My crack at smoking on the smokey joe


 
G

Gerald Raucamp

TVWBB Member
Well, here's an action picture of the smokey joe:


Smokey Joe Smoking by caveymon, on Flickr

Set it up fairly simple (no pictures unfortunately, just a description :P)

firebricks for division, minion type method for lighting. Aluminium foil as some kind of air intake guider over the coalgrate. Simple aluminium waterholderthingie.

Item smoked: some chicken. I used the weber hickory chips, wrapped in some tinfoil, directly on the hot briquettes. Pinched a hole in the tinfoil and let it smoke. Only lasted 15 minutes though. Any tips on prolonging the smoke, barring the "let it soak in water" technique?

And hickory gives a strong taste to the meat! That was a very novell taste to me
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Next up: using the Ikea Fantast as thermometer.
 
A couple of suggestions, use chunks (split) instead of chips, and place them mixed in with the unlit. That being said, I prefer lightly smoked and just the charcoal works for me. Welcome to the club.
 
Hi Paul,

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find chunks yet, so opted for the Weber chips. They burn out fast though.

Mostly I've been using rosemary and thyme to smoke/flavour the meat by placing branches on top of the grillgrate over the coals, or just place them over the meat and let the oven/heat take care of the flavouring.

Brendan: So far my Ikea thermometer is working good ^_^ Read a lot of mixed reviews on the unit though, but happy so far *fingers crossed*
 
Gerald, any chance of finding fruit wood (apple, cherry, maple) in your area that you could chunk yourself? Might be a better source of wood than the store's chips. That being said, I'm clueless of the tree types in your area.
 
Paul: Well, my parents used to have some apple, pear and cherry trees in the garden. Now only a couple of pears are left, but no chunks or anything. That's all been cleared up couple of years ago (by means of the fireplace :D)
There are some orchards around though, so I'll give that a go, very thoughtful suggestion! Hadn't thought of that myself.
Tree types around: birches, oaks, elmtrees (although most have been removed due to a disease), occasional maple tree, Chestnut. All-in-all I guess just your average climate trees.

Gave the smoker another go couple of weeks ago, started out with these (have to grab them from facebook, forgot to upload them to flickr, and I'm not home right now but do want to share...... :D)

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Made a nice little marinade based on various char siu recipes on the internet and what was available in the cupboard.

result:
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setup:
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Hickory chips slightly soaked in water, wrapped up in tinfoil and put on top of the grate, some tinfoil for the bottom of the coalgrate and my makeshift heatsink (2 pieces of bricks). The smoke seemed to be a lot better this time. Thin blue smoke for quite a long time \o/

Ikea temp reading, battery is virtually flat, but still going strong :D
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My first elusive thin blue smoke
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and finally, the end result after 3 hours of smoke, with the last 30 minutes some simple basting with honey and soysauce:
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The meat was cooked through and through, the smoke flavour was not overpowering at all, and texture wise the meat was actually a bit snappy. Moist and snappy. Not falling of the bone, but I guess that would be possible with using the 3-2-1 method? I got rather impatient, since I started a bit late (5pm, and dinner was served around 830pm). Next time I'll start earlier and do the foiling with some applejuice or something like that, or just some of the marinade, to enhance the flavour more.
 
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I think you did a great job. When you do decide to go 3-2-1 may I recommend some brown sugar, margarine, honey, and if possible tiger sauce when you wrap vs apple juice. You'll get pleny of liquid from this due to steam from the meat. If you can't find tiger sauce I think it would be ok to ommit it. Good luck and we look forward to more posts!
 
Hmm, that seems like a very good suggestion. I was contemplating using the basting sauce too, could add some brownsugar and some thai sweet chili sauce in the mix to spice it up a bit :D (instead of the tiger sauce)
 
Those ribs look pretty good to me too. I prefer non-foiled ribs for a better bite. They still get tender w/o the foil. Just use a toothpick to see if it'll slide though the meat with very little resistance. I've done Chinese/dim sum style cut spares w/ char ski sauce on the SJG in about 3 hrs w/o foil and no thermo. Just start checking for tender after a couple-three hours.

It's all good.
 
That's my understanding too, I thought there was an article about it on the virtualweberbullet.com main site, but can't find it now. So I probably saw it someplace else.

The main idea is to smoke it first for 2-3 time units, then foil it up with some applejuice or some other kind of juice/sauce/basting/what you prefer to steam the meat a bit and add some extra sweetness or flavouring depending on what you use in the foil, or just have it steam in its own juices. Usually done for 1-2 time units, and then finishing up with a normal grill/indirect heating with basting to make up for the final product. For 1 time unit.

So depending on size, type of meat, and your own personal preferences, the units are usually counted in hours. Some go for 2.5 hours, and adjust accordingly, others prefer something of a 2-2-1 setup. It's all just up to your own taste :D

And boy, it takes time! Had no idea real notion of how much time is involved with smoking meat this way :D

Google/youtube for various 3-2-1 spareribs method descriptions, they'll usually boil down to the above :D
 
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