Thanks. I'm just not sure about smoking solely with charcoal. I found this guy who ran wood splits through his and seemed to work out.
Smoking Meat Questions and Discussion
- Thread starter Statefan515ISU
- Start date
The masterbuilt will allow a few small wood chunks in the chute. You can also put a free small ones in the basket and the coals that fall through will ignite. You're going to get plenty of good smoke from the charcoal. I think the little pieces of wood are mental. Don't forget, charcoal is wood and will get you good smoke flavor.
A lot of bang for the buck with these but probably plan on it lasting 7 years max of if you use it's true range (up to 700 degrees)
A lot of bang for the buck with these but probably plan on it lasting 7 years max of if you use it's true range (up to 700 degrees)
I just got five pork shoulders at Fareway Meat in Ames for $.99/lb. I currently have four of them dry brining with kosher salt. Will inject them later tomorrow and cover with mustard and dry rub.
The fifth one I am going to make buckboard bacon.
The fifth one I am going to make buckboard bacon.
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If anyone wants to try out different BBQ sauces, Wal-Mart in Grimes has little sampler bottles. Kinders, Blue Hog, Sweet Baby Ray's, etc. I really liked the Blues Hog Raspberry Chipotle that I bought a full bottle of so I got some sample bottles of Competition and Smokey Mountain.
Put four shoulders on at 7:30 on Wednesday evening. Started at 200 degrees at 12:30am bumped to 220. Then at 6:30 am finished at 225. IT temp ranged from 190-203. Wrapped and into a cooler for 1.5 hours. Just grabbed the bone of each one with tongs and they pulled out clean. Bagged vac sealed the majority of it. No fat or connective tissue to take out of it. Pretty quick time of shredding it!
I did some more experimenting with cheese tonight. I did about 5 lbs of farmers cheese and a pound of Colby last weekend. Tonight I did mozz, pepper jack, Colby Jack and some cheddar. I did 2 hours on the farmers and Colby and an hour and a half on the stuff tonight.
The worst part is waiting 2 weeks to find out if it’s good or not. Ive done some mozz before and its excellent on homemade pizza.
The worst part is waiting 2 weeks to find out if it’s good or not. Ive done some mozz before and its excellent on homemade pizza.
I’ve wanted to try this. Interested to hear how it turns out. I’ve done the meat church smoked cream cheese and was happy with it.
Ive done it multiple times before and the biggest thing is just waiting the full two weeks vacuum sealed to let it mellow out. My wife tried opening a pack after a week and it was awful. I’m mostly just trying to dial in smoke length for different types of cheese.
I’ve done a bunch of mozz because it’s just so ******* good on pizza.
Edit: The other thing I’ve found out through this process is don’t try to light the smoke tube with a smaller butane tobacco/weed type handheld lighter. It just never burns right. Spend the 25 bucks on a real propane torch.
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Vacuum pack it and then heat it up by boiling it in the vacuum sealed bag. It loses nothing.
I don't have a vacuum sealer, but I do have smoked lard which I use to "hydrate" the meat when I warm it up
Do you spritz any or just skip that overnight? I've been loosely following Aaron Franklin's method where your spritz between 3rd-8th hour before wrapping.
Yes. Do it all the time. Turns out magical. What I typically do is smoke 4-6 butts a time in the smoker (stick burner) for about 8 hours which is about the limit on my smoker(starting the cook about 3-4p in the afternoon).
Pull the butts and put them into the disposable foil pans (tall sided ones - generally two per pan) and cover th in foil. Put them into the oven @ 325 to finish them off ~ 2 hours. Set the oven to automatically turn off at that time. By the time you are up and about in the morning, the butts will be done, and pullable- still warm to hot, but not too hot to handle. This is now where my pulled pork “magic” happens…….
Pull the butts out of the pan and dump the liquid smoked pork goodness into a bowl and refrigerate. Pull the butts and put back into the pans. Let the liquid solidify, skim the fat, and combine / mix it back with the pulled pork . Put in ziploc bags, flatten so they stack nice, and freeze.
Then anytime you get a hankering for a sandwich, nachos, burrito, etc. pull out a bag, heat, eat, enjoy!
Time consuming for sure, but If you get your seasonings on the butts the way you like them, you will never enjoy a restaurant’s pulled pork again.
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I vacuum seal it. When it's time to eat I thaw and steam it to reheat
I just put a water bath in and let it go. I don’t even wrap. I will turn them over about 1/2 through and put fat side down. Seems they hold together better when I take them off as they don’t stick to the grates.
Almost every time. I just use regular gallon freezer bags.
I save any juices I can and pour them into the bag with the meat. I also have a supply of bacon grease in my fridge (we bake bacon) that I will throw a few dollops of into the bag, just to be sure there's adequate flavor/moisture when I re-heat.
And when you re-heat, it's best to find a small casserole dish and warm it up in the oven. 350 for 30 minutes? Microwave if you must, but it will be much less desirable. However if you want a small portion and are careful (don't blast it) you can get decent results that way.
Anymore, if I reheat meat in the microwave I wrap in in a wet paper towel.
