Fire in the Hole~

[grizz1]

Built a fire in the pit tonight, coals are 2 feet deep and lid is on.Trying to hold a fire until daylight, will wrap the pork and toss it in the fire pit along with a turkey. Tomorrow evening will be a surprise dinner by me for 40 guests because I have no idea what is going to happen. We had several folks out tonight for a trial run on the above ground cooking, Keith had a skillet custom made for me, it is quite an outfit, think I can cook potatoes for 20 people at a time in this one. Will take some pics tomorrow and show what I've been doing, hope it is successful.

[grizz1]

Couldn't help but get started early because didn't know what to expect. The results are FANTASTIC, much better than I thought it would be. The meat cooked this way is close to the best I've ever tasted.

Here is the pit full of fire, this morning at 6.30 AM.

Three Boston Butts and a Turkey seasoned, wrapped in 3 layers of foil, 2 layers of wet burlap and 2 more layers of foil, chicken wire cage, and a wire handle for retrieval , ready to go in the pit.

4 hours later, taking the meat out of cooker, let stand 30 minutes before unwrapping.

This is myself unwrapping a package.

The Turkey before carving, he is falling apart as we opened the foil.

One of the pork butts, they too fell apart once they were untied.
It was a scary process to throw this much meat into an untried cooker with 40 people coming to eat but worked out great. We dropped the packs into the fire, covered with sand, put the lid on and let cook for 4 hours. At first I had air leaks around the lid that was 550 degrees, that was unnerving. The sand brought it down to about 250 in an hour. I have enough fire left to cook another whole deer so this is going to be a cooker for big crowds looks like. We are ready for the crowd and Penny is telling me to quit sampling the food.

[JerseyHunter]

Grizz how neat that is now you did a fine job you got some great eating right there .

[Kt29]

Wow Steve! You've certainly outdone your self this time. What a great little facility you've put together there. I'm really envious of that setup.
One can taste the turkey and the pork from here just by looking at the pics. Your friends don't know how lucky they are to have you around.
Your pit will get alot of use for a long time to come. Northeast Missouri is having a rockin good time for sure. Enjoy and well done.






















1

[grizz1]

My cooking setup,campfire on top of the ground with pit cooker behind it about 10 feet.

Skillet Keith had made for me. It was just completed Friday afternoon and we broke it in Sat .It is made from a used 24 inch disc blade so after it has worn down some by field cultivation it still measures 22 3/4 inches inside. It has an 1 1/2 inch tall steel lip welded around the cutting edge and 2 long handles. I seasoned it like I would cast iron, it worked great, nothing would stick to it, we even fried an egg and it worked fine. These kind of skillets work very well on top of fish cooker where the temps can be regulated better.

The last pic is about half the crowd starting to chow down, we had the food tables set up in my deer barn which is in the background

[Kt29]

Definitely won't find a skillet like that at Wal-mart. Just a very fine setup my friend. Very fine. Thanks for sharing we us. You're living life there as it should be.

[4Pointer]

Dang !! Steve ,, you know how to make a man / women hungry ,
That is the best set up I ever seen , Great pic's too ,

[grizz1]

You are right Terry , skillets like this are hard to find at Wal Mart

This dinner was more special than most folks will ever know and I was glad to be a part of it. We had planned it for early Aug but plans were changed or I should say postponed.

The young man, front left , with orange Tee shirt in last picture was the cause for the delay. His name is Tim , he is our Nephew and we are fortunate to have him with us.
On July 2nd at 3 PM he was found in a ditch 3 miles North of my house, his work truck rolled into the timber a hundred yards back East of where he was lying in the tall grass, it was over 104 degrees that day. He was air lifted from the scene and flown 120 miles to find out he had severe head injuries, 6 broken ribs, a collapsed lung, broken collar bone, his liver was split and he had several lacerations and bruises . He bled from both ears for about 36 hours after arriving at the hospital so his chances were not very good. I still think he had a great team of Doctors and Nurses and they were helped by all the prayers that were said on Tim's behalf. The Doctors have now said they did not expect him to live at all that evening and they have been very surprised to see him leave the hospital on day 22 and leave rehab in another week making his stay less than one month in the hospital. Here he is 9 weeks after the accident eating BBQ Pork at my house. He still has some more recovery ahead of him but at least he was there to light the fire last Friday night and again Sat evening to help eat all that we cooked, Tim made all the work very worth while and we are so THANKFUL.