just curious. has anyone made bacon with their smoker?
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Any Time is Grillin Time
- Thread starter olbriar
- Start date
I will find a hibachi!
I've not cooked bacon on a smoker. I have grilled bacon on a griddle that I re-purposed to fit a grate panel on my Jenn Air grill. I imagine that bacon could be smoked. Might be fun to try sometime. My buddy makes beef jerky on his smoker all the time. His favorite cut of meat to use is a corned beef brisket. I've not tried it yet but it sounds good and plenty easy enough.
I smoked pork ribs tonight. They weren't in a rack, they were individually cut. The cut looked much like thick cut pork chops cut 90° from the traditional cut. All of the meat was on one side of the blade bone. Whatever they were, they were good.
Yesterday, down at the cabin, I smoked a beef brisket. I marinated it over night in a beer, vinegar, apple juice, spices, and large diced onions. I then used the marinate as a spritz as the brisket smoked. I was really impressed how the onion flavor enhanced the brisket for something different.
I'm more of thinking smoking pork belly.... thus making bacon.......i want to try this when I get an actual smoker.
I've never smoked a pork belly. I've seen them smoked on that pit master show. Looks like a fun cook. And how do you not like bacon.
The hibachi I want looks something like
thisbut with a deeper tray for the coals. Does anybody make those still?
thisbut with a deeper tray for the coals. Does anybody make those still?
Yes, well, I've helped my father in law make it, but that was while processing pigs (usually 4 at a time) so more on an industrial scale. The process is brine, smoke, slice. We use my FIL's walk in refrigerator and barrels to brine for a week or so. Ham's too. He also built a smoke house so he can do all the hams and bacon at the same time. I should grab a pic of that, but it really just looks like an outhouse.
I'm going to do some prep for camping season this week and try some canadian bacon. Same process, brine, smoke, slice. It seems easy enough, the meat (pork loin) is cheap enough and readily available. I'll probably do a whole loin, slice it up and freeze it in ~1lb packages. It should yield 8-12 packages and last the summer.
@Unforgiven from "This little piggy" to bacon?
No wonder you don't like it!
Most city folk like me don't truly understand animals must die.
Too deep?
No wonder you don't like it!
Most city folk like me don't truly understand animals must die.
Too deep?
My son knows where his meat comes from.
Last week I helped my father in law process 2 cows. That's a literal ton of work. For perspective, after all the steaks, roasts, ribs, stew beef, and briskets I ground and packaged 300 lbs. of burger. I so wanted to take a little of this and a little of that, but alas, not my cow.
You don't suppose they would notice if you pulled the cap off of the ribeye loin and made yourself some ribeye cap steaks.
It would be so tempting.As a child, my father and his brother would pick out a calf from my uncle's in-law's ranch. It then saw nothing but the best up to butcher. My father did not care for oven cooked roast so he had all of the roast and brisket cuts ground into hamburger. It might seem a shame but the burger was just incredible... I mean INCREDIBLE! That went on for years until we once picked up our meat and the burger was just normal burger. The butcher no doubt substituted our roasts for normal ground beef and sold off the choice cuts to someone. There was no proving this happened and the butcher denied the accusation but the proof was in the tasting. That incident put an end to that avenue of high quality beef.
I'm from Boston!
No farms here.
What's your name? Whose your Daddy?
No farms here.
What's your name? Whose your Daddy?
My FIL is adamant that you take home what you bring. It is a bigger deal with wild animals (deer, bear, etc.) than pigs and cows as pigs and cows are slaughtered in suitable environments instead of killed and after an indeterminate amount of time gutted in the woods. Many cutters toss all the meat to be ground into burger / sausages from the various animals together and divvy up the total based on weight. He keeps everything separate by animal, even if one hunter has two deer.
No deer yet in Boston. But if them Damn turkeys creep in my backyard and waltz up and down my street next year, I'll eat the biggest one. Roasted!
An oven I've got.
An oven I've got.
I tried something new last night but wasn't that impressed. The hired help where I bought my first smoker would always ask me if I had smoked a pizza in my Traeger. I never tried it until last night.. a decade later. It certainly cooked well at 375° for 18 minutes no different than a traditional oven. If there was an added flavor of smoke to my supreme pizza I did not detect it. Perhaps there were too many flavors to overcome
Just curious....... can you cold smoke on your treager? If so I would could smoke the cheese and then make your pizza.
I've done deep dish in cast iron (simple) and it makes great pizza, but no real wood fire accent. I think the deal is that I get pizza that tastes like good pizza, not frozen pizza.
Yes, I've smoked salt, water, etc. for various things.
My Traeger would smoke at 80° or so. One could easily cold smoke with it. However, the low temp smoke on my Green Mountain is 150° which might be a bit hot.
I cold smoked coarse ground salt with my Traeger. The salt turned brown and had a wonderful smoke flavor. I contemplated cold smoking peanuts or pistachios but I never tried it. I might have to try them at the higher temp sometime.
I don't know why GM decided 150° would be the low smoke temp. It runs through it's startup procedure and is ready to adjust up from 150°. Startup temp and rate of pellet consumption are the two major differences in the two smokers I have. The Traeger definitely produces a lot more smoke than the GM but it uses a lot more pellets. I've not longed for more smoke on my meats with the GM and enjoy the savings. However, if you want lots of smoke, the Traeger is definitely your choice between the two. And there is always the desire to cold smoke that can't be satisfied with the GM.
Yeah, I could get one of these for my Traeger, but haven't seen the need to justify the cost.
It essentially bolts onto the side for true cold smoking, but 70-80 degrees works for my needs.
It essentially bolts onto the side for true cold smoking, but 70-80 degrees works for my needs.
You would have to admit... that is cool! As far as I know, GM offers zero add ons beyond wifi which I added to my GM. I'm not at all impressed with the upgrade and wish I had saved my money.
I have to report that I've got a problem with my smoker. The Green Mountain smoker runs through a shut down routine when you are done smoking. It likely takes three minutes perhaps four to complete the sequence. You are then advised to physically turn the power off. I often don't bother to follow through with flipping the switch or unplugging it. The other night we had a horrendous thunderstorm and I suspect the smoker took an electric spike. My wife discovered it running the next afternoon so I told her to flip the power switch. This morning I fired up the smoker expecting it to run... but no sir. The bottom of the smoker and the burn pot was full of pellets and the auger was not turning. I cleaned up the mess and tried again but still no auger movement. I suspect the tube is clogged and I tried to clear it best I could without tearing down the smoker. Still no go. I will likely not have the time tomorrow to work on it. Looks like the wife is having PB&J sandwich for Mother's Day.
That sounds like the same process my Traeger does. I never flip the switch either, but I unplug it, so probably one and the same. I hope its an easy fix and that your PBJs are spot on.I have to report that I've got a problem with my smoker. The Green Mountain smoker runs through a shut down routine when you are done smoking. It likely takes three minutes perhaps four to complete the sequence. You are then advised to physically turn the power off. I often don't bother to follow through with flipping the switch or unplugging it. The other night we had a horrendous thunderstorm and I suspect the smoker took an electric spike. My wife discovered it running the next afternoon so I told her to flip the power switch. This morning I fired up the smoker expecting it to run... but no sir. The bottom of the smoker and the burn pot was full of pellets and the auger was not turning. I cleaned up the mess and tried again but still no auger movement. I suspect the tube is clogged and I tried to clear it best I could without tearing down the smoker. Still no go. I will likely not have the time tomorrow to work on it. Looks like the wife is having PB&J sandwich for Mother's Day.
Smoker update. I broke down the smoker tonight. Actually they aren't that complicated. I found my auger motor in running condition. I pulled the assembly and cleaned the tube. Put it all back together and still no pellets. I was just about to order a new auger assembly ($100 or so) when it dawned on me that if the motor is turning... so should the auger. Checking, I see that the shaft of the auger fits into a sleeve of the motor and is held there by a clevis pin or something... that I no longer have. It must have sheared off when the auger stalled. I'm out of light tonight but it looks as simple as to replace the pin, though near impossible to get to, and put it back together. Lucky me and lesson learned. Turn the power switch off!
We enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Just happened to have a half butt pulled and frozen. No PB&J tonight.
We enjoyed pulled pork sandwiches for dinner. Just happened to have a half butt pulled and frozen. No PB&J tonight.
Smoker update #2 I have yet to figure out what pins the auger to the motor but I managed to fix the auger. I tried to drive out whatever was sheared off in the shaft but quit when I had enough of whatever it is sticking out of one side to marry the motor to the auger. I put everything back together and fired it up. I got pellets to the burn pot and they were started by the hot rod. However, either the combustion fan also took a hit, is hung up in some fashion, or the controller isn't telling it to run. I was out of daylight so further investigation will have to wait for another window.
Will smokers cook my steaks?
I just bought an incredibly expensive New York Strip and want to grill it.
I just bought an incredibly expensive New York Strip and want to grill it.