I do a lot of things on the smoker pretty well, pork loin, sausages, kielbasa, brisket, ribs, whole chickens...but the one that is always a clean plate after a BBQ is my smoked Mac and cheese. I boil some medium shells to aldente, and fill an aluminum grill pan about 3/4 full with the pasta after greasing the pan with butter or bacon grease. Then I work on the cheese sauce. Melt butter in a pan, sprinkle a few teaspoons of flower in the melted butter and stir until all the butter is soaked up in the flower. This is the same process like making a roux for gravy. Then add about 2 cups of heavy cream and continue stirring over medium heat until the flower/butter bits begin to dissolve and the mixture thickens. Be careful not to get your stove too hot or you'll burn the flower and get off favors. Once the roux is thickening add 2 cups of whatever cheese blend you want. I typically use a Colby jack/cheddar blend of some kind. Once the cheese is melted and incorporated your sauce is essentially done. Here's where you can add a little something to make this dish awesome. For me it's usually either crab/lobster meat, chorizo sausage, or bacon. Once I get the meat filler incorporated I pour it over the pasta evenly. Top with more shredded cheese and put in the smoker for about an hour or until the cheese on top is melted and turning golden brown. This dish is killer! Also, another tip for smoked chickens...I only use whole chickens with the skin on and I always inject them thawed, and let sit in the fridge overnight. My injectable marinade consists of 1 part melted butter, 1 part bacon grease, and a packet of ranch salad dressing mix. Literally the greatest tasting, most moist chicken ever conceived. And for smoking wood, I'm not particular to any one flavor. I prefer logs and big chunks for the bulk of the cooking and chips for the flavor impartation at the end of the smoke since they burn up quick and make for lots of smoke when soaked in water. For beef I like mesquite or hickory, and for pork I like to mix hickory with a fruit wood of some kind like cherry, peach, or Apple. For a brisket, I tried this out last year. Season your brisket with whatever rub you like, cook the brisket naked in smoke for about half the desired cooking length, then pull it off the smoker, and place it in a disposable aluminum pan. Then pack the brisket evenly with a pound of brown sugar and drizzle heavily with honey. Wrap the whole package in foil and finish cooking. Open the foil for the last 30 minutes to allow a bit of smoke to penetrate the brown sugar honey glaze. This is hands down the best and most flavorful way to do s brisket that I've found. Also, if your initial rub on the brisket is more of savory spicy rub with lots of garlic, black pepper, and cayenne, it pairs nicely with the brown sugar and honey and helps to balance the flavor to something reminiscent of "sweet heat."
Awesome thanks for the reply. Did an eye of round roast tonight and turned out awesome. Very tender and juicy. Looking forward to expanding my cooking!
You might regret this. You ant to be careful about encouraging me. I built a 100 pound capacity smoker and love to use it. Hot smoking and cold smoking. I finished the long process of making bacon. I will attempt to explain the 2 week process here. Bacon comes from the pork belly but can be made from any part of the pig. Using shoulders gives me a less fatty bacon with more lean meat to enjoy. I bought a 60 pound box of pork trim for sausage making. From this, I set aside 15 pounds of the fatty trim for this bacon. This trim is 72% fat. The seasoning, I used was a high Mountain brand. I have had good luck with this brand so I gave it a try. I sprinkled the dry cure and seasonings over the meat and mixed it well I then placed all the pieces in a container and refrigerated it for ten days. After ten days, I soaked the pieces in cold water for two hours to remove any surface cure. I placed the pieces of pork on racks and into my pre-heated smoker at 150F. For smoke, I use hickory sawdust. I cover the pan with a lid to starve it of air. This allows smoke but no flare ups. With lid removed I smoked the meat until the largest piece reached an internal temp of 165F and then let it cool in the smoker. I sliced one piece while it was still warm and the fat was still transparent so it's hard to see the fat lines like you see on store bought bacon After cooling overnight I will vacuum seal the pieces whole and slice when I want to fry some
I make this with deer loin just like it is made from pork loin. If you don't want to give up a loin, any roast seperated from the hind quarter will work. I make a brine using: 5 quarts of ice cold water 6 Oz. white or brown sugar 2 Oz. insta cure (it is also called prague powder #1 or speed cure) 8 Oz. of salt. That's it. Trim your meat very lean and soak it in the brine for 6 days in the fridge.(you gotta plan ahead) Remove from brine and rinse. Place meat in smoker pre-heated to 130F with the damper wide open. Hold at this temp for 4 hours without smoke, Turn the temp up to 150F and close the damper to half open add wood chips for a moderate smoke and hold for 3 more hours. increase temp to 160 and close dampers. Hold meat at this temp until the internal temp of the venison is 155F. Remove from smoker and run under cold tap water until the internal temp is 100F. Pat dry with paper towel and refig. overnight. I like it fried with eggs but it is good cold on a sandwich. You can see from the pic it is much darker than pork that I smoked at the same time but it has the same sweet flavor. Enjoy. Fry it up with some fatty bacon and enjoy.
If your so inclined to turn some of your venison into Weiners, This should help. WIENERS (FRANKFURTERS) INGREDIENTS FOR 10 LBS. 2 cups ice water 2 level tsp. Instacure No. 1 4 Tb. paprika 6 Tb. ground mustard 1 tsp. ground black pepper 1 tsp. ground white pepper 1 tsp. ground celery seeds 1 Tb. mace 1 tsp. garlic powder 4 Tb. salt 2 cups non-fat dry milk 4 Tb. powdered dextrose 6 lbs. Venison 4 lbs. semi/lean pork trimmings (pork butts) You may use 1/2 oz. coriander in place of the mace. If a wiener of lighter color is desired, omit the paprika. Wieners can be made from many different meats, as well as any combination of meats. In some cases, people want to use the leftovers when they butcher their livestock, while others prefer a quality wiener. GRINDING & MIXING For home use, grind the meat together using a plate with very fine holes 3/16". After grinding, mix all the meat with above ingredients. Mix for 2-3 minutes or until all ingredients are evenly distributed with the meat. Emulsify meat, following emulsifying instructions found on page 214, then pack into stuffer using a 24-26 mm sheep casing to stuff wieners. SMOKING AND COOKING After stuffing, hang wieners on properly spaced smokehouse sticks. Be sure wieners are not touching each other. You may rinse the wieners off with cold water if necessary. Allow wieners to hang at room temperature When using collagen or synthetic casings, about 30 minutes. Wieners should be smoked as follows: Place into preheated smokehouse and dry for approximately 30 minutes. Apply heavy smudge for approximately 90 minutes, gradually raise smokehouse temperature to 165° F and smoke until internal temperature of 138° F. Transfer to steam cabinet cooker and cook at 165° F for 5-1 0 minutes, or until an internal temperature of 152-155° F is obtained. Spot-check various wieners to be sure that these temperatures are reached. If you do not have a steam cabinet, you may leave the wieners in the smokehouse at 165° F until you obtain 152° F internally. After smoking or cooking, the wieners should be quickly showered with cool water for about 10 minutes or until the internal temperature is reduced to 100-110° F After showering with cold water, allow wieners to chill and dry at room temperature or until desired bloom is obtained. CHILLING Wieners should be placed in 45-50° F cooler and chilled until product has reached an internal temperature of 50° F After smoking.
Venison Summer. I start with very lean and trimmed venison and I add to it beef and pork fat. The ratio I use is 80/20 or 80% lean venison to 20% fat. For a 20 pound batch I would use 16 pounds of venison and 2 pounds of beef fat and 2 pounds of pork fat. The pork fat I get when I buy 60 pound boxes of pork trim. The trim is know as boneless pork shoulders but any fatty cut of pork will do. The first thing I do is trim all the fat from the lean pork. I save the lean pork and cook it and shred it for BBQ or for pork only sausage. I get the beef fat from a local butcher. I ask for leaf lard as it comes from the inside of the carcass and I find it better than back fat or suet but suet will work fine. I grind the fat and venison at the same time to get them mixed together Next I season the meat with the spices. Most every sporting goods store now sells summer sausage spices that are pre-mixed. Try one and if you don't like it, you can always add things to your taste. I have people who really like garlic or onion or both so I put the garlic and/or onion in a blender and make a slurry of them and add it to the sausage mix. I also add whole mustard seed. A step that most packaged sausage leave out is the fact that you need to mix the dry seasonings with water before you add the spices to the meat. If you do not do this, you will have some meat that is over seasoned and some that is under seasoned. When you pour the water/spice mix over the meat it is much easier to get an even distribution. The other ingredient that will come with the pre-mixed spices is a pink colored salt that is going to be called "Cure" or "Curing salt". This is really a mixture of salt and sodium nitrate. It is colored pink so that you do not confuse it with regular salt. It is absolutely mandatory that you use "cure when you make a smoked sausage or you run the risk of getting food poisoning. If the pre-mixed seasonings that you buy do not contain this cure, it is more than likely sold right next to the spices. It is very inexpensive and is a must. So now I take the water/spice/cure/garlic/onion cocktail and pour it over the first grinding of the meat. This is the fun part. use your hands and mix the water/spice/meat/fat mixture until it looks evenly distributed. Your hands will hurt and then go numb from the extreme cold but you can talk your buddy into this step by telling him that you have to get the grinder ready for the second grind. Once everything is mixed, you need to grind it again but this time you will use a grinder plate with smaller holes than the first grind. I suggest an 1/8 inch plate for summer. After the second grind I take the mixture and pack it down tightly in a plastic tub. Do not use metal as it can react with the spices and give a metallic taste. I cover the whole thing with a layer of plastic wrap and store in my cooler overnight. While you sleep, the cure will.....well.............cure the meat and turn it a reddish or pinkish color (which is why all smoked meats, even chicken have a pinkish color to it) The next step is to soak the summer sausage casings in warm water for a half hour while you get the sausage stuffer ready. Stuff the meat as tightly as possible into the casings. You do not want any air bubbles. Tie off the end of the casing with a strong string and your ready for the smoker. I smoke summer sausage slowly and at low heat because you can't rush a good thing. If you are in a hurry and turn up the heat you will find that the fat will melt too quickly and rather than mixing with the meat, it will work it's way to the outside, near the casing and run down to the bottom. I start with a preheated smoker at about 100 degrees and I leave it there for 2 hours. I smoke for a total of 12 hours and slowly increase the temp. to 180 degrees. The sausage is done when the internal temp of the sausage is 165 degrees. During the entire 12 hours I have a heavy smudge (fancy smoking term for lots of smoke) the entire time. I use hickory but lots of other woods will work as well (avoid pine and cedar) It takes a lot of smoke to penetrate the fibrous casing (which you peel off and can't eat anyway) When the sausage reaches the 165 degree mark I leave them in the smoker for another half hour while I fill a tub with water and snow ( always do summer sausage during the winter months) you Southern guys who don't get snow can fill a tub with ice and water. I take the sausage out of the smoker and place it in the super cold water and tell my buddy to move and mix the sausages around so they can get quick cooled. I tell him I something really important to do, but really I don't want to freeze my hands off. Keep the sausage in the cold water until the internal temp. is 80 degrees. This step ensures that your sausages will have a full and plump look rather than a shriveled and wrinkled look. The next step it to put the sausages back on the hanging sticks and dry them off. Finally you can let the sausage "Bloom" (this is a fancy smoking term that means to let them hang until they reach room temp and it gives you time to get the feeling back into your hands) I let my sausages bloom for a couple of hours and then place them in a cooler overnight. The next day I vacuum seal the sausage and freeze the rest The final step is to go out and buy some cheese and crackers on your way to my house so we can enjoy what you made
Picked up 35 pounds of meat at Sam's club A 12 pound beef brisket 12 pounds of pork Boston Butt And 11 pounds of fresh chicken. I will smoke this mess of grub with a mixture of Hickory and apple wood. The chicken will be finished first, then the pork and then brisket. The brisket may spend up to 12 hours in the smoker. I love smoking days. The Brisket rub is made and rubbed on the meat 12 hours prior to smoking. ½ cup paprika ½ cup brown sugar 3 tblsp chili powder 3 tblsp onion powder 3 tblsp garlic powder 3 tblsp seasoned salt 1 tblsp cayenne pepper powder 3 tblsp black pepper 2 tblsp oregano Use rubber gloves and rub the spices into the meat and let it sit in the fridge over night. I got the fire lit in the smoker at 6:30 am. Then it was time to rub mustard on my Butt (s) and a secret blend of herbs and spices. Then I split the chickens and gave them a rub down of not so secret spices. Then it was into the preheated smoker with the lot of it. The two pans in the bottom are filled with water and beer. I’ll use hickory chunks to start out with and switch to apple later in the day. The smoke is great smelling in the morning. Now its time to wait. Occasionally spraying the pork and beef with the mop sauce. I have a temp probe in the thickest part of the brisket and another probe checking internal air temps in the smoker. The chickens are the first ones done. They look nicely smoked. Time to prepare the rest of the supper menu. The pork is now complete. The combination of the smoke, and the mop sauce on the spice rub gives a dark look. Beneath that bark is juicy smoked pork goodness. The pork is pulled. 12 hours later the brisket has reached 188 degrees F. This was a really thick and fatty brisket (all the better) and the amount of juice it let loose when I cut into it was amazing. The groove around the cutting board didn’t hold it all. We captured this flavor in a quart jar to be used when the meat is reheated. I cut it into meal sized chunks that (once cooled) can be vacuum sealed and frozen. The brisket can be reheated right in the sealer bags and sliced once warmed. I will divide the juice and freeze it as well to serve with the meat. This might be my best one yet. Its been a long day and I smell like a piece of smoked meat. I need a shower.
If you want to cold smoke items like cheese but wondered how, keep reading. You will want to get the “A-maze-n-smoker “ After reading about the product, I made a few of my own. It’s a perforated metal box that is 6 x 6 inches with a maze if metal strips that is filled with sawdust and let to smolder in the smoke house without generating heat. It’s a freaking awesome thing. Here are the parts I cut out before assembly. I used aluminum. Then after cutting and bending. Then riveted together. The rivets act as legs to space it away from whatever it sits on so air can flow under it. Then I filled it with sawdust and lit each end through the hole I cut. The store bought version claims it will smoke for 8 hours if lit on only one end. I lit mine on both ends just to see how it would work. It produced a lot of smoke. I lit it at 5:30 pm. Here it is at 6:30 7:30 8:30 When it was burned out, I knocked it upside down and rinsed it with water. I’m really impressed by this thing. He sells it for $32. I will make a few more for myself. If you’re in the market for a very cool cold smoking, smoke generator, I would highly recommend checking his product out at. SMOKERS I bought several varieties of local made cheese to cold smoke (it was 55 degrees this afternoon) But first I needed some sawdust. I cut down a sugar maple 2 years ago so I passed a piece of it through my table saw until I had enough sawdust to smoke the cheese. Then filled the smoke pan. I took a big pan of ice out to the smoker about an hour before I wanted to use it. Since this is essentially a big, insulated cooler, the ice dropped the temp inside from 55 to 44. Then I cut the cheese. I’m smoking Cheddar, Swiss, Pepper Jack, String cheese and Cheese curds. Then into the smoker with the sawdust pan. two hours later (4 hours for larger pieces) and the cheese is done. I emptied the sawdust pan to keep from choking and let the smoke clear. The almost finished product. I bagged it all separately and then placed all the bags in another gallon sized bag and put it in the fridge where it will sit for two weeks and we will enjoy it around Easter time. Why? Everything I have read about smoking cheese says that if you try to eat the cheese right out of the smoker, it will taste like licking the bottom of an ash tray (I can only imagine what that would taste like) so the cheese has to mellow and absorb the smoke before it can be enjoyed……………………………… But being impatient, I sampled one of the cheese curds. Yup, ash tray, all the way. It was awful. If I had not read up on the subject, I would have thrown the whole lot in the trash, thinking I had done something wrong. It pays to study. On another cold day I cold smoked some cheese, olives and salt.
Some great stuff coming in. Thread is already a keeper for me. Looking forward to using some of these!
Smoked up an eye of round roast. Right at 5 lbs. First I trimmed the fat from the roast. Then I used mustard to allow the rub to stick very well. You can use pretty much any rub you want here. Cooked at 225. I pulled it at 115 internal temp to coat with brown sugar mixed with worchershire sauce. Make this a little pasty and give it a good rub. Put it back in the smoker until it reached an internal temp of 135 then I pulled it threw it in the broiler for 2 mins on high to crust up the sugar a bit. Then I wrapped in foil and then a towl to rest for 1 hour. This came out very tender and very juicy. Had almost zero pink in the middle so cook accordingly. I used hickory for my wood as well.
3lb boneless netted pork butt. Going to smoke at 225 over applewood until it reaches an internal temp of 195 for pulled pork. The night before you give it a coat of mustard then use a rub and give it a good rubbing. I also injected it with applejuice. Prior to being put on the smoker I gave it a coat of honey then rubbed in some brown sugar. Here are some pics leading up to being put in the smoker.
For my mop sauce I did 1/2 cup apple cider 1/4 cup water 1 TBSP Worechesire sauce 1 TSP Vegatable oil 1 TSP brown sugar 2 pinches of salt. Will mop every 45 mins.
Correct me if I'm wrong, I see most folks on here running what look like electric smokers. Any particular reason why you went electric versus something else?
The ease of use really. With a monitored temp and time you can program and an internal meat temp reader it makes smoking super easy with nearly the same great flavor. I also am making your mac n cheese. Will post pics.
