixing/kneading on low or medium-low for four minutes.
4.) Place the dough into a closed container and allow it to sit on the counter for an hour at room temperature.
5.) Divide the dough into balls, place each into a 6-cup plastic Gladware (or similar) container and toss it into the fridge to cold ferment.

48 to 72 hours later, when you are ready to bake, remove the dough balls from the fridge for at least an hour or up to two hours to warm up. I like to begin stretching my dough into skins when the dough temperature reads 55 degrees.

If, after the mixing stage, the dough is crumbly/shaggy or not coming together, allow it to rest — covered — for about 15 to 20 minutes to autolyze or otherwise allow the flour to absorb the water.

You might be thinking, “Wow! That is a short kneading session!” You would be correct. One thing you need to know about using All Trumps flour is that it can quickly be overkneaded. This is more of a worry when it comes to using a stand mixer than by hand, but this point still stands.

A high gluten flour like All Trumps lends itself to a long cold ferment in the refrigerator.

I don’t even bother checking for the windowpane test with this dough. I will do a simple ‘poke test’ to see if the dough springs back when I poke it, which indicates that there is even the slightest gluten development happening, and then stop kneading.

You typically knead to develop gluten, but in a recipe like this, with All Trumps flour, the gluten development happens in your refrigerator more than anything, through the act of biochemical gluten development. The dough strengthens as it sits.

A New York style pizza in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven

A New York style pizza cooking away in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven.

NY style pizza that was baked in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven

A large New York style pizza with pepperoni, Italian sausage and mushrooms on top of whole milk mozzarella after being baked in the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven.

Halo Versa 16 Heating and Bake Settings for a NY Style Pizza

To make a 16″ pizza on the Halo Versa 16, I recommend using a screen. I use this one from LloydPans. I mean, you can build your pizza on a 16″ peel, but it is difficult to launch a 16″ pizza on a 16.5″ stone. Asides from assisting in launching a large pie onto the Versa 16, the screen protects the bottom of the pizza from burning. You have more control over how brown the bottom of your pizza will be.

In addition to that, I do not use a screen for the entire bake.

My cooking process with the Halo Versa 16 when making a New York style pizza is as follows:

1.) Preheat the Halo Versa 16 on low for 20 minutes. I have found this to be the ‘money’ point in which to get the stone temperature to 652 degrees. Be sure to have the stone rotating during your preheat.

2.) While the Versa 16 preheats, I’ll build my pizza and, once adequately stretched, lay it onto the screen. If your screen is brand new, spray it with a little bit of oil so that the dough will not stick.

3.) At this point, after the preheat, I will launch the pizza onto the stone and cook it for about two and a half to three minutes while keeping the heat set to low.

4.) Afterwards, I crank the heat up to high and I’ll remove the pizza from the oven and slide it onto my peel and back into the oven so that the bottom of the pizza is browned while the high heat assists in the adequate browning of the top of the pizza.

You can experiment with removing the screen earlier or later in the cook, but I have had great success with the method above.

If the top of your pizza is not as browned as much as you prefer it to be, then dome the pizza to the top of the oven. By this, I mean lift the pizza with your peel and hold it towards the top of your oven so that the heat radiating from the top of the Versa 16 will reflect back onto the top of your pie.

I sincerely hope you give this recipe a shot. As a lifetime student of pizza slinging, I am forever experimenting and trying to improve, so I may update this recipe in the future, but as of now I have found this recipe to be an absolute winner for the Halo Versa 16 pizza oven.

All feedback is welcome, especially criticism, as long as it is constructive and friendly in nature. If you have any questions, ask away.

2

Stoke Pizza Oven: An Honest Review

The 13" gas-powered Stoke Pizza Oven
The 13″ gas-powered Stoke Pizza Oven

August 2022 update: I no longer recommend this pizza oven. At least until Stoke decides to change its regulator or go back to the drawing board in order to engineer a pizza oven with a better way to cook the bottom of the pizza. As is, the stock regulator is no good and the design of the wall in the back is troubling.

In the original review, I mentioned Stoke recommending a different regulator. Well, after one use, my burner went out as a wire was burnt up from the power of the new regulator. I contacted Stoke, they sent a new burner. After one use, the same thing happened again. I suppose the regulator that they recommended to me was simply too powerful for the neighboring wires in the burner.

I’m sad over it. I was excited to continue using the oven, but at its current state, I can’t even fire it up.

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In recent years, I have used multiple outdoor pizza ovens. From the Bertello to the latest Blackstone pizza oven conversion kit, it has been fun jumping into the backyard pizza oven game by learning new techniques to cook up pies. I was given the opportunity to try out the 13″ gas-powered Stoke Pizza Oven this month, and because I enjoy giving new culinary gadgets a try, I couldn’t wait to give it a shot.

For the purpose of full disclosure, I am an affiliate with Stoke. They are a brand new company entering the world of pizza ovens and are seeking out brand ambassadors in order to grow the brand. If you have a formidable social media following in the realm of grub slinging, you can reach out to be an affiliate. As a result of this, I received the 13″ Stoke gas pizza oven, a peel, a pizza cutter and a care package from DeLallo Foods featuring flour, pizza sauce, pesto sauce and a stick of pepperoni.

Otherwise, right now — as of the time of this posting — you can purchase their ovens at a discount for their Father’s Day sale. The gas pizza oven that I am using is $345.99 and the 16″ gas pizza oven is $475.99; they also offer a $345.99 wood-powered model that is fueled by pellets. These are $100 discounts until just after Father’s Day.

Regardless of my partnership with them, I am bound by honesty. I only use products that I believe in. I hold such products to a standard, because if I think something is not up to par, it will not be part of my outdoor cooking arsenal. There was a glaring issue which was subsequently corrected when I first received my oven, and I will cover that.

The average brand ambassador will shill for a brand without question; a great brand ambassador will provide quality feedback paired with constructive criticism for a brand in order to promote growth and progressive improvement of a product or service.

First Impressions of the Stoke Pizza Oven

While awaiting the 13″ gas pizza oven, I couldn’t help myself but read up and research what other people were saying about it.

If you peep the Amazon reviews, you’ll be a witness to a mixed bag of thoughts. One glaring complaint that avidly made the listings in the negative reviews of the Stoke Pizza Oven is that the stone doesn’t get hot enough. This instilled some doubt in my mind as I awaited the pizza oven. Furthermore, there is only one comprehensive review of this oven on YouTube, via RodrickViews. He backs up the negative reviews showing proof that the stone simply was not getting hot enough to cook the bottom of the pizzas. He heated the pizza oven for over two hours and the temperatures of the stone were never exceeding 400.

I noticed in all the Stoke Pizza Oven promotional videos, nobody was showing the undercarriage (bottom) of the pizzas. Stoke wasn’t nor was anybody else on social media. That is concerning, considering that the browning of the bottom of the pizza is inarguably the most important part of a great pizza asides from the leopard spotting of the rim (outer crust).

When I received my oven, I set it up immediately to test it out. I was already expecting the stone temperatures to be low after the aforementioned research. The first thing I noticed when I unboxed the oven is that the stone itself is rather thin. I’m thinking of eventually replacing it with a pizza steel.

For a test, to see if I experienced the same issues as everybody else, I fired up the oven. After 45 minutes, the stone was only reaching a maximum temperature of 472 degrees in the back of the oven. What separates the design of the Stoke Pizza Oven from, say, an Ooni, is that there is a big wall that stands between the flame and the stone. I suspected that the wall was being used as too much of a buffer for the flame, which was preventing the stone from reaching higher temperatures.

At this state, the oven is completely unusable. You cannot expect to cook a good Neapolitan style pizza when the stone temperature is between 350-400 degrees.

Stoke Pizza's recommendation for a different regulator.
Stoke Pizza’s recommendation for a different regulator

I reached out to Stoke and explained that the stone was not getting hot enough. Within an hour, Stoke responded to my email and explained that it is a regulator issue, and they recommended a different regulator from Amazon.

I wound up purchasing the new regulator, but I was still skeptical. However, asides from that, I was impressed by the customer service given the response within an hour of sending out the email. This was even in the evening, past 7pm.

First Cook With the Stoke Pizza Oven

https://videopress.com/v/C1LRZ3lo?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&loop=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
The Stoke Pizza Oven roaring like a dream with the new regulator.

Once I made up some dough and had the new regulator in possession, I gave it a go. I had never used a regulator with a PSI gauge before. I followed Stoke’s instructions to merely go with a 1.5 setting, barely above 0 on the gauge.

The results? The flame was roaring. It is now such a strong flame that it rolls underneath the stone. Within 15 minutes, the back of the stone was reaching 650 degrees. At 30 minutes of heating the Stoke Pizza Oven, the back of the stone was at nearly 900 degrees.

I was ready for some pizza. I had five dough balls made up, and my quasi-nephew was hungry for a slew of pies.

A salami pizza with a pesto base that was cooked in the Stoke Pizza Oven
A salami pizza with a pesto base that was cooked in the Stoke Pizza Oven
The undercarriage of the salami pizza with a pesto base that was cooked in the Stoke Pizza Oven.
The undercarriage of the salami pizza with a pesto base that was cooked in the Stoke Pizza Oven.

My first attempt using the Stoke Pizza Oven was with a pizza featuring salami with a pesto sauce base.

As you can see, it was a rousing overall success. There is actually color on the crust. If I had used the stock regulator that came with the oven, I wouldn’t have achieved any browning whatsoever on the bottom of that pizza despite the top of the pizza looking nice. That is the qualm I have with Stoke’s marketing team and some of the current ambassadors at this time: the top of the pizza will look great with the stock regulator, but the bottom will not. With the new regulator (at the proper, safe settings*), the bottom will cook like a dream.

https://videopress.com/v/5Hu7izxz?resizeToParent=true&cover=true&loop=true&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=true
A Margherita pizza in the Stoke Pizza Oven

The final pizza, after a few basic pepperoni pies, was a pseudo-Margherita pie in the Stoke. It was my favorite of the bunch, without question, as an unabashed fan of the simple style of pizza.

The original issue I had with the oven was resolved. The new regulator corrected the problem that would have occurred with the stock regulator. My recommendation to Stoke Stove is to begin sending these gas pizza ovens out with a new, powerful regulator, because at the time of this writing, the stock regulator is terrible unless you are a fan of pale, white crusts with zero browning nor flavor. I’m a straight shooter and that is simply a fact at this time.

It is a simple request of Stoke Stove to do this in the future, because a typical consumer should not be expected to receive a new oven with an underpowered regulator out of the box. I had no problem buying the recommended regulator, because of the fact that I was gifted the oven as a partner with the brand. However, if I had spent the money to buy the oven, I would have been miffed.

Furthermore, the pizza stone should be thicker, in my opinion. I am worried of the durability, but the tests of time will reveal how long it will last. Again, I may replace it with a steel.

I’m loving this Stoke Pizza Oven after the regulator change. I can’t wait to have the opportunity to throw down some more pies with it, because you can’t beat cooking up restaurant-quality pizza in your backyard.

Final Thoughts: Should You Buy a Stoke Pizza Oven?

Even with my complaints, from the big one (the stock regulator being subpar) and the rather inconsequential one (the stone being a bit thin), I highly recommend the 13″ gas-powered Stoke Pizza Oven, but it is imperative that you replace the regulator for a properly cooked undercarriage of a pizza.

Even with the purchase of a new regulator along with the oven, the Stoke Pizza Oven (with the current sale pricing going on) is cheaper in price than other brands like Ooni or Gozney.

I may be an affiliate with Stoke Stove, but again, I refuse to use products or services I do not believe in. All of the opinions expressed in this post are of my own subjective opinions backed by anecdotal experiences and do not necessarily reflect the thoughts of anybody else. I will never blindly recommend something if I do not personally think it is up to par.

I have not yet tried any pan pizzas in my Stoke Pizza Oven, so that will eventually be a test soon enough. However, I am already loving the hand-stretched Neapolitan pies I have cooked in it, and also once again, I can’t wait to have the time to make more pizzas with the Stoke.

I now have an appreciation for the high wall in the back of the oven, because I suspect the pan pizzas are going to be incredible when I do cook them, as cooking with the heat setting on low and the high wall will provide enough of a buffer for the time needed to cook a pan pizza all the way through.

Stoke Stove is brand new to the game of the outdoor pizza oven frenzy. I do not drone on and on over the stock regulator in order to be a menace but to provide the feedback needed for the company to grow. I fully believe that there will be changes in the future simply based on what I see from the customer service being top notch regarding feedback and complaints. In a year from now, my qualms about the stock regulator may be irrelevant. Who knows?

In your search for an outdoor pizza oven, definitely give Stoke a priority in your considerations. I will be posting recipes in the coming future that will pair fantastically with a Stoke Pizza Oven.

6

Grilled Stuffed Poblano Peppers

Grilled stuffed poblano peppers and a bell pepper

Two grilled stuffed poblano peppers and a grilled stuffed bell pepper on a bed of yellow rice.

Stuffed peppers were always a common meal that my mother cooked up while I was growing up. She would take green bell peppers, cut off the top of them, remove the inner part and ‘veins’ along with the seeds, roast them in the oven until the peppers would be partially cooked and then stuff them with an assortment of toppings.

Usually, those said toppings included the ground beef that she would brown up in a skillet with a diced onion, tomato sauce and shredded cheddar cheese. She would turn these into a meal, sometimes paired with a pan of fresh cornbread (my parents were veritable bread fiends who always seemed to feature some kind of bread as a side item for most meals).

I didn’t begin cooking until I was nearly 21-years-old in 2012, and the idea of cooking up a batch of stuffed peppers never occurred to me until well after my mom’s stroke in November 2018. While taking care of her, she asked if I could cook some for dinner one evening. I couldn’t believe that, after nearly seven years of cooking, I had never thought about cooking them since they made for a fairly quick and easy dinner during weeknights when I was a child, so I recreated her recipe, except I incorporated white rice that I cooked in some chicken broth and Italian seasoning to go along with the browned ground beef, diced onions and tomato sauce.

These days, I have what I will declare as a way better version of stuffed peppers: grilled stuffed peppers. I have thrown down some grilled, stuffed bell peppers multiple times at this point, but recently my local grocery store has begun to sell poblano peppers. Poblano peppers are just about as mild as bell peppers, but I prefer the flavor. Today, I want to offer you guys the prospect of grilling stuffed poblano peppers, which I believe you should include in your future grill meals this summer (or in the spring, fall and winter if you are a year-round outdoor griller like me).

For the grilled stuffed poblano peppers, I want to mention that I left out the tomato sauce. I didn’t have any on hand, but they were just fine without them. If you want to use them, then fair game! Add what you see fit. I made some with browned ground beef and some with leftover pulled pork that I smoked in my recently purchased Po’Man Grill. As much as I would like to call this a recipe, consider it to be more of a guide. Without further ado, let’s roll on to it.

Ingredients

How to Grill Stuffed Poblano Peppers

In this recipe, I grilled a couple of stuffed bell peppers as well, for the picky crowd, so keep this in mind if anybody requests that variety.

  1. Cook the yellow rice according to the package instructions (I used a family pack of the yellow rice — boil 3 and 1/2 cups of water, add the package of rice, reduce heat to medium low and cover for 20 minutes or until done).
  2. You can do this on your grill, but I was in a hurry, so I browned up the ground beef and diced onions in the taco seasoning in my cast iron skillet on my stove.
  3. Using a charcoal grill (if you are using a gas grill, fire it up to 350-400 degrees), I lit a small chimney of charcoal, allowed it to burn for 20-25 minutes and added them to the grill before adding my grates and procuring the lid on top. Both the intake and exhaust vents were set to being wide open.
  4. Preparing the poblano peppers — I removed the tops, sliced them into two sections and flatted them (seeds removed). This is my method that I find to be the most efficient: I applied a liberal amount of cooking oil (I used canola oil) to my hands and rubbed the skin and innards of the peppers. This is to create a thin layer of fat on the peppers in order to help the roasting process and keep them from sticking on the grill grates.
  5. I placed the peppers skin-side down onto the grate over the hot coals and cooked them for a couple of minutes before flipping them over to cook the inside of them for an additional minute or two before removing them.
  6. I added a spoonful or two of rice to the peppers followed by the pulled pork on some of them and ground beef and onions on the others before topping them with the cheese. This allows the cheese to melt down on everything.
  7. I re-added the peppers to the indirect side of the grill, closed the lid and allowed the cheese to melt for five to ten minutes.
  8. Remove and enjoy!

I highly recommend giving this recipe a shot. If you choose to use bell peppers, give them the same treatment with the coking oil and blemishing of the skin and innards on the grill for that classic grilled flavor. If you try this recipe (er, guide), let me know what you think in the comments.

0

The Key to Smoking a Great Brisket

Smoked, sliced beef brisket

If you held a gun to my head and delivered the ultimatum to me in the guise of a question of, “If you could only cook one food in the realm of barbecue for the rest of your life, what would it be?”, the subjective answer of mine is brisket.

The first time I ever tasted a smoked beef brisket cooked by someone at their home, and not at a restaurant, was in 2016. It was sitting in a foil pan, and it was chopped brisket, almost shredded. It sat in a mix of beef broth and juices from the meat itself. It was served for breakfast with biscuits. I ate mine on one of those said biscuits with a little bit of mayonnaise. Unconventional, but it was delicious. At that point in 2016, I had little to no knowledge about barbecue. If you have read my past posts, you will know that before 2016 my idea of barbecue was, well, barbecue sauce. I cannot emphasize how ignorant I was.

When I received my first smoker in December 2016, which was a used vertical Brinkmann Trailmaster stick burner smoker, I had brisket on my brain in terms of ideas of what I wanted to try smoking in the future, and so I hopped on Google and devoured all the information I could on how to smoke a brisket.

In that research, I learned that ‘chopped’ brisket was a variation of cooking it to the point of it being overcooked by traditional barbecue standards. I discovered that it was supposed to be sliced, and for the brisket to be considered true smoked beef brisket, that it would have to ‘pass the bend test’ as the slices would have to ‘fold’ over your finger when you hold it up, and furthermore, it would need to pass the ‘pull test’ where you take a slice of brisket and slightly pull it apart as it breaks into two pieces while still maintaining its sliced form, proving tenderness.

The brisket pull test

The brisket ‘pull test.’

Nonetheless, I did not smoke my first brisket until September 2017, and by that time I had been using my 22.5” Weber Smokey Mountain cooker since June of that year. A whole packer, which is what one calls a full brisket featuring its two parts – the point and the flat – in the barbecue world, was on my radar, but I was cautious. Before I continue, I want to mention that the point is the ‘fatty’ part of the brisket, often used to make burnt ends, and the flat is the learner part of the brisket.

I was daunted. When I was researching how to properly smoke a brisket, I discovered that it was allegedly the toughest food to properly cook in the barbecue world, and it served as some sort of litmus test for all true pitmasers.

With that said, when I smoked my first brisket, it was a four or five pound flat from Sam’s Club. On that day in September 2017, I was smoking a host of items in my WSM, from a head of cabbage with butter and Tony Chachere’s Creole seasoning (so good, by the way!) to potatoes and a pork butt for a family dinner.

Smoked and sliced beef brisket Smoked beef brisket

Somehow, I managed to cook it just right, and my family loved it.

My confidence skyrocketed, and just a few weeks later in October 2017, I bought a 12-lb. whole packer brisket from Wal-Mart. This time, instead of starting early in the morning like I did with the first brisket flat, I wanted to cook this one overnight. I started it at around 9 p.m. in my WSM with a mix of Kingsford charcoal briquettes, hickory and applewood.

When I woke up at 8 a.m. the following day, my WSM was still running at around 220-225 degrees, and the brisket was reading 180 degrees on my meat thermometer. Here is where I made a mistake: I wrapped it in foil and placed it back into the WSM. Now, the foiling of the brisket was not the mistake, but what I subsequently chose to do surely was. After another two hours in the pit, the brisket had not reached the internal temp of 200-202 like I was hoping for, so I removed it and placed it in my oven on 375 degrees. Yes, I really did that, and now I’m cringing.

Placing the brisket at that temperature in the oven wouldn’t have been the downfall if I had left it in there for a short amount of time, but it was in the oven for over an hour and a half, and when I removed it, I immediately opened the foil and sliced it up. Guess what? It was stringy. I made pulled brisket. I was so upset. After doing so well with the brisket flat, with this whole packer I failed. Now, was it still delicious? Absolutely. It was smokey, rich with flavor and tender, but that isn’t how I wanted to cook it. I made pulled brisket sandwiches that day, and the next day I made brisket chili with the leftovers. Not all was lost, but I learned a lesson on that day.

The beef brisket that I ruined

Here is the beautiful beef brisket that I subsequently ruined. I don’t have any post-shred photos because I was too upset with myself to take any.

You can’t truly hurry barbecue. Sure, you can wrap meats in foil – the ‘Texas Crutch’ method – and speed up the cooking process, but speaking of a process, that is exactly what barbecue is. I rushed this brisket and threw it in the oven at a high temperature to hurry it along, and I overcooked it.

Nowadays, I smoke my briskets in one of my Barrel House Cookers, hot’n’fast style. I will hang them in the BHCs until they reach an internal temperature of 160-165 degrees, wrap them in foil, re-hang them in the cooker and let it roll until I hit 198-202 degrees and remove it afterwards for a lengthy (one to four hours) rest in a cooler, wrapped in a towel.

Rest Your Brisket

That is the biggest key to smoking a great brisket. Resting it. Perhaps you thought my long-windedness was going to arrive to the conclusion of, ‘not hurrying it along,’ which is also important, but notice when I was describing my failure above, I immediately opened the foil and began to cut the brisket up. When you rest a brisket, you allow the juices – that would otherwise rapidly leak on out of the meat, along with the steam from the heat, causing the meat to dry up – to thicken and release more slowly, resulting in a juicy brisket.

Furthermore, resting a brisket allows the collagen within the meat to soften and become gelatin. The fat further renders. The product itself is simply better.

I have smoked at least thirty briskets since that fateful day in October 2017, and it still haunts me. Luckily, that has never happened again.

While I do smoke 99% of my briskets in one of my Barrel House Cookers these days, last May I did complete another overnight smoked brisket in my Weber Smokey Mountain, and this time it was a success. When I smoke up the morning after I began the cook, I wrapped the brisket in foil, added some more charcoal to my WSM, and allowed it to ride for a few hours until it hit 199 degrees internally. Afterwards, it rested in a cooler for over two hours. The results were much better than they were from that day in October 2017.

The key to smoking a great brisket: be patient, allow it to ride out for the full cook and yield it the proper time it needs to rest before you slice it up.

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Launching the Grizzly BBQ YouTube Channel

I have spent over three years toiling around with the prospect of putting together a YouTube channel for Grizzly BBQ.

Over the last year, I have posted a few videos that I had posted on Instagram, but they were hardly YouTube worthy. Being that the videos were from Instagram, they were short clips with nary any interaction involved. I suppose I just wanted to kick the channel off. I would have stopped procrastinating and started this YouTube adventure much sooner, but with 2019 being such a chaotic year, I had my priorities placed elsewhere. With more time available in my days in 2020, I am able to commit my energy into growing this cooking channel.

A few days ago, I cooked up a birthday dinner for my cousin Rachel’s 11-year-old son, and I decided to film bits and pieces of that day’s cook (which you can see above in my unofficial Grizzly BBQ channel introduction). I smoked a 10-lb. pork butt in my Barrel House Cooker 14D, and in my Barrel House Cooker 18C I smoked a 3-pound chub of bologna along with over 60 bacon-wrapped jalapeno poppers (some with cheddar cheese; others with cream cheese). Indoors, I deep-fried over 60 chicken wings and around 20 chicken legs/drumsticks.

Yesterday, I lightly documented my cook of a double smoked ham. It was a precooked ham that was smoked with hickory wood, so I fired up my offset stick burner smoker and smoked it in order to get it up to temperature (130 degrees) with a few split logs of hickory that I had on hand.

Somehow, prior to the cook from the other day, I had 49 subscribers to my channel. I believe I know the culprit behind that. Back in February, I posted a short clip to my @grizzly.bbq Instagram page where I was hot’n’fast smoking some burgers and bacon. I live on a rural piece of farmland, and my smoker is just in front of a fence that features a vast field behind it. Cows, being the curious animals that they are, lined up behind the fence where my offset smoker sits, and I shot a quick video cracking a couple of jokes. I said, “Welcome to my barbecue class. Grizzly BBQ. I guess these (alluding to the cows watching) are my students… and the product.” Somehow, this video has over 8,000 views at the time of writing this post. I reckon that is where the bulk of my subscribers have come from.

There are going to be some growing pains along the way. I am not used to filming my cooks in this manner. I’m used to posting short clips to Instagram. I’m new to video editing, and I have simply been doing so using an app on my phone, but in the near future I’m going to look into other forms of video editing software. I’m such an amateur right now. I’m filming with my phone and winging it.

I would like to invite you to come aboard and join me in this YouTubing adventure. Hit me up with some likes and a subscription. I would greatly appreciate it. I promise the videos will be better as time ensues. I won’t only feature barbecue, but I plan on doing other forms of grub slinging from grilling to griddling on my Blackstone griddles to documenting some indoor cooks.
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Chipotle Chicken Fajitas on the Blackstone Griddle

Chipotle Chicken Fajitas on the Blackstone Griddle



Believe it or not, this was my first time making chicken fajitas on the Blackstone griddle. I do have an excuse for that, which is one of my family members not being a fan of chicken, but still! After nearly three years of use, this was my first go-’round with them on the flat top.

One of the many great things about having an outdoor griddle, whether it is a Blackstone or a Camp Chef or a Blue Rhino or Royal Gourmet, is the versatility of it, and when it comes to versatility in cooking, fajitas — much like stir-fry — are something you can do anything with.

Traditionally, when you go to a Tex-Mex restaurant and order fajitas, what you are likely to receive is your choice of meat mixed together in a blend with cooked sliced bell peppers and onions, served with warmed flour tortillas, refried beans, rice and a little bit of greenery in the form of a tiny salad with tomatoes and a dollop of guacamole. However, at home, you can use whatever the heck you want. You can even make vegetarian fajitas with sliced portobello mushrooms if you would like. (A vegetarian dish being suggested on Grizzly BBQ? You don’t see that too often.)

At the same typical Tex-Mex restaurant, the fajitas comes out while sizzling on an oval cast iron skillet that is sitting on a wooden trivet. Truthfully, that is just for show, but you can’t deny the hunger augmenting effects it has on you and the others around when the dish is brought to the table, especially if your appetite is voracious and you are waiting to satiate it. At home, you could do the same for your guests by sitting a cast iron on the flat top until it heats up, adding your cooked meat and vegetables afterwards, and ensuingly walk into your home like a boss, but maybe I’m just boring, because I added these fajitas to a large bowl.

There are no rules when it comes to fajitas. Do what you want. If a culinary elitist tries to jump down your throat over the technicalities of fajitas, pay them no mind while you stuff your face with incomparable deliciousness. Let’s roll onto the recipe.

Chipotle Chicken Fajitas on the Blackstone Griddle

How to Make Chipotle Chicken Fajitas on the Blackstone Griddle

Do keep in mind that you can make these in a grilling basket (or cast iron skillet) on a gas or charcoal grill, or you can make them indoors in a cast iron skillet (I recommend cast iron for a proper sear of the meat). I enjoyed cooking them on my 36″ Blackstone griddle due to the overall cooking space.

As stated above, you can change up any ingredients you would like. One thing I would recommend, that I did not do, is cooking a combination of both chicken tenderloins (or butterflied chicken breasts) and boneless, skinless chicken thighs. The reason for this is that you will feature the best of both worlds: the lean white meat chicken from the breast along with the juicy flavor from the fat content in the dark meat from the boneless, skinless thighs. I had chicken tenderloins on hand. Keep in mind that if you cook with chicken breasts, you should butterfly them so that they are thin enough to cook so that the internal temperature of the breasts reach 165 degrees without burning the outside of them, which can happen if the breasts are too thick.

Furthermore, if you want to, you can slice and dice up the chicken prior to cooking, but in the past when I have cooked meals similar to this, what happens is that the meat does not brown as well. I cooked the chicken tenderloins first, and then I sliced/shredded them up before mixing them together with the sauce.

I used raw flour tortillas that I bought from Kroger and cooked on the griddle. I believe they taste better, with a higher quality texture, than precooked tortillas, but you can use whichever you would like. Whatever you have at your disposal is a solid general rule if I had to make one for these.

Ingredients Used

  • A couple lbs. of chicken tenderloins
  • 1 stick of salted butter (cut in half)
  • 1 diced yellow onion
  • 3 cloves of minced garlic
  • 1 habanero pepper, chopped and de-seeded (optional)
  • 1 red bell pepper sliced
  • 1 yellow bell pepper sliced
  • 1 can of Embasa chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
  • Sazon (I used La Preferida)

Step-by-Step Instructions

1.) After slicing and dicing up the vegetables, fire up two of the burners on the griddle to medium-high heat
2.) Once thoroughly heated (about seven or eight minutes), add one of the halves from the stick of butter and spread it around around before placing each piece of chicken onto the flat top cooking surface
3.) Cook the chicken for around five or six minutes on each side, or until the internal temperature of the respective chicken pieces reach 165 degrees, and place it on a cutting board.
4.) Lower heat to low, add the other half of the stick of butter (spread around, again) and the peppers and diced onions to the cooking surface, occasionally stirring.
5.) Slice up the chicken during this sequence
6.) Turn the heat back up to medium high and add the minced garlic, stirring frequently for about a minute
7.) Re-add the chicken to the mix and liberally season with Sazon
8.) Add the can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce
9.) Mix together for about two or three minutes
10.) Add to a serving plate for a bowl. Cover with foil or whatever you have on hand to keep warm
11.) Scrape the griddle surface from anything that was potentially stuck to it
12.) Cook the raw tortillas for about a minute or so on each side
13.) You are ready to eat. Enjoy! Serve with sour cream, guacamole, refried beans and rice, or whatever you would like.

Cooked chipotle chicken fajitas on the Blackstone Griddle

If you decide to give this recipe a shot, and I highly recommend it, let me know what you think in the comments.
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Is It Still Worth it to Buy a Barrel House Cooker?

Is It Still Worth it to Buy a Barrel House Cooker?

You have been in the market under the notion of buying a new smoker for a while. After much deliberation, you decide that you are most interested in a drum/barrel-like smoker for hot’n’fast style cooking and the ability to hang meats. In your barbecue-fueled research, you come across the BHC (Barrel House Cooker) and the PBC (Pit Barrel Cooker). The PBC is arguably the most popular, highly heralded pre-built drum cooker in the world. However, your interest is piqued by the features of the BHC, as it appears it can do a bit more in the cooking and user accessibility side of things than the PBC.

However, in the same vain of research, you might discover that Barrel House Cooker was recently acquired by Pit Barrel Cooker. That could be why you are here right now, as you consider your upcoming prospective purcase of a new drum smoker. Yes, that is true. Barrel House is now owned by the Noah Glanville (creator of the PBC). In short, a legal battle broke out after PBC sued BHC. The results of the lawsuit found that BHC would have to pay royalties to Noah and PBC with some of the proceeds from each sale of a BHC. It wasn’t long before PBC acquired BHC in an act of debt forgiveness.

You might be wondering, with the advent of this news being uncovered, if it is still worth purchasing a Barrel House Cooker. My answer to that curiosity is a resounding yes. You can take my word however you want it, but I have two Barrel House Cookers, and I have cooked with them at least one hundred times since my original purchase in April 2018. You can read my extensive review of the Barrel House Cooker 18C here.

The Glanville family announced that Barrel House Cookers are going to continue to be produced alongside Pit Barrel Cookers. It has been noted that they will still be operating under the two separate names. This should dispel any concerns over the cookers being removed from the market.

Barrel House Cooker 18C

My Barrel House Cooker 18C smoking away. Photo is from July 2018.

I bought my BHC 18C cooker for $249 (plus tax) in 2018. Nowadays, the BHC is sold on Amazon for $299. While the price increase is unfortunate, the BHC is more than worth purchasing, especially over the PBC. I absolutely know and understand that the PBC is a fine, exceptional cooker — which is why it is so popular and receives as much love as it does — but I simply prefer the BHC’s plethora of extra features, which is objectively cool to use when possible.

These are a couple of the advantages the Barrel House Cooker offers over the Pit Barrel Cooker (it is actually nice to be able to write this now, without fear of debates arising over BHC vs. PBC, now knowing that Noah Glanville and Co. are benefiting from both entities now).

Advantages (Features) of the BHC That Are Better Than the PBC

  • Easier access to modify your coal/wood positioning or remove ash. On the Pit Barrel Cooker, access to your charcoal basket is rather limited, since you have to sit the basket inside the cooker, at the bottom, and being able to access the basket of coals while in the middle of a cook is next to impossible barring some unnecessary, aggravating inconveniences. With the Barrel House Cooker, you can remove the middle base of the cooker from the bottom, remove the charcoal basket and empty ashes (using some heat resistant gloves) and resume cooking once placing the base back onto the cooker.
  • Perhaps it is the bigger competitive advantage of the two, but the Barrel House Cooker has made the bottom part of its cookers to where you can place the cooking grate over top of where you have your charcoal and use it as a hibachi! As far as I know, this cannot be done on the Pit Barrel Cooker. There is nothing like smoking a tri-tip until you hit about 120-125 degrees on the internal temperature before removing the base, adding the cooking grate to the bottom, over top of the coals, and searing that delicious tri-tip to perfection. The options are virtually unlimited as far as what you’d like to reverse sear by par-smoking a particular piece of meat(s) and finishing on the hibachi insert.
  • The Barrel House Cooker features a thermometer on the lid while the Pit Barrel Cooker does not. I know plenty of (myself included) barbecue fanatics who like to use thermometers made by Thermoworks or Maverick (and others) to gauge the grate temperatures, but I find this to be a point worth mentioning.

If you are on the fence, I can’t help but recommend that you go ahead and give Barrel House Cooker a shot. The features are nice, it is durable (I can speak for myself, and for many others from a Barrel House Cooker hangout group on social media, when I write that) and easy to use. It pumps out excellent barbecue, which I can also vouch for, and you will find that in a myriad of my posts on here where I have been consistently using my Barrel House Cookers for the last two years. My only complaint is that I did not purchase one sooner.

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