I made goose for Xmas once. I wasn't a huge fan. It was fine, but I found it inexplicably slightly off putting.
Gravy's Cooking Thread
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It's always good to know where a goose is. Mean motherfuckers will murder you in your sleep if you don't get them first.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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Gravy
Bronze Squire
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Do any of you use a smoker? I mean a device dedicated only for meat smoking. If so, do you have recommendations?
I currently just use my barrel type grill, and set the fire on the far side, and set the meat under the exhaust pipe. The problem is obvious, the heat is very hard to maintain at a constant temp. so the meat cooks unevenly. I used to have a cast iron homemade grill that held the heat forever, but the grill I have now burns hot, then cools off too fast.
I wouldn't be opposed to an attached firebox, has anyone used those?
I currently just use my barrel type grill, and set the fire on the far side, and set the meat under the exhaust pipe. The problem is obvious, the heat is very hard to maintain at a constant temp. so the meat cooks unevenly. I used to have a cast iron homemade grill that held the heat forever, but the grill I have now burns hot, then cools off too fast.
I wouldn't be opposed to an attached firebox, has anyone used those?
Yes I do (see previous posts for pictures of my smoker). What is your budget? What type of meats do you want to smoke and the quantities at once? Do you want something that is set and forget or something that you tend the fire on? Do you want something for smoking meat strictly or do you want something that can function as a high heat grill as well? Do you plan on cold smoking anything as well?
I can make a better recommendation after I see the answers.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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The romantics will tell you to go charcoal or wood, and I currently use my big green egg to smoke things, but if your main goal is smoked food and not carpentry, just go buy an electric smoker (and not the bradley ones that take the stupid hockey pucks that cost 10 times as much as regular wood chips). It is by far the easiest (set it and forget it) and wonderful food comes out of them.
Big Phoenix
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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chaos
Buzzfeed Editor
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I still haven't made mine, school > side projects, but when I do it will basically be the same as Alton's. He uses an electric burner then outs a mini-cast iron skillet on there with hickory chips. Or he did 10 years ago when he did his show.
Tonight I made mini-cheesecake cupcakes. Basically just cheesecake baked in paper muffin wrappers in a muffin tin. Awesome little cheesecakes. Perfect for my kids, they love shit like that.
Tonight I made mini-cheesecake cupcakes. Basically just cheesecake baked in paper muffin wrappers in a muffin tin. Awesome little cheesecakes. Perfect for my kids, they love shit like that.
Abefroman
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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It is weird to me he had that much trouble finding a small hot plate.
MaxiMatic ESB-300X Elite Cuisine 750-Watt Single-Burner Electric Hot Plate, Black : Amazon.com : Kitchen Dining
$12, ten seconds. Also if you want to get fancy with the heat control, rather than watching it or setting a probe thermometer till tell you if you overshoot, PID systems like are like $20-$35. Bit of wiring involved of course but at the end you have something that'll turn the current up/down trying to seek a specific temp and you just need to occasionally refresh the wood chips.
MaxiMatic ESB-300X Elite Cuisine 750-Watt Single-Burner Electric Hot Plate, Black : Amazon.com : Kitchen Dining
$12, ten seconds. Also if you want to get fancy with the heat control, rather than watching it or setting a probe thermometer till tell you if you overshoot, PID systems like are like $20-$35. Bit of wiring involved of course but at the end you have something that'll turn the current up/down trying to seek a specific temp and you just need to occasionally refresh the wood chips.
Gravy
Bronze Squire
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I've seen that Alton show where he makes that smoker, and it's fine and all, but I'd like to cook a couple slabs of ribs at a time.
Doesn't that Big Green Egg have the heat source at the bottom? And those things are pretty salty price-wise, but I'd love to see/taste some product that came out of one.
Price range I'm pretty limited - $300 or less. I can smoke on my grill now, and things come out tasty, but I'm constantly jacking with the fire, turning product, and so forth. I was thinking a standard barrel grill with a firebox attached, but I'm concerned about how much heat they retain. Some of that metal they use is so thin.
Doesn't that Big Green Egg have the heat source at the bottom? And those things are pretty salty price-wise, but I'd love to see/taste some product that came out of one.
Price range I'm pretty limited - $300 or less. I can smoke on my grill now, and things come out tasty, but I'm constantly jacking with the fire, turning product, and so forth. I was thinking a standard barrel grill with a firebox attached, but I'm concerned about how much heat they retain. Some of that metal they use is so thin.
He built a smoker out of a cardboard box (which works because you smoke at ~220 and ignition point of paper is 451 F) too and an army surplus ammo box, which was just wood IIRC. Drilled holes and used old wine corks to regulate oxygen flow. Which would easily be big enough for several slabs of ribs. Really you can build it out of anything that won't catch fire at 220 degrees and will keep the smoke somewhat contained.
Under $300 ---
Amazon.com: Weber 721001 Smokey Mountain Cooker 18-1/2-Inch Charcoal Smoker, Black: Patio, Lawn Garden
I own the 22.5 model. These things cook great, put out food that tastes great, and are cost effective for what you want to do.
Green Egg Style Cooker $331
Amazon.com: Char-Griller 16619 Kamado Kooker Charcoal Barbecue Grill and Smoker, Black: Patio, Lawn Garden
You can sometimes find the Char-Griller for cheaper at end of season at Kroger type store.
Ugly Drum Smoker - $150ish, depending on where you are at and cost of local materials.
Ugly Drum Smoker Plans | How to Build a UDS - Ugly Drum Smoker | HowtoBBQRight.com
Any of the offset smokers for your price point WILL suck. Just don't waste your money on those at your current price point unless you find a heck of a deal on Craigslist.
Amazon.com: Weber 721001 Smokey Mountain Cooker 18-1/2-Inch Charcoal Smoker, Black: Patio, Lawn Garden
I own the 22.5 model. These things cook great, put out food that tastes great, and are cost effective for what you want to do.
Green Egg Style Cooker $331
Amazon.com: Char-Griller 16619 Kamado Kooker Charcoal Barbecue Grill and Smoker, Black: Patio, Lawn Garden
You can sometimes find the Char-Griller for cheaper at end of season at Kroger type store.
Ugly Drum Smoker - $150ish, depending on where you are at and cost of local materials.
Ugly Drum Smoker Plans | How to Build a UDS - Ugly Drum Smoker | HowtoBBQRight.com
Any of the offset smokers for your price point WILL suck. Just don't waste your money on those at your current price point unless you find a heck of a deal on Craigslist.
BrutulTM
Good, bad, I'm the guy with the gun.
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Yeah the big green egg has the heat source at the bottom. If you want to smoke in it you need what they call a "plate setter" for indirect heat. I also use a stoker:
Rock's Bar-B-Que - Home
To control the heat. My point is that I have like $1500 in this setup and as a grill it's fucking awesome. As a smoker it works just as well as an electric smoker that would have cost $300 and been way easier to control the heat on.
Are you hung up on using charcoal? If not I would really think about an electric smoker, especially at that price range. My brother and a neighbor have electric smokers and they can usually do better than I can with my egg and it's a hell of a lot less work.
This one is a nice one. My neighbor has this brand and it's great.
Amazon.com: Smokin Tex 1100 Pro Series Electric Barbecue Smoker: Patio, Lawn Garden
There are cheaper models that work well too. I would just stay away from the fancy bradley ones with the digital readout and the little hockey pucks that they sell for 10 times the price of wood chips.
Gravy
Bronze Squire
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Noted.
And my nephew has built at least two of those metal barrel smokers, they actually work fairly decent. But I already live in hillbilly land, I'm trying really damned hard not to assimilate.
Brutal: Thanks for the info on the BGE. Yeah, I've got it in my head that I need to use charcoal. I've actually had food from a pellet smoker that was very good, however. I can't recall having anything out of an electric smoker, unless it was a restaurant maybe?
Erronius
<WoW Guild Officer>
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I've been trying out a new bread recipe and I've been trying to figure out why it keeps going south. The recipe insists on using a stand mixer with dough hooks, so I pulled out the cheap stand mixer I have (that has two dough hooks /boggle) and tried to use that. But the two hooks don't have much reach at all so they'd just clear out a divot in the middle of the dough and not mix it. I tried manually pushing the dough into the hooks without much success. I ended up where I was having to try doing it by hand and kept thinking"well fuck me, I should just fucking knead this at this point". I made it several times with different yeasts, flour, etc just to be sure. I even got a sifter to actually sift the flour which I rarely do. The bread still rose but it came out of the oven like a brick. But the dough hooks were so small...I kept wondering how they expected the hooks to reach more than a small fraction of the bowl...
So today I'm thinking that I can't be alone so I do some Googling to see what other people's results were with this mixer. Maybe it's just a shitty mixer. Then I see this pic:
And then it hits me: I never read any of the instructions and I totally disregarded the adjustment that moves the bowl base left and right. I even thought to myself "wonder WTF that adjustment is for?" while cleaning the countertop and mixer up. So no wonder the hooks just kept to the middle and didn't do shit.
Time to go try this again, /sigh.
So today I'm thinking that I can't be alone so I do some Googling to see what other people's results were with this mixer. Maybe it's just a shitty mixer. Then I see this pic:
And then it hits me: I never read any of the instructions and I totally disregarded the adjustment that moves the bowl base left and right. I even thought to myself "wonder WTF that adjustment is for?" while cleaning the countertop and mixer up. So no wonder the hooks just kept to the middle and didn't do shit.
Time to go try this again, /sigh.