"smokin"

[BigV]

Anyone with some good recipes for the smoker??
With cool weather here I love to fire my smoker up as often as possible. I always have some smoked sausage in the fridge to snack on.
For Christmas dinner I smoked a 12 pound turkey. Man did it turn out great!

For Turkey:
1 Tablespoon Morton's Tender Cure per pound of meat
? cup brown sugar per pound of meat

Dissolve the salt and sugar by heating 4 cups water water to a boil. Add the salt and sugar and stir until dissolved. Cool the brine by adding 8 to 10 cups ice.

I use a 5 gallon igloo water cooler to brine my turkey. Make sure the brine is cold, add the turkey to the cooler head first and then add the brine mixture. Add enough water to cover the turkey and then add another 8 to 10 cups of ice. The cooler keeps the brine cold and additional Ice may be added in warmer weather.
I brine a 10 to 14 pound turkey for 3 days. I then soak the turkey for an additional day in fresh water. This removes a lot of the saltiness that some don't like. I then dry the turkey in the fridge for another day before smoking.

Mix your favorite dry rub with olive oil (or any oil will work) to make a paste. Rub the turkey generously inside and out.

I smoke my turkey at 200 degrees for the first 2 hours and then 250 for the remainder of the time. A general rule of thumb is 30 minutes cook time per pound of turkey.

I always use a thermometer to confirm it's done. 165 degrees in the breast and I take it off to rest ? hour before carving.
Don't over cook!!

 

[TJJ]

Ever seen a 25lb ground venison Face?

This what happens when you leave the kids alone while you're making snack sticks

And this is what happens when you leave them in charge of the smoker

And this is the pay-off.

 

[kurts264]

agree with olive oil

I also use olive oil on all meats that I cook,will try Your turkey recp.,just remember People when You cook DON"T use propane,use charcaol and wood(pecan is My fav.)and cook low n slow

 

[Batchief909]

Try a meatloaf in your smoker! Use your normal recipe. It's awesome!

 

[Griz58]

Turkey in the smoker: I use a similar recipe. 1 cup Mortons Tender Quick & 1 cub brown sugar to each gallon of water. Brine the Turkeys for a week submerged in the brine. A single turkey works well in a 5 gallon bucket but I usually do 4 or 6 at a time so I use a big tub. Keep it refrigerated or I often do mine in December after I have picked up several from the turkey sales of Thanksgiving. Then I can usually put them in the garage where temperatures are close to or a little below freezing. Of course the brine with all that salt and sugar freezes at a temperature well below 32 degrees so I dont usually have problems with the brine freezing up (unless we are getting temps around 0 degrees). After a week, I just rinse them off and then right in the smoker at about 200 degrees for about 6 hours. I then increase the temp to 300 until the turkeys are fully cooked. It s excellent! Dark meat is almost like eating smoked ham.

 

[MrTom]

It s excellent! Dark meat is almost like eating smoked ham.

Try something different for your brine and order/use a ham brine when doing turkey. Or chicken for that matter. Then smoke as you have done. The whole bird will take on a flavor very much like ham only not as strong.

 

[Griz58]

Yes! Will definitely give that a try!

 

[MrTom]

I like my jerky as cut muscle "usually". Smoke it up, throw it in the oven to get it to the 160 degrees to kill the bad bugs then I let it air dry until its as dry as I want it. But a few years back I tried grinding the cured, seasoned but raw meat and stuffing it into 24mm stick casings, then smoking and heating it and finally letting it air dry. Tasted like jerky but was more like the old fashioned hard tack that was a field staple of hunters and trappers. I still make my usual cut jerky but I also make up some of it in this fashion and really like it in the tree stand the following deer season.

 

[Griz58]

I noticed in some of your other threads that you air dry your sticks and summer sausage for maybe a couple days. That makes real sense. I have tried to leave the sticks to dry in the smoker with heat on, but that hasn't worked well. I never thought I needed to dry the summer sausage but will give that a try to see the difference.

 

[MrTom]

I don't care for "wet" sausage, or jerky, for that matter so I hang my sausage to dry. Jerky gets laid out on cookie sheets and covered with clean bath towels a single layer thick and then a small fan is set to blow air over the trays. I've done this for so many years I can pretty much gauge the dryness by touch on most of the meat. Sticks can be tricky but with some trial and error you will figure it out. Sticks maybe take two days. The jerky on trays a day, if that. 2 1/2" summer sausage chubs get a week of hanging time in a cold garage. I vacuum seal all of my sausages and jerky and they get thawed in the sealed package at room temp. The meat won't sweat this way.

 

[Griz58]

Thanks for the tips. Will experiment with this some this fall as I get into my jerky, sausage and stick making.

 

[Griz58]

Saw this on the internet today. Guess we better be careful when we refer to our cured and smoked turkey dark meat that imitates ham.
Confusing turkey ham with ham turkey
In 1976, The New York Times reported on a bizarre but significant rivalry in the food industry with the arrival of a new product known as “turkey ham,” which was made from turkey, but produced to look and taste like ham. Turkey ham enraged both the pork and beef industries so greatly that they took successful legal action, and the law remains strict and specific to this day. Among the many associated regulations are that makers of the product must call it “turkey ham” and not “ham turkey,” and those words must be immediately followed by the phrase “cured turkey thigh meat” on the label.

 

[MrTom]

As a home smoker you cannot sell or advertise your goodies so what that article says does not pertain to you. If you try and like the ham cure in a turkey go ahead and have at it.

 

[Griz58]

Oh I understand. Just posted as I thought it was amusing.

 

[talon_dfa]

Here is a smoked Polish Elk sausage recipe...

 

[MrTom]

I love those Au Natural hanging sticks.

I've got thirty pounds of cured apple wood and about twenty pounds wild cherry wood all chunked up and ready for the smoker as soon as this season ends. I hope to add a doe to the meat pile so I can make some ring bologna and maybe some Polish or Kielbasa this year.

 

[Ninering62]

View attachment 6052
Here is a smoked Polish Elk sausage recipe...

How do ya know that the Elk is Polish? My buddy told me about him catchin a Polish Raccoon one time. It had chewed off 3 of its legs & was still caught in the trap & bled out.... " It had to have been Polish " he says laughing hysterically along with myself. So I saw this & just couldnt help myself from replying. Kind regards PS me being 1/2 German & 1/2 All American Country Boy, I'd love the sausage along with a good German beer. Enjoy

 

[talon_dfa]

cześć #ninering62

 

[Ninering62]

cześć #ninering62

Hello to you as well sir. Kind regards