Smokapalooza 2010

Over Labor Day Weekend, I joined my parents and, for part of the weekend, my little sister and her husband in Bridgman, Michigan. My parents go there regularly, my sister occasionally, and me almost never. It’s not because I dislike the place, but rather because until this weekend, Phred had been banned. With the ban tentatively lifted, a long weekend, and a hankering to do some serious smoking in a place where I could just put out the smoker and leave it (something I cannot do in my courtyard apartment building with no deck), I was ready to roll.

On Friday, I did beef ribs for the first time:

I tried two different rubs. On one, I used my regular rub that I use on pork ribs. On the other, I went with just salt and pepper.

The verdict: Delicious. The spicy rub usually reserved for pork was a little much for the beef. The rack with just salt and pepper was pretty much perfect.

On Saturday, the smoker rested. On Sunday, it went into overdrive. The day began with pulled pork:

It’s hard to believe I’ve had my smoker for almost two years and just made pulled pork for the first time. It’s cheap and ridiculously easy. And yes, it is fantastic. I nibbled some as I pulled it, but the bulk of this has been divided into individual servings and frozen.

The next meat two hit the smoker on Sunday was salmon. Smoked salmon may be my favorite of all smoked meats. When I say smoked salmon, I mean the hot smoked stuff like that routinely sold in the Pacific Northwest and often available in gourmet food stores usually inside foil packets. I like cold-smoked salmon like lox a lot, but that’s not what I’m going for. But I’ve had a lot of trouble finding recipes I think will work. I made smoked salmon once before using a bourbon and molasses based brine and it was very good the second day (too salty the first). I decided to try two basic recipes this time. One, from Alton Brown, was basically a semi-cured gravlax that was then smoked. That one called for a salt/sugar rub to cover the salmon which was then covered and weighted down for a day to force out a lot of juice. The second one involved a wet brine for about 75 minutes before hitting the smoker. Here they are:

Bottom line, the wet brined salmon was very good, but not nearly as moist as I wanted. The Alton Brown salmon is a super-salty failure. It’s not inedible, but it’s just not good. I’m pissed at myself for experimenting with such large pieces of salmon. I don’t know what I’m going to do with the dry one. Each fillet was 3 pounds so I’m not throwing it out. Maybe I’ll make a whole lot of salmon salad and hope the mayo brings enough moisture and coolness to the dry saltiness.

UPDATE: As of Thursday evening, the saltiness of the second salmon dissipated significantly. That version was still not idea, but it was a whole lot better than just edible.

After the salmon, it was time for some birds.

I really should smoke turkey more. I used the same brine I used a couple of Thanksgivings ago and it still produces phenomenal results.

Fun chicken story. Some of the chicken was kosher and some was not. They were prepared in identical brines and cooked simultaneously on the smoker. I’ve always bought into the concept that Kosher chicken was better, but I had never tested out the theory. I did a blind taste test using a thigh from each. Both the brother-in-law and I picked the Kosher bird, though neither of us thought the difference was all that stark. Take that for whatever it’s worth.

On Monday, the smoker had an important job: Pastrami.

So, so good.

The smoker was still going strong and I had no meat left to cook. I did, however, have potatoes. I’d read on LTHForum about someone smoking potatoes and then mashing them and being pretty happy about the results. I decided to make mashed potatoes and then smoke them.

These were astoundingly good. I may never light my smoker again without also making some mashed potatoes.

And when I do, I will do all I can to make sure I have blue cheese on hand because that made the potatoes even better.

All told, I smoked a 12 pound brisket, an 8 pound pork butt, 8 pounds of beef ribs, 6 pounds of salmon, two chickens, a turkey breast and a mess of mashed potatoes. That is what I call a productive Labor Day weekend.

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 9th, 2010 at 1:30 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.