DH and his MEAT smoker!!! YUMMM!!! Anyone have recipes???

[pannm]

I sit here right now with my mouth watering thinking about how good this food is going to taste!!!

For Fathers day I gave my DH a smoker. Nothing to fancy or expensive, just something for us to use as we LOVE smoked meats. He has really taken it upon himself to experiment with his own brines, rubs and methods. I believe he truely enjoys it and it's become quite the hobby for him!

The smoke is just pouring out of it and my windows are all open in my house. It smells SOOOOOO GOOD!!! I think that the neighbors will be jealous today! Our local BBQ place has definately been missing us since we got this thing.

I am the main cook in this house- I am a homemaker and I truely love it!!! This smoker though, is one thing that I've not really used as much as my DH, so it's HIS thing. I love it when he can make such good things and I think I enjoy it more because it's such a treat to have someone making the main part of the meal

Anyone else have an actual smoker and have some good recipes to share???? What other kinds of meats do you do? We've done chicken, pork tenderloin, even some beans (they were the best beans we've EVER HAD IN OUR LIVES!!!) We put them under the drippings of the pork and man, they were out of this world!

For thanksgiving, I am interested in doing a turkey, but don't know how it'll be done yet. It'll have to be a smaller turkey than what we usually do (usually it's a 25 lb. turkey) because we don't want to eat Thanksgiving dinner at midnight...

DH and DD are allergic to fish (salmon will send DD & DH to the hospital!!!) So we've stayed away from fish...

 

[mrodgers]

Don't have one, sorry. But I am interested in what smoker you got your husband. I wanted to pick one up, but I don't think I'll do it until next year.

My wife is the indoor cook, I am the outdoor cook. I have the large gas grill sitting out there and I want to compliment it with a charcoal grill and an upright smoker.

Did you get him an expensive one or inexpensive? Vertical or horizontal with the separate smoke box? Gas, electric, charcoal, or all wood? I'm interested in what he has.

Where's the pics of the smoker doing it's work? On the BBQ site, it's called grill porn

Here's a forum resource if he's interested... BBQ Source I've gotten a lot of ideas there for the grill. There are quite a few more good forums out there based on smoking more than grilling as well.

 

[The Moonk's Mom]

I don't have a smoker, but I do smoke on my grill from time to time...LOVE IT!

My two favorite things to smoke have to be chicken wings and boneless turkey breast. For the wings I just sprinkle on Tony Chachere's Creole Seasoning and smoke. For the turkey I salt and pepper and garlic powder the whole thing on both sides then roll up and tie with butcher twine. Then smoke. Yum! As for timing, my grill is gas and I use a smoker box so my timing varies...I try to keep it around 275 and smoke for about 2 1/2 hours.For the turkey about 250 and 30 mins per pound...just check your temp. Good luck!

 

[pannm]

I got him the cheap-upright one. It's a brinkman and boy, it definately is enough to do the job for him! It runs off of charcoal and we like to buy many different types of wood chunks for it- apple and hickory are very good. We have an apple orchard here in town and they cut down a few of their trees due to 'over crowding' we got a bunch of that wood and it works really good with pork and chicken.

We've cooked for a few groups of family and friends and we've always been able to get enough meat on for 10 or more people!

Yeah, no food porn pics today, sorry!!! I do wish I had 'smell-o-vision'!!! Y'all would be jealous today! My husband did give me a taste of some of the chicken though, and it tastes EXTREMELY good. Famous Daves has nothing on my husbands smoked meat!

 

[marmalade]

I got my DH the same smoker for his birthday last year. We LOVE it! We have smoked everything on there, chicken thighs are one of my favorites and ribs of course.

We are waiting for fall to do a turkey. A nice cool sunny crisp fall day with the smell of smoked turkey wafting thru the neighborhood. Mmmmmm I can't wait. Like you I am the main cook in the house, even with the grill but the smoker is DH territory all the way.

 

[SleepyatDVC]

RIBS, RIBS, RIBS!!!! Yum!!!

Pulled pork.

We are trying homemade pastrami this weekend. We've been "prepping" the meat in the refrigerator for the last 3 WEEKS!!! Have to flip every day. Took the foil and plastic off last night.

OMG - it smells soooo good even though not cooked/smoked yet.

DH gets all the recipes on-line by googling them.

Dh usually smokes for an army even though it is only the 4 of us. Then we use the food saver to make meal size portions and freeze them. We heat up by throwing the bag in boiling water on the stove top. Easy Peasy Meals with no cooking mess. AND I think the ribs taste better after reheating.

Best part? DH does all the hard work. Although I help with some of the shopping, prepping, cleaning, and portion wrapping.

We love our smoker also.

 

[tweedlemom]

My husband just smoked a pork shoulder today over applewood charcoal. SOOO good! We have also smoked ribs and a ham! Super delicious!

 

[nancycg56]

My DH has been smoking for a long time and I think we have smoked everything at least once.

My favorite is brisket and his favorite is pork for pulled pork. He smoked pork for my DD's engagement party and it was gone so quick he didn't even get any. We actually smoked it the day before and pulled it, refrigerated it, then warmed it in the crockpot. He also made his own BBQ sauces so there was a choice for everyone.

Here is my favorite turkey recipe and the one we use every Thanksgiving: http://thanksgiving.food.com/recipe/smoked-garlic-and-orange-turkey-77815

Another thing I like to do is take a large can of mixed, salted nuts, put them in a disposable pan, mix in a couple of cloves of minced garlic and put it on the smoker for a few hours. OMG ~ they are the best!!!!!

 

[Tinkerbelle32]

My husband wants a smoker,grill called a green egg. Anybody have one, and what are your thoughts?

 

[3-MER]

3-2-1 ribs! They are great. Use a good rub and follow the directions, you will not be disappointed!
http://www.smoking-meat.com/june-2007-321-ribs.html

Enjoy!

 

[mrodgers]

I got him the cheap-upright one. It's a brinkman and boy, it definately is enough to do the job for him! It runs off of charcoal and we like to buy many different types of wood chunks for it- apple and hickory are very good. We have an apple orchard here in town and they cut down a few of their trees due to 'over crowding' we got a bunch of that wood and it works really good with pork and chicken.

Awesome. Ok, next question for you then... Is it the square one or the round one? The square one with the fire inside is the one I was looking at. I don't like the round one where you build your charcoal fire in the pan, then lower the round smoke "box" on top of it.

Did he replace the charcoal bowl with something with holes in it or drill holes to allow air to reach the charcoal? I've read that in stock form it is difficult to heat up, but if you replace the bowl or drill holes in the stock bowl, it allows better airflow around the fire to control the heat better.

 

[disneychic2]

We just had pulled pork and ribs this week from DH's smoker. His was very expensive, but it has a liner wall that enables him to cook in the winter (in Ohio) without loosing heat. It is electric start, but the fuel is wood pellets that get slowly dropped into the unit via an auger-type configuration. He is in heaven with this grill. And I get the benefit of all that lovely smoked meat.

 

[HannaBelle]

Anyone ever try making and using a trash can smoker?

http://www.tomhofstatter.com/blog/2009/10/where-theres-smoke-theres-flavour-diy-trash-can-smoker/

We love smoked meat and for about what it will cost to take my family out to a dinner for BBQ, we could build this one...sounds like fun!

 

[nancycg56]

I can't remember what brand we have but the smoker box is on the side which DH loves. We use wood (no charcoal) and this thing is BIG. We can fit alot of meat on it, LOL!

We'll be firing it up next weekend for a brisket

 

[pannm]

Awesome. Ok, next question for you then... Is it the square one or the round one? The square one with the fire inside is the one I was looking at. I don't like the round one where you build your charcoal fire in the pan, then lower the round smoke "box" on top of it.

Did he replace the charcoal bowl with something with holes in it or drill holes to allow air to reach the charcoal? I've read that in stock form it is difficult to heat up, but if you replace the bowl or drill holes in the stock bowl, it allows better airflow around the fire to control the heat better.

It's the round one, he modified it slightly to get more air circulation. I believe three holes were all that he needed. He did two at first, but that extra third one really made a difference. Since doing that we've actually had it get the perfect temp all of the time. When we did it on Saturday, he was worried that it wasn't going to go well because it was SUPER WINDY!!!! It held proper temp with no problem.

There was a reason why he wanted the round one instead of the square one, but I don't remember what it was. We were there looking at them and he messed around with both of them at the store- decided he wanted the round one, but thought he'd wait- then I bought it for him for Fathers day.

 

[stephgles]

I got my dh almost the same smoker but ours is gas not charcol. We have the Barbecue Bible a few years ago for xmas and it has a lot of rubs and smoker ideas in it too. We have done, a turkey (was amazing) ribs, chicken, smoke sausage, brisket and pulled pork. DH asked me was the smoker for him for his birthday or really a gift to myself.

 

[mrodgers]

It's great seeing "real" folks mention these Brinkmann smokers because the reviews are terrible. The only good reviews are a select few where it sounds like it is from someone who knows what they are talking about with simply modding it by changing the charcoal bowl out for something with more holes and sealing them up a bit. But then I also don't trust reviews and a lot of reviews seem to be planted.

So, you "real" folks here, thanks. I hesitated to buy the cheap Brinkmann this year. Perhaps next year I will, maybe I'll get it for father's day like I did my Brinkmann gas grill a few years ago.

Hmm, problem that would come up is, everyone rotates the holiday picnics. I am guessing I would end up having to smoke and transport every picnic, LOL.

 

[nancycg56]

We DO have a Brinkman ~ just asked DH. The kind with the smoker box on the side. He loves it

 

[BSil]

To OP: You can smoke pretty much anything you feel like. Even without a recipe, anything from a smoker taste great. Ribs are my favorite with just a hand rub and finished with homemade BBQ sauce. Heck, I have even cooked meatloaf in one, and I haven't tried it yet, but I was thinking about putting a pizza stone in, and making a smoked pizza. I have no idea if it will work, but it is worth a shot I think.

To Tink: That green egg thing, is a ceramic grill/smoker. I saw it at a local Lowe's, and it looks impressive. It was real expensive though, but probably worth it. I lifted the top, and it weighed about 40lbs. It must really just hold in the heat very well or something. I don't know anyone with one, so can't comment on how well it works, but it certainly does look neat. Here is a link to the one I saw, but it has disappeared from the Lowes site: http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&sugexp=bvre&cp=10&gs_id=12&xhr=t&q=ceramic+grill&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&biw=1252&bih=614&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=16306250048570330308&sa=X&ei=KuJkTt6XNsrW0QGs4oyqCg&sqi=2&ved=0CIABEPICMAE

 

[Skye23]

We have a Brinkman I got using Marlboro points back when cig companies could give you promos. And no, we didn't smoke all of them, I bought the points cheap off ebay (lol).

We have 2 recipes that we always make in it - same treatment with both cuts of meat although the cooking times vary a little.

Buy yourself a nice 3-4lb or so boneless pork loin (with a nice bit of fat on it) and/or beef eye round roast. Find a rub you like - we use a blend we make from equal parts Northwoods Seasoning, Northwood Fire Seasoning and Barbecue of the America's Seasoning all from Penzey's Spices. You can use anything that floats your boat.

The night before you're going to smoke the meat get it all preppped and ready. With the pork loin you want to leave all the fat on it, but score the fat with a criss-cross pattern with your knife. For the beef eye round you want to leave any fat you can but remove all of the silver skin that might be left on it. Whichever one you're using rub it heavily with the bbq rub of your choice and if you've got it use one of the multi-bladed meat tenderizers to really poke a ton of holes in it through the dry rub. We usually rub it, poke it, rub it again and poke it again to make sure a good bit of the seasoning goes inside the meat. (to see what I mean click here)

In a large pyrex measuring cup (at least 4-6 cup) or mixing bowl take some apple cider and heat about 1 cup of it up until its warm. Pour in some honey and stir until the honey dissolves. Add a good quantity of kosher salt and stir until its dissolved. Add a couple of shots of Jack Daniels or some sort of rum/whiskey/bourbon. It doesn't have to be expensive but it does have to be drinkable, we use Jack Daniels because thats what we stock to drink anyway. Add at least 1 more cup of cider to cool the brine down so its closer to being chilled then warm (food safety and all, you can drop a few ice cubes in too if needed). Taste the brine - you want to taste the apple, taste the booze, you want it to be sweet and you also want it to be salty. Adjust quantities of ingredients as needed, there's no wrong way because its personal taste except you do want it to taste salty - at least as salty as canned french onion soup because this IS a brine after all.

Place your prepped meat inside a gallon sized zip-lock baggie, pour enough brine in to cover the meat, press the excess air out and seal. Fold top of baggie over so its tightly wrapped and place into a second zip lock baggie for leak-resistance. Alternately use a tightly sealing lidded container and pour brine in to cover the meat (you use less brine if you use the baggies). Place in fridge and chill overnight. Anytime you wander past the fridge consider flipping the meat over although if you forget its not crucial if you sealed the bag so its totally covered.

Next day - sometime in the afternoon, fire up the smoker with your wood of choice. Mesquite is ok but woods like pecan, cherry, apple are better. Or mix - a little mesquite for an upfront smoke with fruit-wood for a smoother finish.

Place pork loin on smoker with the fat side up, ditto if there is any fat on the beef. Smoke for an hour or so, flip the beef if using. You can flip the pork loin if you want or smoke it the entire time fat side up. I have a water smoker so I flip the pork loin, if I was over direct coals I would not do that due to flare ups. Continue smoking flipping every hour or so until the pork gets to about 130-135 and the beef gets to 115-120. At this point consider brushing on a bit of BBQ sauce - whatever you like. We usually go with something fruit based. Baste the roasts with the BBQ every 20-30 minutes and flip as needed until they reach 140 or so for the pork and 125-130 for the beef. At that point remove them from the grill and wrap tightly in reynolds nonstick foil (to keep the glaze from sticking), wrap in towels and place in a cooler or some sort of insulated box to let them carry over to final temp (145-150 pork, 130-135 beef). Slice and serve ... the beef is best at medium rare but you can go rare or medium as your family prefers.

Time - hard to say. We usually take the roasts out of the fridge to take the chill off them when we start prepping the charcoal. Takes about an hour to get ours all ready to go at which point we put them on. If I start around noon they're done by 5ish usually, depending on ambient temp. You can keep them wrapped in the insulated cooler for a good hour or two and they'll still be hot and delicious (monitor temp)