Honey smoked chooks.

[rayke1938]

Seeing that i cant indulge in my main passion till I get my ute back I decided to indulge in my second passion ( Maintaining the size of my gut :sick: )

Bumped a few chooks but couldnt be bothered plucking them I just skinned them and took the breasts and marylands

When we were in NZ a while back i had had some manuka honey smoked chicken so I thought I would give it a go.

I didnt have any manuka honey so decided to use Tassie leatherwood which has a nice distinctive flavour.

Mixed around 1/2 kg honey in with 5litres of ham cure and pumped the chook and let soak in the brine mix for 4 days.

Took the chook from the mix this morning and let it dry off and placed the breasts in the smoker.

Gave them around an hour and the result.

Then the marylands went in

Just over a hour later.

Demolished one of the breasts washed down with a couple of coldies whilst waiting for the marylands to cook.

Quite pleased with the result but next time I will add more honey or see if I can get some manuka .

Cheers

Ray

[Homer4duff]

That looks SENSATIONAL!

I've just had to wipe drool off my keyboard.....mmmmmm

[jnewy]

yummy did some chicken two days ago then i made smoked chicken and vegie pie yummy yummy. then pizza and now tonight stir fry. i love my new smoker

[faulked]

blimey that looks tasty even bella was drooling

[Bi_polar]

Looks sensational Ray... pretty soon you'll have done more smoking than Bob Marley..... :-)

[kmcrosby78]

As others have said, that looks awesome Ray. Funny you mentioning the NZ link - my brother just got back from a trip over there to see our rellies and was talking about my uncle smoking fish (apparently smoked snapper roe is FANTASTIC). My brother plans to make a larger smoker like yours - did you buy it or make it if you don't mind my asking? Think I need to get one too - not sure what size I'll get though.

Keep enjoying the fruits of your labour!!!!

[rayke1938]

The one i smoked the chook in is from Aldi was $199 on special. I have another larger one made out of an old commercial electric food drier. The Aldi one is identical to the HARK smoker which will set you back $300.

Any metal cabinet at least 3 feet high would be easy to convert to a smoker you may have to strip off the internal paint.

Another possibility would be the metal tool boxes that supercheap sell. You would just have to make up the shelves. Amplimesh security screen makes ok shelves.

I have seen one made from an old fridge that had metal lining coated with baked enamel and it worked really well.Probably find that one of the newer stainless ones would be ok depending how heat resistant the insulation is.

[Angus]

Thats awesome mate.

I came back a second time to look at this. Such a good colour.

So when you say "you will use more honey" next time. Did they just slightly lack the sweetness?

Angus