I guess I have a new hobby

[LouieMacGoo]

On father's day my girls presented me with a card and a picture of a charcoal smoker. Today the smoker arrived so I got busy with curing process. Looking forward to smoking some meats and I'm sure I'll have some questions. Any advice for this newbie to smoking?

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[The_Professor]

New hobby? How many lbs of sprouting barley can you dry in that thing?

[alb]

For pork, rub it all over with plain yellow mustard before the dry rub. You won't taste it, but it makes the rub stick and the vinegar in it helps the rub penetrate.

Each piece of meat has its own timetable. As in brewing, patience is the key. A thermometer will get you in the ballpark, but your final smoking time may be hours off from any recipe you use. I've had a pork butt sit at 180 for several hours past the time I expected, before suddenly moving to 190-200. This is when the collagen is melting and if you rush it, thinking it must be done, you will end up with tough, dry pulled pork.
Leave it alone the first 4-5 hours, then start basting now and then with apple juice ( for pork).

Sausage is excellent and makes a noteworthy appetizer at a carry-in picnic when sliced thin. Take a pound of bulk sausage and add whatever spices/flavors you want. shape it into a log and smoke it to about 160 internal temp. Alternatively you can just buy a plastic-covered log, cut the plastic off, and throw it on there. It's called a fatty (sometimes spelled fattie). Yum, delicious.

[LouieMacGoo]

Thanks Amy for the tips. I'm looking to start with something easy and a fatty seems like it might fit the bill. I also thought about smoking a chicken using the spatchcock method. It seems like with brewing not only is patience needed but also good preparation.

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[alb]

Use a spray bottle for the apple juice, it's easier.

[BlackDuck]

Smoked spatchcocked chickens are awesome. If you don't want to mess with cutting the chicken, just try leg/thigh quarters. They work well too.


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[berryman]

Nice, you just joined the smoking club

[LouieMacGoo]

Did a spatchcock chicken on the smoker and it turned out amazing. However trying to keep the temperature up was extremely difficult and it took almost 4 hours and it still wasn't up to temperature. I learned that there's a few modifications that I probably have to do to the smoker to make it work better and be able to regulate the temperature better. Ended up having to finish the chicken on the gas grill to get it up to the 165*F temperature but it's was so smoky and flavorful definitely do that one again .



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[BlackDuck]

Glad it worked out for you. You'll find smoking meats is much like home brewing; you'll constantly learn and figure out fixes to make it better.


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[Dawg LB Steve]

Did a spatchcock chicken on the smoker and it turned out amazing. However trying to keep the temperature up was extremely difficult and it took almost 4 hours and it still wasn't up to temperature. I learned that there's a few modifications that I probably have to do to the smoker to make it work better and be able to regulate the temperature better. Ended up having to finish the chicken on the gas grill to get it up to the 165*F temperature but it's was so smoky and flavorful definitely do that one again.
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Found that with my first smoker, similar to that one, I had to use a charcoal basket that would let air thru the coals. I found stainless steel hanging fruit baskets at a Kitchen Collections store and was able to use one of those as the coal basket then just set that on the bowl that comes with the smoker to catch ash. With the bowl for the coals the charcoal kind of just smolders and chokes itself out nearly, once I was able to pull air in from the vent and thru the coals it worked much better.
and ENJOY the new hobby!
PS when you're ready to try briskett I'll give you some pointers.

[LouieMacGoo]

Did a spatchcock chicken on the smoker and it turned out amazing. However trying to keep the temperature up was extremely difficult and it took almost 4 hours and it still wasn't up to temperature. I learned that there's a few modifications that I probably have to do to the smoker to make it work better and be able to regulate the temperature better. Ended up having to finish the chicken on the gas grill to get it up to the 165*F temperature but it's was so smoky and flavorful definitely do that one again.
Sent from my LG-LS993 using Tapatalk

Found that with my first smoker, similar to that one, I had to use a charcoal basket that would let air thru the coals. I found stainless steel hanging fruit baskets at a Kitchen Collections store and was able to use one of those as the coal basket then just set that on the bowl that comes with the smoker to catch ash. With the bowl for the coals the charcoal kind of just smolders and chokes itself out nearly, once I was able to pull air in from the vent and thru the coals it worked much better.
and ENJOY the new hobby!
PS when you're ready to try briskett I'll give you some pointers.

Steve, I think that was the problem I was running into. The bowl for the charcoal had no airflow at all and the coals just couldn't get hot enough. I ended up using quite a bit of wood to try to get the temperature up but that would only work for a short period.

One of the things I saw someone do was to drill holes in the charcoal pan to let air in and the ash out then they had a foil lined pan under the coals to catch the ash and any hot embers that fell through.

As for the Brisket I'm going to take you up on that! I think about the brisket you brought to Asheville 2 yrs ago.

[LouieMacGoo]

Smoked spatchcocked chickens are awesome. If you don't want to mess with cutting the chicken, just try leg/thigh quarters. They work well too.


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Chris, I found cutting the chicken to do the spatchcock pretty easy. In fact I think I prefer this method over the beercan or beerbutt method. Also with the chicken splayed out it made it really easy to carve it once it was done. I wish I had taken a picture of it when it was done but I was so hungry I completely forgot. But here is one of it while it was cooking.

[BlackDuck]

That looks great...I agree with you that it's better than the beercan method. Now for Thanksgiving, you can do the turkey the same way. If it doesn't fit, just continue cutting on each side of the vertical breastbone, down around the breast plate and around the wishbone. You will basically get two halves. And smoked turkey on Thanksgiving is the cats meow!!!

[Kealia]

Yay for smoking! I use a pellet smoker so I don't have to worry so much about temp management.

Good stuff, though and I'm glad to hear your first run ended well.

[LouieMacGoo]

Chris, Smoking turkey in on my smoking to do list. My brother has smoked turkey for Thanksgiving and it was awesome, So yes there is smoked Turkey in my future.

Thanks, Kealia, It took awhile but the results were worth the wait. There was only 1 chicken wing left over between 4 of us and I had it for lunch today and it was Sooooo good.

I do have a question about airflow. As you can see on the sides of my smoker there are vents both at the top and bottom and I know that the more air that is let in at the bottom it should help feed the fire and keep the heat up. but what about the vents at the top? If I have trouble keeping the heat up should those vent be closed partially or wide open?