Home Made Sausage, Cured, and Smoked Meats

[WatchMeSpend]

Here are the ribs. Seasoned with mustard powder, garlic powder, salt, club house vegetable seasoning, brown sugar, pepper.
Cooked with a blend of 50/50 oak and mesquite. Ran them @ 140 for an hour, @225 for three hours and @ 250 for one hour.

I brushed them with some of the rub mixed in with apple cider vinegar, mustard, salt, olive oil, and splenda @ three hour mark.

 

[Piobaire]

That works because the smoke likes to stick to moist surfaces. Cooking on a gas BBQ, one of the by products of burning gas is water. The water vapour helps the smoke to stick to the meat. When burning dried wood it's good to add a container of water near the heat to get some moisture in there. If I want an insanely smoky tasting rib, I can cook the ribs mostly in the first four hours and let hour five be on smoke. Right now I am blending oak and mesquite for smoky flavour.

Actually, that's not the case. Smoke sticks best when your protein has formed a pellicle and this is achieved through allowing the protein to dry. A container of water is used to keep temps lower when smoking and is not there for the moisture per se.

 

[WatchMeSpend]

Actually, that's not the case. Smoke sticks best when your protein has formed a pellicle and this is achieved through allowing the protein to dry. A container of water is used to keep temps lower when smoking and is not there for the moisture per se.

Well in that case, we aren't going to see eye to eye on this. I understand what pellicle is and typically you want one to form when you are low temp smoking. Bacon, salmon etc.

I learned smoking in a a gas BBQ with a wet wood chip smoking box and then graduated to a vertical water pan smoker which I learned to use with and without water. Surprisingly switching to the Traeger altered the food's smoke amounts at high temps, where in the BBQ using moist chips there was still a considerable amount of smoke flavour. Using the Traeger I (and many others using other smokers or the same) have done experiments with adding moisture via a water box/pan and find that when there is water vapour present, you get more smoke flavour. Some people even spritz with water which has to evaporate and you get more smoke sticking to the meat. Obviously a water container evaporating constantly is better than having to spritz hourly.

I'll leave you with this:

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_the_smoke_ring.html

 

[Piobaire]

So let's start off with my smokers as you seem to feel you have experience with them I lack. I have a Traeger. I have a Cook Shack. I have a Sausage Maker. Soon I'll have a Kamado Joe. A Traeger, IMO, is not a smoker. It's a wood pellet convection oven. I'm the guy that started this thread. It's not like I just jumped into these endeavors yesterday. Bacon is not low temp smoking as you want to bring internal to 155. Ditto sausages so the thought a pellicle is only for low temp smoking doesn't hold unless you want to define low temp smoking at some high number.

Each to his own.

I'm also not sure what that link of yours is trying to prove. It explains at length the smoke ring has nothing to do with actual smoke and adds no flavour then goes on to say keep your meat moist to grab "smoke chemicals." I can tell you I've smoked sausage that I had just stuffed, so it was moist, and sausages I've dried overnight on a rack and that the latter was far smokier. The article also states how to avoid bark...the very thing aficionados of smoked meats want to see so I'm just not sure where that article is going and the conclusions don't seem to follow from the arguments.

The only reason I jumped in was advice was being given and I thought the other poster should know that perhaps your opinion was not definitive.

Well in that case, we aren't going to see eye to eye on this. I understand what pellicle is and typically you want one to form when you are low temp smoking. Bacon, salmon etc.

I learned smoking in a a gas BBQ with a wet wood chip smoking box and then graduated to a vertical water pan smoker which I learned to use with and without water. Surprisingly switching to the Traeger altered the food's smoke amounts at high temps, where in the BBQ using moist chips there was still a considerable amount of smoke flavour. Using the Traeger I (and many others using other smokers or the same) have done experiments with adding moisture via a water box/pan and find that when there is water vapour present, you get more smoke flavour. Some people even spritz with water which has to evaporate and you get more smoke sticking to the meat. Obviously a water container evaporating constantly is better than having to spritz hourly.

I'll leave you with this:

http://amazingribs.com/tips_and_technique/mythbusting_the_smoke_ring.html

 

[otc]

Damn yo, how many people are you cooking for that you are making all of this food?

 

[WatchMeSpend]

So let's start off with my smokers as you seem to feel you have experience with them I lack. I have a Traeger. I have a Cook Shack. I have a Sausage Maker. Soon I'll have a Kamado Joe. A Traeger, IMO, is not a smoker. It's a wood pellet convection oven. I'm the guy that started this thread. It's not like I just jumped into these endeavors yesterday. Bacon is not low temp smoking as you want to bring internal to 155. Ditto sausages so the thought a pellicle is only for low temp smoking doesn't hold unless you want to define low temp smoking at some high number.

Each to his own.

I'm also not sure what that link of yours is trying to prove. It explains at length the smoke ring has nothing to do with actual smoke and adds no flavour then goes on to say keep your meat moist to grab "smoke chemicals." I can tell you I've smoked sausage that I had just stuffed, so it was moist, and sausages I've dried overnight on a rack and that the latter was far smokier. The article also states how to avoid bark...the very thing aficionados of smoked meats want to see so I'm just not sure where that article is going and the conclusions don't seem to follow from the arguments.

The only reason I jumped in was advice was being given and I thought the other poster should know that perhaps your opinion was not definitive.

What I am saying is a water pan is not just used to hold temps stable. It can be used to introduce moisture. The article discussed that, although I didn't really read the rest of it. I have put containers of water in the Traeger to do just that, near the hot spots.

As far as the smoke ring is concerned, I don't worry about it. If I really want a big smoke ring, I can run the Traeger on smoke for a long while and then turn it up. I can get even more smoke flavour with less of a ring running wood and charcoal in the ECB.

Sorry you took offence, but again, a water pan isn't just to control temps. In a lot of cases that you see one, it would be a waste of time considering the fact that the units themselves can regulate temps.

When it comes to smokers or smoking in general, anything with smoke and some heat will do. I've smoked in card board boxes. Low temp smoking is just that. What would happen to the flavour if you put the sausages in a 250 degree smoker?

 

[Piobaire]

No offense was taken...it's just the Internet.

So low temp means below 250 to you?

 

[venividivicibj]

Debating between the Weber Smokey Mountain and the Masterbuilt electric smoker-
only thing that is stopping me from getting the masterbuilt is that I've heard they can break down, and the smoke/charcoal flavor isn't anywhere near what you can get on the weber.

 

[venividivicibj]

pork shoulder yesterday -

 

[venividivicibj]

Ribs last week

 

[Piobaire]

Did a bottom round at 225 on the Traeger. Brought to internal of 125, wrapped in foil, let rest for 20 minutes. What we didn't eat I wrapped and put in the fridge. Plan to use our slicer today to shave it up. Asparagus were also done on the Traeger. Tossed in oil, fresh ground pepper, onion salt. Very tasty meal and paired with Epoch Tempranillo.

 

[Leaves]

Man I wish I had never seen this thread. Me so hungry right now.

Where that game meat tho? Gimme some boar or moose!

 

[mgm9128]

So many odd men, find it brown and red all over..a delicate mushroom sauce.

 

[venividivicibj]

Man I wish I had never seen this thread. Me so hungry right now.

Where that game meat tho? Gimme some boar or moose!

The ‘Steak!!!’ thread may be worse

 

[Milksteakboiledhard]

I'm still learning how my current smoker after using a Traeger for years so thankfully the audience will be loaded up on beer and bourbon.

The cook plan will be a 60/20/20 mix of apple, hickory, and alder at 225F. The ribs will be on for maybe 4.5 hours, the first chicken will probably be removed with the ribs (assuming it hits temp), and the second chicken will go another 2 hours or so to see what its like. Hopefully I remember to track them correctly once they are inside.

I have a feeling my smoker will not get the chicken skin to the correct level of crunch, if necessary I will pop them in the oven.