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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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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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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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Fired up the Bradley yesterday to attempt a repeat of last Thanksgiving's epic: smoked duck. Brined overnight in salt, sugar, apple juice, thyme, rosemary, sage, black pepper. Then went into the smoker for ~3 hours at 300, then to the oven at 400 to bring it up the last 20 degrees or so and tighten the skin. Saute of kale and some puree of roasted parsnips and celery root... and man, that's dinner.
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Mar 26, 2012 15:47
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Mackieman posted:Does your duck come out greasy? Duck has a lot of fat in it in general, but a friend of mine smoked two ducks during the big cookoff we had in my back yard last year and while the meat was delicious, it was incredibly greasy. I'm not familiar enough with duck to know if that's just how it is or if there is some other way to handle it. Greasy... no. I mean, it's duck, so there's more inherent fat going on in the meat in general, but it's not greasy. Here's the complete breakdown of Duck L'smoke as it happens at my house: 1. Brine duck overnight. 2. Put duck in smoker at 275-300 (tune temps as necessary so you hit 140 about 40 minutes before you want to eat. For the love of all that's holy use a dedicated drip pan. 2.a. Hang the duck if you can. This will let some of the fat and excess brine out. If you can't, it's no biggie, because... 3. When you hit 140 at the breast, evacuate the duck from the smoker to either a. a grill (BRING THE DRIP PAN HOLY CRAP FIRE FIRE FIRE) or b. your oven at like 400 degrees (did I mentiont he drip pan?). Depending on how long step 2 takes... a lot of fat will actually render out, but in step 3 it will come out in volumes. The two times we've done this the duck comes out of the smoker a beautiful mohogany color. Just stunning. 20-30 minutes on the grill or in the oven and the skin tightens and shines up. Let it rest a couple of minutes while you get the rest of dinner situated, and carve up as you like. With this method I think the final fat presence on the breast was 1/8th of an inch? Thin, just enough to leave on with the attached skin when doing cross slices. Makes a killer presentation. Thighs and legs were just normal dark meat, only a little richer. Last night I took what was left of the meat, chunked it up, tossed it in olive oil with chopped carrots, bell pepper, onion and stuck it in the oven for 15 minutes at 425. Browned some butter as that finished up and tossed all of it with penne and parmasan. It was like Thanksgiving pasta and it was awesome. edit: I have read of individuals scoring the breasts prior to cooking them just in general. Break the water/fat barrier, let more of the fat render out during cooking. I would presume one could also do this prior to the duck going in the smoker, but if you can keep from doing it... one whole, unmolested, dark, brown, shiny-skinned smoked duck is really a sight to behold. Oh and if you can keep from burning the rendered fat up? Smoked duck fat roast potatoes... smoked duck fat grilled asparagus... smoked duck fat cut into ground beef for hamburgers... Alleric fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Mar 28, 2012 |
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Mar 28, 2012 15:59
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Mackieman posted:Thanks for the details and thoughts. That dark smoked color on the skin was certainly achieved, but there was little done other than seasoning before it went on the smoker, so I think a lot of the fat was not able to be rendered out. Enhancing flavor I'm sure, but good lord it made a mess while cutting into it. No problemo. As for brining vs cooking... I don't get the contrast of those things. They're not competing.  If it's pork, fish or a bird... I brine it before it ever sees the smoker. Period. Larger cuts like full shoulders see 24 hours in brine, same with turkey. Smaller birds see 4-8 hours, fish see maybe an hour. And what goes into said brines can vary wildly. The brine is seasoning, not cooking. I learned to love brining in my 10+ years of using an offset. I only have an electric now because when we moved cross country, there was no way in hell I was going to put a veteran-level, heavily seasoned cast iron smoker on the truck with the rest of our stuff. The smell... it moves.
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Mar 29, 2012 16:00
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PainBreak posted:Mid-Upper-Level: 40" MasterBuilt Electric Smoker + $50 AMNPS So years back when I moved and left my New Braunfels offset behind, I handed it off to my brother in law so he could learn the sweet science. This last Christmas he moved on as well, handing the offset off to a mutual friend to pass on the learning. His replacement was one of these. He loves it. When I bought my Bradley 3 years ago this didn't exist. The options have improved greatly and that model there is already earmarked as the replacement model if the Bradley ever takes a serious dive.
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Mar 30, 2012 01:57
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ObesePriest posted:Whats up overcooking buddy! I had a bit of a slow start due to my lack of planning blah blah. I put the birds on at 2 PM and then ended up going to church from 5:30-7 so a bit overcooked. Do you brine your birds at all? And yes, duck fat is liquid gold. Smoked duck is... well, words escape me. It's so good you feel like you're doing something wrong.
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Apr 2, 2012 15:56
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ObesePriest posted:I brined my chicken but I didn't brine my duck. The brine definitely helped a lot with the chicken in terms of flavor and moisture. I wanted the try duck without brining it at all to see how it went. I kind of figured that the high fat content in the duck would have kept it from getting quite as dry but seeing as I'm fairly sure I cooked it for too long most of that fat decided to drip away. Mind if I ask for your brine recipe? or at least your salt to water ratio? Here's where I ramble a bit. My baseline for brining is this: 1 gallon of water 1 cup of kosher salt 1 cup of sugar That's the salt and sweet level I go for, but I rarely, if ever, just do what I listed there. What's more important is to focus on that salinity and sweetness level, and augment as you like with adjuncts. For example, my standard issue brine for pork shoulder would consist of: 1 gallon water 1 cup of kosher salt 1 cup of brown sugar 1 double batch of my rub mix MINUS the salt and brown sugar that go into it. I've already got my salt and sugar where I want them, so I just augment with what would be left of my rub ingredients. On smoke day the shoulder comes out of the brine first thing and goes onto a rack with a half sheet pan under it to drain a bit and dry off. Then another double batch of rub goes on it for the crust, and away it goes into the smoker. The same basic thing applies for other rubs, but you can totally mess with things. You're just concerned with salt levels and sweet levels, and other flavors as needed. I consider these things all as valid sweet substitutions: white sugar brown sugar (all variants) muscavado sugar any other kind of freakin sugar maple syrup molasses fruit juice (but remember... it's already diluted in water, so use way more or reduce it down compound simple syrup augmented with spices (and perhaps citrus?) of your choice. That last one is a great way to reeeeeeeeally pull the oils out of your spices. I consider these things valid salt substitutions: soy sauce This list is a lot shorter because let's face it... you can't get more salty than salt. If you like the taste, use iodized. If you like sea salt, go for it. But frankly most boutique salts that might draw flavors from the trace minerals that are in them need their granular presentation on the surface of food to really shine. Putting them in a brine is kinda pointless to me. I riff on this all of the time. Last time I smoked trout, the filets saw light brown sugar and kosher salt brine for 1 hours. The salmon saw soy and dark brown sugar with a couple thin slices of ginger. The roasted turkey I did for Thanksgiving this past year saw light brown sugar and kosher salt double batch of brine with a quarter cup each of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme as well as four quarted onions, 1 lb of chunked carrots and a whole bunch of celery chunked up (including and espeically the leaves). Sometimes when I do chickens I use the same brine as I do on pork shoulder, but this same Thanksgiving last fall I ran into a brine suggested specifically for duck, and it's so drat tasty I've used it ever since on duck or chicken. http://www.wvtrophyhunters.com/smoked_duck.htm That brine... so simple, so very, very good. I've done two ducks on it and am pretty drat well sold that it's now my go-to duck brine. On chicken it flat out rocks as well and will be one of my two brines depending on if I want a dark, savory smoked chicken, or flat out sweet and heat bbq smoked chicken.
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Apr 3, 2012 03:49
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ObesePriest posted:Awesome write up. It answers a lot of questions that I wasn't sure on like mixing in rub and so forth. I have 2 questions though that if you would be so kind to answer I would be forever in your debt. For anything I brine, I don't actively rinse it post-brine. I do let it air dry for a bit, ergo the baking sheet with a rack to catch run-off. I will also pat dry as needed during this time to further dry the surface out. It's never going to be bone dry, but that's fine... the rub (if used) will stick all that much better. I've never had a problem generating a nice bark on shoulders using this methodology. The only time I've seen active rinsing is when a dry cure has been used. As for boiling brines. Normally I'm in a hurry, so water goes in pot, heat goes on high, sugar goes in, salt goes in, adjuncts go in. Stir until salt/sugar particulate dissolve. The key to this for speed is to only use like 1/8th of the water for the entire brine mass. Sure it's harder from a concentrate perspective to force that much salt/sugar into solution, but you've got heat on your side to force it in there, and then you've got 7/8ths of the brine mass chilled to cool it back off. If your sugar and salt are already liquid? This will go way fast. Feeling super lazy and/or have no need to heat your brine base, but using aromatics like herbs, onions, etc? Microwave. Give herbs 20-30 seconds, give onions, root veggies, etc about a minute. You just want to get things a little volatile so they give up the goods. Specifically for the turkey brine all the veggies and fresh herbs saw the microwave. Dried herbs saw me pinching them vigorously to open them up before going into the brine base. Heated brine base until salt/sugar dissolved, and by the time that was done the turkey was in a 5-gallon food safe bucket with a boatload of cold water and ice cubes waiting. Veggies went in, brine base went in, quick stir, lid on. Bucket then spent the night in my modified deep freeze I use for keeping things like this cold (or batches of beer at their happy temps).
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Apr 4, 2012 16:33
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MoosetheMooche posted:Anyone tried making their own smoker a la good eats or seen on this website: http://makeprojects.com/Project/Clay-Pot-Smoker/877/1 ? I'm a big fan of starting on offsets or water smokers if you have the means. If you like DIY projects or on a more constrained budget, go for the low-tech option and build one. My learning process on my old offset was pretty simple. I dunno what else to say in that regard really. If you want to go with the terracotta pot method, just make absolutely sure it's unglazed. Make absolutely sure. Now that I'm thinking about it, though... if you build a home-brew smoker, the components will be hard to repurpose if you decide it's not your thing. Smoke is a hell of a thing to get out of... things... like pourous pots, nooks, crannies, heating elements, your nose hairs (I'm totally not kidding), etc... I fear if you build one of these and move on from using it, the components will just get pitched. Back when I first got started, my offset was 150 bucks from Home Depot. That was over a decade ago. I've still seen options in that price range, or even less. Are they perfect? Nope. Will it get you rolling? Yep. I would also suggest craigslist, or even asking your friends. Purely anecdotal on my part but an amaaaazing amount of people who find out I smoke meats tell me "oh hey... you know... my dad/mom/brother/sister/uncle/aunt/pet snake/whatever has one of those sitting in his back yard they never use..." At 100 bucks I would think you could totally find something to get you moving and making some amazing food. Unlike other forms of cooking the floor of "holy poo poo that's good" is very easy to get to in slow-smoking. Anything beyond that is just varying degrees of obsession.
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Apr 5, 2012 16:17
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Cyborganizer posted:As someone who has never done any smoking before, I'm interested in trying. I have a built-in grill in my backyard that has a "smoker tray" for wood chips and I was wondering if that would be adequate for proper smoking? I couldn't find a pic that would give me a good idea of the layout down under the grill proper on that model, so I can only give you the standard issue advice, and you'll have to see how you can adapt your situation. Smoking is all about indirect heat. Just like smoking on, say a plain old Weber kettle grill, you'll want fire on one side and meat all the way over on the other. And then you'll want to try to set your vents up in such a way that you draw the heat and smoke over the meat. That's the basic principle. The trick though, from those pics, is how to actually vent things to do that. The rotisserie is going to leave two nice holes in the side, but once you close the lid on that grill... that's about it. You'd be using fairly low heat so I guess you could take something like tin foil and plug up one side, then use that side's burner and draw across the grill and out the other side. I dunno how helpful this is, and I apologize that I can't be more specific, but not being able to see down inside that grill leaves me a bit blind here. On a totally unrelated note, a few weeks ago while running into K-mart to look for something I saw these sitting on the shelf in seasonal, and I KNOW they weren't marked for 170: http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_028W003845557000P?prdNo=5&blockNo=5&blockType=G5 Is it tiny? Yep. Will it feed millions? Nope. Will it learn you in the ways? Yeppers. There's a bigger one for like 20 bucks more: http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_028W025810120001P?prdNo=2&blockNo=2&blockType=G2 Oh hey, they have a water smoker for like 60 bucks as well: http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_07160082000P?prdNo=3&blockNo=3&blockType=G3 I've never ever ever used a water smoker though, so I cannot speak to how well this thing might work. Well goddamn, check this out. Never seen one of these. Looks right up your alley, Cyborganizer: http://www.kmart.com/shc/s/p_10151_10104_07142940000P?prdNo=10&blockNo=10&blockType=G10
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Apr 6, 2012 16:13
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MoosetheMooche posted:Thanks for the tips everyone. I already have a propane BBQ so I`m not looking for a combination grill/smoker. The more I think about it the more I'm not so sure about building my own, either. What's the advantage of a vertical smoker like the Brinkmann Smoke n Grill compared to an offset? Someone's selling one of these offset smoker's http://homehardware.ca/en/rec/index...920?Ntt=Smokers in my area for half price which seems like a good deal. The last question you posed, that of coals. Fire goes in the tinder box, aka the offset box. No fire should be built in the cooking chamber. Doing so would switch you from smoking to grilling, frankly. Upside of an offset is that means you can indeed use it as a big rear end grill. I've done this with much success. Next, electric smokers. Are they JUST for people that want no fuss at all? Dunno. I think it's safe to say that the people who indeed want as little of fuss as possible should totally be looking at an electric. You will indeed bypass a lot of fidgeting, but you'll also bypass a lot of learning of the old school way of things. Call that good or bad. It just is. As for them not making as good of a product... I can't say that. I just can't. There are purists who can, but I can respect how anybody gets to what they like. I made food I was damned proud of on an offset for years, and can still walk up to one and make it sing. But... I made a serious, conscious lifestyle change a couple years back, and though it pained me to step away from the more manual way, I went electric. I lost my guilt about that pretty much the first time I plopped a shoulder in it, loaded the pucks up, set the heat, smoker time, heat time, and walked off. It's so brutally clinical... but even more brutally simple. And I've made things in it that make eyes roll back in heads. It is a 100% different process, but it's still bbq when it's all said and done. And to be brutally honest, the level of control I have in it allows me to really do some delicate work with fish that I couldn't do anywhere as easily in my offset. And when it's cold outside, since I can turn on the smoke WITHOUT turning on the heat... I can do cheese and other things that need to stay chilly. It's just two different styles. And water smokers are a third that I've never used. It's all just launch points towards the same goal: kick rear end food. You'll get there any way you go about it. Just different ways of playing the same game. Anyway... I understand your trepidation. There's initial cash investment, time investment, and no basis for confidence that you'll make something you even like. So my question I suppose is what is it you want to make? What is it you want out of smoking meats? Throw that out there and I'm sure we can get you headed down the path in as comfortable a way as we can muster. Smoking meats isn't meant to be a source of concern or stress. Quite the contrary. Just for the record, I got into this because where I grew up in mid-Missouri... I couldn't source good andouille sausage to save my life (ordering from places on lord internet didn't exist back then). So I hunted down a recipe, bought a smoker... and made it myself. That, and my mother and sister's love of smoked salmon were the motivation. I pretty much never looked back. It is soooooo ridiculously simple to make good food in a smoker, even a leaky old offset. Will you be rockin sox in Memphis by this May? Nope. Niether will I. But you get this smoking thing down? Your friends and family will loooooove you.
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Apr 7, 2012 03:13
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Paul Coffey posted:Does any one know any good "mexican" smoker recipes? I have to cook something for a May 5 bbq & usually would make cochinita pibil in a slow cooker but that's out. I don't think that would be the same on the smoker... is there anything Mexican that's traditionally smoked? When it comes to actual factual authentic mexican cooking, I really only know sonoran and baja styles reasonably well, and the only low and slow methods I'm aware of are stewing and braising techniques. All off the "apply some form of fire to meat" things I know of are high heat grill methodologies. But yes, putting small bits of smoked pork in pretty much anything rules.
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Apr 11, 2012 16:28
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Vegetable Melange posted:While I know this is the smoking thread, I was wondering if anyone had experience pit smoking a piglet. I was wondering how much lump charcoal and how long to cook it by pound, specifically. I do have that experience, but not directly since my childhood or low-teen age. My fully redneck uncle used to hold a poker tournament once or twice a year on a Friday night that turned around into a massive pig feast the next day. His methodology: Use a backhoe and dig a 6 foot hole in the ground big enough for a full adult pig. Build a fire in said hole Friday morning and let it rage. Feed it slowly and let it die down as the day goes, switching from greener woods to drier and more flavorful woods (he had a lot of apple and hickory on his farm). Start poker game around 6pm. Drink heavily and play poker all night. Around midnight to 2am, drag poker party out in a drunken stupor to take the butchered pig, roll it up in burlap, soak the whole thing in whatever beer is left, and lower it into the now crazy-smoldering pit. Cover pit with huge metal plate. Next day around 3pm we'd pull the metal plate off, pull the pig out and it'd be totally falling apart. That poo poo was good.
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Apr 13, 2012 15:41
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Vegetable Melange posted:I suupose I should specify that it'll be in a backyard in Brooklyn. The plan is either to build a cinderblock oven or suspend a shopping cart over the firepit on said blocks. Urban rednecks, baby. If you want crazy insulation, cinder block oven framing filled solid with sand. Talk about heat retention.
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Apr 14, 2012 15:29
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ObesePriest posted:Anyone smoking anything this weekend? I just put on a few trouts! Work's been silly crazy for me for weeks now, and will continue to be so. The only thing I have scheduled to hit the smoker is a 12 lb bone-in pork rib roast on May 12th. I haven't done one of these in years, so looking forward to it.
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Apr 16, 2012 15:33
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Jo3sh posted:I've been smoking things in Brinkmann water smokers for a few years now. I want to step up a level and take ribs and pulled pork to the next level. For true true true set-and-forget, you'll want electric. To me, at the moment, that's Bradley and Masterbuilt. I own bradley, brother-in-law runs a Masterbuilt since this past december when he made the switch from an offset. Nothing says you couldn't build your own electric as well. People have totally done it (in fact one of the biggest first-mods of a Bradley is to wire in a second heating element, but honestly I think those people just open the door too drat much. ).
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Apr 23, 2012 15:57
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Jo3sh posted:Cool, thanks for the input. I will look into those two brands and see what grabs me. A friend had an electric Brinkmann and he said it burned out elements on a pretty aggressive schedule; obviously, the cheap smokers are built to a different standard, but how has element life been for you and your BIL? I've had my electric for 3 years, and left my offset to my BIL in another state when we moved. I've had only one maintenance issue in my time with the Bradley, and that's opening up the puck feeder and cleaning it. Moisture + wood chips = gunked up feeder paths once a year. It's no big thing at all. The feeder literally hangs off of the side of the main chamber so just pop it off, brush everything out, make sure the feeder mechanism can move freely, and done. No element issues to speak of.
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Apr 24, 2012 15:52
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AxeBreaker posted:Bradley smoke generators don't generate enough heat to hot smoke, right/ I'm thinking the "turn anything into a smokehouse" product, not the propane/electric heater with the big silver cover. In a Bradley, there are two elements: smoke element, heat element. Each does a different thing. The smoke element turns on or off with the smoke generator and parks a small 3-4 inch hot plate at the end of the puck feed at a specific temperature tuned to do nothing but generate smoke. The heating element is much larger and in the bottom rear of the cabinet. This is tied to a thermostat that you can set to up to 320 degrees. An important thing I learned very quickly when I did my first smoke on the Bradley... it's a much, much different animal than an offset. The heat is very even, very constant, very tight... which feels pretty much like "very less". Smokes can take much longer on an electric with thick cuts like shoulder. My BIL was visiting last year and did ribs in it no problemo (I usually don't do ribs). Now that I think about it, pretty sure those ribs were what turned him to the dark side of electrics. Anyway, if you hop up into the digital models the controls for the smoke and heat are totally disparate. You can heat without smoke, you can smoke without heat. This means in the winter time you can do neat things like cold cure fishes, or perhaps cheese. Or say you have an outside cooking source and just want to turn it into a smoker? http://www.bradleysmoker.com/product/bradley-smoke-generator/ and maybe http://www.bradleysmoker.com/product/cold-smoke-adaptor/
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Apr 25, 2012 16:09
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PainBreak posted:Yes, I have this exact setup, and I recommend that you pat yourself on the back for your awesome purchasing decision. And to clean your grills and drip trays now and then (just now and then), put them all in a big black heavy duty trash bag and flood the whole inside with oven cleaner. Close bag, and put in another big black heavy duty trash bag. Lay it in the sun for a couple hours and the hose the pieces off as you pull them out. Bonus if you use enviro-friendly oven cleaner. Some people use their dish washer, but boy howdy I don't need my dish washer smelling like smoke for a week after.
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Apr 26, 2012 16:13
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Senior Funkenstien posted:How do you guys recommend I prep a pork butt. I didn't see anything posted earlier about the particulars. I could swear I posted this recently, but maybe not. Work's been hellish lately, and I've been forgetting my own name at times. Anyway, this is how I do pork shoulder. 1. Make brine from 1 gallon of water, 1 cup kosher salt, 1 cup dark brown sugar/light brown sugar/molasses/whateveryoudig. 2. Add to said brine 2 full batches of your rub of choice MINUS whatever salt and sugar they call for. If you're using a purchased rub... just throw it in. For me this is usually about 2 cups of rub. 3. If you own a Jacqard, poke the poo poo out of the shoulder (you can find knock-offs that work perfectly well at Wal-Mart, Cabellas, Bass Pro, etc...) 4. Brine pork at least overnight, and up to 1 full day (I clock in at 24 hours in brine). It's now smoke day! It's now day before eat day! 5. Evacuate pork from brine and put it on a rack or something to drip and dry a bit while you get more rub made and get the smoker going. 6. Get more rub made. Get smoker going. 7. Try to dry off the surface of the pork as much as you can. Quite a bit of brine will have leaked out. 8. Rub up the pork. Mustard if you like (wife doesn't, and I don't care that much, so I never use it). 9. Smoke pork to 200F and hold it there as long as you can. Shoulder is a 2-day event for me. 24 hours in brine, 24 hours in the smoker. It sees smoke only for the first 4-6 hours in the smoker, then it's brought up to temp over the course of about 12 hours and then held there until serving time. Killer crust, and meat that just falls apart. It's a total pain in the rear end to get out of the smoker because you just touch it with tongs or spatula and it disintigrates. Beer, buns, slaw and eyes start rolling back in their heads. Pansies use sauce (I kid, I kid... do what you like).
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May 1, 2012 15:44
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vivisectvnv posted:Woah! i was at an art party at your house dude, in South City STL. I highly doubt someone else has that smoker. I believe you also served delicious meats at said party as well. Good times. Woah! Multiple south city folks in here? Well, I guess it is a low-and-slow bbq thread. I'm not there anymore, but north side of Holly Hills represent... or something. Thost picnic hams look glorious. Man, now I miss Kenricks.... and Pappy's. 
Alleric fucked around with this message at 17:54 on May 5, 2012 |
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May 5, 2012 15:43
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mindphlux posted:alright y'all, I need some seriously spot on and sage advice. Duck veteran here. Twice over. If you pull this off, prepare to be spoiled for life. The one I threw down on the table last Thanksgiving has become legend. The brine I use is here: http://www.wvtrophyhunters.com/smoked_duck.htm I just used their brine though. I ignored all of their butchering instructions. My duck brined whole, smoked whole, and was broken down to serve. The only prep work I would strongly recommend requires this: http://www.amazon.com/Jaccard-20034...ywords=jacquard You can find knock-offs of these things at Target, Wal-Mart, K-Mart or any shop that sells hunting/game supplies. I find them completely invaluable for prepping shoulders and birds. Small stabby holes. On big shoulders, it's to help the brine get in, on a duck... it's to help the fat get out. If you're getting a fresh duck, yay! Most places don't have them though. So chances are your duck is frozen, and there's no shame in that. Thaw it in the fridge for days ahead of time to bring it to a chilled state. Standard stuff. I base all my smokes off of serving time and plan accordingly. So for a dinner service duck, I do this: Pull chilled duck from fridge, unwrap it, pull out all of the gutsy stuff, butcher the neck off if you'd like (doing this will also help the duck drain, but it's not totally necessary). Prepare a batch of the brine. Poke the hell out of the duck breasts with the Jaccard. You can just go nuts with it, or you can do more patient organized patterns with it. Totally up to you. The functional point (ha) is to break that lipid/waterproof barrier in the breast. If you want to hit the thighs with the Jaccard a couple of times as well, go for it. Brine the duck overnight or as long as 24 hours. Next morning pull the duck out of the brine and put it out on some kind of a rack to drain a bit and dry out. Actively dry the skin a bit with a paper towel. While this is happening, go get your smoker prepped however you do it. Smoke bird. Now, you can do this a couple of ways. You can just do a straight up hot smoke and get things up to 300+ degrees (my Bradley will only do 320). You're still looking for standard duck temps in the breast meat, so get a probe in there and watch it if you can. Smoke on your choice of woods (I prefer pecan) until target temp is hit, then serve. Or you can live dangerously. You want that magical crispy skin? There be dragons here. Follow the smoking procedure as you will, but pull the bird 30-40 degrees shy of target temperature. Take bird AND THE DRIP PAN YOU BETTER BE USING OR BAD THINGS WILL HAPPEN SERIOUSLY GET A HUGE DRIP PAN and walk over to your grill. Tighten skin up on the grill (gas or charcoal doesn't matter) until the breast hits target temp. You should have beautiful mahogony skin as well. Do this over the drip pan or will set poo poo on fire. Hell, sometimes the stuff in the drip pan will ignite. BE VERY CAREFUL. Duck fat is way, way flammable. Do not do this under a porch. Have appropriate fire-go-away mechanisms nearby and don't tighten the bird up alone.
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Jul 26, 2012 16:29
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GigaFool posted:It's a reference to the skin tightening around the meat as it's crisped over a grill or under a broiler. Indeed. My apologies for throwing around vernacular in ways that are difficult to understand. In my vocabulary it's exactly as GigaFool describes. Much higher heat used to crisp skin or generate a crust of some kind. Most common usage is when people use a texas crutch or some other kind of braise during rib smoking, then present the ribs to high heat at the end to dry up the skin and present a little crispness. Also, because I don't think I explained it well enough above, but the drip pan... it needs to be oversized and deep. It's not going to fill up, but it is going to be safer if things do actually ignite. Less of a chance of spillage as arms flail and "woah gently caress"s are uttered. Another thing on the rendered fat front though... if you do get through this, and you do manage to not ignite the drip pan... you will have in your posession one of the most lust-inducing ingredients known to man: smoked duck fat. Do not throw this out. Do not do what I've done and leave it outside to cool down... then remember it a month later. Cherish it. Coddle it. Toss chopped fingerling potatoes in it and roast on high heat until they brown with it. Make vinegrette with it. Cook hamburgers in it. Smoked duck fat is liquid gold. edit: Also, if you want the pristine presentation, hang the duck by the neck or upper spine. What I did was fine an unglazed coat hanger, wash it really good, then cut it and modify it so that you can put the hook through the bird's spine and then bend and hook the open ends into your grill high in the chamber, letting the duck dangle below. This will allow all of the fat coming out of those holes to run down all of the outside and yield that beautiful mohogany roasted color, as well as seasoning things as it goes. Doing this means no grill marks, etc... and it also means that when you evacuate the bird from the smoker, tilting it won't pour napalm down your tongs, your arm, the ground, etc.. And then when you do the tighten over direct heat just use the biggest set of bbq tongs you have, and have a sheet pan handy to just cover the drip pan if it ignites. There's a reason I say "duck veteran". It's an adventure.
Alleric fucked around with this message at 23:05 on Jul 26, 2012 |
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Jul 26, 2012 22:46
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So did everyone burn their house down this weekend or what? No mad smoking endeavors? I stayed in all weekend working on the house, so I didn't have a go myself. I wanna see me some mad success stories.
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Jul 31, 2012 03:21
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Niagalack posted:I cold smoked delicious salmon! It was tasty. I think they may still have some wild caught coho coming in to the local supermarket just before the weekend. I'm currently in full-on house Mayhap I need to get me a lb of file and maybe a couple of nice trout to throw in this weekend.
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Aug 1, 2012 03:06
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Duck number 3 under my belt. Just killer as always. Opted for more aggressive scoring on the breast this time and the fat was much, much more managable. I don't think we had but a tablespoon drip out of it when we were tightening it up on the grill. Also served some thin slices of my own andouille for lunch. Man, I love that stuff. Looks like you had a merry Christmas, Huge_Midget. Good food awaits. As for sourcing dried wood for smoking... local hardware stores, both small and national chains might have some. Some grocery will carry it, but if you're looking for larger chunks of specific meats, I would prolly just look online.
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Dec 26, 2012 08:01
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Been a while since I popped up in the smoking thread. Anywhoo... doing the pork for a fundraiser on Saturday. This will all hit brine tonight and the smoker on Friday on pecan. 48 lbs of love.
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Feb 17, 2016 19:38
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Indeed. I often have mixed-usage shopping baskets. We were out of flour.
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Feb 17, 2016 20:27
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El Jebus posted:My first thought as well. Then I had an even better thought. Smoke pork shoulder biscuits and gravy the next morning with a fried egg on top. Hashtag put a heart attack on it. I'd prolly go the hash route with some peppers, onions, potatoes, maybe a chile and then put a couple of over easy eggs on top, but that's me.
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Feb 17, 2016 21:01
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smack it up flip rub it down oh no (totally not poison) After loading, it looks like I can get two more in there if I really feel like it, which should let me cook for 120 or so if ever necessary. That's probably 40-50 more people than will comfortably exist on the property during a party, so I'm prolly good. It's been a long, long time since I've done shoulder, let alone shoulder on pecan. I just went back out a couple of minutes ago to confirm that the smoke had started and dear lord my far patio smells like heaven right now.
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Feb 19, 2016 18:56
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Jamsta posted:Lookin' v nice! Hope you have a good party. Our Bradley is... 7 years old at this point and other than having to replace the weather cover a couple of times, it's never missed a beat. You do have to clean out the puck feed now and then with something sharp, but other than that it just runs. I miss my offset merely for nostalgia purposes at this point. It's heresy, but I'm kind of glad to have graduated to the beep-boop-see-you-in-24-hours smoking lifestyle.
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Feb 19, 2016 19:35
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I'll give my wood views real quick: Baseline Beef: Hickory Baseline Pork/Chicken/Fish: Pecan Those are my plain jane go-to's for general purpose smoking. For beef I normally do not vary from hickory. It's a stronger smoke, and beef can take it. If I'm out of hickory, pecan. Pecan goes with drat near anything. I have done special smokes on beef with particular seasonings etc that called for fruit wood to be added in, usually cherry. For pork I use pecan all day every day. If I feel like getting some fruit flavors in the smoke I'll add apple up to a ratio of 50/50. This goes the same for chicken. I have used Hickory on chicken by request, but I don't make a habit of it. Fish... fish seems to want its smoke tuned based on species, seasoning/marinade, moon phase... I've used allllll kinds of woods depending on what the goal was. Again, though, pecan is a nice neutral tree wood that is a good baseline (and just rules on trout). Oh and my andouille gets pecan too. So yeah, um... pecan.
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Feb 20, 2016 17:46
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sellouts posted:Y'all weirdos for not using fruit woods more I realize how broken-record I sound, but try pecan. The reason I tried it was because the andouille recipe I used said it was the correct wood, and I've pretty much never gone back. It has a very mellow, smooth smoke that is also sweet like a fruit wood. People mistake it all the time for fruit wood, which happened again tonight at the fund raiser I cooked for. It sits in this magical place between a full hardwood, and fruit softwoods. I would be very interested in trying almond at some point. I'm thinking nut woods in general might just be my jam. I've heard tell that chicken smoked on peanut shells is the bomb.
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Feb 21, 2016 03:22
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It's been a while... for me in the thread, and for the firing up of the smoker. At any rate... brisket has been resting at 203 for a while now, chicken's at 175. People should be arriving any minute now.
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Aug 14, 2016 00:56
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I'm once again providing 50-60lbs of pork shoulder for a fund raiser on Saturday. Picked it up last night, brine tonight, rub and hit the smoker on Friday. Last year there was another person covering chicken, but they backed out this year. Math was done against amount of leftover food vs body count from last year and they're just rolling with my shoulders and then a hotdog option. Odd how "you're the only person smoking meat for the bbq" suddenly triggers my stage fright. Ah well, the smoke must go on.
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Mar 9, 2017 16:57
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I normally am not doing catering-level smokes, but I did this same amount of shoulder for this same fund raiser last year. The other persons doing the chicken have a bbq business on the side in town and spotted me one of their massive catering coolers to use for delivery. I evacuated the pork at 1, shredded it into large tin-foil pans, foiled the tops, into the cooler. The 6 tins barely took up a third of the space. Those guys sat in that cooler for 4 hours before being served and I think we lost 3F? Serving temp was 196F when we opened the tins.
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Mar 9, 2017 17:48
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I swear, I've not smoked near enough in the past couple of years. You know you've been away for a while when you go in to make up a batch of rub and your brain tingles from the smell. Some effect of addiction/withdrawal I'm sure.
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Mar 10, 2017 17:13
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Dunno: All 6 shoulders clocked in at mid 180's this morning when I got up, around 6 hours left on the cooking. At the end of said 6 hours, I headed out to shred and package for the event and they all still clocked in in the mid-high 180's. This has like... never happened to me. I'm usually just a hair over 200. Duncare: All bones pulled clean, all meat shredded if you so much as looked at it. I think I was done with all 6 in about 10 minutes. Temp was weird, but it's tender as hell, juicy as hell, tastes perfect and is headed for the fundraiser. Whee!
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Mar 11, 2017 21:42
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