Smoked Turkey

As a test for Thanksgiving I smoked a turkey using the directions on www.amazingribs.com.  We invited several friends over and had Thanksgiving in September.

The prepped bird has savory bits inside, not stuffed tight, wet rub under the skin and skin dusted with salt. 

Collection of fruits, veggies, turkey innards, and savory bits, all stewing for the duration. 

The smoker starting to crank up the smoke, higher temp than normal per Amazing Ribs recipe.  I smoked a breast plus the whole bird. 

Finished product looked good and according to the gang eating it, was the best turkey they had ever had.  So now I'm on the hot seat for making the big bird on Thanksgiving Day.

First smoked pulled pork was a success

Today I smoked a 8.5 pound pork shoulder to pull and 6 chicken breasts. 

I did not have enough time to cook it in the smoker the whole time so I used a "fast" technique  

2 hours in the smoker and. 3 hours in the oven at 350 degrees wrapped in foil with apple juice. Cook until meat is 200 degrees in the center. 

It turned out juicey and tender with a little smoke flavor. Probably my best pulled pork yet. Look out Clem's. 

I'm now using a broiler pan as my wood pan with the cover upside down as a lid, held in place using paper clips. There were too many holes in the lid which caused the wood to ignite and spiked the temp to 350.  I coved 3/4 of lid with foil which helped. I'll need to do something more permanent.  Bricks were used to hold it up which puts it closer to the flames too. The bricks will hold heat nicely as well. 

I can't bake like a 4 year old

I tried making the no knead bread that's do easy a 4 year old can make it and failed. 

The dough was way too wet and never held together at all. I added flour to try and shape it just before baking, but even then it still was too wet. It's eatable but very flat. 

Mother's Day ribs

With yesterday's success, I decided to smoke ribs for Mother's Day using the 3-2-1 method. In summary, it's 3 hours of smoke, 2 hours wrapped in foil with moisture, and 1 hour open without smoke. If you use sauce it would be part of the last hour.

Here's phase one the 3 hour smoke, using all apple wood chunks. I staged the  2 wood bins adding the second after about 90 minutes. 

And the 2 hour wrapped phase with rootbeer, soy sauce and butter. 

Finished product turned out well. I sauced 2 racks and left one dry.  You could taste the smoke more on the dry rack.  The picture is terrible, it was a quick snap, since we all just wanted to eat and could not wait for nice lighting, etc.

First real smoke

I smoked 6 boneless chicken breasts and  3 burgers. Both came out great with the exception of one smaller burger that was dry from over cooking. The chicken was coated in olive oil and seasoned with garlic pepper and salt. They stayed on until the internal temp was 150, about 2.5 hours. The burgers were made with ground beef, egg, garlic pepper, salt, and worchestsire sauce. Patties smoked for about 2 hours then grilled for 5 mins with cheese. 

I used a homemade wood pan that was deeper, putting the wood closer to the fire and allowing the use of chunks. For this I used a mix of hickory and apple. 

The lid had fewer holes to minimize igniting and stretch out the smoke time

And the finished product - yum. 

We have smoke!

I lowered the pans to about 1" off the burner and smoke started at a little over 4 minutes and at 160 degrees.  The wood was dry, chips in one pan and chunks in the other.  Smoke was billowing at 9 minutes and   200 degrees. The doors leaked smoke, I felt bad that not all the hard earned smoke did not make it through to the top but I'm not sure it's worth sealing.  At 15 minutes we hit 225 and I dialed it back to medium to see if it would hold that temperature and maintain smoke, had to go a little lower than medium which was a good thing. 

Smoke slowed at 30 minutes when all the chips were burnt up. The chunks continued smoking for another 30 minutes and upon inspection only about 50% were burnt. The ones not over the flame looked untouched.

My conclusion is to hold off drilling the orifices and find a nice way to lower the pans without putting them in sideways to allow all the wood to burn.  Use chunks or soak the chips.  I may just make new pans shaped like a trough so gravity will push fresh wood into ask as they burn.  This new pan would also have fewer holes to minimize the chance of the wood catching fire and the extend the smoke time.  

First lighting

I added a second NG tap and tested the burners.

One would not stay lit and I noticed the air adjuster on that one was opened further. Adjusting them to be a little more closed and equal seemed to help.  

The flames were perfectly blue. So I was ready to season it. I wiped down the insides with olive oil, put all the racks in, water in the pan, chips in one wood pan and chucks in the other. I added a remote electronic thermometer with the probe in the middle of the box to see how accurate the door thermometer is and what temperature NG can hold. The door thermometer seems pretty accurate. 

The results:

Both burners in high - 280

Both burners on low - 210

One burner on low - 135

That's not too bad, but (and this is a big BUT) - there was NO smoke, even after over 3 hours. 

Upon inspection the wood was starting to blacken and while there was no visible smoke there was a smokey smell. However, definately not enough to smoke food.  Is it due to the pans being too far from the flame?  Flames not being hot enough?  More experiments will be needed. I will likely bore out the orifices.