On to the Salmon. I'm always surprised at the liquid drawn out of the salmon and how it dissolves the molasses from the brown sugar.
Rinse that off, touch up pepper coverage as needed.
Smoker is firing up pretty well. It calms down once the burn is established. Hmm, it seems my upper shelf rack has slid out of storage below. Have to remedy that.
Blow out the smoke tube if still lit. It will usually go out while I'm carrying it with tongs. Lay it on its side and it should smolder through the pellets. This is set on the left, the vent is on the right to draw smoke across the food. If I'm smoking cheese, I don't light the smoker at all, just the smoke tube.
Yes, my drip liner is gross but not causing problems yet.
Set up the salmon.
This was at about 90 minutes and looked like it was ready.
My wife made a mini bagel for a snack while the salmon was still hot.
Nice.. I have so far not had any problems with the flavors I've gotten from my pellets. I did buy a better brand of pellets on amazon that had good reviews but I've also used pellets from Lowes. I forget the exact brand now but they were a "competition blend" and I've also managed to find apple at Lowes. I've only grilled on my camp chef once but it got up over 550F so it works well. Something somewhat unique for it is a sliding heat diffusing plate. When you want to grill direct you can slide the diffuser out and cook right over the fire.
Off and on I have been thinking that maybe instead of putting time and money into my old beat up offset, which has served me well for many years, I just get something like this.
Pizza tonite.
Sourdoug base. From my own sourdough mother.
Some of the ingredients (garlic and onion are missing in the pic)
My uuni 3 (name is changed to ooni).
I run it on gas, but it can run on pellets with a different burner
3 pizza's in the waiting room
1 on my plate
Very enjoyable.
I really like this little oven. It takes about 90 seconds per pizza. You have to turn it often, and you really have to pay attention, but it works!
Pre-heating takes about 10-15 minutes
Sate
I used my weber smokey mountain.
I was going to only use the bottom part and put the sticks straight over the edges, but I made the fire too hot.
And I was hungry!
So, I put on the middle section and cooked the satay on the top grid
And left some to go through the night.
I was tempted to post at the cajun challenge as they are properly blackened
Not burned. Very dry, but I actually quite like them like that
Interesting Butzy. I'd consider that basically a form of beef jerky (the ones that cooked overnight) .. not sure if they call it that in your region.
Saturday I felt like grilling and the small group of family I've normally had dinner with is off on vacation so I made some to share with the neighbor. Grilled beer brats with peppers and onions. Eaten on a hoagie with your favorite mustard of choice!
Grill grates are in the dishwasher. That's something I really like about the Traeger.
Time to smoke some pork shoulder. I've not smoked pork shoulder in years, but I guess reading Rodney Scott's BBQ book got me in the mood.
Mixed up a rub by eye, in roughly decreasing volume order according to my aging memory:
Turbinado sugar
paprika
lemonade mix powder--make sure it's only sweetened with sugar(s). In my neck of the woods that means Country Time brand as all the others use some artificial sweetener I don't think are stable for cooking purposes.
salt
black pepper
onion powder
sumac
garlic powder
sage
thyme
mustard powder
cayenne
I know cumin is popular in lots of cookbooks for rubs. Outside of Texas brisket, I don't think it works that well. If you're going for a particular flavor profile outside of the US, I can be for it. But not with US barbecue sauce and coleslaw.
Ran that through my Mr. Coffee that only grinds spices. I think a finer grind of sugar sticks better than the coarse Turbinado, but I think turbinado behaves better for cooking than other sugars.
No mustard slather this time. I need to restock my mustard. Probably tomorrow as I want to mix up a mustard sauce to go with this.
I'll touch up the rub as needed before putting it on the smoker in the morning.
Just waiting out the stall now. I've been doing side prep. I've got my slaw cut and salted to drain and wilt a bit. Same with the cucumbers. Need to work on my mustard sauce.
Nice @phatch I have never heard of the lemonade mix in a dry rub but that makes a LOT of sense! Citrus and pork and the super fine sugar. I had a pork butt I was going to smoke but it never made it there.. instead it got braised and used for carnitas.
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