Food Smokers and Smoking Tips/Tricks/Techniques

Awesome! Ive been seeing ome videos and I think Imma cook until 125-130F and then let it rest.

 

El Paso Texas is closer to San Diego CA than it is to Texarkana Texas. I grew up in Texas and now live in Virginia. When driving back home when I get to Bristol Virginia I am closer to Texarkana than Texarkana is to El Paso.

 

I buy the precooked bacon. Asparagus cooks so fast I don’t see how you can use raw bacon and not have mush for asparagus.

 

Trust me I would have loved to do 125-130 but everyone else wouldn't have eaten it at the dinner

 

I had a friend who would ask for his steak to be butterflied so that it could get extra "well done" (more like extra dry). Whenever I made steaks I told him I only make steak one way, and that the right way, reddish pink on the inside, slightly charred on the outside. If you like it nice and chewy and dry then go buy some beef jerky cus I aint gonna defile my grill with such atrocity. Needless to say he really likes my juicy medium rare rib eyes now.

 

Haha sometimes it takes tough love! I did the same thing to my wife, she will now eat medium instead of well-done.

 

My dad was telling me about how when he still lived in Mexico one of his wealthy uncles would invite him out for lunch here in the RGV. They would go to one of those hibachi grills that had a sushi bar on the side. He always said that plastic looking raw fish was for crazy Asians and he would rather eat the hibachi. Now, he (and just about everybody in the family) would rather go out and get some fresh sashimi from all of the oceans fish (vegetables, fish count as vegetables).


IDK about yall but Im starting to crave some Uni right about now.

Edit: I know its not necessarily the exact same thing as our meat done-ness examples, but its the same lesson: Don't mock it till ya try it!

 

Maybe try pulling out half of it at medium rare, that way you can pull it out later during the week and as you reheat it it cooks a bit more. Then, the rest you can finish it off until its at a more manageable medium rare for the rest of the folk.

 

I do mine medium. I used to do them medium rare but have gone to medium as I've gotten older. When I met my wife she had not had a steak that wasn't show leather (how her parents cooked them). I got her to eat it medium and she was amazed it could be so full of flavor and juicy.

We took her parents to a high end steak house in Tampa called Bern's they tried to order it well done, the waiter was funny and he messed with them big time. Told them all sorts of things and then at the end he started writing on his order pad and was like FINE two pieces of shoe leather. When he said that they were like HANG ON. OK what do you suggest with no blood, he got them to go Medium Well. Now that's how they have their steak. It's how I cook steak for them. I don't mind cooking how people want it I just won't go all the way to the point where it's dried out.

 

If I were a waiter I wouldn't make the shoe leather joke, unless it was a joke on the menu like choose how you want it: Raw, Juicy and flavorful or the Lucchesse Special.

 

Man that looks delicious tho!

 

It was pretty funny, they had been going back and forth with him so it was all in good fun. I think my father in-law was the first of the two to use the shoe leather name.

 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: You can cook a steak well done and NOT over cook it. The fact that you all take brisket up to 200F or more should reinforce that notion.

 

I think you get to a certain point and the meat will just start to naturally dry out, especially if it's a leaner cut. I do believe that you can keep it juicy into the higher temps though. I've had good luck smoking then cooking high heat for them. Any way you go though a steak can be good or bad depends on many factors. I've had nasty medium steaks for with little juice or flavor.

 

Yeah, when the cuts are super lean like an eye of round, I break out the barding needle & bacon for sure. Might even take it out back to see how tough it is.

 

The risk is too great to even consider the thought....

 

I think at a certain point where you lose all the pink you start to lose the more intense beef flavor from a steak also. Dunno still a steak and good as long as it's not all dried out though. I haven't found many steaks I will kick off my plate.

 

Its an entirely different cook though. Brisket is cooked very slowly, and is very fatty. Steaks arent left for hours on end to try and break all the tough tissues on the inside.

 

The meat itself matters a lot, a NY or a filet cant really handle being cooked past medium rare, I mean unless you like it nice and tough. A ribeye on the other hand is pretty fatty and can handle being cooked all the way into medium-well and still not be dry and chewy.

 

As I said leaner cut's

I don't go past Medium for any of mine personally. I used to do Medium Rare but have upped that as I've gotten old. Medium Well is about the end of where I will eat a steak if it's given to me already cooked. Beyond that I just cut it up and use it for like a breakfast burrito or something.