Recipies & Cooking
What have you smoked lately? Q-view...
I tried making summer sausage for the first time over the weekend. As I've previously mentioned, all I have is one of those brinkman barrel style smokers, which does not produce persistent heat. I don't think that was my problem as much as not adding enough moisture into the meat when I was stuffing the casing. Anyhow, it had good flavor but the casing was shriveled and the meat was dryer than it should be.
Some of the spices/items I remember using on this pork butt: yellow mustard (binder), seasoned salt, black pepper, carolina dry rub mix, basil, thyme, Italian seasoning 2 bay leaves, and hungarian sweet paprika. I placed the roast in the crock pot and spread the seasonings around the roast. Then I filled the pot with apple juice, about half way up. I did not have any apple cider vinegar so I said to myself I wonder if regular vinegar would work. Well what the heck, sure enough it was fine. The roast was still half frozen when I went to bed so I put it on high for 9 hours. PLENTY done when I got up in the morning. My crock pot then left it on the keep warm stage until I got back from church. That's when I put it in my smoker, which is just a Akorn insulated grill, but it does a nice job of keeping the smoke in. Top vent was just cracked and so was the bottom. That gave me a temperature of 250-300 degrees in those 2 hours.
So if you're low on time and don't have an automatic type of smoker where it does all the work, give this a try. And oh, don't place the roast right on the grill grates or you'll probably lose some! I kept mine on aluminum foil, but did not cover it. My dad was afraid it would dry out, but it did not, at all.
Fishloveme, interesting that the meat took on much smoke flavor once it was fully cooked in the slow cooker. I started using a Bradley cabinet type smoke last year. I’ve made venison summer sausage, kielbasa, hot sticks and bacon with it. The first go around I used the Bradley to smoke and then bring to finish temperature what I made. I wasn’t happy with how the Bradley performed in getting to finish temperature. It struggles to get to the cabinet temperature needed and there is quite a lot of uneven temperature from rack to rack as well as front to back on the racks. To overcome that when I made a second batch of each I used the Bradley to add smoke and then moved the product to the house oven to achieve finish temperature which was considerably more uniform in temperature throughout. I have a pork butt that I am going to dry rub and smoke next week. I plan on finishing that in the oven also. I may do a beef chuck at the same time also. Pulled pork and shredded beef both can be vacuum sealed and frozen for a simple quick meal.
Pool8, yes. So tender it broke into about 5 pieces and the bone came right out. My dad feared I was going to ruin by drying it out on the grill. but I saved all the juices and it was real tender. Really saved me some time of not having to sit in front of my smoker all day watching the temp!
