Goal: To enjoy tender and smokey BBQ meats that are cooked perfectly with minimum complications and costs involved.
Problem: I have a busy job and a young family (3 y.o. and baby) at home. Needless to say, I don't often get a big chunk of free time between chasing an active toddler around and changing the baby's diapers. The meats I like to smoke are ribs, pork butts and briskets which are 5hrs to 15hrs long. The WSM does a decent job of holding temperature but it needs occasional vent adjustments and monitoring (meat tempt and grate temp) during the cook. Recipes involve spraying meat and wrapping in foil. Brisket can be very unforgiving if not done right....it's a lot of money wasted when ruined. These days, all meat prices have also significantly increased so I like to cook well to enjoy the food and not waste any money. I have done a few overnight long cooking session but get a bit worried since the WSM is sitting on my wooden deck....a bad storm might knock it over and cause a fire.
Proposed Solutions:
1) Sous Vide + Smoker: I saw on youtube someone had used the sous vide device to cook the pork ribs at the set temperature for 12 hours to tenderize the meat. Then they took it out and smoked it for 2 hours to get the smokey flavor. This approach was very appealing to me. It seem to incorporate the best of both worlds. The ability to perfectly cook the meat for tenderness and add a short smoking session for natural smoke flavors. I could see myself doing the sous vide overnight without any fire concerns. Then smoke it at 10am and have it for lunch by noon. This would have been difficult to pull off with my regular cooking session unless I start at 7am for a rack of ribs. The equipment costs seem reasonable at $80 for a sous vide device and maybe another $80 for food saver vacuum seal device. I figured my wife can also use the sous vide for some of her cooking recipes (salmon, chicken, veggies, etc.) so it can have multiple usage. The food vacuum can help us buy bulk meat and also store leftover BBQ better so that's a plus.
2) ATC Device: My backup plan is to get the DigiQ device which goes for about $180. This would make my WSM more of a set and forget cooking session. However, it doesn't eliminate my wood deck concern for overnight cooks. This would be a single use equipment since we can't use for anything else besides smoking meat.
Has anyone ever used the sous vide plus smoker method? Do you recommended as a solution to my situation? Advice/ideas?
Problem: I have a busy job and a young family (3 y.o. and baby) at home. Needless to say, I don't often get a big chunk of free time between chasing an active toddler around and changing the baby's diapers. The meats I like to smoke are ribs, pork butts and briskets which are 5hrs to 15hrs long. The WSM does a decent job of holding temperature but it needs occasional vent adjustments and monitoring (meat tempt and grate temp) during the cook. Recipes involve spraying meat and wrapping in foil. Brisket can be very unforgiving if not done right....it's a lot of money wasted when ruined. These days, all meat prices have also significantly increased so I like to cook well to enjoy the food and not waste any money. I have done a few overnight long cooking session but get a bit worried since the WSM is sitting on my wooden deck....a bad storm might knock it over and cause a fire.
Proposed Solutions:
1) Sous Vide + Smoker: I saw on youtube someone had used the sous vide device to cook the pork ribs at the set temperature for 12 hours to tenderize the meat. Then they took it out and smoked it for 2 hours to get the smokey flavor. This approach was very appealing to me. It seem to incorporate the best of both worlds. The ability to perfectly cook the meat for tenderness and add a short smoking session for natural smoke flavors. I could see myself doing the sous vide overnight without any fire concerns. Then smoke it at 10am and have it for lunch by noon. This would have been difficult to pull off with my regular cooking session unless I start at 7am for a rack of ribs. The equipment costs seem reasonable at $80 for a sous vide device and maybe another $80 for food saver vacuum seal device. I figured my wife can also use the sous vide for some of her cooking recipes (salmon, chicken, veggies, etc.) so it can have multiple usage. The food vacuum can help us buy bulk meat and also store leftover BBQ better so that's a plus.
2) ATC Device: My backup plan is to get the DigiQ device which goes for about $180. This would make my WSM more of a set and forget cooking session. However, it doesn't eliminate my wood deck concern for overnight cooks. This would be a single use equipment since we can't use for anything else besides smoking meat.
Has anyone ever used the sous vide plus smoker method? Do you recommended as a solution to my situation? Advice/ideas?
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/__opt__aboutcom__coeus__resources__content_migration__serious_eats__seriouseats.com__recipes__images__2016__07__20160801-sous-vide-brisket-guide-35-460f78a538054fc69bd97f2e16b4bd74.jpg)
