Monday, February 19, 2007
HI
Hey, sorry about not posting for over a week or so...just been busy. If you know me, you'll know that I like the sport of Auto Racing very much, and yesterday was the first race of the new season for the series I follow the closest, the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. The race was pretty good, but I was a little disappointed with the ending. Not because of how it happened, it was one of the closest finishes ever, but because of who beat who. I so wanted Mark Martin to pull off the win, but he was nipped at the line by Kevin Harvick.
I had a pretty ambitious weekend, food-wise. On Saturday I made some pulled pork from a shoulder I had bought a few weeks ago. Didn't smoke it though, didn't feel like shovelling the snow away from in front of my "smokeshack". I put it in a low oven (>200 degrees) when I got off work at noon, then went to get some groceries. At about 8:00 or so, I only had about 170 degrees and I wanted to FTC (wrap it in foil, then bath towels, and put into a warm cooler) it after it hit 180, for at least 2 hours before ripping it to shreds. So I jacked the oven up another 50 degrees and it was ready to FTC at 9:00. I only left it in for about an hour and a half as I just couldn't take it any longer and had to get a taste.
My original plan for Sunday was to get some beef jerky going in the smoker by 10 AM, but since I got up at 9:50, this didn't quite happen on time. About 11:00 I was getting ready to make breakfast when my plans got pushed back a little more by an EMT call. Upon returning home, I managed to get the smoker warming up and set about to making omelets for Dad and myself. After they were eaten, I got the cured jerky strips out of the fridge and put 'em on my racks, then into the smoker at about 12:40 I think. Checked it at about 2:00, and since they had smoked as much as I was gonna let them, I then opened the vent all the way to let the moisture out and increased the heat a bit to compensate. 4:00 I took my first sample, I thought it was good, but Dad said it wasn't quite dry enough, so I let it go another hour.
At the grocery store on Saturday, I picked up a nice 6# turkey breast roll that is my next sacrifice to the smoking Gods, this coming weekend. I'll be slicing this one a little thinner than the 3#'er that I made last weekend, and having sadwiches off of it for lunch during the week. I'm also going to start curing a beef roast and a deer roast to make some dried beef out of, as soon as I get an order from an in-state supplier. Would like to smoke them the weekend of the 4th, but I also want to go to Cabela's in Omaha that Sunday as there is no race on TV. But, since I have to thaw the meat before I cure it, and I'm not going to start thawing it until the seasonings get here, I'm probably looking at the weekend of the 11th to smoke and dry 'em.
That's the part I don't like about this smoking stuff...having to plan so far in advance in order to do stuff right. Well, that, and spending so much money on stuff to make it easier and to accomplish what I want to do.
Well, that's all I have for today. Have a good week.
I had a pretty ambitious weekend, food-wise. On Saturday I made some pulled pork from a shoulder I had bought a few weeks ago. Didn't smoke it though, didn't feel like shovelling the snow away from in front of my "smokeshack". I put it in a low oven (>200 degrees) when I got off work at noon, then went to get some groceries. At about 8:00 or so, I only had about 170 degrees and I wanted to FTC (wrap it in foil, then bath towels, and put into a warm cooler) it after it hit 180, for at least 2 hours before ripping it to shreds. So I jacked the oven up another 50 degrees and it was ready to FTC at 9:00. I only left it in for about an hour and a half as I just couldn't take it any longer and had to get a taste.
My original plan for Sunday was to get some beef jerky going in the smoker by 10 AM, but since I got up at 9:50, this didn't quite happen on time. About 11:00 I was getting ready to make breakfast when my plans got pushed back a little more by an EMT call. Upon returning home, I managed to get the smoker warming up and set about to making omelets for Dad and myself. After they were eaten, I got the cured jerky strips out of the fridge and put 'em on my racks, then into the smoker at about 12:40 I think. Checked it at about 2:00, and since they had smoked as much as I was gonna let them, I then opened the vent all the way to let the moisture out and increased the heat a bit to compensate. 4:00 I took my first sample, I thought it was good, but Dad said it wasn't quite dry enough, so I let it go another hour.
At the grocery store on Saturday, I picked up a nice 6# turkey breast roll that is my next sacrifice to the smoking Gods, this coming weekend. I'll be slicing this one a little thinner than the 3#'er that I made last weekend, and having sadwiches off of it for lunch during the week. I'm also going to start curing a beef roast and a deer roast to make some dried beef out of, as soon as I get an order from an in-state supplier. Would like to smoke them the weekend of the 4th, but I also want to go to Cabela's in Omaha that Sunday as there is no race on TV. But, since I have to thaw the meat before I cure it, and I'm not going to start thawing it until the seasonings get here, I'm probably looking at the weekend of the 11th to smoke and dry 'em.
That's the part I don't like about this smoking stuff...having to plan so far in advance in order to do stuff right. Well, that, and spending so much money on stuff to make it easier and to accomplish what I want to do.
Well, that's all I have for today. Have a good week.
# posted by Tiny @ 12:34 PM 
