Having your own honest-to-God butcher. Mine's name is Tim. I just called ahead for a 7 lb pork butt to smoke on Saturday. Unfortunately, I'm a day late for him to order me the beef brisket I wanted to try, but when you're working with custom meat, you need lead time. MonaLisa has her family coming over Sunday, so I'm making pulled pork, brisket (probably), ribs, sausage, and hot dogs for her mom. Sort of a Meat-a-Palooza, the home version.
For the record, I've been using mesquite wood for the past year or so, but I need to return to hickory to get the fuller flavor; mesquite is just too mild, especially with the big new clean smoker with the cast-iron wood box. Tim has advised me that all the smoker needs is many more hours of smoke; the clean sides deflect all that yummy smoky flavor.
I'd really like to try fruitwood, but that's really expensive.
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- Lunchbox (
the_lunchbox) wrote,