Super Smoker: Napoleon Apollo AS300K

I really am not a fan of charcoal for the sole reason that gas is just an easier way to go. The idea that I’d have to deal with starting up the charcoal and then cleaning up the ash after is just exhausting even to think about. But I have to say that using the Napoleon Apollo AS300K for the first time (and a few times after that – sorry this post came late) has really opened up my mind about the authenticity of flavour that comes with smoking with charcoal and woodchips/chunks/logs.

My first attempt of smoking up a Hickory Chicken went a little something like this:

I started the charcoal up using a charcoal starter, some old newspaper and some fire starters you can pick up from the super market. Just fill up the charcoal starter with a mix of fire starters and charcoal (I use coconut charcoal as the flavour is a bit more neutral, and they are natural and long-lasting – you can get this from Cold Storage). Crush up some old newspaper and stuff them at the bottom of the charcoal starter. Using a kitchen lighter, set the newspaper on fire and place either on the grill of the Apollo (or if you have a gas BBQ, you can use this to light up the charcoal too!) and put the lid over it as you wait. This should take about 20-25 minutes.

Once this is done, you can pour the charcoal into the charcoal basket, and add your woodchips/chunks/logs. I use a mix of Hickory woodchips and chunks which I had soaked in water an hour prior to adding them to the fire.

Napoleon Apollo AS300K in Action!

I had already marinated the a whole chicken in barbecue sauce and salt. I didn’t do anything to the chicken other than clean it out, but on my second attempt, I butterflied the chicken and it cooked a lot better all through the chicken.

Before closing the hood, I attached the Napoleon Accu-Probe Bluetooth Thermometer probes to the chicken. I LOVE this device, which will be available in Singapore around August 2018, because it has up to 4 probes (though the set only comes with 2 probes, and you’ll have to get the others separately) which means you can check the temperatures of 4 different items in the smoker.

ACCU-PROBE™ BLUETOOTH® THERMOMETER

Napoleon Accu-Probe App on my iPhone

The Accu-probe thermometer links up with this Napoleon app which you can download for free, and the app has settings that will tell you when your chicken (or whatever meat you wish to select) is at the ideal-readiness temperature. It also tells you what temperature each probe is at, and there is also a few timers you can set the app to.

Nice and Smokey Hickory-Smoker Chicken

I was able to go back inside the house and avoid the heat and smoke in the garden because of the Accu-Probe thermometer, and it let me know when the chicken had reach the ideal temperature for doneness. Really convenient!

The hickory chicken was incredibly smokey, so juicy and tender! The flavour is very much more intense than using a grilling plank or a smoker box in a gas BBQ, so the effort I put in in starting the charcoal was very worthwhile. Once you get over the charcoal lighting part, it really is quite easy to use because you don’t have to stand around all day (but basting it once in a while doesn’t hurt).

There’s a lot more to explore with the Napoleon AS300K because it actually has 2 chambers, hanging hooks, and a water basin, which means you can do anything from pekking duck, wet smoking, dry smoking, hot and cold smoking, and even just regular grilling if you want!

You can get the Napoleon Apollo Smoker AS300K from Liberty Patio for $599 (and $60 for the BBQ cover).

Tis’ The Season!

Tis’ the season to be giving, and if you’re racking your brains trying to think of what to get your friends this holiday, why not consider a bbq accessory gift pack specially-curated for different kinds of BBQ lovers by Liberty Patio!

Check these out:
For the BBQ Noob…

BBQ Starter Holiday Gift Set

Get this awesome all-round grilling starter kit from Napoleon for a friend who’s just starting out with their new BBQ grill and not really sure where they’re going with it. It has everything from the basics like the tongs, spatula and cleaning brush, to a basic wood smoker kit for him or her to try out different flavours of wood chips, and of course, a digital thermometer, a marinade injector, maple grilling plank and a burger press kit! They’ll have so much fun exploring different recipes with this starter kit!
Usual price: $192.20
Now: $170

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For the charcoal bbq grill lover…

Napoleon Charcoal Griller Holiday Gift Set

 

For a friend who’s just starting out or thinking about going pro with their charcoal grill, this Charcoal BBQ Holiday Gift Set from Napoleon is the perfect gift! There’s a fun spatutong – tongs combined with a spatula, heat resistant gloves for handling those burning coals, a heavy-duty stainless steel brush (we all know how much cleaning you have to do with a charcoal grill!), and to make life a whole lot easier, the charcoal starter (for easy lighting-up of those charcoal briquettes!).
Worth: $179.80
Now: $160 

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For the heavy (wood) smoker…

Napoleon Wood Smoker Holiday Gift Set

If you have a friend who loves that smokey flavor that BBQ have to offer, they will definitely love this wood smoker set from Napoleon! You’ve got 2 different woodchip flavours – Cherry and Maple, and 2 different grilling plank flavours – Cedar and Maple (perfect for chicken and fish, in my opinion!). Let’s not forget the smoker pipe for all those wood chips, and the basting brush to keep your meats nice and moist during the smoking process!
Worth: $104
Now: $90

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For the Host/Hostess…
Know

Tramontina Rustic Cutlery Holiday Gift Set

Hosting an A-list BBQ party? Get this cool wooden-finished Tramontina cutlery and serving gift set! It’s such a wonderful addition to any bbq with its outdoor, rustic look! But don’t be fooled by the wooden finish on these cutlery sets by Brazilian-brand, Tramontina, these handles are made from quality polywood, so you don’t have to worry about them rotting away over time! This pack comes with a cutting and serving board, a 2 piece carving knife and fork set, and 2 sets of forks with jumbo knives (perfect for serving 4!) – all in a deep, rich brown! Let’s not forget the knife sharpener – treat those knives well, and you’ll get beautiful cuts of meat!
Worth: $185
Now: $120

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For the outdoorsy hipster…

 

Rustic Dream BBQ Holiday Gift Set

 

This is the ultimate rustic dream BBQ gift set that all your outdoorsy hipster friends would love! It is made up of boutique German brand, Axtschlag (whose quirky packaging I love!), and one of the biggest cutlery brands from Brazil, Tramontina. In this pack, you’ll find a 12 piece Tramontina knife and fork set with polywood handles, and a 2 piece carving knife and fork set, all in a beautiful dark natural brown look. There’s also a Tramontina cutting and serving board, and a lovely array of Tramontina wood smoking products – wine woodchips, strong beer woodchips, a smoker cup, and a cedar wood plank set (3 pieces).
Worth: $242
Now: $180

 

Visit Liberty Patio to get these awesome BBQ holiday gift packs for your loved ones!

Bargain Buys: BBQ Warehouse Sale

What better way to celebrate National Day than to chill at home with the fam (and friends too!) and catch the parade!

Liberty Patio X Proline’s bi-annual BBQ warehouse sale is back this weekend – just in time for us to get a grill for the holiday. As usual, the sale will feature past season barbecues, sample barbecues, display units and those with cosmetic defects, as well as bbq accessories. All BBQs are new and never been used. Details on the sale are in the flyer at the bottom of this post.

Here are some examples of what you’ll find at the sale, but be quick, as the popular models will be the first to go:

Napoleon Triumph T325 Display Unit U.P.$1391 Sale Price: $974 (with cover and rotisserie)

Napoleon LE3 Display Unit U.P.$2568 Sale Price:$2055 (with cover and rotisserie)

Masport Lifestyle 3H Display Unit: $1230.50 Sale price: $985 (with cover)

Liberty Chef S3 Display Unit: U.P. $799 Sale Price: $599.25

BURNING PAPER

As I’ve probably mentioned in one of my earlier posts, I love German brand Axtschlag because of it’s wide selection of artisanal smoking wood and quirky packaging. Most brands offer the basic woodchip varieties – Hickory, cherry, apple and the like. But Axtschlag range extends to more unusual flavours like Plum, Wine, Beer, Walnut, Beech – just to name a few. What’s even more interesting are the kinds of wood products they offer like grilling papers, wood chunks, herb boxes and grilling planks.

Here’s a fun little thing I tried over the weekend – Axtschlag Barbecue Grilling Papers.

What exactly are Grilling Papers? They’re basically thin pieces of wood that you can wrap your food around and smoke.

Here, you can see that I’ve stretched out some chicken wings and wrapped them neatly in the grilling paper. It’s pretty simple to use.

First, you soak the paper in water for about 30 minutes. While waiting, marinate the wings. I used a little salt and honey. Once the grill papers have softened up enough, you can wrap them around the meat and tie it up with the string provided (you will need scissors for this).

Next, place the food on the grill. On a 3 burner BBQ with 6 wings, I turned on 2 burners at medium heat. These are thin so they catch fire very easily – you’ll have to watch them closely and swap them around the less hot areas of the BBQ to prevent them from getting burnt.

Don’t worry too much about the strings burning off, as the wood will stay in place.

The end result will be something like this:

As with most smoking, you’ll get a very juicy and tender inside and a lovely flavour of wood infused into the meat. These cook pretty fast, so the flavour of the wood isn’t too intense. Overall, I think my favourite smoking method is still using the grilling planks – it’s a lot easier to handle and the size of the meat that you’re smoking doesn’t matter.

Axtschlag grilling papers are available from Liberty Patio at $18 for a pack of 8 sheet. Available in Cherry, Alder and Western Red Cedar.

HICKORY & CEDAR: A BOLD BLEND

 

I’ve been grilling every single day now – it’s not just the BBQ parties I’ve been throwing – I mean, I’ve been coming home and turning the grill on like it’s instinctive or embedded in my brain to do it. I like to call it the “December Feels” – where you just gotta party like a boss, every day until New Year’s.

Anyway, I know it’s already the 29th, but let’s backtrack a little to Christmas. I had a special request from my dad to smoke an entire chicken on the grill. I’ve never done a whole chicken before, but…

Challenge Accepted!

I call this dish – The Bold Blend
In one of my earlier posts, I discussed the different types of smoking wood. Hickory is usually used for red meats, and Cedar usually for fish – but I decided to put them together to see what I could get.

Since Hickory is the stronger flavour, I used the Hickory in a smoker cup, and placed it away from the chicken, and placed the chicken between the 2 XL cedar planks, so the smoke from the planks would be more concentrated around the meat.

While smoking, the wood gave off such a strong scent. My cousins who had just walked into the garden commented that it smelled like Canada. I have to agree.

The outcome of this process gives you a distinct smokey flavour on the epidermis of the chicken, while the inside is absolutely tender and juicy. I only smoked this for about 50 minutes, but I reckon if you smoked it a bit longer than that with just a smoker cup, and basted it every hour, you could get a more thorough flavor throughout the chicken.

Here are the Ingredients you’ll need:

1. 1 whole chicken (cleaned out inside)
2. Butt Rub (I use Bad Byron’s, but you can find similar seasoning from the Butcher’s Dog. The base ingredients of this rub is onion, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika and chipotle)
3. Coarse Sea Salt

Here are the smoking accessories you’ll need:

1. 1 cup of Hickory Wood Chips (I used a full Axtschlag Smoker Cup)
2. 1 Smoker Box (Or smoker cup / smoker tube)
3. 2 x XL Axtschlag Western Red Cedar Grilling Planks

First things first. Soak the wood chips in water for an hour and place them in the smoker cup. I also soaked the 2 grilling planks for the same amount of time.

I used the latest smoker cup from German brand, Axtschlag. It’s wonderfully solid – 304 stainless steel and is made in Germany. Definitely NOT a buy and throw away kind of item.

After the wood has soaked, prop the chicken in between the 2 grilling planks and start rubbing the chicken all around with coarse sea salt and butt rub. Use enough to cover the whole chicken and leaving some on the grilling planks too.

Place the smoker cup between the grill and the sear plate, on the far end of the fire box, and just above a burner. Place the grilling planks at first, closer to the middle of the cooking surface. Switch the burners on the side of the smoker cup on, as well as the middle burner (this is based on a 3 burner BBQ – here, I am using a Napoleon LEX485).

Once burners are on (medium to high heat), close the hood and allow the wood to start smoking. Turn the fire down to low-medium, and If the grilling planks catch fire and the fire is really big, shift them to the other side of the grill without the fire.

close the hood and wait for about 45 mins – 1 hour, checking on the meat once in a while, flipping it over at about 30 mins into the smoking process – cook until golden brown.

Enjoy!

Smoking the Right Flavour

I’m a big fan of using wood while barbecuing. Wood chips and grilling planks are great for BBQs because while they have their own individual flavours, you still get that beautiful smokey taste (which is kind of the point of smoking anything IMO).

Napoleon recently brought in their full range of wood chips and grilling planks into Singapore, and here’s our take on the flavour pairings:

Hickory

Aptly nicknamed the “King of Smoking Woods”, Hickory wood chips are the most commonly used wood for smoking. With its sweet to strong, heavy bacon taste, this wood chips flavour goes perfectly with all meats – pork in particular. The bold flavour that it produces is often linked to Southern BBQ.

This flavour does tend to get bitter, so I recommend soaking it for longer than the other woods; 1 – 2 hours should suffice. Soak it in beer, bourbon, and even Coke.

Mesquite

The bold, sweet and earthy flavour of mesquite is in line with the tastes of the southwest. This wood comes from the south of USA and Mexico, and its flavour is a little lighter than hickory. Pair this wood with meats like beef, pork, duck or lamb.

Whiskey Barrel Oak

Made from recycled whiskey barrels, the whiskey barrel wood chips have a hint of aged whiskey when smoking. While it is bold, it is also not too strong at the same time. It is perfect for meats like beef and lamb. Soak these wood chips in juices like grape or orange, or even merlot and sauvignon.

Apple

Apple wood chips have the strongest flavour out of all the fruit wood chips. It has a mild fruity flavour that’s a little bit sweet. While very versatile with pairings, it is best used with seafood (especially fatty fish like salmon) and pork. You can also use it to smoke fruits and vegetables too. Soak them for a minimum of 30 minutes in water, wine, or even juice. Great to serve with a side of apple chutney.
Cherry

Said to be the best wood for smoking, the mild and fruity flavour of the cherry wood chips are best for smoking most meats like beef, venison, pork and poultry. It also pairs well with fruits and vegetables. It is also one of the best woods for mixing with other woods.

The flavour is a little sour and acidic, and sometimes can even be bitter. But overall light and fruity, and works well when soaked in cider, apple or pineapple juice, or wine.

Maple

Made from the sugar maple tree, this unique flavour is a little sweet and great for mixing with other wood flavours, in particular, hickory and apple. It is great for smoking a pork roast, ham and bacon, and cheese and vegetables because of its light and balanced flavour.

Smoker Pipe

After soaking your wood chips, remove them from the liquid and insert them in the Napoleon smoker pipe. Place pipe directly on the sear plates of your gas grill. When the wood chips start to smoke, place the food on the grill and shut the hood. Then keep the hood closed to keep the smoke inside, this helps give the food the best smokey flavour.

Cedar & Maple Grilling Planks

Napoleon Grilling Planks come in two flavours – cedar and maple. They are sold as individual pieces, so at $12.50, instead of in pairs like other brands (such as Axtschlag). They are also thicker, so they tend to last longer. These planks are great with salmon and chicken wings. I allow the edges to catch fire a little before shifting them to the side of the grill that hasn’t been lit. It’ll start to smoke, and I’ll close the hood and keep it smoking for about 15- 20 minutes.

All wood chips, smoker pipes and grilling planks are available from $12.50. Purchase them from Liberty Patio or from Napoleon Dealers (do call them before you go down to check if they have stock):

Decofix
Level 1
10 Jln Serene, 258748
tel: 6875 1657

Big Box
Level 3 (at the Outdoor Furniture/BBQ section)
1 Venture Ave, 608521
6801 6688

 

 

What…Using Charcoal in a Gas BBQ?

Labour day weekend came and went in a flash, as to be expected when spent with the best people in the world!

I threw a surprise BBQ party for my best friend’s birthday, and being my best friend, I really pulled out all the stops for this shindig. I used the super awesome 18 piece stainless steel BBQ tool set from Liberty (I call this the James Bond set because it comes in a very conspicuous carrying case LOL), I used wood planks, herb boxes, wood chips… and….and…

Yes. I went out of my comfort zone and did it. I used charcoal!!!

But… I kind of cheated a little bit. Haha.

How, you ask?

With the help of my trusty charcoal smoker tray that fits nicely over the gas burners of my Napoleon LEX485RSIB.

 

As a testament to how well insulated the LEX485RSIB is, charcoal smoker tray doesn’t really require much charcoal. Just 2 hands-full was able to last me about 3 hours of grilling (and it kept going even after I was done!). The flames were really big too, so we had to throw water over it a couple of times to keep it down. When we were done, there was barely any ash to be cleaned up after I was done too. How easy is that!

I placed Axtschlag hickory woodchips, which I has soaked in water for 30 minutes prior, in the triangular slot on the corner of the smoker tray. After which, I fired up 2 burners under the smoker tray and closed the hood of the LEX for about 15 minutes (or until the charcoal catches fire). Once lit, I turn the burners off and as far as the gas BBQ goes, I only used the infrared side burner to sear the steaks before transferring them to the main charcoal section. It’s really such a simple way to have get the charcoal going.

The Charcoal smoker tray only takes up half the BBQ space, which is perfect for me to utilize the other half for smoking with the Axtschlag Herb box and cherry wood planks because they can’t be directly over the fire in order for them to be slow cooked.

Marinade-wise, the lamb and steaks I served that afternoon were lighted seasoned with pink Himalayan salts, with extra minced garlic for the Lamb. Salt is supposed to bring out the flavour in the food, and I find that my choice of salt does it very well. I also believe in investing in good quality meat – so we taste the natural flavours of the meat and its fat, rather than going overboard with the seasoning. Normally I like a good USDA Prime steak, but this time I used Australian King Island beef which was very well-received by my guests.

 

Axtschlag Herb Boxes: $32

Axtschlag Grilling Planks: $32 (set of 3)

Axtschlag Wood Chips: $18 (1KG)

Liberty 18 pc BBQ tool set: $108

Napoleon Charcoal Smoker Tray: $110 (can be used with most Napoleon BBQs)

All available from libertypatio.com

 

 

 

 

Smokin’ Hot!

For Mothers’ Day weekend, I decided to experiment with our new wood chip smoker box.

I tried a spicy pork rib recipe from a Southern cookbook called “Adam’s Ribs”. It’s a dish that takes up to 5 hours to cook.

Despite having owned a barbecue for years, I’ve never actually tried to smoke anything before.

Some things to note from this little experiment:

1. Soak the wood chips in water before putting them into the smoker box. This will help to keep them moist and last longer.

2. I actually turned on 2 burners at first (as the recipe instructed), but the heat proved to be too close to the meats. Some of the meat closer to the burners started to get black really fast. So I turned off the 2nd burner and it was much better.

3. As you can see from the images below, I’ve actually put the ribs on the unlit side. I put the smoker box on the lit side.

4. It’s good to preheat your grill like an oven as it takes a while to heat up. The general idea is to get about 175 degrees Celsius.

5. Baste the ribs every hour for about 2 – 3 hours. On the last hour, baste every 10 minutes.

Your thoughts: Would you get a smoker? If so, what flavours of wood chips would you like to try?

Wood Chips and Smoker Boxes are available from Liberty Patio.