Brine

As requested by John, here's the recipes for the brine. First though, a bit of an overview. I use a salt brine, followed by a sweet marinade, and the result is a lot like the northwest smoked salmon they call Indian candy. Smoky inside, but with a sweet exterior.

Salt brine: 2 cups water; 1/2 cup kosher salt; 1 cup brown sugar; 4 bay leaves; 1 tsp. course black pepper; 1 tsp. allspice; 1 tsp. whole cloves; 1 tsp. ground ginger; 2 crushed garlic cloves. Soak at least 12 hours in the brine. Then remove from brine, rinse well, spray with olive oil, and prepare marinade.

Marinade: 1 1/2 cups water; 1 cup brown sugar; 1 tsp. course black pepper; 1 tsp. allspice; 1 tsp. whole cloves; some garlic. Seafood now marinades for at least 12 hours. I usually start this process two nights before I plan to smoke. About 24 hours in the brine, and then overnight in the sweet marinade; then take fish out of the marinade, and let it air dry for one hour before smoking begins.

Smoking de la mer

I'm pleased to report that we successfully smoked fish and seafood on the Weber Bullet. We ran for five hours, with the temperature steady between 150 and 170, never any higher. Here's the technique:
We covered the bottom of the charcoal chamber with a single layer of briquettes, with hickory chunks mixed in. It was more like a layer and a half, because I wanted the coals to fill the chamber; I didn't want any 'open' space, so to speak. Then we lit 15 briquettes in the chimney. When the briquettes were lit, I placed them over the charcoal (using the Minion method), but tried to keep them toward the center of the chamber, and not near the edges, so that all the heat would be below the water pan, and would be as indirect as possible.

After assembling the bullet, we placed the scallops and salmon on the lower rack, and the shrimp and halibut on the upper rack. Susan wanted things cooked a little more, and as we expected the upper rack to be warmer, we put her fish and the shrimp on the top rack. Also, we were interested in seeing if parchment paper would work, both to keep the fish from sticking to the rack, and and to lessen any mess. So we placed parchment paper over the lower rack, poking holes in the paper to allow additional smoke to pass through. On the upper rack we used one of those disposable screens, and folded it in at the edges, to prevent stuff from falling off, and also to allow the screen to fit easily into the bullet.

After we got everything assembled, I could already feel the heat from the fire, so at first I closed all air vents to only one-third open. Not enough air flow, so I quickly opened them, to one-half open. The bullet promptly came to 150 degrees, and stayed very steady. I probably could have stayed at 150, but wanted to see a bit more heat, so first I opened one of the lower vents all the way. Then after almost three hours at 150, I used the chimney to light a few more briquettes, and twice added 5 lit briquettes to the charcoal. Also, I periodically added some small hickory chips that helped generate additional smoke. I know the experts say you don't need a lot of smoke, but when smoking fish at low temps, I like to see smoke generated pretty much all the time.

The extra briquettes brought me up to 165 to 170 for about an hour, hour and a half. At the end, the temp fell back to 150. Seafood smoked for a total of five hours. Everything was great. Scallops and shrimp had that translucent texture, smoky flavor throughout, and sweet exterior from the brown sugar marinade. I thought the fish was a bit cooked, but Danny and Susan raved about it. Danny thought the halibut had the look and feel of smoked whitefish. (Of course, it lacks all the fat one finds in whitefish, and fatty fish are the very best for smoking.)

Anyway, we were pleased with the outcome, and excited that we could run the bullet under 200 for an extended period. An interesting observation when we were disassembling the thing later on. The charcoal in the middle of the chamber burned out, but there remained a ring of unburned briquettes all around the exterior of the ring. I guess when you use the minion method, the coals burn vertically, but don't necessarily burn laterally. So because I used only 15 hot coals to start, and added the additional hot coals to the middle of the chamber, the stuff around the edges never burned. That helps explain why the temp stayed low.

The Weber Bullet

Regular readers of the blog, all five or six of them, know that I have not been posting of late. What with Phyllis passing away and me being busy busy busy at work, I have not kept up with MannyMontaigne. As a result, there is a huge backlog of topics about which I need to post.

These include, in no particular order, my take on the world wide single malt price rise, a phenomenon that I had hoped might disappear with the current recession. No such luck. Or how about the Sox torrid pace in June, featuring a return to form by Josh Beckett and Big Papi? Danny wants the blog to address Manny's suspension, and what it means for Boston's recent success, as well as Manny's legacy. Can he still be spoken of as the best right handed hitter of the modern era? Another big topic is NNT and the Black Swan, perhaps the smartest and most intriguing book I've read in years. I'm also backed up with some additional Genesis reading, most of it unremarkable, but Joel Rosenberg's book about allegory is well worth mention.

All of these topics will have to take a back seat for now, however, as we have the Weber bullet fired up today, and I need to begin bringing everyone up to date on the spectacular results we've had with the bullet on the first couple occasions of its use.  For the uninitiated, the Bullet is marketed as the Weber Smokey Mountain cooker, but known everywhere as the bullet, owing to its appearance. It's a Weber grill, cut in half, with a two-foot long cylinder between the two hemispheres.  Charcoal chamber in the bottom; big water pan covering the charcoal, absorbing and deflecting heat, and then two racks for food up above.  The great virtue of the bullet is that you can start a charcoal fire that will burn for up to 18 hours, without the need for any additional fuel. Maybe occasionally adding some wood chips for smoke, but it's so efficient that it can cook for hours on end, with very little attention. All you need to do is monitor the air flow to maintain temperature.

First day out, we smoked ribs, chicken legs, and turkey sausage. I had given up cooking ribs in the old smoker, as it was too much work to manage the fire for 8-12 hours, adding charcoal, adding chips, keeping the temperature in the correct range. I found I had to sit in the barbeque pit pretty much the whole time, checking the smoker at least once every 15 minutes. This time, I loaded up the Weber, (using the Minion method, just in case anyone reading this has familiarity with the Bullet), and found that it cooked at a steady 235 without much worry. At one point, and I can't recall why, maybe I had opened the vents too much, my temp reached 275, without any adverse effect on the ribs. Anyway, after 5 1/2 hours, they were done; and they were great. The best I had ever cooked ribs, and the easiest time I ever had cooking ribs. Chicken legs were good, but I need to work on technique to keep them tender. Sausage was fabulous, had the flavor of a smoked sausage, but didn't dry out to the point of becoming salami.

Today we smoking fish. And the concern was that the Bullet is not intended to cook under 200, so would I be able to smoke fish, without cooking it? We don't have the answer yet, and I can't make any representations about taste, consistency, texture, etc.  But I can report that we've managed to keep the bullet between 150 and 170 for the entire time. We looked at the product after about three hours, and everything looked great. That brown glaze that's characteristic of smoked seafood. And everything glistening from the glaze, the sweet marinade in which it soaked after 24 hours of brining.

This might be the most significant technological advance since, let's say, the discovery of distillation. Certainly, every household needs a Weber bullet. Think how much better life would be, if everyone had a smoker going, with some cold beer in the fridge, and some good whisky waiting in the cabinet. There's a thought that everyone, regardless of political persuasion, regardless of whom they love or hate in the AL East, ought to be able to agree on. Don't you think?