Cooking on Smoker

[HRS]

I picked up a Brinkman charcoal smoker (It is the small round smoker.) yesterday and tried it out this afternoon. Wife wants me to do a big B-B-Que on the 1st, so I thought I'd try it first. However, I do not want to cook with charcoal briquets. I want to cook on oak. So this is what I did.

I cut and chopped my oak into 2x2x4inch pieces and would place two or three into the coal pan as the coals burnt down. This produced a lot of smoke and kept the temp where I wanted it. I never thougt about what all that smoke was doing to the chicken I was experimenting with.

Five hours later, I removed the little round top and just had to laugh. The bird was black as smut. Fortunately, this had only collected on the skin. Once the skin was pulled off, the chicken was fantastic. It was moist and had a wonderful flavor.

Now for next time... I learned that what I really need is mostly heat and just a little smoke. So I'm thinking of having a fire going in a fire ring and just adding burning coals to the smoker as they are needed. This will do away with having the smoker "smoke like a freight train". I don't want the ham I try to come out black.

Maybe if I just sit the coal pan on the ground, and set the smoker over it, I could easily move it ever so often to add more coal. Anyone else have an easy way to make hot coals for the smoking while cutting down on the smoke residue?

 

[johnk]

The smokers work great but are too tight. They don't let enough fresh air mix with the smoke and can really overdo it. You're on the right track. Here's a few pics of polish sausage I make in a big smoker. 160#'s at a time..

 

[HRS]

Those look great. I love sausage. I'll have to give her another try tomorrow. Wish I had a picture of my chicken to show you. It was BLACK!

 

[Michael_E_Tx]

Hi HRS. Seems like you might check with some of your friends and neighbors about smoking. Cooking with more heat/less smoke is self defeating as far as smoking goes. You will not end up with that nice smokey flavor without the smoke and the subsequent black stuff. It's part of the gig. As you have discovered with birds, it's only the skin that gets blackened. With meat such as ham or roast, it's still only the surface.

Our favorite is to smoke a ham and a turkey together. The ham goes on top and self-bastes the turkey. Ummm, good! I must admit I too was a little horrified the first time we did this at how black everything was, but it tasted mighty good. Maybe give it a chance and see how you like it. If the blackness aspect continues to offend you, perhaps you'd enjoy more the traditional charcoal grill with a little oak added.

Mike

 

[HickoryNut]

I'm guessing you were using green wood, you got to let it season for a couple months. It must be capable of flaming up the minute it goes on the fire. I even keep some on top of the smoker while cooking to dry it further. Also, adding unlit charcoal to the fire can cause a severe black nasty.

 

[HRS]

Michael, I agree that it did taste good. The jet black skin also had a great taste, though I did not eat but just a few pinches. I'm not to crazy about the charchoal. I have actually gotten a slight case of poisoning from it on a few occasions, so I'm a little scared of it. I'm certainly going to try again, maybe tomorrow.

Hickory, Yes the wood is still a bit green, but it is all I have to work with. I had a lot of fun adding a few pieces every 15 minutes or so. Man would it make the smoke when I did. I got the hang of it after a few hours. As the last pieces of wood would finally dry and start flaming, I'd add a couple of new pieces. If I added to much at once, it would smother and cool the smoker off too much. So I chopped a whole bunch of wood into these small pieces. I do have an old smoker I had really just used as a grill in the past. I might use it to fire the wood. Let it do most of the smoking in it. Then I could pull coals to the cooking smokers. I'd like to have two cooking at once. Thinking of a ham, couple of chickens, and roast (beef and venison).

 

[ScottAR]

You might want to try Lump charcoal. LC is just wood that's preburnt (??) Quickly goes to coals and imparts similar flavor as wood. No briquets just little wood pieces. Or a combo of wood and LC.

Brine birds and ribs the night before. Enhances tenderness and juicyness without killing the flavors of the meat.

After pulling out of the smoker, wrap up the meat in aluminum foil and rest it for
10-20 minutes. Keeps the juice in better.

 

[billbill1]

A very good friend of mine that pasted away in Nov. told me a little trick that works well with the Brinkman smokers. Take a 55 gallon drum and place it over the smoker after you get the smoker going. Set the barrel on three or four bricks to keep it elevated a little. This will keep more heat on the smoker and let the meat get done quicker without effecting the flavor. Makes a big difference (my opinion)

 

[MarkV]

HRS, welcome to the smoking world. We can’t get enough of it at our house. Our smoker has a remote firebox so it eliminates some of the problems with direct heat but the principal is the same. I have used oak as well as other wood and find it hard to keep the temps in the 200-250 degree range which is what we prefer. Mostly use charcoal these days and some oak at the beginning of the process. You definitely don’t want to use any of the self lighting charcoal or you will get a petroleum taste. Several articles I’ve read say that your smoke flavor is going to come from the first hour or so of the smoking process. After that point the meat is seared and will not take on the flavor any longer. We often foil birds after the first few hours to minimize but not eliminate the blackening that will happen. Blackening is just part of the game if you are going to slow smoke.

Sometime when you want to try something different do a “Drunken Chicken”. Take ½ of a can of beer and add a small bottle of “Tony Chachere’s Crab Boil”. It comes in a small 1 oz. liquid bottle that you can find in many stores here in the South. Place the beer can as a stand in the chicken and smoke as normal. Excellent!

If you find yourself in W. Georgia let me know and I’ll smoke you up some ribs to die for.

MarkV

 

[HRS]

Scott, I'll investigate the LC. That sounds like a good idea for a small smoker. Also, foil will be used on the next cooking, but this first bird was eaten 15 minutes after being removed.

Bill, I like the idea of the drum. I've tried girlling on the old smoker last winter and learned then that if the temp was really cool outside, it is very challenging to hold any type of heat on the grill. Your trick sounds like the solution to that dilemma.

Mark, I'll keep you earmarked. We were suppose to have gone camping up in Cloudland Canyon early this month, but I had camper in far away remote location the week of, poor planning on my part. I find myself all over Georgia when I feel like camping.

I was about to give up and go back to charcoal (I'd just hold my breath when working near it.), but your idea about wrapping in foil has given me new hope. I'm going to try just that. I'll smoke it heavily for an hour or so, wrap it and then continue to smoke it down like I did yesterday. Having a ton of smoke pouring out of the smoker made it look cool, neighbors were interested.

As for the druken chicken, I'll have to try it. The crab boil sounds great.

Now, here is a funny story. My wife has this pottery piece that she bakes chickens on. It is derived from the drunken chicken concept. It is a bowl with a cone in the center that you set the chicken on and add your "whatever" to the cone. Yesterday I asked her for it when I took the roaster out. She looked at me and said "No"! She didn't want her cookware messed up. I just snapped at her and said the oven gets hotter than the smoker and that she was being silly. So I stomped out. A few minutes later she brought it outside and said that she didn't realize that the smoker cooked at a cooler temp. So I used it.

This thing was glazed a pretty blue when whe handed it to me, but when I took it out of the smoker it was glazed a solid black. She took one look at it, rolled her eyes and said nothing. Boy did I feel bad. Needless to say, I had to eat a little crow with my chicken last night. Fortunately, this black rubbed off with a scrubbing sponge when I washed it. What a relief that was. For a moment there, I was sure I had ruined it for her. I'll stick to the can next time.