Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Forgot about this sucker in the freezer. Meat cutter hacked it up and I made do for 50% off the sale price (around 70¢ /lb. IIRC). We’ll see how she fares.

 

I love my dynaglo

 

How many gallons is that?

 

@la0d0g

I just got to town (have seen you in the local thread). Let me know when I can swing by to try out some of your tasty treats. I just got settled and am itching to bust out the offset smoker once the snow stops.

May even need to get some folks over for my favorite:

Cold smoked ribeye (Bradley smoker)
Sous Vide to 120⁰
Then pan fry in garlic butter for a crisp crust

Makes for some of the best ribeye/meat that I've ever had.

 

It’s 1382 sq inch of smoke chamber. Don’t know what that translates to in gallons

 

In cubic inches, it’s slightly smaller than a 6 gallon tank — which it is definitely not. I don’t know where the square measurements where taken. I ask because it’s deceptively large, you have a lot going on. Any issues with heat from the bottom to the top? How much fuel do you typically burn?

 

The size in sq inch is from the companies website. The vertical stack is great for fitting a lot of smaller or flatter things. If I add too much charcoal or wood I can have flame coming out the lower smoke chamber from the fire box but usually I keep it lower unless I’m trying to cook wings. I like them crispy. I go through one to two full bags of Sonora mesquite charcoal ($8 a bag at the grocery store) and a few chunks of white oak (family property has a ton of fallen oak trees) if I’m smoking I a pork butt or something that’s a longer lower temp

 

He posted square inches, not cubic inches.

For square, they measure only the grates.

 

Wings, ribs, spatchcock chicken, and pork butt, room for it all

 

Cows weigh 1600lbs (female) or 2400 lbs (male) on average.

That's a metric butt load of steaks. That's only 1 tongue.

Genuinely: This came up on Clarkson's Farm this newest series. He raises cows and opens a restaurant, the chef does lingua tacos (I think it was tacos) then explained "Hey, I can do a ton of steak, but like 2 dozen of these because there's only so many tongues...."

AND...Hipsters happened. Seriously, who eats tongue? Nasty, gross, slimy....same as brisket, it was a cheap cut, toss out, whatever meat. Then people found a way to make it palatable, hipster smoke houses started selling it, and now it's $$$$

That's my take, anyway. (Nasty gross slimly is BS, they're good)

My bet for what's next? Chicken feet.

If you're trying to fill space - sausages work wonders. I do the same thing though. "I have the smoker going, might as well fill it". Just be aware of the larger thermal mass in there, and the reduced flow because of that and it's all good. Brined turkey breast goes well too, but sausages are a nice filler.

 

Exactly why I mentioned cubic - to make sure it wasn’t a mistake. There’s loads of cooking room and I was curious of the actual size of the cooking chamber.

 

I ended up going with sausages last weekend since we had them and my son asked to have them smoked. Worked out really nice. Only problem is that I didn't get any. Gotta remember to take some pics as I go now.

 

Oh, sausage and turkey is the first things I go for

Try chorizo, too. I've done Lap Cheong and it was a solid 4/10, just didn't jive for me. But spicy italian and chorizo is top notch. Sweet italian meh.

 

I’m not sure but I can measure the chamber height and width today to try and get an interior number. All the racks are removable and there are hooks to hang meat from the top.

 

This is the only way I’ll smoke a chicken. Cooks even and quickly.

 

Same. I need some better cutting utensils though. A good set of kitchen shears.

 

Use Poultry Shears instead. The curved blade provides more leverage and they should come apart for cleaning.

 

I just hack it up with a chef's knife but I do it raw.

But I do agree, I don't do whole chickens, if I did, it'd be spatchcocked. I'm usually feeding just me so I have to freeze some of it, a whole bird lasts me a week - easily a week without lunches.

 

Oh heck yeah! When the weather gets nicer we can have another trail run with a bbq picnic!