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Tri Tip

Head Chef
Joined
Jan 30, 2010
Messages
1,251
Location
Costa Mesa CA
Used up about $10 worth of red oak on this cook. Since I cannot sell the misses on a Santa Maria Grill,

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I decided to turn the South Central 4000 into a Santa Maria style pit. I cooked a 3 lb sirloin roast for about 1hr over a pure red oak live fire. Never done this before. I thought I was hip usen lump. I have been watchin Raichlen re-runs on PBS and that dude is always cooken over live fire wood! I can’t not mention Surfensapo too! Wow it tasted worth the effort of tending a fire for an hour.













 
Nice Cook!! How did the meat taste? Was it overpowered by the smoke??? Have yet to try red oak, so not familiar with the smoke flavor of it. Is it a subtle smoke or a strong robust smoke?
 
californiagrillin said:
Nice Cook!! How did the meat taste? Was it overpowered by the smoke??? Have yet to try red oak, so not familiar with the smoke flavor of it. Is it a subtle smoke or a strong robust smoke?

I thought it would be way smokey but it was a nice subtle Red Oak flavor. I usually sear it over lump than Smoke Roast offset with a chunk of Red Oak. (much easier) I cooked with the lid open the whole hour as they do on a Santa Maria pit. If I closed the lid the fire would suffocate and it would smoke like crazy. Most likely would have been too smokey. When your in the Orange/Anaheim area stop by the Wood Shed. They sell hugh bags of every kind of smoke wood emaginable. Its pretty cheep too. 30 lb bag of Red Oak is $24. Red Oak gives meat a flavor like no other I don't realy even like smoke aspecially Hickory :oops: I probably will not do this again. I'm going to buy a Santa Maria Backyard Pit and use logs, and only for huge parties. The wood is too expensive to use for one roast.
 
Looks like fun. The only time I cook over "live fire" is when I'm camping. Otherwise, my heat source is charcoal with wood chunks for flavor. Thanks for sharing TT.
 
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