yep you guess it








2 different flavor jerky

getting there....

I did 15 pounds of sausage yesterday, and today I had the smoker running for a long time too . . . but without any food in it. This was my Recteq RT-680, and I did some temperature mapping with my oven thermometer:



The main goal was to figure out where the "hot spots" are. And really, there isn't much variation as long as you're above the drip tray, so I'm pretty happy with that. Of course, the rear center reading (past the edge of the drip tray) is hotter because the heat is coming up and the drip tray isn't shielding you at that point.

It was also a good reminder, because I had actually forgotten this, that I changed the settings on the controller a couple of years ago to deliberately read high. This is because the grill will only go as low as 180, but by my intentially mis-calibrating it, you can see that the actual temps are 160-165, which I prefer for something like jerky or smoked salmon.

Of course, I need to remember that! If I want 250 degrees, I need to actually set it for 270 or so.

It was also interesting to note that the situation flipped at the top end. Set on "FULL" so it'll just get as hot as possible, the grill told me it was 538 but the oven thermometer read 570.

These brined Salmon fillets are forming a Pellicle before smoking.
I'm a little behind, might be a late cook.

You can always fire up that 90 gigawatt Camp Chef side burner to finish them off, if it gets too late.

Char Salmon?

Not what I have heard

Depends on what you are talking about.

So, I've gotten a couple of more cooks in on my Kettle and I'm really liking it. I was excited to try out the apple wood I cut a couple of weeks ago --- and WOW - it is fantastic!

My first go at the apple wood was with thighs -- set up the kettle with one coal basket for indirect cooking..... It worked out 'ok', but I knew there was a lot of temp variation and felt compelled to be constantly shifting the pieces around to try and make them cook evenly --- thank god I only cooked six out of the ten thighs -- that would've made the situation worse. I tried to keep the (lid) temp ~350ish, but found that the temps kept slowly dropping, even tho there was a real nice coal bed going -- tried messing with the vents to try and 'keep the heat in', but that didn't seem to really work. The thighs turned out good, but I still didn't get the 'bite' of the skin where I wanted it --- not even close - I actually contemplated tossing them on the gasser just to crisp up the skin, but it was getting too late. Flavor was EXCELLENT tho and the applewood flavor really came thru!!!


So - realizing that that setup was flawed and difficult to manage (especially for a full flat of legs/thighs), I got off my ass and made myself a redneck vortex for the kettle thinking that would solve everything.... Got around to trying it out last night with seven legs (half flat) just to see how it would work. Loaded it up and let it burn really hot to burn off the plastic/paint from the popcorn tin and got to cooking!


Boy, that vortex was RAGING hot!!! It pegged out the thermometer past 550 and it was still going all the way around back to 100 --- I figured it had to be 700+.... obviously TOO hot - didn't want to kill my thermometer.... Cut the vents back and got it to settle around 450-500 where I 'thought' it should be. (Note - my old school kettle has the thermometer in the handle centered in the lid - as compared to the newer ones where they are opposite the vent) I 'figured' that the legs would cook pretty quickly at that temp..... nope. I was rearranging them every 20 minutes or so just to keep an eye on them --- surprised as hell that it actually took a good hour and a half to cook them --- to where I 'thought' that they were being OVER cooked.... In reality, they could have gone another 20-30 minutes easily --- the skin was still a bit too soft (from what I WANT) --- I should've been paying more attention to the subtle signs - every time I opened the lid, my glasses were fogging up --- plenty of moisture still in there from just seven legs. The legs were still tasty as hell - juicy as hell - skin fairly well rendered - smoky as hell with that fresh applewood!

Can't wait to try another go at the vortex with a full flat of legs or thighs!

I'm guessing the next time I'll try to run them in the same 450ish temp range for longer --- being brave and going for the skin texture rather than the 'look'.... I'm guessing that since the legs were still sooo damn juicy that the moisture was keeping the skin from crisping. I may have to break down and get an instant read probe.... but that would be cheating --- and I'm a man. I 'should' use my temp probe and figure out what the temp is on the grate where the meat is, but thats problematic running a cable under the lid and screwing up the temp control (I think).... I was REALLY impressed with how easy it was to dial the temp up or down with the lower and lid vents --- pretty damn cool!

Any advise from you guys running vortexes??? What (lid) temp do you run and for how long?

32lbs of pork butt going on shortly for an overnight smoke session.

Yum!


Light snack?

He does have growing boy's in the house.

And 30 people coming over tomorrow.

Well that’ll be a busy day!

Good luck!

How is the Missus doing after the Surgery?