Smoking time

Chicken, pork, and beef all succomb to the smoke.

I'm lucky to have good friends with such diverse interests. Much like Chris showing me how to roast coffee, Michael offered to lift the veil on smoking meat.

An early start, grabbing breakfast for us both, I arrived around 8.30am. He'd prepped the meats with a variety of dry rubs and brines beforehand. Ready for the days smoking.

The setup

Blowtorch, temperature probes, spray bottles, an assortment of wood; Hickory, Cherry, Oak. Charcoal. It's all here. Even though is already hot outside, it's overcast with a threat of rain, so we rearrange. Swap the table with the smoker so it's undercover.

The Smoker

The smoker is a multi-part lozenge. At the bottom the heat source. A tray with charcoal, lit by blowtorch. Once thats going the wood gets added, and vents are adjusted.

Using a blow torch to ignite charcoal at the bottom of the smoker

The main body gets attached. It has the door to feed the fire, water pan (which was a surprise to me), and grills.

It seems moisture plays a great part in the process. Without it, the meat can dry out and become not-to-dissimilar to the charcoal that heats it.

Thats where the spray bottle comes in. Throughout the process the meat is liberally spayed with a mix of orange juice & water.

14lb pork butt, cut in two, covered in dry rub and sprayed

The Grill

Next we're over the grill. This has a smoker box attached to the side, so the meat is heated indirectly. Again a mix of charcoal and wood, then on goes the chicken wings.

Chicken wings being smoked

These are going to be our lunch.

The waiting

Smoking is a long process. A great time to catch up, enjoy an adult beverage, and set the world to rights. But this is not a 'set-and-forget' process. Continual checks, fuel top-ups, and micro-adjustments need to be made.

After a couple hours, the pork is changing color

After a while it was time to add temperature probes into the pork. It had already gone through a noticeable change in appearance.

After the chicken was cooked, the beef was added to the grill.

Corned beef brisket on the grill

And it was time to top up the wood in the smoker. There was a little "dirty smoke" incident that Michael handled, and we're back on track.

Adding wood to the smoker

Lunch was the smoked wings, which were great. Add to that a couple of slices of Gloria's delicious zucchini bread, a re-watching of 'The Shawshank Redemption' (repeating a lot of our fave lines), another adult beverage, and a good time was had by all.

Looks burnt, but that's the "bark" forming on the pork

Checking the probes the pork had been sitting at 160° for a little while. At this point we wrap the meat. Again, new to me. Michael explained this is to help with "The Stall", where the internal temperature plateaus.

Donning my black nitrile gloves, I lifted each cut onto a piece of butcher paper. Wrapped it and placed it back in the smoker, then sprayed some more.

Pork wrapped in butcher paper, sprayed, and back in smoker

Sitting outside, bathing in the smells of cherry and hickory smoke.

Into the evening

We let the smoker settle down and do it's thing. Up next was a re-watching of 'Jaws', again with us repeating the classic lines, and some homemade apple dumplings with ice-cream.

11pm and the pork hadn't finished yet, but it was time for me to call it a day and drive home. We did get a chance to try the beef, which was really tasty.

First slice of the beef

I woke the next morning to photos of the pork, finally done at 3am. Falling apart to the touch. Juicy, with a visible smoke ring under the bark.

Pork butt falling apart, showing the smoke ring, at 3am

As always I had a great time, learned a lot, and came away with a load of homemade goodies. A really fun way to spend a Saturday with a good friend.