Although not strictly a pellet cooker or Yoder related question, I am curious about whether there is any difference in cooking with meats sitting in a pan as opposed to directly on the grill grates.
Also, for those who do cook in pans, do you place the meat (pork butt or brisket) on a rack to raise it above whatever juices may be produced?
Grill grates are for searing a steak etc. They get those very high temps with direct flame. You need a hot fire to start with, even a good gas grill makes great use of grill grates. They aren't used for smoking or braising meat.
Most of us don't start with the meat in a pan. We want the full area to get smoke. With Pork butts and briskets I do put in a pan when the internal temp gets to xx, because I want to collect the wonderful juices. Some do put a pan under the meat to collect the juices at the start. You can make wonderful gravy and A-Jus that way.
I'd post a link to wonderful pan gravy under a Turkey or a Prime rib in a smoker, but I can't post links here.
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Conumdrum wrote:I'd post a link to wonderful pan gravy under a Turkey or a Prime rib in a smoker, but I can't post links here.
But you could copy and paste the recipe text and give credit to the site from which you took it from. I don't have a problem with that.
Thanks Kirby.
Preparing the gravy
The ingredients list is at the top of the page. If you wish, you can do this a day in advance.
Whatever you do, don't skip the gravy. I know this whole approach may sound a little goofy, but trust me: This nectar is a show stopper. First time out of the gate, follow my recipe closely until you get the concept. The truth is, now that I've made this umpteen times, I no longer measure the ingredients, and sometimes I veer from the recipe by adding mushrooms, apples, or wine. Just use common sense and restraint.
This gravy is not the thick and pasty stuff made with flour that sits on top of the meat and forms pudding skin. This gravy is a jus, thin, flavorful broth that penetrates the meat, making it incredibly moist and tasty. And if Granny insists on the thick glop, there is more than enough of my gravy to mix with flour to make her happy. I'll show you how, reluctantly, below.
There is almost always leftover gravy that you can freeze. It makes a killer soup base or stock for cooking rice, risotto, couscous, or whenever a recipe calls for stock. I use it to make the gravy for turkey pot pies with the leftovers.
1) After the bird has thawed, open the bag it came in and pour the juices into the pan in which it was sitting. Even if the bird was salted, save those the juices. They will not be too salty.
2) If there is a plastic pop-up thermometer, remove it and discard it. If you rely on it you will be eating balsa wood. If there is a gizmo holding the tops of the drumsticks together, remove it. By holding the thighs and drums tight to the body, it prevents them from cooking properly and keeps the skin in the bird's crotch from darkening and crisping. Yes, I know the books tell you to truss the drumsticks. They're wrong. I'll explain below.
3) Pull the stuff out the cavities. Check both front and rear openings. Typically you'll find the neck and a bag of "giblets" in there. Put the neck in the pan. The bag usually contains the heart (looks like a heart), the gizzard (two marbles connected in the middle), and the liver (it is the floppy, shiny thing). Put everything except the liver in the gravy pan. The liver will not be used for the gravy. Freeze it in a zipper bag and save it along with other chicken and duck livers until you have enough to make a nice paté, or toss it in a pan with some oil, cook it, and feed it to the dog.
4) Remove "the part that goes over the fence last", a.k.a. "the Pope's nose", and trim excess skin and fat from around both cavities, front and rear, and put them in the pan along with the neck and the juices. Then whack off the wing tips at the first joint and toss them in the pool. There's a lot of flavor in them. Don't worry about the fat, you can skim it later. If you are spatchcocking, rinse the brown organ meat off the backbone and discard it (it is not tasty). Throw the backbone in the bath.
5) Add the rest of the gravy ingredients to the pan and refrigerate. We will use it when we cook the bird. Here's the pan before cooking.
6) I discuss how to finish the gravy by placing it under the bird and straining it down below in the section on cooking the bird.
Credit: Amazingribs.com
I cook most things in pans with cooling rack inside. It just keeps the inside of my YS 640 cleaner. I did cook 4 pounds of bacon and 4 racks of pork loin ribs over the last weekend without pans and the clean up wasn't terrible. Kirby or Herb advise if you use pans, raise your cooking temp 25 to 30 degrees higher than what you would normally set it at. The pan blocks the air flow.
2 - YS640 Silver Competition Carts
I do not normally use pans in the cookers I use. I have cooked with competition teams that do exclusively. I personally prefer the no pan end result product. Your 25 to 30 degree temperature increase for cooking with pans is spot on.
I would discourage anyone from using the juices contained in a store bought turkey. It will be mostly blood and water, not the fat juices we are looking for, and will possibly have a high concentration of bacteria.
Craig
Cookin' With Grace Ministries
YS1500, Traeger BBQ124
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