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Nosthula posted:I hope my posts about the electronic gizmo's didn't come across as implying that they were in any way necessary. I certainly did not intend for them to come across that way. Oh, not at all. I meant no offense, and I can certainly see how they can help. I guess I still feel like a newbie in a lot of ways, and I just wanted to reassure anyone who might feel a little overwhelmed. No worries! The journal is fun because if you are like me, you probably consume some quantity of beer or alcohol while cooking. This has lead to some pretty amusing (to me at least) entries in my journal. Like the time I fell asleep in a lawn chair while cooking, and woke up hours after the meat was done but still in the smoker. I believe the entry was along the lines of "way to go, rear end in a top hat! Note for next time: Less beer."
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Mar 14, 2012 19:09
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Flash Gordon Ramsay posted:I didn't expect a thread about smoking meat to contain so many graphs. I'd try smoking some meat myself, but my CCNA has expired. Don't worry. Just like every other current or former CCNA to CCIE consultant I work with, you should be able to call up TAC and have them walk you through the entire smoke. Oh, and for content, I'll be doing a pork butt this weekend. It should be pleasing to all, including Sir Mix A Lot. PainBreak fucked around with this message at 07:29 on Mar 15, 2012 |
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Mar 15, 2012 07:20
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Flying Fortress posted:The journal is fun because if you are like me, you probably consume some quantity of beer or alcohol while cooking. This has lead to some pretty amusing (to me at least) entries in my journal. Like the time I fell asleep in a lawn chair while cooking, and woke up hours after the meat was done but still in the smoker. I believe the entry was along the lines of "way to go, rear end in a top hat! Note for next time: Less beer." I need to amend my post about only needing wood and meat for slow smoking food. Alcohol in some form or another is also required.
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Mar 15, 2012 13:55
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Ah, the new smoking thread. My Bradley has been sleeping for the most part since Thanksgiving. I did 3 chickens about 3 weeks ago to feed a small group of family coming in for the day, but that's about it. But Thanksgiving raised the bar for me. Alongside the turkey which we just roasted, I brined and smoked a duck, then tightened the skin up on a rocket hot grill. It was so good I couldn't believe I'd made it. I'm debating my next batch of sausage. I have plenty of andouille in the freezer, but itching to try something new. Lingucia perhaps...
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Mar 15, 2012 16:15
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Hoozah, I love smoking meat! Unfortunately, I'm not fancy enough to own a green egg or a weber smoker. I just smoke with my trusty 22 inch weber kettle grill! I smoked a pork shoulder a few weeks ago that was 10 pounds on it. I used the wrap in foil method which drop down the time to cook it to about 9 hours and took it off at 195 degrees. I'll post pictures of it later tonight! It turned out pretty good but the again it is pork shoulder. I also smoked some pork ribs and beef ribs. I've never smoked beef ribs before but they turned out really tasty. I took them off when they drew up on the bone like an inch. I would definitely smoke them again. I don't have pictures of the beef or pork ribs other than right after I rubbed them a bit and wrapped them in syran wrap. I'll also post pics of my lame grill set up if anyone is interested. I had planned on smoking this weekend but the craving for homemade pizza took over.
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Mar 15, 2012 22:42
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ObesePriest posted:Hoozah, I love smoking meat! Unfortunately, I'm not fancy enough to own a green egg or a weber smoker. I just smoke with my trusty 22 inch weber kettle grill! There are many paths to bbq goodness. No shame in rocking a Weber kettle. Turns out I may have a completely free weekend on my hands. I also happen to have 11 lbs of bone-in pork loin roast goodness in the freezer. Methinks I should have some folks over for some bbq and hoops. I'll make ragesaq bring the beer. Whee!
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Mar 16, 2012 01:07
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Naked pork shoulder! This is what it looked liked after taking it out of the foil. I accidentally chipped the top part off.  GET OUTTA HERE BONE! No one likes you!  Shredded crappily woo...  beef and pork ribs!  sorry for the crappy cell phone pictures. edit: Fixed links ObesePriest fucked around with this message at 16:17 on Mar 19, 2012 |
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Mar 16, 2012 04:31
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Can I ask for some tips on slow smoking in a weber kettle? Ive got a weber smokey mountain, but I live in an apartment and cleaning it out on the balcony is a massive pain...cleaning the kettle is much more tolerable.
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Mar 16, 2012 12:55
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yeah sure! you got any specific questions that need answering? I'll post a small write up when I get back from work/during work/later tonight.
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Mar 16, 2012 13:53
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Put a 9 pound butt on last night around 11pm. When I left for work it was at about 170. Wife is keeping an eye on it for me. This one is cooking a bit faster than the last few. I was planning on having it done around 4 but its looking like its going to be done a bit earlier. I took a bunch of pictures but left the camera at home. I'll try to post them tonight but most likely they will be tomorrow because i'm throwing a birthday party at my house for my dad tonight. Everyone get something on your smokers this weekend!
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Mar 16, 2012 15:17
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Can someone recommend a thermometer to me? I've gone through three ikea probes. I need one that will survive a 12 hour smoke. I mean one for in the meat, not for the air temp.
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Mar 17, 2012 15:31
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Ron Jeremy posted:Can someone recommend a thermometer to me? I've gone through three ikea probes. I need one that will survive a 12 hour smoke. I use this: http://www.amazon.com/Maverick-Industries-ET-73-RediChek-Thermometer/dp/B0000DIU49/ It takes care of both, and is relatively cheap.
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Mar 17, 2012 21:56
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Ron Jeremy posted:Can someone recommend a thermometer to me? I've gone through three ikea probes. I need one that will survive a 12 hour smoke. Look for some of the wireless probe offering on Amazon under the brand Oregon Scientific. They're rebranded as Weber and any number of other brands for retail vending. The two I own are Webers, but the OS stuff is the same exact thing. I've been running a pair of wireless single probe models for what... 8 years now? Pretty reliable. Also, consider only spot checking the temps during the first 8 hours, then turn the thermometer on full for the last 4? This, unless you're checking for certain target and gating temps through the smoke, in which I totally understand having it turned on constantly. Regardless, I've ran those OS probes for 12 hours straight before, no problem.
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Mar 18, 2012 23:41
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Ron Jeremy posted:Can someone recommend a thermometer to me? I've gone through three ikea probes. I need one that will survive a 12 hour smoke. I've had really good luck with this one so far. Works great in meat, but lately I have been using it to read the air temp on my weber kettle and it is fantastic at that as well. http://www.amazon.com/OXO-Grips-Digital-Leave-Thermometer/dp/B002U1RNIO As promised here is the chicken I smoked this weekend, well late last night. It was on for 4.5 hours according to my phone. Finished up around 1030pm so I didn't get a chance to taste any. Thankfully, lunch is in an hour and thirty minutes  
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Mar 19, 2012 15:36
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Efresh posted:Can I ask for some tips on slow smoking in a weber kettle? Ive got a weber smokey mountain, but I live in an apartment and cleaning it out on the balcony is a massive pain...cleaning the kettle is much more tolerable. Kettle smoking is pretty easy its not really all that different from smoking in a smoker in terms of drip pans moisture blah blah. Mainly the only hard part is maintaining the temperature. Thats where I use the minion method that seems pretty common in smokers and can be used in a kettle as well! However! because you have to use indirect method of heating in a Kettle grill you cant just fill up your coal grate with 2000000 briquets/lumps and go for a 2000 hour burn. You need to bank all your coals to one side. You could do some of each side and put your meat in the middle for an less efficient and inferior burn.. So another problem comes from getting a good pile going in the grill since theres so much area. So you can put two bricks or something in your grate and pile them up better. Like so.  Theres usually a lot more coals inside those bricks. I usually start with 54 unlit briquets and then I light 14 briquets and spread them evenly on top of those 54 unlit ones. Wait a bit and probably close your vents 50% at the beginning. Its way easier to bring up your temperature than lower it. On a cold day I got about a 4 hour burn with very generic charcoal. ALso put wood chunks and stuff between the bed of charcoal and some on top once you put your lit coals on. After the coals begin to burn out. You gotta lift the grate off and redo the process. If you can wrap the meat in foil at this point if you'd like to power through the stall and the meat won't lose as much heat. Edit: That chicken looks delicious ObesePriest fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Mar 19, 2012 |
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Mar 19, 2012 17:02
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Alleric posted:Regardless, I've ran those OS probes for 12 hours straight before, no problem. Seconding Oregon Scientific. I have the wireless with remote and it's seriously convenient, especially for winter BBQ.
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Mar 19, 2012 20:03
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ObesePriest posted:Heaps of great advice Cheers, that tip with the brick is especially good. How do you stop the meat say a pork butt or brisket from burning on the side nearest the fire? Also, do you put a water pan in there anywhere for a long cook?
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Mar 20, 2012 10:54
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Efresh posted:Cheers, that tip with the brick is especially good. How do you stop the meat say a pork butt or brisket from burning on the side nearest the fire? Also, do you put a water pan in there anywhere for a long cook? If you keep it far enough away, it shouldn't be a problem. Another option is to get a steel or aluminum sheet and shape a firewall with it with some holes for the smoke to pass. Or just stack some more bricks. The lid vent should be on the meat side. If you keep having problems, you may have to flip the thing you're smoking a few times during the cook. Lots of people use water pans with kettles. Just put a aluminum pan with water on the charcoal grate underneath the meat side. Mach420 fucked around with this message at 11:23 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 11:11
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Yeah basically everything that Mach420 said. But it depends how small your kettle is. With a 22.5 inch kettle you shouldn't have any problems fitting a pork shoulder or brisket on. If you're low on space in your kettle then yeah I would suggest the meat rotating. Or maybe the smoke screen door but I have no experience with that. Yeah I put a water pan underneath the meat preferably warm water. You can also put one over the coals for a bit more moisture control but I'm not entirely sure how much it helps. Oh also yeah as Mach420 said the kid vent goes over the meat and always leave it fully open. ObesePriest fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Mar 20, 2012 |
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Mar 20, 2012 15:54
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Thanks guys...it's shame not to use this weber smokey mountain but cleaning the water pan and charcoal are highly inconvenient on the 7th floor. I will try doing some pulled pork in the kettle next time and see how it goes.
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Mar 20, 2012 21:23
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Efresh posted:Thanks guys...it's shame not to use this weber smokey mountain but cleaning the water pan and charcoal are highly inconvenient on the 7th floor. I will try doing some pulled pork in the kettle next time and see how it goes. Re: the WSM, you can foil the water pan, or do what some have done and go without the water pan, subbing sand or a big foiled terra cotta plate for heat regulation. A big 22 kettle is perfectly fine for a shoulder or chicken. The WSM is definitely preferred for bulk smoking, bigger items, or things that take a long time, since you can almost just set and forget it and have it go for half a day on that big shoulder or brisket.
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Mar 20, 2012 22:21
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Mach420 posted:Re: the WSM, you can foil the water pan, or do what some have done and go without the water pan, subbing sand or a big foiled terra cotta plate for heat regulation. A big 22 kettle is perfectly fine for a shoulder or chicken. The WSM is definitely preferred for bulk smoking, bigger items, or things that take a long time, since you can almost just set and forget it and have it go for half a day on that big shoulder or brisket. you absolutely should be double foiling the water pan. as for the charcoal, i don't see how cleaning the ash from the grill would be any easier than from the smoker.
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Mar 20, 2012 23:08
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Stringent posted:you absolutely should be double foiling the water pan. It's not just the ash. Pulling the smoker apart means I need to lay towels or paper over the balcony to keep from getting soot/grease on the tiles. With the kettle I can hook everything on the lip of the kettle and just sweep up any ash that spills during clean up.
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Mar 21, 2012 01:22
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niss posted:As promised here is the chicken I smoked this weekend, well late last night. It was on for 4.5 hours according to my phone. Finished up around 1030pm so I didn't get a chance to taste any. Thankfully, lunch is in an hour and thirty minutes I'm catering a wedding for about 60 people this weekend. The bride and groom said the only gift they wanted from me was for me to make 'em some smoked meat for their wedding guests. Pulled pork, spare ribs and brisket are on the menu. I'll be sure and post some pics.
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Mar 21, 2012 05:41
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Stringent posted:you absolutely should be double foiling the water pan. help me out here..what does double foiling the water pan do exactly? Also..are you filling it with water? Or empty?
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Mar 21, 2012 05:49
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agentseven posted:This looks great, care to give us some insights into your method here? Chicken is the final frontier for me, I've pretty much conquered everything else to my satisfaction. Chicken is one of the easiest things to "smoke", because it doesn't require you to break down any connective tissue, making it a matter of taking it up to 160F. 350F is a great temperature at which to smoke chicken, and at that heat, you should end up with somewhat crispy skin. If you can go higher toward the end, then by all means, do. I just finished pulling 10lbs of pork butt... Hopefully my wife wants to eat BBQ for the next two weeks.
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Mar 21, 2012 08:05
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I am a man. This is my smoker. PainBreak posted:Chicken is one of the easiest things to "smoke", because it doesn't require you to break down any connective tissue, making it a matter of taking it up to 160F. 350F is a great temperature at which to smoke chicken, and at that heat, you should end up with somewhat crispy skin. If you can go higher toward the end, then by all means, do. I haven't ventured into chickens, what with my recent focus on brisket and pork ribs (I'm from Texas, in case the brisket didn't tip you off). However, a competition I'm in in May has a half chicken as one of the categories, so I'm going to give it the ol' college try on Saturday. As you said, slow cooking isn't really needed here, so I may just cook it closer to the firebox so that the smoke flavor gets in but it cooks within an hour or so. Here's a few shots of a competition I did last year where I had 37 pork tenderloins (easiest thing in the world to cook) going at once:  And a later event with briskets (wrapped in foil) and some ribs: 
Beef Of Ages fucked around with this message at 20:23 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 20:14
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agentseven posted:This looks great, care to give us some insights into your method here? Chicken is the final frontier for me, I've pretty much conquered everything else to my satisfaction. I made this over the weekend on my WSM. It was a huge hit with my guests and extremely low-maintenance, so I was actually able to hang out instead of prod at the grill. Not a single bite of leftovers remained. The uniform result would be great for something like a wedding. The rub is a standard brown sugar, cayenne, garlic powder, S&P The sauce is equal parts vinegar, sugar, ketchup with maple syrup, honey, and blackberries. I kind of go by taste versus measurement, but I don't think it's possible to really gently caress it up unless you intentionally triple the vinegar or something. PCJ-600 fucked around with this message at 21:25 on Mar 21, 2012 |
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Mar 21, 2012 21:22
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MasterControl posted:help me out here..what does double foiling the water pan do exactly? Also..are you filling it with water? Or empty? Double foiling prevents any spills onto the pan itself when you take the top layer off. I only use water during the summer, but ymmv.
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Mar 21, 2012 23:22
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My first chunk of bacon should be done curing tomorrow. I knida want to smoke it in my grill. It is big enough to hot smoke and if I rig up a soldering iron deal I could cold smoke it I bet. My concern is that it is a cheap one and not at all air tight. Am I going to drive myself crazy trying this? The rational part of me says to oven roast it and see how it goes and then mess with smoking next time, but the lure of smoke is strong.
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Mar 22, 2012 01:14
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PXJ800 posted:I made this over the weekend on my WSM. It was a huge hit with my guests and extremely low-maintenance, so I was actually able to hang out instead of prod at the grill. Not a single bite of leftovers remained. The uniform result would be great for something like a wedding. I remember seeing Myron lose his poo poo on that horrible BBQ show when the young guy made his chicken in the cupcake pan. I will definitely give this a go.
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Mar 22, 2012 04:54
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agentseven posted:This looks great, care to give us some insights into your method here? Chicken is the final frontier for me, I've pretty much conquered everything else to my satisfaction. I do a light coating of the chicken in olive oil then I cover in whatever spices I feel like putting on. Usually Cajun seasoning, chili powder, garlic power, pepper. I do both sides of the chicken. That chicken was one on my weber and it came out just as good as my BGE, I just had to watch the temps a bit closer but the weber is so much easier to add wood chucks mid cook. The grill was about 250-275 for the entirety of the cook. I pulled the chicken when it hit 165 and that was mainly cause I wanted to get to bed. I am much happier with the end product if I let the internal get to around 180-185. The bones just come out so much cleaner and the chicken is still super moist even at that high an internal. The only thing is the skin will be a bit soft, but that doesn't bother me as I don't eat the skin anyways, I just peel it off. You could pull the chicken and the crank the grill up and put the chicken on a direct heat for a bit to crisp it up. As far as setting up my weber for chicken I always use indirect and use a log of smoke wood to basically build a drat for the coals. Similiar to using bricks, but the wood the doubles as a charcoal drat and smoke generator. I strictly use natural lump charcoal as well as I like the way it burns so much better than briquettes. I mainly stick to thighs or leg quarters when I do chicken and get pretty much flawless results this way.
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Mar 22, 2012 07:53
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Well, now I've gone and done it. Two pork shoulders and a brisket are smoking away in this bad boy right now: 40" Masterbuilt Electric Smoker, with RF remote control, and a glass window, so I can see the meat smoking away. Rather than use chips that don't really properly combust unless you want to add a dozen at a time, every 30 minutes, I'm using the "A-MAZE-N Pellet Smoker." The combination of the MES and the pellet smoker is pretty ridiculous. It's been holding steady at 225F for 8 hours, and the pellets are right about halfway done. Thin blue smoke, and I can hang out in the office, waiting for my other thermometer's alarm to go off, letting me know that my brisket hit 200F. Here's the pellet smoker:  Everyone should have one. I'll be smoking some cheese in the next few days, which would be pretty much impossible without it.
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Mar 23, 2012 06:47
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PainBreak posted:I'm using the "A-MAZE-N Pellet Smoker." Those things look pretty cool. I want one for smoking cheeses and fish.
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Mar 23, 2012 07:13
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While I love the idea of trouble free smoking I feel that half the fun is fussing with it, chopping wood, and hanging out tending the smoker. I had a friend when I was younger who was Quebecois and his dad had this ghetto as gently caress salmon smoker in the back yard and we would spend days back there drinking beer and smoking all sorts of weird poo poo. It didn't allways work out perfectly but it was always an awesome way to spend a day.
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Mar 23, 2012 07:49
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A buddy of mine has one of those electric smokers, and it makes some drat good food. I like building a fire and tending it for a while because the smoke flavor is decidedly different, but both are good in my estimation. It's all a matter of what you like.
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Mar 23, 2012 14:08
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I bought the older model of that masterbuilt last summer. Basically the exact same smoker minus the window in the door. I've built and used offsets and gravity fed smokers for years but that little thing is so simple, I love it. You don't get a smoke ring on a brisket with it but other than that, no complaints at all. Best of all, everything inside of it will fit in the dishwasher.
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Mar 23, 2012 14:57
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bunnielab posted:While I love the idea of trouble free smoking I feel that half the fun is fussing with it, chopping wood, and hanging out tending the smoker. This right here is exactly what I love about smoking meat. I love reserving a day to just chill in the back yard, farting around with my UDS, drinking beer, reading a book... The whole process forces me to relax (which is something I'm not always good at). No going crazy all afternoon running errands or working on the house; just me and the smoker. My wife gives me a pass because the end result is so delicious. But hey, different strokes and all that.
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Mar 23, 2012 15:40
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PainBreak posted:Here's the pellet smoker: You can smoke cheese on a Big Green Egg: Cold Smoking Cheese I'm pretty sure this technique will work for most smokers as well.
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Mar 23, 2012 17:32
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bunnielab posted:and we would spend days back there drinking beer and smoking all sorts of weird poo poo. It didn't allways work out perfectly but it was always an awesome way to spend a day. This sir, is a bbq freak's mission statement.
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Mar 25, 2012 00:22
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