Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I generally do a 2/1 ratio of apple-hickory, pecan-hickory, or cherry-hickory. Rarely go without a blend.

 

You are more advanced at blending then i am. Full speed ahead.

 

Surprisingly I have never heard of hardiness zones until I just looked it up. It looks like I would be in a zone 10 in southern CA. Agriculture is a tricky thing with too many variables other than just those zones.

 

Nothing advanced about it. I like that little extra bit of subtle smokiness from the hickory that is not too overpowering like mesquite. Too much of that and it can be a big turn-off when cooking for the more delicate types who do not eat that much bbq.

 

No doubt, humidity and length of seasons and intensity of summer plays more of a role here.

 

We typically have long, dry, triple digit summers here this far away from the coast. Humidity, and likely soil PH, here is gonna be vastly different than in the Gulf states.

Our recent drought that ended this year was an overall Godsend for CA agriculture. But at the same time, the drought is what catapulted CA wine to being world-class stuff. The quality of the wine depends heavily on the grapes being stressed out, and too much water will produce wine grapes that makes it too sugary and sweet.

 

We can hardly grow any decent wine grapes here. Muscadine grows ok, but that's sweet shit lol.

 

Zone 9 & 10, Avocados guess you guys don't have electrical outlets on your parking meters to plug the block heaters in? Should have been my first clue when I first moved here LOL. Have truck ready and things packed for the most part to leave Saturday morning for a week grouse hunting and now realize forgot to pack some wood chunks. So that is why I keep coming back here...

Not much local that I would want to use for wood smoke. For the last 2 weeks been researching State and Federal clearcuts for prime Aspen thicket growth that would likely be good ruff grouse habitat. Preferably with Fir\Spruce on the edges. 4" of rain on Monday so the overflowing bogs and beaver ponds will restrict a lot of access. The soil is thin and the Canadian Shelf isn't far below it which provides a solid bottom. Usually.

 

If my stall gets to be too long I’ll wrap it in foil. Temp jumps up fairly soon after that. Still have a nice bark generally also.

Is there something wrong with wrapping it? Just curious.

 

Not if it turns out good!

 

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/27/food/la-fo-bacon-20111027

 

I don't think there is anything wrong with wrapping it, but last time I wrapped it while resting in a cooler it lost the bark. So this go around I didn't wrap, going to get it nailed down one day lol

 

I don't wrap during the cook usually, unless I am in a time crunch, but I always wrap during rest. Double layer of HD foil, wrapped in a towel, and then in the cooler. I've never had issues losing bark, because if I did I would change something, bark is my favorite part. I think most of the bark loss is from foiling during the cook, i.e. the Texas crutch

 

I don't think so. I cook some badass briskets using the Texas Crutch (foil wrapping). It's the method I suggest in the brisket link in my sig. You do give up some of the bark, but not all, and the result is usually a juicier piece of meat. The juiciest brisket I've ever cooked was wrapped in foil (at a point, not the whole time). The best bark I've ever made was naked the whole cook. Both were excellent. Give and take. If I had to cook just one right now, I'd wrap in foil after a time and try to time it just right so that I get as much as I can out of both aspects. I'm still working on getting great at it, but I am finding that butcher paper wrapping, at least on brisket, seems to be a great way to get the best of both worlds.

 

That is a pretty rowdy smoke ring! Pork butts are stubborn. Get some butcher paper and try that for wrapping some time. Breathes better than foil, but still helps speed up the cook and retain moisture.

You're leaving out one of my favorites - cherry!

Agreed, though. Fun to try new stuff.

 

Thank you for the link. It looks like I will be trying it out when I get around to it.

 

I was suppose to post this stuff yesterday but I forgot so enjoy. Brother in laws 22in. I just brought the split log

https://youtu.be/8Cs0_XahJ8Y

 

Wrong thread Scott! That smell is pretty amazing though. Hope it tastes just as good for ya!

 

Those steaks look tasty but the sticker in the lower right had me laughing. More selective than Prime Choice or Select.....then the asterisk.