Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Smoked pork chops are good.

 

Chicken tortilla soup...not smoked. But tasty with the recent chill and sprinkles!

 

It came out pretty damned good. Add some shaved parmesan, the GF made biscuits from scratch... good stuff.

 

Looks very good.

 

That looks good too. I needs me some winter food.

 

I still havent got good at cooking/grilling pork chops...I either get them too dry or too chewy....

 

When I read it I just got the thought of Smells like Fish, Tastes like Chicken in my head.

 

Nice. How did you do them? I actually took out some pork chops to make for tonight. Was thinking about how I can do them on the smoker and not end up stupidly dry.

 

I picked up a Masterbuilt smoker on clearance last week. Smoked my first Pork Butt yesterday and it was delicious.

 

Looks mighty tasty.

 

When grilling PCs it's very easy to over cook them. I grill with a very hot fire 450ish and the grate is only three-four inches from the coals. I never leave the grill, on regular PCs about two minutes a side and they're done.

 

That would be why I overcook them...I guess I treat them like a steak and shouldnt...

 

I smoked them at 240° and it took about two hours because they were thick. They were a little dry but not bad. The one complaint from the family was that they were too smokey. I don't know if it's something I did since this is only my second time or if my family doesn't really go for the smokey taste. I'm still learning about smoking so I'm not sure but I'll keep trying.

 

Old pic from a previous batch but just put on some more smoked scotch eggs. These lil F'ers are so noms!

 

Recipe?

 

What type of wood and how much did you use?

 

I used apple chips and probably 2 to 3 cupfuls. I don't really remember.

 

One thing I learned early on is to take notes, the first few times, about exactly how much / how long for everything. That info helped me a ton later to learn how to avoid the same mistakes I had made before. Anyway, you didn't use mesquite or hickory, so that was my main question. Those two can overpower easily. You quantity sounds about right also, maybe a bit on the high side. Finding that balance of enough smoke vs not enough is a very trial and error thing given whatever your particular variables are during any given smoke.

 

When I do pork chops I smoke them with hickory at 230f or so on grill grates until I get an IT of about 140f. Pull them then off then sear in a preheated cast iron pan until I get an IT of 160f. This gets me some, smoke but not too much. During the last few minutes in the pan I apply a bourbon/maple glaze (little bit of maple syrup mixed with bourbon, or honey with bourbon). Never had a bad one...