Page 7 - Barbecue News Magazine September 2021
P. 7
My introduction to FireBoard was at the American Royal World Series of Barbecue at the Kansas Speedway, pre- covid. Thanks to the gener- ous hospitality of Jason and Megan Day, I have sampled generous helpings of fantas- tic “Burnt Finger” chicken, ribs, pork butt and brisket, barbecued with tender loving care and attention to impor- tant readouts from their Fire- Board smart thermometers.
I’m a mix of old school and
lifelong learner. My meat fire
education began with camp-
fire hot dogs, then to my
dad’s DIY brick barbecue pit
until the pit wore out and he
switched to a Weber kettle. Along the way, I have burned through three 55-gallon drum smokers. Although I’d never throw bones at stick burners, kamados, pellet cookers, restaurant-style automated smoke ovens or tomorrow’s lat- est new cooker, I am thus far at peace with smoking and grilling in my Weber kettles.
Inspired by my grandson’s FireBoard enthusiasm and hav- ing feasted on “Burnt Finger” barbecue at the American Royal Barbecue with FireBoard founder Ted Conrad on sev- eral occasions, I contacted Ted and volunteered to try Fire- Board at home with tutelage from my grandson and write about the results in the KC BullSheet (pork butt) and the Barbecue News (brisket). After Ted kindly agreed to my loan proposal, Zachary showed up a few days later with a complete FireBoard Model FBX2. Zach showed me how to set up the free Bluetooth-connected app on my iPhone, plus the basics of charging the device and use of the five probes. I was super-impressed to see that the FireBoard manual is in five languages—English, German, French, Ital- ian and Spanish. It is compatible with Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant. Technical support is available online or via email or phone.
After trimming surface fat to less than an inch thickness, I dry-brined the whole brisket, point and flat attached, overnight in the refrigerator with Meathead’s new Red Meat Rub. When the charcoal was fired up the next morn- ing, we put the brisket—fat side up—on the grill—no foil ever—inserted the FireBoard-connected shallow and deep probes, positioned the ambient probe, sprinkled the top side with DennyMike’s Cow Bell Hell for extra bark flavor, added charcoal, post oak chunks and pecan chips, and lid- ded the cooker.
Although I’m not on speaking terms with Alexa or Google, I
liked the convenience of sat- isfying my curiosity about how the meat was doing by visually checking my iPhone or the FireBoard 5-channel readouts on a bench near my cooker. After about 11 hours on a hot August day the deep probe channels showed that the brisket had reached Fire- Board’s recommended 204 degrees Fahrenheit level of doneness, I removed the probes and meat from the cooker, let the brisket rest for an hour, before sharing the tender, flavorful results with family, friends and neighbors.
Since the staff at FireBoard
continuously tests FireBoard devices for quality control, I know my twice-used FireBoard
will be put to good use upon its return home to FireBoard Labs.
Kudos and thanks to Ted Conrad and the FireBoard Labs team!
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SEPTEMBER 2021
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