Oncee I saw pastrami on the smoking forums I get that bug. I hit a few places till I found some corned beef at Super saver. Yup pastrani is just smoked corned beef. I soaked it for a day to pull some salt out. Coated it with some cracked peppercorns and smoked the heck out of it.

It is absolutely amazing. It tastes so fricking good. I should of gotten it a bit more cooked, but it still kicks arse. Picked up some rye for sammiches tomorrow.

I loves me some smoked cheese, but the Hoffmans stuff runs about $5 for a small chunk. Headed to the store and got some cheap sharp cheddar and monterey jack. Cut them into chunks and since it was 35 degrees outside I knew I could get my cold smoke on. I put some hickory chunks in my chimeny starter over the propane cooker and got them going. Placed the smoldering chunks in the smoker and kept that going for around 3 hours.

The cheese was not getting that smoke color so I kept them on. When I decided to taste a slice I pulled it all off cuz it was so smoked. Darn good though. Still being cheap cheese it does not have the creamy texture, but the flavor is really intense. It will go well in our recipes, especially a good mac and cheese.

So I am enjoying my BBQ during weekday lunches and still have some brisket left. Decided to do ribs and another chicken. Learned my smoker a bit more. I kept the temp around 240 most of the time. The smoke flavor is not too strong so I think I need to kick that up a bunch.

Smoking Meat Forums

I think I found my home away from home. I picked up the smoker from Willie Wed night and I will be smoking the heck out of the neighborhood this 3 day weekend. I did my introductory post yesterday and got many responses. I am sure I will be spending a good amount of time there.