Saturday: First Smoke of the New Year!

hurriken · Jan 6, 2012

I hope this is posted in the right place it's kind of a mish-mash smoke.

I smoked a turkey on New Years eve in my new WSM and my wife has been chirping about wanting me to try more this weekend. What a woman! We talked about doing a small pork loin we have in the freezer. Then we start digging through and she keeps saying yes and and I keep saying What a woman! We ended up with 1-3lb pork loin, 2-pork shoulder steaks(we didn't know what to do with these they came buried under an assorted pork chop package we bought at Sam's. One is over 1lb and the other is about 12oz), 4-Johnsonville original Brats, and a Corned Beef....

...A Corned Beef? I thought what can I do with that? I started searching this site and found out about making pastrami. They had me at hello! I settled on a version made by "The Dude Abides". It's very straight forward so I think I will follow it to a T. I have already soaked it for 12 hours, applied EVO, Old Bay, and Pickling spice. Pickling spice? really? Sounds very odd but if you say so, you seem to know what your doing Dude so I will...abide.

Just about the time I got the brisket smoking and the pork thawed my wife remembered that we have to be at my nephews B-Day party at 2:00pm. That will be 3-4 hours away from the smoker. So it gets complicated.

Here is what I'm thinking/hoping. If I get the WSM going at 225-250 stable by 1:30pm I will put the Pastrami on. I'll got to the party and when I return I'm assuming the Pastrami will have a ways to go still (The Pastrami for for another days meal) so I will leave it on and put the Pork Loin, bratwurst and Two Steaks on. I will smoke the Steaks to 135 and then transfer them to a hot WK to finish. I will sear them and grill some onions at the same time. The Onions will go on top of the steaks and add a few spoonfuls of BBQ sauce that I made. Cook them until finished, boom dinner. The loin will stay until 145-155 and then get foiled. Am I going to be awake until 3:00am? I'm open to any advice. Should I finish the brats on the WK also?

I bought some chunk coal, Frontier brand and some hickory chunks. I also have smaller mesquite chunks, hickory chips and apple chips. What do you recommend for my fire?

big andy a · Jan 6, 2012

I'm thing that you add some chicken and a little salmon and you've got the entire meat aisle at the grocery. Wow!!

I would love to give advice on the cooking procedure but it's too much for me. I'll just wish you good look and look forward to the Q-View when it's all done.

Curt.

sprky · Jan 7, 2012

Sounds like your going to have a good smoke. If i was smoking it I'd use the hickory chunks, for smoke wood, and throw a few hand fulls of apple chips in.

SmokinAl · Jan 7, 2012

Can't wait to see how this turns out!

hurriken · Jan 7, 2012

There seems to be two minion methods. I was planning to try Al's way but since I won't be here for the first few hours I think I will try the old school way. I bought some frontier Lump charcoal and some big Hickory chunks. I never tried lump before either so I'm afraid if I try Al's way there may be a chance the fire would go out while I'm gone. I'm going to put water in the pan. My target temp is 225-250. I will light the fire and when I put the WSM together I will close the top vent. I found two methods for the bottom vents. 1) close two and open one halfway. Then start adjusting the closed vents to reach temp. 2) Close top vent and open the bottom vents to one quarter. Adjust top vent to desired temp. If a peak is reached before the desired temp then adjust bottom vents.

I'd love your opinions?

SmokinAl · Jan 7, 2012

Always run it with the top vent wide open.

scarbelly · Jan 7, 2012

Looking forward to seeing the results. Very ambitious smoke

hurriken · Jan 7, 2012

Well I missed Al's post. I put the pastrami on with the temp at a solid 225. I returned home 3.5 hours later and the temp was at 175. One side of the Minion ring did not ignite.The meat is at 145 though. I made some adjustments to the fire. What I did was open all three vents to 1/4 and started with the top vent closed. I adjusted the top vent every ten minutes until I was at a steady 225.I'm afraid to make any major changes now.

I guess you run with the top wide open and the bottoms at1/4? It seems like it would run hot like that.

I'm getting ready to put the rest of the meat on.

hurriken · Jan 7, 2012

I couldn't get the rest of the ring to ignite so I opened the top up full and the two front bottom vents to one third(am I Q'ing or piloting a submarine?) and I finally was able to get it to rise above 200. It's running steady at 240 now.

This is the Corny before I put it on.

The pork.

I seasoned the steaks with salt and pepper and the Loin with this.

I'm really liking this stuff. I really gravitate to any rub that has citrus in it.

Here it is on the WSM. The Steaks just got pulled off at 135.

The Pastrami is at 145 right now.I'm firing up the WK for the steaks now.

hurriken · Jan 7, 2012

The Pork Steaks:

This is something I've done with pork chops on my WK for years. I have never used pork steaks or started them on my smoker though.

As the steaks approached 130 I fired up the WK and set up a very hot indirect fire. Then I cut up an onion the "wrong" way.

Then cut the onion in half and spear it.

Then into a bowl for with some EVO, salt, and pepper.

I forget where I learned this but what it does is when you grill the onions they retain some of the crisp. I really like it this way on grilled meat. Throw the onions and steaks over direct heat.

By the time the steaks are seared on both sides the onions will be in good shape. Move the steaks to indirect heat and smother both steaks with onions. Then put 2-3TBS of BBQ sauce over the onions and steak but don't worry too much about spreading it out. Grill to desired temp. The BBQ sauce will melt into the onions and spread out.

My steaks shot to the temp I wanted faster than I was hoping so the sauce did not get the chance to "melt" as much as I would have liked.I then plated the steaks and pulled the brats off of the smoker.

I was really pleased with this smoke.

I had never smoked brats before. I will definitely be smoking them again.

That was a great meal.

Next update should be the Pork Loin or the Pastrami.

jrod62 · Jan 7, 2012

looks great !!!!!

hurriken · Jan 7, 2012

I pulled the pastrami(180 on the thin side, 175 on the thick) and pork loin(155). I foiled them both, wrapped them in a towel and set them in a cooler to rest. Something I never thought of...since I'm not going to eat them tonight, what do I do with them? I'm sure going to taste them but then into the fridge. I'm tired!

I guess 'strami is easy just slice it and make reuben's. The Loin might be tough to warm up without drying it out so I may slice that up too. I have a cheapo meat slicer. What do you think?

hurriken · Jan 8, 2012

The pork loin is like butter and it is delicious. I think next time I may add some brown sugar to the rub. It would have made a better crust.

The pastrami makes the pork loin seem like dog food! The pastrami is amazing. I felt like eating as much as I could right there.I will be doing this again.

johnnie walker · Jan 8, 2012

it looks like everything turned out great for you. That pastrami looks awesome.

rdknb · Jan 8, 2012

That all looks great

Saturday: First Smoke of the New Year!

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