Hello all, I just thought I would share a little. I never smoked anything in my life aside from cast iron over a camp fire. I have ventured into just about every other form of cooking and thought it was time to give smoking a go. I started researching smokers and wanted quality without many moving parts that would have to be replaced. I definitely found what I was looking for in the Smokin-it smoker.
I saved up my credit card reward points, so this was essentially "free" which makes it even better. I just received it a couple of weeks ago, but I just started smoking this week.
Since this was new to me, I wanted to start out simple. I found a rub recipe. that is so simple and versatile- equal parts of paprika (I used Hungarian as it seems to have a little more flavor), Real Salt, and cracked pepper.
Now, I was off for a week and wanted to break it in. I originally was going to smoke a ham roast, but the forum enticed me into pulled pork. The only problem was I did not have a shoulder roast, but shoulder steaks. Not to be detoured, I tied up several steaks (6.5 lb) with twine and thought I would give it a try. I tend to be a briner, so I found the brine recipe in the forum. I did tweak it a little since I don't like to use cure and I try to limit my sugar intake. I also found 1/2 the recipe works for this size. The brine smelled so good, I felt like drinking it straight up. I used Dijon mustard instead of yellow since it was on hand. It took about 12 hours and ended up a little dry, but very flavorful. I attributed the dryness to the fact that my apple juice was cold when I put it in and didn’t get enough of a steam on. I also figured the wrapped steaks didn’t help either.
The next day, I used the same brine for chicken, stuffed it with apple, onion, and carrot, heated the apple juice first, and rubbed with Dijon and the rub. Smoked using hickory and apple. It was utterly fantastic and very juicy.
I had planned on grilling some burgers and thought, can I smoke these? The forum gave some great information on this. I used ½ tbsp of my rub mix/lb and a dollop of bbq sauce to mix in. I think my burgers were a little over ¼ lb each. I used hickory and they only took about 40 mins. Those were the best burgers I have ever have. I don’t think I will ever grill them again.
So now I am on a role. I was going to grill some filet mignon, but I am now addicted to the smoky flavor. The forum didn’t have much on the subject, except to say it wasn’t advisable for individual filets. I thought I would try it anyway using the similar method as the burgers. I used Dijon and my rub and then bacon wrapped them. Used Hickory and 50 min later, they were about 125 degrees. I took them out and wrapped them and let them rest (about 15-20 min). I then reversed seared them to 130, wrapped them and let them rest again for a few min. These were phenomenal and very juicy and tender.
Thank you all for all the past subject matter which has helped me considerably as I start out. This will count as one of the best purchases I have made.
