Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

it's not so much the cold as it is my smoker and grill being frozen to the patio and I can't move it. the same thing happened last year and it bent the end of my weber kettle leg. to me, canadian bacon shouldn't be super smokey anyway. I'm going to do the maple glaze on it.

the way my patio drains (or doesn't drain), the downspout slowly drips onto it and creates this black-ice. it's so thick i can't scrape it off with a shovel. it SHOULD melt today or tomorrow.

 

We do them all the time on ours. I let the smoke run at a lower heat for about 25 mins or so with them on there, then I bring it up to a high temp to actually cook them. Tons of compliments on the steaks from everyone who eats them.

 

Been stupid cold here also. Wanted to smoke this weekend but with wind chill it was REALLY freakin cold here. When I looked a little while ago it was -2 which isn't fun to be out messing with the smoker in. Hopefully it warms enough so that I can do something this coming weekend without worrying about frost bite lol.

 

For both of us! Like drwx said I want just a touch of smoke. Thinking I'll get everything set up in this "heat wave" next few days and in theory should just have to put a paraffin cube in the charcoal and off to the races. Will be single digits and teens below later this week again. Don't even want to look at wind chill but know when the warnings come up on my phone exposed skin will freeze and frostbite happens in 10 minutes or less.

 

Looking forward to the results, thank you for info. Have to check around for the maple syrup.

 

My buckboard bacon has been curing since last Sat, so this is day 9. I'll rinse it tonight and soak it overnight, then let it sit tomorrow in the fridge. Probably smoke it tomorrow evening. Planning on a longer colder smoke trying to get 3 hrs of smoke on it without rendering anything out.

 

No doubt. I was telling the wife this past weekend I wanted to smoke some food. Then I went outside and that changed quickly.

 

Patio is thawed, but I dgaf. I'm watching the championship game tonight. This has a glaze of equal parts maple syrup and butter along with 3 or 4 drops of hickory liquid smoke. I'm taking it to 150 and then killing the oven and letting it rest.

 

Took 4 hours at 200F to reach 150F internal.

 

finally got to eat some of the canadian bacon for breakfast. i didn't want to slice it last night while it was still warm. i'm never going to mess with doing buckboard bacon again. this took less time and has a way better flavor. for a 2" thick pork loin, i wouldn't go over 5 days. another day on this would have made it too salty. i might cook it on charcoal next time to get the outside a little color.

 

You are not the first person to say all of the above. Have 9 pounds sitting in cure right now so Saturday is the latest I feel comfortable letting it sit. Think going to stick with the smoker even though it will be cold enough to freeze the balls off the brass monkey. As much as I love cornmeal I'm drawing the line at rolling it in cornmeal let alone peameal, and many Canadians seem to be getting away from it too.

 

Rolling the MES analog 30 with the amazn tube. Sliced up some of it to test the saltiness and it was great. Definitely required the overnight soak, but it equalized out nicely. Stabilized at 207 and will roll for 3 hrs then check the internal temp.

 

You can let it sit for as long as you want (within reason) if you soak it out overnight. My current theory is that the traditional techniques call for a long cure then a soak because the goal was to truly cure the meat. Since none of us are trying to actually prolong unrefrigerated shelf life, you should be ok timing the cure to hit your target saltiness as some are doing here. To me, it's easier to let it cure thoroughly for 8 to 10 days then soak it out overnight, because it's repeatable and more forgiving on the timing.

 

Curious, is that MES single walled or double (insulated) walled? I'm not certain I've ever seen one like that, that was electric.

 

The door is double walled and I assume the body is as well, but honestly I haven't paid attention. It's already covered up tonight, but I'll try to remember to take a look tomorrow.

 

By the way - I'm through trying to keep the MES clean by cooking in foil pans. The top of my bacon was brown & beautiful from the smoke, but the bottom still looked like raw ham. Much better results with direct-on-grate smoking. I'm hoping the smoke flavor isn't all concentrated on one side of my bacon, lol. It's resting overnight in the fridge so hopefully the flavor balances out.

 

Yeah, I use pans but, but on a rack below my meat, not with the meat in the pan, and just try and catch most of the drippings.

 

Nice thing about my pellet pooper. There is a drip tray that runs on a angle to funnel fat/juices down to a ledge that's also angled and out to a bucket that hangs off the side where it's all caught. I wrap the tray in aluminum foil so all in all it make cleanup pretty easy. Every now and then I will wipe down the inside of the barrel and I usually make sure all the ash is cleaned out of the bottom and I'm good to go.

 

I should do this but most the time I hang the drip flange over the grass/dirt and then spray the grass with the hose. I think my wife stole my bucket.

 

Nice. I actually just ordered another bucket from Amazon. Was pretty cheap and figured this way I can be lazy and not have to clean one out every time I use it.