The Pit and the Paintbrush

Cabinets are finished!

2009-01-18T08:43:00.005-06:00

The cabinets are finished and ready to install! It's been a long time coming. I ended up with about 50 hours in the finishing work. Had about 40 in the sanding. So, a total of 90 hours of work. Since I figure buying unfinished cabinets saved about $1200, that makes my time worth about $13/hour. Not bad.

In the last post I mentioned adhering the end panels to the cabinet sides... That was a bigger chore than I had imagined!

After much reading on the internet and asking friends with construction experience, I found no clear answer as to what adhesive to use. I've heard of liquid nails, plain yellow carpenters glue, gorilla glue, contact cement, and even epoxy being used. Well, I have never been very impressed with liquid nails, so I crossed that one off the list. I did try yellow glue on one wall cabinet that had a panel on both sides and it achieved a great bond, but was a horrible mess to work with. Since I had over 50 square feet of panels to bond, gorilla glue was out simply on cost. So, that left contact cement. I did the rest with it.

I have never worked with contact cement before and man is it a pain. I coated both the panel surface and cabinet surface before adhering. Twice. Then you have one chance to lay them together right or you have to break the panel into tiny splinters to get it off. So I put them on, pushed down on the surface (every bit of it) and figured all was good. Wrong. The next day the edges of the panels were curling up; the cement stretching between like bubble gum on the sole of your shoe. Guess I should've clamped them up with ratchet straps or something....but the instructions on the can (all 5 quarts that I used) say "no clamping necessary". Riiiiiight.

So.....it's old school time. When fancy adhesive chemistry fails, use mechanical fasteners. I ended up tacking all the way around the edges of each panel with wire brads and putting filler over the heads before staining.

Anyway, once they were bonded (and fastened), I stained them and did my 3 coats of poly and they are pretty! I finished all the cabinet rails and stiles at the same time. Yesterday, we also painted the bottom surface of the wall cabinets. Makes for a more sanitary and cleanable surface than bare particle board. Gave them a coat of Kilz oil-based primer, then over the top with white semi-gloss. The white will help reflect light from the undercabinet lights I hope to put in at some point as well.

So, now the easy part is over and the hard part begins....the actual work in the house. First up is some wiring and plumbing. That always requires working int he crawlspace and/or attic. Yay.

Still going....

2009-01-12T19:28:00.006-06:00

Well, I haven't succumbed to the urethane fumes...yet...

Since my last blog post I have been working on finishing the cabinet doors. They are done! It took a little trial and error to figure out the best finishing technique for what I have to work with, but I'm pretty happy with the result.

Observations so far:

Minwax oil-base polyurethane is unusable out of the can if you want a smooth finish. It's way too thick. Even though its instructions say to not thin it, most accomplished woodworkers do. Add me to those ranks. I found that thinning it 25-33% with naptha gave me the best results. White mineral spirits work too, but take longer to dry. In a dusty Kansas farm shop, faster is better.
Many woodworkers claim that poly should be double brushed. Many initially lay down poly against the grain, then shortly tip it off with the grain. This is a bad idea...at least with oak. Brushing across the open grain of oak puts bubbles in the finish. I got more bubbles with this method than a single brushing with the grain and not tipping off!
Use a cheap disposable foam brush. I bought an expensive natural bristle varnish brush at Home Depot but it just plain and simple puts down too thick a coat. You can only dip it in the finish maybe a quarter inch, then brush maybe a foot of board per stroke. Cheap foam brushes lay a lighter coat but can hold more for longer strokes. Even on the pantry doors I was able to load up the brush and make a single stroke the full length of the door. Oh yeah, all cheap foam brushes aren't equal either. The wood handled ones from Walmart are actually pretty good. I had a bunch I got at Harbor Freight or somewhere that had a more open, less dense foam than the Walmart ones and they were more bubbly.
Sanding between coats is really worth the effort! I've been using 3M "Sandblaster" 320 grit sponges (they're the yellow ones) between each coat and it works really well! I used to use 000 steel wool, but after using these sponges I won't be using wool anymore! After sanding, I blow the dust out of the grain with compressed air, then wipe the surface with a towel dampened in mineral spirits before recoating.
Even thinned 25%, 3 coats is enough. On a table top I might put on more, but I like the balance of appearance and protection I'm getting with three. I think going for 5 or more like you hear some guys talk about would start making a dipped in plastic and much less natural look.
Stir the can of finish frequently while brushing! The flattener (the stuff that makes mine semi-gloss rather than poly's natural high-gloss state) rapidly settles out of the thinned polyurethane. I just keep the handle from a used foam brush in the can and stir it a few strokes every few minutes while brushing to keep the finish sheen even.

Anyway, tomorrow I should finish up putting the end panels on the cabinet carcasses. (This is a chore to address in another post.) Then hopefully around the end of this week the cabinets will all be finished and it will be time to demo the kitchen.

Here are some pics of the current status in the shop:

Meet my pit: Brinkmann Smoke 'N Pit (Basic)

2008-12-28T19:23:00.003-06:00

My Christmas vacation took me deep into the heart of eastern Texas, which it would seem is big time BBQ country. Every little tiny town as a BBQ joint and the air often smells of wood fire. I was appalled to see lakeside vendors selling seasoned split white oak as campfire wood! That's cooking wood man!

Unfortunately, I was unable to take the time to sample any of the local BBQ fare. Although I admit it was hard to pass up a place called Big Fatty's BBQ (don't ask where it is...after a 1600 mile round trip I really don't have any idea!) But it was a little easier to pass up the converted trailer house boasting "BBQ-Mexican-Catfish" in big yellow letters on a sign nearly as big as the building.

Anyway, since vacation had my remodeling project and BBQ temporarily on hold, I decided to post a review of my pit.

My pit is a 2005 model Brinkmann Smoke 'N Pit. It's the basic model from Walmart. Dimensionally, it is nearly identical to the current model (which is the Smoke 'N Pit Pitmaster Deluxe), but the air vent and smokestack are different.

For the price I think this is a great pit. It's not perfect, but isn't bad. It's much better than a vertical smoker; that's for sure! I have only found a few weaknesses:

1) the firebox door hinges warp in time and it doesn't close flat. Even with the vent closed, it's like having it half open because of all the air sucking around the door.

2) the firebox isn't deep enough. It can only burn for 2-3 hours before filling up with ash and starting to bury the airflow. It only has maybe 4 inches under the firebox grate...I think 8 should be a minimum.

3) It's hard to get the right temperature for smoking. It seems it is easy to get a 180-200 degree fire going, but it makes thick heavy sooty white smoke. So you put the air and fuel to it until the smoke goes blue and now it's 250-300 degrees. I think it is an airflow problem and possibly related to the size of the opening between the firebox and smoking chamber. I think it needs to either be smaller, or moved over with 6-12" of dead space between the firebox and smoke chamber.

4) The warming/holding rack is nearly useless if you're smoking large cuts of meat or poultry. With the rack installed, you can't close the lid on a 12# turkey. I work without the rack even installed.

One of the best features of this pit is that it can be used as a plain grill too. Rather than building a fire in the firebox, it has a charcoal pan that hangs in the bottom of the smoking chamber. It's adjustable for height (although, like the firebox, the smoking chamber should be deeper too). Just load in up with charcoal and wood chunks and you've got a grill.

Overall I'd give my pit 4 out of 5 stars. If it was $50 higher price I'd give it 3. Pretty good equipment for the price.

Cabinet progress

2008-12-12T20:06:00.004-06:00

I'm still here. Somehow, among the delays and frustrations of harvest, I was able to slowly keep working on sanding the kitchen cabinets. Mercifully, harvest is over now. Harvest was to this season what shooting a wounded horse is to it.

On Wednesday, I got done with the sanding! It only took 38 hours to do it :P

The cabinet face frames and door frames were a mess. Some were sanded, but only to what looks to have been 60 grit. Others still bore the marks from a thickness planer. The door panels are oak faced plywood that appears to have been factory sanded to 100 grit.

So, I sanded all the frame members with 80 grit. Then I did everything with 120 grit. Then finished off with 220 grit. Much of the sanding of the door frames was done by hand. Just too many nooks and crannies for a power sander, but I am very thankful to have a good power sander for where it worked!

Since the sanding is done, I have gotten started on the rest of the finishing. The staining is going very fast. I have already stained all the drawer fronts and all but 5 of the doors.

I have also topcoated the drawer fronts with polyurethane. I decided to use aerosols for that since they are small, intricate, and well suited for spraying. They got 3 coats of semi-gloss.

I still have a can left and will use it on a couple of the small cabinet doors. Other than that I'm planning on brushing the poly on....probably 2 coats. Oh boy that might be a long ordeal; dunno if I could endure 3 coats. We'll see...

BBQ in the Bible?!

2008-11-19T08:57:00.001-06:00

"Do not eat the meat raw or cooked in water, but roast it over the fire..." Exodus 12:9a (NIV)

And the cabinet color is....

2008-11-14T17:06:00.003-06:00

Well, the stain color testing is over. We're going custom mix. I think I'll call it "Cinnamon Pecan".

There are 3 color samples on the trim piece in this photo. The one on the right is Red Chestnut (way too dark). The one in the middle is a mix 1:1 Red Chestnut:Golden Pecan (a little too red).

The one on the left is the one we are going with. It's a 2:3 mix of Red Chestnut:Golden Pecan.

So that means I have tons of stain. Can't get Red Chestnut in Colby, so I bought 4 quarts of it in Hays in case I needed it. Fortunately, I can get Golden Pecan here though.

This second picture shows the test piece up against an existing trim piece in our kitchen that Amber said she liked. It's one of the few things that can stay in the kitchen, so we matched it. The color I concocted is the bottom one...looks pretty close to the existing panel!

What have I gotten myself into!?

2008-11-14T08:07:00.002-06:00

Wow, all the cabinets for the kitchen remodel look like a huge job!

Finishing the cabinets is the first step in the process. The cabinet faces and frames will all have to be sanded. Then stained. Then polyurethaned.

I originally thought I'd work all the cabinets together. Like sand them all, then stain them all, etc. But that is too much. There wouldn't be time to stain them all before the stain on the first one was dry. So, I'll just do a few at once I guess.

Anyway, first things first. Today I'm going to experiment with stain color on a piece of toekick. First try will be Minwax Red Chestnut with three topcoats of semi-gloss poly. On the cabinets I put in my office a couple years ago, I used Golden Pecan but had difficulty getting it dark enough on the veneered parts. So I'm trying a darker stain hoping I won't have to do a custom mix.

Will post pics when the stain samle is dry...

Ah, home improvement season approaches

2008-10-30T20:26:00.008-05:00

With the coming of the farming "off-season" quickly (I hope) approaching, it is once again home improvement season.

This winter is going to be a BIG project -- the kitchen. New cabinets throughout. New countertops throughout. New floor. New sink. Pretty much gonna gut the room down to the drywall and redo everything (except the appliances, and one of them is moving across the room.)

Well, first things first. My fall harvest is running late. It should normally be done or nearly done by now and it hasn't even really started yet. So I decided to get a jump start on the kitchen project.

Today I replaced the big kitchen window. The old one was one that couldn't be opened. I hate that. But, guess what -- the opening is 56"W x 36"H. That's right...it's horizontal. No standard replacement windows for that sucker. And a custom made one was almost $1000! So I bought a 36x54 (which is a standard size) and made it fit....sideways. Yeah, I know it's not supposed to be put in like that, but $135 is a lot better than $1000. Plus, our climate is pretty dry...it'll probably last a good long time. (The previous owner did this with the big window in the living room a long time ago and it still works great.)

The window is in and sealed. I'll have to trim the stucco back from the outside and trim around the exterior at some point. And I need to put jam extensions and case the interior opening. I'll do that when I'm finishing up the wood and trim for the rest of the remodel.

Anyway, here's pics.

Before

Ready to put new window in.
(Note the spacers to modify rough opening to standard size.)

After
yeah, I know I still need to trim off the shims and expandafoam :P

Getting ready for winter

2008-10-25T17:07:00.005-05:00

So, how does a year-round BBQer get ready for winter? By scrounging up wood, of course. The stores here put away their charcoal and wood about the time they set up there Halloween displays. So I scored a lot of charcoal briquettes from Walmart a few weeks ago. It's normally $4.90-something per bag and they marked it down to $4, then $3, then $2.50. I bought some at each price and have like 10 bags in the shed! Winter of '06/'07 I ran out and didn't want to run out again.

It was a nice day today, so I decided to split a tub full from my apricot/cherry pile. It's still pretty wet inside, but the outside layer of logs splits up dry. I've used maybe 20% of this pile....haven't even gotten to the best stuff yet ;)

Oh yeah, I scored some new wood too.

Doesn't look like much, but hey, I'm from Kansas -- I ain't gonna complain about seasoned apple wood! My Mom & Dad were visiting my sister in Kentucky a couple weeks ago and I guess her landlord or neighbor or something had cut down an apple tree and hadn't picked up the logs. So they tossed a vew in their van and brought them home. I haven't split them yet....if they are dry enough I'll use them for the Thanksgiving turkey next month!

I should split some more oak too....maybe another day. It's like axing iron and I'm pooped....

Chicken

2008-10-23T16:02:00.008-05:00

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OK, so yes I admit that for the most part I'm a beef guy. Pork is a close second. But man my chicken might make me rethink that order.

This past Saturday I smoked two chickens. I can do up to 6 at once in my pit, but we just had 2 this time. Note the water pan in the pit. Putting one in there is my normal practice unless I'm using all three grill grates, in which case I put in another makeshift drip pan.

The chickens were skinned this time, brined, injected with marinade, and then put on the pit. I mopped it once after the first hour, once after the second hour, and then every 20 minutes until it was done. I'll cover brining and my marinade, and mop in future posts.

After starting the fire with one chimney full of briquettes, as is my custom, the wood was about half apricot and half red oak with one stick of mesquite per hour. You can see my wood chunks in the picture above with oak on the right and apricot on the left. Cooking time was about 3.5 hours.

At one time, I regarded poultry as probably the most difficult meat to smoke to a satisfactorily juicy and flavorful result. However, it is not. It has actually become the most consistent of my BBQ styles and I'm thinking of entering my chicken in one of the area BBQ contests next summer. Turkey, by it's nature, is somewhat more difficult than chicken, but I prepare and cook both practically the same.

Breakfast!

2008-09-21T08:59:00.003-05:00

So what is a BBQ guy doing making breakfast? Well, I don't BBQ all the time. It's too hard to keep pancakes from going through the grill grates ;)

As my lovely wife mention in a recent blog, I often make breakfast on Sundays.

One of my favorites is pancakes. I have my own recipe that started as an IHOP knockoff recipe, but I've modified it. IHOP supposedly uses real buttermilk, but since I find it unfit for human consumption, it is a shame to buy a quart of the stuff just to use 12 ounces and give the rest to the cats. So I modified it to use powdered buttermilk that keeps (nearly) forever.

JHOP Pancakes

1 1/4 cup flour
5 Tb powdered buttermilk
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt (I prefer kosher)
1 1/4 cup cold water (the colder the better)
1/4 cup oil (I prefer canola)
1 egg (beaten)

Wisk together dry ingredients
Drop in egg, oil, water quickly
Wisk everything together until smooth

Cook over low-medium heat on griddle. 300 degrees worked really good on an electric griddle I used once, but normally I use a two-burner griddle on our gas stove.

My BBQ Crew in Action

2008-09-07T20:00:00.004-05:00

Cooking wood observations

2008-09-04T08:10:00.002-05:00

One of the problems of being a BBQer in Kansas is that good cooking wood is not easy to come by. The only native trees here are cottonwood (a softwood -- softwoods are only suitable for campfire cooking) and western red cedar (which makes kreosote when you burn it).

So, I have had to scrounge up good hardwood with which to BBQ.

Last year, I took out some trees growing on our property in order to make room for another access fill to the highway. Fortunately for me, the largest one in the way was an apricot tree. It had been damaged by ice storms the previous winter and needed to come down anyway. There were also several small cherry trees ranging from 3-6 inches in diameter. While I miss the cherries, I don't miss the brushy mess that that area was.

Anyway, the end result is a nice pile of (now) dry apricot and cherry firewood.

Also, last winter I saw a guy on Craigslist from Denver selling white oak firewood. It was $150/ton and since we were looking for an excuse to go to Denver at the time, I decided to take the pickup and get a ton. So now I have plenty of oak as well. It was actually trimmngs and waste chunks from a mill that produces railroad ties. But hey, it's not treated, not rotten, and is a hardwood so all is good. But man oh man, is it ever hard to split. You can bury and axe in it clear to the hilt and it won't split that tough old oak!

Here are the woods I have tried and my notes on them.:

Apple: my all-time favorite for smoking but used up my supply long ago, light frity aroma, mild flavor, burns fairly fast and flames easily. My favorite for turkey and chicken
Apricot: similar to apple in flavor, but slightly stronger. Burns moderately fast and flames easily. Good all-around smoking wood. Particularly pleasing with poultry. I have a large supply of apricot right now and have grown quite fond of it.
Cherry: the cherry I have used is from small trees, 3-6" diameter so the wood is very light colored. Dark heartwood would be different. It burns slow with moderate heat and low flame. Strong aroma, and medium flavor. Fruity like apricot, but stronger. Makes a nice pink smoke ring. My favorite for sausage!
Hickory (Walmart chunks): strong aroma, strong flavor, moderate burning rate, flames well, best with ham or large cuts
Mesquite: strongest aroma and flavor - use sparingly when smoking, but good choice for grilling, burns slow but hot with weak flames, a smoking black chunk of mesquite is hotter than a flaming chunk of fruitwood. My favorite for pork chops and for grilling burgers and steak. Easiest smoke to make a definitive "smoke ring" in the meat with.
Nectarine: burns fast and cool with similar flavor and aroma to apricot. I've only used this once and only had a few pounds of wood from a storm damaged branch from one of my dad's trees.
Oak: similar to hickory, but not as strongly flavored. Red oak is stronger than white oak. Burns slow and moderately hot. Flames easily. Makes very little ash. Not as hot as mesquite, but hotter than fruitwoods. My current favorite for slow smoking beef brisket.
Pecan: the only pecan I've tried is some chips I got on eBay. Moderate flavor, I'd say between the fruitwoods and oak for strength, but heavy aroma. Burns cool and can produce lots of smoke with little flame. I use this for smoking cheese! (Can't wait to get some pecan logs and try on other stuff.)

One Big Year

2008-08-31T19:44:00.003-05:00

OK, so yes I realize it has been nearly a full year since my last post. But I figure considering that in that year I have become a new dad, have started farming full time (while maintaining my sideline business), and have changed churches that I have sufficient excuse for the leave of absence.

So, now, back to the pit.

Guests of honor at my BBQ exploits in the past year have been numerous. Here is what I remember: steak (lots of steak), pork chops, chicken, turkey,pork ribs, brisket, sausage, bratwurst. Most recently baked potatos were added to the list. Oh yeah, the ubiquitous burgers and dogs too.

Remember that I said LOTS of steak? One of the benefits from having a family friend who is a rancher is cheap grass fed beef. It ends up being a little over $2/pound for everything....burger, roasts, steaks. $2 is good.

Anyway, in my many excursions into the land of steak, I have developed a pretty respectable steak marinade. It's easy to remember. I'll call it:

Tablespoon Steak Marinade.

1 TB olive oil
1 TB vinegar (I prefer apple cider vinegar. Red wine vinegar is good too)
1 TB brown sugar
1 TB worchestershire sauce
Wisk together and put on meat at least an hour before grilling.
At grilling, dust steaks with seasoning salt and black pepper

Tonight I introduced a new guest to my pit. Baked potatos. I used to not particularly care for them, but in the last few years have acquired the taste, so decided to give it a go. Not much technique for baked potatos.... I thoroughly perforated them with a fork. Dropped a little (maybe 2 tsp) of olive oil on some aluminum foil, shake some lemon pepper in the oil, wrap up potato. Put over the fire for about an hour. Simple, yummy, cheap. Hey, that's what BBQ is all about.

More recap of the last year in future posts....

So, $22/gal still buys crummy paint.

2007-09-08T20:00:00.001-05:00

I normally don't rant, but here's one for ya:

So far in my home-improvement experience, I have for the most part used el-cheapo Walmart paint. Yeah, it's cheap and normally takes multiple coats, but for the most part it works. I hate Walmart primer, but their paint has treated me fairly well.

Well, I'm currently renovating our second bedroom into a nursery for our upcoming family addition. I'm in the late stages and down to finish painting. After being quite impressed with the Kilz primer (I used General Purpose Latex) , I decided to try Kilz paint. It was either a bad idea, or I have bad luck. The "can" (it's more like a big plastic bottle) I got had a thick skin of dried paint under the lid that got stirred/shaken into the gallon and was also really thick. I mean THICK. About the consistency of honey. Way too thick to brush -- I think it needed a putty knife. Kilz recommends never thinning the product. But I did. About a cup of water in the gallon and it was usable.

Why does something as simple as painting have to be so difficult?

MMMMM! Smoked Chicken!

2007-09-08T19:07:00.001-05:00

OK, it's past time to document my last BBQ adventure. It was Saturday. I smoked 2 chickens and a small beef brisket.

Before/After:

First time I've done chicken this way and wow! I don't think I'll change anything! Very moist, deep smoke ring, and slightly sweet flavor.

Here's one of the Pillars of Grillology I adhere to: poultry should be brined. Although i haven't tried it, I would think it would also be beneficial on venison and rabbit.

What's brine? Same general idea as marinade, but involving no oil. I've had good luck with the Ugly Brothers Bird Brine recipe. The process involves soaking the bird overnight completely submerged in a salt and sugar solution. It yields a much moister, more flavorful poultry than BBQ'ing alone. After brining I inject the bird with marinade and sprinkle judiciously with seasoning salt and lemon pepper, then it's ready for the fire. I'll expound on the marinade and cooking process later. Chicken size: 2x3.5 lb. Cook time: about 4 hours.

On to the brisket... The brisket came out good. More tender than the last one I did, but somewhat drier. I must have overcooked it a little. I can't find a meat thermometer that doesn't lie. Anyway, I marinated it overnight instead of using a dry rub this time. Then I just sprinkled with seasoned salt and put in on the grill. I used my own concoction for a mop (more on that later). I cooked it until my thermometer said 160 degrees, then double-wrapped it in foil and put it in the firebox until thermometer said 180. I think it was more like 210. I was attempting to render out some of the tough connective tissue of the brisket, but do so sacrificing as little moistness as possible. It was tender, but would like to see it a little juicier. I think it was just overdone. Great flavor, just a little dry. Brisket size: 4 lb. Cook time: about 4.5 hours.

As for the fire, I used mostly dry apple wood, then mixed in some dry apricot, and one piece of cherry from my woodpile. It was still really too green -- almost put the fire out. Here's a picture about 3 hours into the cook with a new apple mini-log on top.

Who am I and what am I doing on the Internet?

2007-08-26T20:10:00.000-05:00

Who? Just a guy from the middle of nowhere with a BBQ pit and a house to fix up.

Why? Because it occurred to me that in the midst of my relatively boring existence there lie two subjects that might provide amusing and somewhat intelligent blog content.

The first is barbecuing and the second is home improvement.

Topic for this first post is barbecue. Well, actually grilling. (Yeah, there's a difference. And, yeah, I do both BBQ and grilling.)

Tonight I grilled pork chops. Seasoned to perfection with my old standby favorite-for-pork McCormick Grill Mates "Roasted Herb & Garlic". Brushed with canola oil and spritzed with apple juice while being slow grilled over an open flame of mesquite and apple wood. Mmmmm.

They were great by the way, but olive oil works better.

What's next? I dunno, but here's a pic.