What's in your smoker?

[tuxpuff]

Damn nice rub Adam...looks great!

[T.G]

Thanks guys. Luke, I blame you for getting me hooked on those, those ribs are just uber-delicious, but holy moley, I do not even want to think about what the fat content in them is.


On another note - just put 2lbs of cheddar over alder wood on for the Fresno herf at the end of September.

[LooseCard]

Originally Posted by T.G

On another note - just put 2lbs of cheddar over alder wood on for the Fresno herf at the end of September.

Wow!
A month long smoke?

. On cheese!?!

[T.G]

Originally Posted by LooseCard

Wow!
A month long smoke?

. On cheese!?!

[OLS]

Due to the RUN of no posting for nearly a week, I cooked some stuff today. After trimming up four racks
of ribs a few weeks back, I had bags and bags of trimmins in the freezer. I cooked up a chuck roaast and a big
bag of trimmins. Not the same obviously, but I have been itchin to cook. I will not be doing anymore chuck
roasts in the smoker. I just do not care for the flavor. Something about pork just works. Maybe it's the fat.
In the morning I am gonna rub up some chicken legs and grill em up. Cannot abide smoked chicken skin.

[T.G]

Yeah - I've been mostly grilling of late. Smoking some stuff since the last batch of lamb, but it was the soldering iron in the tin can cold smoke dealliewhopper. Have 4lbs of cheese done and bagged so far. 2 lbs cheddar smoked with alder and 2lbs pepper jack with almond, most of it for the Fresno herf next month. I think I pulled an OLS and forgot to take photos though.

Going to do some sharp cheddar next week, haven't decided what wood yet though. Maybe I'll shoot a photo - although I have to admit, photos of cheese on a smoker are about as boring as watching paint dry.

[bsmokin]

So... my wife had it in her head that she didn't want me to have a smoker. So, I was thinking I would try smoking on the great gas grill I already have. But the more I read and heard about this, the less excited I was. It just wasn't going to compare. So... we compromised and I bought a great Weber 22.5" charcoal grill... PLUS, I have the Smokenator coming in the mail!!!

http://smokenator.com/ I could not be any more excited.

I was REALLY hoping that the Smokenator would show up in the mail today, but no dice. Now... with us going to the shore for Labor Day weekend, I will probably have to a wait a full TWO WEEKS before I get to use this beautiful new setup... SUCKS!

My plan is to smoke my first Pork Butt... maybe two. I've been looking for good rub recipes all over the net. The reason I'm thinking to make to is to be able to do one on the sweeter side, and one on the spicier side. Any exceptional Pork Butt rub recipes would be appreciated.

[bsmokin]

Originally Posted by Smokin Gator

Gotta love a Spicewine and a Stoker!!!

WOW... Brent, I'm SO Jealous of this!... I am new to all this smoker stuff, but I was just checking out the Spicewine website... AMAZING! So, which one do you have?

[T.G]

Originally Posted by bsmokin

So... my wife had it in her head that she didn't want me to have a smoker. So, I was thinking I would try smoking on the great gas grill I already have. But the more I read and heard about this, the less excited I was. It just wasn't going to compare. So... we compromised and I bought a great Weber 22.5" charcoal grill... PLUS, I have the Smokenator coming in the mail!!!

http://smokenator.com/ I could not be any more excited.

I was REALLY hoping that the Smokenator would show up in the mail today, but no dice. Now... with us going to the shore for Labor Day weekend, I will probably have to a wait a full TWO WEEKS before I get to use this beautiful new setup... SUCKS!

My plan is to smoke my first Pork Butt... maybe two. I've been looking for good rub recipes all over the net. The reason I'm thinking to make to is to be able to do one on the sweeter side, and one on the spicier side. Any exceptional Pork Butt rub recipes would be appreciated.

At the end of the day, the smokinator isn't all that different than what a few of us are doing with firebricks in our Weber's. My two main recommendations are to mark your vent positions on the shield around the vent handle with a marker (if you have an OTG) or right on the side of the grill body with one of the silver markers (if you have an OTS). Mark your vents at 25%, 50%, 75% and the moment the vane clears and you get 100% open.

Two - don't be afraid to close the vent down to 0% if you need to keep temps down. The weber one-touch kettles leak air, so 0% on the inlets won't actually kill your fire.

As for recipes, here are some on the Virtual Bullet site to get you started:
http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/cook.html#pork

Most of those recipes adapt to the modified kettle smokers quite well, except for the vent positions (temps are the same, vent positions aren't),

[OLS]

Originally Posted by T.G

Yeah - I've been mostly grilling of late.

It's funny that the weather has begun to show signs of serious improvement, and maybe that's
why the sudden lack of enthusiasm for smoking. A well-tuned smoker allowed us to sit inside
while the work was being done outside. Now it's more fun to be outside, so I think folks are
doing things they wouldn't dare do last month. Fishing, golf, walking, jogging, biking,
archery, lol. I actually sat there and watched my chicken legs grill last night. It was NOT hot.

Had some friends over so decided to do up some beef ribs.

Made two types up.

The first were Kicking Horse Long Bones the other are more of a Kansas Sweet style. I like the Kicking Horse as they provide a little more spice whereas the kids seem to gravitate to the Kansas ones (more brown sugar and molasses)

For prep I rubbed down all three racks (split in half for fit on the Weber SM) and wrapped them and let them sit overnight. The Kicking Horse get a rub the Sweet get a marinade.




Onto the smoker at about noon for dinner at 6, low and slow (225 or even a little less) for 3 hours then baste them about every 30 to 45 minutes for 2 hours with apple cider and dark lager for the Sweet and apple cider vinegar, hotsauce and bourbon for the Kicking Horse.

At about the 5 hr mark they get a generous portion of SweetNSmokey Sauce (one of Raichlens recipes if I remember) then my own Kicking Horse Sauce.


Give em a half hour, re-sauce and move to to the grill for a little glazing.

Then wrap em and let em sit for 15 minutes. Cut them to singles for serving.



And then I served em up with Firegrilled Herbed Potatos, Grilled Corn on the Cob, and Grilled Veg.

The ribs were awesome.

[T.G]

Great looking food there Shawn.

Originally Posted by OLS

It's funny that the weather has begun to show signs of serious improvement, and maybe that's
why the sudden lack of enthusiasm for smoking. A well-tuned smoker allowed us to sit inside
while the work was being done outside. Now it's more fun to be outside, so I think folks are
doing things they wouldn't dare do last month. Fishing, golf, walking, jogging, biking,
archery, lol. I actually sat there and watched my chicken legs grill last night. It was NOT hot.

I would have to agree with you Brad. Another thing is that maybe we don't plan far enough in advance or with so much else that can be done, we can't guarantee our schedules right now to allow us to set up cook, leave and come back at a predetermined time.

[Mr B]

Looks great Silver Fox! Thanks for sharing.

[Smokin Gator]

Originally Posted by bsmokin

WOW... Brent, I'm SO Jealous of this!... I am new to all this smoker stuff, but I was just checking out the Spicewine website... AMAZING! So, which one do you have?

Yeah, they are an awesome cooker and I absolutely love min. The one I have is a medium. I have an extra rack for a total of 4 racks. I also had a charcoal maze made. It is a U shaped maze. I light the top left and let her chug. I can usually get between 18-20 hours of cook time on one maze of charcoal, but I have gotten as much as 25 hours.

Shawn... killer looking dino bones brother!!! They are one of my favorites.

[T.G]

Brent, I'm curious, can you take a guess at the capacity (weight) of charcoal that your maze holds to get those kind of cook times? Also, how deep is the stack?

[OLS]

I tell u what tho, Brent, just WAIT for football season. Put on your meat, watch some
SEC football, and either check or pull your meat for game 2. And if we are lucky, a 3rd night game.
Hooowee, am I ready for some football. Poor LSU, they are gonna suck something awful.
Except the wide receivers.

This was from last week. We had a small party and I cut up about 20 pounds of beef tenderloin (gotta love Costco) and threw them on the grill. Fed about about 35 people.

[OLS]

One of the real, meaty pleasures in life is cutting up a whole tenderloin.
I would NEVER give a butcher the fun. BUT buyer beware, not all
tenderloin in a bag is all that great. I saw a great sale at Piggly Wiggly
one week and I bought two, I mean, I couldn't afford NOT TO. But
USDA Choice and USDA inspected are two very different things, lol.
How in the hell they can see inside that strap is beyond me.

[bsmokin]

WOW... that's like an entire cow... Nice job

[OLS]

HI-yo medium Bone spare ribs just wen't onsale at Piggly Wiggly, as did 2 butts in a bag.
I think it's fair to say it's on like Donkey kong. And the freezer gets filled up, too, cause
I just found a hidden hundred in my console.