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Smoking meat

12K views 136 replies 29 participants last post by  Snocheck 
#1 ·
I started thinking about this tonight and wanted to get some suggestions and techniques. Maybe even some recipes if you have them. I bought a charcoal smoker many years ago but could never commit to the time involved. Life always got in the way. Gave it away.

Then a few years ago I bought an electric smoker. Didn't need as much attention as it had a digital pad to set temp, time whatever you want. Also had Bluetooth so I could set it and forget it and go about my weekend honey Doo list. Could keep tract of it on my phone. Worked well but burned up the small woodchip box quickly and it needed refilling often.

Now I'm retired and bought a propane smoker. Unfortunately I haven't smoked anything all year. Am going to fire it up and see if I like it.

My question is for any of you that smoke meat, what is your preferred smoker type? Any tips for the type you use. Your favorite cuts. Favorite rubs. Recipe times and temps. Pretty much any and everything. The few times I used the electric smoker, things turned out good, but not WOW, if that makes sense.
 
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#2 ·
I have a Bradley smoker and a Traeger Pellet grill, the thing about smoking meat is it comes with experience, and trying to figure out what wood to use for the meat being smoked. Same goes for the rub. The pellet grill is now my go to tool when I want to smoke meat, bake cookies, or even make a pizza.
If I want to cold smoke meat I used the Bradley.
There are a lot of recipes out there that are very good, but it comes down to a personal preference.


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#3 · (Edited)
I use a pit smoker. Specifically a Weber smokey mountain. Best bang for your $ and it lasts 30 years.

The ceramic egg cookers (big green egg or kamado joe) are a touch better but significantly more expensive. An off brand ceramic cooker may be a good way to get into that style.

I am anti pellet smoker. They don't have a very long shelf life. The auger and ECU can give you issues. They don't give off good smoke. You have to run them a lot cooler (like 200°) and the smoke still isn't comparable to a Weber smokey mountain running at 275-300. You aren't winning any competitions using a pellet grill. They are a touch simpler to use in daily use. But anything more than 5 years of use and you are on borrowed time.

I would like an offset but they use up a lot more room. I have enough big grills and toys, I don't need a giant smoker eating up more room.

The Weber smokey mountain can also be used as a charcoal grill. I used mine last night to reverse sear a few Ribeyes at about 225° and finished them off with a cooking torch. They came out about as tender as steak can be made.

Smoking is therapeutic. Setting aside a day every month or so to long cook something is a nice little getaway from the world. Baby back ribs, pulled pork, and burnt ends are my favorites. Pork shoulder and brisket are long cooks. A chuck roast is a good cheap alternative to brisket if you don't want to make some giant slab of meat.

I am to the point where I make my own rubs for my little weekend cooks. But I have about 5 or 6 store bought rubs that I like a lot. When I do big cooks for groups of people I usually use store bought. My two go to rubs are "killer hogs the bbq rub" and "Weber KC BBQ." I pick those because you can buy them in bulk at any Walmart. The KC BBQ is a little sweeter and it's great with chicken. But just as important as the rubs are what you're spritzing the meat with, your glazes, and any specialty sauces. For example, with my pulled pork I like using a sauce that is foreign to my area called Carolina gold that I make from scratch. I'm sure you can Google a recipe for it. But that flavor profile is unique in this region. When people try it they are surprised by the new flavors and it's usually a big hit.

There are a lot of championship teams that make YouTube videos to go check out. Malcom Reed is a pretty good one to look at. He is really easy to follow and he is consistent.
 
#13 ·
#5 ·
I’ve owned a kamado joe and green egg for almost 10 years. (One large and other portable) We smoke or use it 3-4 times a week. You name it we’ve smoked it. I’ve taken the potable joe on snowmobile trips even. Nothing like putting a 1/2 brisket on the joe riding all day and having the best meal at the trailer when we get back. Put grill grates on them and sear a steak at 650 degrees in 4 minutes with perfect grill marks. Cook the Best smoked pizza in 4 minutes with the pizza porta at 600 degrees. Bacon wrapped meatloaf is a snap in 4 hours. It’s a smoker, oven and grill.
 
#6 ·
You guys sure spend a lot of $$$ on your smokers.

I made one out of a 55 gallon drum around 20 years ago, I just built another one.

It's a charcoal burner, 1 lbs an hour. The crazy thing is it'll run 225F at 90 degrees or 0 degrees. We've smoked brisket in the heat of summer and the dead of winter.

I'll get a picture of the new one and post them up. This one is a lot more fancy than the last one.
 
#7 ·
I have a Traeger Ironwood 665 pellet smoker. I don't have the patience for charcoal or stick fired, I want to set it and go do something else. If you're looking for something easy with great results I would suggest the 3-2-1 ribs. They always come out great and it's super easy. https://www.traeger.com/recipes/3-2-1-baby-back-ribs

Two tips:

1. Make sure you peel the silver skin off backside of the ribs. A butter knife and paper towel make this pretty easy.

2. Quality of meat matters. Go to a butcher, pay the money, and buy good meat if you really want great results.

Food Ingredient Home appliance Recipe Cuisine
 
#9 ·
I have a Traeger Ironwood 665 pellet smoker. I don't have the patience for charcoal or stick fired, I want to set it and go do something else. If you're looking for something easy with great results I would suggest the 3-2-1 ribs. They always come out great and it's super easy. https://www.traeger.com/recipes/3-2-1-baby-back-ribs

Two tips:

1. Make sure you peel the silver skin off backside of the ribs. A butter knife and paper towel make this pretty easy.

2. Quality of meat matters. Go to a butcher, pay the money, and buy good meat if you really want great results.
I've looked at those. Set n forget would work for me too. Don't know anyone with one to get a hands on verification on how well they work. Seems simple enough.
 
#8 ·
All good responses so far. I've looked at the green egg but they are crazy money. If I was at a point where I knew what I was doing I might be able to justify the cost, but not yet. I guess the best advice is what I kinda thought, practice and experimentation.

Which works best, wet or dry rub? Or do you prefer letting the smoke and natural meat flavor do the work?

I may ask some dumb questions, but I really don't know anything about smoking. I've watched a few videos, but my results never match what I see. Guess it takes a little finesse....
 
#11 ·
WOW! That's meat porn right there. Those smokers are sweet. I'll give one a serious look next summer. I'll replace my electric smoker with one.
 
#12 ·
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#14 ·
I have had 2 Bradley's. First one was used and given to me for free by a friend. I listened to the internet the manual and some very good cooks. All were wrong. I was ready to throw it out so gross. If it says smoke for 6 hours I smoke for 1 or 2. Then continue cooking with no wooden pucks otherwise it always tasted waaaaay too smokey. Brisket smokes longer than pork butt and less again for ribs.


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#17 ·
I noticed that my electric had a harder time in winter also, that's why I grabbed a propane smoker for half price during a store closing sale. Going to try it as much as possible now till spring.
 
#16 ·
Went and looked at some Traegers. They're up there to. Liked the ironwood 650. Pretty nice. Over a grand for a grill is steep, especially considering it doesn't come with a built in bottle opener.....lol
 
#18 ·
The Weber smokey mountain is the type I bought many years ago and never used. That's the type my dad had and you had to pay too much attention to it for my liking.

Although, now being retired, it probably wouldn't be so bad. Kinda wish I'd have kept it.
 
#21 ·
I just picked up another weber smokey mountain today for $100 on Facebook marketplace. I have all 3 sizes now. And the guy was a BBQ nut like me. He had about 15 other smokers, all rare webers.

If you don't really care to make top notch BBQ a trager is great. My wife wants one for Christmas that she can play around with too. Can use the app on her phone and even bake in the thing. But you won't get much for bark and the cooks take way longer. Just look at pics comparing the differences. The bark isnt really set on them and they are very light red. Not the deep dark candied bark that you look for. I cooked burnt ends on a trager last weekend and will be cooking burnt ends on a pit tomorrow. The difference in quality and texture will be night and day.

I usually wrap using aluminum foil. Once the bark has set in and it's halfway through it's water loss cycle I wrap it. If you wrap too early your bark becomes soggy and you boil your meat. If you wrap too late the outside gets a touch dry.

As far as rubs vs wet, you smoke with a rub and finish either dry or wet. I usually finish wet. Finishing is just a final glaze and throwing it on the heat again to let it tighten up for 5 to 15 minutes. If you wrapped too soon you can leave it on longer to try and tighten up the bark a little.

But smoking is an artwork. It can be a passion for you or you can be the group of wives that get drunk on wine and paint for something to do on a weekend. Only you can decide which way of the fork you take.

Ps, you only have to pay attention to it if you don't know what you're doing yet. The WSM and ceramic cookers like the green egg are the most consistent cookers on the market. Literally set it and forget it, the temp gauge doesn't move. But you have to know what you're doing. Otherwise you will be chasing your tail for 8 hours. They make dummy proof electronic control units for them too but they are far from necessary.
 
#19 ·
I've had a Traeger for a few years now and I absolutely love it. I started out with a vertical charcoal smoker to learn how to cook the hard way before switching to the easy way (set and forget). The charcoal definitely had a more unique flavor, but the traeger is so consistent that it's hard to knock it.

I live in Manitoba and have smoked turkeys in the dead of winter. The traeger smoker parka was out of stock so I just covered it in a welding blanket . It used a bit more pellets than summer, but nothing too crazy.
 
#23 ·
My neighbor does that competitive BBQ stuff, and he's won more than a few times. He travels a bunch to do it too - he has a lot of fun with it.

I gotta say, it smells good when he's practicing too!

And yes, he laughs at my homemade smoker, and I'm OK with that. 🤣
 
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#22 · (Edited)
Weber is a water smoker, so the temp above the water is rock solid and consistent . Mine runs for 10-12 hours on a full load of charcoal and doesn’t require any babysitting.
Great smoker that you don’t need to outgrow.
Start with pork butt or ribs and a good thermometer or thermometer systems and fruitwoods for pork.
Don’t jump into a brisket, that’s advance level. When I see someone does a full brisket in 6-8 hours it’s not gonna be as good as one done right….
I buy bulk spices and make my own rubs.
Also you can rest meats for a really long time in a cooler wrapped in towels etc, so don’t get fixated on timing things. Smoke early.
Good luck



 
#24 ·
Get any pics yet?
 
#29 ·
I owned a Big Green Egg for 10+ years and had no complaints other than it didn’t hold temp as accurately as I'd like and you're limited time wise by the amount of wood chunks or charcoal you stuff into it.

Last summer I bought a RecTeq and it's awesome, the thing almost runs itself.

I like it so well that I sold the Egg and my gas grill and just use this for everything.
 
#30 ·
Just looked up recteq....
Impressive.
 
#32 ·
Still no pictures, sorry.

I went to the garage this morning then my son-in-law called, needed help with a bathroom remodel, so the garage projects got pushed back.

I'll get them, promise.
 
#34 ·
Well you don’t only cook red meat but birds are awesome too on the joe or egg. Happy thanksgiving! Best darn bird you’ll ever have. just as moist if injected and slowly smoked as oil friers! That’s 185 -200 for 8 hours! Before (dry rubbed and injected) and at 163! One hour to go! The stall is about finished. By the way this is my 6th night in a row smoking. Kamados are expensive but if you use the often and right they cost nothing accept $10.00 a week. We did stuffed crust smoke chicken pizza last night topped with a bacon woven bread sticks.
 

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