Everything smoking...meat smoking !! Tips, tricks, and recipes + (poll added)

Some smoking/grilling over the weekend for lunch meal preps and dinners for the week.

Beef chuck roast, different flavors chicken thighs, beef ribs, kielbasa, pork chops and shrimp.

 

Baby back ribs, St Louis ribs, pork chop, chicken thighs.

 

Smoking pepper jack, cheddar and mozzarella with apple wood chunks
(from my orchard trees), and wine barrel chips at 90F. An ice tray below the cheese keeps the cheese from melting. All is now vacuum packed and frozen to age at least 3 weeks to infuse the smoke throughout the cheese blocks. It's a first time experiment using 6 lbs. of basic block cheese. Also, cold smoked 2 lbs. of cream cheese.

Added a little more heat to smoke a moose sirloin. Sliced the moose carpaccio thin over salad this evening along with the smoked cream cheese and salmon gravlax on crackers. It all goes perfectly with my 2012 Cabernet Franc, aged well.










https://www.tundras.com/attachments/smoked-cheese-vac-packed-1-23-23-jpg.845602/

Post script: It's now been 7 weeks, and we're enjoying one of these smoked cheese packs tonight with my homemade 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon. They are simple Sam's Club cheese blocks but the smoke really dresses them up.

The smoking was done on a Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker in 20F temps at 8500' altitude.

 

Did some baby back ribs on my "poor man's pellet pooper" Pitt Boss for our friends tonight. Did a 2-2-1 method. Put on at 200° meat side up for 2 hours with Kinders seasoning and one I did a mix of Kinders with some brown sugar. After 2 hours I put in a foil boat and poured some apple juice over the top leaving some in the bottom to let the juice steam into it. When I wrapped it up, kicked up to about 250° for a little over an hour and a half. Unwrapped, put Sweet Baby Rays honey BBQ sauce on it then kicked it to 325° for 20 mins. Everyone was pleased with it. Temp was reading 192-201° depending where I probed. Only areas where I wasn't as happy with was towards the ends that had the low 200 to upper 190 temps....but still happy with it. Came off bone pretty well, but meat wasn't soupy or too soft.

 

I’ve been into smoking wings recently. Kinder’s makes a black cherry chipotle rub that is pretty out of this world. I rarely make my own rub out of scratch anymore. This has the right amount of sweet and salt to get you started. I’ll occasionally add garlic powder, or chili powder, or a little seasoned salt to the rub depending on what the meat is.
1hr - 1:30 on the smoker at 225° then bring them over to the grill (pictured) for about 2-3 min a side at 400° -ish. Then toss in sauce. Pretty stellar.
It makes it tough to order wings anymore (except for one spot up here. They get it pretty close).


This was to accompany the wings:
Grilled pizza with truffle oil, marscapone cheese, sautéed (butter and a splash of truffle oil at the very end) mushrooms and a little mozzarella.

 

Anyone got any turkey leg recipes? I've always liked racetrack concession-stand smoked turkeylegs, wanna try my hand at it.

 

Rub of your choice, 2-ish hours, 225-250°F.

fruit wood. Apple/cherry. Mesquite is probably ok, hickory would be too much smoke

 

Smoked some beef ribs the other day. Low and slow on the pellet grill for several hours, then for the final hour I turned up the heat a bit and basted with a homemade BBQ sauce every 15 minutes to get a nice layer of caramelized goodness. Turned out so tender and juicy. Little smoke ring and a nice bark under the sauce, wife said they were the best ribs she's ever had so I'd call them a success!

 

Think i have a pretty good handle on how to do the ribs and tri tip. Just wish me luck.


However, this is my first time with pork belly, any tips or tricks? Is this just a 4lb slab of bacon?

 

How much time do you have before you need to start the smoke?
What are you wanting for a finished product? Are you wanting something you can slice like bacon or something that pulls and shreds?

 

No clue, not gonna have enough charcoal or space for the pork today, so probably tomorrow, might cut into cubes and cook em like burnt ends.

 

Sweet! I did one that way once following a Malcolm Reed video. If you're over charcoal watch for flare ups as those temps come up. That was the worst flare I ever had with all that pork fat. But the 'pork belly burnt ends' still came out great.

 

If you're interested. I have yet to have Malcolm steer me wrong.
https://youtu.be/nL82hlORY-k

 

Just letting you guys know that Spiceology is 20% off in their Amazon store today and tomorrow. Good time to stock up on some SPG, new blends, or whatever you may want/need.

 

I picked this farmer made, built like a tank offset smoker years ago. Never really took advantage of using it, but I am gaining an interest in it again.

I'm going to clean out the inside, oil it, season it, tune the plates, etc.

My question is, should I cut down the 40" stack?

Barrel is about 32" long, custom stainless steel tuning plates on bottom, Installed a couple Tel-Tru thermometers on each end, stack is 40", no dampener in stack (but I could install one).

I've heard it doesn't really matter and some like the longer stack to keep smoke out of your face etc. I know most of the big box store ones are TOO short, but can they be too long?

Sorry for the nighttime pic.

 

My phone doesnt balance color right...but i smoked a boston butt.


lilbitathis & lilbitathat homemade sauce.

 

I'd say leave a lil length on it. Where I'm at, there's almost always a lil wind, so smoke in your face usually isn't an issue, but I can see thr benefit of thr length. The downfall is it seems like it'd get in the way. And if you wanted to move it under something, you'd always have to verify it'd clear. All depends what works for you. I don't think it would affect anything, but I'm not an expert on the smoking stacks.
I figured a stack running diesel truck owner before you had it and loved the long stacks look

 

There is a science behind it. It all centers around the length and volume of the stack as a function of volume of the firebox and cook chamber. It's all a balance of draft vs backpressure. If you take some measurements and put them into this calculator https://bbqpitcalculator.com/ it will give you an idea of 'ideal' vs actual.

 

Firing up the vertical offset this morning. Got a little Alton 'Brined' pork butt goin on. Mixing up my binder by adding some Valentina to the mustard. Wallowa Riversand over the AP rub. Burning wild cherry over charcoal for the first part of the day.

 

Bacon. Recipe courtesy of @RainMan_PNW . Casey this looks and smells amazing.
Just gotta let it cool off and not touch it yet.

 

Looks great!

 

Man this stuff is killer. Used your recommendation for the rosemary and maple syrup, peppered one half. Cooked up some trim pieces to sample. Dude. Wow. Amazing.

 

quoting myself here for the finished product. Brined, and smoked pulled pork.

 

Getting to sample the ends after slicing is the best part!

 

Pork butt, mustard rub with Angelo’s seasoning (thanks Secret Santa!), 16 hours on apple. Added ACV finishing sauce after pulling.

 

I was at WalMart today and saw the tabletop model PitBoss pellet grill on sale. Normally $227, now $158. How could you say no to that deal!. I already have 9 grills, so what is another one added to it.

 

Sweet. Going in the kitchen on the countertop

 

One of my tastiest rib roasts yet I think. 225 for 5 hours or so. Lots of leftovers!

 

First brisket effort on the traeger. Tasty!

 

Planning on doing a brisket on Friday. You set the standard high Travis!