Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

For those of you with smoking experience. I have been playing around with slow grilling ribs, brisket, and pork loin (whole). I have been using charcoal and hickory wood chips. While all the meat has turned out great in terms of tenderness, I personally am not a fan of the smoke flavor. It's very intense, like I just smoked a cigarette on top of eating a cut of meat.
I like ribs and BBQ I get at restaurants and I know that stuff is usually smoked. So what is making the overwhelmingly smoky flavor? Could I use plain charcoal and no wood chips for a milder flavor?

 

Too much wood? Really, a little goes a long way. Also, you don't want dark billowy smoke. Just what they call, thin blue smoke.

 

Exactly this. Little smoke that is flowing. Heavy smoke that just sits there will get you that ashy taste.

 

also depends what you are cooking/grilling...theres a few different woods to use for smoking not just hickory. try some different ones on different meats

 

I like your make shift fut you might want to in the Amazen Pellet tube in the links in the discussed products. So much simliar and easy to use.

 

Big fingers little buttons? Just kidding but I think what you're getting at is a recommendation to use the amazen smoketube? If so I am using the 12" one - it's in the mailbox. Combo apple and hickory dust and pellets.

Right now I'm dialing in the mailbox door opening and Weber lid vents to regulate the airflow and amount of smoke. Too much air gets the pellets smoldering too much and that means too much smoke (ashy taste). Too little and the pellets go out. It's trial and error but kinda fun.

 

I used Apple with Extraordinary results the last time I did a butt

 

Try getting away from the hardwoods and go with apple,cherry, or peach

 

Holy shit that was awful. Sorry.
When i use the tube for smoke i don't really care about the air flow. I light the pellets, let the fire burn for a bit, blow out the flame, put on the lid and walk away. I've never had the fire light back up just smolders. I use a 26 webber and I have the bottom half open and the top wide open.

Jope dis phelps....

 

Stupid autocorrect.

I've cold smoked cheese and it came out ashy. Big waste of time and money. I didn't want a repeat. I put the tube in the mailbox to try and keep the temps down in the Weber. I figured 8 hours of smoke but chickened out at 5 hours and pulled it. Partly because the temps in the Weber were rising (when it hit 70f that was it) and also I didn't want to risk ashy taste. I'd rather have it a bit milder and edible vs. cigarette flavored bacon.

Anyway, it's in the refer cooling down now. I'll slice some off in a couple hours and do a test fry. If it's acceptable then I'll slice up the rest and vacuum seal/freeze most of it.

 

We should somehow get a TW bbq challenge together! Unfortunately, we're not all near each other!

 

I've been wanting to try this so bad. But have put it off until this fall for the temp thing. But if the cure has done its job it "should" be OK, right?
Sorry to hear about your cheese, that's about my very favorite thing to do. Again I usually do it in the cooler months as well. I only have one package left from my last smoke (Jan.) small chunks of Gouda, cheddar and mozzarella. I'm tempted almost every day...

 

Regarding the cure - yes, it should be ok for longer periods since I used the Prague salt vs the quick cure, but there's a part of me that just couldn't trust it to go longer. First time nerves maybe. If this batch works out I may go longer next time. We'll see.

We did 7 or 8 kinds of cheese in 2 batches: 1 hickory and 1 apple. About 2 hours on the hickory and 3 on the apple. Vacuum sealed them and let them age for something like 6-8 weeks. Both were ashy, but surprisingly the hickory less so. The only one I remotely liked was gouda hickory... Not sure what I did wrong. I'm gun shy about doing it again because of the poor results and the expense.

 

I think I remember those pictures of yours. It sure looks good. I went four hours with hickory dust, best I recall.

 

Electric smoker:


Y'all use your chips dry or soaked?

 

Trying this buckboard bacon thing.

 

I used to soak, then stopped. Now I only use dust.

 

Smoker Mod!!! Got the masterbuilt cold smoke kit in the mail. Double the smoke and very little heat transfer. An ice dish and some dryer duct will keep it much lower but I only have risen 5 degrees from when I turned it on an hour ago. Went from 79-84. Really loving it and would recommend it to anyone with a masterbuilt smoker

 

doe it use regular chips?

 

Yuhhhp