Smoker- recipes and mods

[sns2]

Originally Posted by omega50

That looks awesome.
Was it under smoke the whole 4 hours? What type?
BTW That is a totally sweet cutting board

Thanks for your help with it!

I used maple and I am guessing it was under heavy smoke for maybe two hours. I pulled it at 160, but next time I might go 155, even though food rules say 165 for poultry which in this application would have turned it into jerky it would have been so dry. It tasted like a delicious ham more than anything.

My father-in-law made the cutting board. It's a pig on the one end and a turtle on the other I was gonna pitch it, but the wife intervened. I've now come to kind of like it in a weird way.

[omega50]

Originally Posted by sns2

Thanks for your help with it!

I used maple and I am guessing it was under heavy smoke for maybe two hours. I pulled it at 160, but next time I might go 155, even though food rules say 165 for poultry which in this application would have turned it into jerky it would have been so dry. It tasted like a delicious ham more than anything.

My father-in-law made the cutting board. It's a pig on the one end and a turtle on the other I was gonna pitch it, but the wife intervened. I've now come to kind of like it in a weird way.

Personally I would likely pull the breast at 148F and let it carry over to about 150F.
Poultry temps stated are always for the legs
Breasts are always ready about 10F below the legs

[gtr]

Great reading and ideas.I purchased a Vision grill early this spring .Had no idea what I was missing.Have smoked everything from brisket to chicken wings.We have only used the propane bbq twice.The more you use these smokers the more you like too.Trial and error is the way to go,hopefully keeping the errors small.Thermometers are a must I have found,most any brand has worked for me.It is a fun way to enjoy your food.A few beers to make sure things go well,is a good plan as well.

[amosfella]

Originally Posted by DeadEyeGardner

Hey guys, this is my first post as a member on the forum! Been a long time fan of the forum.. Anyways...

I picked up a big chief smoker a year ago, and have been experimenting quite a bit. Does anyone have this style of smoker (cheaper jobby, i know) and if so any tips or info they have found on it to help a newbie out?

Thanks

It will take a lot of time to get up to heat if there's any kind of wind. I've never seen mine get to 225 or 250 like it should... It's great for doing cheeses, cold smoked salmon, etc. Don't expect too much from it. You can buy a cheap welding blanket from princess auto, and that will help with the heat retention... don't cover the top if you do that...

[amosfella]

Originally Posted by BrownTrout

Im drooling read all these posts, gonna use a couple as well.

What I want is an awesome brisket recipe. I know there are some real smoke geniuses on here and would love the help.

Brine:
12 cups water
6 cups vinegar of choice
1 cup pickling or sea salt
handfull of pickling spice
boil

Rub:
1/4 cup garlic powder
3 tablespoons cracker meal
3 tablespoons coarse salt (kosher or sea)
2 tablespoons ground black pepper
1 teaspoon ground white pepper
1.2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
2 tablespoons oregano

Brine for 4-7 days in the fridge. Put rub on after pulling out of brine. Leave it sit in the rub a day to 3 in the fridge. If there's not enough brine or rub to cover it, make another recipe. DO NOT PUT THE BRINE OVER THE MEAT HOT!!!!!!! Wait until the brine is room temperature or the meat will not take smoke.
Smoke till it's about 175-180f. Pull out and let cool. fill broiler pan with water vinegar/pickle juice mix approximately 3 parts water to one part vinegar/pickle juice. Put brisket onto broiler pan and cover with tinfoil, wrapping the tinfoil around the edges of the broiler pan. You want the most steam to stay in there as is possible... place in oven at 225f, and walk away for 8-12 hours. You want the brisket thoroughly steamed. At about 8 hours, push the temperature probe through the tinfoil. if it's ready, the probe should have more resistance going through the tinfoil than the meat. Check in several places. Don't worry too much about internal temperature as long as it's below 205f. If you're uncertain if it's got the right tenderness, put it back in the oven for another hour. You will know it when you feel it. It will feel like a hot knife through butter.

[Knot Rite]

Originally Posted by omega50

Making some Cold Smoked Nova Lox in the Bradley today.
Took a few slices off to check for saltiness and found no need to rinse. Good balance from the dry cure.

On a rack and ready for the smoker

Set for 1 hour -3 pucks of Alder. I like a light smoke on my lox-
Made some homemade cream cheese and will have it for breakfast
Bagels, cream cheese, sliced red onions and capers over the Salmon slices

Omega, I purchased the 6 rack bradley smoker when they were on sale at wss last month and I've been a smokin fool but I'm curious why you don't have your generator mounted directly to your smoke box? What am I missing. Thanks.

Bobby

[omega50]

Originally Posted by Knot Rite

Omega, I purchased the 6 rack bradley smoker when they were on sale at wss last month and I've been a smokin fool but I'm curious why you don't have your generator mounted directly to your smoke box? What am I missing. Thanks.

Bobby

That is the cold smoke attachment to keep the temps down in the main cabinet to avoid going above 90F and driving the natural oils out of the salmon making it greasy.
Normally the smoke generator is attached to the main cabinet for all of my hot smoking

[Knot Rite]

Makes perfekly good sense. I'm learning this smoking as I go. Thanks for enlightening me.

Bobby

[Brandonkop]

Made a video of how I smoked some frozen whitefish I had and turned out really well. About 5 pounds of whitefish, 8 cups of water, a cup of kosher salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar and teaspoon of garlic salt. Brined for 16 hours and put on smoker at 150 for three hours with maple and hickory cause that's all I could find. The pic shows the end product and this video shows the whole process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyJdWAmhz-o

[BrownTrout]

I'm smoking my first brisket right now. So far so good.

[amosfella]

Originally Posted by Brandonkop

Made a video of how I smoked some frozen whitefish I had and turned out really well. About 5 pounds of whitefish, 8 cups of water, a cup of kosher salt, 1/2 cup brown sugar and teaspoon of garlic salt. Brined for 16 hours and put on smoker at 150 for three hours with maple and hickory cause that's all I could find. The pic shows the end product and this video shows the whole process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyJdWAmhz-o

Dont' know what smoker you have, but FYI, Lilac logs work great on fish... If your smoker can take logs.

[Sportscamper]

This thread making me hungry

[iluvguns]

Please put a warning on this site "DO NOT VIEW WHEN HUNGRY"

[Tomyx]

Smoked Garlic Salmon

INGREDIENTS
1 large (2 pounds or so) salmon fillet
10 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon oregano


Prepare smoker for a 4 to 5 hour smoke at a temperatures around 200 to 225 degrees F. Rinse salmon thoroughly. Combine remaining ingredients and spread over the top side (as opposed to the skin side) of the salmon. Place in smoker for 2 hours depending on thickness of the fillets. Check for doneness after 1 hour. Salmon is done when it flakes easily and has a consistent color all they way through the middle. When done remove from smoker and rest for 5 to ten minutes covered.


Don't overcook this !
Three filets, more than 2 lbs. total, and fish was ready in 90 minutes! Skin was left on for cooking, and was put directly on grill rack (no foil). Use a long blade metal spatula to remove fish from rack. Will try the Maple recipe next week. The smell is making my dog crazy, even more than smoked pork!!

[.280]

Does anybodt know where I can buy a cord for my Big Chief smoker? I wold like to try the candied salmon recipe.
Thanks

[jr_80]

Goose Pastrami

I specifically call for Canada goose breasts here because they’re the only ones I think are large enough to make this with, although domestic goose breasts will also of course work. Could you do it with snow goose or speck breasts? Yeah, but they’ll be a lot smaller, and I’d only cure them for 12 to 24 hours instead of 24 to 36.

A word on the Instacure. The 3 grams I call for will actually be enough to cure up to about 3 pounds of goose meat. A general rule is about 1 1/4 grams of Instacure per pound, but you do need a few grams initially to get things started. Do not use more than I call for, though.

Be careful when you are smoking your goose, as the internal temperature can skyrocket in such small pieces of meat. They’ll be ready in 90 minutes in a hot smoker, which to my mind isn’t enough time on the smoke. Try to keep your smoker at 200°F or cooler; I like to keep it at 160°F, which lets me smoke the goose for a solid 3 to 4 hours.

What wood? Your choice. I prefer oak, maple or hickory for this, followed by walnut, pecan or cherry.

Once you make your pastrami, it will need to be eaten within a week or two, or you’ll need to vacuum seal and freeze it.

Makes 2 cured breasts.

Prep Time: 2 days, curing and drying time.

Cook Time: 3 hours smoking time

2 skinless Canada goose (or domestic goose) breasts
Kosher salt (see recipe notes)
3 grams Instacure No. 1 (good for up to 3 pounds of goose)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1/4 teaspoon celery seed
1/4 teaspoon caraway seed
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon crushed juniper (optional)
1 teaspoon ground black pepper, plus 1 tablespoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup brandy, red wine, vinegar or water
1 tablespoon ground coriander
____________


Weigh your goose breasts. For every pound of goose, you’ll need 22 grams of kosher salt, which is about 1 1/2 tablespoons. It’s OK if you are a little off on this measurement. Mix the salt, curing salt, sugar as well as the thyme, celery seed, caraway, juniper and the teaspoon of black pepper and grind them all together in a spice grinder. Pack the goose breasts with this mixture, massaging it into the meat. Put the goose into a closed container in the fridge for 24 to 36 hours.
The next day, rinse off the goose and pat it dry. It’s fine if you have a little bit of the cure stuck to the meat, but you don’t want too much. Put the goose breasts on a rack in the fridge and let them dry uncovered for a day.
Dip the goose into the brandy — or really any other liquid you want — and then coat thoroughly in the remaining black pepper and ground coriander seed. I like to grind this myself so the texture is a little coarse, a little fine.
Smoke the goose breasts until the interior hits 145°F, which takes me about 3 hours.
Let the goose pastrami cool and eat as lunch meat, or on crackers or whatever.

[Iskra]

Originally Posted by Tomyx

Smoked Garlic Salmon

INGREDIENTS
1 large (2 pounds or so) salmon fillet
10 cloves of garlic, minced
4 tablespoons lemon juice
3 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon oregano


Prepare smoker for a 4 to 5 hour smoke at a temperatures around 200 to 225 degrees F. Rinse salmon thoroughly. Combine remaining ingredients and spread over the top side (as opposed to the skin side) of the salmon. Place in smoker for 2 hours depending on thickness of the fillets. Check for doneness after 1 hour. Salmon is done when it flakes easily and has a consistent color all they way through the middle. When done remove from smoker and rest for 5 to ten minutes covered.


Don't overcook this !
Three filets, more than 2 lbs. total, and fish was ready in 90 minutes! Skin was left on for cooking, and was put directly on grill rack (no foil). Use a long blade metal spatula to remove fish from rack. Will try the Maple recipe next week. The smell is making my dog crazy, even more than smoked pork!!

What do you do with the ingredients?

[omega50]

Bought a cold smoker to run in the bottom of my Bradley so I was not held hostage by the Bradley pucks.
It is called the Pro Q-cold smoke generator.
Decided to cold smoke some bacon today to test the performance



It is small about 6" x 6" and is a maze. You provide the initial start with a tea candle as per pic


A full charge is about 100g of wood dust and it is supposed to burn 8-10 hours.


I see some room for improvement in the design because the starter candle is too close to the 2nd run of maze and it jumped from underneath and was smouldering in 2 places instead of one. This shortened by burn time to about 5 hours, but now that I know I won't let the candle seat as deeply. As soon as it is smoking the candle is removed.


Decided to cold smoke some sliced pork belly that I found on sale. Gave it a quick cure.

Fried some up after a 8 hour cold smoke of Oak.


Overall very happy-but will need to find a way to reduce my wood chips to a coarse powder to make this run effectively.

Basically it cost me $10 to smoke unattended with Bradley pucks for 8 hours.
In the Pro Q it costs me 40 cents to smoke unattended for 8 hours
Plus I can sprinkle herbs, bark, tea etc in the powder to custom flavor my run.

So far I am pretty happy and just need to fine tune the technique for my hot smoke jerky run tomorrow
Really happy

[CheeseBurger]

Thanks for posting that Omega50! I'm going to go and pick one up and see how it works in my UDS. Might allow to me to do some cheese or cold smoke some salmon.

[omega50]

Originally Posted by CheeseBurger

Thanks for posting that Omega50! I'm going to go and pick one up and see how it works in my UDS. Might allow to me to do some cheese or cold smoke some salmon.

I can't give it a full recommendation quite yet until I am satisfied that I can easily reduce my woodchips to a dust that is of a correct size and moisture content to burn effectively in this device.
The first run was on their included sample pack of wood dust, but today I will test my wood chips and ensure that it will stay lit.
I don't want to recommend something if it leads to frustration

I am often very frustrated at the incomplete engineering on all of the currently available smokers and smoker accessories on the market.
It should not be rocket science.
I often wonder if the owners of these companies have ever actually used their own products with a critical eye and a mission in their heart to be the best they can be..

[CheeseBurger]

Originally Posted by omega50

I can't give it a full recommendation quite yet until I am satisfied that I can easily reduce my woodchips to a dust that is of a correct size and moisture content to burn effectively in this device.
The first run was on their included sample pack of wood dust, but today I will test my wood chips and ensure that it will stay lit.
I don't want to recommend something if it leads to frustration

I am often very frustrated at the incomplete engineering on all of the currently available smokers and smoker accessories on the market.
It should not be rocket science.
I often wonder if the owners of these companies have ever actually used their own products with a critical eye and a mission in their heart to be the best they can be..

Am very curious as to how today's experiment went!

[omega50]

Originally Posted by CheeseBurger

Am very curious as to how today's experiment went!

Not great.
I used some small oak chips I had( between 1/8"- 1/16") and they would not stay lit.
Will try to pulverize some in my spice grinder for the next attempt.
It looks like it very nearly needs to be a dust to work effectively in this device.

I bought this at DnR and they said they are working on a machine to provide a dust. They recommended a blender , but was a no go in my blender-just spun them around. At this point I would hold off until a simple solution presents itself.

[CheeseBurger]

Fair enough. I will hold off. Just got excited to have a simple cold smoke option. I wonder if a router would provide the chips required?

[.280]

A friend of mine makes his own pucks by using a pipe and metal discs cut to fit in the pipe. he soaks the chips in water and a little sugar , puts a disc in the pipe and then some chips another disc then some chips and so on,then compress with a bottle jack in a metal frame he made ( leave them overnight). The pucks turn out perfect, The good thing about this set-up is you can use any combination of wood you like.

[RandyBoBandy]

Originally Posted by omega50

Bought a cold smoker to run in the bottom of my Bradley so I was not held hostage by the Bradley pucks.
It is called the Pro Q-cold smoke generator.
Decided to cold smoke some bacon today to test the performance



It is small about 6" x 6" and is a maze. You provide the initial start with a tea candle as per pic


A full charge is about 100g of wood dust and it is supposed to burn 8-10 hours.


I see some room for improvement in the design because the starter candle is too close to the 2nd run of maze and it jumped from underneath and was smouldering in 2 places instead of one. This shortened by burn time to about 5 hours, but now that I know I won't let the candle seat as deeply. As soon as it is smoking the candle is removed.


Decided to cold smoke some sliced pork belly that I found on sale. Gave it a quick cure.

Fried some up after a 8 hour cold smoke of Oak.


Overall very happy-but will need to find a way to reduce my wood chips to a coarse powder to make this run effectively.

Basically it cost me $10 to smoke unattended with Bradley pucks for 8 hours.
In the Pro Q it costs me 40 cents to smoke unattended for 8 hours
Plus I can sprinkle herbs, bark, tea etc in the powder to custom flavor my run.

So far I am pretty happy and just need to fine tune the technique for my hot smoke jerky run tomorrow
Really happy

I wish I would have "bucked up" and bought a scratch and sniff monitor
Very nice Omega50

[omega50]

Time for a batch of Pepper Cheese Smokies.

[singleshotom]

Just did a batch of Venison Smokies.....
Approx 22 lbs of white tail
'' 5 '' '' ground pork
used Halford hides smoky mix and used the old Bradley
It was -24 and had a hard time getting the heat up but
they turned out great..... took them upt o 170 for an hour in the stove oven
to make sure....
taste perfect.
Smoked salmon candy style next!!!!!
sst

[omega50]

Made up the mix and decided to wait to stuff until I could secure the expert services of my 5 year old grandson this weekend.
Cryovac-ed into 5lbs batches- 20 lbs total

[omega50]

Got hungry so decided to twist up some smokies today for the smoker and leave 10 lbs for tomorrow to apprentice my grandson
Made a few coils and then a Triple Tree for shirts and giggles

[RandyBoBandy]

WOW...just wow