Smoke Break

[timtimmay]

This definitely is an addiction!

I've been smoking and smoking and smoking. I'm out of freezer space, I'm out of Tupperware, and I think I could survive the recession on what's been cooked.

I'm planning on having a Birthday party for my wife in about a month. I'm making pulled pork for it. Until then, I'm hanging my smoking gloves in the garage and tackling them leftovers.

I won't be smoking for a few weeks, but I'll be eating smoked food daily

 

[ismoke]

That's funny...I'm getting to the same place! Two things I learned when I got my smoker:

1) I need to go buy a deep freeze (done)
2) I need to buy stock in Foodsaver products (not done, but I do buy a ton of bags!)

 

[triplebq]

Come to Texas ! I feed 14 each Saturday and Sunday ( family ) then every 4th Sunday I serve at our church brunch . I wear my smoker out each weekend and never have left overs and if there are any left overs my son take them back to college with him . I just wish brisket would stop going up .

 

[rbranstner]

I finally picked up a second deep freezer and started freezing the left overs after the smoke. What usually happened was we would eat left overs for a few meals then we got sick of eating the same thing over and over so it would sit in the fridge and spoil. Now I have started eating the left overs for a day and then freeze the rest so I can eat it later. Its nice when you are short on time and you can run down to the freezer and heat up a bag of Q in boiling water.

 

[mballi3011]

Now I happen to have a freezer (3 for now) farm in my garage now. . I'm really lucky to have these freezers I got them all from work for free and I now have one for beef, on for pork, and one for chicken and fish. Now for the food saver I think it should be mandatory when you purchase a smoker. Sure you will go though alot of bags but you will save alot of space in the freezer and you can buy alot more meat and then you can start looking for another freezer. That's another thing that should be mandatory too. But I know what you mean I still smoke alot of stuff and then eat some of it and think of whats next one the smoking list. It almost seems like I want to smoke it and move on the the next smoke. Lucky for me we have a few hungry kids that live in the front house too. Oh yea you won't ever need to buy lunch meat and bacon or sausage any more now too.

 

[timtimmay]

I love it, a freezer farm! I just have one drop freezer, but it is really good size. I used some plywood to build separator walls in it. It is divided pretty much into fourths. I use 1 full fourth for cooked smoked food. 2 of the fourths are frozen meat (the stock level varies, a side of beef fills up 2 compartments)

I am going to look into a foodsaver at some point. Right now I'm using tupperware.

Even though I'm going a while without smoking, it is nice to have so many easy meals.

 

[jdt]

I know it in my heart my wife will certainly flip out the day I try to explain I want seperate freezers for beef, pork and chicken, your the man

 

[eman]

I have the same addiction,
Smoke it and allways have leftovers .
I now own two large freezers . One for raw meat, seafood and veggies and one for cooked foods.
I (try) to keep a running inventory on what's in each one .
That way i know what to look for sales on.
Great tip for those who have chest type freezers.
Get yourself some milk crates, Use the milk crates to store your packaged food in. you can label ,pork - chicken -beef ,etc.
The crates stack on top of each other and they can be removed and added as needed. That way stuff doesn't get buried in the bottom of your freezer.

 

[timtimmay]

That's a great idea on the milk crates.

 

[timtimmay]

I could add more storage capacity, but realistically, the more I store the older the food is. Taking a cooking break only deprives me from smoking, but my tummy is still happy.