martin_b

Guy's, Ive always bought my curing salt in 25KG bags, but my sugar in .5kg bags from the local supermarket. Can anyone rcommend a good supplier and brand of bulk sugar? TIA

Looks fine, but its now in the freezer. Just two supplementary questions, is it ok to smoke overnight for 12 hours, then store in the fridge and smoke a second time.? and what do you recommend doing in winter? ( add heat artificially?) cheers Martin

Many thanks Wade , very useful. As it happens I did smoke overnight and according to my thermo' we started at 22C and finished at 19C the following morning.

OK is it Ok to do this.. Freeze the trout now, its been cured. Then when the british summer returns smoke the trout, but then normally I would cut it a freeze what I don't immediately need. so in effect I'll freeze it, smoke it, freeze it.

I've got a side of Salmon I need to cold smoke this weekend. With daytime temps predicted to be around 30C not the best time to do it! So I plan to use my Callow with the water tray full of Ice( should i add salt?), rather than much much larger cold smoking cabinet. then start it off around 6pm and then Smoke through the night. using a big Pro Q generator. Should I also be adding wet towels and any other tips, also as it will still be warm at 6pm is this the best time to start? would say midnight to mid-day be better? TIA Martin

Have you tried soaking them in water for a while before hand?

This evening my wife is entertaining the members of her local opera club, I was on BBQ duty, the food was a great success but to my eternal embarrassment one of the meals contained a little extra iron in the form of a screw from my tongs. I was never that happy with the set i had so can anyone recomend a good set of tools, I'd rather have quality over quantity.

you should always leave room for improvement!

So all done and dusted.. I'll give my first attempt a 7/10. maybe a 7.5/10. as its not too dry but perhaps could have been a bit jucier.. Things I've learnt for next time.. Buy a injector (see above) A 4kg joint takes at least 10 hours, Use more charcoal when you start, In a callow used about 3/4 of a bag of heat beads but had to topup after about 7 hours..(because of below?) Temp control on a windy day is really hard i was aiming for 120c but had spikes up to 140c the stall is real! suck at 70c for over 2 hours.

Thanks

doing pork this weekend so we shall see as they say.

thanks.. will give it a go

Guys I want to do a pork shoulder, slow and low and smokey. Issue is I don't have any wood chunks but I do have bags and bags of wood sawdust i use for cold smoking salmon. I obviously cant put the sawdust directly onto the coals, but would it give sufficient smoke to use the large Pro Q spiral tray just as you would when cold smoking? TIA Martin

Hi All, I'm ashamed to announce that after 40 yeas plus of BBQ'ing I've managed to make something totally inedible. It the past i may have produced the odd item that could be described as "well done" or perhaps a trifle dry, but yesterday I surpassed myself, the subject of my shame the humble chicken wing. Below is my tale of woe, The wife is away for the weekend. so its BBQ Sunday! Check the freezer for something to cook, and come across a carton of "basics" chicken wings they look OK but a bit plain so lets try and improve them. So far so good but its down hill from now on. I've had success in brining chicken breast for the stir fry so decide to do a similar thing with the wings, but as I'm in a hurry I don't bother to measure anything out, more is better right? Then to compound matters i forget about the things. So what I ended up with was chicken wings in a supersaturated salt solution for about 24 hours! Finally just to make sure things go wrong I give the wings a cursory rinse rather then the minimum hour shower then needed. The outcome was something so salty even the dog wouldn't touch it,. A lesson to myself that's its all in the preparation i think! cheers Martin

>> "I use both the Callow and ProQ on my BBQ courses" Oh.... tell me more, i'm a sucker for adult education!

Guys Im going to try a low and slow joint. However i'm pretty sure i'll screw it up somehow either through incompetence on my part, or being called away from home, therefore lets assume the temperature of the smoke fluctuates during the cooking process. I have a meat thermometer so I can check the final temp but is there one particular meat/joint that could suffer mistreatment? What Id anticipate the most likely scenario is we start at 120.. I get called out, temp goes up to say 150.. coals run out, so temp drops to 80 i get back and finish off the meat back at 120 till it hits its done temp. cheers Martin

Oh yes.. Cheaper and good quality but you need to buy in bulk, and get there early, like 3am early..you need to avoid the congestion charge ( god knows about this new low emissions stuff?) take Cash ( lots of it!) some will take cards, but cash is king. Take something with wheels to move your purchase from the market to the car ( a big Eskie is ideal) half a cow/pig is heavy. If you don't have a big old bag or box get some old sheets for the car, unless you want a blood stained boot.

My dear fellow, Im english I would never complain.. stiff upper lip and all that !

I'm afraid it has affected it, its a b***h to light! Wouldn't light in the kettle, wouldn't light with my electric thing, in the end I've used a whole pile of kindling wood in the bottom of the grate and had a mini bonfire to get it going.

I've just opened my first bag of CPL and the inside on the inner bag, ( made from god knows what) is really quite damp. Is this usual?

cheers Wade, two other points i'd ask is why can't the charcoal basket have a larger diameter? and the middle section could do with brace to help it keep its shape. Seasoning with lumpwood now and hopefully the brickets will arrive tomorrow and I'll give it a should of pork as a starter Update: Having using it a couple of times now (and having added Nylock nuts and spring washers) it seems to perform well. One thing I would say though its very hard to judge/see the position of the bottom vents. I wish the tab that use use to open and close the vents were several inches longer ( ill try to extend them somehow) and maybe use some hi-temp paint to add some sort of sale on the body on the Callow .

I built mine yesterday and I intend to use either blue loctite or high temp Nylock nuts. ( I'll also be adding some washers)

Thanks for this, I'll give it a go, The only issue I can see is that I smoke outside, IYSWIM and I use a maze type cold smoker, so the temp is really just the outside temp.

Guy's I've been asked by a friend who has to carefully control his salt intake if its possible to produce cold smoked salmon without using salt in the cure, or use the minimum amount possible. I usually go about 70/30 to 60/40 salt to sugar, but is it possible to go say 80/20 sugar to salt?

My current Vacuum sealer is giving up the ghost, about 50% of the bags I'm sealing, leak within 4 weeks. Can anyone recommend a mid price sealer I'd like a roll cutter, and spend around £100-£150. cheers Martin