There was a food thread a while back but I can't find it. I'm staring a new one in hope of many people joining in and sharing the foodie fun with experience, pictures and fun.
I'll start it off. I'm new to smoking but love me some good Q. I have made ribs and bbq up some good stuff many times but never really tried to smoke any Q to the point where a good bark formed. Anyhoo, being a Texan, I'm on a journey to learn how to make good Q.
I did plenty of research and learned lots of BBQ, grills and smokers. I decided I want to make me a nice stick burner one day but for now, an electric smoker will do nicely. After many many hours and nights reading and researching, I bought what many consider a great electric smoker. I decided on a MasterBuilt Electric Smoker A.K.A MES. The original MES is a good buy with great reviews. The MES version 2 sucked and has many flaws but they company reached out to buyers on its problems and updated to a MES version 2.5.Once that part one decided, the bargain hunt was on. I searched high and low for the cheapest deal and sales around. I was in no rush as I had plenty of food to eat even though it was not smoked meat. A few weeks go buy and I decided Sam's has the best deal so off I went and brought one home.
The MES comes in a 30''' and a 40'' version. Being a Texan and Vietnamese with a big family, I bought the 40''. I have use it once and it worked awesomely well. I later did more research and found ways to make it even better and so I did.
Anyhoo, I bought a slab of pork picnic that was on sale for 99c/lb and put her in a mix of cola and bbq sauce after de-boning it. I let her sit in the fridge for a few days flipping her over everyday. I usually make my own run but I have been tired and especially lazy so I went and used some store bought brisket dry rub (McCornmik me thinks). I took the slabs of meat (I cut it in two since it was a huge chunk at around 11lbs) when I came home from work and set her on the counter to warm up a little. After a little nap (I had worked that night) I went and started up the MES to 275f (it's max temp) and let it sit and warm up for a good 15 minutes as I prep the Pellet tray I made and apply the rub.
I simply took the meat out the bag, blot it dry some but left some moisture on so the rub would stick and sprinkled the 2 pieces with the pre-made rub.
On to the pellet smoking tray. I made my own knock off version of the A-Maze-n smoking try from some nice heavy duty SS mesh my brother in law had at his shop. A few cuts with the grinder, a few bends on the break and some SS wire to tie her together and I was good to go. I had order a 20# bag of hardwood pellets of Amazon for like $15. I took some pellect and set her into a microwave safe tray and ran her for 1 min, stir when it stopped and repeat. This rids of moisture in the pellets so they burn and smolder easier. Once dry I loaded the home made pellet try and lit one end up with my cigar torch and let her burn.
Once My MES 2.5 was up to 275f, I loaded her up with 2 slabs of meat, pushed in 2 therms and placed the pellet tray on the bottom shelf. The MES has a built in therm but I was not sure how accurate it was so I stuck my other hand held one int he meat so I could verify how accurate the built in one was. So far the are within 1 deg of each other so I'll call it good.
The unit and smoker try combo is pretty much a set it and forget it system. The MES maintains the temp while the Pellet try supply the smoke. So far so good. I have a few more hours to go before I can take the pork out and let it rest then pull them for sammiches.
On with the pics!
This is the 40'' MES I got from Sam's for like $380 or something I don't remember.
This is the control unit where you can set the temps, alarm, timer for it to shut off, and bluetooth so that you can connect it to your phone so you can monitor or adjust the MES setting, food temp (it has built in therm) or timer.
The vent is on the top left side but the wind keeps blowing cool air into the cooker so I added a little aluminum ell to block the wind. I get a nice dark condensation of water around the vent. This dark stuff is liquid smoke. Yes, the same thing you get in a bottle at the grocery store to add smoke flavor to your food. I don't harvest it since I have the real deal but it's cool to know I can harvest it if I wanted.
MEAT!! around 3.5 hours. I started it off at 275f when I first placed the meat since the meat was cold and would drop the temp in the cooker fast. After about 30 minutes I turned the MES down to 210 and that is where she sits now.
This is a picture of my DIY pellet smoking tray. I simply made a rectangle and then added a 'upside down 'V' shaped divider so they the tray would have a "U" trough for the pellets to sit in. You load the tray up with dry pellets then light it with a torch on one end of the 'U'. The pellets will burn and smolder creating smoke as it burns it's way from one leg of the U to the other. That picture was at 3.5 hours and only burnt to 1 end of the U.
Will report back with more later.
Please come and join me in the cooking. Post your specialty and recipes for other to try.
YzGyz