First of all, THANKS COOKING MOMMA for the inspiration. After seeing her thread yesterday about the Apple Wood Pork Chops, I figured it looked good enough to try today! Dad and I went and cut up some apple wood that had fallen out of a tree in one of our fields to use. It's a Rusty Coat apple as we call it around here, not sure if it has other names elsewhere.
This is only my 2nd smoking, so I'm still to skittish to go full stick burner with my offset Char-Broil. While Julie was putting some Kick'in Chicken seasoning on the chops with a mustard base, I lit the grill on charcoal briquettes and RO lump coal. It cooked a bit hot and I fought the urge to open the smoker more often than 30min intervals when, as I learned yesterday, I had to rotate where I had the chops on the grill. (I'll be making tuning plates at work this week.) At the first 30min interval, we added jalapeno poppers made with mozzarella cheese and some more corn on the cob to the smoker.
It cooked for about an hour and 15 minutes. At that point, I moved them to the cool end of the grill and set the jalapeno poppers and corn over the hotter end. Not as long as I'd have liked, but the meat was getting near the 165 mark and I was afraid it would dry out. It was all great though! There was a nice smoke ring about 1/8" thick on the outside. I'm very pleased with it! We had my Mom, Dad and Granny over to eat so I'm also very happy it tasted great! Everyone is a major fan of the smoker. Dad made the comment that he was surprised at the flavor the wood gave the meat. Never having eaten anything cooked over apple wood (except the commercial stuff you can't taste anyways) I too was pleasantly surprised with it!
This is a picture taken about an hour and 15 in, when I moved the pork off the hot end and put the poppers and corn over there to finish them up.
Thanks everyone for all the good articles and write-up's on how to do this! I'm REALLY looking forward to playing with this thing in the future! Trying to decide what to do next week after all these good left-overs are gone!
This is only my 2nd smoking, so I'm still to skittish to go full stick burner with my offset Char-Broil. While Julie was putting some Kick'in Chicken seasoning on the chops with a mustard base, I lit the grill on charcoal briquettes and RO lump coal. It cooked a bit hot and I fought the urge to open the smoker more often than 30min intervals when, as I learned yesterday, I had to rotate where I had the chops on the grill. (I'll be making tuning plates at work this week.) At the first 30min interval, we added jalapeno poppers made with mozzarella cheese and some more corn on the cob to the smoker.
It cooked for about an hour and 15 minutes. At that point, I moved them to the cool end of the grill and set the jalapeno poppers and corn over the hotter end. Not as long as I'd have liked, but the meat was getting near the 165 mark and I was afraid it would dry out. It was all great though! There was a nice smoke ring about 1/8" thick on the outside. I'm very pleased with it! We had my Mom, Dad and Granny over to eat so I'm also very happy it tasted great! Everyone is a major fan of the smoker. Dad made the comment that he was surprised at the flavor the wood gave the meat. Never having eaten anything cooked over apple wood (except the commercial stuff you can't taste anyways) I too was pleasantly surprised with it!
This is a picture taken about an hour and 15 in, when I moved the pork off the hot end and put the poppers and corn over there to finish them up.
Thanks everyone for all the good articles and write-up's on how to do this! I'm REALLY looking forward to playing with this thing in the future! Trying to decide what to do next week after all these good left-overs are gone!
