from good eats "Q" part I
12 oz salt
8 oz molasses
2 qts water
Place in cooler, weigh it down to completely submerge meat.
8-12 hours is about right.
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
update and salmon results
The temperature thing seems simple enough now - the smoker thermometer shows how hot the meat will get. I removed the instant read thermometer.
The collagen dissolved in the oven as predicted.
I've been using the pork in recipes - I made borracho beans (excellent!) and navy bean soup (also excellent!).
A couple days ago, I smoked some salmon. it was from trader joes - 3 pieces, frozen (thawed), the cheapest cut. I left it for about 90 minutes, and checked it - it wasn't smoked enough. Another hour and I pulled it off, but it came out dry and kinda tough. Next time I'll brine it because it needed salt.
The collagen dissolved in the oven as predicted.
I've been using the pork in recipes - I made borracho beans (excellent!) and navy bean soup (also excellent!).
A couple days ago, I smoked some salmon. it was from trader joes - 3 pieces, frozen (thawed), the cheapest cut. I left it for about 90 minutes, and checked it - it wasn't smoked enough. Another hour and I pulled it off, but it came out dry and kinda tough. Next time I'll brine it because it needed salt.
Sunday, December 2, 2007
Results from second attempt: Pork Shoulder
After 11+ hours it came out very tasty and quite smoky - In fact, I think it's maybe a little too smoky, but Susan says she thinks it's awesome. The house quickly fills with the same pungent aroma you get from liquid smoke when I pull the meat from the refrigerator. But still, it couldn't be pulled into stringy meat piles like Alton's video. Clearly the collagen was still mostly intact. I suspect the problem is that I didn't maintain a high enough temperature.
I used both of my thermometers to monitor the temperature, and I thought I did a great job of maintaining a temp of 210-220, according to the instant-read. However, the large smoker thermometer usually hovered around 185 - at the high end of the 'smoking' range on the dial. Furthermore, when I pulled the meat off, it was about 185 degrees - and Alton said that the collagen would melt at about 200 degrees.
This leads me to think I should bring up the temperature according to the smoker thermometer - for 220 degree meat, bring it up to 220. nobody ever mentioned that. That will take my cheap instant-read thermometer off off the scale scale, and my electronic instant read will probably show like 260 - 280. This I learned from attempt 1: tri tip, which got overdone and dry. Other factors were involved though - neglect, for one, and placement of heat source too close to the meat, for another.
Right now, I've pulled of a hunk of it, and i'm roasting it in foil at 300 degrees for 1 hour. I want to see if I can get the collagen to dissolve.
I used both of my thermometers to monitor the temperature, and I thought I did a great job of maintaining a temp of 210-220, according to the instant-read. However, the large smoker thermometer usually hovered around 185 - at the high end of the 'smoking' range on the dial. Furthermore, when I pulled the meat off, it was about 185 degrees - and Alton said that the collagen would melt at about 200 degrees.
This leads me to think I should bring up the temperature according to the smoker thermometer - for 220 degree meat, bring it up to 220. nobody ever mentioned that. That will take my cheap instant-read thermometer off off the scale scale, and my electronic instant read will probably show like 260 - 280. This I learned from attempt 1: tri tip, which got overdone and dry. Other factors were involved though - neglect, for one, and placement of heat source too close to the meat, for another.
Right now, I've pulled of a hunk of it, and i'm roasting it in foil at 300 degrees for 1 hour. I want to see if I can get the collagen to dissolve.
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