Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Venison makes up about 95% of my red meat intake. The other 5% is made up of a steak here and there and pork roasts.

It has been 7 years since I last smoked a brisket. This one is juicy, but it's just not hitting the spot on my taste buds like my Venison sausage or burgers do.

 

You should just send it to me then, and spare your taste buds.

 

Smoked 2 brats and 2 Italian sausages in my mini-wsm.. Then finished crisping them up by just moving the grid to the bottom.

I'm very impressed with the fuel consumption of this. Cooked for around 3 hours and used maybe half a chimney and held 230F the whole time. I'll probably use this more than my 22.5 wsm.

 

Thank you. After punching out the inner rings I brushed Sriracha sauce on them then wrapped in bacon.



I went 3.5 hours at 225* wanted to make sure the bacon was cooked and everything else was wrapped in bacon too. And covered in rub. They turned out perfectly IMO with the combination. Cut some up and cooked with my scrambled eggs this morning, perfect.

The parts that I removed I cut into large chunks then added cut zucchani and sliced mushrooms covered with Italian dressing and grilled in a stainless steel grill pan around medium heat. Toward the end added cherry tomatoes. That turned out to be a good compliment to everything else.

The poppers I used Anaheim peppers, cream cheese with green onions mixed in, and cheddar cheese little smokies. They were also a good mix for the meal.

 

I'm gonna have to try these the onion rings, they look legit!!!

 

X3

 

Thank you sir!

 

Your welcome but you can call me by first name, which is Mike or Chief (USN Ret.) anything but sir

Good luck and hope they turn out well for you! What is left of the chicken and poppers will end up in freezer in a couple of days. Just can't eat that much by myself. But the onion rings I expect will be gone by then.

 

Do it. I did the onion rings for the first time yesterday and they were my favorite thing I smoked. Onion, siracha, bacon, @bvbull200 rub a dub. So damn good. Mine looked like shit but they tasted amazing. 10/10 will make again.

 

They are so good. They are the most requested snack/appetizer now around here, passing up jalapeno poppers. MOINK balls are solid as well.

 

I need to do the jalapeño poppers and the onion rings. I'll do it this weekend...just need to pair them with something.

Do you guys recommend any racks or just go straight on the grate?

 

I googled it... Fuck it! I'm doing them this weekend too...

 

Finally did something on the WSM where the endpoint was to throw some sh-tuff out. I decided to experiment some on the WSM, so, as an experiment, I figured some would turn out crappy. End point though was a good learning experience.

I took a couple of inch thick sirloins, a couple boneless chicken breasts, a few sausage links (hatch chile) and something sold here called armadillo eggs, which I learned are essentially chicken breast with a half a jalapeno and wrapped in bacon. I had little hope for the chicken breast, but wanted to try it, and plan was to try a reverse sear on the steaks, then let the sausage and eggs smoke until done.

I took a chimney full of coals, got them going and poured into the WSM, added a few chunks of applewood, assembled it, threw the stuff on the grill, temp probe in the steak, and watched the temp "quickly" get to 325. I wasn't expecting that quick of a fire up, as I wanted 225. I closed 2 vents completely, with one just cracked open, and let it cool down. In hind-sight, I should have removed the grill until it cooled off, but I didn't, I left it on and the steaks were up to 145 before I realized it (<20 min), threw the steaks and chicken on the gas grill to add some char. So,,, the steaks ended up well done , the chicken ended up rubbery and was thrown out (first throw out). The sausage and eggs went to 160 and 165 and were good.

So, my learning is when adding a chimney full of coals to the WSM, close it and wait for the temp to come down FIRST. And boneless chicken breast is probably best saved for hot coals or the gas grill.

 

Going to Sam's this week to buy 4-8lbs of bacon, tri-tip, and everything else I need.

 

Think of them like little Fatty meat-balls. I know you looked it up, so I won't exhaust the details, but the name comes from it being beef (cows go "moo") wrapped in bacon (pigs go "oink"). Put them together and you have MOINK!

The recipes are only limited by your imagination. I've also done DOINK balls with venison instead of beef (deer + oink = DOINK).

I will say that, unlike with the Fatty, I like a really light glazing with the sauce of your choice on my (MOINK) balls.

I just put them straight on the grate.

 

I hunt primarily upland birds and have quite a bit experience with this. Although many game birds have dark meat in the breast and white dries out even more is still an issue with them. Once the skin is removed even on gas or charcoal chicken (and game birds) can dry out pretty fast on you.

You can brine them, marinate them or my favorite, give them a second skin this time of bacon. It helps keep them from drying out plus adds the great taste of "the other white meat" to them

The chicken cordon bleu I did yesterday was with boneless skinless chicken breasts. First butterfly the breast in half. Then I put it flat in a gallon ziplock bag and pound it down to about a quarter inch thick evenly all over. Lay the ham and swiss cheese in there and roll it up. And wrap the roll in bacon. At 225* the damn things stalled at 155* for almost 45 minutes. But the bacon still needs to cook and render its goodness so not a big deal still done in 3.5 hours. And longer cooking time helped the bark develop even more from the rub.

And it turned out juicy, tender and full of flavor. Will be supper again tonight. I did 6 large breasts and can only eat about half of one at a time, they are a pretty dense food.



Most of the time when I do chicken I do boneless skinless chicken thighs on kaboobs on the kettle. And both marinate them and wrap them in bacon.

 

I smoked a boston butt yesterday. This was my first one since buying my charcoal grill, but have done a few on my gas grill in the past. I put it on at 12pm and I cooked it for 6 hours. I kept the temps around 300-325 degrees and added charcoal as needed to keep temps steady. Since I was chopping it for BBQ I was trying to get the internal temp to 205 BUT at 6 o'clock my dad and wife were getting a little impatient. So I ended up pulling it at 190 degrees and letting it rest for 10 minutes before chopping. It was still good though.

Towards the end of the cook I was having a hard time keeping the temp up due to the ash in the bottom of the side smoker box. I'm wanting to make a charcoal basket out of expandable metal from Lowes, but I'm not sure how to figure size. Also, I see a lot of people having to use RTV I think that's what its called but could someone share a link on Lowes.com if they have it? Wanting to seal the areas where the smoke leaks out.

 

The only time you should use a full chimney of lit in a WSM is if you WANT it to get to 325-350. If your target is 225-250, put a full chimney of unlit in the basket, and then 10-12 lit coals on top of that.

 

I learned that one real quick

 

I thin that depends on which size wsm you have. I've never seen mine get above 300 and I have to struggle to get it that hot. I normally set the chimney in the middle of the ring and fill up around it with unlit, then remove it to make a donut shape. I then do about a half chimney and dump it in the hole of the donut.