Morning everyone,
I’ve been struggling with the absolute basics of smoking so thought id just ask your guys’ advice. Hopefully someone can answer my questions :)
For reference, heres my set up and experience so far,
Callow smoker no mods apart from just putting some foil around the door and charcoal tray. I boiled some water and it was a soft boil and the thermos showed 65c-75c. I’m using (probably incorrectly) Weber briquettes and their chimney starter.
I’ll just mention temperatures as shown on the thermo because my calibration wasn’t scientific. Btw, scalded my hand a touch when testing and didn’t blister so probably not as near boiling as I thought...
Cook 1 - Brisket. Disaster. Pure trial and error no expectations so wont bore you.
Cook 2, yesterday - Brisket 0.5kg. Dry rub overnight with garlic salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt.
I got the smoker up and running with a full chimney of lit bricks. Whacked the lid on and left it for 50 minutes and it showed 120c.
1pm- Put in a shallow bit of hot water and the meat. Put the water on the lower grill tray rather than it’s dedicated hooks and the meat in a baking tray on the top grill tray. Temp dropped to 90c doing all this.
2pm- Checked an hour later - same situation so didn’t open anything, just moved smoker back into the sun.
3pm- Same again an hour later - out of curiosity, peeped at the charcoal tray and it was just simmering away with not much doing. Just under 90c
4.45pm- Got distracted putting together a wardrobe, checked in and temp had dropped to 70c. Stirred the charcoal a bit and did about 8 bricks in the chimney. One each piece had a bit of glowing white, I whacked them and some more warm water in.
6pm- half time in the FA Cup final, temp around 65c. Stirred the charcoal to try get some life in
7pm- temp dropped to 60c. Stirred the charcoal again and put some little bits of kindling from my indoor fire in try and ignite something.
9pm- temp getting down towards 45c now. Last ditch attempt, I put a log on it to see if it would ignite.
10pm- nine hours in there for the meat, I pulled it out.
It smelled and looked delicious on the thin half but dry and grey on the thick half. Cut off a pink ish piece that had a nice crust on it.
Just tasted of too much rub and smoke , biting at your throat in a sweet and ashy taste. Not great. The texture was like over cooked roast beef. Needed about 30 chews. And another 15. Just to swallow.
Gave it up as a bad job at this point as I read somewhere that you should leave it to rest before eating. This morning, it’s just the same.
Okay, my questions:
1. When it comes to starting the Weber bricks, should they be fully white like on a charcoal bbq?
2. Brisket. Is that this a tricky meat to start with?
3. Brisket taste. How smoky should it taste? I didn’t wrap in foil after a couple of hours because I wanted the crispy bark. Maybe this was an error.
4. Getting the heat up - how do I do this? I had the bottom vents 100% open and top 100% closed all day.
5. Patience - the smoker was still ticking over at 45c this morning. Could I have left the brisket on overnight?
I’m in a quandary now because I need to go back right to square one I think.
Hope somebody can help with some super basics for an absolute novice.
Cheers!
Paul
I’ve been struggling with the absolute basics of smoking so thought id just ask your guys’ advice. Hopefully someone can answer my questions :)
For reference, heres my set up and experience so far,
Callow smoker no mods apart from just putting some foil around the door and charcoal tray. I boiled some water and it was a soft boil and the thermos showed 65c-75c. I’m using (probably incorrectly) Weber briquettes and their chimney starter.
I’ll just mention temperatures as shown on the thermo because my calibration wasn’t scientific. Btw, scalded my hand a touch when testing and didn’t blister so probably not as near boiling as I thought...
Cook 1 - Brisket. Disaster. Pure trial and error no expectations so wont bore you.
Cook 2, yesterday - Brisket 0.5kg. Dry rub overnight with garlic salt, cayenne pepper, black pepper and salt.
I got the smoker up and running with a full chimney of lit bricks. Whacked the lid on and left it for 50 minutes and it showed 120c.
1pm- Put in a shallow bit of hot water and the meat. Put the water on the lower grill tray rather than it’s dedicated hooks and the meat in a baking tray on the top grill tray. Temp dropped to 90c doing all this.
2pm- Checked an hour later - same situation so didn’t open anything, just moved smoker back into the sun.
3pm- Same again an hour later - out of curiosity, peeped at the charcoal tray and it was just simmering away with not much doing. Just under 90c
4.45pm- Got distracted putting together a wardrobe, checked in and temp had dropped to 70c. Stirred the charcoal a bit and did about 8 bricks in the chimney. One each piece had a bit of glowing white, I whacked them and some more warm water in.
6pm- half time in the FA Cup final, temp around 65c. Stirred the charcoal to try get some life in
7pm- temp dropped to 60c. Stirred the charcoal again and put some little bits of kindling from my indoor fire in try and ignite something.
9pm- temp getting down towards 45c now. Last ditch attempt, I put a log on it to see if it would ignite.
10pm- nine hours in there for the meat, I pulled it out.
It smelled and looked delicious on the thin half but dry and grey on the thick half. Cut off a pink ish piece that had a nice crust on it.
Just tasted of too much rub and smoke , biting at your throat in a sweet and ashy taste. Not great. The texture was like over cooked roast beef. Needed about 30 chews. And another 15. Just to swallow.
Gave it up as a bad job at this point as I read somewhere that you should leave it to rest before eating. This morning, it’s just the same.
Okay, my questions:
1. When it comes to starting the Weber bricks, should they be fully white like on a charcoal bbq?
2. Brisket. Is that this a tricky meat to start with?
3. Brisket taste. How smoky should it taste? I didn’t wrap in foil after a couple of hours because I wanted the crispy bark. Maybe this was an error.
4. Getting the heat up - how do I do this? I had the bottom vents 100% open and top 100% closed all day.
5. Patience - the smoker was still ticking over at 45c this morning. Could I have left the brisket on overnight?
I’m in a quandary now because I need to go back right to square one I think.
Hope somebody can help with some super basics for an absolute novice.
Cheers!
Paul