Smoker advances

Another post from history, last time I used the smoker, while it was cooling down the lower saucer cracked, and then shattered into 3 bits. Somewhat annoying but not 100% unexpected.

The solution fixes two problems with the smoker. The first is that the fire is a bit higher, hence further from the saucer and less likely to be badly affected by the intense heat.

Secondly, the pot feet lifting the saucer create a gap around the whole circumference of the fire tray allowing loads more air into the base of the fire. This should (when properly supervised and fueled) keep the fire burning more evenly and effectively.

The first firing was pretty good and using a bigger joint (2.25kg, instead of about 1-1.5) it took around 6-7 hours to almost completely cook the pork shoulder. It was  still a little pink/juicy in the very middle so we finished it in the oven for half an hour, which was probably a bit too long. The flavour was good too, using mostly applewood, and some oak when we ran out.

Pulled Pork in JD Honey BBQ Sauce - The BBQ Smoker Finale

The BBQ smoker last weekend was a resounding success and to round off the recent BBQ trend thread for the time being here's what happened to the pork. 

The joint cooked and came out looking, well pretty black. I decided i'd chop it into smaller chunks and serve it along with the other meat and heat it through on the BBQ itself with the burgers, when I had an idea!

A few weeks back i'd made a sauce for the THaTLAN BBQ. We marinated the left overs of the 6Kg rib challenge (that's another post entirely) a number of us tried the previous night in it and served it in cups as a sort of starter if you will.

So this time, instead of using 1l of coca-cola as the base, i took some advice form a friends brother who's a chef. I got some brown sauce as a base (in this case HP Guinness flavour) and put about 1/3 of the bottle in a pan with what was left over from a couple bottles of maple syrup (probably about 50-75ml at most), some malt vinegar, some honey and mustard sauce and the juice (and some flesh) of a large lemon.

The mix looked a little short, so after adding another dose of everything I had I'd increased the volume about another 1/3 and whisked it more.

Next i raided the cupboard for more flavours, not that it tasted bad, just it couldn't hurt to add more at this stage. The next lot was basically just a rummage to see what I had ending up with Basil, Parsley, Oregano, celery and garlic salt, onion granules, mixed herbs, and some liquid seasoning, sometimes called liquid smoke.

This, and more of the mustard sauce from earlier went in the pan, along with 100-150ml of coca-cola which I'd used to rinse the maple syrup and mustard jars out with to avoid wastage. The whole thing got whisked again and then left to simmer for half an hour with the lid on. Then all the pork was poured in and left another hour to breakdown. I also added some of the fat from the joint which was taken off and chopped it as finely as I possibly could to allow the flavours to mix in more. In addition to this I also put 3-4shots of Jack Daniels Honey Sour Mash in the mix before the meat was added, just to make it that little bit more delicious.

After an hour or so cooking down the pork started to break apart and formed more of a pulled, rather than chopped pork. The pan went outside to the bbq and got thrown onto burgers for the last few minutes before serving them.

All in all, i'll probably end up making this again and give some better measurements and more pictures, this was put together in about 20 minutes while guests were arriving and got a good reception. Maybe with more time to think about stuff instead of just doing it, it wont be as good or spontaneous, but we'll see.

BBQ Smoker - v0.2

For version 2 (ok, 0.2) i swapped out the broken dish for a glazed one to hopefully give it more heat resistance and bought a pizza try which had holes throughout to lift the fire off the lower plate entirely. This also allowed air to come up through the base of the fire and burn far better.

Ideally i would have added holes to the saucer but wasn't sure if the lack of total protection form the eat would make it crack. Best try the first one without the holes and see what happens. At least its not wasted work if it does break now.

Took a while to get a decent fire going (as you can see by all the matches, which were dire and either broke striking or went out as soon as the head burnt) but once it went it kept a good temperature. For this one I used some scrap wood, but amde sure it was actual wood, rather than mdf/chipboard.

Because this time it was getting food! It generated a good amount of smoke, but having a very limited supply of wood at this point, it was never going to cook the whole chop.

The lid went on and then i decided to move it off the BBQ, party because i didnt want to melt the cover and party because if it toppled, maybe something would survive and lower fall.

The fire burned for about 40minutes, an the chop good cooked through on the George Forman along with another chop which hadn't been in the smoker as a comparison.

The difference in flavour was noticable even after only a very short time cooking in the smoker itself, so some success at least.

BBQ Smoker - v0.1

[From-the-archive-of-things-didnt-post-at-the-time: This post should have gone out last year, but didn't and as i've not improved it, and used it with success. It's about time]

For a while I've been wanting to try some different styles of BBQing. One specifically sounds and looks more delicious - slow and low.

Its fairly simple: Make fire, direct smoke over meat, leave for some time, tend fire as needed.

Firstly, the fire. Most large scale smokers in the US have a brick fire box and large metal box with shelves or racks four the meat. But, that's a tiny bit impractical. B&Q provided the answer, somewhat unexpectedly. A large thick walled plant pot upturned on a saucer makes a good firebox and another pot on top with wire racks for holding the meat.

The pot needs a hole cut for fuel and air to get in. Fortunately, the clay pot is soft enough a dremel eats it away nicely.

Sadly the enamel pattern is somewhat harder and took as long to cut through as the rest of the pot.

Once the hole is cut the inside of the pot and saucer got a liberal coating of fire sealant and the saucer had some holes drilled at the edge to draw air in.

Unfortunately about 15 minutes into the fire test, the saucer shattered down the middle. The pot at least stayed intact which as it took the most work is probably for the best.

The new saucer has enamel which should resist the heat a little better and i've got a pizza tray for the next test to lift the fire up to get air under it as well as maybe keep the saucer from breaking.

The top of the smoker is a straight sided pot, with a bell pot upturned to trap the smoke inside. To hold the meat up, i've made a rack from a couple of dish racks for a microwave. Soon i'll get some proper fuel for it and test it for a full cooking time on something.

Jody Scheckter's Cowboy Steak

Last year my parents came to visit and at the request of my dad we went to a small farm shop in Hampshire he'd heard about. As it happens this farm and shop is owned by Jody Scheckter, the South African F1 champion with Ferrari in 1979 and notable drive of the Tyrrell P34.

(Tyrrell P34 (wiki)

After retiring he bought Laverstoke Park Farm which he now operates as an organic farm and as well as supplying a butchers in Twickenham and numerous other places, as well as the farm shop. When we went there we ended up buying quite a few cuts for both my and my parents. However, the one that caught my eye was a steak, listed as a Cowboy Steak as i recall, and its huge.

Thats a regular sized tin next to it, and its dwarfed.

I decided not to mess around with this when cooking it. It was seared in a hot pan for a minute or so on each side and then put in the oven to cook through a little more and warm up. I say warm, it was extremely rare when it came out, probably bordering on blue and even like this, it was delicious.

I though i'd do some mash with it, nice and simple and some sauce. There actually about twice as much potato on that plate (which is again, one of my bigger plates) than is visible, but the steak has very much taken over here.

I havent been able to find the steak on their website, i'm not sure its a regular stock item but it does look something like one of their bone-in roasting joints which has been cut down. I could be wrong, but it really doesnt matter, everything is good. Everything we've had from there has gone, and theres a gaping hole int he freezer where it once was. 10/10 would gorge myself again!

Everyone in the local area to Overton, Hampshire should go and see what they have to offer, then buy it before I do. You can also follow them on twitter it seems @Laverstoke, or facebook  DO IT! for the glory of meat.

The Pasta Win/Fail

This is actually a post from the middle of last year, but i've only just got round to putting the picture in the words. Enjoy:

A while ago we made some meat balls to go with some pasta. But that didn't really work as there wasn't enough pasta for two. Fail, my bad.

As a happy accident there were some spare finger rolls and as a result, two impromptu meatball marinaras. Win! Having never had one before (yes i know, shush) i was pleased, mostly by how much less messy it was than I expected. I reckon one from Subway would probably go everywhere when its drowned in sauce however.

Needless to say, this will be happening again.

I'll probably end up posting more of these which have been languishing in the draft section, for no better reason than to do something. there are quite a few quick food related posts to do when I have a spare minute.