About three and a half months ago I bought my first ever smoker and subsequently started this blog, now unfortunately that smoker will be thrown out with the next bulk garbage pick up.
What happened?
A Brief history of the past three months
When I bought the smoker back in the end of April I had absolutely no experience with smoking meat. My plan was to read up, play around and slowly learn how to go about it, until eventually mastering it to the best of my abilities.
I then realized that for years I’ve wanted to try out blogging as a hobby, and started this blog. I wanted to document the journey I was on, while also posting interesting stuff about meat smoking.
I started out by smoking some chicken breast which came out delicious, and that got me even more excited to continue pushing along. I moved along to smoking many more things, including fish, poultry and meat. I didn’t get around to writing about all of that yet, those are still coming.
I’ve been smoking ribs or chicken at least once a week for Shabbos, and usually I’ll have a neighbor bring something for me to smoke for them. I realized that I really enjoy it, and I’m always looking forward to the next time I’ll get to smoke.
Back to the present…
So much so, that 2 weeks ago when my wife gave birth to our Son, I knew what it was I wanted to do. Traditionally, we make a party the night before a child’s Bris (aka circumcision) and invite friends and family. I found it to be a great opportunity to smoke some meat (and save money by not using a caterer).
I got in contact with a neighbor that orders meat from a wholesaler and put in an order. Here’s the breakdown of what I smoked.
- 15 lb Whole Brisket
- 8lb Second Cut Brisket (aka “point”)
- 11lb Shoulder Roast
- 15lb Baby Back Ribs
- 19lb 3 Bone Ribs (aka bone-in flanken roast/long bone ribs)
- 8lb Bone-In Skin-On Chicken Breast
- 5 pkgs (of 2 each) Kielbasa
The second cut brisket ended up being a bit dry and burnt, so I cubed it and turned it into delicious burnt ends. The shoulder roast was made into pulled beef. I also had some homemade pastrami and corned beef I put into sliders along with lettuce and tomatoes.
I spent 2 days preparing and smoking all the food, it was a blast! Until two and half hours before the party was to begin…