Anyone who has smoked meat at least once will not go to the store for dubious quality sausages. Smoke treatment is not such a difficult task, albeit a long one. But the processing time is fully justified by the amazing taste of the resulting delicacy. You can smoke any part of the carcass, as well as sausage and fish.
But pork belly is a recognized delicacy. If you have your own smokehouse, the cooking process does not require much effort. But nevertheless, there are subtleties in processing a product with smoke. In this article, we will tell you how to smoke brisket in different ways - cold, hot, with preliminary cooking of meat, etc. Following our recommendations, you will avoid the mistakes inherent in beginners and you will get the perfect delicacy.
Smoking technology consists of the following steps:
- salting,
- soaking
- drying
- actually smoke treatment and
- airing.
Sometimes pickling is replaced by pickling. If desired, the product can be pre-boiled.
Product selection
Whatever smoking method we choose, you need to start with the purchase of brisket. For this, it is best to go to the market. At the plants pigs are fed growth hormones and other chemicals, which is not the best way affects the quality of meat. It is best to buy a piece from the rib part of the carcass. A good material for smoking is undercuts. And of course, we need boneless meat.
Young pork would be perfect. To learn such a piece is easy. It has pale pink meat, white fat and a thin, soft skin. By the way, the ratio of fat should be 50 percent. As a result of salting and especially prolonged drying, leaner meat will become dry and hard. Before you smoke the brisket, make sure that the piece has not been frozen. Otherwise, the taste of the product will be far from the same. It is also desirable that the layers of fat and meat alternate evenly.
Preparatory work. Dry salting
With any method of smoking the brisket, you must first prepare it. Salt, especially nitrite, protects the meat from spoilage and stops the development of putrefactive bacteria. In addition, without this spice, the brisket will be tasteless. There are three ways to salt meat.
The first is rubbing meat with a dry mixture. The method has the advantage that it increases the shelf life of the product. But lean meat with dry salting becomes too dry and hard. Therefore, the method is most suitable for very fat brisket and salted fat. The list of ingredients for dry mix in each recipe is different. However, you can isolate products that are used almost always. It:
- two cloves of garlic, finely chopped,
- 2 crumbled bay leaves,
- coriander seeds
- a mixture of peppers
- 20 g of ordinary rock salt;
- 20 g of sodium nitrite.
You can not rack your brains, but use the seasoning “For barbecue” or “For bacon”. But in this mixture you need to add two types of salt.
If for some reason you refuse to use sodium nitrite, then you need to increase the proportion of cook analogue from 20 grams to 60. Before you smoke the brisket (1 kg), wash it, dry it with a towel and rub the dry mixture into it. After that, it is left in a deep bowl under oppression for four days in the refrigerator. Two days later, the piece should be turned over.
Pickling
Salting can also be done in a wet way. Marinating is good because the spices penetrate deep into the fibers, and the meat does not dry out. This method must be applied if you are going to smoke hot smoked brisket. How to cook the right pickle? Again, different recipes give their ingredients, right down to soy sauce and balsamic vinegar.
But the simplest marinade, it’s also classic, you need to cook like this:
- For a liter of water we take 100 grams of table salt, five crumbled bay leaves, four finely chopped garlic cloves, two tablespoons of seasoning mixture (“Caucasian” or “For barbecue”) plus another spoon of black ground pepper.
- We put water on the fire, bring to a boil and cook another 2-3 minutes.
- Cool the marinade to room temperature and filter.
- Immerse the brisket there. The liquid should cover all the meat.
- We put in the refrigerator under oppression for 3-4 days.
Extrusion
Marinade during long-term storage can "tune". In this case, the meat is washed, and the brine is made anew. If you are interested in how to smoke brisket as quickly as possible, resort to the injection method. Prepare the marinade as described above. Put it into a large syringe and insert into the brisket. These injections must be done every three centimeters of the surface. The extrusion method reduces salting time to a day.
Puncture the whole piece of brisket, do not pour the marinade, but pour meat on it. We cover the bowl with a plate and put in the refrigerator. No matter how we salted the brisket, we need to thoroughly rinse it after that. After removing the extra spices from the surface, put a piece in the water. We leave it like this for a day. But water needs to be changed every three hours. Then we take out the brisket and hang it in a well-ventilated room, but not in a draft, so that it does not wind and become covered with a hard, dry crust. So a piece of meat should crawl all night.
Smoked-boiled brisket at home
In addition to processing hot or cold smoke, there is a third way to cook delicacy. Rather, this is not even an independent method, but an intermediate link that is used between the drying of the product and the actual smoking. Cooking allows you to make the brisket soft and tender. And smoking a semi-finished product will take less time than processing raw.
Another plus of this method is that a piece of meat becomes heavier, as it absorbs liquid. But it is more likely to interest those who are preparing a delicacy for sale. The calorie content of smoked-boiled brisket is 462 units per 100 grams of product. A piece of the same weight, but treated with raw hot smoke, has a nutritional value of 455 Kcal.
Breast cooking
If we just put the brisket in water and begin to heat it, all the taste qualities obtained during salting will pass liquids. The meat itself will come out fresh and also with little storage potential. Therefore, the cook needs to know certain secrets of how to cook smoked and boiled brisket.
- Wrap a piece of meat with a harsh thread, and on top - cling film. So the brisket does not deform and will not directly come into contact with water.
- Place a deep plate upside down in the pan. This is done so that the cling film does not touch a hot surface and does not melt.
- Pour the brisket with cold water.
- We put the pot on a small fire. In no case do not allow a boiling boil.
- Breast should be cooked for only half an hour, until half ready. If you have a special probe with a thermometer, then the internal temperature of the product should reach 70-72 degrees.
How to smoke brisket in a smokehouse
Oddly enough, the main stage of preparation does not require special efforts from the cook. Especially if you have a special smoking cabinet. It includes a chip tray, a pan for collecting fat, a grill and hooks for placing or hanging the product. The smoking process consists of three stages: drying, frying and moisturizing. For the buttered brisket, the last stage is not needed.
Drying is carried out as follows. The smokehouse door is ajar, and the product is treated with smoke from smoldering sawdust at a low temperature (about 60 ° C). The drainage lasts half an hour.
With the hot method of smoking, so-called roasting is necessary. Products are placed closer to the chips. The smokehouse is closed so that a temperature regime of 80-85 degrees is established inside it. So the brisket is treated for at least three hours. Humidification of the product can be achieved by splashing water on the cabinet walls. If the meat turned out to be too dry, then put in a smokehouse a container of water. Tomim the product under the influence of hot steam for another hour.
What is cold smoking?
This method of treating the brisket differs only in temperature. We suspend the meat away from the heat source. Accordingly, the processing time of cold smoke will stretch to a couple of days. There are recipes for smoked-boiled brisket, where the product is placed both near the source of heat and away from it.