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Smoking Tasty Treats

Smoking meat is completely about cooking the meat slow and steady, unlike grilling where burgers and meats are seared at very high temperatures. If you are deadly serious about barbecue and smoke flavored meat, then you need to learn a bit about it. Smoking meat is part skill, part experience, and part machinery. If someone is a rookie to meat smoking, asking peers about primary things one needs to learn will really help. Most burgeoning pit masters won’t share secrets about their recipes, but they will share the fundamentals of what to do. One can look on the Internet for recipes and some of that wonderful taste. The longer someone smokes meat, the easier new techniques and secret recipes can be learned.

The indirect method of smoking allows you to use an ordinary grill as a smoker and believe it or not, you can create some excellent meat this way. Smoking meat is a great way to tenderize tough cuts of meat, such as ribs, brisket and pork shoulder. Smoking meat is cooking it between 190f and 225f while in the meat smoker. Cold smoking meat is primarily for cured meat like ham, bacon etc. And is done inside the meat smoker grill at temperatures below 80f. Cold smoking always takes longer than hot smoking. You can short smoke meat like steaks and chops on the barbecue grill with gas grills smokers or long smoke meat inside gas grills smokers. Whether you smoke your meat inside a gas grill or meat smoker, any way that you decide to push smoke into the meat is a great way to enjoy it.

Smoking meat calls for acquiring the proper internal temperature. Because outside temperatures will determine cooking time, you cannot rely on time alone. There are many recipes available but they cannot be applied across the board. Meat smoking is also a growing trend for great flavor by adding taste to food without adding extra fat. When the smoke surrounds mild meats like pork, fish and poultry, it produces a scrumptious flavor and rich color that’s futile to resist. Smoking is almost trivial with some experience to do and can be completed in a kettle-style grill using indirect heat and adding wood chips to banked coals. At least two hours before you plan to start cooking, place wood chips or chunks in water to soak. Estimate two chunks of wood or a good handful of wood chips for each hour of planned smoker time. If you have unburned soaked wood after finishing smoking, it can be dried and used at another time. Build the fire about 40 minutes before you plan to start grilling. Remove the grate from the covered cooker and build a hill of about 25-30 charcoal briquettes on one side of the fire grate, light them, and let them burn down to glowing embers, covered with gray ash. Leave only one of the bottom air vents open directly under the briquettes. Place an an aluminum pan filled two-thirds full of water opposite the briquettes.

Smoking meat is mainly used to break down and add flavor to the meat. It can also be a low heat and slow method that works great for fatty or tough meat like beef brisket, beef ribs, pork spareribs, or lamb shoulder. For that signature smoky flavor, you need wood chips. Apple, maple, mesquite, and hickory are the best wood chips to use. There are some considerations when smoking meat on your own. To prevent E. Coli and/or other sickness, observe cleanliness when working with raw meat. Wash counters and your hands often, separate meats in different stages of preparation, and cook & chill using proper temperatures. Defrosting the meat properly is an important step in the process. Defrosting while smoking can cause bacteria to breed within the meat. Remember, smoking takes longer. Regular grill cooking happens more rapidly and the bacteria would not have time to grow, but with smoking it is a real possibility.

Smoking meat is by far the paramount means of achieving that desired flavor but it also requires the most effort. With the benefits of our up to date barbecuing tools the equivalent results can be realized without all of the extra work involved. The most rapid way to add the smoke flavor to any meat is by the use of liquid smoke. This can be added to any food from baked beans to grilled fish. There are several caveats to this item as it does not impart a genuine smoke flavor to your recipe nor should the liquid be employed on a constant daily basis. We recommend this product only to create more interesting homemade sauces. You can use your backyard gas grills smoker to smoke meats. Several producers of grills now include a smoke trough where you can insert a mixture of wood chips, pellets or chunks of hardwood for use as smoking material. The hoods on these grills typically require closure when meat smoking is needed. If you have an older grill which lacks the trough don’t worry, as you can buy a smoke box at your local houseware outlet, or you can put together your own out of aluminum foil pockets to hold the wood
chunks. The only problem with using the backyard grill for smoking is that the grill tends to cook the meat too rapidly. Please remember that the art of correctly smoking meat is to cook the meat slowly over a longer period of time at lower temperatures. Making use of the typical propane grill setup for smoking the meat can result in the food being done much too quickly while failing to impart the desired subtle smoky notes. This is why you need low temperatures and the right tool for the job. Fortunately such equipment is available today for minimal cost.

Smoking meat is great for providing a warm and accomodating atmosphere for guests, perhaps inside a nice gazebo or around a picnic table. Most of us savor the simple joy of staying outdoors and eating tasty grilled meat but it often doesn’t cross our minds that what appears to be healthy grilling can turn out to be less than healthy. Heterocyclic amines and polycylcic aromatic hydrocarbons may sound like complex words to most of us, but if we look carefully into their meanings we may look at grilling in a whole different way. Heterocyclic amines are cancer causing substances that appear linked with the grilling of muscle meat and they have been shown to possibly cause tumors in animals and perhaps even in humans.

Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, for example, are cancer causing compounds produced by fats leaking onto the fiery coals and then being released through the smoke. The smoke emanated releases these compounds which coat the meat. There is a silver lining though! The above cancer promoting compounds do not necessarily mean that you should ban grilling from your summer time gatherings. There are some steps you can take to reduce the amount|number of these compounds from coating your meats. Marinate your meats before grilling and grill a lot of non meat fare along with the meat to avoid filling up on meat alone. Also, do not overcook or char your meat. The more charring, the more cancer causing compounds will be formed and found on your burger. Cook your meat slower and at lower temperatures, and grill every other night because in moderation, grilling and meat smoking can be thoroughly enjoyed.