Smokers (BBQ - not grilling)

[Knifemaker]

OK...late start to the cook today (decided to stain our deck). Got one pork tenderloin and five brats in the smoker. Using hickory and mesquite. Trying to stay at 220F. Light blue smoke, big glass of whiskey, a cigar, it's happening...

As an aside....I put the length of angle bracket I use to prop open the lid (without thinking) on top of the fire box....got a nice burn when I grabbed it to put the meat in. Color me stupid. (Could be the painkillers and the whiskey that caused that) LOL

More photos to come...

 

[El Toro Joe]

That'll learn ya...

 

[Knifemaker]

While in waiting....here's a pic of the deck I stressed out my back staining.... (Yes, it's blue)

 

[El Toro Joe]

I like blue...

 

[Knifemaker]

OK. I think just saying the brats came out awesome, is an understatement. They were phenomenal. The pork loin was pulled at 145F and foil wrapped and put in my little styrofoam cooler. I stuck the meat probe in one of the brats....thinking they may not have hit 165F yet, but, they were already at 183. So they got pulled, wrapped and put in the cooler too.

I wasn't too worried about the higher temp on them, as I normally cook them a bit over on the grill. We got the buns and German mustard out, I sliced up some of the loin and tossed the first brat in a bun.

Holy moly, I thought my grilled brats were pretty damn good....(I tried over a dozen local bratwursts before finding a winner)... But these were a big step above. Not overly smokey (I switched halfway through the cook using hickory and mesquite to mesquite and orange wood) ...just the right amount of crispness on the casing (I did coat them lightly with olive oil and my pork rub) Really couldn't be more pleased with how they turned out. The loin was tender, and looked good too. Temps varied abit from 215 to 238 for a bit, cook lasted very close to 2 hours..Didn't keep track that well.

So it's a definite that I'll be smoking the brats for our Okoberfest here...and cooking them to 183 not 165.

 

[eflyguy]

Big church had their annual "holy smoke" event - BBQ & food trucks and stuff for kids, also a car show, my daughter took her 442 which got plenty of attention.

Anyhow, after 2, the sold off 'q cheap, so I had a plate of brisket and sausage. The brisket was dry but tasty, but the sausages were supreme.

 

[Fred W]

I can see that... I still think brisket is the toughest 'que to get perfect. Especially if you try to cook the whole clod together.

Nice looking pork there Knifemaker. That was one big tenderloin; or was that a small loin? Our tenderloins tend to be wimpy small things. I'll have to round up some brats and try them with your technique.

So for my holiday feast it was ribs. Scored some St Louis cut pork rubs at the local Hanaford's market (thanks to ionbeam's tip earlier). They were a different brand than the babies I usually go with (these were Swift Premium), cryo-vac'ed, and marked as "previously frozen". But I've been wanting to try out the longer boned St Louis cuts, so these were the choice, and not badly priced at $2.79/ lb on sale.

They also had some of the same that were pre-dry-rubbed (which of course wasn't dry at all, inside the package) but I went with the plain ones and used Meathead's Memphis Dust recipe for the rub.

Started the fire with a chimney of lump charcoal (it lights so fast), and then went with maple wood splits for most of the cooking. 2 big racks went on the pit at 11AM

Flipped and flopped them at ~ 90 minute intervals to get more even cooking. Cooking with straight wood splits the cooking chamber temp tends to vary about 25 degrees between fresh charges of wood (2 splits at a time), with each charge lasting only 20 - 25 minutes. So I sat out on the deck, swilled a few fresh fall beers (Hey... I'm no drunk. I waited 'till 11:45 to crack the first one).and played with my fire 'till about 3. At that point I decided to throw some lump char in the firebox for the last couple of hours, as plenty of smoke had already been made, and it just needed the extra time on the heat to get finish.

Pulled them off the grille at a little short of the 6 hour mark when the flex test showed they were dun right. Gave them 1/2 hour wrapped in foil and towels then served them up.

Like Knifemafer, I made one Labor Day bone-headed mistake, and that happened before I'd cracked that first beer! You may notice above that the smoke ring is heavier on one side of the ribs? Yeah... this guy forgot to pull the silver-skin off from the bone side, so the smoke didn't really penetrate from the back-side very much. Oh well...

Although I still like my Smithfield Baby Backs a touch better, these were quite delish!

 

[ionbeam]

^^^^^ Other sources for Good Meats are the $$$ Prime Butcher in Atkinson NH and best yet $$$$$$ Butcher Boy in North Andover MA. I work dangerously close to Butcher Boy and Pillion often comes home past BB and will stop for Meat Treats. It's not even mid morning and now I'm hungry...

 

[Fred W]

While they do have great stuff, I'm too cheap frugal for either of those places. We have Mr Steer right here in town who overcharges for their better quality meats. I can tolerate McKinnon's prices, but when it comes to pork and chicken, which is mostly what we eat these days, it doesn't seem to matter as much where you buy, so we go to the big markets. Beef (and fish lately) is too damn expensive pretty much everywhere.

 

[Knifemaker]

"Nice looking pork there Knifemaker. That was one big tenderloin; or was that a small loin? Our tenderloins tend to be wimpy small things."

I'm know the photo of the tenderloin with the brats makes it look pretty big (forced perspective from the camera lens) ... It was just under 12" long and a bit bigger than 2-1/2" in diameter...which is in fact large for a tenderloin around here too...most of the prepackaged ones from Swift or Hillshire Farm are small, usually tapered at to one end. I try to avoid those if I can, as most supermarkets here carry local ones (still in cryovac bags) with their own weight/price sticker on them. That's what this one was, just a nice single fat one that was more even, (not tapering) ......but sometimes they sell the more tapered ones two in a bag with opposite ends matched, and those are the ones I leave that way, tying them together for the smoke.

As I mentioned before, St.Louis ribs here are always fresh from the meat case, only the Baby Backs seem to be prepackaged (and frozen) You can also find fresh whole pork loins here (which are huge)...but it seems every time I go looking to buy one they only have the smaller tenderloins. I have to agree, we both now prefer the BB over the Saint Louis ribs... And btw, the butcher will remove the membranes for you if you want.. . .. Quite a lot of local pork and beef to be had here, so just an advantage living in the Midwest, although I'd gladly trade off for awhile for the lobster and soft shell crab.....

 

[08FJR4ME]

I was dissapointed in my ribs this weekend. They needed another couple of hours of cooking but I ran out of time. BUTT! I did throw some thin slices of Venison on the side and man did that come out AWESOME.

Dave

 

[Knifemaker]

Not what you'd expect to see in the same sentence, the words "disappointed" and "ribs".....

Did you try finishing them in the oven later?

 

[08FJR4ME]

Well I got a late start getting them on the smoker. It wasn't until 12:30 when I put them on. I believe I took them off around 5:30. The thicker sections were not completely cooked all the way through. I tried to keep the temps between 200 and 250 degrees. I had to load the box a couple of times with wood. I started out with some cowboy lumps and wood at first. Then kept adding wood as needed. They were no way near falling off the bone. Plenty of smoked flavor but the scale on tenderness was about a 6.5, 10 being the best. I was so hungry at the time I just ate them as soon as they came off. Half the batch is in the freezer and I will wrap those up in foil and put them in the oven and see if they get any better.

So I had taken out some Venison stew meat but I didn't really feel like making stew. It seemed quite tender when slicing it to about a 1/4 inch thick pieces. I have used regular beef stew meet that was a lot tougher. So I tossed the pieces in a bowl with some spices and a little bit of soy sauce. I grabbed the round grille off the old smoker and filled it with the slices. I put it in the smoker for the last two and half hours and it was just perfect. I gave some to the guys at work during lunch and they all loved it.

At least I had a partial success,

Dave

 

[Fred W]

Patience is a virtue in the world of BBQ. I learned that lesson the hard way way back at the beginning of this thread when I was trying to get a flat of brisket to cook in 6 hours. No, no, no... you just can't rush it.

For pork ribs I would always plan on at least 6 hours of cooking time. If they are done sooner (too soon for your guests) it's easy to wrap in foil and blankets and keep them waiting for hours with no degradation of any kind. And if they are done "just in time" you can just cut 'em up and serve em right away.

How did you like cooking with the wood sticks? It's a little fiddly to maintain a steady temp for any great length of time, but I'm somewhat convinced that the smoke flavor is superior to using any sort of charcoal. There are several decent videos on stick burning, but I liked this one the best and have modeled my wood burning after this technique. He does let the temp run up too high a couple of times, but most of his technique is pretty solid.



This kind of cooking requires a lot more attention than burning charcoal with a few wood chunks thrown in. For a long smoke like cooking a pork butt I'd just go with the charcoal. But for ribs, Chicken, Turkey or roasts where the cooking is 6 hours or less this method produces better smoke flavor IMO.

 

[eflyguy]

Yeah, there's no shortcuts here - it's not about getting them "cooked" but getting them to a temperature where there are changes at the cellular level, and those changes take time to complete. If you just wanted to cook them, the microwave would suffice. The smoke infusion is secondary.

My "opinion" is that there's not much difference in quality when it comes to slow-cooked/smoked meats like butt, brisket and ribs. So although I'll shop around a little (based on price) if preparing a large quantity or planning ahead, I generally get them from my local grocery store - which, as it happens, had ribs with the silverskin removed.

I have burned wood and honestly don't think it was "better" - not saying it isn't, just nobody commented that anything was different. Honestly it's impossible for me to create an identical result each time, and I don't try to - I just stick to the things that have worked for me. So the effort to keep a wood fire under control for hours simply isn't worth it.

 

[Knifemaker]

"How did you like cooking with the wood sticks? It's a little fiddly to maintain a steady temp for any great length of time, but I'm somewhat convinced that the smoke flavor is superior to using any sort of charcoal."

I'd say that really is more of a question on how much wood you're using with that charcoal. Those sticks burn down and basicly become charcoal themselves...still acting as just hot coals to get the next piece of wood burning. I'll get a nice bed of charcoal going, and toss in two or three large chunks of wood. (Baseball sized chunks) likely the total surface area is comparable to a whole "stick"..

So not sure how that's that much different than cooking with sticks to start with. My wood chunks burn down and I add more, only real difference I see is those "smaller chunks" burn up faster.

I think a lot depends on what kind of smoker you use, how it flows and as I said, how much wood you're burning. Also on how much smoke taste you're shooting for...Many will tell us that the meat will only absorb so much "smoke flavor", so I understand your comment on short cooks...but I think as eflyguy said, not sure many could tell the difference...

I do know ....those brats I did had all the "smokiness" I wanted

 

[Fred W]

It's not a question of quantity of smoke flavor, but rather quality. I think you may actually get more smoke when you use charcoal, (especially briquettes) when loaded in bulk, a la minion method, as the unlit ones in the pile come up to temperature they do give off a bunch of white smoke, even when using lump. The only real way I've found to avoid the white sulphery smoke when using charcoal is to fully engulf all of the charcoal in the firebox before closing things down and putting the meat on, and then when adding more charcoal you'd have to always pre-light it in a chimney to allow all the white smoke out before loading that into the firebox.

Using sticks it's fairly easy to avoid the white smoke by just adding a couple of sticks at a time, giving them, plenty of O2 so they engulf in flame quickly, and try to maintain the sticks burning (not smouldering) while they pyrolize and turn to char. And what white smoke there is from the wood doesn't have any of that sulphery smell to it, so shouldn't taint the final taste at all.

Some of the finest wood smoke flavor I've made was using gas for heat and putting the wood chunks in a heated frying pan. Then it was very easy to get thin blue smoke for long periods and steady temps from the gas. But the quantity of smoke flavor from that method was somewhat lacking. Maybe it tasted "finer" because of the subtlety and lack of strength?

It may be just picking nits, and it is certainly much easier to use charcoal (of some type, or combination) for the bulk fuel and adding wood for added flavor. It all makes good 'que.

 

[Knifemaker]

You keep picking nits Fred...asking questions, submitting observations, and even stating ones opinions is how we learn new things, or at least learn new ways to look at something.

My only point was I didn't see any difference on burning several chunks over a single stick. Even the guy in your video started off with lump...

It's been a year since I started smoking stuff, I've learned a lot here, and from reading other online smoking stuff... As you said once, it's all good, everyone has a slightly different take or method, but the Q is still good..

 

[08FJR4ME]

I will admit I am still a beginner in this world of smoking carnivorous choices of meat. You saw the previous pic's of the basket I built. For the ribs I had to fill it up twice after the initial loading for the 5 hours I had them on the pit. I only use very little of the lump charcoal and let that burn off for about a half hour before adding the wood. Your gages will spike quite a bit after adding the wood. I had to really choke it down to get it back down to the 225 range I was looking for. I was also getting a lot more white smoke than in the video after loading the wood but it would eventually tone down. I have to admit the meet did have a lot more intense smoke flavor than in the past. My chunks were a bit smaller than the logs he was putting in. It may take a couple years to get this down to a science. It's more of a recreational hobby for me anyway. (therapeutic to keep my sanity, LOL)

Dave

 

[Knifemaker]

There should be a book titled "Zen and the Art of BBQ"....

There is however a brief article that sums up the concept that all BBQ is equal:

https://www.saveur.com/article/Travels/Zen-and-the-Art-of-BBQ