Most impressive!
I finally gave into temptation last week and bought a Traerger 885. Favorably impressed so far after three sessions on the grill. The only glitch was an epic fail trying to get the WiFire to connect with my Android phone with the updated Traeger app. I knew I was doing everything right but the two devices wouldn't connect (via WiFi; no Bluetooth in the app). Finally my son suggested shifting the dual band home router from 5 GHz mode to 2.5 GHz. Immediately connected. (Damn millennials).
So the trial run was a sirloin trip-tip, brined for eight hours with curing salt, dry rubbed with with normal steak seasonings plus a pinch of cayenne and a tablespoon of Demarea sugar. Hickory smoked that bad boy @225F for 4 hours to an internal temp of 130F. Double wrapped in foil for :30 mins while everything else got prepared. Tender, delicious, medium rare perfection. Next trial run was a sockeye salmon filet along side a whole turkey breast. Since the time and temperature requirements were going to be different, I opted to go full manual and bypassed the 'autopilot' cooking programs. The plan was to brine, then smoke the turkey at a higher temperature for a few hours to get the internal temperature jump started, then reduce the temperature to around 180F and smoke the salmon till done, figuring that both pieces would finish at roughly the same time.
The plan was solid, but the performance was less than optimal due to some operator error. I had emptied the pellet bin after the first test run, since I wanted to use alder and apple wood for Test #2 instead of the hickory from Test #1. It ended up with insufficient fuel in the auger and subsequently the fire pot. I started getting a small temperature rise and some light smoke after hitting the igniter so I put the turkey breast on the grill. The next time I checked about 5 minutes later, the temperature hadn't increased (from about 110F) and there was a "Failure to Ignite" error code on the PID. Figuring that the auger had not delivered enough pellets, I went to the main menu and selected "Prime Auger" and hit the igniter again. In about 2~3 minutes there was a
COPIOUS amount of smoke surrounding the rig and the temperature was spiking above 300F. Obviously priming the auger resulted in an over-full fire pot. I pulled the meat and let the fire burn down while the temperature stabilized after about half and hour. Disaster averted, lesson learned. Everything turned out well. Nevertheless, I had this subtle feeling that both pieces were slightly dry, though it may have just been a false expectation with me flogging myself for a self-inflicted boneheaded mistake. SWMBO'd was happy, and she is not one to hold back 'constructive criticism' when appropriate. Either that or she was showing some tender mercies for my bruised ego.
Anyway, this was just a prelude to the main event: Easter Sunday Grilled Butterflied Leg of Lamb. This is a family tradition dating back more than 50 years, so it's not something to be trifled with. The first time I had it was shortly after my (future) father-in-law (a senior Naval officer), had returned from duty in Vietnam. On a stopover in Japan, he had purchased a ceramic grill/smoker that was a traditional Japanese cooker. For decades now, we know them as Big Green Eggs. Anyway, he prepared this leg of lamb to perfection. I'd never tasted anything like it. The recipe actually came from my mother-in-law's side of the family (Swedish/Norwegian), so there's no telling how long the tradition has been going on. Now I was tasked with applying this automated smoker technology in a 'failure is NOT an option' scenario. I bravely set about the task at hand, but with more than just a little trepidation.
First was procuring the meat. I vowed not to go cheap. There's a local country butcher not far from here so I opted 'local' over 'imported, previously frozen'. I was forewarned that the pricing was out of control, and that a whole lamb was selling for $500 on the hoof. One leg, bone in, was proportional, so do the math. The owner himself, a third or fourth generation butcher in the family shop, did the honors of deboning and butterflying the leg. I didn't need the bone, and even though I would have loved to claim the shank, by keeping both of them he gave me a significant price break in the final dressed out leg of lamb. 8# 6 oz. of just about the freshest meat you could possibly get. When I got it home I further trimmed and separated the meat into a 4# roast for Sunday, two 1½# portions frozen for future 2 person meals, plus some scraps to be ground up for Shepard's pie. The primary roast got brined overnight, then marinaded for 4 hours in a French garlic dressing with red wine vinegar and olive oil, secret family recipe.
Smoked for 2½ hours @ 200F, apple and cherry wood combo next to a tin pan of apple juice on the grill for added moisture. When the internal temperature reached 120F, it was flame seared on a Weber gas grill at 700F for four minutes, turning every :30 seconds. Immediately double wrapped in heavy foil right off the searing station for nearly half an hour while everything else on the menu (grilled asparagus, stuffed twice-baked potatoes, kale salad and home baked sour dough rolls) got set out. Adult beverages included a home crafted New Zealand Pinot Noir as well as a boutique vineyard Cabernet from Red Mountain AVA at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Red Mountain AVA is the smallest American Viticultural Area (AVA), producing a very small volume of exceedingly superior domestic red wines. There were even a few Weihenstephaner and Paulaner lagers imbibed pre-dinner, that resulted in the brain lapse of failing to document the event with photographic evidence. You'll just have to take my word on it!
TL;DR : Total success. Meat was superb. Tradition upheld. Week's worth of leftovers in the fridge.
