Smoked Mini Meat Loaves!!! Q-View Included

[tallbm]

I recently got a silicon loaf "pan" for attempting to make smoked mini/personal meat loaves. I gave it a shot today as a preliminary run to learn some things. Pictures first and then a little write up.

Silicon loaf pan:

Mini loaves:

Loaf size comparison to 1 liter club soda bottle:

Cooked Loaves:)

Meat:

• About 4-5 pounds of botched Venison and Pork fat Brat meat mix 80/20. It was botched by me accidentally leaving out 1 cup of Brat seasoning so I've been repurposing it, mostly for smoked meat loaf lol

Seasoning:

• The meat was already very blandly seasoned with Brat seasoning
• Added Better Than Bullion Beef flavor
• Black Pepper
• Fresh minced Garlic, diced Onion, diced Bell Pepper
• Some ground Cumin
• Tomato sauce
• Oatmeal (instead of bread crumbs)

Smoke and Wood Used:

• I used a mix of about 65% Mesquite and 35% Alder. I applied smoke for the entire cook which was super short. The mesquite flavor is amazing on this dish.
• I applied double smoke by burning 2 rows of the AMNPS because I knew it was a fast cook (less than 2 hour cook). I like about 5-6 hours of a 1 row smoke with this wood blend when I do my big meat loaves.

Cook:

• Smoker Temp 275F ( I wanted to see how fast it would make these loaves cook)
• Cooked to IT of 165F-181F. The loaf in the hot spot got up to 181F while the loaf in the cold spot came up to 165F. It didn't cause any issues.
• Time took about 1 hour and 20 min.

Lessons Learned:

• Well I learned that at 275F these loaves cook FAST, so good to know. I will try and slow down the cooking speed a bit to get more smoke flavor, I thinking a 2.5 hour cook with 2 rows of AMNPS burning would be closer to my desired goals
• The loaf pan worked well, but the loaves are a little larger than I thought they would be. That's ok I will just add less meat to solve that problem
• I used a new "crisper" rack and pan that I thought would be nice for these kinds of dishes since the crisper rack has handles and can easily be put in or picked up and removed from my MES40. It worked out well and the fit is perfect in my MES40 on the smoker racks. I think I will be using it for dishes like this and chicken wings, etc. Hell I might use it for everything since it was such a nice experience. This is the XL size option that is perfect dimensions for the MES40, I picked it up last week on sale for around $33
  
• I'm not far off from making perfect smoked mini/personal sized meatloaves. My goal is to be able to make ones that are perfect for a plate for each person eating. This way every person gets their own complete meat loaf with complete 360 degree crust. Also this makes handling the meat loaf easy rather than larger ones breaking u and being a pain to transfer to a plate/pan for cutting. These don't have such an issue being so small :)

I hope some of you found this interesting. Thanks! :)

 

[Phil Chart]

Cool I got to look into getting some of those

 

[weev]

Looks good. I love smoked meatloaf

 

[tallbm]

Cool I got to look into getting some of those

Here is the silicon pan I went with:

I wanted a little smaller but no luck. I searched and searched and searched and everything was way too small or just too large. This was the best middle ground option I found and I figured I could just always fill them less to make smaller loaves.

After this preliminary test/attempt I think i will fill them about 2/3 to 3/4 full and that should do the trick to make perfect sized loaves. I will also likely drop my smoking temp down to 250F on my next attempt to see how fast they cook. I think the magic smoker temp is probably around 235F for a 3 hour'ish smoke

 

[chilerelleno]

Mmmmmm is for Meat Loaf and the sound I make with a mouthful.
Looks great, nice recipe and pics.
Like

 

[tallbm]

Mmmmmm is for Meat Loaf and the sound I make with a mouthful.
Looks great, nice recipe and pics.
Like

Thanks!

Yeah, smoked meatloaf is unbelievable. I'm not far from perfecting this mini personal sized meat loaf approach :)

 

[indaswamp]

About 4-5 pounds of botched Venison and Pork fat Brat meat mix 80/20

Botched???

 

[tallbm]

Botched???

I left out a whole cup of seasoning or more. I stuffed them into the casings severely under seasoned.
Now I just cut them out of the casings and make smoked meatloaf or spaghetti sauce or taco meat, etc.

They are so lightly seasoned they work well for many applications :)

 

[gmc2003]

Nice size and looking meatloaf. They look like the perfect size for vacuum sealing also.

Point for sure.

Chris

 

[Bearcarver]

Looks Great, Tall !!:)
Sorry about the seasoning missing.
I "Like".

I would suggest putting a sheet of Saran Wrap in the bottom first, before the meat. It makes it so much easier to remove from the loaf pan, without cracking or denting.

Bear

 

[SmokinAl]

Those meatloaves look fantastic!
Great job!
Al

 

[tallbm]

Nice size and looking meatloaf. They look like the perfect size for vacuum sealing also.

Point for sure.

Chris

I was thinking the same thing! 2.5 of the meatloaves were eaten the other 2.5 were put in a gallon bag, air squeezed out, and frozen. I did see that they were totally vac sealable. They make a better meatloaf then any frozen on you could buy in the store!

Looks Great, Tall !!:)
Sorry about the seasoning missing.
I "Like".

I would suggest putting a sheet of Saran Wrap in the bottom first, before the meat. It makes it so much easier to remove from the loaf pan, without cracking or denting.

Bear

Yeah the seasoning thing on the brats was purely due to my haste. I spend 5-6 days about 14 hours a day processing my meat alone so I'm often in a hurry to try and get things done. No one is that thrilled with helping and the only thing with my setup that calls for a mandatory 2 people is sausage stuffing day. I think I mixed everything up and put it in a meat tote and tried to get it all ready for the next day when I had help and I simply just missed a whole cup or more of seasoning lol.

Thanks for the saran wrap suggestion. I'll give it a try. With these loaf pans being silicon and very bendy it is pretty easy to get the loaves out but I have a feeling that when I fill them only 3/4 full in the future that the saran wrap will make it much easier to pull them out :)

Also at this size I can pick up the cooked meatloaves with tongs so they don't break apart. My bigger loaves always broke or fell apart on me to some extent. That is just the nature of a 3-5 pound loaves done this way lol.

Those meatloaves look fantastic!
Great job!
Al

Thanks Al. They are very good. I just need to tweak my cooking time to get the desired smoke flavor on them and get the amount of filling adjusted so they are just right for a single serving. Right now they have good smoke flavor but I want more and they are a little oversized for the average person. For me I can just pig out and eat the entire loaf but not everyone is me :D

 

[Bearcarver]

Thanks for the saran wrap suggestion. I'll give it a try. With these loaf pans being silicon and very bendy it is pretty easy to get the loaves out but I have a feeling that when I fill them only 3/4 full in the future that the saran wrap will make it much easier to pull them out :)

Also at this size I can pick up the cooked meatloaves with tongs so they don't break apart. My bigger loaves always broke or fell apart on me to some extent. That is just the nature of a 3-5 pound loaves done this way lol.

They look awesome, but I just thought I'd mention it because it looked like one was cracked & they have little dents on the sides like Babies used to get from forceps during delivery.
When I make my "Bear Loaves" I put saran wrap in first. Then I just pull them out flip them over & peel the saran wrap off.

Bear

 

[tallbm]

They look awesome, but I just thought I'd mention it because it looked like one was cracked & they have little dents on the sides like Babies used to get from forceps during delivery.
When I make my "Bear Loaves" I put saran wrap in first. Then I just pull them out flip them over & peel the saran wrap off.

Bear

Hahaha yeah the dents are from my fingers when I repositioned them. The saran wrap would definitely help with all that. I will surely be using it so I can handle them more easily and once in position just remove the saran wrap. It is what I did with my bigger loaves and worked well. It will also allow me to really pack them in well and eliminate some of those cracks.

Crack kills :P

 

[Jeff Wright]

Looks like a great idea for quick weeknight meals. Why, though, do you necessarily need the loaf trays? Are they just used to shape the loaf? You obviously didn't cook in them.

 

[tallbm]

Looks like a great idea for quick weeknight meals. Why, though, do you necessarily need the loaf trays? Are they just used to shape the loaf? You obviously didn't cook in them.

Yeah the silicon trays were to shape/produce the loaves in a more efficient manner since they are close in size and the silicon is not so sticky with the meat.
The other option I had was to take some scrap cardboard to make a mini meat loaf shaper/mould, then line with plastic wrap, put meat in, form, and then pop the meat out. THEN repeat it all again.

I still need to do a little work to get the correct size on these mini loaves but I think I can probably form 4 loaves at a time and pop them back out in about 1 minute per loaf as apposed to spending 5 minutes per loaf going the other route with the plastic wrap and a homemade mold that I can't also wash if it gets messy.

BTW these mini loaves can cook very fast so you are right that it is a quick item to make. If you run an AMNPS you can also apply double smoke by burning 2 rows for getting in more smoke flavor in such a quick smoke :)

 

[TomKnollRFV]

LIKE! <who doesn't love a good bit of meatloaf!?>

Just wondering, do you just flop the tray over onto wax paper or some thing to get them out?

 

[tallbm]

LIKE! <who doesn't love a good bit of meatloaf!?>

Just wondering, do you just flop the tray over onto wax paper or some thing to get them out?

Flopping them over was the idea but I have learned that when I don't fill them all the way that they don't want to just flop right out. I believe I have a solution to try but just need to get around to it.

The solution will be to fill them partially the way I want but when I do I also stick a silicon spatula on one of the short sides (not long side) while filling which should leave a little 1/4 inch gap between the meat and the inside wall of the short side of the the molds.
Then when I tip over to dump out they may fall right out and if NOT, then I can stick the silicon spatula right in the gap and pull the mini loaf right out with no hassle!

It sounds more complex then it is but I still don't think I'll spend more than 1 minute or so per loaf to load, form, and extract from the mold onto the Q-mat :)