Smokers (BBQ - not grilling)

[Fred W]

Unseasonably warm temps this weekend. I'll be riding on Saturday and firing up the smoker on Sunday.

Finished the initial mods to the new smoker so I scored a nice boneless Pork Loin Roast and a small (12 lb) whole turkey for cooking on Sunday. This will be my new OK Joe Highland's maiden voyage. :thumbsup:

Pics to follow

 

[gixxerjasen]

Last weekend I was stuck at home on call. We had gone to family in Houston for Thanksgiving so we had no leftovers. Perfect excuse to fire up the smoker and put on a turkey breast. Came out very good as usual.

 

[TomInPA]

Perfect...

(The red tape one is the meat probe and the green one is the grate probe)

I use a Maverick probe. Same general idea, but I don't need Christmas tape to tell the cook and grate probes apart. Just curious if these are pretty durable. I learned the hard way not to use a probe to measure liquid or to be careless in cleaning. Mine do not tolerate immersion.

 

[Knifemaker]

^ I've never tried smoking beer before........

Probes can be immersed. (There's a procedure of putting the probe in ice water to check its accuracy)

Only warning is to keep the cables off hot grates (if using in a grill) They come with a lifetime warranty.

The plug ends to all their probes all look alike, hence the colored tape. Great company to do business with. They make many different models...

https://www.thermoworks.com/products/alarm/dot.html#ProductDescription

Here's Amazing Ribs reviews on the better gauges on the market:

https://amazingribs.com/bbq_equipment_reviews_ratings/thermometer-reviews-and-ratings

Awaiting your report on your new pit Fred

 

[Warpdrv]

Nothing really all that special but made some big cheese stuffed meatballs last night, which turned out awesomely for appetizers...

Basically it was

2-3lbs total of Beef, Pork sausage, and a bit of Italian sausage.

Worcestershire

3 eggs

bread crumbs

lightly cooked - garlic, onion, red pepper

Stone Ground mustard, and what ever seasonings you like in there... I use lots of different stuff, just grab.

Stuffed 1/2 of them with 1" chunks of sharp cheddar & Other 1/2 Cajun Gouda !!!!

Through together a bunch of stuff for a nice BBQ type glaze mopping.

Also made a big pan of Spaghetti Pie.... Was spooktacular !!

Winged it off some combinations of recipes from the interwebs....

 

[Fred W]

Got a good start this morning.

Here are some shots of those mods I made to the OK Joe

Custom tuning plate. Was expensive, but I think it will make all the difference

The 45 degree sloped part at the right end gets the smoke down below the cooking grate. Here's the view from inside the firebox

And here's the 3" aluminum elbow that brings the exhaust down to just above the grate level. You can also see the nomex gasket that I put on to seal up the smoke chamber and firebox doors. Hardly any leaks anymore.

Fired up the propane and bringing the grille up to temp, the two dial gauge thermometers in the lid are almost the same temp as the digital probe at the center of the grate. The photo I took of that didn't come out well.

Here are today's guests. 12 lb whole turkey with just some oil and camp mix on the outside, and a 4 lb boneless pork loin, dry brined overnight and then lightly rubbed with Memphis Dust this morning

Since I still haven't got around to building a big charcoal basket for the new grill, I'm going with my propane burner in the firebox and apple wood in the smoke pan today. Here's the setup.

One nice thing about this setup is the nice TBS (Thin Blue Smoke) I can produce with a few chunks of apple wood in the firebox smoking pan. This is really what I have been striving for with my going to an offset smoker. I never got that nice TBS with the Ugly Drum.

Now it's just a matter of waiting and tossing in a couple of wood chunks every now and then...

 

[BigOgre]

Happy smoker.

 

[Knifemaker]

Looks great Fred. I need to go back and find the pics of your propane burner, as I'd like to add that option to mine.

I think because the heat and smoke rise together in a drum smoker you just can't get that "cooler" smoke you can get with an offset... I know on mine once I get a nice bed of coals going tossing in 4-5 chunks of wood every 30-40 minutes achieves the TBS, although I get a bit of heavier smoke initially for a few minutes....which I'm thinking is just the moisture in the wood cooking out.

A 12 pound turkey? How long will that take to smoke? (It's not stuffed right?) .....that loin looks good.....

 

[Fred W]

Pork loin was almost done at 3 1/2 hours when I stuck it with the thermometer. I pulled it off a little while after this and wrapped it up in the faux cambrio

Moved the turkey over to the firebox side, which is a tad hotter, though not much. Now at almost 7 hours at 225 the Turkey is almost done

Will wrap and rest that before dinner. We'll be eating the dark meat off the turkey and some of the pork loin tonight, then slicing the turkey breast and the rest of the loin for sammiches during the week.

(no, no stuffing. Left the cavity open for more even cooking)

 

[Warpdrv]

Good Lookin bird there Fred...

Your upgrades on that unit look great and well thought out!!!

Passed on your thread info to my buddy documenting your purchase and Farkles, he's looking to do something similar.

Happy Cooking....

 

[Knifemaker]

Was thinking at least 8 hours for the bird. Looks good.

Mentioned this awhile back, that I was going to make a custom sized rib rack for my pit using threaded rod and angle iron.

Here's the rod and the aluminum angles:

Here is the cutting station for the threaded rod, along with some sawing fuel:

And here is the finished product ... It will hold 6 racks of ribs:

 

[Warpdrv]

Holy shit, great idea....

 

[Fred W]

6 full racks would be a heck of a good start on a party.

I have a couple of the cheap, commercially available racks, but have never wanted to cook enough ribs to use them yet. When you do ribs standing in a rack do you have to flip them at some point? Or just leave them in the same orientation all the way through?

re: your question about the propane burner, here's a link to my prior post in this thread about the King Kooker burner and low pressure gas regulator and hose that I bought on Amazon. It puts out plenty of BTUs to keep the pit up to temp and you can just set your wood chunks in a cast iron fry pan for smoke generation. I used about 1/4 - 1/3 of the tank to cook today for what amounted to 8 hours total. It's relatively frugal with the gas. I may spring for a bigger cast iron fry pan, (or steal one from the kitchen) so I have more space for smoking wood.

 

[Knifemaker]

Thanks.

Yes, usually when I use a rack I flip the ribs halfway through the cook. Ribs go about 6 hours in the smoker, so at the 3 hour mark I'll dredge them through a pan of sauce when I flip them over. I plan on cooking ribs for Christmas, so will get to see soon how well the rack works.

Won't be a "party" here, but I'll be freezing all the slabs we don't eat for another dinner on a future day. The ones I froze last time and heated up later came out just as awesome as the ones right off the pit. So that's my reason to build the rack and do up six slabs, to have them ready to when we want...

If you're going to invest the time to fire up the smoker, you might as well fill the sucker up....

 

[Fred W]

I hear that... Now that I have the space, I feel the same way. That was my same idea of throwing the pork loin on with the turkey. If you are going to spend the money on fuel (charcoal or gas) for an 8 hour (or longer) cook, you might as well maximize your efficiency by cooking up some extra stuff for later.

I had only intended on buying a turkey breast, but when I went shopping on Thursday I found I could buy a whole 12 lb bird for less than an 8 lb breast. All they had of both were frozen, and the whole turkey was on sale for $0.80 a lb. That's some mighty cheap good eats.

Don't think I said it before, but both the turkey and the pork roast came out awesome. Had our eldest daughter and family over for Sunday dinner and the 5 of us only managed to eat the dark meat off the bird, never even sliced into the roast. Turkey breast and pork roast all sliced up (have an old one of those Rival food slicers) and divied up into meal sized packages, with some going into the freezer for a while.

 

[Knifemaker]

Well THIS is the finished product ...as I realized I needed some kind of handle to get the thing in and out of the cooking chamber:

Here's a pic of it in the pit:

 

[Bounce]

For burning documents before enemy forces over run your position?

 

[Knifemaker]

For burning documents before enemy forces over run your position?

No, my powdered magnesium O2 fed burner does that. Deez B 4 ribs baby.....

 

[gixxerjasen]

Here's a pic of it in the pit:

Who gives a crap about this pic when it's missing the most obvious item to show it actually works. Now get us the good pic!

 

[08FJR4ME]

Jason,

Joe is just setting up to season his rack before he can cook the ribs.

My guess,

Dave