My newest hobby is slow smoking meats. I bought a RecTec Bullseye pellet smoker a couple years ago. Who needs a grill when you have something better? Here are some of my experiments. WARNING: THIS PAGE MAY MAKE YOU HUNGRY. VIEWER DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
Whole smoked chicken. Marinated in brine 24 hours and injected. Fall off the bone goodness.
My first attempt at smoking a corned beef. Fortunately, I read up on it and learned to submerge it in a water bath in the refridgerator for 24 hours to reduce salinity. I changed the water 5x during that time. These pictures show it coming out of the bath being readied for seasoning.
RecTeq Bullseye.
Fruit pellet blend.
10 hour cook at 225. (obvious calibation error)
Spritzed every 40 mins with Guinness Draught.
Wrapped butcher paper at 175, continud cook to 205.
Membrane removed, basted with yellow mustard and seasoned w black pepper and Lawry’s salt-free southwest sweet & smoky seasoning.
after it rested in the fridge for about an hour, I warmed and coated it with honey and re-peppered it. Refridgerated overnight.
Membrane removed, basted with yellow mustard and seasoned w black pepper and Weber’s KC BBQ seasoning.
Wrapped in cellaphane, chilled in fridge overnight
Next Day:
PitBoss Competition Fruit pellet mix
225 degrees. Spritzed every 40 mins apple cider/H20 50:50
(1) 3 hours in, coated with raw honey
(2) wrapped for 2 hours;
(3) Rolled out of wrapper, began fall apart.
After the ribs were removed from wrap, coated with Sugar Ray’s Honey BBQ sauce.
(1) top, (2) bottom
1 more hour cook on set to Lo unwrapped.
(3) Ribs left to rest on cooling grate for 30 mins. They could not be picked up whole.
Brine drained and patted dry w paper towel. Seasoned w a sprinkling of black pepper and Stonewall Kitchen’s Maine Seafood rub.
It is under a fan to try to set up the pellicle.
Overall Lessons from this cook:
1. Always use FRESH, not previously frozen fish.
2. This experiment saw the salmon in the brine for 24 hours. That may result in a salty product, we’ll see, as they say 4-5 hours in brine for this size. Only thing that might save me is I added only half the amount of kosher salt the brine recipe called for.
3. Smoker temp regulation. Having the temp set to Lo but leaving the lid open will cause the smoker to fail and stop feeding pellets. This happened twice on this cook but I caught in time to not have to restart ignition. I need to look into a suitable prop that will hold the lid open at just the right amount to drop temp closer to 150 when set to Lo (which is 200 by default).
The fishy taste makes me think of options.
Into the dehydrator for an hour at 130 degrees.
Then vacuum sealed and frozen for a huge treat later…look for my salmon dip recipe here
