1st Meat Smoking Attempt

This happens to be my first blog entry. I'm writing not only about my first attempt at smoking corned beef. Cooking is one of three things that I'm very passionate about. Another is photography.

I'd been thinking of buying a meat smoker for several months. Each time I talked myself out of the idea almost as quickly as I'd talked myself into it. For whatever reason, Tuesday morning I took the plunge. I work midnights as a manager in the transportation industry. Last Tuesday was an unusually slow night at work so I took advantage of the down time by reading up on various smokers and smoking techniques.

Anyone that knows me knows I am a meat freak!!! I'll eat just about anything that walks, crawls, or flies. However, I won't eat meat that is not prepared properly. This has meant me learning to cook, bake, and grill to my own unique taste. While I've mastered cooking, baking, and grilling, I've never tried my hand at smoking. Every web page I read talked of how smoked meat took grilled meat to the next level. Page after page extolled the process of smoking versus any other mode of meat preparation.

Add to this the fact that I'd like to impress my in-laws during their upcoming holiday visit with a greater display of my mastery of culinary arts and one can now see how my purchasing a smoke was inevitable.

After making the decision the purchase the smoke I then had to decide what type of smoker I wanted. My options were electric, gas, or charcoal. This one was a no-brainer. I chose charcoal for the same reason I have a charcoal grill instead of a gas one. Charcoal provides better flavor than gas no matter what is being grilled. The only benefit of gas is the ability to start cooking (I used that term because I cook with gas in my kitchen I grill with charcoal outside.) Now before you decide to send me a bunch of hate mail refuting my assertion, please recall that this is my blog and I'm cooking for me!!! My tastes and opinions are all that matter here.

Having thought about the type of smoker for a second or two, now I had to decide what brand of smoker to purchase. This was a real tough decision. After about 30min I narrowed my choices down to two, the Brinkmann Gourmet Smoker & Grill and the Weber Smokey Mountain. The Brinkmann was 1/3 the cost of the Weber. Weber has a sterling reputation of a quality product and I'd read several sites that suggested that the Brinkmann was great after it was modified. I've owned 4 Weber grills, 3 I still own and one was stolen, and can personally attest to them being of a better design than most grills and built better grills. After vacillating for about 15min on the Weber vs. the Brinkmann I finally decided that the bottom line was money. Cost was the only benefit to buying the Brinkmann. That being the case I decided to go with the Weber.

Next came the decision of where to purchase my unit. What I usually do in situations like this is type of the product name in Google search and allow the engine to return to me a list of the cheapest sellers. I did this and was not at all happy with the results. Through Google the prices varied from $269 to $349 for the 18” Smokey Mountain. The MSRP is $299 so one would think that I'd have been happy finding a site selling it for $269. I wasn't. I thought I could do better and I was right.

I remembered a website I used to go to long ago. I hadn't used them for quite some time (not since Google introduced the Froogle website) and did not know if they were still operational. I typed pricegrabber.com into the address bar and was somewhat surprised to find that they were still in business. I then typed Weber Smokey Mountain in the search bar and found a site that was selling the unit for $239!!! The only problem was the seller was someone I'd never dealt with before and had never heard either. However, I did a little research and was happy enough with the few reviews to give them a try.

I ordered my Smokey Mountain late Tuesday night/early Wednesday morning. It was delivered Friday afternoon. I can't say enough nice things about aimtofind.com. Promised delivery within 10 days and I got it in 2. Add to that the fact that I didn't pay a dime for shipping and I found my item $30 cheaper than I did anywhere else and you can see why I'm such a happy camper.

Now that I've given you an introduction to my situation, let's discuss the actual smoking process and results.

I can sum up my first smoking experience in one word...disaster. I made the mistake of falling asleep during the smoking process and neglected to set an alarm. By the time I'd awaken my meat was a dried out lump of charcoal, I'd managed to allow the drippings from the meat to burn into the water pan (doubt I'll be able to get that out), and my ego was so deflated I needed to spatula to scrape it off the patio.

They say we learn better from our mistake than from our successes. I truly hope this is true. This mistake just cost me $15 for the meat, $10 for the charcoal, and $4 for the wood chunks. As lessons go, I got off cheap. Only cost me $30. (Hoping I don't have to buy a new water pan for my Weber. I've yet to look up the price of the replacement part but am guessing it is somewhere in the neighborhood of $30.)

I plan to try again day after tomorrow. Wednesday morning I plan to smoke my first turkey. This morning I will begin the brine process.

I'll post my results upon completion.

Wish me luck...