Smoking Meat (7 page)

Spatula

Another wonderful tool that is a must for any outdoor cook is a heavy-duty spatula. It needs to be sturdy enough to slip under a heavy piece of meat, like brisket, and lift it without bending. I often use my spatula in tandem with my tongs to flip a brisket and/or remove it from the smoker when it is finished cooking.

Spatula

Basting brush and saucepot

I would be remiss if I failed to mention the basting brush and its companion 1½-cup saucepot. The best brushes have silicone bristles, which do a great job of holding the sauce as you move it from the pot to the meat. The saucepot should be stainless steel. Both the brush and saucepot can be thrown into the dishwasher after use. You can also use a sauce mop for basting; most are bristled like a paintbrush, though others resemble miniature floor mops. Try a few out and see what works best for you.

Basting brush

Knives

I am not sure if knives would normally be considered cooking utensils, but I’m going to categorize them as such and recommend that you get a good set, along with a sharpener. I prefer to use certain knives when cutting ribs, others for chopping veggies, and still others for slicing brisket or deboning chicken.

When people ask me what the best knives are, I always say, “sharp ones.” That really is the best answer. Different brands of knives definitely differ in quality, but a cheap knife that is sharp will work better than a high-quality one that is dull. No matter what type of knives you choose to use, learn how to sharpen them, then keep them sharp. Many chefs sharpen their knives before each use, and while most of us aren’t professional chefs, there is something to be said for having properly maintained tools.

Knife for cutting ribs

Grill brush and scraper

A grill brush and scraper combination is an excellent utensil to have in your barbecue toolbox. All of that gunk that sticks to the grates can easily be knocked off with one of these. I usually replace mine a couple of times each year, or more often if necessary. This tool should be used to clean the grate after each smoking session. After cleaning my grate, I like to spray it lightly with oil to get it ready for the next use.

Spray bottle

Another must-have tool is a spray bottle. These bottles are great for spraying meat with various liquids as it cooks; for example, ribs with apple juice, or turkey with melted butter. The applications are endless, and you’ll find yourself using the bottles over and over.

I found some small spray bottles in the beauty supplies section of my local department store. I purchased several in varying colors to help me remember which liquid is in each bottle. You can also just as easily label each bottle to show that it contains apple juice, olive oil, water, or whatever you like to use.

Gloves and Aprons

When working with burning charcoal, flaming wood, and sizzling hot meat, it’s necessary to protect your hands and clothing. For this reason, folks have put their heads together to come up with wearable items that protect you and your clothing from heat and splatters that naturally occur during cooking. While you can possibly cook and smoke meat without these items, they are in the “nice to have” category. At a minimum, I highly recommend buying a good set of heat-resistant gloves (that go up to your elbows) and an apron that will keep your clothes free of grease and food splatters. I prefer an apron with lots of pockets for carrying thermometers, cooking utensils, pencils, and seasonings.

I feel that Weber has done the best job of producing well-thought-out items that fit into this category. I love their long, thick, heat-resistant gloves and their heavy-duty, full-body aprons emblazoned with the stylish Weber logo. Having said that, I also have a pair of cheap heat-resistant, silicone mittens, which I like to use for flipping meat over or removing hot meat from the smoker. Shop around and buy the best protective gear you can afford—your hands and clothing will thank you for it.

Flavor Chunks, Chips, and Pellets

When using charcoal, electricity, or gas as a heat source, wood of some sort must be added to the mix in order to flavor the meat. This is where wood chunks and wood chips come in. These can be purchased in varying sizes and types of wood almost anywhere smokers or grills are sold. The most common varieties are hickory and mesquite, but other woods such as apple, cherry, oak, and pecan can also be found if you look around a bit. I go into more detail on suitable wood for smoking later in this chapter. If you cannot find the wood you want where you live, consider looking online at retailers like Amazon.com.

Electric smokers such as the Bradley and the Traeger use compressed sawdust in the form of pellets or biscuits to smoke the meat. These can be purchased in almost any flavor directly from the manufacturer, in specialty stores, or online.

tips and techniques

Seasoning a Smoker

All new smokers must be seasoned. Oils, paints, and other chemicals are used during the manufacturing process, leaving residue on the metal. If you don’t season your smoker (and thereby remove this residue) your food will taste and smell like something that it shouldn’t, and you could be ingesting dangerous substances. You should also season your smoker if you haven’t used it in more than two years and after any general cleaning with soap or chemicals (see Cleaning Your Smoker, below).

To season a smoker, simply spray a light coating of cooking oil on all inside surfaces. Then run the smoker through a normal cooking session, excluding the meat. That is, run it at 225°
F
using your favorite wood for smoke. This seasoning session should last approximately two hours. The smoker can then be safely used for smoking meat.

Cleaning Your Smoker

There are a few things you can do to keep your smoker clean from one smoking session to the next. As with any cooking device, the grate or cooking surface should be kept very clean. For this reason I recommend using a wad of foil or a grate brush to remove any loose material. You can then run the grate or cooking surface through the dishwasher on the pots and pans cycle. They’ll usually come out spotless. If it’s been a while since you last cleaned your grates and there are lots of stubborn bits of debris between the rails, you can place them in your oven and run it through a self-clean cycle (assuming the grates will fit in your oven). This ramps the heat in the oven up to about 900°
F
and burns off the debris. The grates should come out clean and shiny.

I recommend deep-cleaning your smoker about once a year. Use a basic degreaser like Simple Green and a nylon scrub brush to remove as much of the grease and muck from the smoker walls as possible. For the more stubborn stuff, you may need to use a plastic putty knife as a scraper. Once everything is sparkling clean again and the inside has been well rinsed to remove all traces of soaps and cleaners, the smoker will need to be re-seasoned (see Seasoning a Smoker, previous page).

Using a Smoker and Grill Together

Many folks who get interested in the method of cooking meat over low heat are previously avid grillers. This can be advantageous, since there are still many uses for the grill while smoke cooking, and experience with higher heat can play a part in producing some really delicious food.

The first application of a grill that comes to mind is finishing off chicken. Whole chickens do very well in the smoker, but the low and slow method of cooking tends to produce rubbery skin. For this reason, I recommend removing chicken from the smoker about 15 minutes before it is finished cooking, and using a hot grill to crispen the skin. This way you get the best of both worlds: slow smoked chicken that is tender and moist with crispy, delicious skin.

You can also use the grill to prepare the vegetables or sides you are serving with the main entrée—a veggie stir-fry, for example, made in a pan or piece of foil with the sides turned up, or tomatoes brushed with olive oil and basil and placed directly on the grate. Some things are just better suited to the grill, and your job is to know what to grill and what to smoke low and slow.

If your grill has a side burner, this is a nifty place to prepare a pot of barbecued beans or to warm up a sauce or marinade to brush onto the meat just before it is finished. There are so many options—you just need to be creative to see how much of the meal you can prepare outdoors. Not only does cooking outside make food taste better; it also keeps the heat out of the kitchen and, better yet, it keeps you out by the smoker where you probably want to be anyway.

Logging Your Smoking Sessions

Everyone who knows me knows that I’m a big fan of keeping notes. If you’re anything like me, you’ll say to yourself, “Yeah, I’ll remember that,” but then you don’t. The next day that info is long gone, overwritten by other data that is so much more recent and important.

You’ve also no doubt heard the saying, “If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.” Although this saying is often used to motivate people to change, there’s also something to be said for consistency. What if what you’ve done produces a delicious result? How in the world will you repeat that perfect smoking session if you can’t remember exactly what you did?

Keep a logbook of cooking temperature, type of wood, weather, how much charcoal you used, how long the cooking session took, etc. This way you can either repeat what you did or change it up a bit based on the given variables. I created a template document for this purpose; I put copies of the template in a three-ring binder and fill in the information while I am cooking.

Your log does not have to be complex; in fact, it can be as simple as jotting some notes on a pad of paper. However you choose to keep notes is up to you, but I do recommend that you do it. I still go back and refer to cooking times and temperatures from smokes I did years ago, especially for things that I don’t cook often. These notes have been extremely valuable to me over the years.

Using Pans and Foil in Your Smoker

The most accepted method of smoking meat is to place it right on the grate. This gives the meat excellent exposure to the smoke and creates a nice bark, or firm, tasty crust, on its surface. So why do it any other way? I’m glad you asked.

Smoking meat in foil

It’s a technique that’s become known as the “Texas crutch,” and more and more folks are doing it—wrapping their meat in foil to tenderize it and keep in the moisture. Purist smokers strictly maintain that this is not the correct way to smoke meat, but a lot of people believe that the low and slow method of cooking is more about enjoying the experience.