Memory Monday: Smoking Meat

Smokehouse from Barns and Outbuilding, 1898

SMOKED MEAT

For generations after generations, people have smoked meat. Way back then, they would build a smokehouse and gather enough wood to keep the heat going until the meat was fully smoked. Once they had hunted animals or butchered farm animals, such as a hog, they would put the meat in the smokehouse and start the fire. They would have to continually monitor the heat (and continually feeding wood to the fire) to insure that the meat was smoking at the proper temperature—this often took a long, long time. Now of course, this was to preserve the meat to use at a later time.

Today, I (and my son) do things a bit differently. First of all, he has a portable smokehouse (which he leave at his loving parents’ house, bless his sweet heart).

See it has a smokestack and is on wheels, so it must be a portable house.

Just like my ancestors, I still have a lot of planning and pre-activity to do. I have to get the meat. Now, I don’t raise any animals myself since I live in town, so I go to the local grocery story and get a cryo-vac packet of beef brisket, and while I’m out doing that, I run by the store where they sell special wood pellets that go in my son’s portable smokehouse.

See how I collected the wood?

Now this is where the cross-generational family thing comes in. My son always makes the rub (he bought the recipe off the internet and it is delicious), coats the meat and get it all ready for me to put in the smoker. I start the hard work by filling the hopper with wood pellets, pre-heating the smoker and putting the meat in it at the right time (I have to wait until the dial show that the smoker’s internal temp is hot enough). 

Once the meat is inside, I have to set it to the temp I want and wait (well, if I am doing the over-night, I go to bed).

 The next morning, I cover the meat and put it in my kitchen oven for another ten hours. By the way, my process is not for preserving the meat. Oh, no, it is to cook it so the whole family can get together and celebrate my birthday—YEAH.

Now let’s compare smoking meat from generations before and now:

Then and now—both use a special smoke house.

Then and now—wood was needed to fuel the heat.

Then and now—meat was needed.

Then and now—the heat had to be maintained.

Then and now—a long time was needed to smoke the meat.

Here is what my last batch of smoked brisket looks like.

This is about 15 pounds of smoky goodness.

I’m not sure how enjoyable smoking meat was in my great-grandparents or my great-great grandparents day was, but I really enjoy smoking meat today (and eating it, too).