Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

@Kanyon71
@CurtB
@"OldManTan"


Bought at Barbecues Galore. It is their store brand. Turbo Elite 32" 4 Burner

 

Want!

 

Well look at the bright side. At least you aren't into Miyabi and lust after the black series. 7 piece knife set is $3.3k but you can find them on sale for $2.3k sometimes, but they are hard to keep in stock and usually sold out.



Like you said, not going to happen!

Alton Brown uses carbon steel knives, some which cost more than $1K because they are hand made, and Gordon Ramsey uses both Wüsthof and Henckels as they are very similar. I really like my Henckels Professional S knives a lot and they have been great. They are workhorses that just keep on getting the job done.

Alton Brown has a good video on his knives.



Both he, Ramsey and quite a few others say that their most used knives are a Chefs, boning and paring knife. So feel better that I am not totally crazy they are my most used knives also.

The Japanese knives are great however my Chicago cutlery and Pro S knives will slice a tomato almost as thin as the Miyabi. And to be honest the need for me to slice something so thin you can see through it and hardly tell that it is there comes up, erh never? But do like the feel and ease of cutting with the Miyabi knives.

I am a rocker. My Henckels Pro S Chefs is a traditional slicer. So I have wanted a Rocking Santoku for a long time. The Henckels Pro line which is the same steel as the Pro S came out after I purchased my set and the Pro Chefs knife is a more modern design and a rocker. Last weekend stumbled across a sale at Cutlery and More where they sold both Zwilling J.A. Henckels Pro 7" Chef's & Rocking Santoku Knife Set for $99. It is back up to $180 now, my set should be here on Monday. If I like it will get the MIYABI KAIZEN 7-INCH ROCKING SANTOKU, HOLLOW GROUND to go with my other Miyabi Kaizen knives. Just because Damascus steel is so sexy to look at.

I feel you hit the nail on the head, as soon as you add someone else in the mix all hell breaks loose. For me it is my son that lives with me. He throws my Chicago Cutlery in the dishwasher which is hell on the wood handles. So he is not allowed to touch my Japanese knives. Last lady that I dated for quite awhile would throw all my knives in the dishwasher except the Miyabi and those she would throw in the bottom of the sink. What the hell is wrong with people?!

I hand wash and dry my knives right after I use them. Just like I clean my cast iron pans right after I use them and they are still hot. Not hard to do, and after you do it enough it becomes habit.

Chicago Cutlery steel every time before I use them, hard stone every couple of weeks. Both soft and hard stones every couple of months. As long as I have the stones out will usually do the Henckels too except only use the coarse stone on those every 6 months or so. Japanese knives I use water stones and not very often. Because I seldom use them. But just purchased another cutting board teak this time and it will stay on the counter at what will become a semi permanent prep station. Will be using and sharpening them more soon at least that is my theory.

My Weber Genesis does have a searing station, it is ~12 years old and best dollars I ever spent on a gasser too. Puts a smile on my face every time I start it up, as it just keeps on ticking along.

I got a set of grill grates for it and love them, you would be hard pressed to tell the difference between it and charcoal now. Sometimes use the wood chip box on it for smoke.



The North like we are will kill a cheap grill in short order. When my oldest son got married I offered to buy him a Weber but he said he didn't want me to spend the money on one. When he moved 2 years later and I went over to make some runs to the dump for him I took the Sawzall with me because I knew his cheap POS grill was going to the dump also. It did.



I use the gasser mainly in the winter. The lower air vents on the kettles in winter will freeze up with grease so I keep the 26" ~1/3 open for smoking. And one of my 22" kettles is dedicated to wings and stays fully open.

Have noticed a trend over the last couple of years with my wings. When I do them on game day before the game the Bills often lose. It is OK to do them after the game of course. So Saturday will NOT be doing wings until after 4 PM EST. Just saying...

 

I need to watch more Alton Brown. I like his presentation.

My wife finally treats my old CC knives with the care they deserve. All it took was threats of bodily harm.

 

Filling out my paperwork for my doctors appt. is this correct ?

 

Beautiful grill, but I looked online - $2k is about 2x what I wanted to spend.

Thinking of Weber Genesis-II E-335 (non stainless as I had a Gen I stainless and after a couple years the Weber stainless fascia on doors and side table still started rusting...was not impressed).

Any caveats?

 

They asked how much, not what. So how many pounds/week?

 

Gonna need to add 15lbs every two weeks not including other meats (chicken, pork etc)

 

My FIL was looking at an Oklahoma Joe offset smoker.

Anyone have opinions on Oklahoma Joe brand or offset smokers? I have no experience with either.

 

@medic2230
Has a few of them and lives next to the factory outlet. They are well built for there cost.

 

It was time.

 

I just redid mine a few weeks ago

 

Luckily I didn't need to bust out a grinder to do mine. A few smacks with a hammer and screwdriver is all it took

 

I have the 4 in 1. It’s fine for short smokes, eats a lot of fuel for long smokes. They are leaky, but a few mods when putting them together will help a lot. Not horrible for the cost and build material.

 

I’ve got 4 OK Joe’s. Been very happy with all of them. Like Carey said on the really long smokes they’ll use a good bit if you’re using mainly lump charcoal. I’ll start with lump and then switch to oak from there on out. Most will use splits in them but I use reg firewood cut in mine. Works well. I looked into sealing mine all up but to me wasn’t worth all the effort. It holds heat well and once you learn it, it’s pretty easy to maintain your temp. Only issue I’ve had with the 4 in one was one of the wheels finally rusted off this year. But mine stay out in the weather year round uncovered. Like Maner said the factory is here in town so we can buy them cheap and it’s easy to get parts here. They’ve cooked anything I’ve thrown at them well and I’m happy with them. for grilling so far I’ve really enjoyed the Bronco upright. I have yet to do a smoke on it but seen some really good results with it and long burn times with a aftermarket charcoal basket. I’ve done 14 hour smokes on the 4 in 1 and ran the Longhorn offset up to 8 hours. For the money you’re not going to beat them.

 

I'm just gonna say hell yeah and leave it at that.

 

Thanks fellas, I will pass this info along.

 

Welp, seasoned my propane smoker this AM and christened it with a beer can chicken... Had hoped to do some ribs, but had some issues with the seasoning burn.

Directions said to clean, wipe with oil, and burn to 350 for a while. Door thermometer never got past 240, so I put my digi therm. in and I was at 400! I figured the door therm. would be a little off, but not that much!

Not super crazy about the Cuisinart... Some of the coating around the burner started bubbling/peeling off and it wasn’t putting off as much smoke as I had expected. I had planned on smoking my bird at 325 for an hour and a half. It then took 2 hrs before I even hit 300! It was a little windy and mid 40s, so I assume that was giving me problems.

Even though it took much longer than expected, chicken came out super juicy! Used a rub recipe found here - https://www.theblackpeppercorn.com/steves-basic-bbq-rub/ and added a few spices of my own. Tossed half a Wild Leap Alpha Abstraction ipa under the bird and added a mix of hickory chips and chunks.

Pretty pumped about how the chicken came out and definitely a learning experience. We’ll see how the next session goes! Plan on doing ribs tomorrow! And definitely going to start much earlier!