Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

ok thanks, I might do one this weekend that is why I was asking.

 

Nice I dont brine my yard birds either dont feel it does any good and I have tried. I also only use chery chunks for smoking poultry I like the mild taste.

 

I haven't bought the wood yet, but I have never seen cherry. A local apple farm was selling their wood. I should have gotten some but didnt.

 

i use apple wood. readily available. i just help a coworker prune his trees. local orchards give the wood away too.

i cut down my cherry tree, but my tree was dying from some weird fungus. that cant make good smoke. i dumped it.

 

Yea not a good deal cooking with fungus! As for the cherry wood most Home Depots will have the chunks. I have used Apple wood as well but to me it has a little more smoke flavor from what I like, peach wood is another winner.

 

I've only "cold" smoked salmon at 90* or so, same as cheese.

I just recieved a new batch of A-MAZ-N Dust, 5lb. hickory, 1lb. sugar maple and 1lb. cherry. I've never tried cherry before, as above stated, posed to be mild.

 

Oh you will dig the cherry wood, great for salmon, trout, bluefish, and any poultry.

 

I've used apple and maple both plenty, but I thought I'd try the cherry. I always go back to the hickory, though. There is no such thing (IMO) as too smokey.

 

Oh I agree 100% I use Hickory for beef but when it comes to the lighter fare I don't like it to over power the taste of the fish or chicken.

 

Here is the 3 smoked chicken with and without flash

With



Without

 

Smoking ribs again as well... party tomorrow

 

Ok here is my first attempt at smoking a brisket. It is about 6 lb and I put it in at almost 5 am. The party is at noon, I am thinking it might be ready by then. I hope it turns out well. I might have to look up a smoked brisket recipe. Well I know that if it doesnt come out good we have plenty of food for backup.

 

Nice man. I think you'll definitely have edible brisket in that amount of time. It's not gonna be super tender but if you slice it thin against the grain it'll be smoky and tasty and awesome.

 

The food was good yesterday. I am sorry there are no pics, it was a long night. I did get some good pics. Everything was good and everyone had a good time. The brisket was absolutely amazing. I am not really tooting my own horn but it was the best smoked brisket I ever had.

 

You have no ruined yourself for restaurant BBQ! You can make it at home so much better as you have just found out!

 

Awesome. What rub did you use?

 

I always knew that restaurant quality wasnt the best unless you go to one of those hole in the walls that knock you out with good food. the brisket got montreal steak seasoning on it that I pushed into the meat then right on the smoker for like 8 or 9 hours..... really good.

 

I've been smoking meat since I was a kid. I've used pretty much every smoker type out there, and grew up on the cheap vertical water smokers like the Brinkmans and Webers. I use an off set barrel smoker now, but I still carry on the tradition of the water smoker by putting a couple of 9"x13" foil cake pans with water on the bottom rack under the meat to help keep it moist.

I pretty much only smoke brisket and am an expert at it. Here is my set up, a Chargriller with side firebox from Lowes that I bought several years ago:


You can see my Tacoma in the very upper right hand corner, hiding behind the bushes and trees guarding my smoker from would be no-good-doers.


My internal set up. You can see the water pans, and I have taken to building a foil flame dam to help keep the flames from burning the meat (this was about a 15lb. brisket, which is much larger than I usually do). I use hardwood lump charcoal and hickory and apple wood chunks. I buy only packer trimmed briskets, whatever is cheapest, and trim them myself. I trim most of the big chunks of fat leaving a layer about 1/8 of an inch thick and smoke fat side up, so the fat drips down through the brisket while smoking. I don't use any rubs, though sometimes I will mop on a concentrated apple juice. I cook at about 220 degrees under heavy smoke for 4 to 5 hours depending on how big the brisket is. Then I wrap it in tin foil and smoke another 4 to 5 hours keeping the heat steady. I only take it off after the internal temperature of the thick end is up over 160 degrees (and usually closer to 190 or so), I'm kind of a stickler for making sure that my meat is well cooked.


My July 4th brisket. It didn't turn out so well. After about 8 hours of smoking, it just fell apart when I tried to cut it.

 

Very good job on those briskets. I am thinking about getting a new bigger smoker but right now I am happy with my brinkmann vertical smoker. I have definitely gotten good at it and I am going to experiment some more.