Low and slow BBQ brisket

A couple of weeks back I cooked my first proper smoked brisket! I made an impulse buy of an offset smoker in June 2016; It was always on the list, so when I saw an "award winning" smoker going for half price how could I not  buy it? Right? ...Right???

I mean, look at it: 

So when I get home the first thing I do is google this bad boy to see how they work. 

"Avoid cheap offset smokers at all costs"

The general consensus seems to be cheap offset smokers just won't do the job. There are a number of reasons for this, including: 

• Metal walls are too thin - meaning they're not great at holding the heat. 
• The fire box opens directly into the cooking section, resulting in uneven heat across the cooking area.
• Bad seals across the doors and joins of the grill. 

Those seem to be the main gripes. We'll I'd committed at that point, so the only thing to do was see how bad this smoker actually was: 

 😐 Yeah. When I lit it up for a test smoke it looked like I'd just poured petrol all over it and set it alight. There was smoke everywhere except in the smoker.  I attempted to cook a pork shoulder and it was a disaster! So, for the next year and a half the smoker became a standard grill.

So roll on 2017. I decided to fix thing and do some proper smoking on it before I gave up on it completely. I measured all the gaps and bought some stuff to do a DIY fix on it, including:

• Some aluminium strips to seal the gaps in the cooking chamber lid
• Heat resistant silicone sealant
• Some fire rope, usually used in the doors wood burner

The first thing I did was screw the aluminium L shaped strips into the lid to help block up the gaps on either side of the lid.

Next I applied sealant to every joint on the smoker, where the fire box connects to the cooking chamber, where the chimney connects to the body, and at every screw/bolt point, on the inside and outside of the grill.

Finally I added the fire rope around the lid of the fire box and the cooking chamber to provide a better seal and help keep the smoke in.

So that was it. The smoker was on sale half price when we bought it. The fix I did cost quite a bit (that fire rope is expensive). But it was worth it in the end.  

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, I also put in an extra thermometer closer to the grate before I'd made  the adjustments,  the temperature difference between top and bottom thermometers was over 40 degrees C, afterwards it was less than 10 degrees C! Success!!

My First Brisket

My first smoke was a small brisket, 1.5kg. I was up and ready to go at 6:00am. I filled half the fire box with unlit coals, and a put a water pan with boiling water in the cooking chamber beside the smoke box, to help regulate the temperature and keep the meat moist.  

The brisket was prepared the night before with some salt, and the spice rub applied two hours before cooking started.

And away she goes!

I smoked the meat with hickory word, putting on two chunks every half hour for the first two hours. After that it was a liberal spritzing with apple juice every couple of hours.

A 3pm the meat was wrapped in foil and let cook for another 3 hours. At 6pm it was taken off the smoker and kept in an warm in a cooler box for an hour before slicing:

For a first attempt I was very happy! So were the rest of the family. It was delicious. There were a few minor changes I'd make for the next time, but all in all it was a success.  

All those modifications paid off, I'll get my money's worth out of this smoker yet. 

Also, a big thanks to everyone on reddit and amazingribs.com for all the tips and advice!

Traktor Kontroll S5, back to the music!!

I bought myself a Traktor Kontroll S5 last week; I was originally planning to get an S4 mk2, but I came across a really excellent deal on the S5 at www.bax-music.se, so I forked out the extra cash and took the plunge!!
I have to say I wasn't disappointed. This thing is amazing! It's really great having those two displays built into the controller, even now at the beginning I have barely looked at my laptop screen at all. Everything is handled very easily and intuitively from the controller itself.
It's a great piece of kit, more fun than I've had with technology in a very long time!!
Here's the promo video:

I've missed playing with music, the next few months are going to be a lot of fun. Beats the crap out of watching telly on a Friday night that's for sure.
Here's my first attempt at a mix:



I'll be back with more in the not too distant future! 😊