Smokey & the Bandit
Welcome to the first edition of the J Squared Barbecue blog. This is intended to be a blog by a couple of guys named Jeff (get it . . . J Squared) who barely know what a blog is. What’s even more of a stretch, we thought it would be a really good idea if we started a blog about something that we know very little about - the delicious art of smoking meats. Quick backstory is that after a few brewskies one night while comparing notes on our new smokers (more about that in a moment), we thought it might be fun and maybe even useful to other rookies and wannabes out there to chronicle our successes, failures and near-misses, supplemented by the occasional beverage pairing, sports opinion or other suggestions about which we have no proven track record … only enthusiasm.
Smoker Selection: I’m J Fiske and I’ve always been a Weber charcoal grill guy. I like campfires that’ll melt the soles off your hiking boots. Give me 750 degrees of searing flame and I’ll grill most anything. And usually, pretty damn well (as in tasty, not shoe leather). When it came time to take my game up a notch and I started looking at smokers, I sought out the credentialed input of my brother-in-law in Georgia who pointed me to the Kamado Joe line of smokers. A ceramic, lump charcoal-burning smoker that requires gentle coaxing at first, intoxicating beverages to help stoke the flames followed by careful manipulation of vents and holes to achieve and maintain just the right temperature.
My partner in this endeavor, J Sussman, decided to go the pellet route, i.e. a Traeger. I think it’s safe to assume that neither of us will diss the selection of the other. Mostly because we don’t know enough about these things quite yet to be pumping our fists in the air over either one. But that’s part of why we thought this might be fun/useful. One guy’s got a remotely controlled, electronically monitored model of precision temperature control and the other guy has a fire in the hole that was a solid 200 degrees when he went to bed last night and woke up to $55 of charred butt in the morning. Nobody likes charred butt in the morning.
One of the coolest parts of smoking meats, whether it’s a pellet or a kamado style smoker, is the prep work before and during the process. In contrast to grilling, where you might sprinkle some seasoning or slather some sauce on the meat right before you throw it on the grill, with smokers it can easily be a 24-hour process. Trim the fat off the meat, prepare a dry rub to bring out (or seal in) moisture, wrap it, refrigerate it over night, smoke it for hours, sear it, finish it off in the oven and then let it rest. Even the slicing part of the exercise requires some attention to the grain of the meat. J Sussman failed to observe that key part of the equation when he inadvertently carved himself on an early brisket attempt. But it’s fun to compare notes on what you tried, how it turned out, whether you were drinking an IPA or a Young & Yonder cocktail during the prep or what you would do different next time. At least the two of us think it’s fun and we hope you do too.