Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

That chicken needs a little

 

Spatchcock chicken tonight, 2 hours smoked, then up to 375 or so to brown the skin...Montreal chicken...bla bla bla

 

Damn sure does.


Nasty as hell.

 

Hosted a Canada Day BBQ on Saturday and did pulled pork for the first time. Made a couple mistakes but they turned out great. Also did some baked beans with bacon on the weber, and then some burgers and turkey sausages on the gasser for those who don't eat pork.





Wish I took a photo of the food tables, everyone pitched in and we had a really great spread.

 

One of my favorite cuts of meat! I’ve considered building a Santa Maria grill but tri-tip is hard to find over here. It’s one of many things, like In-n-Out, that I miss about Cali.

 

Going to be smoking a Boston Butt tomorrow for supper on my Chargriller with side fire box. Last time I cooked one towards the end I was having a hard time keeping the temp up b/c I had too much ash in the bottom of the smoker box. Any tips from start to finish to help avoid this? Normally I cook them uncovered with a water pan under them for about 6 hours or 45 minutes per pound at around 250. I'm trying to start as early as possible to get the temp up to 205 degrees before pulling. Last time I had to pull it early because my dad was getting antsy to each since it was getting late.

 

Can't help with the ash issue, but it's always an option to pull it the last few hours and put it in the oven. Will be as smoked as it's going to get after a few hours.

 

See my post above. Making a coal basket will solve your ash problem. Just some expanded metal from HD. Or just build for off to one side, smaller than a full load, and when it gets close to being out, add more on the other side and scoop ash out at same time. Will cause a bit of temp swi g but will help. Or as @Lurkin said, foil in the oven. That is if you wrap normally as heat is heat at that point. If you go unwrapped in the oven, I'd still toss a small water pan in there with it.

 

I thought about trying some lump charcoal tomorrow since that is supposed to be less ashy but I'm not sure I want to try it when we are having a get together.

 

how big of a butt are we talking about here? i like to do 4-5 pound butts. if all that's available are 8s, i have the butcher cut them in half to give me 2 4lb ones. they cook faster and have more bark. i normally do 1.5-2hrs per pound at 250-275. keeping the temp right at 225 or 250 is a waste of time for pork. as long as you aren't using an over sugary rub, 275 is no problem. i also like to pull mine off the smoker at around 195F since they are going to keep rising in temp anyway. if it's windy or rainy and the smoker just won't cooperate on temp, you can usually just pull after about 4 hours and stick in an oven. the meat isn't going to take any more smoke after 4 hours anyway.

 

I used lump to cook my last 8lb butt. Needed more coal than I thought it would with the side box. I got the expanded mesh to make the coal box. This was after about 10hrs.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bkv1t0hhD9T/?utm_source=ig_share_sheet&igshid=zfvr00evehmx

 

Gave my butt the rub it deserves

 

Did 6 chix halves this weekend. side fire mopped with mustard/viegar sauce then crisped over coals to finish

 

this thread has me thinkin what to cook tonite!’

 

Meat...

 

Yea veggies ant good for your grill grates ,unless there wrapped in bacon

 

I would've figured him for a tree-huggin' vegan for sure.

Wow