Smokin’ in Oregon
We drove up to Eugene, Oregon over the July 4th holiday earlier this month to spend time with my brother-in-law Darren and his wife Christine. Their hospitality is always fine, but this time, Darren had just gotten a new smoker so we basically put some mesquite smoke on anything that wasn’t nailed down.
This is a really nice smoker to work with. The whole thing is heavy cast iron, retains heat very well. Light a batch of coals in the bottom tray, and they’ll last for at least 4 hours. We added soaked mesquite wood chunks every now and then. The really brilliant part of this smoker design is the heavy cast iron water tray that slides in just above the fire. Fill it with water (and later on beer, wine, etc.) and it’ll temper the heat perfectly for the racks above. The lowest rack stays at a near perfect 250 degrees, while the two above average 225 and 200 respectively. Of course, after hours of collecting drippings, the liquid that’s left in the pan also makes for an ideal sauce base.
Check out the smoke ring on this beautiful tri-tip that Darren smoked. One interesting thing Darren does – he sears the steak on the grill for a few minutes before putting it in the smoker. I think this is a good idea for beef especially, since it helps to seal in the juices. When I do a pork shoulder, I like to keep the fire at 350 or so for the first 30 minutes, which accomplishes a similar thing – crusty brown outside to seal juices.
A few days later we smoked again, this time pork ribs and a lamb shoulder. The ribs were quite good – nicely smokey, very tender. We got them from Darren and Christine’s friend Cooper who runs a pig farm. This pork is so tender, flavorful, and nicely marbled. Check out Cooper’s operation, Sweet Briar Farms – you can order all kinds of pork products over the web. If you live around Eugene, also keep an eye out for them at local farmers markets.
The lamb shoulder was interesting. (unfortunately, no pictures) We rubbed it with salt, pepper, a little cumin. Then we cut little slits in the meat and shoved about 20 garlic gloves in there. We smoked it for about 6 hours, which wasn’t quite enough, but it shredded nicely and made some tasty, tasty sandwiches. The smoking tempered that gamey lamb flavor, but it was still there. Very interesting.