Hello,
I've gotten into smoking a lot this year and have found this website useful. As I did a smoke today, I thought I'd take some pictures, join the site and post my pics.
I live in Japan but am from Britain originally. Incidentally, cherry wood is one of the most popular woods for smoking here, probably because of the Japanese love for cherry blossoms.
Anyway, I started smoking this year after buying a cardboard box smoker for 300 yen (less than $3US). I still use it, as you can see in one of the pics, but it's on its last legs now. Funny thing is, although it's really basic and I have no idea of internal temperatures, I've never gone wrong with. I also bought a metal smoker (in pics as well), which looks fancier, but is harder to use. I got a temperature gauge for it a couple of months ago, and that has been really helpful.
So today, I was smoking some spare ribs, pork cartilage, a few sausages (bought), a couple of wee trout, and a piece of sawara, which is a type of mackerel. I've found fish quite hard to smoke; my basic rule is: "smoking should make the food taste better", and when I've smoked pork belly, ribs, steak, chicken wings, and hormon (I think this is the lining of one a the cow's stomach), I've managed to fulfil this. But with fish, I've generally found that the fish would be better cooked in a different way, or even eaten raw (hey, I mentioned I live in Japan, right?). I tried some bream, which wasn't great, and some mackerel, which had a good texture but not great flavour.
For the meat, I was using whisky oak chips and a bit of peat powder (imported from Scotland! I had to buy it and try it!). For the fish I was using oak chips. The oak (nara) is on the left, the whisky oak on the right, and the peat in the front.
First the ribs. I put a bit of a spicy rub on them, them let them marinade in 2 tablespoons of apple kurozu. Kurozu literally means "black vinegar" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_vinegar).
Then I put them in the smoker. The smoker has two levels, and after two hours, I switched the stuff on the top level with the stuff on the bottom. This is called "gekokujou" in Japanese smoking circles*. I started with a temp of about 70*C. but increased to about 85*C later. As my temperature gauge is in the top of the smoker, I think the lower part nearer the heat source actually get hotter. In future, I will keep the temp around 70*C on the gauge, as some stuff got a little overcooked near the heat source.
*This is not true, but gekokujou is the perfect word here.
I added the peat powder twice, once at the beginning, and once after 2 hours. I think adding peat near the end of the smoke adds its flavour better the meat. This time, I thought the whisky oak overpowered the peat a bit too much, although the final products were good.
You can see in the picture that some stuff caught a little too much on the bottom layer. However, the young 'uns loved the sausages, and ribs were popular too. The pork cartilage was really tasty, but I don't have pictures of that.
The fish was done in the cardboard smoker, with the oak chips. After putting salt on the trout , and salt, a little pepper, and a gentle dab of cooking sake on the sawara, I smoked them for a little over 2 hours, low and slow. After taking them out, both the trout and sawara were tender, and very tasty. We squeezed some kabosu juice on them, which was a good addition, and all of us--children and adults--enjoyed them. I was particularly pleased with the trout, and would definitely do them again. The oak-smoke really added to the flavour of the trout without overpowering it. The sawara was also good and really easy to do, so I can see myself doing more of this in the future.
Finally, we also had a barbecue going, so I did some squid (pictured) and wagyu (not pictured) and veggies on it, and enjoyed a cold brew (pictured)
I'm really interested in the smoking rigs I've seen on this site, and am looking to move on to something a little more upscale. While my smoking setups produce good results, I have to constantly watch over them to make sure the heat source doesn't go out.
Yoroshiku!
I've gotten into smoking a lot this year and have found this website useful. As I did a smoke today, I thought I'd take some pictures, join the site and post my pics.
I live in Japan but am from Britain originally. Incidentally, cherry wood is one of the most popular woods for smoking here, probably because of the Japanese love for cherry blossoms.
Anyway, I started smoking this year after buying a cardboard box smoker for 300 yen (less than $3US). I still use it, as you can see in one of the pics, but it's on its last legs now. Funny thing is, although it's really basic and I have no idea of internal temperatures, I've never gone wrong with. I also bought a metal smoker (in pics as well), which looks fancier, but is harder to use. I got a temperature gauge for it a couple of months ago, and that has been really helpful.
So today, I was smoking some spare ribs, pork cartilage, a few sausages (bought), a couple of wee trout, and a piece of sawara, which is a type of mackerel. I've found fish quite hard to smoke; my basic rule is: "smoking should make the food taste better", and when I've smoked pork belly, ribs, steak, chicken wings, and hormon (I think this is the lining of one a the cow's stomach), I've managed to fulfil this. But with fish, I've generally found that the fish would be better cooked in a different way, or even eaten raw (hey, I mentioned I live in Japan, right?). I tried some bream, which wasn't great, and some mackerel, which had a good texture but not great flavour.
For the meat, I was using whisky oak chips and a bit of peat powder (imported from Scotland! I had to buy it and try it!). For the fish I was using oak chips. The oak (nara) is on the left, the whisky oak on the right, and the peat in the front.
First the ribs. I put a bit of a spicy rub on them, them let them marinade in 2 tablespoons of apple kurozu. Kurozu literally means "black vinegar" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_vinegar).
Then I put them in the smoker. The smoker has two levels, and after two hours, I switched the stuff on the top level with the stuff on the bottom. This is called "gekokujou" in Japanese smoking circles*. I started with a temp of about 70*C. but increased to about 85*C later. As my temperature gauge is in the top of the smoker, I think the lower part nearer the heat source actually get hotter. In future, I will keep the temp around 70*C on the gauge, as some stuff got a little overcooked near the heat source.
*This is not true, but gekokujou is the perfect word here.
I added the peat powder twice, once at the beginning, and once after 2 hours. I think adding peat near the end of the smoke adds its flavour better the meat. This time, I thought the whisky oak overpowered the peat a bit too much, although the final products were good.
You can see in the picture that some stuff caught a little too much on the bottom layer. However, the young 'uns loved the sausages, and ribs were popular too. The pork cartilage was really tasty, but I don't have pictures of that.
The fish was done in the cardboard smoker, with the oak chips. After putting salt on the trout , and salt, a little pepper, and a gentle dab of cooking sake on the sawara, I smoked them for a little over 2 hours, low and slow. After taking them out, both the trout and sawara were tender, and very tasty. We squeezed some kabosu juice on them, which was a good addition, and all of us--children and adults--enjoyed them. I was particularly pleased with the trout, and would definitely do them again. The oak-smoke really added to the flavour of the trout without overpowering it. The sawara was also good and really easy to do, so I can see myself doing more of this in the future.
Finally, we also had a barbecue going, so I did some squid (pictured) and wagyu (not pictured) and veggies on it, and enjoyed a cold brew (pictured)
I'm really interested in the smoking rigs I've seen on this site, and am looking to move on to something a little more upscale. While my smoking setups produce good results, I have to constantly watch over them to make sure the heat source doesn't go out.
Yoroshiku!
