It's Time To Get A Smoker

Okay, I'm done trying to defeat the challenge of smoking on a gas grill. Cooked another piece of meat today, this time a 5+ lb beef brisket. I Did pretty much the same thing, with the exception of using apple wood sawdust instead of hickory chips for smoking.

It didn't matter a whole lot - I just couldn't get the grill to sustain the smoke level I want. Even when finding an odd steel grate (for some reason inadvertently delivered by our last moving company) allowed me to lower the plate of sawdust directly over the flames, it still took forever to get smoke. It still tasted awesome, BTW.

The rub was good.




Both the mop and sauce used beer for the majority or part of the liquid. I put more thought into what beer to use than I thought I would. I settled on a Belhaven Scottish Ale that my dad had left with me some weeks ago. It's fairly heavy and malty, and I figured in a recipe looking for smokey, somewhat sweet and caramelly flavors, I figured it was "the go". I had just enough in a 15.9 oz draft can to make the mop, the sauce, and give the cook a mouth full before tossing the can in the recycle bin. It's not as good as a McEwan's, but what is? The sauce was very vinegary (sp?), too much so for my taste. Two tablespoons of light brown sugar made it a much better sauce.

Summer's almost over and I, as a true consumer, will probably find a good smoker on clearance at Home Depot or someplace.