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Hi, I just signed up to the forum. I have always grilled and recently decided to start smoking. I purchased a Smoking Tex 1400 and have no idea what I'm doing. I was attempting to smoke salmon for my dinner tonight but just read it takes 4 to 6 hours so guess I best fix a sandwich. ha I'm happy to find this web sight mayb e there is hope for me after all. Thanks Don
Hey Don! Fellow smokintex user here. Looking forward to hearing about your experiences with it! I have really enjoyed mine, and it has fanned my smoking addiction (smoking food..haha) like a dry wind on a forest fire. Happy to help if you have any questions about it!
Welcome aboard, Don! Congrats on the new smoker, it sounds like a nice one. With all the great information available here on SMF and its great members who are always more than willing to help out, the learning curve can be reduce to nearly nothing. Don't forget to charge up the camera batteries and share some Qview and pictures of that new smoker!
Hi Kevin, How nice to speak to someone who has this smoker. I have only used it 3 times and all 3 were failures. The first was salmon and I over cooked it, then there was chicken breast and I used too much rub and maybe a bit over cooked and finally last night I tried a nice large piece of salmon (about16 to 20 oz) I used 2oz of alder, set the temp at 175 and left it for 3 hours. this was the worst yet. I feed it to the dog. ha I think one issue is I'm the only one I'm smoking for so the amounts are small. I also have one question for you Kevin I hope you can answer. On the front of the smoker there are warnings of which one says keep it clean or clean after use. In the manual it says never clean it back to the beginning. I notice the smell is pretty strong so I don't want to create a problem with too strong of a smell. How do you handle this? Thank You so much, Don
first of all don't lose hope! I am a fellow single dude and often cook for myself. I have smoked salmon twice in the smokintex and have cooked chicken several times with great results - it sounds to me like you could really benefit from a probe-style thermometer. Here is what mine looks like:
It's a farberware digital lcd thermometer, and on the end of that wire is a probe:
And I just stick the probe into whatever I'm cooking for temperature monitoring. If I'm not sure what temperature I need to take something to, I just search on here or smokingmeat.com and I can find out. The smokintex tells you to cook for a certain amount of time, but I have found that getting to a certain temperature is a smarter way to get consistent results. Especially factoring in the weather, since it takes longer at colder temps. It cost me 20 bucks at the grocery store and has been well worth it. I always stick the probe into the thickest part of whatever I am cooking. This particular thermometer has an alarm on it that you can set to go off when your desired temperature is achieved.
As far as chicken and salmon go - I have never actually smoked breast of chicken. Reading around these forums has taught me that you want to have a fair amount of fat in whatever you're smoking so that the meat retains moisture. I always just get some small whole chickens, 5 pounds at the most, and smoke them whole after emptying the cavity and rinsing. I rub a light coating of olive oil and then sometimes I put a mixture of honey and juice from the jalapeno jar, sometimes i use dry rub. Stick the probe in and smoke with wood of choice until it reaches the desired temp. Great every time.
for salmon, I always follow Jeff Phillips' smoked salmon process, which you can find on smokingmeat.com. He brines his salmon then leaves it out to dry before smoking. This makes a sticky outer layer that keeps the moisture in when you smoke, but doesn't make the outside hard or crusty. Again, i use the probe thermometer to ensure proper cooking. One thing I like to do with my smoked salmon is about two thirds of the way through the smoke, open up the smoker and brush it with a mixture of honey and maple syrup then let it finish cooking.
The smell issue - the only cleaning I do on the smoker is I clean the racks after I use them. I also empty the firebox ashes out each time. I cover the bottom of the smoker with foil and from time to time I will replace it. Always make sure to poke a hole through the foil where the drain hole is in the smoker. If you have to bring yours inside like I do, I always wait a day or a night and let it cool off and everything, then close the door and bring it in, and put a glove over the top hole to minimize the odor. I have not cleaned the walls of the smoker or anything like that.
I really hope that helps. Let me know if you have any other questions and I look forward to your SUCCESS stories!
Hello Don. Welcome to SMF. We are glad to have you here.
Kevin gave you some good advice for sure. I too have the SmokinTex 1400 and have been using it for over a year and a half. Before that I had an ECB that gave me good service.
On the cleaning - I do foil the chunk box lid and the bottom of the smoker, being sure to poke a hole in the bottom to allow the grease to go into the grease pan under the smoker. I also line that pan as well. The racks and grease pan get cleaned after every smoke and I do use SOS on them to get them clean.
I would highly recommend 2 additional purchases. One is a Maverick ET73 dual temp unit. One probe measures the box temp and the other probe goes into what you are smoking so you know its temp too. The second item is an A MAZE N SMOKER. Since I started using the AMS I no longer smoke with chunks. The AMS allows me to get up to 10 hours of TBS and I can choose to light one end for lighter smokes or both ends for heavier smokes. It burns sawdust and puts off almost no heat so you can also smoke cheese and cold smoke bacon and sausage too.
I had a long talk with Scott Wallace over at SmokinTex last week over the heating element range and I think there will be some minor changes in future models but for now we are limited to the 250 top end.
Send me a PM if you want to chat and I will be happy to see how I can help
Thanks Kevin, I'm embarrassed to say I have a digital thermometer but got excited and forgot to use the darn thing. Oh well, live and learn. I do appreciate your taking the time to share your experiences with the 1400. I feel like I'm on the right track now. Don
Thank you, I'll look into the suggestions. Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I intend to smoke my Thanksgiving Turkey so I have to do that right. ha Don
First off Welcome Don to SMF. You'll like it here for there are alot of really good folks here that would just love to help you with just about anything to do with smoking. Now there are alot of proven recipes for some amazing things here too. So if you need sign up for the E-Course it's free and it will give you the basics of smoking and some good methods to use also. So the next big thing for you to do is go out and get you something to smoke and if you happen to have any questions just post it here and we will be happy to answer them for you.
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