Smoking on the Gasser

[MikeCantell]

Chips and pellets will always have a lite smoke due to being heat treated, it's the only way they can be sold on the chips and making pellets involves heat, for over 30 years I have used shag bark and I hate folks can't find it due to where they live. Until you have tried it you won't know what took you so long to try it lol

 

[DanHoo]

The other night I cold smoked a tri tip with two tubes of pecan chips.

It was 105F outside, pit temp was about 130F with the two tubes smoldering. They smoked for about 2 hours.




Internal temp after two hours was about 95F. I was going to light coal but we were hungry and it was getting late so I finished it off on the E330. Center and Sear burner on high, outer burners on low. Lid down, flipped every minute or two until it came up to about 125F internal.



I pulled it off, wrapped the top in foil and let it rest in the grill shut off for about 15 mins while store bought frozen onion rings were air frying.





Sorry, no plated pics. This tri tip was as good as any with slow smoke finished on the gasser. I slow smoked it in the WSK because I intended to light coal, but there's no reason this can't be replicated on a gasser with a raised rack as shown previously.

 

[Jim Weber]

Nicely done!!!
Honestly --- even tho I would really 'like' to have a pellet smoker..... I just can't justify it - both from a cost and space standpoint... not to mention just ANOTHER pit to keep clean.

 

[Mike-BBQ]

I cold smoked a tri tip with two tubes of pecan chips.

Looks fantastic!
Has it been your experience that chips give as much smoke flavor as pellets? Did you use two tubes to give more smoke time/flavor, or are two tubes your standard practice?

 

[Jim Weber]

Did another meatloaf last night..... Got ~3.5 hours of smoke out of my tube -- I turned off the burner once it hit 140 IT and let is soak in the smoke for a good 30+ minutes -- then turned both on low to glaze. I was lazy - I should have done it on the kettle - but I was doing other things and didn't want to have to monitor the kettle. The gasser is just too easy.

I will say --- be careful if you start cooking like this -- when I was preheating the grill and cleaning - I could hear all the fat and grease bubbling once it hit ~350 on the lid - you really have to keep up on the cleaning or risk a grease fire. I'm sure its even worse now with all the fat and cheese that dripped out of my 'roaf'.

 

[Jim C in Denver]

I tried a whole bunch of these ideas (and more) in order to try to make my gasser a reasonable smoker. The gasser hacks all worked to a certain degree.

But this thread reminds me why I went ahead and got a smoker. My WSM (no surprise) smokes waaaaaaay better/easier than my gasser ever would.

 

[Mike-BBQ]

I will say --- be careful if you start cooking like this -- when I was preheating the grill and cleaning - I could hear all the fat and grease bubbling once it hit ~350 on the lid - you really have to keep up on the cleaning or risk a grease fire. I'm sure its even worse now with all the fat and cheese that dripped out of my 'roaf'.

I would think that you would put a pan or disposable aluminum try under the meat, and that would cut down on any grease fire issues. Of course you still have to watch and monitor.

 

[Jim Weber]

I would think that you would put a pan or disposable aluminum try under the meat, and that would cut down on any grease fire issues. Of course you still have to watch and monitor.

Yeah --- I've never gotten around to doing that.... In reality, its really not that much worse than when I 'just grilled' chicken on the grates --- same problem, only I was much better at burning it off each time I started the grill...... Actually, its amazing how quickly the flavor bars build up crud - and I feel compelled to scrape those fairly often - its not that much harder to pull the drip pan and scrape it out each time too. I'm sure many here would say 'thats just too much work'.... and then complain about the inevitable grease fire. I'm not offended by cleaning the grill every 2-4 weeks to prevent an inferno while its producing such tasty food for me on a regular basis. I also think its a flaw in the design of the Spirit(I) and others drip pan being so shallow and the drain being offset --- the grease/fat just doesn't seem to drain - especially from the far side of the pan - it just sits in the bottom of the pan caught in the gunk. I may have to switch/swap sides for the hot side/cold side to see if that would change anything.

 

[Jim Weber]

I tried a whole bunch of these ideas (and more) in order to try to make my gasser a reasonable smoker. The gasser hacks all worked to a certain degree.

But this thread reminds me why I went ahead and got a smoker. My WSM (no surprise) smokes waaaaaaay better/easier than my gasser ever would.

Oh I agree. Its just that I have a hard time burning so much coal for such small cooks -- I save the WSM for much bigger cooks.
In Chud's BBQ vid the other day, he was cooking three chicken quarters and even he commented ' I'm pretty sure I spent ALOT more on the coal for this cook than the meat.... I'll have to rethink this...'. Yeah - there is a problem if you are spending $5 on coals to cook $3 of meat regularly --- propane and a pellet tube is less than a buck..... probably half that.

 

[Jonas-Switzerland]

I would think that you would put a pan or disposable aluminum try under the meat, and that would cut down on any grease fire issues. Of course you still have to watch and monitor.

Yes, this works very well. I had a shallow pan lying around which fits in the space between the bars and the grill.

It helps if you often switch between low and slow fatty meats and high-heat searing for steaks'n friends. As I did a few years back.

Although the one time I had a grease fire was due to the fat drippings of sausages.

E: Had another thought and read up a bit on gas grill grease fires. Its just FYI: I did a deep clean each year, and did not clean the inside of the grill between each deep clean. So what happened was the drip pan gunked up, and fresh fat from the sausages built a flammable layer on top of it. Then, I fired up the spirit. The fresh fat ignited the gunk.

You can get away with a lot of old gunk. It is harder to ignite. But it does burn.

I should clean my spirit. Its been over two years since the last deep clean.

 

[R Chin]

I smoked pork chops on the Vieluxe for a couple hours around 120-150f using only the smoker burner then increased temp with a main burner until internal temp got over 140f

Then seared on wsk with vortex clone - lots of smoke flavor (sorry forgot to take additional pics of finished product)

 

[DanHoo]

Looks fantastic!
Has it been your experience that chips give as much smoke flavor as pellets? Did you use two tubes to give more smoke time/flavor, or are two tubes your standard practice?

I didn't see your question last August.

I find chips burn cleaner than pellets and I can get thinner grey blue smoke with chips. The other reason is I don't have pecan or post oak pellets.

I use two tubes for smoke and to get a little heat. In summer, when it's hot out I can get pit temps 130F to 150F just using smoke tubes. 90 mins and IT of a tri tip is 100F to 115. Some times I'll light a little coal after an hour to speed it along.

 

[Mike-BBQ]

Thanks. Interesting. So your heat source is basically your tubes---not even using your gas in the summer time. Maybe that would give you a real low and slow.

 

[DanHoo]

Yeah, just smoke tubes for the start, but keep in mind I'm smoking in my BGE or my WSK and they'll hold heat and will likely get hotter than a gas grill turned off.

 

[Mike-BBQ]

That's been my learning curve to keep the temp relatively constant. My old smoker was a ECB (El Cheapo Brinkman) that kept the top grill grate at 196 degrees no matter what I did for input--smoke-- or meat. Made me real lazy!!

 

[Richard Ef]

I have used the smoke tube for cold or colder type smokes.
It works great for adding smoke flavor to things like homemade lox or cream cheese.
I don’t much care for the type of smoked salmon that is overly cooked so I will use the smoke tube to cold(ish) smoke the fish to what I call salmon candy.
This works well with sturgeon too.

I normally use an extra smoker and place the tube at the lowest point with a tray below a higher rack.
I will lay down the tube down at an angle in a pan or a smoke and sear (for elevation issues) if I’m using a kettle.

If I just had a gasser at my disposal I wouldn’t do it much different.
Maybe smoke using the tube for a bit.
When the flavor is what you want switch the cook style back to your regular gasser cook style.

I don’t care for smoked salmon per se, but I could eat my weight in lox. How do you cold smoke it?

 

[AndyK]

For me the Lox starts out with brine of sugar, salt and some spices.
It then goes onto a rack or racks to get the cold smoke treatment.
I use stainless steel tubes or a stainless serpentine flat.
I’ve also crunched up a strainer before in a pinch and it worked well.
I like mine cold smoked for the better part of the day.
I then wrap in plastic for another day or so.

I can make gravlox (brine only) with a dash or two of liquid smoke and most people would think it’s lox (been smoked).

Did I answer you question?