Video Favorites

I enjoy preparing, smoking, and eating delicious protein.    I also like watching informative videos that represent the process as well as situations that I cannot reproduce at home.  

Here are some of my favorites and why.

(I will be adding new videos to to the top of this list)

• The Bearded Butchers - How to Make Bacon at Home Like a Pro Butcher
  This video shows how the pig is butchered to produce the pork bellies and provides an example of fluid based brine.   I usually brine my bellies  5-7, while these pro's recommend much longer - 10-14 days. (Added 2021.09.18)
  
• All Things Barbecue - How to Make Pastrami | Cure & Smoke
  This instruction is straight forward, simple, and effective.  The result looks fantastic.  I need to try this.   The use of a briner buckett was interesting. (Added 2021.09.18)
• Amazon: brine bucket
• Walmart: brine bucket
• 
  

Beef Jerky Home-run 

The latest experience with making beef jerky has been a tremendous hit.  The goal was to find a great meat to start with and then a recipe that tasted great and didn't include any gluten.   Ever since my first homemade jerky, 10 plus years ago, I've always assumed it required soy sauce.  I love soy sauce so it just made sense to me that's where the deep savory curing flavor would come from.  Since then we have purchased beef jerky from a few manufacturers that were GF so it was obviously not a requirement to use soy sauce.

The Meat

I knew I wanted to use a pretty lean meat.  The result will last longer, have fewer calories, and taste better.  I also knew I didn't want to pay huge amounts of money for the meat.  I ended up stopping by my local US Foods - Chefs' Store and walking into the meat cooler.  I found a large top-round roast.  Large really doesn't cover it.  The smallest roast I could find was 21-22 lbs.  I picked the smallest I could find and headed for the check-out.   The roast cost $102.00.   At home I cut open the vacuum seal and started to figure out where to begin.  I used a medium size chef knife to cut off any of the fat and then sliced off about a quarter of the roast.   The remainder I separated into 3 roughly equal pieces and froze in one of garage freezers.

The pieces were sliced at about 1/4" to 3/8" in thickness.  

The Recipe

My recipe this go around started with the ideas from this page:

BEST GLUTEN FREE BEEF JERKY RECIPE

The recipe is presented very nicely and has the ability to scale up to accommodate more meat.  

Here's what I ended up using, and it's definitely not as scientific as it should be:

• 1 to 1-1/4 cup of dark brown sugar
• 1 tsp of curing salt - sodium nitrate
• 1/4 cup of coarse ground pepper
• 3 tbsp of granulated garlic
• 1/4-1/3 cup of kosher salt
• Some tap water

The amount of water was iterative until I felt like the slurry would easily move around in the zip-loc bag where the meat and ingredients would spend the next day in the garage refrigerator.   I couldn't find the onion powder in our spice cabinet so I didn't use as the original recipe specified.

I mixed the the marinate/cure using a rough whisk until it was evenly distributed. 

Final Prep

The meat and the marinade/cure were combined in a large bowl and mixed until everything seemed to be equally coated.  The result was placed in nested 1 gallon zippered freezer bags and placed in the garage refrigerator for about a day and half.

The Smoke

I probably left the meat in the marinade/cure longer than necessary and to be honest I almost forgot about it.   I started the day early after Labor Day at 6:00AM and got the smoker ready - cleaned the grates.  I have a set of 3 mesh mats I use for smoking small pieces.  While the smoke tube and grill were warming up I spread the pieces of meat on each of 2 grates.  There was almost more meat that would fit.  Smoking started around 6:30AM

Start of smoking process

Both grates fit nicely in the Green Mountain Grill Daniel Boone model.  There is also room at the back for the smoke tube which produces lots of smoke and little heat.

Smoked Turkey Breast

Smoked Turkey Breast - First Attempt

2018 Thanksgiving has come and gone. Rather than roast an entire turkey in the house oven this year I decided on smoking a pair of frozen turkey breasts.  I picked up a pair of frozen turkey breasts at Costco in Wilsonville Oregon after word one day.  They were each approximately 4-1/2 pounds but I didn't take a picture or record the particular details of the breasts.  I placed the two turkey breasts in our Frigidaire freezer until it got closer to Thanksgiving.  I placed the two breasts in the garage refrigerator 2-1/2 days before Thanksgiving.  The breasts were nicely thawed by Thanksgiving eve with just a little ice left.   Since it was late at night and I was also making a batch of Lime Jello Salad, I decided to put the turkey breasts in a brine solution over night.

Brine Recipe

• About 1 gallon of tap water
• 2/3 cup kosher salt
• 2/3 cut dark brown sugar
• Couple of tablespoons of ground rosemary and garlic powder
• Couple of tablespoons of peppercorns.

Turkey breasts in brine

I placed  all of the above in a 1-1/2 gallon food save container and stirred until all of the salt and brown sugar were dissolved.   Once done I placed the  container in my kitchen sink and then placed the turkey breasts in the container.  The first one went in without any issues.  The second breast caused the brine to overflow the container which was fine.  I poured a little more off so I could transport the container to the extra refrigerator we have in our garage.  There the two breast sat from around 9:30PM Thanksgiving eve until 10:30AM.

Breasts seasoned and ready for the smoker

On Thanksgiving day the breasts were pulled from the brine and placed on an aluminum pan and seasoned with a little cracked pepper and a light dusting with paprika. 

Smoke Tube Lighting

Torched used to start the smoke tube.

While the turkey was coming up to room temperature I got the Green Maintain Daniel Boone grilled fired up with Maple wood pellets.  While the smoker was getting started and coming up to temperature I stuffed the A-Maze-N smoke tube with maple pellets and lit the tube using a torch.  The smoke tube added what seems like a huge amount of extra smoke to the process.  There is no obvious way to measure this but the stack on the grill seems to be producing smoke at a much higher rate than normal.  

Once the smoke tube was burning well, the flame was blown out and the tube was placed in the back of the grill behind the turkey breasts.  Each breast was monitored by 

a separate thermometer.  The one on the right was connected to the grill electronics and the one on the left was an Ikea food thermometer.  I really like the extra thermometers I have from Ikea.  They don't always agree precisely with the Green Mountain grill - or vice versa - but the data provides enough information to make good cooking decisions.   I set the initial smoking temperature to 190.  This went on for about 3-1/2 hours until the internal temperature of the meat reached 145.  At that point I increased the temperature to 320 degrees and let the process finish until the meat reached 160 degrees.

Here is a picture of the turkey after about 1 hour of cooking.  Notice the progress of the smoke tube.

About an hour into the process

After another hour, you can see the transformation.

About half way there

Here is another image where the smoke tube is done and the turkey is about 15-20 degrees from done.

Turkey Near Completion

Results

The turkey was very juicy and tasted very good.  There was a distinct smoke ring around the edges of the meat.  The brine didn't make the meat overly salty.  

One think that was very challenging to deal with is the netting that turkey breasted started out in.  Next attempt I will remove the netting either after the first hour or replace it at the start with far less cotton string to hold the shape of the roast.

Where's The Beef - Jerky?

Jerky on a GM Daniel Boone

This recipe is gluten free.

This recipe is a variant of several I've read.  I reviewed many and they had ingredients and flavors that I wasn't really interested in using.  The basic content of most was similar.  I was really interested in a flavor that wasn't dominated by soy sauce.  What I came up with worked really well and tastes very nice.

The Recipe

• 1/2 cup Aloha brand gluten free soy sauce (1)
• 2 tbsp table grind black pepper
• 1/2 cup kosher salt
• 1 2/3 cups dark brown sugar
• 1/4 tsp Cayenne pepper
• 1 cup water

All of the ingredients were mixed together in a bowl and whisked together until the salt and brown sugar were dissolved.  

The Meat

For this recipe I used a 3.8 lb sirloin roast from a Pinzgauer cow.   This specific cow was grass fed most of the year - receiving grain/hay during part of the winter.  The meat is very lean.  I don't think a retail sirloin roast would be a good choice for this recipe.  Something a bit more lean, such as a chuck roast, would be a better choice.  

The meat was sliced across the grain to reduce chewiness of the finished result.  The meat was placedin our deep freezer for about 8 months at -20 degrees Fahrenheit.  It was still very cold and had some ice crystals when the sauce preparation started.  During that time the roast was placed in the freezer again to firm it up for slicing.  The meet slices were approximately 1/4in to 5/16in thick.  Slices were cut by hand.  It would have been more consistent to use the electric slicer.

The meat slices were placed in a gallon freezer storage bag with all of the seasoning/salt mixture.  This placed inside of an additional gallon freezer storage bag to prevent any leakage in the refrigerator where it was kept for about 20 hours prior to smoking.

Gluten Free Aloha Soy Products

Nuts for Nuts

Smoked Almonds

Another recipe/experience by Tom Roeder

Here's my recipe for smoked almonds. I can't find the original web site where I got the recipe, unfortunately.

Recipe

• 1.5 pounds of raw almonds (Costco has a 3 lb bag)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup of salt
• 2 cups of water

Preparation

Combine salt, sugar and water and mix until dissolved.

Preheat the smoker to 160. I also use my A-Maze-N smoker tube with hickory or any flavor pellets to add more smoke flavor.

Soak the almonds in the brine for 10 minutes, no more, no less. Drain but do not rinse.

Spread the almonds on a baking mat or small holed grate that will hold the nuts. Put  on smoker for 45 minutes. Stir the nuts to get each side some exposure. Smoke for 45 more minutes. Stir again and turn up smoker to 230 degrees, smoke for another  hour.

Take off the smoker and season the warm nuts. A very finely ground salt is all that 

is needed but you can be creative with the seasonings. Let air dry for 8 hours 

minimum.

If you put in containers too soon, the nuts will become mushy and soft.

SMOKER CHICKEN BREASTS

SMOKER CHICKEN BREASTS

by

Alex Pearson

I usually get 2 value packs of chicken breasts and can do both packs on my Traeger Junior Elite 20. 

You can also use chicken thighs for this recipe.   I’ve used a couple of different rubs but the one I’ve used the most and enjoyed the most is this one from "that Susan Williams" site:

http://www.thatsusanwilliams.com/2012/06/slap-yo-mama-butt-rub/

Trim the fat off of the chicken breasts and rub them all over with the rub. Place them on the grill for 1 hour on “smoke”, aka your lowest temperature setting. If you look at them you will think that they have dried out but really it seems that smoking at this low setting has the effect of locking in the moisture. After about an hour, flip them and slather each breast with either Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce or our personal favorite Mae Ploy Sweet Thai Chili sauce.
Turn up the heat to 350.  A wireless meat thermometer allows the smoker to be left alone to finish the job.  When the chicken reaches 165 degrees, remove from the smoker and serve.  Typically this last step stakes about 30 minutes.
Since I usually cook quite a bit of meat for the two of us, we will freeze the breast individually and then they can be thawed as needed for different meals. If you are trying to be healthier, this chicken goes great on salads as you get a lot of the distinct smoky flavor.

Porky Jerky

Porky Jerky

A Recipe/Experience by Tom Roeder


This recipe turns out to be a soy sauce-based taste with just a touch of sweetness. You can add more brown sugar and/or honey if you want more sweetness, or less if you want less. Since this is cooked at 180, no specific curing additive is needed.

Remove as much fat as humanly possible from the meat. Cut roast into thin slices, roughly 1/8 inch or so. I prefer the chew of the jerky when slicing *with* the grain of the meat, but others prefer it when cutting against the grain. You decide. The meat is much easier to slice consistently if slightly frozen. Put the roast in the freezer for an hour before trying to slice. A good sharp slicing knife helps a lot.

Marinade slices overnight. Add to smoker on 180 setting. Depending on thickness and size of slices it will take 1.5 to 2 hours. Flip the slices over after an hour and monitor closely for the remainder of the time. The thinner/smaller slices will go from "ok" to "overdone"

fairly quickly. There are lots of recipes on the internet that describe how to tell when the jerky is done. I'm still working on that skill, but for me if you can easily bend the slice without it "breaking", it isn't done. Also, if you can poke the slices with your finger and feel the slight bounce back of the meat, it isn't done. If it "breaks" when folded it is done. It will take some time to figure out what is "done" for you.

Hint: If you get some pieces that end up too soft/underdone, you can put them in a low oven (200 degrees) (or back on the smoker) for a while until they are the desired done-ness. I've done the oven thing the next day and it works out fine.

Marinade:

• 3/4 C soy sauce (or equivalent)
• 3/4 C water
• 4T brown sugar
• 1 t apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 t garlic powder
• 1.5 t onion powder
• 1 t Worcestershire sauce
• 1 t honey
• Add ground pepper to taste

Leave a comment if you try the recipe or have questions, or email Tom Roeder