Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I use minion method. I am thinking I will have to make adjustments to the amount of starting coals to find the sweet spot.

 

Offer Up app. I came up on 2 WSM 18's back to back days, and sold one to for more than I bought both.

Effectively kept one for free.

 

Don't adjust your coals. Just slam them on the pile. Give it a few minutes to start taking off. Build your stack, vents wide open. Once you are in 25 degrees of your target temp. Back all 3 vents down to half. It will take a good 10min to stable. If it's still climbing rapidly. Back down to 1/4. Never touch the top vent. With no pan, it wants to run around 265-275 stable for hours. Just learn the cooker

 

265-275 seemed what it wanted to be at. I was trying to get it at around 225-235.

 

It will take you a few cooks before you can get it that low with no pan. Nothing wrong with running at 265-275. Once you learn the cooker. 250 all day

 

L



About as close to what I want as I can get. Now the challenge... replicate!

 

Butter.

 

OfferUp app

 

OfferUp and let go have nothing around me. I found an 18" wsm listed for $150 pretty close to me. I asked for pics since none we included in the add, but it's listed as like new. If pics are good, I'm going to try and get it for $100.

 

I grilled with them last night and am getting the smoker fired up with them today.

On the grill, they seemed to burn hotter and with slightly less ash than KBB. I have much more leftover fuel after making burgers than I'd have normally expected. The briquettes are noticeably bigger and more dense than KBB. I liked them better than KBB, I'd say, but I'm not really fussy on the grill, so I wouldn't pay the premium (regular price).

I'm actually hoping they won't do very good in the smoker, because I don't want to be beholden to a $1/lb charcoal briquette .

 

I have this pork belly cubed up and on the smoker. Each of those little guys are fighting for their piece of the cherry/pecan smoke. I checked a few methods but I think I'm essentially going to cook this pretty similarly to our competition ribs (a few of you know what I mean ), odd as that may sound. That, of course, also means Pitfaced BBQ rub . I will add a little BBQ sauce that I don't usually do on ribs.

I get that the high fat content is going to shrink these things down, but man, a little goes a long way. I think I paid around $30 for around 8 pounds and I'm going to have a ton of this side dish.

 

As much as I like to cook for myself, there is something to be said about a meal that you didn't have to do the work on. It's nice to find a BBQ place where you can offload the effort from time to time and still have a good meal.

 

I've got a Dukes right outside my neighborhood and another decent BBQ place about a mile or so away. I try not to think about them...

 

A great Zero to Hero story. A real tear-jerker.

 

Pretty quiet in here today

 

We've been waiting on you .

No beef for me today, just pork and chicken.

(Really weird for me to say that)

 

Yeah, I've been something of a smoker slouch lately, we're not used to this hot ass weather up in Seattle. Nothing compared to what most of the country always deals with though. So I guess I'm Homer backing into the bushes.

 

Trying out the Vortex today with some wings and potato bombs. Wife wanted some bacon wrapped poppers. Not sure how they'll turn out a over 400 degrees.

 

Yeah, these are going to become a staple...


A few things from my first attempt at them:

1. The flavor recipe is not changing. Pitfaced BBQ rub, brown sugar, honey, and butter is where it's at. I might tinker with ratios and timing, but these tasted absolutely killer. I did sprinkle some cracked black pepper on some of them. Those were good. That might be my only variation.

2. The ones on the left were sauced (albeit lightly). The ones on the right were not. I liked the no-sauce ones better. I won't be saucing in the future. You know what makes a good glaze? The ingredients from #1 + rendered pork belly fat. The pan that I braised them in was full of the most delicious juice you'll find. So good that I saved the remainder in a vacuum sealed container and put it in the freezer. I reintroduced that to the ones on the right as they were finishing up uncovered.

3. I'm probably going to turn the heat up a tad next time. Everything I read suggested 225-250*. I don't think that's necessary for these. I'd have liked a little more crust and 3 hours uncovered still didn't get them where I wanted. I'd also like to have some of the bigger pieces rendered just a little more. I'll shoot for 250-275* next time instead. I think these spent a little too long in the 225* range.

We are in the People's Choice competition the day before the pro event this Labor Day weekend. We've done pulled pork and double-smoked queso sliders before with some success, but I think we're going to go with these instead. I'll be dialing these in for the next month.