145ºF for 16 Hours - Double Diffuser


 

Shawn W

TVWBB Emerald Member
145ºF for 16 Hours - Double Diffuser Smoked CuredBeef

Hi all!

I'm cooking mostly on my Big Steel Keg these days .. haven't used my WSM for perhaps 3 years now, but I fired it up to smoke some beef I cured. I managed to run it at 140ºF to 150ºF for 16 hours on a load of briqs by doing a double diffusion method.

I had the regular 1 gallon WSM water pan in filled with loose crumpled foil and covered with foil. Then I put my brinkmann 2 gallon water pan on the lower grate. The WSM water pan shielded the brinkmann pan containing water from direct radiant heat. I only lost an inch of water from the brinkmann pan through the whole cook!

Top vent was open about 1/3, bottom vents were open about 1/6 each. Once it was stabilized I went to bed, checked it in 4 hours, a strong wind had come up and the temp was down to 110ºF. I adjusted the vents to get the temp back up and carried on. If only I had used my Guru.

The beef was $2/lb eye of round sale, dry cured for 28 with nothing more than granulated garlic, fresh ground pepper before smoking. Using the meat as is, in salads, fried as 'beef back bacon', topped an omelette with it and I'll be doing Ruben's this week for sure











 
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Great to see you post Shawn. ...and a great post! Interesting technique to keep the temps down. I am always amazed how we all have different ways to make the cooker perform.
 
Thanks guys!

One more thing. After 16 hours I let the temp climb over 200ºF to finish at 140ºF (avg) by 18 hours.

Looks amazing. I would be interested in how you cured it.

*DISCLAIMER: my digi-scale was out that day, looked up weight of cure#1 by volume and converted. Use at your own risk.

Eye of round: 3238g
*Cure #1: 8.08g ... I used 1.7t
1/4C Morton-like kosher salt
1T raw cane sugar. One could easily triple this if you wish to hide saltiness better. I'm ok with this, recognizing the salt cured product for what it is, enjoying in moderation.
1.5T granulated garlic

Cured 7 days per inch of thickness (28 days).

The one thing I would do different is trim the silver skin and soft fat off before applying the cure leaving only 1/4" of the hard white fat. I was almost crying cutting off all that smokey goodness after it was smoked, but the trade-off is a more moist product if you leave it on.

Applied most of the cure mix to exposed meaty areas, some to the fatty areas. Kept in a 36ºF fridge for 28 days.
 

 

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