Steve Friedl's SmokeBlog

Best food book ever

I've purchased a decent selection of grill/smoker books over the years, each with its own warts and charms, but the best food book I have doesn't have a single recipe^*.

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen by Harold McGee is a food science book, and I've described it as the book Alton Brown would write. In fact, Alton can be seen reading it during some cutaway shots in Good Eats (an homage, no doubt).

Harold McGee writes the Curious Cook column for the New York Times, along with his own website of the same name, on the science, chemistry, and history of food and cooking. It's the epitome of molecular gastronomy.

The table of contents:

1. Milk and Dairy Products
2. Eggs
3. Meat
4. Fish and Shellfish
5. Edible Plants: An Introduction to Fruits and Vegetables, Herbs and Spices
A Survey of Common Vegetables
6. A Survey of Common Fruits
7. Flavorings from Plants: Herbs and Spices, Tea and Coffee
8. Seeds: Grains, Legumes, and Nuts
9. Cereal Doughs and Batters: Bread, Cakes, Pastry, Pasta
10. Sauces
11. Sugars, Chocolate, and Confectionery
12. Wine, Beer, and Distilled Spirits
13. Cooking Method and Utensil Material
14. The Four Basic Food Molecules

The writing style is delightful, giving history of how the various food items have been used throughout the years, chemical breakdowns (but in an accessible way), and lovely sidebars for "Food words" and the like.

I learned a great deal from the chapter on meat:

From page 151 (Metric temperatures omitted)

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It's Easy to Overcook Tender Meat
Cooking tender meat to perfection—so that its internal temperature is just what we want—is a real challenge. Imagine that we grill a thick steak just to medium rare, 140°F, at the center. Its surface will have dried out enough to get hotter than the boiling point, and in between the center and surface, the meat temperature spans the range between 140°F—medium rare—and 212°F—cooked dry. In fact the bulk of the meat is overcooked. And it only takes a minute or two to overshoot medium rare at the center and dry out the whole steak, because meat is cooked but juicy in only a narrow temperature range, just 30°F. When we grill or fry an inch-thick steak or chop, the rate of temperature increase at the center can exceed 10°F per minute.

Solutions: Two-Stage Cooking, Insulation, Anticipation
There are several ways to give the cook a larger window of time for stopping the cooking, and to obtain meat that is more evenly done.

The most common method is to divide the cooking into two stages, an initial high-temperature surface browning, and a subsequent cooking through at a much lower temperature. The low cooking temperature means a smaller temperature differential between center and surface, so that more of the meat is within a few degrees of the center temperature. It also means that the meat cooks more slowly, with a larger window of time during which the interior is properly done.

Another trick is to cover the meat surface with another food, such as strips of fat or bacon [bacon! - SJF], batters and breadings, pastry and bread dough. These materials insulate the meat surface from direct cooking heat and slow the heat penetration.

Cooks can also avoid zooming through the zone of ideal doneness by removing the meat from the oven or pan before it's completely done, and relying on lingering afterheat to finishing the cooking more gradually, until the surface cooks enough to draw heat back out of the meat interior. The extent of afterheating depends on the meat's weight, shape, and center temperature, and the cooking temperature, and can range from a negligible few degrees in a thin cut to 20°F in a large roast.

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This is just one snippet that helped me understand the cooking process, and I now think about timing windows and temperature differentials in a way that makes me a better cook. The whole book is filled with gems like this.

I've also particularly enjoyed the chapter covering wine, as it's helped me understand the winemaking process, the various styles from a more technical perspective, as well as learning how wine aromas can be understood.

In the past I'd hear a wine described as something like: "Some tannins, with notes of currant and strawberry, hints of green vegetables, and a buttery finish". Not generally being able to sense all that myself, I used to think

"They are just making it up as they go along."

Well, they're not: the same chemical that gives bell pepper its distinct aroma, isobutyl methoxypyrazine, can also found in cabernet sauvignon, and it's detectable in the single-digit parts per trillion.

So it's not that wine has a chemical that happens to smell like some other chemical, but it's in fact the same molecule. I've been able to detect this green-vegetable aroma myself in a cabernet, as well as the diacetyl molecule that can give wine a buttery taste— it also gives butter its buttery taste.

This has been wildly enlightening.

One nice thing about this book is that you can pick it up, open it to a random place, and start enjoying it: there's something interesting on every page. The downside is that I've not yet systematically gone through it from start to finish, and I really do look forward to sitting down to the chapter on the four main food molecules (water, fats, carbohydrates, and proteins).

As it turns out, Dr. McGee is a really nice guy too: I've had a few email exchanges with him, and he's been far more gracious than you'd expect from a man who undoubtedly gets a lot of fan mail.

I gave a few copies of this wonderful book as gifts for Christmas, and they were universally well received. Anybody who watches Good Eats regularly is a candidate to enjoy this book.

I certainly do.

* - Technically there are a few recipes, but mainly as historical examples. This is not a recipe book.

Time and Temperature

Unlike grilling a steak, where a semi-experienced chef requires neither a thermometer nor a timer, being able to judge just based on look, feel, and smell, it turns out that cooking on the smoker doesn't afford us this same luxury. There is no substitute for knowing the time and at least one temperature of your product, with at least two being better (and sometimes I use three).

Because even a well-regulated smoker's temperature still does vary, the only safe and reliable way to know when your meal is done is to gauge the internal temperature of your product. This is especially the case with pork, which has to be cooked to 160°F internally, something you should never mess around with.

Many backyard BBQers have used digital thermometer grill forks, such as the excellent Maverick unit shown to the right, and though these are indispensable at the the grill — I use mine all the time — they're nevertheless mostly useless with a smoker.

Grill forks are great for taking a quick, one-time temperature reading, and it requires that you have easy access to the product. I use mine for doing a steak, as well as when doing a roast on the rotisserie.

But at your smoker, you need to monitor not just the internal temperature of the meat, but also the ambient temperature in the smoking chamber itself. It's the latter that positively requires constant monitoring (remember: you are the thermostat), and you can't reasonably do this with a grill fork. If nothing else, the constant opening of the smoker will let out valuable heat and smoke, extending the cooking time in ways that are hard to measure.

Remote is king

No, smoking requires ongoing measurement, and I've found that remote thermometers are the best because they allow me to keep an eye on the temperature while at my desk, watching the temperature as it's broadcast via radio signal from a transmitter out by the smoker.

I've been using the Maverick ET-7, which includes two temperature probes which plug into the smaller black transmitter unit that sits on top of the smoker, and the larger receiver unit that displays the temperature of both probes.

Note: I generally use and like Maverick products, but I'm no kind of expert. They were readily available at Bed, Bath & Beyond, but I'm sure there are many other brands that work well too. I just stick with what I like.

I permanently mounted one of the probes inside my smoker at the rack level I normally cook at, and the other probe is inserted into the food being cooked. Both wires run out to the sending unit, and I can keep an eye on both of them from my desk.

By keeping good notes, including both chamber and internal temperatures every 15 minutes or so, I'm able to really get a feel for the temperature profile of my unit. Learning how long it takes to heat, how well it regulates, how to turn up and down as the meal progresses (for instance, I turn the gas on high after putting on new chips until they start smoking, after which I return the knob to the previous temperature).

There are some dishes that can't really take that second internal thermometer, usually seafood: shrimp, a thin fillet, scallops. For these, all you can go on is the chamber temp, but for roasts I always record both.

Tip: Don't use the timer in the thermometer

The Maverick unit has multiple timers to go along with the multiple temperature probes, and though this surely looks appealing, I always use a separate timer. The reason is that the radio signals sometimes get out of sync, and the only way to get the base unit to read the remote is to turn them both off and back on.

Were I to have been using the base unit's timer, I'd have to start over with a 00:00 count, and that's really not very fun at all. Yes, it's possible to note the time before the "reboot" and then adjust mentally, but I have a very hard time adding odd times together in my head. By using a separate timer, one uninfluenced by the vagaries of radio, I don't have this problem.

But as a side tip, I always note the wall-clock time when I put the product on the smoker, so that if I bump my timer—I've done this too— I have some hope of recovery.

I'll have more to say about how to keep good notes, and on the importance of really learning your smoker later.

Three thermometers?

In my opening paragraph, I noted that I sometimes use three thermometers: in addition to the chamber and internal temperatures, I also record the ambient outdoor temperature while cooking, as this affects the overall cooking time. My smoker has insulated walls, so in practice it may not matter that much, but by collecting the data I may be able to make some adjustments in understanding the temperature profile of my smoker.

It turns out that one timer is not enough either, but I'll leave that for another post.

How to buy grill tongs

Running a good smoking operation is not just about having a good smoker: there are all kinds of other accouterments that go with it, and none more ubiquitous than grill tongs. Could it really matter which ones you get?

Yes, and it's not just a matter of style or fashion.

I define three broad categories of grill tongs: flat-blade tongs, wire-blade tongs and reinforced-blade tongs: only reinforced-blade tongs should ever be used by the serious grilling enthusiast because they're the only ones strong enough to hold a heavy roast.

Flat-blade tongs (shown on the right, click for larger view) and wire-blade tongs (on the left) are commonly found in cheap — and not-so-cheap — BBQ toolkits, and though they are often elegant and stylish, their design gives them too much flexibility when trying to firmly grasp a heavy object. This is fatal to moving a heavy roast or a pork loin from plate to grill and back.

An easy test when evaluating grill tongs: holding it comfortably in your dominant hand, grasp your opposite forearm: how much can you squeeze the tongs without hurting your forearm? If there's lots of "give", you're going to be dropping a lot of meat, My sister refers to this as "ground beef" in honor of the dirt-encrusted roasts which result.

The third type, and the only one suitable for real grillers, is the reinforced-blade tongs, and my favorite are made by Oxo. I don't think they know how to make a lousy product.

Unlike the others, the metal forming the blade is curved around, giving it far more rigidity. Try the forearm test and you'll see the only "give" is in your forearm. These are truly good grips.

Of course, Oxo is not the only company that makes quality grillware, and a bit of web searching shows that Bobby Flay has grill tongs as well (sold at Kohl's), which appear to be the reinforced-blade kind. As a bonus, they have the same locking mechanism that the longer Oxo tongs have.

Cheap tongs are not useless: when grilling peppers or hot dogs or other small items, it doesn't really matter that much what kind of tongs you use, but once you graduate to the larger meats, you're really going to find that good gear makes for good eats.

Charcoal or Gas?

Though most of my grilling has been with gas, all my smoking has been with water-soaked wood chunks on burning charcoal. It seemed so natural and obvious to me that in a smoker you'd need smoke, and what could do a better job than burning charcoals?

I had seen a number of other smokers powered by gas (propane tanks or natural gas via the house line) or electricity, but I dismissed them out of hand: it just didn't seem right.

When buying my new smoker I was faced with a great deal on a gas smoker, and I was really quite conflicted about it for a time, but against my better judgment I got it anyway.

The salesman claimed that though a professional may be able to tell the difference between a charcoal-smoked product and a gas-smoked one, most of the smoke comes from the wood, not the fuel, so a consumer like me probably couldn't. This seemed plausible.

A charcoal heat source, especially in a cheap smoker, requires a lot of attention in order to keep the temperature regulated. Charcoal can burn quite hot, but with a shift in the wind or the phase of the moon, dive to barely above smoldering. Fussing with the air vents required constant attention, and was very frustrating a charcoal fire's temperature is almost as finicky as a woman.

Gas does not have this problem. With a knob just like on your stove, one can pick a temperature range and pretty much stick to it (a task made easier by the insulated walls of my smoker — less influence from the outside).

And of course there's cleanup: charcoal is very messy and requires setup in advance with the starter chimney, plus the ashes to clean up afterwards. It's hard to imagine using a charcoal on white concrete surface without getting it very dirty.

My gas smoker, on the other hand, has a simple wood-chip tray to empty: it could not be easier to take care of.

I'm not sure about the difference in the costs of fuel, but charcoal is probably quite a bit easier to pick up in a pinch than propane is.

There are these and other factors that go into choosing your fuel source, and different people will give different weights to different factors.

But for me, it came down to this:

If a smoker is easier to use, I'll use it more

This has been a slam-dunk win. As much as I enjoyed the smoked salmon I made in the past, it was so much work, both in setup and cleanup, that I simply never smoked anything except for those special occasions that warranted taking a whole day off to do so.

But with a gas smoker, it's so easy to fire up that I actually use it a coupla times a week. This means that not only will the special projects (such as a big batch of smoked salmon) go more smoothly, but it's easy enough to use casually just to make something for dinner.

The profit is that I have far more opportunities to learn my equipment, to try things, to improve my craft. This is a huge benefit — I'd never have gotten into this enough to start my smokeblog had I purchased a charcoal smoker.

I suppose that someday, when I'm far more experienced, I'll learn the limitations of a gas smoker and where a charcoal one can do a better job enough to buy one, informed by actual experience and able to hone in on my specific requirements.

But until then, I'm smokin' with gas.

My new smoker!

With a drive-by description of water smokers out of the way, I'm anxious to describe the unit I bought, along with the curious path that got me there.

Some years ago, I had a cheap — maybe $60 — Char-Broil charcoal smoker much like the one to the right, though mine was a bit taller. It had two stacked grills, was generally made of relatively thin metal, and had a mostly useless dial-type thermometer in the lid. It just felt cheap all the way around, and I just threw it away when I moved in late 2008.

With Char-broil's taller model no longer available, I started to look more widely for a replacement, and the first place to go in the grilling world is Weber, who always seems to get it right. They have a line of "Smokey Mountain Cooker™" charcoal smokers that looks like the usual high Weber quality, but at $299 for the unit with a pair of 18.5" grills, and $399 for the dual 22" grills, this wasn't going to be a casual purchase; I was determined to put my hands and eyes on one personally before laying out this kind of cash.

After calling around to Home Depots and Lowes in the area, I finally called BBQ Galore. They're a chain specializing in exactly this kind of thing, and though they're certainly knowledgeable in the products, I can also expect to pay full retail. Since I knew what I wanted, I was trying to avoid that. We'll return to just how much I actually knew shortly.

They had only a 22" Weber unit in stock, and it was beautiful.

Rock solid feel, built like a tank, and with a great attention to detail, it was obvious why Weber warrants a higher price than the cheap stuff. And this larger 22" unit was HUGE, it could easily smoke two small children.

I was sure I couldn't use the bigger one — I had nowhere to put it — and I was hemming and hawing about what else to do: I knew what I wanted, and it wasn't here.

Or so I thought.

The salesman was exceptionally knowledgeable about everything smoking and grilling, and we talked for quite a while about the smoking world. I'd had great success in the past, but with a very narrow focus (smoked salmon, mainly), and it was useful to hear the advice of a pro even though he was in a sales-y position.

As I was about to leave, he finally pointed to a completely different kind of unit, a store-brand "Grand Cafe Smoker", which is a propane-powered unit that looks like a small stainless steel refrigerator with two doors, and with a retail price of $550. This was completely outside my budget.

But this model had gotten obviously banged up in transit, with some large and relatively unsightly dents, but in a way that would not affect the actual operation of the smoker, so it was going to go for some kind of discount.

I was shocked when he said the reduced price: $250.

This really got me thinking, though I was pretty sure I didn't want a gas (or electric) powered unit. But after yet more hemming and hawing, I decided to buy it, leaving a discussion of the heat source for another post.

I came back the next day, with my neighbor and his truck in tow, and brought it home after stopping by Home Depot for a coupla tanks of propane.

I love this smoker far more than I expected to.

It came with a meager instruction manual and a good cover that actually covers the mounted propane tank. There are two good-sized wheels on the back, along with a handle, to allow rolling it into position and putting it away easily — this is very convenient.

Edit - the unit is 20 inches square, and about 42 inches tall.

The wood chips go in a slide-in tray mounted just above the flame burners, but there is no direct contact with flame on wood (it has no trouble generating plenty of smoke).

The water tray, just above the chips and burner, is a good size and slides out on rollers. It's very convenient.

There is fiberglass insulation all around in the walls and the doors, so it does a very good job at retaining heat, making it quite a bit less sensitive to the outdoor temperature. Even the built-like-a-tank Weber has just a single layer of steel between the inside and the outside.

There is a useless dial-type thermometer in the roof of the unit, which I never use because, well, it's useless.

I'll have much more to say about this in later posts, but I really have to give props to BBQ Galore. It was absolutely obvious that everybody in there truly knows and loves grilling and smoking, and they had used all the products they sell.

Yes, one can save money by going to Home Depot or that ilk, but you're unlikely to get such good advice.

Though I'll still probably swing by Home Depot for wood chips or a grill brush — they're right around the corner — next time I buy a major piece of equipment, I'll go out of my way to get good advice from trained professionals.