Finally broke out the smoker for our first grilling day in 2011. We had two main goals going in to today – first to rework our throwdown-winning dessert from last year and second to give beef ribs a whirl.
Beef Ribs
Beef ribs hit the irons first. Mark (y’all remember Mark) picked up some mesquite wood – so we went that route with black pepper and salt for a straight forward prep. The grill held pretty constant between 200 and 225 for around 4 hours – which wasn’t long enough… but did a lot better than I thought it would. I was actually pretty impressed that we were able to keep the heat as constant as we did considering I forgot my chimney starter.
The beef ribs came out fine – probably needed to go a little lower on temp for another two hours – and I overdid it on the pepper. The smoke (which ran maybe a quarter of the time) was spot on – with a killer smoke ring in the meat. Honestly, though, I think I’m going to stick with brisket if I want beef and pork if I want ribs… brisket is just easier to deal with for what seemed like the same result.
Dessert
We had a ringer last year with a smoked dessert pizza. It’s essentially pizza dough with fruit over a sweet ricotta cheese filling smoked in barley smoke. We’re looking to give it a face lift – mostly focusing on presentation. I’ve got three preps I’m looking at now – super interested what you think.
1.) Regular rounds – whole berries
2.) Cream-puff style
3.) Flavored cream rounds – half berries
I’m leaning toward #3 – but I’m not sure I’m sold…
