The Way Of The Smoke Master

[Kilgore Trout]

For years, decades even, I grilled and even considered myself to have pretty much mastered charcoal grilling. Direct and indirect cooking with pretty much every meat or veg ya could imagine and even some fruits and breads from time to time.

Never smoked no shoulder or brisket though... No long term cooking with the wood and the water pan and the constant 225 degrees and all that.

So a few years back I started smoking pork shoulders almost bout every weekend. I am lucky my wife's uncle has a wholesale butcher shop and I got da meat hookup big thyme! Then I started smoking beef brisket, few racks of ribs, chickens, sausages, pork chops and such. The butcher also sells custom ground rub, heavy on the spicy smoked paprika and no msg.

I only smoke beef briskets these days and they are bloody amazing. Rub it the night before, four hours with cherry smoke on grill, then tight wrapped in foil and another eight hours in oven. Always at 225...

Anyone else been smoking meats?

 

[jcgafford]

i smoke wild game. venison mostly with the odd salmon or steelhead mixed in. hard to do it anymore as my butcher has a smoke house and will do it at the drop of a hat for me. it does make the yard smell awesome though. try some apple wood in there for a different flavor. i have had apple, hickory and cherry drying at the cottage up north for ten years now.

 

[DocG]

Nope but am interested in it. Recently when we were camping we smoked some deer meet and just put it way up over the fire for about 5 hours and was freaking amazing. I know not exactly the same.

Now I am hungry.

 

[trombonedemon]

Ha, ha, meat smokingto soon:roast:

 

[D Durden]

I got a smoker about a month ago, and I'm moving along with it. Brisket went fine, and I cooked up some chickens that were pretty amazing.

Next on the list is pork loin, meatballs, and deviled eggs . . .

 

[Red_LX]

My wife and father-in-law went together back in January and got me one of those Char-Griller Duos with the add-on smoke box and I have been loving it. I have only done ribs so far, and brisket and pork shoulder once, but everyone has loved them. I got the ribs down pat (2 hours to smoke, 2 hours in foil, and then an hour or less to firm up a little...they come out fantastic), the brisket I may need more practice on, and the shoulder I made tasted good but didn't have enough time to really get tender. This thing makes some damn good slow smoked barbecue though!

 

[rbohm]

i would smoke meats, but i cant find cigarette papers large enough.

 

[DocG]

LOL!

I made some ribs a bit ago and just cooked them in oven on low heat with some dry rub for about 5 hours. Then just sauced and crunched them on grill...and they did fall apart but liking these ideas better.

May just like a KT thread!

 

[HobieDude16]

I used to smoke a ton of food. I made chicken, ribs, pork butts, brisket, etc. I did it all on electric, though, since I was in an apartment, and that's all we could use. Did a great job, though, and I could leave it cooking all day without having to tend it.

Now I don't even have a porch, so I can't really do bbq any more. I'll have to resort to cooking pork butts in the crock pot, if I can even find them...

 

[DocG]

Where the hell did you come from?

 

[HobieDude16]

Got some free time now that I'm working on a jobsite rather than an office, and have hours of 2-12... Not to mention having moved to London...

 

[DocG]

Wow big changes! Wait I thought everyone posted in here while sitting in their office?

 

[madspeed]

my wife works for Hatfield meats, so we always have an endless supply of pork. Dem pork briskets are banging in moker!! Da butts are yummy too! Who all is from PA? we'll have a big ole smoke fest!

 

[horse sence]

Wow big changes! Wait I thought everyone posted in here while sitting in their office?

sitting in office hopfully, toilet ....NO!!!!

 

[DocG]

I post on the crapper all the time.

 

[madspeed]

i prefer posting FROM the crapper

 

[rbohm]

i prefer posting FROM the crapper

yeah, them electronic crappers annoy me, what with the built in webcams and such.

 

[DocG]

Oh I thought posting on the crapper was like the new planking.

 

[Noobz347]

I got a smoker about a month ago, and I'm moving along with it. Brisket went fine, and I cooked up some chickens that were pretty amazing.

Next on the list is pork loin, meatballs, and deviled eggs . . .

That's how my brisket is too... "fine". I've had some pretty AWESOME brisket but none it was mine. Still trying to figure that piece.

 

[D Durden]

That's how my brisket is too... "fine". I've had some pretty AWESOME brisket but none it was mine. Still trying to figure that piece.

Yeah, that's where I am. I think a lot of it is grade of meat. That's what I'm being told, anyway. A guy who owns one of the local meat stores (been around forever) told me that it's really hard to get "the best" meat because most restaurants have people buying the best cuts up before they hit the open markets. You can get SOME stuff locally, but it's hit or miss. And with the expansion of restaurants all over, it's getting harder and harder.

I love brisket, but the more I study it, the more it looks like going from "good" to "amazing" breaks the line of being worth doing myself. I mean, doing the rub and all with the smoker work, eh, that's not too bad, but when it comes to crap like "and you inject 2.347 cc's of the dip that you make every .75 inches along both sides of the brisket, but only go between .25 and .27 inches or it's ruined" and "you smoke it for the first 4 hours, then you wrap it, cook it in the oven for 3 to 3.1 hours at 225 degrees plus or minus a half a degree, then unwrap it, put it back on the smoker for ten minutes, mop on the sauce, smoke it another hour, take it out and wrap it in new foil, oven cook it another two hours, and then wash off the sauce and put new sauce on, wrap it back up and oven cook it fifteen minutes, and it's done . . . and yeah, it's just THAT EASY!"

Meh . . . I've ordered some brisket online that was amazing . . . and it wasn't that much trouble. LOL!