I Love Grilling Meat January 2019

12 Tips for Easy Winter Smoking Smoking meat during the winter months can be a challenge for a lot of people, both newbies and old-timers alike. With low temperatures, changing weather conditions, wind, and precipitation, it can really wear on you — not to mention make it hard to maintain good heat and smoke. • Bring your meat up to room temperature before taking it to the heat. Frozen or freshly refrigerated meat will take much longer to thaw and start cooking in cold temperatures. •

While you want to protect your grill or smoker from the elements, never use it in an enclosed space, such as a shed or garage, because the CO2 from your exhaust vent can be toxic to people and animals. You need to choose a spot to cook with good ventilation!

Depending on what type of grill or smoker you have, those with thinner walls will let heat escape at a quicker rate. Maintaining these kinds of grills and smokers can be a huge chore. But there are steps you can take to make winter smoking easier than ever before. • You might be committed to one spot in the warmer months, but that doesn’t mean you need to stay there in the winter. Find a spot out of the wind that has a roof or canopy, or put up a makeshift canopy, if possible. • Invest in a welder’s blanket, if you don’t already have one. These are great to help insulate grills and smokers made with a thinner metal to keep that heat in. Close the lid, and wrap the blanket over the top. • If you need a windbreak, you can make one with four, large coffee cans filled with concrete, each with 4-foot PVC poles set in the center. Stretch tarp around the poles to create a little enclosure. This will allow you to set up a windbreak wherever you need it. You can also use a tarp as an overhead canopy to keep rain or snow off your smoker. • If you live in a higher elevation, a small fan aimed at your intake damper, pushing air directly into your heat source, will improve air flow into the smoker. This burst of oxygen will allow your wood and charcoal to burn hotter, allowing you to hold the temperatures you need for your cooks. • Give yourself more time to cook and let your cooker do its job. Because you’re dealing with the winter weather elements — low temperatures, rain, snow, and wind, etc — you are more likely to run into heat-management issues, which will leave you needing more time to complete your cooks. Be sure to allow for some extra time on each cook, 30–60 minutes, to account for these potential issues. Patience is very much a virtue when cooking outdoors in the winter! • Make sure you dress for the occasion. If you know you’re going to be outdoors for a while watching your grill or smoker, you need to protect yourself as much as you want to protect your smoker.

Always have your smoker at your desired

cooking temperature and ready to go beforehand. This leads back to the earlier tip of allowing yourself additional time to prepare and complete your cook. • When you peek inside your grill or smoker, you’re letting heat out! You may want to mop, baste, or spritz your meat less frequently in the winter because of the loss of heat that comes with opening your cooker. Again, patience goes a long way. Keep an eye on your meats and be sure to check on them, but try to restrict yourself from opening your cooker too often. • Once you are done grilling or smoking, clean up and store your smoker so it’s ready to rock-and-roll the next time you need it — rather than cleaning up when you need it. This will help preserve your cooker to last for years to come. Be kind to your future self! notebook or some sort of journal to log times, temperatures, weather, seasonings, and woods, etc. This will allow you to refer to your past cooks, both good and bad, so you can better plan for future cooks! Listen to your weather forecast regularly to see what Mother Nature is fixing to throw at you! • And, finally, always log your cooks! Use a composition

3 grillingandsmokingassociation.org

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