Trailblazer Grilling Notes: Filet Mignon (Mignon Monday) - 6 July 2020

Sscottfitz · Jul 6, 2020

So this is a typical weekday grill for us, food for 2x retirees who want to eat early, but still want a good smokey tasting grilled dinner. This is exactly why we chose the Rec Tec Trailblazer as our first pellet grill! Total time of effort (not including the pondering of what we were going to eat this evening......) was ~60 min. With our BGE it would have easily been a 2+ hour level of effort.

Grill Location: Hot Springs Village, AR.; 34 37 60.0N 92 54 55.4W - late afternoon, so grill totally exposed to late afternoon sun. (Note: Grill Gazebo is on order, should be here later in the week…..)
Weather at time of Grill: July in Arkansas…..yep, it’s hot outside, although we may get some pop up storms this evening...Temp ~91F, Humidity ~56%
Total Grill Time: 37 Min
Total Event Time: ~60 Min Includes filet rub & pre grill meat rest (room temp).
Grill Start to Target Temp 450F: 106 to 450 ~16 min
Grill Plates: Yes
Pellets Used: Rec Tec Ultimate Blend

Meat & Meat Prep
- Meat: 2 x Petite Filet Mignon Steaks
- Total Meat Prep Time: ~10 min, Grillmaster Cowboy Rub
- Meat on at 16:52 CDT, at ~82F
- Grill Plates for grill marks, but next time might just use a smaller cast iron skillet - me thinks grill marks make for great pictures, but really don't impact taste much.....

Sides:
- Using Cast Iron Skillet along side Grill Plates for Asparagus cook.
- Baked potato, used in house oven

Misc Grill Observations - all times are CDT

On the grill 16:52
Filet Target Temps: Deb: ~126 F Med Rare Steve: ~152F Med Well (I like my meat DEAD!) - targets achieved, had to keep the Med Well on ~120 sec. more...
Highest Grill temps used to date, first temps over 350F, grill had NO problems at these temps, and for this task, 426=5 seemed to be about right
Used dual temp probes, one per filet given the desired deltas between consumers.....

General Comments:

Griiler’s support tool of choice: Forty Creek Barrel Select Canadian Whisky - very smooth and quite tasty!
Total level of effort compared to similar cook on BGE, ~25% (grill prep, waiting for temps, etc.)
Lesson learned, when using temp probes, flip flop cast iron skillet with grill plates to mitigate probe wire interference issues (see picture, it was a "duh moment".....)
I love this grill!