PORTA-BLOKE

It was a rush job. I would have liked to inject some beef stock into the meat before smoking. But I haven't a needle at the moment. The rub was 'Texas BBQ' $1.70 from Coles. I cooked the meat for about 5 hours. The smoke lasted about 1 and a half hours but I had the temp too low for the 1st 2 hours. Was looking at the farenheight numbers not the Celcius numbers as the temp guage had condensation in it at the beginning. Didn't have my glasses.. just beer glasses....Anyway, by the end of the 2nd hour I noticed it was on the wrong heat and turned up the gas. All turned out well actually. Was like a rare roast beef but with smoked flavour. Was tender (for topside) despite the short cooking time. We all loved it and the kids got into it. That's a win. We had 'recovery sandwiches' of the leftover roast mid morning! Have 2 things id like to cook next. Some eel,...…., and pump and rub a chicken with the KFC recipe spices that have been leaked on the net! Will show the process when I do it.

As I said earlier, I bought a 'new' 2nd hand smoker on Gumtree last week. Sight unseen except for a pic on the gumtree ad, and had a mate pick it up for me. He said when he collected the smoker the gas element and the housing fell out of the bottom of the smoker..... he said he didnt take too much notice, and took it home without looking at it further. So I arrived on Saturday, with a 2kg lump of topside, some rub and a hope the smoker would be 'fixable'. My 1st observation was the smoker was In pretty good nic. The shelves looked brand new. It was obvious they had seen little to no smoke. An indication of how much smoking the unit had done would be evidenced via the woodchip bowl. It also looked brand new, the enamel was perfect... except for one spot that looked like it copped a lot of heat. It was evidence of a major flare up when the woodchips have ignited instead of smoke and the flare up has gone out by itself and not been extinguished by the cook! We found also the gas element housing was incorrectly installed. The screws were meant to be screwed down from inside the smoker housing floor, not from underneath the hosing up through the floor! The smoke vent at the top had been also improperly installed. It was obvious previous owner had no idea, used it once, had a flare up and possibly ruined his food. Later on he tried to use it again and the gas line was blocked, blamed the smoker and sold it on gumtree to an unsuspecting buyer.... I wondered why they deleted our conversation on GT so quickly. Anyway, we gave the unit a clean, checked the gas O rings and seal. One of the O rings was leaking gas and would have caused some drama. Lucky ol mate is a plumber and had the correct size gas O rings in his truck.. So a quick replacement saw everything hooked up ready to go. Turned on the gas... nothing. By process of elimination we found the regulator up near the gas bottle was fkd. Needs a replacement. Anyway we hooked up the gas line from his BBQ instead... all good. The smoker came with 3 boxes of woodchips. Hickory I think they are. I soaked them for 20 minutes, then lightly wrapped the chips in foil (so not too much air gets at them potentially causing a flare up) put the lump of meat in and fired her up... Earlier in the week, id sent ol mate the sellers phone number so they could arrange a pick up time between them. Over a couple of beers ol mate got this wicked idea of sending some pics with a thank you text to the sellers of the unit. The images we sent are below. Considering they sold the smoker knowing it wasn't working, a cactus gas lead, etc, I bet they were surprised with the outcome! ha! The pic of the meat in the smoker is only just in. Forgot to take an image of finished product.

My Old man was an ex butcher. He used the same home made rig as you describe years later to corn meat on the farm. He once did a Wallaby leg, and you couldn't tell the difference between the Wallaby and corned Beef. Really good way to do chooks as you mentioned. Pump them then put them back in the brine for the prescribed time.

No, that's just a pic I found on the net. Wont get down to the goldy till next weekend to pick it up. Anyway here is another one for sale in Brissy. Id haggle a bit. The Aldi coolabah was $200 new. He is asking $150. Been on gumtree a month with no offers it looks like. https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/calamvale/bbq/bbq-gas-smoker/1195693809

All this talk of smoking fish got to me. I haven't really done much for years. Was thinking of building one but had a look on Gumtree.... and found a second hand ALDI gas smoker. $70 bucks. Had a mate pick it up on the Goldy for me as we live near Toowoomba. Below is a pic of the model.

Cheers Drop Bear. Im serious when I say brine is most important. Without it there would be no such thing as the flavours of bacon, ham, smoked salmon, trout, mackerel, eel, chicken, and a variety of other traditional meats that owe their unique flavours to salt, more than they do smoke! But the combination of them has created some of humanities most popular foods! To successfully replicate traditional smoked meats and fish, brining is mandatory. We aren't talking BBQ. We are talking cured, smoked meats and fish. BBQ is great. But nothing beats brined, and smoked meats and fish. Eg; Bacon, Ham, chicken, Smoked Salmon, trout, mackerel, eel.

Cheers Drop Bear. Which smoker or smokehouse can get complicated. If one wants to get really serious there is moisture content, (humidity)accurate temp gauges (spikes in product) , smoke spreaders for more even smoke, timers.. As ive said, brine is the most important part. Next is a good coverage of smoke, and cook the product well. Honestly ive never used a small smoker like the metho one you mentioned. I know a lot of people swear by them, but ive never tasted what they are swearing about... Personally, I like a bar fridge size home made smoker. Hot coals in a tray on the bottom (can use heat beads or coals from separate fire). A tray with wet sawdust or wet woodchips in or beside the coals. A 'spreader' above. A spreader is like a pasta strainer that makes the smoke even out as it rises above. Above that are racks to hold fish, meat whatever. Also the racks can be taken out and product can be hung. I prefer Trout hung not racked. There is a trick to is to stop the fish falling off the spear. Eels also. You don't need a chimney at the top. A spud bag can simply be put over the top. Lastly, To stop your sawdust or chips catching fire, you must limit the intake of air. This is done from the bottom. If the fire gets too much air is when you get flame trouble. You need to walk the line between smothering the fire to make smoke, and keeping it hot enough to cook. Like anything, it takes a bit of practice. Smoking would be more popular if people got a good result. Most don't. But you can get restaurant quality product with only a little practice. I suggest practicing on some freshwater Eels. You will know when you get it right. May do a youtube vid some time this year on it.

Smoking is all about the brine. Get that right, with a good plume of smoke, and its hard to fail. *Oily fish are best. Fat carries flavour and thats true in all cooking. That's why oily fish are most famous for smoking. (salmon, mackerel, eel, trout) *Fresh water fish (eel, trout) need more salt (or brined longer) than Saltwater fish. *Flossy salt is best. Sea salt next. (arguably) A liquid brine will give more consistent flavour than dry rub. * A standard brine may be; Try a cup (tea cup) of salt per 2ltr water. Add brown sugar (1/2 cup) if you like. Make sure its all dissolved. Other ingredients can be added to your taste. 8 hours for a standard trout, eel. 6h for saltwater fish. *Take fish from the brine, pat off excess moisture and let the fish dry to the touch. (2 hours?) This will allow a 'pellicle' to form (sticky scum thingy) which will hold a lot of smoke flavour and give the fish a great colour. *Australian hardwoods are excellent sources of woodsmoke. Yes, gum trees. You could also raid orchards and break off dead woods from fruit and nut trees. Personally I get sawdust from a hardwood sawmill, or chip up dead branches of gumtrees and soak them in water before smoking. Not rocket science, just get it smoking and not on fire. *Forget cold smoking. We want enough heat to cook the fish. Remember you want to smoke for about 4 hours, so you want a low cooking heat. I'll leave that up to you to judge. Lastly, If you aren't happy with the salt flavour, don't play with the brine. Play with the brine time! If too strong, brine for less time, if too weak, brine longer. Keep your brine recipe and learn how long you need to brine. If you keep changing the brine recipe you'll take a lot longer to get it right. Don't release that next freshwater eel.. Its an expensive delicacy all over the world, and for good reason. We in Oz are blessed with an abundance of them. Give it a go. Oh yes... SMOKING IS ALL ABOUT THE BRINE!