The trick is to smoke the meat and not make the meat smoke
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2015 Blog Archive

Here is the ARCHIVE OF BLOGS for this year with links to all of the entries listed chronologically.
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This Recipe Was a Real Turkey

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Let me start out by saying my 2015 Thanksgiving turkey was the best turkey I have ever made. It was a combination of a great fresh turkey, a great recipe and I managed to not screw anything up. The recipe made the “not screw anything up” part way, way harder than it should have been. There were some inconsistencies and errors in the recipe vs. the version from the TV show. So even though this recipe helped me make the best turkey ever, this blog entry is going to be part rant and part praise. Read More...
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Looking Back, Looking Ahead -2015

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Starting with 2006’s BBQ blog, I have written a year end wrap up summing up my past year pursuing this hobby. At years end everybody in the media seems to do some sort of Top !0 list. In my case I have reduced it to several Top 5 lists. The list helps me to think about what I have learned during the last year, plus I also use it to chart my course for the next year. By looking at my previous years blog I can see just how I did in reaching my goals. Many times I may not do everything I wanted to, but by reviewing the list from last year it is easy to see what I missed doing and add those items to this years list. Plus it is sometimes fun for me to reread the lists for each year to see my progression pursuing this hobby. Read More...
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Que Calendar 2016 Posted

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This is the 10th year I have been taking pictures from my previous years Grilling and Smoking activities and use them to create a calendar with Apple’s iPhoto software. The first year it was an experiment and I really didn’t expect it to be of interest to anyone but me. To my surprise other people took and interest and I started getting request for calendars for them. I have found they make nice stocking stuffers (yes BIG stockings) and they are professionally printed so they compare favorably with store bought calendars. Several people familiar with both the calendars and this website suggested I post them here too. So I added a section with the calendars several years ago, I post a quickie blog entry like this letting folks that a new calendar has been posted. The future of this calendar as it exists now, is a bit sketchy. Apple has created a new photo application and is discontinuing their two current photo apps: iPhoto and Aperture. Right now Aperture and iPhoto still run under the current operating system and calendars are still supported via iPhoto. The new Photos app is a work-in-progress and doesn’t support many features of the two apps it is replacing. We shall see whet develops.

Below please find the direct link to the 2015 Cue Calendar picture pages and a link to a previous year’s blog entry on making calendars in iPhoto.

RELATED PICTURE ENTRIES
  CUE CAL 2016 -2016 Cue Cal Picture Entry
  CALENDARS - Picture Entries from Previous Year’s Calendars

RELATED BLOG ENTRIES
  CALENDARS WITH IPHOTO 2008 Blog Entry

  BACK TO BBQ BLOG 2015
  ARCHIVE OF BLOGS: 2015
  INDEX OF BLOGS: ALL YEARS
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Wok Talk - Simplifying Multi-Item Cooks.

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I have made a return to grilling after a long absence and I have been attempting a lot of multi-item cooks. For the last 3 cooks I have been doing 3 or 4 item stir fries. Even though the cooking times can be very short, these can be quite time consuming with all of the prep and setup time involved. This blog will cover some of the things I have learned along the way, including a recent discovery that really speeds up the prep. Most of the items I talk about apply to the prep which is the same for any grill. A few apply to the Big Green Egg or other Kamado style grill. Hopefully some or all of the items I discuss, will be of use to others trying multi-item stir fries. Read More...
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Stumped by Stump Chunks

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Back in July I wrote a blog entry about STUMP CHUNKS FIRE STARTERS. This product is 100 percent natural kindling wood made from tree stump wood. It was my preliminary evaluation and initial discoveries about the product. Three months have passed and I have used the product more and made two new discoveries, one good and the other not so good. This blog will discuss both items and suggest a possible cause/solution for the not so good item. It will also discuss an unexpected discovery I made back in July and how it is still the case today. Read More...
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Back in the Saddle-Part 2

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This is the second part of a two part blog entry describing a recent cook which marked my return to grilling in a big way. I made a total of 5 items on my 3 Big Green Eggs. The items were baked, smoked and stir fried in a wok. This cook was unusual in that a side dish, GRILLED SUCCOTASH, was the main driving force behind the entire meal. These blog entries describe some of my planning and thought processes to help make a complex cook come together and be successful. People often tell me they like what I do but they couldn’t do it themselves. Multi-item cooks just require some advanced planning and some organization. PART 1 covered the pre-planning, including my decision to make the two baked items the night before. This part covers the main cook on Saturday, including a last second change I made which made a big difference in the outcome. Read More...
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Back in the Saddle-Part 1

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This 2 part blog entry will cover several topics all in one cook. Many folks tell me they like looking at the big meals I show on this site, but they could never do that themselves. This blog will let you in on some of my thought processes and planning that go into a multi-item cook. Believe me, if I can do it anyone can do it. This entry will also discuss my return to the grill after a long absence. It will talk about the rather unusual circumstances where the meal was planned around the side dish, not the main dish. It was an ambitious meal where 5 items were baked, stir fried or smoked on my 3 Eggs. I will describe some of the steps I took to help make it all come together. Last but not least: I will talk about one of the best dishes I have ever made, which just happens to be a side dish. As I mentioned earlier, it was so good I planned this meal starting with this side dish and picked the other items to go with it. I will write it in two parts. Part 1, which you are reading now, will describe the lead up and planning for the cook. It will also cover the items I made ahead on Friday night. PART 2 will cover the main cook on Saturday, including a last second change I made which made a big difference in the outcome. Read More...
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Picture This

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This past weekend I finally realized a goal that I first started thinking about over 10 years ago. When I first began thinking about what I wanted to do, there wasn’t actually a product available to do what I wanted. A company in Florida, called Fracture, developed a real world product which was exactly what I was looking to for. The idea was born when I started creating the food-based picture calendars in iPhoto 10 years ago. You end up having small collages with 6 or 7 images on the top half of each month. These collages of the food I had grilled or smoked in the past year really looked nice. I got many compliments on these picture calendars and I started thinking about doing a large scale version of one of these food based collages in my Kitchen. Three things held me back: time, money and lack of a product that had the look I wanted. This year I discovered the solution. Yesterday I put up a 42” x 60” (107 x 152 cm) 47 picture collage of my food photos on a wall of my Dining Room. This blog entry will describe how I got here. Read More...
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Food for Thought

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This blog is some of my remembrances of my mother related to food. Specifically how grilling and smoking meals for my parents played a big role in their last 12 years. As you will read in the sidebar below, my mother passed in mid-August. I had been having my parents over for meals every Saturday I was able to. I knew they enjoyed these meals, but these last few months have shown me they were far more important to my parents than I ever realized. So if you have a chance to share meals with your friends and family, by all means do it whenever you can. I really had no idea how much these meals meant to my parents, I am just glad I did them as often as I could. Perhaps there is something I did or discovered that may be helpful to you too. Read More...
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2 Old Problems, 2 New Solutions

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I recently made some BEER-BRINED WINGS and this cook confirmed a recent discovery and it also marked a new discovery that looks promising. I find this interesting because I am approaching my third anniversary of Big Green Egg usage and there are still valuable lessons I can learn. The first discovery solved a problem with the one type of cook I’ve always found difficult to get started: a Low to Medium-Low direct grilling session. The other discovery solved a problem with keeping the lid open on the Big Green Egg, but could also apply to some other similar grills both Kamado and traditional. Read More...
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Stump Chunks Fire Starters

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This blog is about my first impressions of a fire starter product called Stump Chunks. It is made locally in New Hampshire from ground up tree stumps making it a green product since the tree stumps were left over from lumbering operations and would otherwise have gone to waste. I began hearing about this product last summer and have wanted to try it for a while now. After my first test fire, it was looking like it would not work for me for the type of fire I like to create. But I could see plenty of other uses where it would be a perfect solution for others. Then I did some thinking, I made a few minor changes that made a big difference Read More...
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Wagyu Cheeseburger

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While I don’t have an “official” BBQ Bucket List, if I did, this item would have made the short list. Kobe and Wagyu beef have entered into the public consciousness these last 5 years. I was curious to try grilling some up to see if I could taste a big difference and discover what all the fuss was about. This past Saturday I got a chance to try some Wagyu ground beef and this blog will describe that event. Read More...
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NewEGGlandfest VIII - 2015

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This marked my third year attending NewEGGlandfest VIII which is a sponsored by Tarantin Industries the New England Big Green Egg Distributor. The event was similar in many ways to the last two years events, which was to be expected. This year there was a surprising difference too, no celebrity chef demos. I think this was a result of last years event drawing about 1/3 less cooks than the 2013 event. Attendance seemed to be down too, but I heard they pretty much sold all of the Tasters tickets they had. I wrote a blog about this event in 2013 & 2014, and for this blog anyplace where things remained the same, like the location information, I will reuse the text from last year’s entry and italicize it. Except where noted by the italics, this blog entry will describe my impressions of the 2015 event specifically, including the similarities and differences to last year. Read More...
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Is Everyone for Sale?

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This blog entry is something that has been building inside me for several years now and will be equal parts rant and cautionary tale. This site has always been a hobby for me, ad free, and not a source of income for me or anyone else. I never plan for it to be otherwise. I will be describing the sad state of affairs these days, where nothing is free and everything needs to be “monetized”. The other part of this is some of the sleazy techniques people are using today to promote their products. Now more than ever, you really can’t trust everything you read and you need to evaluate the motives of the writer. I will talk about the two items that got me going: “Monetizing” your website and slanted reviews. I am going to avoid mentioning names, though some of these folks really deserve to be exposed. Read More...
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Dealer Eggfests

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One aspect of Big Green Egg ownership I never thought about was the social aspect. By that I specifically mean Eggfests, where old, new and potential EggHeads gather to discuss the Egg and enjoy some great food cooked by fellow Eggheads. They range in size from national such as the EGGtoberfest, held every October in Atlanta. This is the BIG one and it draws around 4,000 EggHeads from around the US, North America and other parts of the world. Then there are regional Eggfests such as NewEGGlandfest which draws hundreds of people from around New England. I have attended and written blogs about both these Eggfests. This time around I am going to write about the local Eggfests run by individual Big Green Egg dealers that draw maybe 100 people. Specifically I am going to write about the one I just attended held by my dealer Oasis Hot Tub & Sauna in Nashua, NH. They call it their Customer Appreciation Day. Many of the other Big Green Egg dealers in this area have their own version of this event. I would imagine dealers all over the US have similar events. Read More...
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3 Years Eggsperince-Part 2

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With the approaching 3rd anniversary of my Big Green Egg ownership, I have been thinking back to what an amazing three years it has been. This two part blog entry shares what I have learned in my 3 years owning the Egg. PART 1 is a big picture look at where I was prior to getting my first Egg and what it has meant since then. This second part, organized in a format of: “The Good, the Bad & the Ugly”, describes my specific likes and dislikes. My opinion has evolved over time, as I discovered more about this grill. It is mostly “the Good”, but nothing is perfect, so there are a few “Bads” and “Uglies” too. I figured anyone interested in getting a Big Green Egg (or other Kamado grill) might be interested in the impressions, good and bad, of an owner. Many of these things I never thought of until I actually owned my first Egg. Some of the topics I cover as a bullet point here, were subjects of full length blog entries. I will provide a list of links to some of them at the end of this entry. Read More...
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3 Years Eggsperince-Part 1

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Shortly I’ll be reaching the 3rd Anniversary of the first Big Green Egg showing up in my back yard. I know this will sound overly dramatic, but it has truly been a life altering experience. This two part blog will describe my impressions after 3 years owning an Egg. I will start off with some big picture observations from the 30,000 ft altitude. PART 2 will get into some specific likes and dislikes. If you are thinking of buying a Big Green Egg, or other Kamado grill, this may help you get off the fence. Read More...
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Grilling Season 2015-Part 2

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The previous blog entry: GRILLING SEASON 2015-PT. 1, covered some of the silly rituals and routines that mark the dates when the perceived start of the grilling season occurs. The conventional wisdom is everyone, or at least “normal people” grill only between Memorial Day and Labor Day. The coming of the “Official Grilling Season” marks the annual rollout of new grill models for the coming year. GRILLING SEASON 2015-PT. 2 will cover the rollout of the new grills for 2015.
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Grilling Season 2015-Part 1

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This blog entry is something I do semi-regularly each year when the warm weather arrives and Memorial Day approaches…If you are looking for a “How-to” or “Review” move you won’t find it in this two part entry. This is a bit of a celebration of the coming of the nice weather and a discussion of what starts happening around this time…Around now you get a preview of the year to come and I just enjoy seeing the new gear that comes out. Plus I get to be both sad and amused by the yearly ritual when it is deemed to be the proper time to grill. Read More...
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Road Trip-Tasty Licks Barbecue

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I recently made a BBQ related road trip to Shillington, PA. If Shillington, PA sounds vaguely familiar to you, then you may have seen YouTube vides by Fred Bernardo, aka “The Smoking Guitar Player”, owner of Tasty Licks Barbecue supply. From the YouTube videos I had watched, I could see it was the largest BBQ stores I had ever seen. It was certainly bigger than any BBQ store I am aware of here in New England. Some things recently came together to allow me to make a 32 hour quickie road trip to Tasty Licks, which is the subject of this blog entry. Read More...
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These Pans Have the Midas Touch

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I recently added to and completed (for now) my collection of some excellent bakeware. It is good enough, I thought I would devote a blog entry to it. I am referring to the Williams-Sonoma Goldtouch line of non-stick bakeware. Normally I wouldn’t get too excited about a line of pans, but these particular pans are demonstratively better in several categories. I will make my case and you can decide, but these pans have certainly made a difference in my baking. So much so that I have pretty much replaced all of my conventional baking pans with the Goldtouch. Read More...
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600th Picture Post - How I Got Here

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The BISCUIT BREAKFAST PUDDING from this past weekend marked my 600th Picture Post on this site. This caused me to think back to where I was before I started this site and where I have come. The idea for a blog entry came to mind where I might encourage people to push themselves to do more. Many folks see pictures of what I have cooked and say: “Wow that is great, but I could never do that it is too complicated”. To that I say: “Nonsense!” I will talk about the steps that got me to the level I am at today. As part of this blog I will talk about where I was prior to getting my first serious grill in 2003. You will see if I can do it, anyone can do it.
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There's a New Charcoal in Town

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Pardon my painful paraphrasing of the line from Western movies: “Look out, there is a new sheriff in town”. There is indeed a new charcoal in town, it is called Ranch-T and I am rather excited about it. You can blame the western sounding name of this charcoal for my bad pun. I was lucky enough to get to try and test some pre-release sample bags and i was quite impressed with the performance. It is being rolled out to market starting this past week, and will be available in small quantities to start. This blog will describe my experiences using the pre-release bags of this new lump charcoal and where it is intended to fit in the marketplace. Read More...
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Baking & Eggs-Part 2

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PART 1 of this blog discussed some of the theories about why the Big Green Egg can be a better oven than your indoor oven. Reality is never quite as cut and dried as theories make it sound. Part 2 of this blog will discuss some real world situations and how they might impact your decision about whether to use your indoor oven or your Big green Egg. I will take some of the theoretical advantages of the Big Green Egg, or other kamado cookers, and discuss how they play out in the real world. I will also cut to the chase here and say with very very few exceptions, all my baking is done on my Big Green Egg. Even when it is near 0 F (-18C). The truth of this can be demonstrated by the fact last September I picked up a third Large Big Green Egg. which I use exclusively for baking related tasks. I never use smoking woods in it and I leave it setup with a second Adjustable Rig configured for indirect baking, Read More...
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Baking & Eggs-Part 1

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Lately my use of one of my Big Green Eggs for baking has come up in conversation quite a bit. It has been a combination of factors: I am baking more, I recently added a pit controller for my baking Egg and sometimes people at the food stores try to figure out what I am making based on what I am buying. But however it comes up, there are typically two main reactions and the occasional third one. Many folks think I may just be a bit crazy, particularly in the winter. I mean why leave the comforts of a warm Kitchen when there is a perfectly good oven there. The second reaction is surprise followed by interest when I explain my reasons. Once in a while I will run into a situation where the person knows the benefits of using a Big Green Egg or other Kamado style cooker. They know exactly of what I speak. I thought I might write this blog entry on Baking on a Big Green Egg (or other Kamado grill). In Part 1 I will discuss the big picture reasons why the Kamado style cooker can be better for baking than an indoor oven. In PART 2, I will talk about my experiences baking on my Egg. I will discuss both the benefits as well as the few disadvantage I have found. But if you own a Kamado style grill, you owe it to yourself to attempt baking on it. Read More...
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New DigiQ DX2

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As threatened I picked up my second pit controller, the Big Green Egg branded BBQ Guru DigiQ DX2. Some folks who hear that I got a second pit controller for backyard use think I am crazy. Others who heard I bought the BGE branded version which costs more money think I am crazy. I will attempt to explain my logic on both counts. I will also discuss why I elected to go with the DigiQ DX2 this time around and how it is similar to and different than the CyberQ WiFi. This may help some folks trying to side between the two. Read More...
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Smoke It LIKE A PRO-Cookbook

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I have been looking forward to this Kamado grill cookbook since I heard about it over a year ago. The title is: Smoke It LIKE A PRO which is subtitled: On the Big Green Egg & Other Ceramic Cookers. It is further described on the cover as: An Independent Guide with Master Recipes from a Competition Barbecue Team. It is written by Eric Mitchell who is a New England based competition barbecue cook. He and his wife Cindi use Big Green Eggs to compete under the banner of Yabba Dabba Que. I have eaten food cooked by this pair fresh off the Egg on 6 different occasions and I can’t tell you how excited I am to finally have this book. While this book is written from the perspective of cooking the food on a Big Green Egg, it would be a similar experience on other Kamado cookers. But even if you don’t own a Kamado cooker, this book is well worth buying for the recipes alone. Read More...
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The Airlighter - 2nd Gen. Fire Starter

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The Airlighter is a high speed fire starting device for grills and wood stoves that came out about a year ago. It uses a high temperature flame to get the coals or wood ignited quickly and then a high speed fan serves to spread the flames. The Airlighter is portable and does not require a power outlet like electric fire starters. It uses high quality non-clogging butane for the flame and a rechargeable battery for the fan. I already owned a competitor to the Airlighter, the Looftlighter, which is a corded electric fire starter. From my point of view Airlighter is not simply a knock off of the Looftlighter. While it is obviously inspired by the Looftlighter, the Airlighter is more like an attempt to take the strengths and weaknesses of the Looftlighter and improve on them. This blog will also compare the two based on my first uses of the Airlighter. At the end of this blow I will provide some links to previous blog posts about the Looftlighter and links to both manufacturer’s web sites. Read More...
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Thanksgiving Eve 2014-New & Improved?

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This is Part 2 in a 3 part blog entry about Thanksgiving 2014 where I violated the old adage that: “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”. I had been turning out my best turkey ever these last few years, but I was no so thrilled with the dark appearance it seemed to take on. At first my plan was to only change the turkey recipe, but by the time Thanksgiving rolled around I had decided to change virtually everything. Part 1, THANKSGIVING 2014 - NEW & IMPROVED?, discusses the changes I made and the thinking behind them. This entry will discuss my Thanksgiving Day Eve cook and whether things went according to plan and if everything turned out the way they should. Part 3, THANKSGIVING DAY 2014 - NEW & IMPROVED? discusses the items I made Thanksgiving Morning. I am going to give something away: Thanksgiving morning things definitely DID NOT go according to plan. It was in a way The Tale of Two Cooks, where two old adages applied. The first half of the cook could have been called: “When bad things happen to good cooks”. I was at the point where I was getting ready to decide what item I could NOT make to help get things back on track. Fortunately the adage “If you don’t succeed, try, try again”, took effect. We often learn a lot from our mistakes or failures than we do if everything goes smoothly. I didn’t have any failures, but there were plenty of mistakes to go around. If you are interested in learning more there are links at the bottom of this blog to some relevant Picture or Blog entries and some of the recipe links. Read More...
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I Don’t Need a Pit Controller, I Need Two

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If you are going to be wrong, at least be wrong in a way where the right answer is an improvement. Historically I have not felt the need to use a Pit Controller. When I owned my Chargriller Smokin’ Pro horizontal offset barrel smoker, the Yankee in me couldn’t see spending more for a Pit Controller than I had for the smoker itself. When I got the Big Green Egg and saw the stability possible with a ceramic grill, I dismissed a pit controller for a backyard griller like me as an unnecessary toy. My first smoke on my first BGE had gone over 9 hours before I had to tweak the dampers. This served to reinforce my thinking on the matter. Also working from home allowed me to do many cooks during the day that I would have done overnight before. Then I started having a change of heart late last year and bought a BBQ Guru CyberQ WiFi. I have already written a series of blog entries on that topic, which I will link to at the bottom of this entry. In a remarkably short time, I have gone from a skeptic to a total convert. I am actually toying with the idea of getting a second CyberQ. This blog will describe what has caused such a big switch in my line of thinking, and what I have come to love about using a pit controller with my Big Green Egg. Read More...
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The Snow Must Go On

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Yes this is a BBQ blog, but for the last couple weeks we have been just bombarded by snow. Many areas have broken 30 day total snowfall records in about half that amount of time. Two of these storms were Top 10 storms of all time. This winter is less than half over and it is already the second snowiest Winter ever. With my Big Green Eggs I can grill or smoke in any weather. I have been getting some cooks in during and between some of the storms. But the weather has impacted my cooking in unexpected ways. Now I can pretty much cook in any weather if I chose, the problem is people being able to get there and eat it . This blog is snow/weather related to start. At the end I will mention some things I learned or re-learned using the BGE in this weather. Read More...
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CyberCook - CyberQ WiFi Software

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One of the reasons I was excited to be getting my CyberQ WiFi was I had discovered there was some 3rd party iOS software out there for it. The software allowed you to access the CyberQ WiFi remotely and made it easier to use. What excited me the most is some of this software was said to add features such as graphing and logging your cooks. I used to log my cooks manually by going out to the Kitchen and taking readings from my Maverick ET-72 remote read thermometer every 15 or 30 minutes. This software for the CyberQ did all of this for you, even while you were away from the house or sleeping. The first 3 apps I tried were rather disappointing for any one of several reasons. Then I stumbled onto CyberCook (iPad) and CyberCook Mini (iPhone). It had all of the features I was looking for and then some. It had a nice clean interface which was nice to look at, but the “eye candy” does not take precedence over the functionality. The App is extremely well thought out. CyberCook is now my GoTo app for controlling my CyberQ WiFi on both my iPad and iPhone. After this review I think you will see why. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 6

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When I started writing this blog item about the CyberQ WiFi, I expected it to be a longish single entry. It has taken 5 other parts to get to this point, where I get beyond planning and setup and actually use the CyberQ to help me cook some food. If you are interested in what was covered in the preceding 5 entries, scroll down to the bottom of this entry for links to the other sections. This entry will discuss my first few uses of the CyberQ and my first impressions. I figured getting the CyberQ on the network was the hardest part and I got it on the first try. It turns out my problems had just begun. I had some networking issues that had nothing to do with the CyberQ and everything to do with my router dying off. But I am getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 5

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This blog entry on the CyberQ WiFi has taken on a life of its own. I originally was thinking a single entry was all I needed. But there is a lot to talk about and it is now going to take up 6 entries. So far PART 1 of this 6 part entry about the CyberQ WiFi has discussed pit controllers and why you might want one. Next PART 2 discussed the specific unit I bought and why I chose it. PART 3 discussed setting the CyberQ up on a WiFI network and the two possible methods of doing this. It also covered the first method: Adhoc Pairing in more depth. The second method, called Infrastructure Mode, was the subject of PART 4. This entry will discuss attaching the unit to my Big Green Egg. I should note that the procedure is quite similar for all pits. The main difference would be in the adapter unit used to attach the blower fan to the brand grill/smoker you have. PART 6 will discuss some of the first cooks I’ve done with the CyberQ WiFi and what I have learned about it so far. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 4

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As I have been writing this blog entry on my recent purchase of the CyberQ WiFi pit controller, it has taken on a life of it’s own. There was a lot more to cover than I first imagined. In PART 1 I discussed in general terms what a pit temperature controller is and why someone might want one. PART 2 went onto discuss why I chose the specify unit I bought. PART 3 covered WiFi Networking in general and setting the CyberQ WiFi up for Adhoq Mode, which is a simpler but more limited way of using the unit with WiFi. This entry will cover the setup process for using the CyberQ WiFI in the Infrastructure Mode. This mode puts the unit on your home WiFi Network and gives you more capabilities which is the good news. The bad news is you must go under the hood of your router and change some network related settings. This really is not a task for a total beginner with no computer networking experience. PART 5 will cover the physical setup involved with installing the unit on my grill. PART 6, if I live long enough to finish writing this blog entry, will cover my initial experiences cooking with the CyberQ WiFi. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 3

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PART 1 of this 6 part blog series about my recent purchase of the CyberQ WiFi Pit Temperature Controller discussed in general terms what a pit temperature controller is and why someone might want one. PART 2 went on to discuss why I chose the specific unit I bought. This entry will discuss the Networking/WiFi setup of my particular unit in a Big Picture fashion. Plus I will also discuss the simplest, but most limited method of connecting via WiFi called Adhoq mode. PART 4 will cover the more advance and sadly more difficult method of connecting to WiFi, called Infrastructure Mode. Parts of the setup process are shared among all pit controllers and there are certain aspects of the setup, such as the WiFi setup which are more unique to this unit. If you are considering a Pit Controller that does not have WiFi capabilities, you could skip this entry & Part 4 and move on to PART 5. This is where I will also describe physically installing the unit on my BGE. The physical installation of the unit on the smoker is pretty similar between various pit controllers & various smokers. The differences are mostly due to the differences between the smokers and how the blower fan is attached to each model smoker. PART 6, the final part of this blog, will discuss my first impressions after several uses. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 2

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In PART 1 of this blog entry I discussed pit temperature controllers is general terms. What they are, their basic components, why you would want one, why I specifically DIDN”T want one and why I changed my mind. This entry will describe the actual model I purchased, discuss why I chose it, and finish up with some unexpected difficulties relating to the ordering and delivery process. PART 3 will describe WiFi Networking in general and setting up the simpler Adhoc mode. PART 4 will describe setting up the more feature laden, but more difficult Infrastructure WiFi mode. PART 5 will cover installing and setting up the CyberQ WiFi on your smoker. PART 6 will give my first impressions using it. It was an “interesting” initial purchase to say the least. There were some initial problems that made things difficult, although I must say none of them were the direct fault of the pit controller itself. I will cover them because they may be things that effect other people. But lets begin at the beginning with the model I selected. Read More...
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Everything Is Under Control-Part 1

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We interrupt this regularly scheduled blog entry…I had planned to continue posting my blog entries about the changes made for Thanksgiving 2014, but something very exciting happened at the ned of the year, just before Christmas, and I will write about that here and go back to the Thanksgiving blog entries shortly. What happened was as much of a surprise to me as anyone: I bought a pit controller for my Big Green Egg. Specifically I bought the CyberQ WiFi pit controller from the folks at BBQ Guru. A pit controller controls the cooking temperature of your smoker automagically. Additionally the WiFi capabilities of the unit I purchased gives you the ability to control your smoker two ways. The simplest, called Ad Hoc mode is done via a direct WiFi connection to one WiFi enabled computer, smartphone or tablet. The second method, called Infrastructure Mode, is where you can add the CyberQ WiFi onto your home WiFi network where multiple devices can control it. In Infrastructure Mode you can actually control the device remotely from anywhere you can access the internet. There is also some third party software available for smartphones & tablets that adds additional ease of use features and capabilities to your use of the device. This blog will discuss the big picture regarding pit controllers: What they are and why you might want to use them. PART 2 will discuss the specifics of the CyberQ WiFi model I purchased, PART 3 will describe WiFi Networking in general and setting up the simpler Adhoc mode. PART 4 will describe setting up the more feature laden, but more difficult Infrastructure WiFi mode. PART 5 will cover installing and setting up the CyberQ WiFi on your smoker. PART 6 will give my first impressions using it. I will write a companion first impressions blog entry about the CYBERCOOK software I am using to enhance my use of the CyberQ. Read More...
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Thanksgiving 2014-New & Improved?

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There is an old line: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it”. I have been having very good success with my Thanksgiving Bill of fare. Sure last year I had some temperature related issues with my baked goods, but I have solved those. So this year I could've just done the same old same old, but I have decided to make some big changes. This blog will describe some of the reasons behind those changes and the preliminary planning before this year’s Thanksgiving dinner. I will probably write a follow-up to this after Thanksgiving where I look at how things really went, versus how I thought they would go. Also if you are interested, there are links to the picture entries for these items and the recipes (for everything but the turkey) at the end of this blog entry. Read More...
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