Trying to bring a little bit of Texas to northern Michigan

I brought with me a small bag of Mesquite chips with me on vacation. This meant just one thing, smoking bbq.

The plan was to use my father-in-law's big charcoal grill, build the fire to one side and put the meat on the other, add mesquite once in a while for flavor and serve it all with some Rudy's BBQ sauce.

The plan went pretty well, all except for the brisket. Before we left I had thought about buying a brisket and putting it on some dry ice for the drive up. However, we didn't have the space. Well, the only brisket cut I could find @ Meijer was a corned beef brisket. I should have just left it there, it tasted like smoked corn beef. But we threw a little Rudy's on it and it was edible.

I started the fire about 7:30, originally I had planned for 6:30am. The menu consisted of the following.

Corned Beef Brisket
I put together a rub made from salt, black pepper, garlic powder, chili powder, and cumin. I put the rub on it and let it sit overnight. Smoked it for about 4.5 hours then wrapped it in tin foil. Total cooking time was around 11 hours.

Pulled Pork (Pork Shoulder aka Boston Butt)
I brined it overnight, which means it marinated in a salt water mixture with some additional spices. I then smoked it for about 2.5 hours, at which point I wrapped it in tin foil and set it to the side to finish cooking. Total cooking time was about 5.5 hours.

Beer Can Chicken sans the Can
I normally marinate my chicken in Pabst Blue Ribbon, but this time around it was Michelob Lite. We had thighs and chicken breasts, I marinated them overnight as well. They smoked for about an hour, and then I wrapped them in tin foil. Total cooking time was about 4 hours.

Spare & Baby Back Ribs
I brined these in a similar mixture to the pork shoulder. I then applied a rub that was made of salt, garlic powder, sugar, and black pepper. They smoked for about 1.5 hours then into the tin foil. Total cooking time was about 3 hours.

Sausage
I wasn't able to find any sausage that could hold a flame to Meyer's so I did some bratworst. They cooked for about 45 minutes.

My thoughts on how it all turned out... (Scale 1 - 10)

Brisket: 4
Chicken: 9 (PBR has better flavor)
Suasage: 8
Ribs: 8.5 (little salty)
Pulled Pork: 9.5 (best one yet)

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. I made some coleslaw. A few years back I had bought a book on bbq for Gina's dad. It had a recipe for coleslaw in it, the coleslaw is basically the same as the one @ Salt Lick. The first batch was good, but I used a little too much olive oil. The second batch was excellent, used about 1/2 the oil. Oh yeah, the coleslaw doesn't use mayo, just olive oil and white vinegar with spices.

Here are some pictures from the BBQ.