Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

I like your idea of working the leftover pulled pork into dishes. I usually just eat it straight for the next 3-4 days and don’t smoke a butt again for 2 months…

 

Heck yeah. The first half of this fed the crew on a trail ride then on to a few leftovers. I usually vacuum seal some for the freezer but this time there isn't much left.

 

Well I searched for "chopped ham" in this thread and didn't find what I was looking for, so...

I love smoking all sorts of foods, mostly wild Alaskan seafood and game in my Cookshack smoker. I'd heard smoked bologna was good and wanted to give it a whirl sooner or later. Decided to experiment on 2-5lb blocks of inexpensive chopped ham.

Scored them in a diamond pattern. Slathered yellow mustard all over them as a binder to hold a generous sprinkling of rib rub.

4 ounces of hickory wood chips @ 225 degrees for 5 hours in the smoker. Incredible variety to add to the menu!

 

Feels like it’s been too long!

Ribs and chicken

 

Which model Cookshack do you have?

That ham looks great!

I am currently trying to decide which smoker to upgrade to, and a Cookshack is one of my options.

I assume you like it - anything you don't like about it?

 

Tomorrow I'm doing ribs on the 26" kettle for the first time. Going to do a snake around the outside. Any tips or tricks that I need to know about before I give it a go?

 

Speaking from experience, patience to let the temp stable before putting the meat on makes all the difference. Bottom vent is usually barely open, top wide open if I can to make sure it breathes well.

That being said, some of the best ribs I make are when I leave it all alone around 275 for 5-6 hours lol

 

Sweet and Spicy
Smoked meatballs and cocktail weiners

Spoiler

2 pounds frozen meatballs
24 oz little smokies
Can of crushed pineapple
BBQ Sauce
Jalapeños
275 for 2 hours stirring every 30 min

 

Ribs were a hit for sure! Way more smoke flavor than I used to get with my Traeger.

At first the temp wouldn't go much above 215 even with bottom vent full open. Once I opened the lid to wrap at 2 hours, temps got a lot higher and I closed bottom vent to only 1/4 open and that kept temps at about 250. My other lesson learned is that if I'm going to do one rack, I may as well do three.

I used up about 3/4 of my snake in a little over 5 hours. How do people handle longer cooks? Can the snake be refueled?

 

That looks great! Going to do that next weekend!

 

Ya when I do a brisket I end up building 2-3 snakes

 

Use a spicy BBQ sauce to balance the sweet of the pineapple.

 

Ribs on. Ribs are killer hogs hot, Pitfaced spicy meat massage, and salt pepper garlic to be finished with bbq sauce. Here to the the next 6-7 hours.

 

YES to many things.

1. Snakes yeah you can just add more. It's a circle, just keep the circle going I have a barrel grill so I just dump on more as need be, instead of doing snakes. But I might try one next time just for the fun of it
2. I'm the same way. If I am filling the smoker with smoke, why have any dead space? I have a vac sealer, so when I do a smoke now I fill it. If there's any dead space, it gets filled with sausages, chicken thighs, etc.
3. Meat is the heat sink. One rack of ribs doesn't do much, but 3, or a full smoker, will take up more of the heat and change the size, smoke, etc. You may go through more fuel if you have a full smoker full of cold meats, verses a relatively insignificant 1 rack of ribs.

Ribs and butts are forgiving. It's hard to under or overcook them since the window of "done" is so wide.

 

Carved pumpkins yesterday with the better half. Put the seeds on some foil and smoked on the Green Mtn. Grill along with pork loin.

Cooled, had a few to sample... Best ever.
Then, wife knocked plate on floor along with a glass, seeds and glass everywhere. Into garbage went my seeds.

 

Smoked and seared a picanha for a quick dinner

 

Kid wanted steak for her birthday, so I obliged:

 

Update: