yumskull

12/25/2025

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12/22/2025

Everyone who knows me knows how much I enjoy putting widespread and long-held myths to rest.

Here’s a link that discusses a few of them…

https://www.seriouseats.com/6-meat-cooking-rules-busted-11874007?utm_campaign=seriouseats&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&fbclid=IwZnRzaAO2WfVzcnRjBmFwcF9pZAo2NjI4NTY4Mzc5AAEe_18n2GcNZLiHLuijRXfCNTs36IgrnkE7TtKGkUqRl8Z7tHO53Ia_ahJpHz4&brid=4UbEos8j_2p9uptLBA6Z1Q -myth-1-resting-meat-lets-it-reabsorb-its-juices

We break down popular meat-cooking rules that are actually myths, using testing and food science to explain what truly works.

12/21/2025

A quick vegetable beef stir fry on the Blackstone this evening

10/31/2025

New pellet ALERT! - MANGO!

This is a rare one for sure. VERY limited quantity and when it's gone, it's unlikely to return to our shelves!What is it good on? Get this, it's superb on ICE CREAM! Just a few seconds and your spoon won't know what hit it! I'd suggest heating just a few (maybe a dozen or so) pellets at a time with....

10/28/2025

SOLD OUT!

A SPOOKY-GOOD deal! These go fast, so ACT QUICKLY!

The pellet "Mystery Box" is back!
$10 off the regular price of a 5-bag order!
https://www.getyumskull.com/product-page/5-bag-mystery-box
What's in it? Who knows?
It's 5, 1-pound bags. Enough pellets for 40-45 cooks.
Each box is guaranteed to have:
1. one of my personal favorite pellets
2. one Knotty Wood product
3. one "sleeper." Meaning something people don't really think of, but everyone seems to like!
4. one single-species pellet
5. one "best seller"

10/15/2025

Customers have described my briskets as Texas Monthly Top 50-worthy. And I'm not here to argue with them.
I think a good bit of that is the result of my rub. Morning Woods Double-Coffee Texas-Style Dry Rub Seasoning.

https://www.getyumskull.com/product-page/morning-woods-rub

It's also FANTASTIC on steak!

10/02/2025

Coming from a stick burner/charcoal background, I just did my first-ever full-size pellet grill steak.

For smoking, I've been super happy with my new Traeger Grills Woodridge so far. But not having closer, more direct access to the burn pot, I was leery about how it would do for grilling.

So, for my first out, I chose a fairly "cheap" select-grade rib eye. Dry-brined for about 3 hours. Cooked at 500ºF using a mix of Bear Mountain BBQ's Pecan and Cherry pellets.
3 minutes, flip. 4 minutes, flip. And about 2 minutes to get my hatches... I'm quite relieved to say that I'm not even a little disappointed! The 9 minutes got to a nice medium-rare/medium. And even got some mild grill marks!

With my background in traditional wood cooking, I'm really surprised by how much I'm enjoying the Woodridge.

10/01/2025

Snake method vs Minion method?

I've always preferred Snake, simply because I felt like it delivered more consistent temperatures. But this past weekend I decided to do a side-by-side test, as evenly as possible, to see exactly how they performed.

It was a 2x2 snake on one Weber Grills 22" kettle (blue probe) and a minion pile (green probe) on another identical kettle.
Both contained a total of 53 intact Kingsford original briquettes (meaning no broken bits). Each lit with 6 starter briquettes. Both grills ran with their intakes and exhausts wide open.
Temps were measured with an IBBQ-4T.

As I assumed, the snake delivered a smoother ramp of temperature. But I was surprised to see they both had effectively the same peak temperature. I was expecting to see the snake to be lower overall. And I had assumed the minion would have hit its max later rather than earlier.

This is just one test, and there are many factors that could contribute to the result. So it's going to take a few more to create a hill i'm ready to die on. But from this one effort, I'm still in camp-snake, as typically, I want my meat to spend as much time on smoke as possible before reaching 160ºF internal.

09/09/2025

Just did my first full packer brisket on the Traeger Grills Woodridge pro...

Sliced product is as close to offset stick-burner quality as I've seen from a pellet smoker.
Great smoke flavor, but weak-ish smoke ring compared to previous Woodridge cooks I've done. That would be most likely because I ran it longer at a lower cook temp (smoke flavor was my goal here, more so than aesthetics)

17 lb choice, trimmed to 11 lb.
dry-brined with my "Morning Woods" Double-Coffee rub for about 8 hrs.

Put on at 2:00pm, about 15 minutes out of the fridge, at 47º internal, fat side down (to mitigate radiant heat) on the lower grate, and cooked at 180º until 11:30pm to 160º internal.

Paper wrapped. (NO tallow added, because it's unnecessary)

Raised cook temp to 240, cooked from 11:30pm to 5:30 am to 190 internal.

Raised cook temp to 275, cooked from 5:30 to 6:50 to 205 internal "probe tender"

Rested, still paper-wrapped on the kitchen counter, about 2 hours to 150º internal.

Started the cook on The Home Depot house brand "BBQ Pellets" red and wite oak blend, as it's as close to a pure oak "Texas style" flavor that I've found. At about 100º internal, I added Knotty Wood BBQ Almond Cabernet pellets. The Almond Cabernet is really my favorite all-around pellet. I wasn't going to use it on this cook, as my goal was to get as close to what comes off my offset as possible. But I just couldn't help myself. That bag was just sitting there calling to me!

Once wrapped, I filled the hopper with a mix of Bear Mountain BBQ BBQ Pecan and Cherry. I still wanted a good pellet (as you DO get some smoke through butcher paper), but I wanted something more readily available to me and lower-priced to finish.