This is my first post to this forum. Didn't even know it existed til last night. What a great place.
Fairly new to smokin' although I feel I'm learning very fast. This coming mothers day I'm having all 22 members of my extended family over and I'll be hosting with a nice smoked/pulled brisket. This will be my second one. I did one last year that was excellent.
My smokin' resume consists of Brisket, Turkey legs, chicken legs, chicken thighs, and pork roast. One of each. Those were all last summer. And last Thanksgiving I did a turkey breast.
I use a Char-Grill barrel style grill with a smoker box/chamber on the side. I like it very much. It works well for just grillin' up some burgers or for smoking a brisket all night long.
My last brisket that I did required CONSTANT attention. It was my first one and I had was constantly making adjustments or temperature, and keeping the fire right. By the time I was done, I personally, was so smoked out that I don't think I enjoyed the food as much as I would have liked.
But I've done some research and some other careful planning and think I've got a plan down that will work much better.
Today I'm doing a test run. I'm using the minion method to reduce some of the constant maintenance, and I've discovered that by putting the top rack in the firebox and they laying to cast iron smoker boxes on top of that I can put wood smoking chunks in them, and burn at the perfect speed to put off lots of smoke, but not actually catching fire and increasing the heat. Plus they burn for a long time, and when they're done there is nothing left but a super fine powder. And all you do is put another chunk down. Your bag of wood chunks last longer and it's so much easier to maintain.
Gotta go and check my temp and all that.
Fairly new to smokin' although I feel I'm learning very fast. This coming mothers day I'm having all 22 members of my extended family over and I'll be hosting with a nice smoked/pulled brisket. This will be my second one. I did one last year that was excellent.
My smokin' resume consists of Brisket, Turkey legs, chicken legs, chicken thighs, and pork roast. One of each. Those were all last summer. And last Thanksgiving I did a turkey breast.
I use a Char-Grill barrel style grill with a smoker box/chamber on the side. I like it very much. It works well for just grillin' up some burgers or for smoking a brisket all night long.
My last brisket that I did required CONSTANT attention. It was my first one and I had was constantly making adjustments or temperature, and keeping the fire right. By the time I was done, I personally, was so smoked out that I don't think I enjoyed the food as much as I would have liked.
But I've done some research and some other careful planning and think I've got a plan down that will work much better.
Today I'm doing a test run. I'm using the minion method to reduce some of the constant maintenance, and I've discovered that by putting the top rack in the firebox and they laying to cast iron smoker boxes on top of that I can put wood smoking chunks in them, and burn at the perfect speed to put off lots of smoke, but not actually catching fire and increasing the heat. Plus they burn for a long time, and when they're done there is nothing left but a super fine powder. And all you do is put another chunk down. Your bag of wood chunks last longer and it's so much easier to maintain.
Gotta go and check my temp and all that.
