Wade

It will have an effect as at the end of the cure the meat will have taken up about 10% water. It will not be bad but it will be more like the commercially cured bacon than the artisan style bacon you get with a dry cure.

When immersion curing you need to calculate the contents of the brine based upon the total weight of the water and meat. That way once the brine has reached equilibrium with the meat it will all end up at the desired concentration. A simplistic example of the calculation below... They assume that you are using the Weschenfelder Supracure which is 0.6% Potassium Nitrate and 0.6% Sodium Nitrate in Sodium Chloride.

1 Kg (1,000 g) hock
Assuming 30% is bone and 10% is skin = 40% of total weight that is not meat. Therefore 60% is meat
Weight of meat for use in the calculation = 600 g

Volume of water in brine = 2 litres = 2 Kg = 2,000 g
Volume of water and meat for calculating brine = 2,600 g

Using a cure calculator based upon a total weight of 2,600 g to give the required salt (3%) / sugar (1.5%) / Nitrite 150 mg/Kg (Ppm)

To be absolutely precise you should take the weight of the cure/salt/sugar into account in the overall calculation but it will not significantly affect the concentrations if you don't.

Any flavourings that you want can be added to the brine without needing to take their weight into account in the calculations.

You may want to consider moving to Cure #1 in future for your bacon as Supracure contains Nitrate as well as Nitrite. Nitrate has been shown to form Nitrosamines at high temperatures (e.g. when being fried) which has been linked to cancer in rats in some studies. Nitrate has been banned for use in bacon commercially in the USA although the EU position on its use is less clear due to the large number of "traditional" cured meat products that exist within the different countries.

Hi James - How are you curing the hocks? Immersion brine or dry cure?

If you are using Supracure then I expect it is a dry cure. When calculating the amount of cure to use you need to take the weight of bone into account as the bone does not take up the cure to anywhere near the extend of the meat. To all intents and purposes you can exclude the weight of the bone from the calculation. The ham hock will be about 30%-50% bone weight (I cannot find an exact published ratio) and so you if you don't account for this you are going to end up with a much saltier product with a dry cure. If the skin is left on then you should also allow an additional 10% for that. You could overcome this by using an immersion brine of 3% salt which will mean that you will end up with a known salt concentration at equilibrium - although you will have increased the water content by ~10%

When dry curing, as far as curing time goes (within reason) it is not possible to over cure. Because of the thickness of the meat on the hock then 10 days would be sufficient - however if you left it for 14 days that would not be a problem.

You may not need 30 hours smoking but you will be able to adjust accordingly for your next batch.

When your gateway arrives could you do a quick review on it for us?

Yes, a cold/cool wind - especially if it intermittent - will wreck your temperature control and cause you to burn a lot more fuel. You should shelter your smoker from the wind if you can. 

9 hours ago, valve90210 said:

How is the retirement going? Missing the place yet? 

The place... not in the slightest  - except for a few of the people 

It isn't always a case of keeping the heat in... Sometimes it is to keep the effects of the sun out. On sunny days the effect on the smoker temperature can be quite marked

Here is a log trace showing the temperature inside the smoker (top line) compared with the outside ambient temperature (bottom line) over the course of a day.

For most of the day the smoker was in the shade but the inside temperature was still a degree or two higher than the outside. But the difference increases significantly when direct sunlight hits the smoker later in the afternoon.

The Smoke is now my go-to BBQ thermometer and has now eased my Mavericks into second place. It now also has a WiFi add-on interface

http://www.thermoworks.com/Smoke

Rather than piece together old photos I will put together a new guide over the next couple of days if the weather stays fine. I can do this now I am retired - 

Great to see you here Jim 

No. The Thermapen is a flip out instant read thermometer. The data loggers are different beasts. I hope to do a review of a couple of them soon. The data logger I gave been using for a few years is the TCD

ETI Data Logger TCD

I do have a newer version from ETI that they have given me to review.

Great post Jim - Yes it is certainly an OCD version of the Minion - LOL

One of the problems a lot of people have is that they are not patient enough when it comes to getting their smokers up to temperature. Let it take its time and it will reward you with much longer smokes. I usually allow an hour to get my ProQ up to temperature although it is usually ready within about 45 minutes. At a couple of the UK smokers meets I saw people starting to get concerned when they were not at cooking temperature within 20 minutes and were blowing on the coals or adding another half a lit chimney. They are then surprised when they then had a problem keeping the temperature at the required cooking temperature without overshooting.  

I have done some temperature logging trials with this method and it is amazing how long you can cook on a very small amount of fuel

Callow using 2 Kg Heat beads - Over 8 hours of cooking time

Weber Kettle using 1.5 Kg Heat Beads - 6-7 hours of cooking time

You do not need to clean the inside of the smoker after each smoke. Just brush off any loose flakes with a soft wire brush. Every few cooks you can dump half a chimney of lit coals into it after you have finished cooking and do a short seasoning burn and it will burn off most things.

If, as sometimes happens after it has been left for a while, you take the lid off the smoker and you see white mould growing inside do not worry either. Just brush off anything that is loose and then get the smoker up to temperature. Anything inside will be dead long before cooking temperature is reached. Brush off the grates with a soft wire brush again before you start cooking.

The firebox is slightly different. This does need to be emptied out after each smoke in case it gets wet. Water mixed with the ash can be very alkali and can reduce the life of some smokers by causing corrosion. This affects the cheaper smokers more as they are often not ceramic coated.

ThermoWorks and ETI are sister companies and carry very similar ranges. Most of my temperature loggers are from ETI and they work well. The Smoke I had to buy directly from Thermoworks though as ETI have decided not to stock it in the UK. I believe that you can get it through their eBay pages though but they are not in their UK catalogue.

Yes, the Thermapen is my go-to instant read thermometer too.

I used to use a welding blanket on my Weber kettle in the winter and it worked well.

In the summer I don't worry too much about insulation but if it is windy I will put wind breaks around the smoker.

Sometimes you just have to come to terms with things being scrapped. It is a pity when that happens. I hope that someone will give it a good home though.

Thanks Scott - good link. These thermometers are now really becoming affordable for most people.

Prepare to be satisfied. Their BBQ is good but it is commercial. It is much more difficult to maintain the home quality when you are having to produce it 6 days a week.

10 hours ago, Genevieve said:

How do you maintain the low temps? Or do you just cold smoke in colder weather? I've been wanting to do a nova lox style salmon smoke, but everything I've read says it should be cold smoked for multiple days.

Hi Genevieve

The cardboard box smoker is obviously an entry level option and is dependent on the outside temperatures. Here in the UK they can usually be used overnight for most of the year to keep the temperatures down - though in warmer parts of the world overnight temperatures may even be too warm. You will see from my last photo that it is being used at night. For short smokes (say cheese) if the ambient temperature is too warm then you can also place a tray of ice inside the box.

For traditional smoked salmon you do not need to keep it cold when it is smoked. Commercially it is smoked at ~24 C (75 F) for up to 24 hours as this helps to reduce the water content in the fish to the required level. Whilst it is smoking it is also important to keep a good air flow through the smoking chamber. When curing traditional smoked salmon the main preservative is dehydration and you are reducing the final weight of the fish by ~18% by removing the water. This is initially done during the brining stage (which is performed chilled) but then it is completed during the smoking stage. I produce and sell a lot of smoked salmon and so you may find this post interesting.

"Traditional" Smoked Salmon and Trout

One of the by products of the combustion of the fuel is water and so there is already a lot of moisture in the form of water vapour passing through the cooking chamber with the smoke. I have tried cooking with and without water in the water pan and have noticed no real difference. I guess it could depend on what you are cooking and how it is being cooked. Larger slabs of meat I will usually foil after about 3 hours so the moisture content in the smoker is not really an issue.

Hi Griller and welcome to the forum 

Hi Jason

The water/sand bowl is not really about keeping the temperature down - the air control over the coals does this. It is more about evening out the heat that is produced by the fire before it reaches the cooking chamber. The sand acts like the bricks in a storage heater - absorbing heat from underneath and then radiating it back out again. The water will actually absorb some of the heat though as it turns from water into water vapour giving additional stability which is why I use water when I am cooking at the lower temperatures.

As well as acting as a heat buffer the water bowl will also act as a baffle reflecting a lot of the direct heat from the coals. This leaves the circulating hot air to heat the cooking chamber. When you take out the water bowl you will then get the radiating heat from the coals reaching the cooking grate directly and so it is not surprising that you saw the 40 F rise.

Yes learning the quirks of temperature management in your different smokers can be a challenge at first. Patience is important though when bringing it up to temperature and it is important to resist the temptation to keep opening up the lid. One thing to remember is that it is easier to raise the temperature than it is to lower it again after it has overshot.

Wade

Hi Jason

The water/sand tray in the bullet smoker is predominantly there for temperature control. It helps smooth out any heat spikes from the fire before it reaches the food in the cooking chamber. I use water if I am smoking at about 110 C but I use sand if I am cooking hotter so as to avoid refilling. To be honest though I don't notice any difference in the end result for the food when using water or sand.

If you are smoking something for a longtime that will drip fat or juices then sand is the cleaner option. Meat juices in the water pan when it dries out can make a real mess in the bowl. If you are using sand then you can just throw the top layer out and replace it with clean sand next time.

If using sand you do need to make sure that you are using a washed sand as some of the builders sands can have quite a strong smell. Something like play pit sand or kiln dried sand are ideal.

Hi Shaun and welcome to the forum.

The Weber is a great all-rounder and you will be able to smoke some good meat on it. What have you tried to cook so far? Have you tried smoking anything yet or have you only used it for grilling so far? 

What are you wanting to try to smoke first? We can help get you going in the right direction.

In addition to the Weber you should consider investing in a twin probe digital thermometer so hat you can monitor the temperature of the meat and the cooking chamber whilst it is smoking. The Inkbird is a good entry level thermometer that will do the job.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Inkbird-Bluetooth-Thermometer-Stainless-Waterproof/dp/B01MG7KLCI

It certainly looks like an easy to use grill for small groups. I like the way that it is fan controlled and the greasy bits can be put in the dish washer after use.

Having scoured the camping/caravaning sites it looks as if Billing is probably the most likely central location.