JW's Smoker...

[DANO]

Hey JW

I liked the smoker pics and am sure the salmon came out great.  I use a similar set up but with no thermometer.  I have a question though...what's the purpose of the tin foil lining?  Have you ever tried a pork loin roast?  Otta this world good!

[JW]

Hi Dano,

 I use the tinfoil around the lid, to keep the smoke in. Mine has a few large leaks. You can tell its sealed enough when smoke comes from the bottom.

If you dont have the thermometer dont worry about it to much. But use more charcoal than wood, for a large cut of meat such as a roast. ive got to run for now, will comment about using charcoal instead of wood, when I get back to the computer. in a couple hours or less.

JW

[JW]

I have found that smoking the fish is much easier than smoking meat. If I was going to smoke a pork loin with this type of smoker, I would use less wood and more charcoal. That way the smoker will run hotter. This means the smoker would mostly have red hot coals and not make much smoke. This is different than smoking fish with wood only, you dont see many red hot coals(when opening the door). Also the water pan is filled with wood chips and water. But for beef im not sure if it matters much, since this adds strong smoke flavor. You could just fill the water pan with water-only, and stoke the fire with charcoal in place of the wood chunks. Get the thing cooked fully,  then experiment with smoke flavoring techniques. It will still come out nice and tender no matter how hot the coals are, if you keep water in the pan.

 I have found that when I use the smoke-fish stratagy, lots of wood chips in the water-pan, and stoking with un-burned wood, the beef comes out raw and too smokey. After 5 hours, its still to raw. But strips of steak cut like bacon will turn to beef-jerky in about 6.5 hours running the smoker this way.

 I always start my smoker with charcoal that's red hot, just dump it in the smoker from the top with water pan out. Then place the water pan. For doing a pork loin id use charcoal briquets or charcoal chunks from wood or some-such to stoke the smoker. If you use un-burned wood chunks it will smoke heavy the whole time, and run  much cooler. But you may want to use some wood to stoke with, when finishing up. That should add plenty of smoke flavor.

 Keep the top sealed good, by placing the tinfoil around the top, you can still pull the lid and check things out easy enough. This keeps both heat and smoke in the smoker, where your cooking things. If theres a leak near the grates(around the top) where the meat is,  things will dry out. You should have pitch-black water dripping from the bottom when your smoking heavy. This is condensate from the water pan dripping down the inside of the smoker. stoking with charcoal you will probably see this as well.  

 JW

[JW]

Come to think about it. When I do the pork shoulder, im going to leave the water-pan out all together. And just stoke with charcoal. something to think about when doing a large cut of meat, over 5 lbs. I will still seal the lid with tinfoil, amazingly enough, the coals never go out till everythings burned up.

Happy smoking

JW

[DANO]

Hey JW,

I tried beef a few times and wasn't real happy with it...except for jerky.  Best results came with chicken, turkey, pork ribs, loin roast and ham.  My unit is a dual one in that it will work with a 1500 watt element or wood/charcoal...pretty much the same results but the electric method is slower.  The preferred wood for me is mesquite chunks but hickory chunks, both sufficiently soaked, also give an excellent flavor.  Did some major pruning on a few apple trees the other day and am anxious to try the apple wood....heard it's very good.  You're right about the size of the cuts...chicken wings/legs/breasts and ribs are in the 2.5 to 3.5 hour range and the big stuff IE loin roast/ham is easily 5 to 6.5+ hours.  I've never tried putting wood chunks in the water pan but will give it a shot.  Normally I just put in some diced onion and garlic powder.  My experience with fish is limited to only twice and both times I let it go too long with out checking on it...not good.  I will also try the tin foil effect...

Not exactly an RE discussion, but what the hell....

Smoke on dude!

DANO

[Ungrounded Lightning Rod]

Did some major pruning on a few apple trees the other day and am anxious to try the apple wood....heard it's very good.

AHA!  A downside to columnar apples!

We're redoing the townhouse's yard in a mix of food-producing and native plants (mostly plants that are both).  One non-native thing we're putting in are a half dozen columnar apples.  (Or a dozen if the first batch recover from the school's overspraying.)  These are apple trees that have no or negligible branching and grow apples right on the trunk.  So they look like poles covered with leaves and fruit, with maybe a small number of short branches ditto.  You can put 'em a couple feet apart for best crop or a foot apart in a row to make a hedge, and get a whole bunch of 'em in a yard.

They started as a mutation that got noticed (in England, I think).  Initially the apples were not so great but they've been crossing them with other lines and have now fixed several with decent flavor.

But without a lot of branching there isn't a lot of pruning and apple wood for smoking.

(Fortunately we've got a couple dwarf-but-branching trees.