On Sep 30, 8:06*pm, "Brick" > wrote:
> On 30-Sep-2009, RockPyle > wrote:
>
> > On Sep 30, 9:33*am, Duwop > wrote:
> > > On Sep 29, 5:45*pm, "Theron" > wrote:
>
> > > > I agree with this comment. *I am a beginner (perhaps just leaving
> > > > beginner stage) who bought this book and expected more discussion of
> > > > how-to rather than just a huge number of recipes.
>
> > > After 10 or so years and all those questions? That's just plain ole
> > > sad.
>
> > That was me, Duwop.
>
> > Theron/Kent/etc. didn't properly attribute the quote.
>
> > Rock (really a mostly-beginner)
>
> Rock,
>
> What nobody and least of all the FAQ tells you is, "KISS"
> "Keep It Simple Stupid". That means, "Don't mess with
> rubs. Don't mess with marinades. Don't mess with temps.
>
> Pick a product, be it pork, beef or fowl. Learn how to cook
> it to the right degree of done. (Only you know what the right
> degree of done is). Only when you can repeat the basics
> everytime should you experiment.
>
> When you start your pit it'll get hot pretty quick.When you
> put the meat in, it'll drop way off. Surprise, surprise. don't
> adjust anything. That cold meat drug the temp down. Let
> the pit catch up. Don't get antsy. It'll take an hour or two
> depending on how much meat you put in there. If you
> keep messing with the draft, you just mess up your fire.
> It was already running the way it shoud. Leave it alone.
>
> --
> Brick (It took me three years to learn that)

I agree. What struck me most about learning to smoke is how well it
parallels homebrewing (which I have done for 17 years now). You have
a physical set of equipment which you need to learn well. It has
thermal behavior, you can find efficiencies as you play with it, etc.
Then you have the recipes. Hard core style brewers will look to match
a particular style guideline exactly, while taste brewers want to make
a beer that appeals the them and their friends only, no matter what
'style' it does or does not match.

After a while, to formulate a recipe, you learn to read a bunch of
recipes, understand what is common and what adds individualism and
then put your best effort forward.

After recognizing the similarities between smoking and brewing, I did
a lot of reading to understand the equipment as well as the basics of
rubs, marinades, etc. And KISS was certainly part of that initial
education.

Looking at my logs, I certainly paid much more attention to the
temperatures on the half hour, how the temparature drops and then
recovers with the addition of cold meat, and now I am much more calm
about temperature swings if I haven't monkeyed with anything. What I
am now watching mostly is how long I can leave the fire without adding
charcoal or wood, hoping to get to the point where smoking is truly a
background event to whatever else i am doing on the weekend.

I have a Brinkmann two-door rectangular cooker with a Home depot
grilling wok as the charcoal tray and I am still using water in the
tray, although that is probably the next equipment change I make (sand
in the tray and a foiled pie pan to catch the drippings.

My point about the book was that i would not have understood the art
of smoking nearly as well as I (think I) do if I had followed
Professor Wiviott's course to the letter. I would either be ****ed
off at my equipment and that I didn't spend the additional $200 for a
WSM, or I would have given up the sport because it took too much
effort to keep a fire going.

Instead, my version of KISS was to work on short ribs and country ribs
(4 hour smokes) until I was comfortable with adding coals and wood,
making complete coal changes and keeping a fire going for 10+ hours.
Then I jumped into brisket and pulled pork ant then most recently, I
attacked spares.

My goal going into smoking was to replicate pulled pork for my Memphis-
born wife, and I got there about three months into my learning.

Enough rambling. I have convinced myself to smoke some chicken this
weekend using the recipe in step three of Low and Slow. I need to see
if the marinade is available in the Ethnic section of my local snooty
market, or if I need to go to an authentic mexican market.

Rock