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

Throwing a 2 hour smoke on these, then finishing them off with some flame.

 

Sorry no pics of the steaks. Another learning experience, I should have only smoked the steaks for 45 min to an hour. They were a hair over medium. Other than that, really good flavor and tender.

I also noticed something as well today. Maybe someone can confirm it for me.
I used Trager Alder wood pellets today. My temps were a little hotter, 20° to 25° hotter. Is it because they were Trager or is it because it was Alder wood?

 

Could be the brand. I believe Adler wood is used for filling to make more money on the pellets (less taste, less filing of real hardwood). But I could be wrong.

 

I went with a few articles I read about smoking salmon. They said to use alder. Before I was using a competition blend, different brand as well. The salmon turned out really good again, I think I like the blended a little better for salmon.
I can see that. A cheaper wood to make some extra coin.

 

I have no experience with Traeger brand pellets, so I don't want to bad-mouth them without any personal experience, but I have read on several different places that their pellets are not recommended. I use Pit Boss brand and really like it. Many different flavors available and I get fairly consistent temperatures. I like their Competition Blend - good for just about anything.

 

Labor day smoking on the pellet grill:
Baby back ribs, Hot schriracha wings, breaded 'not-hot' wings, and onions just for the fun.

 

I was using Pit Boss Competition Pellets as well. I think I will keep using it, especially since I noticed the trager ran hotter.

 

So I did some looking around this morning and came up with some articles and reviews that say that Alder does burn hotter and is also recommended for fish. So maybe the type of wood is what caused the higher temps.
I am new to this game(less then 2 months) and have only used Traeger pellets(Signature Blend) as I have a Traeger Timberline grill. With that said I have only had 1 temperature fluctuation outside of the +/- 5 degree tolerance. It was yesterday and it was like 45 degrees. Unfortunately I wasn't outside to see if maybe the temp had gone down and this was the controllers attempt to fix the low temp or not as I was inside cutting up apples for my apple crisp. I did have the grill loaded down with 3 8# pork shoulders, 3 3.5# Costco mac n cheese's, and a dozen chicken apple sausages and there also was about 20 people outside so maybe someone tried to sneak a peak at what was in there.
I am pretty sure that all of these grill makers want you to use their pellets for the money too. I am lucky enough to have both a Platinum Traeger store and another BBQ store within a few miles of the house. I will probably continue to use the Traeger pellets as they are so close and I like the store owners so I am ok with supporting a local business. However, I may also in the future try some other brands to see if there is a difference in flavor. I see that Cookin Pellets seem to be highly recommended. What else does everyone use? I can get locally Bear Mountain,GMG, and Myron Mixon's brand.
I forgot to get a loaded down pic from yesterday as I was rushing to get things going but I did get a pic after a few hours of the shoulders. Then one of the massive apple crisp.

 

Going to smoke some wings and take a swing at some armadillo eggs today. I need to go to the store first.
I'd like some Pueblo or Hatch chilies instead of jalapenos.

I think Pueblos are too big. Mine are armadillo heads.

 

Make sure you get a sausage that has some fat to add moisture to the eggs. If not the sausage will be a bit dry (for my liking). You can always mix 2 kinds of sausage if you’d like so that it’s not too fatty. Just my $0.02

 

Thanks Jose. I was reading about that, one of the recipes did mention an 80% to 85 % meat to fat mixture like ground beef.

 

Armadillo heads, pueblos are a little big.

 

Is that a problem?

 

Not for me! Good thing I got 2lbs of ground pork.

 

Kids love the armadillo eggs. Good adaptation with the chiles

 

You know I love some Pueblos. Thanks kindly.

 

Chicken is waiting to go on. Shiners waiting to be tilted a few times. I am getting my workout on.

 

I just threw on some kielbasa and some Italian sausage, as well as a few jalepenos from the garden. I'll add the jalepenos to some home made salsa I'll make later, I have the tomatoes, onions, garlic, green peppers roasting in the oven now, add some smoked jalops for extra kick.

 

My go to is usually pulled pork using peach wood but today it was 3 beer can chickens on the BGE XL.

 

This rain/cloud burst is messing with my temps.

 

Done, now the chicken goes on

 

Chickens on

 

Just some smoked sausage and roasted/smoked salsa for snacking tomorrow.

 

Off topic bt where did you get that gasket, or is that a kamdo joe cooker? @Sambo

 

That salsa looks epic! Care to share the recipe? I won't be sad at all if you hold that one close to heart! Great thread!

Smoked sockeye salmon. Banner year up here for fishing this season!

 

Salsa isn't too difficult but it's better if you do it differently than me and use all uncooked and fresh vegetables. What I do is...
Smoke 2-3 jalapenos for about a half hour then chop them up and set aside to add later.
Roast at 425- whatever tomatoes I can get from the garden, enough to cover 9x13 pan with some added garlic cloves, and an onion cut into quarters. Today I added a couple of green peppers from the garden that were getting soft so I added those. Coat all that with olive oil and salt and roast about a half hour, stirring a couple times.
I then add all the roasted tomato mixture plus the jalapenos and the juice of 1 lime and some rind shavings, to a blender a pulse a few times. The lime is key to making this taste like salsa and not tomato sauce. This time I added about a teaspoon of fresh maple syrup for a sweet kick, but trust me its plenty spicy from the smoked jalops. This will keep for about a week in a jar but I'll eat it faster than that lol.

What is even better is doing all this but not cooking the tomatoes, onions, or garlic. De-seed everything and chop it up really fine. Add chopped smoked jalops and lime juice and salt and a little oil. Totally different flavor, especially if you have fresh cilantro to add. It's a much fresher taste but takes FOREVER to make fresh salsa like that. So I usually go the roasted and blended route, it's a much different flavor profile but still very yummy and only takes a few other than the time spend roasting.

 

5 more minutes..

 

Everything turned out pretty tasty. The wings were a litte salty. Need to figure out how I did that.

ETA, the Turtle Wax is holding up pretty good on my smoker.

 

Ahhh yes than you sir..

 

Replaced my smokers controller since the other one appeared to have issues





Great customer service by Camp Chef. Got some little piggies smoking right now and everything appears to be working just fine; fingers crossed.

Thinking that maybe I could sell thins one and buy a kamodo type smoker?