New Groups to Help Everyone on Smokers
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What about just using a good scrub down (still using the pre-spray) outside with a good soapy water solution & a steel wool pan scrubbing pad. That is really probably your best bet combined with the pre-spray. It should just not be that difficult & that will get them squeaky clean without all the harsh chemicals.
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That is what I use if I want it squeaky clean (every now & then) with soapy water. We use the commercial grade Dawn & water. It is easier as I mentioned earlier if you do it while the grates are still warm, but I know that is a pain to have to do when you want to serve & eat (believe me, I do not do it then). We have also soaked ours in a tub of soapy water if it was real bad for a while to help soften it up. I keep thinking the extra heavy duty way that we have done a time or two over maybe 40 plus years of doing our own smoking & grilling was to mix about a cup of baking soda in a gallon of hot water & mix it real well, then add about a cup of white vinegar to that & set the grates into a tub with that solution & let them soak for a few hours. That is really rare though for us to have grates that are so died in the wool of debris that will not come off to have to do that though. The pre-sprays should be helping you a lot.
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we keep the streel wool pads (not the ones with soap already in them) for a hard scrub on stainless steel pans & the cast iron too (but no soap ever used). They work real well for either including the grates (on the Blue moon that we use them for that) & they last a long time & they are cheap.
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I like the DIY concept. One can customize it to the type of smoking you do. I’m adding a small window A/C to have the ability to cold smoke as well. A small Honeywell controller allows for +/- 2 to 3 degrees. Can use most any box, old freezers, even a small wood structure.
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I have found that if I spray my racks with Pam or any spray Canola oil spray before I use them … that it definitely help them clean up easier. As for cleaning my racks I soak them in hot water with lots of dish soap and scrub them with a stainless steel BBQ brush. I wish I could find an easier way and am sure glad I have installed a deep sink in my shop for clean up. The worst is when I do smoked fish with a lot of brown sugar in my brine, it is brutal
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Another option is Smokehouse Cleaner also works really well. This is the non-caustic version that we now carry. I’ll do a little video at some point of how it works. I’d imagine that the gallon bottle would last any home user a good long while.
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I have found that if I spray my racks with Pam or any spray Canola oil spray before I use them … that it definitely help them clean up easier. As for cleaning my racks I soak them in hot water with lots of dish soap and scrub them with a stainless steel BBQ brush. I wish I could find an easier way and am sure glad I have installed a deep sink in my shop for clean up. The worst is when I do smoked fish with a lot of brown sugar in my brine, it is brutal
akdave Yes, those are the times when you have to do a scrub. I believe if we were not spraying the racks first it would be much, much worse. When we have to do the scrub down like that, we just do it outside for easy cleanup. Keep it simple.
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Finishing on the grill is a great way to go for some meats
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ggrussell What flavors do you normally like? I would also point you to USDA appendix A and I’d recommend you go at least to 130 before you pull it from the smoker. I’m not saying you need to keep it there for 2 hours if you are going to cook it up to 160° F when you grill it.
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I cured some bacon and tasted it before smoking it and it was super salty it was in the cure for 8 days. Will smoking help get some of the saltyness out ?if not is there a cure? Don’t want to throw away 20 pounds of pork belly.
samc You should be able to get some of that salt out just by soaking it in plain water for a few days or so, even just a day or so would help. Change the water every day or two to help leach the salt back out.
Now, getting just as salty as you want it is the trick. I’m afraid I can’t help with that. However, you could just keep sampling it to see if you get it where you want it.
Also, you can just reserve that bacon for seasoning instead of just straight up eating. Twenty pounds is an awful lot for seasoning, but you could maybe save some of it out for that. I’d love to have a ready supply of 1/2 pound seasoning bacon packs ready to go in the freezer. Talk about making a bunch of beans and greens!
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Think I’d start by soaking in water for an hour then see where you are at.
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I cured some bacon and tasted it before smoking it and it was super salty it was in the cure for 8 days. Will smoking help get some of the saltyness out ?if not is there a cure? Don’t want to throw away 20 pounds of pork belly.
samc out of curiosity what was your cure recipe? How much salt?
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I’m curing an 11# belly now for bacon and went with 3% weight in salt and 1.5% weight in sugar. I went with 8g Cure #1. Definitely way less on all.
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samc I am doing some conversions and double checking right now, please DO NOT EAT THAT! I’m having someone double check me but it looks like too much pink salt (sure cure in our world) and salt were used. Maybe I can’t do the math this morning or am brain dead so please don’t throw it out yet either!
I’ll have more very shortly.
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samc Did you mean 5.6 grams?
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