Barbecue Smoker

 Barbecue Smoker : I was a personal barbecue grill person 'open flame' devotee until I tested food from a smoker. In the past I always over cooked everything because when the food was ready the visitors were circulating and too busy to come for another 20 minutes. So then I test run a solitary water smoker. Got the food cooking a few hours in advance of the guests arrival. Found that it's almost impossible to overcook, and uncovered the appreciation of our visitors when I removed the lid off, exposing plenty of perfectly cooked, hot, ripping, moist nosh... Well... I was converted. I now have been out there to truck do the Sunday chicken or roast in it. Sad I know but true. If you've never test run smoked tuck before, then you are missing a singular treat. Smoked rations (and we're not talking about kippers here, pre packed from the supermarket) really does have that extra special BBQ flavour.

What's so different about smoking? I hear you ask. Well... Basically there are three types of barbecuing; grilling, roasting and smoking.

• Grilling will do for steaks, chops, sausages, burgers and kebabs etc ie grub that is cooked close to direct fire; at high heat; and at once. Meat juices drip onto something hot (coals, flames, lava rock, ceramic brickets or sear plates) vapourise and caramelise the grub. Producing that recognisable BBQ flavour. Any temperature in the air disappears past the grub and is gone.
• Roasting is similar to grilling but featuring a cover over the grill, thereby keeping the heat confined and circulating around the food. Cooking time is much longer than grilling because the food is cooked when the charcoals have ashen over in to embers. Barbecue Roast food will be deliciously tender and moist. 
• Smoking is my favorite style of BBQ cooking, it is similar to roasting but with one big difference which is the introduction of apple wood to the glowing embers and cider to the mix, which imparts a wonderful delicate smoky flavor, coupled with the finished succulent tender and moist, full of flavored food is just positively mouth watering. Cooking time takes hours and is more then worth the wait.

Barbecue Smoker: Pop a lid on it though, reduce the heat and you can start to cook by that trapped hot air and also by the reflected flame bouncing off the lid. As with roasting. The sunday joint plus the benefits of the meat juices still hitting something hot and vaporizing. You can background detail a roast a single rotisserie. Great for whole joints of meat, chickens etc. Roasting obviously takes longer than a single few minutes.

With Barbecue Smoker throw on a couple of handfuls of scented wood or herbs and we are in one whole new world of aromas. Soaking them in water first (for 1/2 to 2 hours) makes them burn slower and smoke longer.

If you then go and pop the flavoured wood chips in a single pan of water and  simmer that lot, you detail 'water smoking'. You end up cooking in one succulent steam which never gets much above 90-110 degrees centigrade. The chow therefore, never has the moisture sucked out of it by the flame. In fact the meat sucks the smoky flavour right in deep. This process does line much longer than straight grilling of course! I fill up my smoker  with burgers, chicken pieces, prawns etc and come back about 2-3 hours later. Every the piece is superbly cooked. Leave it another hour and it still won't make overcooked. 

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