# Happy New Years from a newbie in Thailand!!



## expat smoker (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi all....

Glad that I found this forum as I've always had a fetish for burning meat on the bar-b-q and consider myself a decent BBQ chef and have developed many of my own sauce and rub recipes that I'll share.

Now, I'm ready to play with you 'big boys' and get into smoking.....first as a hobby, then maybe as a pro.

I have a home made stainless steel BBQ that I fabricated out of a salvage water pressure tank that I purchased at scrap metal recycler, priced by the kilo and I call it a Webber that that will last generations. I'll try to post a foto of it in another post.  It has the shape of a Webber, but it has a 2.5 ft extension for slow cooking and it can be used as my first smoker with a few modifications.

Living in Thailand is always a challenge when it comes to finding things that you take for granted back in the US.....like hickory chips and certain spices, but I always seem to find substitutes and my first question is about tropical hardwoods that could be used as wood chips.

I've used both guava and lately tamarind with good results.  We also have lychee, mountain apple, lumiai [sp?] ranbutan,  and many other exotic woods.  A friend uses mango wood, but I have heard/read that it has toxins in the wood.

My question is does anyone have any experiences with tropical hard woods and what's the easiest way to make chios out of it?? My last attempt was with tamarind wood......super hard and after sawing a 3 inch log off it, I just wittled it down with a macheti, got a blister because of it's hardness.

Happy new years,

expat


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## s2k9k (Dec 31, 2012)

Hi expat! 
	

	
	
		
		



		
			






to SMF!!! We're happy you found us! You've come to the right place, we have over 40,000 members and over 800,000 posts so you should be able to find almost anything you want to know. Remember the search bar at the top can be your best friend for finding answers fast!

Would you do us a favor and update your profile to include your location, Thanks!

You might want to check out Jeff's Free 5 day E-course it will teach you all the basics and a whole lot more!

If you have any questions about the forums or need any help navigating around don’t hesitate to ask or send me a PM, I am more than happy to help out!


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## expat smoker (Jan 2, 2013)

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Happy 2013 all !!!

I'm an American expat living in Thailand and I'm new to smoking and have done only one smoke attempt after reading soo much conflicting info on google and decided to join this forum that seems to have a lot of experienced smokers.

My first attempt was in my home made bar-b-q, based on what I gleaned off the internet and after seeing that there are so many recipes, temps, times etc I saw that smoking isn't 'rocket science' and a lot of it is up2u.

The challenge of smoking here is that the ingredicents and parts to build your own smoker are not as easily available as it is in the US.

My first challenge was to find wood chips.....

there are lots of tropical fruit woods available and I choose tamarind, as there is an abandoned tree on the lot next door.  It's an extremely hard wood and took a lot of sawing to get a couple of logs that I had to whittle down to chip size and it was green wood that I gave a few days in the sun to dry.

My first questions are....

1] has anyone used tamarind wood for a smoke??

2] is there an easier way to make chips at home without a chipper??

3] and any issues with using green wood??

My first attempt was a strong flavored, but dark colored meat that was a little too dry.....any comments??

It was a 50/50 salt/sugar and a touch of sodium nitrate plus some herbs and orange peel that gave it a fruity flavor. Smoking time was just over 3 hrs and got the meat to 150 degrees.

Nice to meat you guys and hope to get some answers to my first questions and other future questions as I can see myself getting addicted to smoking..........

Expat


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## expat smoker (Jan 2, 2013)

I'm an an American expat living in Thailand and there are many challenges with most projects that you take for granted in the US.

Been lurking on this forum and have found that lots of you guys know your stuff, so I signed up and have twice tried to introduce myself on the roll call, but both attempts have failed.

My experience so far has been a bar b q master....no big thing, but I have recently tried dry rubs and this last weekend I tried my first real smoke on my home made smoker that needs some adjustments and had partial success.

I will post my questions on other appropriate forums.

Good to meat some fellow smokers.....

expat


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## gotarace (Jan 3, 2013)

Welcome Expat...We love to share and help in any way we can...as it was told to me when i started here ...the only silly question is the one you don't ask. Looking forward to your posts around the site..
	

	
	
		
		



		
		
	


	





Len


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