Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

hmmmm. the alcohol in the beer probably caused the flare up with the smoker box.

 

I do like that griddle plate you have in the grill though.. was it made for the grill or something you found that fit?

 

its a Lodge cast iron griddle. Its pretty heavy duty. I had retired that grill and was ready to scrape it and decided to give it another year or so. I bought the griddle for 30 bucks on Amazon.

$35 Lodge LDP3 Cast Iron Rectangular Reversible Grill/Griddle, 9.5" x 16.75", Black

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002CMLTXG/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_cqtcFbQ3EAB14

 

I'm staying with Echo, started with lights first. Over the winter replaced 3 window shades on the South side of the house with Bali double cellular smart blinds although needed a Samsung Smartthings bridge to work with the Z-Wave. Love them. Echo turn on open blinds. Can of course control them individually too. Like them enough on July 4th ordered 3 more for the living room at 50% off. Still spendy but worth it to me. Don't want to get too domesticated though so ordered another shotgun on the 4th also LOL. A little Italian 16 ga. Side by Side for grouse hunting, not that I need another grouse gun but...

Fast food in the yard this morning. 2 veal. Too small to even have backstraps yet. I swear these twins love to tease the dogs.

I use a smoker box on the gasser sometimes especially when using the rotisserie. You can see it to the left



I use wood chips in it and soak them first. Once they dry out they can catch fire especially when you open the lid. Likely not enough alcohol in the beer to cause them to catch on fire it is just one of the hazards of using a chip box. But for the most part works well.

I have the A Maze N Tray and several tubes. Personally I don't find them as effective as wood chips. Have used them on the Gasser also but what I find is they just don't add the smoke flavor I want with pellets. And on the gasser they really built up a lot of oily residue. Suspect it is due to lack of oxygen and it was creosote, I burned it off the box when I was done.

Got them for supplementing the pellet pooper as I really am disappointed in the lack of smoke flavor of pellets especially for short cooks. Wasn't happy with that so thought I'd try a few pieces of charcoal and wood chunks on the pooper in the tray. Don't be that guy pellet poopers are not made for high heat.



High temp primer paint should be here today but first need to sand it all down.

Spent this morning reading and researching about using sawdust instead of pellets in the tray it just may work the best. For the smoke I am looking for anyhow.

Been using the 26" kettle for the most part have hardly fired up the WSM since I got the larger kettle. It is just so easy to use, for everything

 

Whats the broccoli dish cooking in that last picture?

 

Poked around the local Costco this morning and stumble on a BBQ knife set. Extremely good reviews and after opening the kit at home, I’m impressed. Seems to be a quality find!

https://www.costco.com/cangshan-s-series-7-piece-bbq-knife-set.product.100485534.html

 

Ya I had a Z Wave bridge at my last house. I planned everything out as I was having it built. Was nice to be able to control most of the house from echo or an app on my phone. Even had my garage door opener on it so I could open/close/monitor that. I would like to integrate some temp probes or a pellet smoker next go round for nothing other than to be able to ask for the probe temps while I’m working on other things.

 

Looks pretty good. Make sure you give some feedback to nice you’ve used a couple times. I need a set.

 

Ribs are rubbed and on the smoker. Murray wants some ribs.

I ran out of On Point about halfway through, need to order more.

 

He looks sad...but dont turn your back...

 

Haha, he has used the sad face to get many a table scrap.

 

Leftovers LOL, I had to look it up to remember although it did turn out well. Why I post on here so much I use it later as my journal

First steamed the Broccoli a little bit to soften it. Added scallions. Cubed some Cure 81 ham. Some cheese left over from my last run to Wi. extra sharp cheddar and Parmesan. Grated it. Found some cream cheese in the back of the fridge it helps keep the other cheese from lumping up. And some heavy cream. For sauce. Found a can of green beans in the back of the pantry not French cut but hey they are low in carbs.

I'll do that again.

Funny kind of what started it for me, a couple of years ago replaced my garage door opener with a belt drive Chamberlin and it has MyQ. They talked about Alexa integration but decided it was a security issue so instead you can pay them $10 a month if you want to have full features. Screw them. There is a third party device that will work one of these days I need to break down and

$96 NEXX Garage NXG-100b Smart WiFi Remotely Control Existing Garage Opener with App, Compatible with Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, No Hub Required, Black

buy it.

Would be nice when I go to bed at night and wonder if I shut the garage door after bringing the dogs in if I shut it or not to just ask Echo. I renamed Alexa to Echo. Integration with the Smoke thermometers would be nice also! I have the Smoke gateway and just checked and it doesn't.

Then again there are some people that don't even have WiFi but I won't mention any names...

Fireboard, Flame and CyberQ & UltraQ all have Alexa integration. I do have a CyberQ ATC for the WSM but it is the older model from 6 years ago so a no go. Hmm always thought that when it died would replace it with a Thermoworks Signal but that doesn't have Alexa integration. So would likely be an UltraQ instead. But hope it keeps on ticking along certainly have got my moneys worth out of it.

 

Yes it’s nice to just be able to check on the status of things. I remember a few years back we were leaving to head to the mountains for 3-4 weeks and all the sudden got a notification that the garage door was still open. I thought Wife had closed it. So I pulled up the app told the door to close and checked the security cams real quick just to make sure nothing funny was going on. I Guess she thought I did I thought she did and neither of us noticed as we pulled away.

 

Ribs are now wrapped on the smoker, another hour then unwrap.

Bacon is baking to a crisp to break up and put in the stuffed mushrooms.

Brussel sprouts will be going in after the bacon, saving some bacon grease for them.

Pasta salad (pasta, grape tomatoes, baby spinach, mozzarella balls, mashed garlic, artichoke, Parmesan cheese, mayo and artichoke marinade) is made and cooling. Eating good tonight.

 

Damn that looks good actually more like great! Now I want some pasta salad and that looks perfect.

I'm hungry!

 

It’s pretty damn good. The little lady found the recipe online a few years ago.

 

Ribs are off, shrooms are on (there are mushrooms under that Tillamook Sharp Cheddar, bacon and cream cheese)

 

Did a rack of ribs today, rubbed with a secret rub . Pretty dang tasty!! Threw a couple fresh out of the garden ears of corn on while the ribs were doing their thing. Then decided to do a can of garlic spam for this week.


Had my assist begging for a bite. Sorry girl it’s got garlic

 

Marinated, Memphis style grilled pork loin...

 

Country ribs are on.