Who's smoking meat this weekend?

[BrewinBromanite]

Had to dig deep to find some old pictures.

I really miss this grill.

That is some very nice looking pork!

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I started smoking with a Weber Genesis. First baby back ribs and then chicken leg quarters. I found the best chip holders were small cast iron pans. The pans held heat well to keep the smoke going with low applied heat. I used small wood chips and pellets. The cast iron pans were placed on the flavor bars under the grill grates.

Added a second warming rack so all the meat being smoked would be side by side rather than over and under. Removed the grates with this set up to make changing the chip pans super easy. Was easy to do 10 pounds of chicken leg quarters with the extra warming rack. Second picture of chicken on doubled up warming racks won't upload.

So I've heard a lot about the differing temps between the top of the grill and the grates in regard to going that low in a regular grill. If I'm putting everything up on the racks, the built in thermometer shouldn't be too far off, right? As opposed to if I had the food on the cast-iron grates.

I'm looking to pick up a little cast-iron smoker box for $10 for the grill, just to see if I'll enjoy it (who am I kidding).

 

[Hoppity]

I just got the Thermpro dual probe remote temperature reporting unit for about $50. using it for 2nd time today. Huge quality of life upgrade.

 

[applescrap]

Brisket two ways

I want a little of both please! That looks nice.

 

[applescrap]

So I've heard a lot about the differing temps between the top of the grill and the grates in regard to going that low in a regular grill. If I'm putting everything up on the racks, the built in thermometer shouldn't be too far off, right? As opposed to if I had the food on the cast-iron grates.

I'm looking to pick up a little cast-iron smoker box for $10 for the grill, just to see if I'll enjoy it (who am I kidding).

I got a stainless steel box with holes in it on Amazon for $9. Tin foil pouches work well too but you need a way to add it easily. Removing a grate is a great idea. My cheap Sur La tab thermometer measures inside grill temp and inside meat temp. To smoke on your gas grill warm it up then turn all burners off but one. Once you get all your burners off and 1 as low as it will go that is your bottom temperature. You can't go any lower than that. You could also add charcoal with your chips and a gas grill to give you some charcoal flavor. Which come to think of it is a major advantage of a gas grill. I've been known to cook pork butt in 3 hours on gas grills at a higher temp. They're not as Smoky but they're every bit as juicy. In the winter my gas grill Cooks a little slower. My smoker I use all winter long and have used it in negative temperatures.
One last thought here when smoking on your gas grill, add the sugar from rub with 30 minutes left because if it's at a higher temp it will burn. Really The Best is Both Worlds as stated above, I would like a green egg as well, but honestly it has never crossed my mind since I got the smoker.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

Okay so I bought a cast iron smoke box, and some mesquite chips. I plan on doing some ribs next weekend.

Anyone willing to share a good rub to go with mesquite? Or any other tips would be appreciated.

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1469998100.518345.jpg

 

[Dixon9717]

My go to rub is S,P$G brown sugar,cayenne pepper and dark roast coffee ground extra fine.

 

[Elkobrewer]

Getting the smoker. Heated up now for two pork loin.

 

[Elkobrewer]

Ok Pork is on it's time to have some cold ones.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

So, I heated the grill up to 300, then I turned all the units off except one on low.

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After 20 minutes it appears to be holding around 250. I think this will work decent enough for now!! :rockin:

 

[CamG]

So, I heated the grill up to 300, then I turned all the units off except one on low.

View attachment 364459

After 20 minutes it appears to be holding around 250. I think this will work decent enough for now!! :rockin:

Yes that will work for sure. Just remember if you are doing that in the middle of the afternoon in the sun it can actually raise the temp 25 degrees or more.. I have placed my tongs under the lid of a gas grill to let some air flow through and lower the temp with sucess but it requires lots of attention as it can drop really fast.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

Yes that will work for sure. Just remember if you are doing that in the middle of the afternoon in the sun it can actually raise the temp 25 degrees or more.. I have placed my tongs under the lid of a gas grill to let some air flow through and lower the temp with sucess but it requires lots of attention as it can drop really fast.

Okay thanks for the heads up.

 

[CamG]

One last thought here when smoking on your gas grill, add the sugar from rub with 30 minutes left because if it's at a higher temp it will burn..

Really good advice !

 

[applescrap]

So, I heated the grill up to 300, then I turned all the units off except one on low.

View attachment 364459

After 20 minutes it appears to be holding around 250. I think this will work decent enough for now!! :rockin:

Excellent work thatvideokid. Now that's how you get to it. Never smoked with mesquite a whole lot. I have heard the flavor is very intense. As everyone knows I swear by Cherry and Hickory mixed but I'm willing to try other combos. For my children, I don't want to spice it up, so I start with 2 tablespoons of brown sugar to 1 tablespoon of salt as base. Someone just posted a really good discussion on rubs and spices. Other recipes might be the exact opposite salt to sugar. Just depends on how you like it. When I don't use just sugar and salt I use Neely's rub recipes that contain cumin and ginger and cinnamon and are really festive. Rubs are so vast and different it just depends on how you like it.
I don't worry too much about a little extra temperature. I smoke with my Masterbuilt on its highest setting (275) almost always. That being said my thermometer says it's only about 250 to 260. I'm sure there are people here who can taste a pork butt that was smoked for 12 hours versus one that was smoked for 9, im just not one of them. You can put the fat towards the heat to help protect the meat . My cousin sent me a link on cooking ribs competition style that I posted earlier in this thread . Pretty cool, he rubs the ribs and smokes them for 3 hours and then wraps them in tin foil with honey, Bacon fat, hot pepper jelly, and stuff like that for two hours. then he rubs again and finishes them for one hour uncovered . There's guys on here that really know their stuff and I'm excited to see how they chime in. Anyways great work happy smoking and that Grill of yours is one of the best for a reason

 

[ericbw]

From the "better planning next time" dept.

The plan was to smoke two chickens, but one didn't thaw in time. The other took much longer than expected, which would be fine if I started earlier in the day.

Still...

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[beernbourbon]

I'm no master by any stretch, but one thing I do know 100%, is that built in gauge? Gotta go. Paint over it, break that glass and rip that needle off there, whatever, but pay zero attention to it. Those things 'may' be close, but more likely they can be off as much as 50 degrees or more. There are plenty of great recommendations for thermometers on here. You can go as inexpensive or expensive as you like, but even the least expensive one out there is going to get you within a few degrees. There are near instant reads, leave ins, what have you. Biggest thing is, do you want to trust your expensive meat to some coil based thermometer that may or may not be anywhere close to the temp you are trying to achieve? As with brewing, the #1 most important element of smoking/grilling/what have you, is temp control. If you don't have that, you might as well pull out the Kingsford and the lighter fluid. You'll have a just as high a likelihood of ruining that great cut of meat that you've spent all that time and energy researching and putting together that perfect rub, what to do, how to do, and putting together that smoker. By the way.... kudos to you guys that have cobbed together some pretty workable solutions for smokers! Necessity/mother of invention and all that. Well done.
Oh @Melana nice lookin Brisket!

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I'm no master by any stretch, but one thing I do know 100%, is that built in gauge? Gotta go. Paint over it, break that glass and rip that needle off there, whatever, but pay zero attention to it. Those things 'may' be close, but more likely they can be off as much as 50 degrees or more. There are plenty of great recommendations for thermometers on here. You can go as inexpensive or expensive as you like, but even the least expensive one out there is going to get you within a few degrees. There are near instant reads, leave ins, what have you. Biggest thing is, do you want to trust your expensive meat to some coil based thermometer that may or may not be anywhere close to the temp you are trying to achieve? As with brewing, the #1 most important element of smoking/grilling/what have you, is temp control. If you don't have that, you might as well pull out the Kingsford and the lighter fluid. You'll have a just as high a likelihood of ruining that great cut of meat that you've spent all that time and energy researching and putting together that perfect rub, what to do, how to do, and putting together that smoker. By the way.... kudos to you guys that have cobbed together some pretty workable solutions for smokers! Necessity/mother of invention and all that. Well done.
Oh @Melana nice lookin Brisket!

Okay thanks for the heads up. I didn't think about it since for grilling I hardly even look at it. I just make sure it's in the 3-400 range. I also figured on a decently expensive grill it would be somewhat accurate, but I guess not. Plus I'm sure between the stratification of the heat, and the distance from the element, even if it was accurate it could be + or - quite a bit.

I'll look into getting some sort of grill thermometer.

 

[ericbw]

So I don't have to pore over every entry in this thread - any recommendations for a thermometer for the smoker? I see them on Amazon that range from $10-15 for a dial and 3" stem. DozyAnt, Man Law, Char-Broil, etc. Suggestions?

 

[wobrien]

So I don't have to pore over every entry in this thread - any recommendations for a thermometer for the smoker? I see them on Amazon that range from $10-15 for a dial and 3" stem. DozyAnt, Man Law, Char-Broil, etc. Suggestions?

These Thermoworks Dots are awesome and are on sale now. I use one for the meat and I use the chef alarm for the temp of the smoker because it has a high/low alarm, but a second dot would work fine too.

http://www.thermoworks.com/DOT

 

[ericbw]

These Thermoworks Dots are awesome and are on sale now. I use one for the meat and I use the chef alarm for the temp of the smoker because it has a high/low alarm, but a second dot would work fine too.

http://www.thermoworks.com/DOT

What do you mean the chef alarm?

 

[ericbw]

i see, never mind!
But we're talking about $60-90 for either both devices or two of the Dots. I would spend the money for the probe, but not for monitoring the temp of the smoker.

 

[wobrien]

What do you mean the chef alarm?

http://www.thermoworks.com/ChefAlarm

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I'm looking at the Maverick et-732. Looks fantastic for bbq and brewing at the same time.

Monitors both air temp and internal temp. And it has a wireless transmitter so you can walk away to go brew and still keep an eye on it.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EV8WQ2C/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[applescrap]

You really are a great learner videokid. Something like that is exactly what you want. It measures the meat and the temp. I think my Sur La tab my mother-in-law gave me was like 30 bucks. I'm not sure how accurate it is and would really like something like that Maverick. The most important temp is the temp inside the meat(if using charcoal temp in grill becomes more important). I know people could disagree with me, but 200 degrees is 200 degrees inside a pork butt and that's what you want. There are plenty of people who cook pork butt at high temp and win competitions. A good example is a pork loin . I think I take them to 140 let's say. If you grill it at 500 degrees you stop it at 140. If you smoke it you stop it at 140. That being said you need to know the temp inside as well and that thermometer you chose will do both. Inside temperature becomes key in planning when something will be done so its ready at the right time you want it done. Like if people are coming over in an hour you might need to turn it up. In the above example of a pork loin they cook really fast and you might want to turn it way down so you have more time to smoke it. Temperature adjusts the time something will cook not just the quality i guess im saying. Excited to see where this all leads you.

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[applescrap]

I have three or four frozen pork butts in the freezer and two or three hams. Everytime I go to the store if they're on sale I just pick them up. My mom just got me a slicer for my birthday and I'm so excited to smoke a ham and cut lunch meat. I think I'm going to just put brown sugar on the ham as they're plenty salty

 

[Hoppity]

Two smokes into using this ThermoPro TP08 dual probe remote alarm unit. $49.00 - performed flawlessly. Alarm woke me up at 2:00 AM when Pork Butt finally reached 203 degrees. Will start the night before next time. Watched PGA Championship all afternoon and only needed to adjust temp on electric smoker a few times when alarm went off.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

I'm going start tomorrow! Don't have the thermometer yet, but I have a thermoworks instant read for internal. I'll just set the grill as low as possible once we get smoking. Picked up a 2.6lb tenderloin and a couple pounds of bacon to wrap the thing in. Going to go pretty sweet and savory with the rub to compliment the bacon. Spice it up just a bit with coarse pepper and cayenne.

Picked up some cherry wood chips so I'll go 75/25 cherry to mesquite.

 

[CamG]

I'm going start tomorrow! Don't have the thermometer yet, but I have a thermoworks instant read for internal. I'll just set the grill as low as possible once we get smoking. Picked up a 2.6lb tenderloin and a couple pounds of bacon to wrap the thing in. Going to go pretty sweet and savory with the rub to compliment the bacon. Spice it up just a bit with coarse pepper and cayenne.

Picked up some cherry wood chips so I'll go 75/25 cherry to mesquite.

This didn't happen if you don't post pictures after its done......

It sounds like it's going to be great !

 

[applescrap]

I'm going start tomorrow! Don't have the thermometer yet, but I have a thermoworks instant read for internal. I'll just set the grill as low as possible once we get smoking. Picked up a 2.6lb tenderloin and a couple pounds of bacon to wrap the thing in. Going to go pretty sweet and savory with the rub to compliment the bacon. Spice it up just a bit with coarse pepper and cayenne.

Picked up some cherry wood chips so I'll go 75/25 cherry to mesquite.

Yessss. Don't matter, you can't make it go any lower than all them off and one on low. so all a thermometer is going to tell you is temp. I'm not convinced on an expensive grill like that, that the gauge doesn't work anyways. Make sure you get those chips smoking before you put the meat in. Low won't be enough to get them started. It'll be done in two to three hours. So happy for you best wishes and sorry if I've been more of a pain in the neck then helpful.

Oh, and put a piece of tin foil under the meat or pan w water as well so you don't make a big mess in grill.

 

[ThatVideoKid]

Well now I'm committed! The loin was actually split in two, so I have 2 x 1.3lb loins. Loins are rubbed and waiting to be smoked tomorrow. I think I picked up a pretty decent set of loins? I don't really know what I'm looking for in a tenderloin.

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