Introduction and Episode Preview

SPEAKER_02 0:49

All right, it's a little bit late this time. I try to get these episodes out at midnight on launch day, and this one isn't even getting recorded till after 5 p.m. It's been a busy week. Uh Dolores has been a little bit under the weather. Her voice has gone hoarse. She's coughing, decided she didn't want to do the episode being, you know, coughing during it or uh being horse-like. So uh I'm going ahead and going to do this one myself. I've done some solo episodes. As a matter of fact, this podcast started out that way, but it wasn't until I brought uh the lovely wife Dolores on board that the the downloads the people started engaging a little more. So this may be the worst episode in a while. Hopefully not, though. I got some stuff lined out we're gonna talk about. Um first of all, it is episode 47. So I want to talk about the five. Can you pick them if you've been watching or listening to any of this? The five top podcast episodes on the audio format. I'll go into that. You know, thought that'd be fun to look at. And um we're also gonna talk a little bit about a uh Lake Texoma trip that I took. I went to Lake Texoma with some friends, I went striper fishing. Did we catch any stripers? Stick around, I'll talk a little bit about that. Also created the video you can find. And we also over the weekend cooked something. Now, this I was filming it and I got the the filming of it started. Thought it was gonna be a great video, won't be able to release the video. Storm showed up, uh, everything went crazy, ended up pulling it out of the Weber Smoky Mountain, and I'll talk a little bit about that. Uh, but I'm gonna tell you how I cooked it, how it turned out, and and then a little bit about that daggum storm. Uh we're gonna not be able to release that video. It just it just messed everything up. And then uh next week I'm gonna be having Chef Deborah Erickson. Um, if everything goes as planned, I'm gonna be talking to her this week and I'll get it edited and get it out next Monday. Now, this is uh a very interesting and uh very uh a great story. Her name is Deborah Ericsson, she's the founder of the Blind Kitchen. Um, you can find her at the blindkitchen.com, look her up on Google, and she went to culinary cooking school and was a blind student. She was the only one in her class, and since then she went ahead and made it through the class successfully, and also has created the blind kitchen, which where is where she helps those that are visually impaired or completely blind do what we all love to do. I mean, if you're listening to this, you probably love to cook, want to cook, uh, maybe grill. And she even created a product or she's got a kit designed for people that love barbecue, that want to do outdoor cooking so they can do it safer and easier. And uh we're gonna be talking about her story uh next week. Uh, and we're also gonna go into some of the products she's uh developed, uh, how her how she's able to do this and uh make great food while also being visually impaired. So that'll be on episode number 48 when we get um Chef and CEO and founder of the Blind Kitchen on the Okie Smoking Podcast. So excited about that. I also want to talk about the meat slicer that I reviewed. Uh once for all sent me a meat slicer that I actually use to make smash burgers. So we're gonna talk about that in this episode. I told you we've got us a jam-packed episode. I've actually got notes here so I don't forget you kind of got to put notes out when you do the podcast, or you just kind of go stagnant and it goes all over the place. So trying to stay organized the best I can. And then we'll look and see if there's any comments I want to read uh from YouTube or anywhere else. And so let's get right into it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Time to fire up that grill. From smoke board to smash burger, outdoor cooking just tastes better. This is the Okie Smoking Podcast, and here's your host, John Barry.

Dr. Pepper Pork Shoulder Cook

SPEAKER_02 5:27

All right, welcome back in. Before we get started, let me just give a shout out to everybody listening to the show. It's quite amazing, and while this seems high, 90% of the people listen to this show. I'm looking at the stat right now from the United States. That's normal, that's what you would expect. But that's only 90%. 10% of you guys are listening from other countries. So I'm just going to give a shout-out if you're listening. Uh, we have someone from the UK uh listen quite frequently. Canada had five people, uh, Finland, Israel, France, Hungary, Ukraine, Spain, and Germany. So all you people out there from all over the globe listening, uh, I appreciate it. I get some repeat viewers uh from countries and things, and then uh from uh the United States, got people from a lot of people from California, Irvine, uh, New Jersey, Katie, Texas is always jumping in here. If you if you are from any of these that continue to uh listen to the show, in the show notes below, there's a click link that you can click send as a text, just say hi, and we'll shout you out in the next episode. That'd be great because we could see we don't see your information or anything, uh, but we could just see that city popping up regularly, so we know you're always listening to the show. Bronx, New York, Chicago, Illinois, someone's always listening from there. So thanks everybody. The show is doing fantastic. We'll get into more of that when we do the top five episodes. All right, so let's go ahead and first start out with our lake, my Lake Texoma trip. Now, this is something uh that we've done three years in a row now. It's me and uh some friends of mine. And the way it originally started uh was uh one of the guys I work with retired, and we decided to all get together and have a little retirement party, but instead of like just a retirement party, he's uh got a boat, loves to fish, and decided we would all just get together and go to the lake for a weekend, uh, catch, uh go striper fishing, and we've looked for and found a guide. There's plenty of uh guides on Lake Texoma and other lakes as well. You pay them, they provide the boat, they provide the poles, they provide the bait, and when you're done, they even clean the fish. I mean, what else can you ask for? It's worth the cleaning of the fish if you catch something, so they do that, bag it up for you. Um so we've done that three years. Our first year we cut limit 60 fish and three catfish. Uh so the guy that was retiring decided he wanted to do catfish and caught three catfish. And then this uh second year we caught around 30, 35, didn't do quite as well of stripers, but this last year, we didn't catch any stripers. Uh the water was completely muddy, murky. We've had so much rain uh before we went like a month every day, just rain floods, and the lake was pushing that water through, making it malky, murky, dirty, and uh you couldn't see through it, and it was clear. And there's one thing about stripers when you go striper fishing, uh, it is not easy to catch them unless the water's clear. We went out for an hour or two, didn't catch really anything. So the guide, being the guide he is, said let's change it up, let's go catfishing, and that's what we did. So all the way to the bottom for the most part, cut bait, cut shad, uh, and put them down in there and ended up catching 25 plus catfish, was able to have a catfish fry. So it all turned out well. They still cleaned the fish for us, so you don't have to uh specifically only catch stripers. And if you have a good guide, we went to a few different locations of the lake to find the the perfect spot, and of course, he's got the device that tells you uh the fish where they are, and uh really good. Personally, I I prefer a catfish when it comes to cooking them over stripers, but either one is is really good. Uh we got some Louisiana seasoning and seasoned them up that way. And after they were clean, before that, we you like to rinse them, and we did that. We rinsed them in some uh water with salt and some seasonings, garlic, some pepper that we had in there. We had a little Airbnb we had just stayed in. Let them soak for about an hour, and I went ahead and I got my camp chef, and we fired up the camp chef. Uh always take a cast iron, cast iron skillet with me. Went ahead and put some grease in there. We bought some grease at a store next door and then found out there was some above that we didn't need everything we purchased, left that there for the next guest. We always do, and I'm sure they'll be wanting to fry up some fish, so have them prepared for that. But it turned out fantastic. Had some onion rings, had some fries. Uh what else did we have? Seems like was that it? Onion rings, fries, and uh fish. The fries actually weren't all that great. It was just some frozen fries. I threw them in the oven. They tasted freezer burned, so yeah. But the fish was great. Uh onion rings was great. Uh, but the fries just missed the mark. Everything else was like fresh. Fries were frozen, so what can I say? Uh shortcut always turns out not all that great. Uh so came back from there. Um, of course, while you're down there, a little poker, lost a little bit of money. Nothing much. We only bet dimes and nickels and quarters, so a few bucks just for fun. And uh had a good time. We'll do it again. I'll talk about it again when we do it again. Uh in May, probably. Date could change of uh 2026, go on our fourth uh Lake Texoma, unless they change the location fishing trip. Each time we've had a different guide, uh, and the next time probably won't be any different. Um so we could do a repeat guide. I don't know. I'm not the one setting it up. I actually set up this last one, and uh as guys, we go out there and switch who's going to uh take it by the reins, get the room booked, get the guide or whatever you decide to do. Heck, maybe just go rent a boat. But I don't know who's gonna clean the fish. That's what that's what we really like about that. The guide is the fact that they uh will go ahead and cook the fish and uh or not they don't cook it, but they'll clean it for you. So excellent time there. And uh that was our Lake Texoma trip uh 2025. Now, before we go any further, let me just go ahead and talk about our last guest on this show, and it is uh Ryan from the Flat Top Noob, and he has an excellent the show on YouTube. You can check him out by searching uh the flat top noob, griddle, cook, eat, and more, or poor guy outdoor. Uh, they're all three on there. Um, but an excellent uh show, a lengthy show, and we talked uh last week. If you would like to check on that, uh, it would be episode number 46, uh, went everywhere from some cooking, uh, some griddling, his first cooks. Uh I bet you can guess what it is. It's it's like there's a certain item you always want to cook first on a flat top. Um, if you want to see what that was, be sure and check out our last episode. Excellent guest. I will definitely have him on and uh uh Doug and uh Rob in the future as well. So great stuff there. Check out all of his video and audio version. Uh next week, I already mentioned we will have Deborah Erickson on uh from uh The Blind Kitchen. Uh moving forward, I also want to talk about our recent cook. And I touched on this in the beginning, and it is our Dr. Pepper brisket, not brisket. I hope I I may have said brisket at the beginning, it is Dr. Pepper Pork Shoulder. Now, uh this was really, really good. And what I did is I went ahead and uh infused it, had a needle, and put about a half a can of Dr. Pepper, and just went ahead and put that all through the center of the uh pork shoulder. Got it real good and juicy. I just love it. And when you when you put it in there and you start to see it bulge, you know, you you push it in there and you start to it gets fat, you know, you're getting that juice in there. Love that. Um I don't do a whole lot of that. I I like to do pork shoulders that way sometimes. I've done brisket, not a whole lot, and uh pork loin. I don't know, there's just something to just get some good flavor. You could use apple juice or whatever, but I used the full-flavored Dr. Pepper and cooked it. Well, we then added some seasoning to it, which we use the uh dirty bird seasoning, completely coated the thing in full so that it was completely covered in this seasoning very very liberally, and then cooked it at 225 on the Weber Smoky Mountain. I did all this about 6 a.m. on Saturday. It didn't get done till about 6 p.m. on Saturday. Cooked it all day. After about four or five hours, I went ahead and wrapped it, added another half a can of Dr. Pepper to it, and wrapped it in foil and continued cooking it until done at about 200 to 205 degrees, and went ahead and took some claws to it after we let it set for 30 to 45 minutes. It came apart nicely. Add a little more seasoning on top, threw them between some sliders and some of your favorite barbecue sauce, and it was it was just amazing. Alongside with that, we actually even cook some ribs. Um, now the ribs were spare ribs.

SPEAKER_05 16:08

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SPEAKER_03 16:38

You're listening to a podcast right now, driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With rss.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at rss.com.

SPEAKER_02 17:08

And I seasoned them up a little different because uh Dolores, as you probably know or may not, but she is uh keto for the most part, except on special occasions. And since I'd put the Dr. Pepper in the pork shoulder.

SPEAKER_04 17:24

Stay with us.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

We'll be right back.

SPEAKER_02 17:26

Hey y'all, it's John from the Oki Smoking Podcast.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

And I'm Dolores.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

We wanted to tell you real quick about something we've been loving in the kitchen lately, the once-for-all meat slicer.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

This slicer was a game changer. You guys, it's perfect for slicing the deep jerky, thin cuts of carne asana.

SPEAKER_02 17:46

But what I really love is it's a beast for making smash burgers. You can slice and grind your own meat fresh and fast.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

We even put together a video and a website so you can go to it to see it in action. Just head to okysmoken.com slash slicer. That's O-K-I-E-S M-O-K-I-N dot C O M slash S L I C E R for the details and links if you want to grab one yourself.

Once For All Meat Slicer Review

Top Five Podcast Episodes Revealed

Upcoming Guest Preview and Closing

SPEAKER_02 18:17

That's Okie Smoken.com slash slicer. Go check it out. She went ahead and uh wanted some ribs. We were we were actually cooking for there were several people here, so we had we needed a decent amount of food and I don't mind. We've been eating leftovers for a few days, so nothing wrong with that. Heat it up and eat it. And um she had some of her boars night out white lightning, which is zero carbs, put that on there. I think she put some um uh garlic uh zero carb seasoning on there as well. And then I cooked them up for about six hours, uh, wrapped them about halfway through, and then um during all of this, next thing you know, uh alarms going off on phones, everything's storm, storm, storm, uh turn on the TV. Storm, hell storm of the century, billion dollars, multi-million dollars. I'm looking at it and it's coming right at us. It's not far away. I'll usually ride out the storm, just let it cook, and I says, Man, this thing. They started showing pictures of hailstones were as big as a baseball. They said could get as big as the grapefruit. You never really know. But this was significant enough to where I said, I've got to bring it indoors. Went ahead and got it off of the Weber Smoky Mountain, put everything in the oven to let it continue in there. At that time, we just i uh the momentum of the video and everything just kind of went went apart. I could have filmed the storm and everything, sure, but it came in and just went pouring and then stopped. Five minutes later, I didn't get no hell. I didn't get no wind, maybe a little bit, sun come out. You watched the radar, that massive storm, as soon as it got to my neighborhood, it just shrunk. It it was full force, got here and just poof was gone. Couldn't could have just left everything alone, waited to 30, 45 minutes, and the sun was out, and I would have continued on, would have continued the video and everything would have been fine. But it is what it is. I just ended up saying I'll just do another video later on it. Talk about it on this one, I'll have some footage of some of it maybe, but uh I just didn't because it's it was starting to rain so fast I had to get everything, throw it in. I you know, I didn't get to get out there and get shots or anything, so I just let it go. Was it good? It was great. Now, I don't really know, and nobody really seemed to think they could tell there was Dr. Pepper. So I I'm not real sure. Even me, you know, I I don't know if the Dr. Pepper cooked out because I would have used Dr. Pepper Zero and maybe I'll try that one time so that uh Dolores would be able to eat it with it'd be zero carb. Wouldn't uh it'd be keto but everything I read said don't uh because of the sweetness. But you know, honestly, I'm not sure it'd matter. So I'm probably gonna do a Dr. Pepper Zero one, and maybe when I do the video again, that's what it will be. So sorry, video didn't come out. I will be redoing that very soon. Less than a month, I'd say we're gonna be having it again. So uh if I showed a sneak peek on a couple of posts and we'll get the video out, I'll redo it. Weber Smoky Mountain probably. Uh or maybe the pit barrel this time. Might do the pit barrel. Be pretty cool. Have it brought it out in a little while. Like that'd be really, really cool. Now I want to talk about something else uh that I I uh did and I purchased well I actually didn't purchase this, I said it wrong. Um a company sent me, reached out to me, their once for all meat slicer. And they reached out to me uh via email. And I've had a few companies reach out to me, and I don't just I'm not gonna just have them send me everything if I'm not interested in it. I was interested in this. When I saw what it was, it's a meat slicer and it comes with uh several blades on it, so when you slice it, it'll do multiple slices at once. I I'm not sure the exact amount, I think like eight maybe. And you can do it in two different sizes, two millimeter or four millimeter, so you can have different sizes of the meat, perfect for like slicing for a beef jerky or uh carne asada and season it up. Uh, Philly cheesesteaks be excellent. But what I really liked even more was the fact that you could create it. Uh you you slice it, you can turn it sideways, slice it again, turn it 180, slice it a few times, three to four times, and you've got your ground ground steak. So you can make you some steak burgers very, very easily. And I did a smash burger on the Vivor using this uh little slice. And you can use it for cutting chicken and various things. It I was very impressed with it. Um, had a lot of feedback uh on it. Even had a couple people click through and purchase it, which is pretty cool. So hope you're enjoying it. If you did, and I want to tell you, if you want to see more information, watch the video, check out my website, Okie Smoking.com slash once for all. That's O-K-I-E-S-M-O-K-I-N dot com slash once for all. Very simple. It'll take you straight to my page. I'll also link it in the show notes of this episode or the YouTube description so you will be able to uh go to it, read about it, watch the video, and yes, there's an affiliate link, and you can buy it if you want to and help support the Okie Smoking Podcast. But for the most part, I was absolutely impressed with it. It is very sharp, so just be careful. Alright, let's get to what I've been waiting for. Our top five videos. I said that wrong. Our top five audios. These are from our podcast audio version, and let's just see. We'll start at number five. And the number five, we've had actually fifty-two episodes recorded. We've had some bonus episodes and things like that, but we're officially calling this episode 47, and none of the bonus episodes made a uh made a top five. I have to remember what some of these are. Um number five, check it out, was just a few weeks ago. Grilling Wisdom with Doug from Griddle Cook Eat and more. Uh people are really flocking uh to that one. So uh very interested to uh hear what he says. And uh an excellent guest I had on the show. So uh you're at number five, Doug. Number four, the number four uh audio podcast of all time, spice it up exploring bold flavors. So I do talk a lot about spices, uh jalapenos, how to make chicken spicier, whether I'm cooking sausage or eggs, uh burgers or fish, you know, put a little Tabasco on it. Give it a kick. So if you're interested in that, check that out, Spice It Up Exploring Bold Flavors. And of course, I didn't put what episode number they are, but you can scroll through and find them. The ultimate outdoor cooking debate, smokers, grills, and griddles. And what I've found is on this podcast, when I mentioned brisket, uh, when I mentioned uh outdoor smokers, grills, debates, things like that, they do really well. Um this is one that me and Dolores talked about and we were discussing, you know, what's better on a smoker and what's better on a grill. Or what is is better on a griddle. And as she had mentioned this, uh couple years ago she would have said she'd prefer a smoker on the pit boss, smoke it, a big, thick, juicy burger for hour and a half and then maybe sear it at the end, throw cheese on it. Excellent. Those are good. She's changed though. She's now says a burger goes on a griddle, and I don't I don't disagree. So uh why do you cook on a griddle? Steak, do you cook that on the griddle or do you cook it on the pit boss? That's our episode. That one was not very long ago, and people are still uh listening and downloading it on the podcast. The ultimate outdoor cooking debate, smokers, grills, and griddles. That came in at uh number three. Our number two video, and I mentioned this brisket brilliance and the Blackstone Griddle Awakening. You mentioned uh briskets, you mentioned Blackstone, you mentioned griddle, getting a lot of downloads. So that one uh was talking about a brisket that I had made and some other things we did on then on the Blackstone, so you might check that one out. And our number one uh podcast episode to date of all time is a really new episode, and I'm seeing that because I think people are we've gotten more subscribers on the podcast. People are watching the current episodes more than they are the past episodes because new new people are less likely to go bounce and just start listening to random episodes, and it's again a really new one from Philly cheese steak sausages to smash tacos cooking success stories. That's our number one all-time uh downloaded episode on the podcast. That's our top five. So thought I'd just share that with you. We are almost to 750 downloads on this podcast, and it is just going really, really well. So thank you all for dropping in and listening to the episodes. You can also find the video version uh on YouTube on the Oki Smoking Channel, and there'll be a playlist right there. Let me go ahead and see if there's any questions uh that I need to answer. And there's a brand new comment I hadn't actually seen yet from Annie Smoking Pot talking about. So I put a photo of our uh Dr. Pepper pork butt on there, and she said, Oh, I bet it is going to be delicious. It really was, so I'll be remaking that video. Thanks for that. Um, on our once for all meat slicer, um, someone said this looks super cool. I just wish you could fully disassemble the blades so you can sharpen them. And yes, that is a disadvantage. I don't know if there's any way to sharpen the blades uh with them all attached as they are, unless there's there may be some some way I'd have to I'll have to look and see if there's anything or they have anything for that. Um, so yeah, it is all in one great, awesome tool. Someone also also commented on that video. Smash burgers is where it's at with ground up steak, and that's what I'm saying. This is so simple, you could just go ahead and slice the steak and uh do it a few times, smash it up. You'll want to use a steak with very or fell relatively high fat content. Uh sirloin may be too lean. Um, so you know, you could still smash it, it may be more ground up. I did a couple of them, and some of them uh didn't stay quite as well as the first one that I did. And I did mess up. I was called out. Yeah, Ryan, sorry, man. I didn't show the crust. So maybe next time we'll get the uh money shot of the uh crust on that. I just went straight to the burger. Let's see what else we got. On griddle talk with Ryan from Flat Top Noob, the YouTube video, uh Bones Bruise Barbecue said, Ryan, the show. Gang has been getting some airtime on your podcast. I love it. Um, from an older video, uh, someone said that uh they have it's the breaking in my new pit boss pellet grill. I have that one. But next week, be sure and check out our episode with uh Deborah Erickson, and then uh we'll get Dolores back on as well soon. And uh thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you guys on the next episode for sure.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Thank you for listening to the Okie Smoking Podcast. Episodes drop every Monday. Don't forget to follow this podcast, or you might miss out on some delicious creations. You can also find us on our website, OkieSmoking.com, and on YouTube and other social media platforms. Until next time, keep firing up that grill.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

There's a brand new feature available on the Okie Smoking Podcast. And it involves you. That's right. Send me and Dolores a text. And it's never been easier. Simply scroll down to the show notes description and you'll see where it says Send John and Dolores a text message, click it, talk to us. You're probably using your phone anyway, so do it now. Can't wait to hear from you.

SPEAKER_05 31:52

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You're listening to a podcast right now. Driving, working out, walking the dog. If you're into podcasts, chances are you have something to say too. With rss.com, starting your own podcast is free and easy. Upload an episode and we distribute it to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and more. Track your listeners, see where they're from, and start earning from ads just like this. If you've been thinking about starting a podcast, this is your sign. Start your new podcast for free today at rss.com.