What's your favorite thing to smoke?

slantvaliant wrote:

poopshovel wrote: I've always been curious: When you consider the weight of the fat, is it really that much cheaper?

If you're going to use a calculator, you don't understand brisket.

Wow, that was incredibly helpful!!!

I'll try phrasing it another way: If you're cutting the berkeleying fat off before you cook it anyway, why bother paying for the berkeleying fat?

EastCoastMojo wrote:

Marjorie Suddard wrote: This is what you're looking for: pimenton de la vera (I got mine from a friend who knows I love food and shares discoveries with me, but have ordered other things from La Tienda and been happy.) Margie

Oh WOW this stuff smells incredible! I just got it in the mail today and I had to open it up to catch a whiff Ribs are waiting in the fridge and I will also be picking up a whole chicken to smoke also. I figure, it's not going to take any longer to do multiple things so why not multi-task. Come on Sunday... I also read about cold smoking cheeses and I plan to smoke me some cheddar and mozzarella soon! [edit] OK so I couldn't wait to use the smoked sweet paprika so I decided to use some in tonight's dinner - fettuccini alfredo. I tossed in about 1/4tsp while I was frying the pepperoni slices. Chuck came in the kitchen with this wild look in his eye and said, "WHAT are you making?" And it was yummalicious.

Cool--glad you got some and like it! It's also the total hookup for homemade sausage, and makes paella taste like, well, paella, but it's hard to convince people that paprika could be so effing good.

Margie

I've never smoked, and have no yard/place or money to buy and put a smoker. I did however have a smoked meatloaf that had macaroni and cheese stuffed inside of it yesterday night. I didn't have to eat until 3 pm today.

poopshovel wrote: If you're cutting the berkeleying fat off before you cook it anyway, why bother paying for the berkeleying fat?

Because you need it.

I do not cut the fat off before I cook it. The fat is a necessary component for the brisket smoking/cooking process. It melts, and flows through the meat as the collagen breaks down, and contributes to flavor and texture in amazing ways.

Remove the fat, and you take away from the finished product.

If you don't like to eat globs of fat (I don't), trim it AFTER cooking. A little bit is good, and doesn't hurt

I don't know the numerical body fat index of the brisket I buy. I don't care. I look for the color of the meat, a good fat cap, the size, and the price.

Think of it this way: If you buy a paint, you are also paying for solvent which evaporates. Why pay for something that goes away? Because you need it.

Smoking is not about numbers. It's about flavor.

I stand by my comment.

smoking 2 7.5 lb pork butts today, they went in at about 8 this morning, it is 7 PM now and I still have them out there, I cannot wait for tomorrow!

Wild salmon, preferably sockeye, and clutches

The ribs are on right now. All my neighbors are eyeballing that smoker LOL!

Thanks for starting this thread. We are only now beginning to take BBQ seriously, but know little to nothing about smoking. It was the push that we needed.

We went out yesterday, and bought the same smoker shown in the first post. We can't wait to use it.

I will post pics of my grassroots BBQ when its done

the pork was smoked all day yesterday and the pulled pork tonight was great

suprf1y wrote: Thanks for starting this thread. We are only now beginning to take BBQ seriously, but know little to nothing about smoking. It was the push that we needed. We went out yesterday, and bought the same smoker shown in the first post. We can't wait to use it. I will post pics of my grassroots BBQ when its done

Awesome. If you need any more inspiration to light that puppy up here ya go

I used Margie's recipe and smoked them for 6 hours. The thermometer read 175* and I honestly could not stand it any more. They look like cajun style but they were absolutely perfect, juicy and an excellent flavor. I ate mine with no sauce, Chuck added a little Baby Ray's Honey Sauce.

The chicken was about 5 lbs. I did a rub of thyme, sage and crushed bay leaves and also put about a tablespoon of each of those spices in a half-full beer, placed it in the beer-roaster, placed the chicken on top and smoked it for about 5 hours. The thermometer read 180*, I probably should have pulled it off the heat a little earlier but it looks absolutely fantastic. We filled up on ribs and did not try any chicken tonight, but we will be having some tomorrow!

I used hickory since it turns out to be all that we had, and lump charcoal - approximately half of the 5 gal bucket's worth. I had some briquettes but I did not know if they had the starter fluid already in them or not so I did not use them. Thanks for all of the advice! I am already thinking about smoking a butt, and maybe some bacon. And I want to cold-smoke some cheeses.

Holy crap that looks delicious. I'm getting me a smoker.

Now, from what I gather, there should be a reddish "smoke ring" all the way around the meat just beneath the skin or crust.

I ate it too fast to notice

EastCoastMojo wrote: I ate it too fast to notice

This isn't the first time I've heard about it, but after reading this thread, I finally made myself one of the Alton Brown style terra cotta pot smokers. I will try to post pics tomorrow, I have a 2.5 lb piece of Boston Butt that is going to be my first attempt at a smoked food item. Hopefully this goes well.

Going to try short ribs this weekend. We raise our own chickens, so one of those is not far behind

Glad they turned out. You got me motivated to do my own ribs this weekend, so my family thanks you!

Margie

Josh wrote: This isn't the first time I've heard about it, but after reading this thread, I finally made myself one of the Alton Brown style terra cotta pot smokers. I will try to post pics tomorrow, I have a 2.5 lb piece of Boston Butt that is going to be my first attempt at a smoked food item. Hopefully this goes well.

You made the pot smoker? I was going to try that out. Send me pics fool.

Wow, the iphone camera really sucks in low-iso, but I can email the pics straight to my flickr stream, so deal with it :P.

The pot is from Home Depot ($19.88), lid (saucer) is from Lowes ($14.97). This is critical, the saucers at Lowes are too small for their largest pot, and the same thing is true at HD. The biggest pot from HD with the biggest saucer from Lowes is PERFECT though. I had to buy the pot on faith before I could check this obviously :).

The hotplate is a Toastmaster 6420 from Rite-aid ($19.96). Apparently these are only $10 at Walgreens but we don't have those here. The first one I bought melted a hole in the coil (!!!) after about 20 minutes in the pot. I exchanged it without any issues, and the second one has worked great.

The chips are sitting in a $3 cake pan from hannaford lined with aluminum foil. I'm using alder chips because that's what I have, I am planning to smoke some grains with alder later for a smoked porter, and that's what a lot of people seem to use for smoking malt, probably because that's what Alaskan Brewing uses.

The temp gauge in the top is a replacement part from HD ($7.98)

I already had the probe thermometer, but I'd consider it crucial to this operation, and very useful for grilling and roasting as well. No, you can't use it for tire temps. Thermocouple is too slow/crude to be useful. Of course I looked that up on the internet as soon as I bought it :).

No pics of the inside yet, the butt is almost done and I don't want to disturb it :).

That terra cotta pot smoker has some serious grassrootness going on. I assume you run the cord for the hotplate though the drain hole in the bottom?

More detail please ( after the butt is done, of course.).

I heard that if you use a terra pot that you need to keep using one type of "chip" in it because it will bleed flavor from the previous chips used.

Is this true or was the guy just "smoking"?

That sounds pretty stupid. There is surprisingly little smoke residue in the pot after 6ish hours of use. I plan to try hickory next, so I will let you know eventually :). For now I have pulled pork sandwiches for at least a week of lunches to use up.

I found this site by accident. http://brinkmansmokermods.com/default.aspx I have some SS expanded metal, so I think I'll do this before I use it for the first time - tomorrow.

I built one of the terra cotta smokers last night. I put an 8lb pork shoulder in it at 8am. Am I the only one who watches my smoker? It's really exciting.

I pulled my hot plate apart. I extended the wires so that only the element was in the pots because the housing was really big. The upside is that the temp control knob is now outside the smoker for easier adjustments.

My cost for smoker: hotplate - $5 at thrift store Terra Cotta pots - $15 x2 at home store Grill - $1 at dollar store

Put the new grate in the bottom, fired it up this morning, and used 5lbs, or less of charcoal to cook about 5hrs. Ribs turned out great for a first attempt, moist, and tender. Can't wait to try a brisket, or maybe even a roast.