Any ProQ Frontier Owners On Here? Can You Help With A Couple Of Queries?

Wade said:

 
Hi Steve

I have a ProQ Frontier and so can maybe help.

Yes this is normal. At first I started to try to tighten mine up but in the end I gave up. To be honest they really don't do much other than stop the sections from toppling apart if the stack is knocked. This they do even if the clips are a little loose. It does not affect the performance of the smoker.

Where you have a door you will usually get some smoke leakage. Some owners use thin stove tape to to seal these but I don't bother. Again, a slight smoke leakage does not affect the performance of the smoker. If you have plumes of smoke escaping then that would be a problem.

That is the big difference with the Heat Beads over other types of fuel - they take a while to catch but then they burn for a very long time. If you are used to lump charcoal then cooking with Heat Beads needs a different mindset.

A couple of questions:

• Which thermometer are you using? If it is the one in the lid then it is probable that it is not very accurate.
• Are you leaving the smoker alone and refraining from opening the doors and lifting the lid? It can take an hour (or sometimes more) to get up to temperature.

If the temperature really isn't rising then pour the water out of the water tray and just place a layer of foil inside to line it.

Yes, Put the smoke generator in the fire basket and the bacon on the top rack. Fill the water pan up with ambient temperature water and cover it with sheet of foil or clingfilm. This will absorb the small amount of heat produced by the smoke generator and stop it from raising the temperature of the smoking chamber.

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Can't suss out how to do the multi quote thing yet, but thank for the replies Wade, hopefully you can match my answers to your quotes from your reply?

The leakage wasn't significant out of the doors, only out of the top vent that you are meant to leave open which I expected. I was just unsure how good the seal was meant to be on the ProQ.

I use the Maverick ET-73 and there was quite a difference in temperature readings between the ProQ built in thermometer and the Maverick. +10% in favour of the Maverick readings. I would be really phaffing if I just relied upon just the ProQ as 215F on the Maverick was only reading just over 195F on the ProQ

I genuinely never lifted the lid once during the four hour cook to check on the chicken, and lifted the body once to rearrange the coals after the temp dropped below 200F after just over 2 hours of cooking and that got the temp back up to 210F for the rest of the cook. (and that is a difficult thing to do after being used to constantly having to put more coal on my old brinkmann for an eight hour cook to keep it up to temp).

I kept all 3 vents fully open at the bottom of the ProQ also for the whole cook to try and get the temp to stay up to 210F

Will heat beads get up to 225F or is 210F about right? Because it seems a little low to me and added probably 45 mins to an 1 hour for my chicken than I would normally expect. And a starter chimney full takes a good hour to get white hot before being able to use, probably twice as long as the lumpwood charcoal I normally use.

The water pan was lined with tinfoil inside it from the start and was filled 2/3rds full of boiling water from the start (finished with about 1/3rd of grease laden water at the end of the  four hours).

With regards the Cold Smoker, going to try it tonight for the first time. Going to be dark before I put it on. Can you advise, do you leave the vents on the bottom of the ProQ fully open whilst the dust is smouldering or some other setting for them.

The instruction book says temperature should be constantly monitored during the cold smoking process. What temp range should I set my  maverick at to warn me if it is getting too hot? and how long should the ProQ cold smoker generator last time wise when fully laden with Dust before it burns itself out and should I be looking to remove the bacon immediately it has done so, or is it safe to leave for a few hours inside the ProQ if I am still asleep?

Will the bacon stick to the rack whilst it is cold smoking? if so any tips to stop it doing so. 

Cheers, sorry for even more questions, I realise every cook is different, but if I can get some guidelines, it always helps trying something out for the first time

With regards the heatbeads, I did wrap the foil round the rim of the waterbowl. Will leave it on the inside only next time, to see if it makes a difference. As I say most likely user error, i will give it another go with them later next week hopefully.

Put my bacon into cold smoke last night for the first time. Got around 11 hours from 100g of 50/50 Hickory and Beech dust with wispy smoke coming out of the vent, the 2 or 3 times I checked during the process. late last night and early this morning.

Dust all burnt out fully in the proq cold smoke generator, so I know it did what it was supposed to, with regards to that. But the 3 pieces of meat don't seemed to have darkened or changed colour at all from when I put them in last night. Is that normal or should I be expecting the meat to have darkened more?. The actual meat seems to be as loose as when I put in, for some reason I expected it to firm up a bit, I don't think I could confidently slice this as it is the moment (still planning on a couple more smokes though). I realise it has just come out the smoker, but the meat is cold (around outside temp) to the touch and no sign of a slight crust on the outside of the meat, that for some reason I was expecting?

I will do a further couple of smokes, over the next few nights with it, is this when the magic starts to happen?

Going to store it in the fridge till the next dry night, do I bag it up again, stick them just in an airtight, tupperware type container. Or just leave them uncovered and exposed to air in the fridge till then?

Wade said:

 
The smoke is there to impart flavour (and a little microbiological protection). If you see too much colour then that is usually a sign that it is either over smoked or there has not been sufficient air flow through the smoker and tars have been deposited onto the surface of the meat. Some colouring is expected but you really don't want to see too much. I would give it a maximum of 24 hours total smoke for the first bacon and adjust next time if required.

You say that the bacon was "loose" - did you end up immersion brining this bacon or was it completely dry cured? If it was immersion brined then it will have taken up quite a lot of additional water from the brine (~10% or more). A single nights smoke will not really reduce this sufficiently to make a noticeable difference.

Don't forget that, just like the cure, the smoke flavour takes time to penetrate into the meat. When you have completed the smoke let it dry for a few hours in the fridge and then wrap it for a few days before eating.

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It was completely dry cured and patted down with paper towels before adding to the smoker last night.

The meat still has the same consistency and feel of pork as you would have just bought it over the butchers counter. As I say it hasn't firmed up or darkened anymore (it is still curing colour not freshly bought raw pork though) at all. It is just seeing other peoples photos on here,got me wondering if I had done something wrong. I think I am just looking for reassurance, being the first time attempting it.

Wade do you have a picture of a slab of bacon that you have finished smoking, that you may have in your archives, so I compare how yours look after it has finished the smoking part? To give me some idea of how close mine is to yours.

Took these pictures from another thread on here by a different poster, Mine sort of looks like picture one after 1st smoke still and a lot of pictures I see finish up looking like picture 2 (after 10 hours of smoking), which mine is know where near that colour

Thanks for the piccies, mine is closer to the white sugar ones, although I used Light Muscovado Sugar, Not as panicky now I have seen the photos, just expected them to be closer to picture 2 of the demerara sugar tbh. I will see what the next couple of smokes do to it.

Smokin Monkey said:

The Bacon
The bacon in that picture looks like it has been hot, as the fat has started to render.

This is a picture of my Canadian Bacon, which is hot smoked you can see the change in colour of the meat and fat. The texture is firm as well.

image.jpg

• smokin monkey
• Mar 17, 2017

This is my standard Bacon.

image.jpeg

• smokin monkey
• Mar 17, 2017

Hope this helps, and put your mind at rest.

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Definitely feeling more optimistic now looking at picture 2   

The bacon had its second smoke tonight. Definitely going a little darker. Going to leave it at that for my first attempt of 2 x 11 hour smokes. to try, as I can always add extra if needed in the future once these have been sampled  for the next try. But can't take it away if too smoky for my tastes.

Will add some pictures in a few days hopefully. 

Is it best to freeze the bacon for approx for 4 hours to enable better slicing?

Also has anybody hot smoked a plain shop bought ham before? Any tips or recipes for a sweet glaze. Got a family function next Sunday for Mothers Day and we are all bringing something for the table. Going to be a buffet type thing, not a sit down meal, so I thought I would do a ham.

My local butchers sell unsmoked ham ready to eat, up to 5kg in size. Unsure what size I would need to feed 12 people, so they get at least 2-3 slices each if wanted? Are these hams best served cold or hot as well i.e cook it on the Saturday for Sunday if needed to be cold or cook it Sunday morning ready for Sunday lunch whilst it is still hot?

Sorry for all the questions but when the ham is nearly £10 a kg I would rather try to tap into somebodies knowledge from their past experiences, than muck it up myself as a first time novice.

Absolutely Delicious. 

Thanks for the help and patience to the members on here, who have enabled me to attempt my first go, at home cured and cold smoking Bacon. My bacon slicing skills need honing up, as haven't used the meat slicer for a long time. But all the worrying about colour and has the meat cured, weren't necessary. It all turned out fine.

Although I have probably only done approx a dozen hot and cold smokes so far on my Proq, (more cold than hot) I am starting to notice it is showing signs of a black liquid starting to form inside and especially with cold smokes it leaks in drips out of the vents at the bottom and very small drips run down the inside of the proq most seem to originate from the lid area and dry on the insides of the stackers. I assume that is creosote? what is the best way to get rid of it?

I am hoping to try the pizza stone out on it Friday, so will be trying to get it up to a high temperature first. Is this the best way to get rid of creosote? and if so how long do the hot coals take to burn it off?