Making smoked foods Soldering iron cold smoker

I bought some very inexpensive cuts of chicken labelled "Breast roasts for two" from my local supermarket.

They appeared to me to be a prime candidate for value adding.

I brined them in a solution of water, salt, sugar, pepper, and some lemon juice. I also threw in a couple of bay leaves. I have no accurate record of the measurements used.

Measurements are a tricky thing, because you cant rely on one batch being the same as the next. The amount of meat, and its existing water and salt content create differences. You can probably ignore the existing levels, but the amount of meat being brined changes things a lot. The result is you cant just say x amount of water needs y amount of salt.

As I understand it, the process of absorbing the salt and sugar is done by osmosis. Salt is removed from the water, so the amount of meat in the brine changes how much salt is left in the brine. The result is the solution might need to be stronger to brine more meat. Irregular shaped meat like my chicken breast still on the bone, requires a bigger amount of water to cover it.

The good thing is, it will probably work well no matter what you do, but it does make a recipe a bit pointless.

That being said I used about 6 litres of water and a bit over half a cup of both salt, and sugar.

Brine your food in cold water, in the fridge.

After an hour and a half, I removed the chicken, pat it dry, and placed it into my lidded BBQ.

A 12 or 24 hour brine would have been better but I was pressed for time.

I also placed my trusty tin can full of holes inside, and jammed a 60watt soldering iron* into it at the base.

Perfect, cold smoke in minutes.

A total success.

The wood chips were from a store bought pack of smoking wood chips.





Im pretty sure this would ruin the soldering iron for soldering, but this was one Ive never used as it was way too powerful for anything I might do.

Previously I used my tin can full of holes with burning heat beads to keep it going, so I needed quite a few holes to support the combustion required to keep it alight. With the soldering iron, I can choke it down a lot more because it will never go out. I think Ill make a new tin can with less holes, and a large adjustable hole in the top by way of two lids with large holes that I can rotate to make whatever size hole I need. This should allow total control over how much smoke is made, and with some marks on the lids, I should be able to keep a record of what setting it was on, and what worked and what didnt.

But it does seem that everything works, no matter what you do so dont be too stressed over recipes and instructions. Just have a go, and you wont be disappointed.



120 Things in 20 years - Should have done a bit more research before trying to make a cold smoker because a soldering iron works really well.


*using a soldering iron for a cold smoker is NOT an original 120 things idea

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todays real blog about non nerdy things

Today is the first time...I have paired Navi and Eddie and fur hasnt gone flying.

Christmas litter? Maybe so =]

Hoping for some christmas babies

So someone ate all my cookies...and I cant find any pie.

>.>

<.<

I put a lot of work into those cookies. Shouldnt I choose where they go?

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Making smoked foods Tin can smoker

As far as I can tell, everything worth eating, is worth smoke curing.


As a result of a gift from my other mother, we have one of these in our yard.

Shiny!

And poorly photographed!

"Poorly photographed", is a new style Im exploring a bit in this post.





A gas BBQ is all well and good, but as part of the move to gas, we tend to miss out a bit on the flavours that woodsmoke can provide.

Gas = good

Wood = good

Gas AND woodsmoke = amazing!

An extremely important part of this "Thing" is the humble tin can. I say humble, but Im not really sure if a tin can actually does humble.

Im guessing a tin can mostly does tin can things.

Lurking springs to mind.

Shinning might also rate a mention if its a fresh one.

Mines a fresh one.


Shine can, shine.

Lurk can, lurk.

A tin can can also have holes punched through it with an old mini-screwdriver, but Ill get to that a bit later.

For now, Ill introduce the backbone and or possibly un-necessary briquette.

Backbone, because it provides the heat that drives the smoke.

Un-necessary, because it might not.

I cant really tell what contribution this stuff made, other than it was used, and the result was good.

I also dont know enough to endorse any product you might see in this post, so take everything I say as you always should, with a grain of bacon salt.




Now is probably a good time to say that none of this stuff is my idea or anything (except perhaps using a screwdriver as a drill, and then enlarging those screwdriver holes with a bigger, thicker screwdriver ) but rather, its a collage of everything Ive read over the last few days, and the implementation is based on trial and error in real time, bizarre ritual, and risking tonights meal.

DO try this at home. (except maybe the bit about ramming a screwdriver through a can of burning coal)

Anyway...

The briquettes look like this up close.

They look like brown coal, but I suspect they are made of more recent trees. Checking...

Ok... well it seems the packaging reads "Not suitable for barbecues. Probably something I should have read before buying it. Perhaps it shouldnt have been displayed in the BBQ section of the hardware I bought them from.

You live and learn.


I hope this isnt what made todays smoking such a success.

I have no idea whats in these things, so please dont use them unless you find out, and then please tell me what they are made off so I can seek whatever medical attention I might need.

Im sure Ill be walrus.

Anyway...

other things to show and tell, include hickory chips.

I ended up using around two cups for my two chicken thighs, but Im guessing it would make no difference how much stuff I put in the BBQ. It would still take around two cups.

Two chicken thighs in a BBQ is a total waste of energy, but I didnt want to waste too much food if it all went wrong.

I also bought some fire starter cube things to get the briquettes that are unsuitable for BBQs alight.

I have no idea what these things are made of.









If I ran an unscrupulous country that wanted to get rid of its toxic waste, Id just shape it into things and export it as products.

Outdoor furniture and so forth.

So, I smacked a few holes in my tin can with a rusty old mini-screwdriver thing.

I knew it was sharp enough for this task, because every other time I use it for a task it wasnt designed for, I manage to gain a body piercing of a part of my hand that was never designed to receive such a thing.

This time I hurt nothing but the can, because it turns out cans are pretty thin.

Confident stabs make smaller dents in the can, and cleaner holes.

Stab confidently.

I punched two extra holes at the top to thread a loop of wire through to act as a handle.

Probably not required, but I did use it at the end of the day to pick it up and put it under a water tap to make sure any leftover fire was safely out.

So... add a handle if you have a handy coat hanger or length of wire.

Pliers also work as a handle.

It took way too long to get the briquettes going because there was clearly not enough oxygen getting to them.

The flames were there, but they started at the top where they met fresh air rather than at the fuel where a fire should be.

So I "extra safely" punched a few more holes through, then made them bigger with a thicker screwdriver.

It turns out its probably not a good idea to do this when its burning, but it worked out fine in the end.

The fire took on a much more healthy glow, and I held back on adding too many holes to the lid, because I figured I might need to damp the fire down a bit because I want smoke not flame.

You cant really see it in the pic, but the flame actually looked like it was coming in through the holes at the bottom. Like an inside out gas burner. Like the fuel was gasing, and the flames did what they did to seek the oxygen.

Interesting. And a pretty handy tin can stove.


To be honest, I dont really understand why this was burning like I wanted it to when I wanted to get it alight, but then settled down to what I wanted it to do when I wanted smoke.

All the photos above include flame from the fire starter things, so perhaps its just a case of them burning with a bit more gusto than the heat beads and wood chips.

Or it could be the water soaking of the wood chips.

Did I mention that? The wood chips were soaked in water boiling water for a few minutes before being added to the tin can with the glowing briquettes.

I suspect they dry out before they start to smoke, so perhaps its just to stage the wood chips so they dont all go up in flames at the same time. As far as I can tell, it should be possible to either make them burn in stages by wetting them, creating only a small section at any one time thats dry enough and hot enough to start smoking, OR restrict the airflow and choke them to whatever combustion rate you want.

Perhaps the water soaking has some other reason. Ill let you know if it turns out to be important.

Smoke!

Lots of it.

I didnt push the number of holes, because I didnt want it to go to flame, but I got the feeling I could have made as much smoke as I wanted simply by adding more.






There was quite a bit of slack space between it burning , and it smoking. If I put out the fire, it would take a lot of blowing at the holes around the bottom to get it to flame again. (I only did this to test how forgiving it was) The result was that it seemed to prefer to make smoke rather than fire unless it was really coaxed into flame, and even then it settled back to making smoke.

Clearly it knew its designated task.

Ill play a bit more later, and theres always the lid to damp it down if needs be.  I might even add a second lid so I can turn it like a tap to adjust it. ie, a big hole in each lid, and overlap them so you can change the size of the hole.

I was concentrating on air in, but controlling air (or exhaust) out does the same thing. It probably doesnt matter which one you control, the result is, if you restrict the airflow over the coals, you restrict the burn, and control the smoke.

After an hour or so of smoke that was sometimes on and sometimes off, depending on what I was trying at the time, the result looked like this.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed.

I thought it would have a lot more smoke colour to it. Some of that colour on the bacon was there in the beginning. And this photo is actually a little flattering as far as colour goes.



But it was getting late so I lit the BBQ and brought the bacon wrapped, blue cheese, and tomato stuffed chicken thigh parcels (my best tying effort to date in my own opinion) up to an internal temperature of 75c.

Apparently I missed a step called brining. Ill let you know if it turns out to have been important. I think it involves marinating your food in a salt water solution before smoking like I had to do with the home made cheese "thing".

But the result was truly amazing!

Totally worthwhile.

My big fear is that this will be one of those beginners luck things, and that I will now spend the rest of my life trying to duplicate it.

Hopefully, and perhaps more likely, is that this is just the beginning of what is possible with smoking.

I hope so.

The result makes for a terrible photo, because for some reason, I went for an autopsy/science  look rather than a food look.

Never take a food cross section photo straight on.

Originally I was a bit suspicious of the pink, thinking it might be under cooked, but my digital meat thermometer said it was cooked, and it turned out the thermometer knows its stuff.


The chicken looked a bit like good bacon.

The bacon wrapped around the chicken looked like what I now call good chicken.

If anything it was actually a little over-done, but the brining step might add a bit of moisture to the final product that might counteract that.

Who knows. I cant wait to find out.

The only thing to do is learn a bit more, and do it again.

I rate this experiment with a tin can smoker a total success, and if youve ever thought about smoke curing stuff, I thoroughly recommend giving it a go.

Insanely delicious.

I hope the in(common)-laws dont read this and want their BBQ back.




120 Things in 20 years - Smoke cured stuff really rocks, and you can knock up a tin can smoker in only a few minutes.

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God is a Girl

?

I figured Id include spyro in a blog. Cause we all love fat ass Spyro once we meet him. He has gained some major weight and needs a bath. So oh I dunno I will probably sneak him one after my sister leaves.

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odd dreams

Ok well only involves one dream.

I will tell you the whole thing (as I remember) but only cause it was that odd....but theres one key point that confuses me.

So...

Adam left our condo to hang out. I told him Chris, my ex would be over just to visit. No big deal. Chris came over. "I miss you and want you back and never want to go home. Will you take me back?" I looked at him in a confused face. "uhhh no?" So to break awkwardness I asked Kelly if she wanted to go to this party with me. She agreed. So I left.

We had to cross the worlds largest intersection to get to the party.

*I dont remember this part of the dream....some junk happened?*

I went to pee in the toilet that was overflowing and flushing at the same time...making a whirlwind sort of thing. I did some gymnastic move to pee in it. Then I took off all my clothes and left. "Where are your clothes?" Kelly said. "Theyre wet in the bathroom."

We went back into the bathroom and their was a chick in a wheelchair throwing up in the scary toilet. I grabbed my clothes and she came closer. Suddenly I noticed another, non scary, normal toilet to my right. She dunked her head in it and flushed then put it in a ponytail like it was the normal way to do hair.

I put my clothes in the hosts room. Then we crossed the intersection.

*more junk happened?*

Now Im awake and confused. Well this dream was like...on Friday or something lol. Anyway...why does he keep popping up in my dreams? I have absolutely no feelings for him...at all and I dont want anything to do with him relationship wise at all. So confused!

I mean...I love Adam. No doubt about it. Im not hiding anything. I have no idea what my mind is trying to tell me. That I still wanna at least be friends? That I think you did the wrong thing and will regret it...even though I dont care?

I mean its the second dream in a year where he has popped in to tell me he loves me and to ask to be taken back. Its not much but still...very odd.

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Making smoked foods Tin can smoker Cold smoke

I thought Id try to get the food to a place where I had a little more control over the temperature. In my first experiment with my tin can smoker, the device was inside the BBQ, and contributed quite a bit of heat. I suspect the BBQ was at around 50c, which is perfect if you want to breed bacteria.

Id prefer not to.

I figured I might be able to create smoke by just dry frying some wood chips, and I think it shows some promise.


I put the can on the wok burner and ran it on high for a bit before adding some hickory wood chips.

In this photo I used a flash so as to not distort how much smoker there was. Its a dull day, and if I took it without the flash, I would have captured half a second of smoke instead of 250th of a second or whatever flashes really run at. [Which is why you cant see much of the flame]

Probably much much faster.


Anyway...

It worked a treat.

A total successful test, and only took about 5 minutes to start smoking, and be ready to use. It might even be possible to just move it inside the BBQ now that its going, and the BBQ heat night keep it going.

That might mean it will be useful as a cold smoke maker, and a hot smoke maker.

I guess I should write some stuff on what smoking is all about instead of jumping right in with a smoker. Sometimes I forget Im supposed to be writing about this stuff, and just get on with the learning.




120 Things in 20 years Making cold smoke in a tin can smoker on a wok burner may just be the 2nd success in a row. Im not sure thats ever happened before.

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