I recently received a
Rec Teq pellet smoker and have smoked chicken wings a few times, they have turned out great. I am very new to smoking, my goal is obviously a brisket, ribs, butts etc. I lack the knowledge and experience. I spend a lot of time reading through the threads also understanding that experience is the best source.
What are some smaller cuts of meat that you all would recommend to help get me going? Thanks!
Hi there and welcome!
Boneless skinless chicken thighs are the easiest smoke in the world. Just season em up, throw em on, smoke until an Internal Temp (IT) of 178-181F degrees.
Meatloaf is fantastic as others have mentioned, just be sure to get a good meatloaf recipe and you will have a good smoked meatloaf. Smoke it to 165F IT.
Dont be afraid of pork ribs. SmokingAl has a foolproof method for smoking them. Smoke them to an IT of 195F (I do 198F for a little more tender). Just season them and throw them on. Make sure your probe placement is good and make sure to stab all over with a toothpic before you pull them off to ensure they are tender. The probe placement can be tricky sometimes.
Whole chickens come out great but have quirks you need to know about.
Quirk#1 you will want to brine or inject a whole chicken to keep the breast and some other meat from drying out. Brine 12-24 hours before smoking.
Quirk#2 poultry skin will come out like leather or rubber if you don't cook at a high enough temp. Smoke at 325F degrees smoker temp and that should prevent the dreaded leather skin.
Quirk#3 do NOT cook past an IT of 165F deep in the chicken breast. Heck most of us pull at a few degrees lower knowing the temp will rise to 165F. Every degree over 165F in the chicken breast = a dryer bird.
Once you perfect your system performance and work around these quicks of whole chicken/skin on poultry, you can do whole chickens for super cheap since chicken is the least expensive meat out there! :)
Finally, if you do all those you can try a pork butt. They are hard to mess up BUT are a completely new experience for your setup. You will want to consistently nail some 10pound pork butt smokes before splurging on a whole packer brisket.
Pork butt is done when it is tender. It is tender when you can stab all over with a wooden kabob skewer and it goes in like butter.
Check for pulled pork tenderness at 205F IT of the meat. If its not butter tender let it raise a couple degrees and try again until it is tender.
Quirk#1-5, figure out your timing for how long the smoke will take. This is the #1 reason why people fail on pork butts or whole packer briskets. At a steady 275F smoker temp your smoke will go a little over 1hr a pound PRETRIMMED weight. So a 10 pound pork butt will take like 11 hours.... but u don't plan for 11 hrs,
Add 4 hours to the estimated time. So a 10 pound but taking 11 hrs add 4hrs =15hrs.
Take this number and start your smoke that many hours BEFORE you plan to serve and eat.
So if you want to eat at noon on Tuesday, then you make sure the pork butt is in the smoker at 275F at 9pm the day before (Tuesday 12pm noon - 15hrs = 9pm Monday, start 9pm Monday).
If it finishes 4 hours early great, you tightly double wrap in foil then tightly wrap in 3 bath towels and lay on the counter until 4 hours later. It will be steaming hot like 170F IT and ready to serve 4-5 hours later.
If it doesnt finish 4 hours early... you have 4 hours for it to finish before hungry people stab you with forks and knives. So you have some wiggle room here.
If you can consistently get your setup to work well for pork butts you can be confident that your setup can handle a whole packer brisket. At this point you just learn the quirks of a brisket and go from there.
I hope all this info helps :)