JW's Smoker -part 3

[JW]

Hi all,

Welcome to the latest installment of "JW's Smoker" In this episode were smoking Salmon again.

As you can see Ive been ignoring the back porch for a while now.

ive made a modification to the smoker. This hole ive cut tends to make the unit run a little warmer. Im still using the tinfoil around where the cover closes since I feel this keep's the air out.

Here's some of the local wildlife on my back porch

This cat of mine is almost 20 years old. He's my outdoor cat, Tom.

Im real proud of my peppers. These are called soronto(sp?) peppers. I use them instead of jalapino's, in my jalapino'n chedder quich. I grew these three plants fom some seeds I saved, when I made the quich last Easter. Quich is an egg pie, like a really thick omellete, with pie crust.

Ok, Heres the salmon. I got it at the local grocery store. Decent price 14 bucks I think. I skinned the fillets with my fillet knife last night and removed the blood line as best I could. I think they came out ok. Heres the mariniade I used, its very sweet to the taste.

I marinated the cut-in-half fillet over night in the fridge.

Firing up the smoker!!!

I like to sterilize my smoker before putting stuff on. So I let the charcoal burn for awhile with the lid closed. Then I add the wood.

The wood chips in the upper pan are not burned. Instead I fill this pan about half way with water and let the wood chips steam.

Some more pictures

The smoker has been running for awhile and its up to cooking temp.

Ok, its time to put the salmon on and let it smoke. Im figuring on a 3 to 5 hour smoke time.

I will post just before I take salmon off of the smoker.

JW

[elvin1949]

Damn JW your making me hungery.

 Think i will hit the beaver pond in the morning.

Bass is good Smoked to.

later

Elvin

[JW]

Allright,

 I smoked the salmon for a total of 4 hours. This is how it looked as it came out.

Always make sure that you use a good quality spatula to remove the fish. Notice how I placed the fish on the grill so that I could easily scrap and remove it .

Its safe in the tin foil. Since I smoked this for over 3 hours its pretty firm.

Flaky and tasty, just like its supposed to be

Im very happy how this batch came out. Good flavor and texture. My favorite way to eat this is on an onion bagel with whipped cream cheese.

I have been catching some good size Bonefish out in the bay, night fishing,(believe it or not) around 24 inchs. That stuff comes out great aswell, but I do not use the water pan to cook it, and no marinade, its done in like 2 hours. Makes great smoked fish dip.

JW

[JW]

Hi Elvin,

 Your post went thru before I finished typing mine. Didnt see it before I finished my last.

Ya, I heard from several people, that Bass and some other fresh water fish, taste really good when smoked. Pull one out of the beaver pond for me.

I' (flaling arms like Tom Hanks, in that movie Cast Away movie) I'   have made fire.

JW

[JW]

WILSON!!!!!!!!!

 Just kidding, LOL.(you have to have seen the movie, Cast Away[ with Tom Hanks], to get it...) Its one of those have too have been there moments.

I like the "Surviver(sp?) Man", better than "Man verse Wild" on the discovery channel. And what the hell is going on with Mike Row, He seems to have taken over the place.

JW

[Mary B]

Is that an old Brinkmann smoker? I know several people who use those and they make a lot of modifications to them. 5 years ago I went from the cheap Brinkmann offset smoker to a Klose. This is one of my bbq's from 2 years ago.

From left to right: A ban of baked beans (if anyone wants the recipe I will post it), Next on the top shelf 20 pounds of pork shoulder roast, under that 20 pounds of beef chuck roast, left side is 4 slabs of pork spare ribs. The firebox is far right and out of the picture. I burn oak with no charcoal, the flavor can't be beat.

[JW]

Hi MaryAlana,

 Its a char-broil h2o smoker. The last time I did some baby back ribs, I cooked them in the oven for about 3 1/2 hours @ 250*f. Before putting them on the smoker. With the fish I do not have to do this.

   I used some steak rub on them,(the ribs) before cooking them in the oven /with tin foil to keep the moisture in, then put them on the smoker (with/no tinfoil) on the top rack. On the bottom rack I put 6 ears of tinfoil coated sweet corn, with the husk still on. I do not use the water-pan for this.

   After taking the ribs out of the oven @250*f, I put them on the smoker for about an hour, enough to burn thru one stoking of hickory wood chunk's. This comes out fantastic, I put the BBQ sauce on after they come of off the smoker. They are usually well done and nice and pink, very tender, meat fall off the bone. The sweet corn ALWAYS comes out the best, after cooking for an hour on the bottom rack of the smoker, I do not pre-cook the ears of corn.

JW

[Mary B]

I do ribs start to finish in the bbq pit. But if you want to shortcut (I have done it on rainy days!) put them on the smoker first then into the oven. It makes a big difference in how much smoke they take in.

[JW]

Hi MaryAlana,

"put them on the smoker first then into the oven. It makes a big difference in how much smoke they take in."

 Interesting... Ive made about 3 attempts to cook a (picnic)pork shoulder in my smoker, so far they have all come out rare. I usually throw it/them in the fridge over-night,(after smoking) then put them in the oven the next day, for a couple of hours @250*f.

 I like to make cuban sandwiches or 'media-noch'e' with mustard, swiss-cheese and some ham slices, with authentic cuban bread. I dont like pickles, so I leave them out... Smoked pork shoulder, is the best pork to use for this.

 I guess smoking so much fish/the way I do, has made me tend to pull things off early. But its tough, because its easy to over smoke with the unit that I use. On the other hand, the next time I smoke a pork shoulder picnic roast, I will wait at least 7 hours. It just uses alot of wood to do this with my smoker. I have found that if I try to protect what im smoking with tin foil it tends to over-cook. So I never use tinfoil on anything except ears of corn, in my smoker. Judging from the picure you posted, you have a slow cooker type of machine. Mine either burns what is being cooked or leaves it raw, its very tough to use unless your smoking fish.

JW

[Mary B]

if you can control the temp and keep it around 225 to 250 a pork roast takes 1-1 1/2 hours per pound, once it is past 150 you can wrap in foil to speed things up. I measure temp at the cooking grate not the lid, big temp difference. Spare ribs take 3-5 hours and come out great.

[JW]

I tried to find my earlier diary entrys(JW's Smoker), to no avail... Here's a picture of card sound bridge in south biscayne bay.







Heres a look at some of the catch-


these are Bluefish

I just finished the smoked fish dip, its to die for, came out very nice.

JW

[JW]

A coupla pictures of the smoked fish dip.



Gotta luv that

JW

[ruddycrazy]

G'day JW,
              Every time I throw a BBQ here on the farm I get about a doz corn with the husks left on, throw them in a bucket of water for a couple of hours to soak the water in. Then just throw them straight on the BBQ, the best part is you can't over cook em and to eat em just strip the husk and twist it to form a handle then a heap of butter wiped on makes for real nice corn cob.

Cheers Bryan

[JW]

Hi Bryan,

 I will leave the husk on rinse it with a little water then cover the corn cob with tin foil, cooking corn on the cob with a smoker is the best tasting Ive ever had. It does something to make the corn more flavorfull than boiling it.

Cheers

JW

[JW]

test picture



JW

[test user 1]

Testing edit function

JW

-successful edit-

[JW]

Some smoked Sword fish





smoked dip recipe to follow

[JW]

smoking some more  Sword fish tonight, will update with a picture later

[JW]

This batch came out really good, I used the water pan for about 2.5 hrs,  then just wood for an hour and a half.

[Mary B]

Looks tasty! Next weekend is my big cook for the year, 6 slabs of ribs, a turkey(on the weber kettle over charcoal), beans of 2 kinds...

[JW]

Thanks Mary B,

Do use a water pan?  I had a hard time using the water pan with smoking white fish, never had a problem with salmon. What I did with these last to batches of swordfish, is let them smoke for about 3 hours with the water pan then remove the water pan and smoke for about 2 hours after. The problem I had was a mushy texture using the water pan only. Also I moved my water pan higher than the fire, from what is was.

[Bruce S]

JW;
We have the same problem with  just about any white fish, when smoking them. Everything , even crappie , swai, Bass,etc. They all had that mealy feal .
Now we just smoke them dry method with a little bit of Dill and Rosemary. OR do them up with lemon, dill,etc in foil packets.

[Mary B]

I use a pellet fired Traeger so no water pan but for fish I would only dry cold smoke or dry hot smoke for immediate eating.

[JW]

I have been cheating with my ribs. I will take the rib slabs and cut in half I can only hold two slabs, my smoker is small. Any way I take the ribs put then on a cookie sheet and cover with tin foil. I use rub and brown sugar. Then cook in oven at 250f for about 2.5 hours, till tender. Then put the ribs in the smoker, I don't use the water pan just some corn wrapped in tinfoil and smoke for about 2 hours.

I would like to do my ribs is the smoker from start to finish. Im thinking I will need to use the water pan for that. Also I put wood chips in the water pan.

[JW]

Not sure if you guys are aware, the diary section can be moved to the pub section, but would have its own threads "next to the pub" instead there would be two category's. I can do this very easily.

[Mary B]

JW smoke your ribs as long as possible THEN transfer to the over. Meat picks up smoke during the initial cooking phase, once it is past around 160 degrees it slows way down on developing that smokey BBQ taste

[Bruce S]

We do the same as Mary B, the most important part of getting that LOVELY smoke ring going.
When we do any meat thicker than my palm, we usually already have a good rolling smoke going B$ we put the meat in.
I've even noticed that once the meat hits 120F it will not take anymore smoke. This we've seen in both Beef and Pork. At that point it's indirect heat until it hits around the 160F mark.
We then wrap it in foil and let it sit while the libations are poured, the table is set, and the shields are raised to stave off the hordes.
 
I would like to try the salmon this way, but prices for it here in the Midwest are just out of reach ,,, for now
Enjoy!!
 

[dave ames]

 
JW, Love the smoker diary thanks for letting us have a look.

When you moved your diary out of public view, you also moved everyone else's projects and broke all the links to those projects....
NOT GOOD.

Regards, Dave

[thirteen]

I got some extra thick cut steaks and sliced them in the middle then put some smoked bacon and some small onions  in the middle then smoked them for two hrs.  Then grilled them the rest of the way. I do the same with a large roast but wrap it tightly. 13

[JW]

Dave tell me about the links that are broken. it might be okay if your logged in

[JW]

Oh I know what your talking about, the message says this topic or category may be of limits to you. If you login you wont see this message.

Maybe I could modify the message warning as to "you must be logged in to see the topic" I will talk to Matt about this.

[Mary B]

I rarely finish in the oven... maybe during weather so bad that it is dangerous to go outside! Flip and mop ribs once an hour, when they start getting close to done every half hour. Ribs are done when you pick a slab up in the center and the meat starts to crack when it folds. If you prefer fall off the bone take them a bit farther. No foil either until I need to rest them!

[JW]

Mary B I think what im going to do is use the water pan, my smoker runs between 150f to 200f. Im lucky because with this new smoker I can remove the water pan while im smoking. Im hoping to do the baby back ribs totally in the smoker.