Half a lamb


 
S

Shamus

New member
I have half a lamb in the fridge, and am about to start this weekend's experiment in smoking.

I have purchased lamb carcass from the halal guys before, but in the past, I've braised the ribs and shank for a stew/curry and only smoked the leg. The halal guys usually sell stuff that's yearling at best, mutton at worst, as lamb, which I like just fine. mutton leg takes to a long slow smoke better than lean lamb.

This time, I got a tiny little thing that looks like real lamb. It was the only one that they had. half the carcass didn't even make 9 pounds. In the past, when I've done grocery store lamb, even for bone-in, I've jacked the temperature up to around 300 and didn't really BBQ it so much as grill with some wood smoke.

I'm determined to put at least 10 hours of smoke on this one. I wasn't planning on brining, but with it being so lean, I'm going to do that, then wrap it in bacon for extra external fat.

I had them cut it into leg, ribs, and shank. I'm tempted to put the shank into the crockpot and make up some curried lentils as a side dish. I have this lamb and beef stock in the freezer.

If I don't do the lentils thing, I'll smoke the shank with bacon wrap for 4 hours or so, and I'm thinking the ribs will need 8. I'm looking into ways to trim. I'm going to go with Alder wood and a garlic oil marinade after taking them out of brine.

Since this all is for the superbowl, that means an early morning or late night.
 
Sorry to take over a year to respond. I lost my smoking notebook, so I'll have to go from my admittedly poor memory. The temp was 200-225 most of the night. I had the goal of serving at halftime and staggered the meat additions. Then I thought that it would be easier on me if I staggered taking meat off throughout the superbowl.

So the leg got more like 9.5 hours of smoke rather than the 10 I'd planned on. I don't recall the internal temperature, but it was cooked to medium. I prefer meduim rare for lamb, so at those temps, I think that 8-8.5 hours would work better. If I was better at keeping the bullet around 200, then 9.5 hours would have been just about right. I probably didn't need to add the bacon, but I've never regretted adding bacon to anything.

Ribs got 7 hours of smoke. I could have trimmed it better, but the cook time was perfect.

The shank was forgotten a bit as we watched the game. so it ended up getting 5.5 hours of smoke. I was stuffed full of lamb at that point, but the thing was falling apart, so I had to make room. Worth the discomfort. I think if I'm doing a small party for say, a boxing PPV, I might just do a whole bullet full of lamb shanks.

The lamb had a great smoke ring and had the right amount of alder flavor. The gaminess of it was on the light side. I imagine that's partially the fault of the brine. I guess if you're going to try to feed lamb to someone who doesn't like the gaminess, a good way would be to really trim it down, brine it, and replace the fat with bacon, then smoke.

All in all, it was a great meal, the superbowl folks liked it, and I had great leftovers. That was worth only getting 3 hours of sleep.
 
shamus, is it alright if I read your year-late post in an Irish-accent after having drank considrable guinness?
 
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