Around 6 months ago or so I asked for advice on buying a smoker/barbecue. In the end, I ended up going with a ProQ Frontier Elite. I just though I would give a wee update to how I'm getting on.
Obviously, the predictably unpredictable Scottish weather, and my general lack of time has stopped me from doing a great deal though
First up was a chicken. After successfully seasoning my smoker, I thought I'd test it out with a chicken. I wasn't really that bothered how it went, as it was only a test. I didn't even have a thermometer so there was a lot of guess work. Tasted great though!
Second was a pork shoulder. This ended up very poor. I had great difficulty in keeping the heat going - I have since started using heat beads, which made the world of difference - and I ended up taking the meat out and putting it in the oven as I had 7 hungry people waiting on pulled pork. We ended up eating at around 8pm, and the pork was dry and never quite got to the optimum temperature for pulling apart, but we I had no choice as we had to eat. If there was any consolation, it was the fact that there was a lovely smoke ring and the flavour was good.
Next up, we decided that for our boxing day meal, we would have a "turf and turf" meal. Steak cooked inside in the grill with ribs and a smaller chunk of pork in the smoker. My intention was to use the pork in a curry to be made at a later date. I had 3 racks of ribs, 2 back from ASDA, and 1 front rack from the my local butcher. I went for the 2-2-1 for the ASDA small racks, and 3-2-1 for the larger butcher rack. This cook was a bit of a nightmare from start to finish. It was freezing, windy, and poured with rain all day, so the smoker was in a small alcove by the garage which meant a short walk in the rain every time I wanted to check or tend to the food. It was horrendous trying to get coals lit to start with and again when I wanted to top up, and to make things even more difficult for me, It gets dark ridiculously early in the winter here and I couldn't see a thing in the alcove - I won't be doing it this way again!! Anyway, the ASDA ribs were passable, with a nice flavour and smoke ring, but the butcher ribs were pretty good. They weren't pull off the bone soft but had a slight tug, so I don't think I need a great deal of improvement here. I used "Memphis Dust" as my rub with some homemade bbq sauce.
And my most recent, and only real success so far was a couple of weeks ago. A large rack of beef ribs, with bacon wrapped sausages, Polish smoked sausages, and chicken wings, served with a side of mac'n'cheese. I used a salt, pepper, garlic, mustard and onion rub for the beef ribs, and "Memphis Dust" on the chicken with half the sausages getting that rub as well. Right from the start I managed to get a steady 225f temperature that lasted a good 2 hours before moving a little either way. I didn't wrap the ribs at all, even when they hit the stall for around an hours (they actually dropped a good 10-20f in the stall) before getting up to 203 internal when I took them off and wrapped them in the cool box for around 30 minutes or so. The ribs were in around 6 hours, with the sausages and chicken in for the last 2 hours. Though I admit I got a little impatient (and hungry) so raised the temp towards the end to around 255f. All in all, everything cooked was absolutely delicious. They were all moist, with a lovely smoke ring and lovely flavour, and we all ate a ton. I cooked way too much though!
My next project will be on Saturday - weather permitting - with the plan being to smoke barbecue beans, burgers, sausages, and maybe stuffed jalapeños. Seems like it won't be too hard, but you never know...
Now to try to upload a few photos!
Hmmm I've been trying to upload a few pics from photobucket but I keep getting the error message "Your images may only be up to 600 pixels wide" which is odd as I have resized them already. Not sure what I'm doing wrong so perhaps I will have another go at some point over the weekend. And sorry for such a long post!
