Wade

You must admit - we cooked some tasty burgers there didn't we

When trying that American recipe for the first time, if it contains any ingredients that are measured in pints or quarts then beware. Although most of the US and UK measures are the same (or as similar as to make no difference) the pint is a very different matter. The UK "Pint" consists of 20 fluid ounces whereas the USA "Pint" only contains 16 fluid ounces. This means that the UK pint is actually 25% bigger than the pint in the USA. This has several implications... When making a marinade, brine, jambalaya etc. your recipe will be more dilute than the recipe intends When following a recipe mixing a curing brine for immersion brining your resulting cure will be 25% weaker than it needs to be - which could be dangerous. Yes the Americans can generally drink more "pints" of beer than us because they are getting short measures Their cars always seem to less MPG than ours. OK on this one they probably actually do !

Some of us have been caught out when following American recipes to the letter and adding the required 2 tablespoons of chili powder - only to end up with something that resembles a small nuclear explosion going off in your moth with the first bite. When this has happened you quickly realise that, in general, the chili powder used in American cooking is a lot milder than the chili powders that we can usually buy over here in the UK. It was not until I took a short course at the Santa Fe school of cooking that I got to know the difference. In the US the chili is there for flavour as much as, if not more than, the heat. The range of chili powders (and fresh chilies) that are available over there is incredible. To the uninitiated it is like after drinking Teachers whiskey all your life, then being introduced to the finest single malt Islay whisky. If you can, avoid using the "generic" UK chili powders in your rubs and recipes and switch to using a mix of specific chili types. I now stock and pretty much use only the following: New Mexico Chili - This is mild and very versatile. It is what gives the South West US dishes their distinctive flavour Ancho Chili - (I use this the most) It is mild and a little sweet, almost fruity and it has a deep smokey flavour. It will not overpower with heat any food it is used in. Chipotle - Robust smoke and heat. I use this in moderation to add the heat into my rubs and dishes All are readily available online here in the UK and in most supermarkets.

Not so much as spot the Weber but more try to find a team that was NOT using a Weber. Weber and ProQ bullets and kettles were the prime smokers in use at Grillstock both last year (2016) and this year too.

For cold smoke generation one of the leading pellet cold smoke generators in the USA has been the Amazen-Pellet-Smoker "AMNPS". I have been using one for several years now and it provides a good quality of smoke reliably over a long period of time. In the UK these can be bought from BBQ Gourmet. Although they are very reliable they can be affected by the moisture content of your pellets. If the pellets have been left in a damp storage area for any length of time they will need to be dried. I have therefore put up a quick video showing how I currently use mine with my main offset smoker. Most of my salmon smokes are just overnight however it is not unusual for me to smoke for up to 48 hours (or sometimes longer). Please bear with the voice over as I was winging it as I was taking the video, and I wasn't looking for being nominated for an Oscar this time.

Brining chickens before you smoke them is supposed to give them better texture and to leave them more moist after cooking. Several times I have tried bring chickens before smoking and on each occasion I have either not noticed any difference in the end result or they have come out too salty. None of these brines though have been true comparative tests and so I thought it was time to directly compare a number of common home brining methods. As well as any texture and moisture improvement, one of the things I was hoping to establish was whether some of the published methods of scientifically calculating the brine update process were accurate (or even possible). Also whether brining chickens was actually more an art than a science. After looking on other forums and chefs sites at the various methods other people have been using successfully I decided to directly compare the following three brining methods. Dry brine Gradient brine Equilibrium brine here was also a control, where the chicken was not brined at all. Having reviewed the optimal brine strengths mentioned in different sources, and as we are quite sensitive to salt in foods, I decided to try for an end result of 1% salt in the chicken. This being balanced by 0.5% sugar. The methods I decided to use for each type of brine were based upon those described on the Stella Culinary site video lectures about the science behind brining. https://stellaculinary.com/cooking-videos/food-science-101/fs-002-science-behind-brining-four-part-video-lecture What I describe below is the theory of what is supposed to happen, and where I ran into difficulties I have highlighted these as observations All of the chickens were purchased on the same day from the same supplier and were of similar weights (approx 1.6 Kg - 3.5 pounds). They had not been pre-processed or previously brined. The calculations used for calculating the amount of brine and brine concentrations were based upon the meat weights of each chicken as the bone does not readily absorb the brine. The calculation used make the assumption that 40% of the weight of the bird was bone - therefore 60% is meat. The different brines. Below I am describing the theory as described behind each method. Dry Brine This works in the same way as dry curing bacon. The amount of brine/cure is calculated from the weight of the meat which it is applied to the surface and left to diffuse into the meat. For this the salt was weighed out to give 1% the weight of the chicken meat and the sugar for 0.5%. These were mixed and rubbed over the surfaces of the chicken - both inside and out. Gradient Brine This method works by creating a 5% brine (which is stronger than final desired salt concentration) and allowing it to diffuse into the meat. The chicken is removed from the brine when sufficient salt has been absorbed from the brine so that when it has been allowed to rest the salt concentration will equalise at the final desired concentration. This method is supposed to require less time for the chicken in the brine however it requires standing time once it has been brined. The amount of brine absorbed by the meat is calculated by the loss of the salt from the surrounding brine solution. Once the concentration in the brine has reduced by 1% then ~10 g of salt will have entered the chicken and the final salt in the meat should be 1%. The weight of brine used was equal to the calculated weight of the meat. The brining time I intended to use was that recommended by Stella Culinary for whole chickens - 24-48 hours in the brine with an 8-24 hour rest time. Equillibrium Brine This method works by creating a brine that is 2x stronger than final desired salt concentration and using the same weight of brine as there is meat. The chicken is removed from the brine when the surrounding brine concentration has reduced by 50% indicating that 50% of the salt has diffused into the meat. The weight of brine used was equal to the calculated weight of the meat. Control This was bought, stored and cooked under the same conditions to see if simply storing time would affect the chicken Chicken weights and brine concentrations Chicken Brine type Initial weight (g) "Boneless" weight (g) Water (g) Salt (G) Sugar (G) estimated Time in brine Rinse after brining Weight after brining % weight increase Stand Smell after brining 1 Dry brine 1% 1,687 1,012 0 10 5 36 hours NO 1,724 2 12 hours None 2 Gradient 5% 1,642 985 911 49 25 36 hours YES 1,740 6 24 hours None 3 Equilibrium 2% 1,649 989 960 20 10 ? NO 1,680 2 12 hours None 4 Control 1,578 947 0 0 n/a NO 1,577 0 Faint pea smell How to measure the brine concentration As we are trying to measure the salt uptake be measuring the salt depletion in the brine it was important to be able to accurately measure the brine salt concentrations. I have two different ways of measuring this - a Sodium ion salt meter and a salt refractometer Firstly I wanted to check their accuracy on the brines and also whether the sugar would effect the salt measurements. I therefore measured the brines as they were being made, before and after the sugar was added. Water Salt Calculated Salt % Measured % Salt meter Measured % Refractometer Sugar Measured % Salt meter Measured % Refractometer 5% brine 911 49 5.10 5.20 5.20 25 5.20 7.40 2% brine 960 20 2.04 2.16 2.11 10 2.20 3.80 The first thing I noticed was that with just the salt the Salt Meter was measuring within 2% and within 6% of the calculated concentrations. The refractometer was measuring within 5% and 9%. Whilst, adding the sugar to the brine only had a minimal effect on the Salt meter, the effect on the refractometer was was significantly greater - nearly 50% for the 5%/2.5% brine and nearly 90% for the 2%/1% brine. Observation - Unless the brine only contains salt (i.e. contains no sugar) you cannot use a refractometer to accurately measure the actual brine salt concentration. It may be possible if you are only trying to monitor relative concentrations - though I cannot tell from this whether the inaccuracy is in linear proportion to the sugar concentration, and so this would need more testing. The brining process The brines needed to completely cover the chickens and so as volumes of brine were quite small this was done by brining them in plastic bags in the fridge. The bags containing liquid brine had all of the air removed and were sealed using a zip lock. Approximately every 6 hours the bags were opened and the bags rotated vertically to ensure that the brine in the chicken cavity was thoroughly mixed with the brine surrounding the chicken. The air was then removed from the bag, the bags sealed and then placed back in the fridge. Approximately every 9-12 hours a small sample of the brine was taken and the salt concentration measured Time Time in Brine hh:mm Salt meter 5% Refractometer 5% Salt meter 2% Refractometer 2% 23/10/2016 14:00 4.8 7.4 2.11 3.8 24/10/2016 08:30 18:30 4 7 1.87 3.2 24/10/2016 17:30 27:30 3.8 6.8 1.8 3 25/10/2016 08:30 42:30 3.7 6.25 1.71 3 25/10/2016 18:45 52:45 3.5 6.2 1.67 3 26/10/2016 07:45 64:45 3.5 6.2 1.67 3 26/10/2016 17:30 73:30 1.6 3 Although in the graph I have included the results from both the Salt Meter and the Refractometer, we should ignore the refractometer results due to the affect of the sugar. The only lines to look at in the graph are the red line (meter reading for 5% salt) and the yellow line (meter reading for 2% salt). Observations Both of the Gradient brining and equilibrium brining methods relied on measuring the reduction in salt in the brine to determine the uptake of salt into the chicken. This would have required the 5% brine to have reduced in absolute concentrations by 1 % - which it did after 27 hours. This actually supports the recommended 24-48 hours in the brine. The 2% brine also only needed to drop in absolute concentration by 1%, however after over 70 hours it was in the brine it had only dropped by 0.44% When brining chicken it would appear that one of two things is happening, Either the salt does is not diffused throughout the chicken in the way that was described or there is something that is being released from the chicken that is interfering with both the Salt Meter and refractometer readings. It is likely that the difficulty with the equilibrium brine is that it is generally recognised that meat comprises of 75% water and this would need to be taken into account when calculating the required brine strength. Due to the inability to adequately measure the uptake of the brine into the meat in the 2% brine and also the duration over which the brining occurred it was difficult to tell whether we were actually reaching the "equilibrium" brining - as defined by Stella Culinary. Chicken and brine sample after time in brine The cooking and eating The chickens were smoked at 300F (150 C) in my FEC using hickory pellets until the IT of the birds reached 160 F (72 C) One of the breasts was taken from each for the blind tasting panel to judge. 5% Chicken 2% Chicken Dry Brine Control The tasting panel were then asked to rank the samples on the following 3 criteria Saltiness Moistness Overall eating experience The main thing to report was that ALL of the chickens were enjoyed and that variations in ranking were purely down to minor differences in each. The ranking was from 1-4, with 1 being the beat. 5% Brine 2% Brine Dry Brine Control Comments Saltiness 4* 1 3 1 The 5% brine was mildly over salted but was not unpleasant Moistness 1 1 3 4 All were nice and moist however a slight preference was shown towards the brined chickens Overall eating 4 1 1 1 All were enjoyed however the higher salt in the 5% brine made it the least favourite. Conclusions The different brining techniques had little overall effect on the overall eatability of the meat in this trial. The control (unbrined) chicken was ranked equally as enjoyable as the other chickens. The brining did make a marginal difference to the moistness of the chicken, with the 5% and 2% brines The 5% brine resulted in a 6% increase in weight whereas the dry and 2% brines resulted in a 2% increase. This additional 4% is likely to additional water taken up into the chicken. * The additional saltiness in the 5% brined chicken was probably due to the chicken being left in the brine for longer than the 27 hours it actually took for it to reach a 1% salt uptake. From the observations in this trial, I have to question the scientific explanations surrounding the calculations for both the Gradient and Equilibrium brining. The described reduction in salt from the brine as it diffused into the chicken just did not happen in the equillibrium brine. This is not really surprising as the diffusion assumptions would have to assume that the brine salt will reach an equal concentration equilibrium between brine fluid and the meat. This may be true if the meat was approaching 100% water and the salt could diffuse equally throughout it - however this is not the case. At least using this methodology the scientific approach to determining when a chicken has been suitably brined was not supported for the Equilibrium brine. It is likely that by better understanding the way that the brine diffuses within the meat we would be able to develop a more accurately predict model for the brining process - but until then I have to conclude that getting the perfect brine in a chicken is more of an art than a science.There is nothing wrong with this and it gives more confidence to try different recipes that have evolved different brining techniques. There is another method of brining here that I did not cover in the trial, and that is injection brining. This method would likely move the balance back in favour of science and is why it is used in many commercially brined meats.

Sous vide is French for "under vacuum" and is a method of cooking food in a plastic pouch, which is often vacuum-sealed and then placed in a water bath or steam environment. It uses an accurately regulated temperature much lower than normally used for cooking - typically around 55 to 60 °C (131 to 140 °F) for meat, higher for vegetables. It is cooked at this temperature for longer than normal cooking times - usually 1 to 7 hours, but up to 48 or more in some cases. The intent is to cook the item evenly, ensuring that the inside is properly cooked without overcooking the outside, and to retain moisture. The following are proven temperature and time combinations for different foods. These come from ChefSteps and the original chart can be downloaded here ChefSteps-SousVideReference.pdf Beef Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Beef, Steak Rare 54 129 1:00 2:00 Medium 58 136 1:00 2:00 Well Done 68 154 1:00 2:00 Beef, Roast Rare 56 133 7:00 16:00 Medium Rare 60 140 6:00 14:00 Well Done 70 158 5:00 11:00 Beef, Tough Cuts Rare 55 131 24:00 48:00 Medium Rare 65 149 24:00 24:00 Well Done 70 158 5:00 11:00 Pork Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Pork, Chop Rare 58 136 1:00 2:30 Medium Rare 62 144 1:00 1:45 Well Donw 70 158 1:00 1:30 Pork, Roast Rare 58 136 3:00 5:30 Medium Rare 62 144 3:00 4:00 Well Done 70 158 3:00 3:30 Pork, Tough Cuts Rare 62 144 16:00 24:00 Medium Rare 68 154 12:00 24:00 Well Done 85 185 8:00 16:00 Chicken Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Chicken, Light Meat Super-Supple 60 140 2:00 3:30 Juicy and Tender 65 149 1:00 2:00 Well Done 75 167 1:30 4:30 Chicken, Dark Meat Tender 65 149 1:30 4:30 Falling off the bone 75 167 1:30 3:00 Fish Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Fish Tender 40 104 0:40 1:00 Tender and Flaky 50 122 0:40 1:00 Tender and Flaky 60 140 0:40 1:00 Vegetables Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Vegetables Green 85 185 0:05 0:20 Winter Squash 85 185 1:00 3:00 Potatoes and Root Vegetables 85 185 1:00 3:00 Fruit Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Fruit Warm and Ripe 68 154 1:45 2:30 Cooked to soft (for purees etc.) 85 185 0:30 1:30 Egg Deg C Deg F Cook Time (hh:mm) Ideal Longest Egg Poached 64 147 1:00 1:30 More information about Sous Vide cooking can be found at: https://www.chefsteps.com/sous-vide https://www.sousvidesupreme.com

Great idea Steve

Welcome to the forum James. Great to see you

Has anyone found an effective way from keeping the legs on an old Weber Kettle from coming loose. I am loathe to drill holes and use screws as my 14 year old Weber Kettle is almost an antique.

Please remember, the ultimate responsibility for the safety of the food you produce and eat is your own. Whilst we are here to answer your questions and offer you advice we cannot be held responsible for your personal actions. Many of the Members here offering advice are qualified in safe food handling practices and many have been involved in the commercial preparation of food for many years. Having said that, we are all human and sometimes mistakes are made. Whilst there are many "traditional" methods for cooking and curing foods, not all of these methods comply with current food safety guidelines and legislation. That does not mean that they are not safe, however it does mean that they cannot be endorsed here on the forum. That does not mean that you cannot post these traditional recipes, but please do not be offended if these are flagged as not conforming to recognised legislation or guidelines. Recipes and preparation methods that we do consider to be unsafe will be removed. The food safety advice we will provide will be based upon the following guidelines - in order of priority UK FSA legislation and guidelines EU legislation and guidelines USA FDA/FSIS legislation and guidelines Common sense When smoking, curing and preserving there are often areas where the only guidelines available are those for food that is being produced commercially. Where this is the case these commercial guidelines will be the advice that we offer. Many of you out there are also very experienced on food preparation and handling and we encourage you to assist (where you feel comfortable) in answering the questions from other members. Whenever you are looking to branch out and try a new technique that you have not used before, we strongly advise that you research it sufficiently before you begin. Understanding what you are trying to do will take a lot of the anxiety out of taking that first bite. Food safety advice goes in both directions too. We are not here just to advise you when something isn't safe but also to help you decide when it is. There is an old saying that goes "When in doubt, chuck it out". This is generally good advice, however it often leads to perfectly safe food from being discarded ! The more you understand about what you are trying to do the less "doubt" you will have - and so the less likely you will be to "chuck it out". I would like to offer the following amended advice - "When in doubt... ask".

We are pleased to announce the start of the WoodSmoke Forum in August 2018. We are looking forward to seeing your contributions and also to people spreading the word.

Following the last 4 successful UK annual smokers meets in Lincoln we are now looking to start planning for the Smokers meet for 2018. For the past 4 years we have met in Woodhall Spa (near Lincoln) however the feedback from some has been that this is a long way to travel. From my own perspective I would agree as this year it took me over 5 1/2 hours to get there from Kent. Whilst we are looking to fix a date for 2018 (it is usually the mid to end of July) we are also looking this year to see if there is a more suitable central venue. Ideally this would be: Located somewhere around Birmingham and Northampton area Be a 5 star campsite or equivalent Be willing to allow a BBQ event to take place We need it to cater for a variety of accommodation. Some members bring caravans or motor homes, others bring tents and others prefer to rent a cabin or Pod. We also need some creature comforts too, like clean toilets, hot showers, plenty of hot water for washing up and power to the pitches. If you are interested in attending next years meet, or can suggest a suitable venue, then please let us know. Thanks, Wade

New Members, Steve (Smokin Monkey) and I would like to personally welcome you to the WoodSmoke Forum. We try very hard to make this a valuable resource for all information BBQ and Smoking related. There is a lot of very good information out there in a number of very diverse formats and it is our aim to help bring these together to make them easy for you to find and provide a “go-to” central reference resource for the UK BBQ and Smoking community. Our number one goal is for you to be able to learn everything you need to know about smoking and preserving through here. A lot of good information will be found directly here on the Forum, however where it is more appropriate we also link to other sites and Forums to help you find the answers and advice you are seeking. Another of our goals is to provide you with a sense of community and to help different regions and interest groups within the BBQ and Smoking community communicate to organise local discussions and events. If you manage, or have found, an online resource that you think will be of interest to others them please tell us about it so that we can look to include it if it is appropriate. A couple of things to get you started that may help you find your way around... Forums These are grouped together to help you more easily find what you are looking for Announcements – General Forum information Community – This includes the forum “Chewing the fat”, a place for general discussion about anything BBQ and Smoking related. It also contains the “Food Safety” Forum, which you may find useful Smoker Hardware and General Techniques – Please share your experiences (good and bad) with the equipment you own or have tried Hot Smoking and Sous Vide – All things BBQ and Hot Smoking Cold Smoking, Curing and Preserving – What it says on the tin… Recipes – A great place to share your favourite recipes Country Woodsmoke – Links to the CWS Facebook pages (if you have not already been there then this is a great place to chat with other BBQ/Smokers), links to the UK BBQ Magazine and also Marcus’s Country Woodsmoke site Smoking commercially – If you already do or want to begin, then here is a good place to look Groups These are special interest community groups. You can browse them all to see what is happening and if you join a Group you can also post. They are free to join – just click on the join group link. Calendars If you would like your event(s) published in one of the calendars then please send us the details and we will look to add them. Search This is the most useful tool on the site. You can easily search for content in all of the forums, groups and calendars So go ahead and jump right into the forum, ask questions, comment on things that interest you, use the search feature to research topics, subscribe to your favourite forums and most of all, be sure to let us know if we can somehow make your experience a little better. Your comments and suggestions are always welcomed! Wade Nash and Steve Smith WoodSmoke Forum Founders

When I was made aware of the Callow smoker I must confess to being a little skeptical. It is being sold for ~£85 and in the pictures it looked quite small. It is being marketed as: I ordered one and 2 days later it was delivered... What was in the box? The smoker was well packed and came in a surprisingly small box. Although it needs to be assembled there are relatively few components and the whole smoker can be assembled within about 20 minutes using only a cross-head screwdriver and a pair of pliers. Unpacking The build quality of the unit is very good and compares favourably with the WSM and ProQ Frontier. The Callow only has a 14" cooking cooking grate though which may restrict using some of the larger cuts of meat. The smoker is only powder coated though and so is unlikely to last as long as some of the more expensive alternatives. The fire basket has plenty of air holes which enabled an even charcoal burn and the bottom and top vents were of good quality which allowed for simple fine temperature control. The positioning of the bottom vents do appear to be a little higher than I would have expected as the top ones of these are above the holes in the fire basket. The water/sand pan was a good distance above the coals with sufficient gap around to give a good heat flow into the cooking chamber One possible negative point was the small air gap around the door when it was closed. However during the temperature profiling this did not appear to cause any problems. Below are pictures of the smoker layers Firing up the Callow I used only 2 Kg of Heat Beads in Minion for the initial test, with hot water in the water tray. With all vents fully open the smoker took about 60 minutes to get up to temperature (100-110 C) by which time the bottom vents were 7/8 closed. Without any adjustments it maintained this temperature for over 8 hours. At one point there was a period of gusty wind that caused the temperature to rise slightly. The following morning when the smoker was taken apart it was clear that the fire had burned evenly and almost completely. Cold Smoking The callow worked very well as a cold smoker using both the AMNPS and the ProQ smoke generators Lid thermometer This was the only part that let the smoker down - however this is a common weak point with many models of smoker. With the thermometer that was originally supplied with the Callow, when the smoker was up to cooking temperature (based upon the measurement from a calibrated Thermadata Smoke, the lid thermometer was indicating a temperature that was 35 C too low. If this thermometer had been used to regulate cooking temperature then this would have resulted in the temperature in the cooking chamber being much too high. This was reported to Callow and they have now sourced alternative, more accurate, lid thermometers which will be supplied with new units shipped. The new thermometers are the same units that are supplied with Weber BBQs and the ones I was sent to test actually had the Weber branding still on them. These proved to be much more accurate when calibrated over boiling water. Summary I was really impressed with both the build quality and usability of the Callow Smoker and would recommend it to anyone starting out smoking or for established smokers who are looking for some inexpensive additional cooking space.

Great to see you Paul. Welcome to the Forum. We missed you at Lincoln. Are you settled in already?

Great to see you Steve. Welcome to the forum. No... I think you got the right site