Anonymous Modernist 7660

Smoke ring....meh. Here's what I use: Smoker: Bradley Digital Smoker, 4 rack (bought at Canadian Tire, in Canada eh?) Sous Vide: Fresh Meals Magic immersion heater with air bubble circulation and a 18L polycarbonate bucket (bought online) Temperature controller for the smoker and sous vide bath: Auber Instruments dual probe PID controller WSD-1203CPH + sous vide immersion probe.(bought online) Foodsaver vacuum sealer (bought at costco). Looking to upgrade to chamber vacuum sealer (Vacmaster vp-112?) So, the PID controller controls the temperature for several things: the smoker, to maintain a stable temperature over long periods of time, as well as the water bath for sous vide cooking. The Dual probes allow you to smoke and monitor internal meat temp in order to not overcook. I've been experimenting with trying to use the probes in dry bulb and wet bulb thermometers set-up to get the ideal temps and relative humidity for smoking (but so far my post in the forum hasn't generated any guidance on this; where are you Nathan? ) A big advantage of the Bradley over the other types of smokers is the ability to cold smoke by removing the smoke generator from the smoker chamber. My set-up for cold smoking: smoker is in my shed (no snow will stop me!), the smoker chamber on counter top with a chimney to vent outside, the smoke generator on the ground and I put a box over the part where the wood burns to gather the smoke which then goes into some metal dryer flexible ducting into the smoker chamber. By the time the smoke arrives in the smoker chamber it is no longer hot, allowing you to cold smoke cheeses (if you pick a cool day, your cheese won't melt or sweat), for example. Gouda, Havarti, Provolone are good choices to start smoking cheeses. The Bradley smoker is the size of a mini fridge, which isn't that big...You can easily smoke a pork shoulder in it (I've done 18 lbs pork shoulders for pulled pork (in two pieces) a few times, 4 racks of ribs etc.. Use your imagination. Look online or in the modernist cookbooks for recipes and temps. Trick is low temp and slow for bbq. You can use the smoker without the PID controller, but I have found that the PID removes the sometimes large temp swings that the smoker will do without it. This is important for temperature sensitive foods like smoked fish, sausage etc.It also speeds up the `ramp up` times and recovery of when you put food in it to get the smoker to the right temp. Happy smoking!

Get a Bradley Smoker with a PID controller (Auber instruments sells a dual probe PID that works well, which you can also use to control a water bath for sous vide cooking. fresh meals magic also sells a PID with a focus on sous vide and can also sell you a type of immersion heater relatively cheaply for sous vide) will let you set temps precisely. You can even cold smoke cheese and other foods this way. The smoke generator is seperate from the heating element, so you can turn the element off and still have smoke. Its pretty simple to set up cold smoking if you want to.

I've been reading that using a wet bulb thermometer will give me better results for smoking. I usually smoke overnight and slow cook the pork inthe smoker for 18 hours total at low temperatures (190F), but I've read that a smoke then sous vide would be more effective as the meat would keep more moisture and I could use lower temps. This is where I'm at so far: I've brined 16 lbs of pork shoulder for 24 hours in a weak salt and paprika solution. I have a bradley smoker that I control using an Auber instruments PID.I've threaded my thermometer probe into a shoelace which is dipped in a water container so that the thermometer is reading as a wet bulb. I've set my PID to use this wet bulb temp to control the smoker's heating element. Set the smoke for 7 hours and the 'wet bulb' temp at 135F. I also have another thermometer to measure the IT. In the morning the IT of the pork after the smoke was 171F. I vaccum sealed it and into the water bath it is going at 150F for the next 2 days. Is this the correct method of using the wet bulb thermometer method? I'm concerned that the IT of the pork went up too high during the smoke. Does anyone have experience with this method?