Using a smoker… plus grilling and cooking

[MrTPlush]

But I'm also thinking about buying a Pit Barrel Cooker.

 

Go up north and you can find some opinions on something like that. A lot of folks make their own barrell cooker. I have had some good tasting meat made in one, but then again they are usually pros at it.

[CheezWizHed]

Where is "up north"?

[CheezWizHed]

The PBC was just about as easy as advertised. It was my first attempt this last weekend, so I tweaked a few things as it went along. But it held its temperature very steady for hours without adding any charcoal to it.

 

The ribs turned out better than I've ever done in the past (with complements from my family).

[AKCheesehead]

I decided to clean up my freezer and smoke 4 of my old salmon. I tried a dry brine this time instead of my usual wet brine, and now I don't plan on going back. Simple, easy, and great results. Mix 1 cup of non-iodized salt with 4 cups brown sugar. Cover the fillets with the mixture, stack additional fillets on top, putting more dry brine mixture on the fillets. It draws the water out of frozen salmon, making for a good firm fillet. Just rotate them in the juice and scoop it over the fillets once or twice a day. I brined mine in the fridge for 4 days and that turned out just about perfect. Smoked for 10 hours on alder chips in the Little Chief smoker, then brought up to temp in the oven.

[CheezWizHed]

Eating at Famous Dave's, I've had brisket a few times but didn't understand the big deal about it.

 

Last weekend, I just made my first and it was excellent! In fact, I've eaten the leftovers the last two days!

 

I dry brined it with salt (AKCheeseHead, once I discovered this, I don't bother with wet brines), seasoned it, smoked it in the barrel for 4 hours. Then I poured some Texas mop sauce on it and wrapped it in tin foil for another hour. Then put it in a hold for another hour. It came out cut-it-with-a-fork tender and juicy! I was so pleased.

 

Technically, I only had a 1/4 brisket with so my times were probably quicker than normal. The barrel also seems to cook much quicker than traditional, which is a nice benefit.

 

I wasn't confident in how it would turn out, so I made burgers along with it. My kids started on the burgers, but a couple took the brisket for seconds. And my wife went back for seconds (despite her diet).

[GAME05]

Instead of foil, you can also try out a wrap of unlined butcher paper. I've never seen it in a store so I got a whole bunch online for about $15. Works the same way as foil to keep more heat in and speed up cooking time, but paper doesn't trap in moisture as much, and so your bark won't end up as soft.

[CheezWizHed]

Yeah, I've read that, but didn't have any on hand.

 

Although, since I'm adding moisture at that point, I'm not sure if butcher paper would work well there. But I did lose my burnt ends.

[GAME05]

Only mildly related, but I'm starting to do research on making sausages and curing meats at home. I think it would be a fun hobby. Building a curing chamber seems easy enough, though finding a cool place for long-term storage will be a challenge.

[homer]

Where is "up north"?

 

North of Campbellsport

[homer]

Eating at Famous Dave's, I've had brisket a few times but didn't understand the big deal about it.

 

Last weekend, I just made my first and it was excellent! In fact, I've eaten the leftovers the last two days!

 

I dry brined it with salt (AKCheeseHead, once I discovered this, I don't bother with wet brines), seasoned it, smoked it in the barrel for 4 hours. Then I poured some Texas mop sauce on it and wrapped it in tin foil for another hour. Then put it in a hold for another hour. It came out cut-it-with-a-fork tender and juicy! I was so pleased.

 

.

 

Speaking of brining....I discovered/tried brining for the first time this April. It was like I had eaten chicken on the grill for the very first time. I just never thought to do it before. Granted I have only really been grilling a lot in the last year or so as previous apartments didn't allow it or I didn't have the room to do it. Literally had never had a juicy chicken breast on the grill before. They always turned out chewy or over done. Brining literally changed my life for the better.

[GAME05]

Chick Fil-A brines their chicken with pickle juice.

[CheezWizHed]

Where is "up north"?

 

North of Campbellsport

 

Its not "up north" when over half of the state is north of there...

[logan82]

Up north is north of Stevens Point or Wausau

[RobDeer 45]

Yes, I'd say my definition of up north, is north of highway 29 or so. My family has a cottage on Long lake, north of Campbellsport. I like it over there, but it's nothing like northern WI.

[Thurston Fluff]

I never understood the terms up North and down South. We live on a round planet which makes up and down meaningless in that respect. Even if we add an arbitrary meaning to it we have it backwards. If anything it should be down North and up South. After all, it's warmer in the South and we all know heat rises.

[CheezWizHed]

North and south are defined by the poles one which the planet rotates. East and west are arbitrary.

[logan82]

Yes, I'd say my definition of up north, is north of highway 29 or so.

Yeah,Wausau.

[Thurston Fluff]

North and south are defined by the poles one which the planet rotates. East and west are arbitrary.

 

Yes but which pole is up and which is down is arbitrary.

[RobDeer 45]

North and south are defined by the poles one which the planet rotates. East and west are arbitrary.

 

Yes but which pole is up and which is down is arbitrary.

 

This is getting deep. I don't want to think about this too hard or my mind will explode.

[RobDeer 45]

Purchased a couple Ribeye Cap Steaks from Costco this weekend. Wow! I was pretty sure just by looking at it (from the marbling), that it would be good, but I was blown away. Highly recommend.

[CheezWizHed]

I smoke a Tri-tip today for the first time. Its called a poor man's prime rib and I can see why. There was a bit of gristle in it, but most of it was very tender. There is little fat in it, so I smoked it to medium-rare to my wife's chagrin. But I thought it was pretty good. One of my sons had thirds.

 

I also smoked some chicken legs along side and one of my daughters had three of them. My six year old son had a chicken leg and two small pieces of tri-tip. Nice to know that my kids like my cooking.

[GAME05]

I've been volunteered to smoke two pork butts on Tuesday. The work does a good number of all-together eating things and I guess they're meaningful enough to the boss that when I said "But I have to work that day" it wasn't a problem for me to be in uniform, but sitting on my porch running the smoker.

 

I've done butts a good few times now, but apparently they'll be hungry at NOON. It's a charcoal smoker, so it needs a lot of tending, and it's thin so I can't do the things at 275 like Aaron Franklin does. So we're talking about 12 hours of cooking time not including any rest time. Fortunately I have some unlined parchment paper to do a wrap and not have to wait out the stall.

 

I know I could just dump them in a slow cooker and be done with it. But apparently I have a reputation as a very good cook and this is also the first time I've run my smoker for them. So I don't want to just slow-cook and disappoint them. So two strategies I'm debating:

 

1. Start it at about 10pm the night before and just wake up every two hours to tend the smoker. That makes it ready by 9 or 10am and then it just rests in a cooler for the remainder. I get that good bark, everyone's happy and I just go to bed early that night.

 

2. Run the smoker from 5-10pm the night before, then transfer to a 215 degree oven for the remainder and pull it off in time to properly cool. Won't get that bark probably, but will get at least a minimal smoke flavor.

[FVBrewerFan]

If you smoke them for a few hours, you'll get plenty of smoke flavor. The smoke ring comes early in the cook, and almost all of the smoke flavor. You didn't mention how many pounds they are, but yea, I would smoke them the night before and finish in the oven. Nobobt will know the difference. You could even throw them back on the smoker again at high heat for half an hour with a little brown sugar, butter, spices. That will still give you a bark, not as you know it, but it will still look and taste great.

[Baldkin]

Might be late, but I've used the "snake method" many times to great effect using charcoal.

 

Now, grill dependent, temperature dependent, etc, etc.

 

With a solid thermometer you can set an alarm if the temp gets too high or too low, but once it starts, it can run for hours and hours unassisted.

 

 

Might not be something you want to do the first time, but I've had great success.

[GAME05]

Thanks. I'm going to do the smoker-to-the-oven on the pork. That'll get me roughly 12 hours by the time I wake up and plenty of cool-down time before lunch starts, with 5-6 total hours on the smoke. Will probably run the oven at 215.

 

I've seen the snake method before. My smoker is pretty thin and I need to drill some more holes in the charcoal pan for airflow. It's just near impossible to run it hot, so my method is just dump a lot of charcoal in there. I've debated buying a new one, but I need to get out of the habit of dumping $200 here and there on things. Because a low-temperature smoker only really means I can't do poultry, and I can live with that.