It's time to reward yourself with some "GOOD EATS"

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Beef its whats for supper.

Digging around in the freezer , I found a brisket. Just looking at it, I says man I need to smoke this thing. Yep so I did.
I sure don't know how I missed seeing this brisket, but I had.
Got it all thawed out, trimmed and rubbed good with salt, pepper and garlic. This is a new rub from sucklebusters.com products. Its called SPG. Dan was kind to send me a nice sample. So here it is.
Beef Brisket Smoker ready: 
This is CAB choice 17 pound Brisket. I don't usually buy brisket this big But I had bought a case and this one was in it. Rest assured I have not bought any lately, beef is just priced to high for me right now.
 Got the UDS smoker going temp set at 275°, thin blue smoke coming from smoker. Using Royal Oak charcoal and hickory wood for heat and smoke. Man, just the smoke smell makes me hungry. Smoked until internal temp was 195°, removed from smoker, wrapped in brown paper and towel and placed in cooler to rest couple hours.
Ready to slice and dice:
I like the bark color, and the poke test was like very soft butter. So lets have a look at the inside.
Sliced, now for some taste test:
Yes its good, what more can I say, but You need to cook yourself one. As this one is now all gone. Bill

Monday, March 2, 2015

Pork Loin, Cured and Smoked


I really haven't done much with pork loin. Most that I have cooked were very dry and with little fat. Well, I bought another one couple weeks ago, hey, they were on sale. ($1.99 whole loin, not tender loin).
 Anyway I wanted to do something different, was thinking canadian bacon. But I already had regular bacon cure made up so that is what I decided to use.
Trimmed it up just to remove a few loose thin pieces. Did have to remove any fat because it didn't have any.
For the something different: After washing and patting dry, I rubbed it down real good with Pure Cane Syrup. Then applied my goto dry bacon rub.

 Recipe: 
Bill’s Homemade Bacon

Ingredients:

One 5# pork belly, rind removed
¼ cup of salt
1 teaspoon pink salt, “the curing salt containing sodium nitrite, not pink-colored salt”
Flavor, ¾ cup of Honey, maple syrup or brown sugar.

Mix all flavor ingredients together.

 Rub pork belly with your cure. Be sure and cover completely and rub in good.
Place pork in a large ziplock bag and place in refrigerator. Turn over every day for at least a week. Some liquid will form in the bag, this is good, do not pour off liquid.
At the end of the week, remove from bag, and rinse under cold running water (several times) Pat dry with paper towels. Place back in refrigerator in an open container so that it dries well . It should be tacky to touch. Coat with course ground black pepper.

Smoking Bacon.

Heat smoker to 150° Place bacon in smoker hang or place on grates. Add your smoking wood, your choice, I like pecan or hickory. Fruit woods are nice also. Smoke for color and flavor. When the color you like is reached, increase pit temp to 200°. When the internal temp of your bacon is 156° remove from smoker. We are not trying to cook the bacon, just trying to kill off any bugs.
Cool before slicing, I put mine back in the refrigerator.

I placed loin in zip lock bag, cured in the refrigerator for 15 days, turning everyday. The cure time was longer than bacon because the loin was thicker. I didn't inject the loin so wanted to be sure it was cured all the way through. 

Pork Loin after Curing: 
After washing and drying I added a nice coat of course ground black pepper:
Smoked with hickory and pecan wood. Smoke time was about 6 hours, raised the smoked temp to 200°. Pulled from smoker when internal temp was 160°.

Just out of the Smoker:
Let it cool until room temperature, wrapped with cling wrap and refrigerated over night.
Next morning, on to the slicer. I sliced it about 1/8" thick. You can be sure I had to have a taste. It is moist, tender, peppery and quite good eats.

Freezer Ready:

I will be doing this again. Hope you try it, its good eats. Bill