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I have a charcoal smoker/grill and I'm loving it. A few questions for anyone who also has one:
1. Any research saying it's bad?
2. Have you done vegetables/potatoes on yours? Results?
3. Any wood/food combos you liked best?
I've done beef, pork and chicken in hickory and mesquite and this week I intend to smoke some ham steaks with maple wood.
I'll let you know how it goes if any one cares.
I know there are folks who say that grilling / smoking is bad, but so is everything else out there. Seems like the benefits of eating whole foods -- grilled or smoked -- far outweighs any danger from the smoke.
In addition to meats, we routinely grill long strips of zucchini, squash, thick sliced (not too ripe) tomato, and asparagus -- brush on a little olive oil / balsamic vinegar mixture and its great.
I recently tried wood chips made from old Jack Daniels barrells -- they smell fantastic. Could only slightly detect it in the food, though.
Cigarettes are bad for you, so I quit.
Drugs are bad, so no more pot.
Drinking is bad in excess, don't do that anymore.
Big Macs are bad, have one about 2x a year
...and on and on and on.....
Everything fun is bad. I don't care how much someone tells me that grilling or smoking is bad for me when cooking my food. You can't take EVERYTHING away from me!
We just grilled kabobs last night -- chicken, pineapple, red peppers, baby tomatoes and small onions with a teriyaki marinade brushed on a couple times during cooking.
We use natural lump charcoal and almost always add in something else for flavor just like you, Enigma. Lately we've been using mesquite and hickory, but apple wood chips are also excellent. I've found that I like using hickory for general grilling and a "campire" flavor, while mesquite is my fave for BBQ types of recipes.
Oh, and mandatory:
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MissJane .. I agree .. and I'll even take it a step further .. even "good" foods are now "bad" .. with the way they chemically screw with the animals so it seeps into meats .. spray the hell out of veggies and produce that even AFTER I scrub them with soap, I can still see some nasty-ass "film" all over them. I think in this day and age .. unless you confine yourself to ... WATER, we're pretty much ingesting crap even in eating "healthy" .. Oh WAIT .. Water .. loaded with chemicals too! guess we'll have to eat just air .. oh damn .. more chemicals!
I recently tried wood chips made from old Jack Daniels barrells -- they smell fantastic. Could only slightly detect it in the food, though.
I have some of those chips as well. I agree, they smell wonderful but I'm not sure I can detect it in the food. I've also used mesquite, and I'll have to go looking for more as I'm almost out. I've smoked beef, pork loin, and turkey. I tend to use the meat for lunches and I really feel it's got to be better for me than packaged lunch meats.
Smoking / Grilling is not bad for you at all, however, what you use to do provide the heat can be a problem. Natural gas burns the cleanest but what is the fun in that?
Do not use match light charcoal. This is by far the most unhealthy method. It is presoaked in lighter fluid, Always leaves a unhealthy residue on your grill and food.
To avoid the chemicals of lighter fluid, invest in a chimney starter. Your coals will be ready quicker and you only have to invest in it once, instead of rebuying lighter fluid.
Always make sure all of your coals are grayed before cooking, the black outer part of charcoal is toxic.
Besides these minor things grilling can be one of the healthiest form of cooking. It allows fat to drain and burns off unwanted bacteria on the meat.
Never done it myself, but I had a woman tell me one time that she loved smoking hard boiled eggs . . . she said she just boils them and then sticks them in the smoker for a couple of hours
Brother just bought a smoker the other day, this is one the list to try . . .
Although it could be argued that we eat enough freakin' eggs!
Smoking foods
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