smitty55

On 12/12/2021 at 1:11 PM, limeyangler said:

I think I’ll go back this afternoon.

For sure. Better do it while you can before the crowds show up on the new trail in you made.

Good luck

9 hours ago, Headhunter said:

Probably only need a couple of hours for the tenderloin.

HH

Yea it was in the smoker for a good while. One of the best features of the sous vide is that basically to a point your food stops cooking once the meat reaches the water temp so it's hard to overcook.

3 hours ago, Headhunter said:

Well, its not as if you have to stand there and watch it! It's a set it and forget it thing. Also, Brisket is as you know a very tough meat and it takes that amount of time to break down all the collagen in the meat.

BTW - typical time in the drink is usually less, just depends on what you are cooking.

HH

All I've done in my sous vide so far is steaks at 129° for 3-4 hours. Thinking of trying it today for the pork tenderloins I smoked yesterday at 145°.

On 12/7/2021 at 5:56 AM, Hack_Fisherman said:

Sounds amazing. I really like the idea of loading the freezer up with quick and super tasty options. I’m a big fan of curries. 

So I was in IG on Friday and saw that they had family packs of 5 boneless sirloin chops on sale for $2.49 lb and I couldn't resist that price so I grabbed two packs and also grabbed a dual pack of pork tenderloin to use all the racks. One side of 5 chops got Montreal steak spice and the other 5 got a good dose of curry powder. The other side will get a Mango Chipotle spice and the other will get a Traeger Blackened Sakatchewan rub which I quite like. The tenderloins got a good smearing of mustard and then a good coating of Meathead's Memphis Dust rub that I made. Here's the recipe for anyone interested. https://amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/spice-rubs-and-pastes/meatheads-memphis-dust-rub-recipe/

Things are looking up.

16 hours ago, Hack_Fisherman said:

Thanks for that Smitty, I’ll look into this. Might be ideal for using at my trailer if I’m allowed. This is really when I’d like to use one as it’s when I have the most time. Not sure how much smoke they give off but surely if campfires are allowed... Nice portable size too for bringing back and forth.

When a pan gets going they can smoke pretty good for a while. I've just started using pellets the last few years after my daughter gave me some Jack Daniels brand ones for Christmas one year. Now I buy Pitmaster pellets by the 40 lb bag. I've definitely noticed pellets provide a much thicker and stickier smoke than shavings for sure, it shows on the inside of the smoker, the racks and the front door edge big time.

Here's another idea for you that I mentioned in the cooking thread somewhere. I've been doing spiced and smoked pork chops for a long time now, they are usually a staple in my freezer. When those family size variety pack of chops go on sale I grab two of them which is just right for the 5 racks. I've played with many Clubhouse spice mixes over the years, often with a different flavour on each side. Funny enough I decided to try Curry on one side of a half batch just because it was in my spice cabinet and I love to play with flavours. Well go figure I became an instant fan and now it's always on a half batch. At 160° for 3 hours, with maybe a rack switch at 2 hours they end up just starting to stiffen up and take a nice colour on. To me they're like half cooked at this point, 3 to 4 minutes on a hot grill or cast iron leaves a touch of pink, just right. We always have the best ones fresh for dinner, and the ones my girls don't hear about get vac sealed in pairs usually and frozen. When I want a special treat for dinner months later I can just take a pack or two out knowing that I can bring it to room temp and in 5 minutes at high temp I get to enjoy a treat no restaurant could even offer. 

Cheers

6 hours ago, akaShag said:

I have been meaning to ask, do you FREEZE the smoked bread crumbs, or just leave them in the pantry?  I plan to do some for a family member that does not have a lot of freezer space.

Doug

Doug we put about 1 1/2 C in a sandwich zip lock and then vacuum seal them in pairs and store in the freezer just as a precaution more than anything. Seeing as they are perfectly dry I doubt it's really necessary and I've found an old bag in the back of the breadbox that was still quite fine. I've never seen store bought ones go bad either. In your case I would use a freezer quality ziplock for pantry storage.

24 minutes ago, Hack_Fisherman said:

This thread is painful to those who don’t have a smoker...such amazing sounding recipes. I’m definitely going to get one

Thing is there's no need to go fancy either. I've been using a Big Chief electric smoker since the 80's, I'm on my third one now, but have one older one that still works and the original one needs an element, pot and tray. Sure it's fixed temp at 160° but it's all I need for most of the things I smoke and for larger chunks of meat I just finish the cooking process in the oven where I have perfect control. Brian is using the same thing and technique in his condo. They're real handy to use too, mine is on the back porch so I just pick it up and carry it into the kitchen where I load the racks, close the door and carry it back out to the porch plug it in and load the pan. No propane, no moving parts, no controls needed, all in a compact size that holds a fair amount with 5 racks.
Quick story. A while back I ran out of smoked paprika, I started doing my own a few years back and it's all I use now for the most part. So a week back I remembered to stop at a small natural products store in CP where I get my bulk spices and picked up a half pound of Hungarian for just over $5.  I always want to try and fill the smoker as much as I can when it's going. With that in mind I had a half price frozen sourdough loaf that I thawed out, chunked and dried. Just so happens I had recently picked up a generic full pepperoni chub at a price I couldn't refuse. I've had real good results enhancing cured sausages in the smoker already too so that worked as my last rack. So then it's planned for the weekend and best hydro rates too. Smoker was plugged in for four hours yesterday with five smoke sessions. The result for $10 was three racks of golden sourdough pieces for bread crumbs, two glass pie pans of the best real smoked paprika you can get, it was actually quite sticky on the outer edges of the glass after I let it cool, and a darker skinned great smelling sausage that I vacuum sealed and froze half.

Cheers

9 hours ago, misfish said:

I watched a cooking show last night . The guy did this with a cheek. He then proceeded the next day to put in one of those suea chef things. It looked pretty darn good. Got me to thinking,I best buy one of those things. When they go on sale.

 

Which one is good ? I do not want to spend crazy money on one .

Are you referring to a Sous Vides?

6 hours ago, Hack_Fisherman said:

Thanks. Open to all suggestions here. The difficulty I would have with this is that it is a deep V run about, so to turn it and get it on stands would be something I would need a few people for. (no overhead hoisting capabilities) It’s not out of the question however, and I am considering it. 

Yea not knowing how big the boat is even a 14ft would need a couple of guys. I guess you could even try to do it with the boat on the trailer, that amount of pressure could still make it through enough to spot it from the inside. Then there's the paint job to keep in mind.

Here's an idea and I'm assuming this is an aluminum boat. Why not turn the boat upside down on some stands and take a pressure washer to the outside of it? 2000-3000 psi should be plenty of force to find any leaks from the inside.

On 11/14/2021 at 5:10 AM, lew said:

Haven't seen that beautiful old plane since I left Toronto but was always great to see it still flying. 

For you Lancaster guys

Simple question, but does it look like a coating, or more like a metal reaction on the part?

2 hours ago, Snidley said:

I have recent personal knowledge of a 34 year old guy who at a christening party for his newborn sniffed up some coke and promptly expired. The cause was Fentanyl, in his cocaine.  An accident? No, deliberate assinine behavior by a 34 year old, wealthy, fool who MUST have know that this is a likely result of putting your health and safety in the hands of a drug dealer with a massive vested interest to cut Fentanyl into his product.  This fact must be a nightly subject on the Vancouver news yet this goof did it anyway.

Question for you.  I can understand dealers maybe cutting their coke with something more addictive to hook more customers, Still though, cocaine is an "upper" while opiates are a "downer" drug, so that mix just doesn't work. I just looked it up, fentanyl is 50 times as potent as heroin, that was the heavy filtered try again please back in the 70's 80's when I was growing up. That's major nasty.  But with all the fentanyl related deaths all they are doing is losing customers, so logically that makes no sense. Now of course it's easy to speculate that for some of them their brains are so fried they can't even do that right and put in a lethal amount, it sure doesn't take much. Or more than likely for the big boys they just don't give a crap so long as they keep gaining customers overall.

You are right though, albeit pretty hard on the guy man. But hey, I get where you're coming from. With the situation being well known he should have known better and realized the increased risks, but as it turned out he trusted someone he shouldn't have that likely trusted someone else. It's not like someone in his position is buying it off a street corner where it often comes from clandestine labs with questionable quality.

Real sad story over all, it must have been devastating for family. Then imagine what the mother will have to go through once the child is considered old enough to know, that would a hard one for sure. Such a shame...

Cheers

So I had mentioned earlier about this cracker spread I had found that used red pepper jelly. Well I'm very happy to report that it turned out great, even better the shelf life in the fridge is excellent. You take as much of the mix as needed and then add around 1/4 of the amount of jelly to stick it all together. Simple to make and easy to modify.

- I cup shredded sharp white cheddar. I used half extra old and half 2 year old and used the manual food processor instead of shredding it. No doubt 4 year old would have even more flavour.

- I cup fine chopped nuts. I used cashews because that's what I had, but pecans or walnuts would work fine

- 3 green onions, fine chop

Mix together in a sealable dish. Remove as much as needed and then mix in enough jelly to stick it all together just before serving. I also had it with a thin slice of Alpen Salami on the cracker first and it was excellent. The texture of the spread is just right too. I can also see fresh chopped garlic working real well with this too. Next batch I will add some for sure, I just got a pound of Russian Red that I traded for some Music.

Cheers

5 hours ago, steellee said:

Seems in the fishing world everything good gets discontinued!

It's been like that for a real long time, sometimes even certain colour patterns. What it boils down to is that certain lures and colours sell so well that other product sales drop too much so they drop the big sellers.

It gets terrible reviews, it's like he doesn't even care anymore. I just checked him on IMDB and he's got like six movies this year alone and most have bad ratings. Such a shame when someone who is as rich as he must be still has to get involved with crap movies just to keep making money while ruining his reputation.

23 hours ago, DRIFTER_016 said:

Prime with an etching primer for aluminum.

Yep, zinc chromate, always had a can of it in the shop at the airline I worked at.

So I'm finally finished my pickling for the year, I'm up to 80 jars now. The last three batches were all done with green tomatoes with those recipes I posted earlier. Two were the pickles. Spiel, I used the salt like I said and it drew out almost 3 cups of liquid overnight, so I'm thinking that was a good thing to help keep them firm seeing as I did also use a hot pack and processed them for 10 minutes. Haven't tried them yet as I generally like to wait 3 months for pickles. I did have one mishap though, when I was putting the B&B batch in the water bath somehow the bottom fell out of one of the jars in one piece but fortunately all the contents stayed in the jar long enough for me to pull it back out and drop it in the garbage. Only the second time that has ever happened. Strange, it wasn't like there was a sudden temp change. The last batch I did was that green tomato relish where I used my hand grinder with the large holes instead of cutting them all up by hand. The taste and smell with the curry and turmeric was really good but with 4.5C of sugar it was real sweet and I had to stir lots to keep it from burning. Again I haven't tried them yet excepting a couple of taste tests as it was boiling down. Now I know how much shelf room I'll need downstairs and I'll likely be culling some jars from 7-8 years back that are still down there.

Definitely looking forward to try all my new pickles specially, my kids and folks really appreciate getting them for Christmas so of course I have to try them first.

I just checked with the local CTC and they will price match so long as they can find the ad on line even though I offered to bring in the flyer. Time to stock up for sure, down to my last two cans.

I would absolutely agree it's an overheating issue, likely a thermistor cutting out and resetting itself after cooling down. Or possibly a cold solder joint reacting to heat. Hard to troubleshoot though without access to the circuitry, you could try to induce a failure with a heat gun or use freeze spray to relieve the issue and isolate the component.

So dinner last night turned out great.The more I use the sous vide the more I like it. A quick sear in the cast iron and the meat was excellent. As for the puffball this was the first time I tried it this way. Mixed some parm in my smoked bread crumbs, dipped the pieces in egg wash, then the bread crumbs and fried in smokin' hot bacon grease. Without doubt the best puffball I have ever eaten in over 40 years, nice and crispy on the outside and just right inside. Wifey said it was the best meal she's had in a long time. My new go to for sure.

3 hours ago, atvaholic said:

Thanks all. Other than being coast Guard Approved is there any other difference? Does one keep you floating/alive longer?

I can only comment on the one suit I've owned, it's an Arctic Armor bib pants and jacket made by IDI Gear. For me it's been great, very warm, windproof and waterproof and made with Insultex. I've never had to check it out thankfully, but apparently it will float up to 700lbs. There are plenty of videos showing it's use. It's quite light, very flexible in the coldest weather and reinforced in all the right spots. If I ever have to replace it I would buy the same product without thought. https://www.idigear.com/arctic-armor-cold-weather-gear

Funny how things work out sometime. Yesterday I was rummaging in the freezer to find some venison as I had a hankering for jerky. I found two packs of loin and to my surprise found a vacuum bag with some beef tenderloin trim in it. Great, gives me an excuse to pull out the sous vide. So I coated the meat in spice rub, put it in a vacuum bag and added 2 huge crushed cloves of garlic and three sprigs of fresh cut rosemary and a wack of Worcestershire sauce then sealed the bag. Right on, now lets see what we have for mushrooms. Oh crap, they don't look to good, damn. A while later wifey goes out for a walk and when she comes back she's all excited and tells me there's 3 puffballs on one of our neighbour's lawn. WooHoo I didn't get any last year. Well I had to wait till he got home before I went over and when I went over there was only one left. Turns out someone had stopped and stolen two of them from his lawn without even asking, but I got lucky and he said I could grab the last one as he wasn't really into them, perfect. So I decided to take a slow tour around the country block and see if I could spot some more. Found one but it was too late, turning yellow. Then about a mile from home I'm touring by another place and I see two small ones on their property, so I go to the door and ask him if he used them. No problem he says go grab them. Right on, now I have three, one small one, one medium and the big one I first got, all in good shape too. I know my buddy up the road really likes them so I drop off the medium one for him and then drop off the small one to a new young couple who recently built across the road and had never tried them. it was too late for today but I sure am looking forward to dinner tomorrow, so is wifey. I will cut 3/4" slabs, dip them in an egg wash and then a mix of my smoked bread crumbs and fresh grated parm before frying up in a very hot cast iron pan with bacon grease. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Like who needs restaurants, not that you could find this dish anyway. Here's a pic of it, just under 5lbs. That's a bushel basket to give you an idea of size. It's in the fridge now. I might even dehydrate some of it if there's enough left over, you can leave chunks whole or powder it to use as a flavouring and thickener for stews. Plus I know where there's one still in the ground, I'll check on it daily to see if its still growing.

5 hours ago, Spiel said:

Oh boy, highly envious. It all sounds so good!

Sure is, I love my pickles. Seeing as you have experience with the green tomato pickles I have some questions for you if you don't mind. I've looked through a lot of different recipes and I'm noticing a lot of differing methods.

Do you used cider vinegar or white, I see both used and I'm thinking to go half and half.

I'm used to salting vegetables overnight for most of my pickle recipes to draw moisture out but some I saw didn't call for that. I did up 5 lb of tomatoes today and 2 large onions. Did three layers of tomato/onion and added 2tbs of pickling salt to the first two layers and 3 tbs to the top one. I'll give them a good rinse or two with cold water and drain them well. Do you do that with yours?

Some recipes I see just do a cold pack and then process for like 15 minutes. Another brings the vegetables in the pickling liquid just to a boil and then hot packs the jar, adds the boiling liquid and then processes, that's what I'm thinking of doing. Other recipes call for the veggies to cook for up to a half hour before canning, I'm worried they would get too soft cooking for that long and then processing. What's your method, and do they stay firm?

I also came across an old family recipe for green tomato pickle that really caught my eye, it uses turmeric and curry as the main spices, sounds intriguing as I make a sweet curry pickle that is really good. I still have 8 plants at the community garden so if I have enough green ones left I'm going to try this one too, you may want to consider it if you have some left as well. It's more of a relish so the 20 minute total cook time makes sense. https://www.meatandtravel.com/retro-green-tomato-pickles/

Cheers

6 hours ago, akaShag said:

Do tell?  How do you make this?

Doug

Strange, I thought I had replied to you Doug already. Maybe I forgot to hit submit lol.

Here's the recipe I used, I liked the fact that the peppers stayed in the jar unlike others that used normal jelly procedures that just used the juice. Haven't tried them yet but will be soon, I found another recipe to make a cracker spread using sharp cheddar, chopped roasted pecans, green onions and the jelly, it sounds real good.

https://inspiredbycharm.com/red-pepper-jelly/