Got a real thermometer, now on to smoke #2

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23buzz

Newbie
Original poster
Dec 30, 2014
23
11
Central Illinois
I tried my first smoke a couple of weeks ago - whole turkey.  It turned out okay, but over done and dry on top. 

My Maverick ET-732 was just delivered 
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and now I'm ready to try again, but with a real thermometer (rather than the crappy one I used last time).

I'll have a few hours on Sunday for smoking, so I'm going to do moink balls since they don't seem to take very long.  I've had them a couple of times at the state fair and can't wait to try them at home!

I've been looking through moink threads here and have come up with my plan below.  Any suggestions / corrections?

50/50 mix of ground beef and JD hot sausage

wrap it around bit of jack cheese

wrap 1/2 slice of thin bacon around it

hold with toothpick

place on cooling racks with bacon on bottom/top

place cooling racks onto smoker racks

smoke over hickory at 250 for 1.5-2 hours

when internal temp is 165, glaze with slightly thinned bbq sauce and keep in smoker about 10-15 more minutes for glaze to carmelize

Thanks in advance.  This forum rocks!
 
Your plans rock 23.  I believe the main key to smoking is to be able to control your temps the low and slow method is an awesome way to cook and when you can control your smoker temp exactly and you have a super accurate thermometer to test your meat you are miles ahead of the game.  Good luck with your moink balls.  Just be sure you get the IT to 165.

Richard 
 
Good plan! But test the new therm in boiling water to see how accurate your new probes are. You should be close to 212f. That may vary a few degrees dependin on altitutude and what the barometer is reading.
 
The smoking process was a success!  The recipe was so-so.

I've always considered myself "food challenged".  I don't know much about it, what goes well together, etc.  Once, years ago, I doctored up some Beef Romanoff Hamburger Helper - to the point it was almost inedible!  Anyway, for these I mixed ground beef and ground hot italian sausage.  Next time, it will be regular sausage rather than italian.  It just didn't mix well with the smoke, seasoning, and bbq sauce. I also made them too big.  Next time they'll be small and bite sized, and focused on a bbq flavor.

Smoking was a much better experience than last time.  What a difference a good thermometer makes!  While the smoker was heating up, I waited for 175 on the Maverick, and checked the lid gauge.  It read 100.  After tapping hard on it, it jumped to 125.  During the smoke, the lid gauge was mostly around 50 degrees low.  And I did have to give it a hard knock again to get it to read 200.  I loved the remote showing me grill and food temps while I was in the house.

I had a couple of flare ups.  I'm still getting the hang of the equipment and a good smoulder.  But the smoke was overall pretty good.

I'm learning, and will keep going forward.  Hopefully the next smoke will be a mouth waterer.  By the way, the next one will be superbowl Sunday.  Not sure what I'm going to make yet.  Any suggestions?  I want something easy and tasty to break my streak and turn things around!

Pics:



 
They look good! I would use breakfast sausage. Go to the website for nice quick appetizer type recipes. I've got 3 lined up for the super bowl...good luck!
 
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