Smoking & Grilling

@parksider Thanks. I did all that. I stuffed them tight twisted the tops down tight and secured them with twist ties. I’m going out right now to try again. Thanks for the tips!

@carla-edwards Good setup, I like the glass insert to let you monitor without opening. Welcome to the board, always good to get some cold smoking expertise on here!

@journeyman1955 Glad to hear it went well! Nothing quite like a good smoked brisket! Tubby!

@skipdiggidy When doing summer sausage or snack sticks or really any cured sausage like product I run the first hour without any smoke and I have the dampers pretty much wide open, this is just a drying phase. For starting temp it will change a little depending on the diameter of the product but I usually start out at 120°. Then I close the dampers down most of the way and start adding smoke at that point. It has always seemed to work very well for me. Starting out adding smoke is going to cause the water evaporating from the casing to retain the smoke, then when it evaporates your casing has a strong smoke to it but it hasn’t really transferred to the meat.

@ADJWIS They look good! A few things that can help almost any snack stick 1)Make sure you are getting the proper amount of protein extraction. This will keep your fat bound up in the meat and less will cook out during the smoking process. 2)Use Encapsulated Citric Acid when making almost any snack stick. The ECA gives the meat that nice tang flavor, increases shelf life and allows you to go right from Stuffing to Smoking without having to hold it overnight. I’d also say the same for Summer Sausage actually. 3)Add Cheese to your sticks. The pieces of cheese we carry are easily small enough to fit into a snack stick casing and we have Ghost Pepper (one of my favorites now but VERY hot) Sriracha (a good taste, slight Sriracha flavor and little to no heat) then we also have Swiss, Mozz, Hot Pepper and Cheddar. If you had any specific deficiencies in your sticks that you wanted some help with let us know!

@stan We currently don’t have a video dedicated but I think we are going to have to make one as it’s a fairly common request! For a good example of how to twist casings go to the 4:35 mark of this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_FgktFx4Xg Austin is twisting cellulose casings here but it shows how to twist.

@evotony We don’t stock it but we can special order it for you but there would be a case minimum on that which would be 2 gallons. If you would like to order it then you can contact our customer service department at 800-835-2832. Other than that I dont think there is going to be any local store or anything that would carry it, unless anyone else has different thoughts?

If you really want to keep the twists we use small zip ties. Don’t seem to be an issue in the smoker we’ve used them for years and we like the linked look so that’s the simplest way to keep them. We used to tie with butcher string but that seemed to take forever. I know we’ll get some comments about the plastic but it works and I haven’t started sprouting an extra arm or anything so we go with it…And its a good way to color code hot=red, mild=green, cheese=yellow.

When you convert from natural gas to LP or back the orifices should be changed as you did but the spring in the regulator or the regulator pressure should also be changes. LP has approximately 2 1/2 times the BTU’s per cubic foot as natural gas hence the much small orifices for LP compared to natural gas. If the regulator or gas valve are made to be converted the manufacturer can supply parts and instructions for the conversion. Sometimes it’s just a matter of inverting the plunger but you would have to check with the manufacturer to confirm what is needed to convert. Normally pilots have a different orifice when they are converted also. If the pilot orifice hasn’t been changed you are producing much more heat than it would have with natural gas.

Ok Thanks

So the contest was also a fundraiser for local public TV station so we had to use Steve Raichlen’s recipes from his new book-BBQ sauces, rubs, and marinades. I just used his American BBQ rub on the tenderloin and a sprinkle for some flavor and color to finish it. We ran the WSM @200-225F for around 2 hours, pulled it to rest it at 110F then seared it on a Weber kettle with 2 full chimneys of raging charcoal to 130F, rested again for about 20 min then sliced it. Judges also were raving about the corn salad, smoked the corn and roasted the other veggies with one of Steve’s vinaigrette recipes. [image: 1502470303881-loin-resized.jpg] [image: 1502470334409-veggies-resized.jpg] [image: 1502470364528-resting-loin-resized.jpg]

Thanks Jon, I used apple and cherry to smoke. About 50 people destroyed the ribs and chicken!

@Jonathon 2 hours on the smoke, 1.5-2 hours in the foil crutch, 1/2 hour to glaze and finish. If you open the foil pack and pick the ribs up with tongs put the tongs about half way on the rack from one end. If the rib bends and just starts to pull apart in the middle, competition ribs are done. I rest them for 15-30 minutes then glaze-15-30 min to get a nice glaze. Competition ribs don’t fall off the bone, if you bite into a ribs you should be able to see the bite mark and just a bit of a pull to it.

You can see by my earlier posts that I have acquired a 22.5" WSM smoker to round out my smoking capabilities and i want to complete in some more local rib contests that are wood/charcoal only so i had to pull the trigger. Made a good score of Craigslist and got it for a fraction of the list price, barely used. I’ve run it four times working on temp control and smoke. I settled on using the minion method for charcoal to keep consistent temp. I use Kingsford blue bag charcoal for heat and wood chunks for smoke profile. And now for the mods-I find myself not willing or able ( I think it’s in my DNA) to leave well enough alone, yeah… what does Weber know about building smokers anyway…but i just can’t help myself, i like to tinker. So i added handles to the sides of the barrel, nomex gaskets on lid and door. I also put handles on the legs so i could just dump the charcoal when i was done and don’t forget the wheels-easy to move around the shed, not the best on the grass. Since it’s an older model there is no rubber access port for temp probes so Amazon Prime dropped one off if a jiffy, installation on the docket for this week. BTW handles are from Walmart of all places and used stainless hardware because I’m a bit obsessive about stuff like that. Anyone else got any good WSM mods that i’m not thinking of??? 0_1496628542968_IMG_1421.JPG[image: 1496629059719-img_1414-resized.jpg][image: 1496629113887-img_1421-resized.jpg]

I’m smoking a couple racks of ribs today. I’m trying a North Carolina sauce and smoking with apple wood chips on my charcoal. Smells wonderful.

Wow Michael, you’ve been busy recently huh?! Looks awesome and yes, homemade bacon is certainly worth doing! We like Blue Ribbon Maple Bacon Cure for our bacon here, what cure did you use?

Using any type of injection for turkey (or any meat) will help add moisture and flavor, even if you don’t cure the turkey, but what also really helps in keeping a moister final product is adding salt and phosphates. The recipe I linked to above does call for adding phosphate as there is none in the base cure. If you inject another seasoning, butter, spices, etc. it would also help retain more moisture by adding phosphate to any injection solution. Some seasonings and marinades, like our favorite injection seasoning Butter Flavored Seasoning, will already contain phosphates, so do double check the ingredients statement to verify if phosphates are already added. But long story short, if you are really looking to retain the most moisture as possible in your final cooked product, do add something like Cold Phosphate to your marinade/injections, if it doesn’t already contain phosphates.

@KARLHEIDOLPH How long are you letting the stuffed cases set before you smoke? Try about 30 hours in the refrigerator. What temp is your sausage when you start smoking them ? Try to get to 34 or 36 degrees. Lower and raising your smoke amount and duration during the smoking process. This is also a factor. Fat Content is way important to smoke penetration. Some thing to also think about is if the meat gets dehydrated it will turn the a reddish color causing a rind to form. It might look like a smoke ring this is caused by constant high heat drying the product out. If this happens add a steam pot and adjust your temps. hope this helps.

@djtcds What you are looking for is Appendix A from FSIS/USDA. There is a temperature chart there that can be used as a guideline for what temperature to reach and for how long that temperature must be maintained. Many recommendations are for cooking to 160 or 165 F as a safety precaution to make sure you hit “lethality” and kill bacteria that could be present in your meat products. 160 F is what I would consider to be a best practice for cooking met products in general, but depending on what meat you are cooking, it may be acceptable to cook to a different temperature. Let us know if we can help answer any other questions!

@mouljb You can either inject or soak and submerge in a brine solution. You do not want or need to do both; just do whichever method is most convenient for you. Let us know if we can help clarify anything else!