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Hot smoked brisket is a real delicacy. The aromatic meat can be sliced into sandwiches, served as an appetizer for a first course at lunch, or as a full dinner with potatoes and salad.
Benefits and calories
Hot smoked brisket is rich in useful substances: phosphorus, calcium, potassium and B vitamins. In addition, meat contains proteins and fats that are easily absorbed by the body, which are involved in the regeneration of hair, nails, muscle restoration and skeletal development.
The only drawback of smoked brisket is its calorie content. 100 g of the product contains about 500 kcal, which is one fourth of the daily calorie intake of a person.
Hot smoked brisket tastes like baked meat
Methods for smoking pork belly
There are several ways to smoke pork belly. The cooking process can take place both vertically and horizontally, depending on the functionality of the smokehouse.
In a vertical smokehouse, the meat is hung on hooks above the smoldering wood chips. In this position, the meat does not need to be moved, as the smoke evenly imparts its own aroma. The horizontal smokehouse also has its advantages; the pork brisket does not need to be pulled with a string to hang over the chips. The meat is laid out on a wire rack and smoked like that. During cooking, the meat must be turned over periodically.
How to prepare brisket for hot smoking
Before you start smoking the brisket, you must choose the right one. It is worth paying attention to the appearance of the meat. It should be pink with few veins and a thin skin.
Before cooking, be sure to rinse the brisket and pat dry with a paper towel. Then rub the meat with salt, pepper and other spices to taste.
Meat marinade may vary depending on taste
Pickling
Pork belly absorbs the taste of the marinade well, therefore, depending on preferences, it can change.
You can use soy sauce, lemon or orange juice, and even beer as a marinade. Dry marinade is also perfect for meat. Mix the salt, pepper, rosemary, basil and finely chopped garlic and coat the brisket with the mixture.
Salting
Salting is essential for making delicious pork belly. Firstly, the salt guarantees safety. Secondly, it saturates the product. However, when salting meat, you need to be careful, because it is typical for a preservative to dry out the product, the meat can become tough, so proportions must be observed.
How to knit a brisket for smoking
Before you start smoking hot smoked brisket, it must be fixed so that the meat does not fall on the pallet. Professional chefs prefer to tie squares of twine around the brisket - up and down, as they usually tie the parcels.Pieces of rope should be intertwined with each other to provide reliable protection.
Hot smoked brisket recipes
Hot smoked pork brisket recipes are divided into wet and dry, depending on the type of salting used.
Wet salting recipe. In 1 l. drinking water mix:
- 3 bay leaves;
- 1 tsp Sahara;
- 3 tbsp. l. salt;
- 4 cloves of garlic, finely chopped;
- allspice black pepper.
1 kg of meat is transferred to a container and poured with the resulting brine.
The container must be covered with plastic wrap and moved to the refrigerator for 5 days. During this time, the meat should be soaked in spices and soften.
Before starting cooking, the meat must be dried, for example, by hanging it up, the excess liquid must drain.
You can start smoking the pork. The cooking process will take about an hour.
To obtain a crust, meat must be cooked for more than 1 hour.
Fans of spicy food will definitely like the recipe for dry salted pork with red chili:
For dry salting, you will need the following ingredients:
- 3 tbsp. l. salt;
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced;
- peeled and finely chopped red hot pepper pod;
- black pepper to taste;
- crushed bay leaf.
All ingredients must be mixed.
Grate 1 kg of pork with the resulting mixture, wrap the pieces of meat in cheesecloth and leave in the refrigerator for a day.
Put the brisket on a wire rack in a smokehouse or hang it up. The meal will take about 1.5 hours to prepare.
Pork is marinated from several hours to 2-3 days
What chips are best for smoking pork belly
When smoked, pork absorbs not only the taste of the marinade, but also the smell of wood chips. Juniper, alder and oak are the most suitable for smoking pork belly at home. You can also use chips from apple, oak, pear or birch. For a rich and intense aroma, it is recommended to mix from different trees.
You can buy wood chips in a store or make yourself. The wood is split into small squares or chips no more than 2 cm in size and dried. The difference between wood chips and ordinary logs is that they do not burn, but only smoke, giving off their warmth and aroma to the meat.
How to smoke brisket in a hot smoked smokehouse
Depending on the type of smokehouse, the cooking process may differ slightly, but the smoking method does not change.
At the bottom of the smokehouse, it is necessary to spread the wood chips, moisten it a little with water to get a thicker smoke, set it on fire. The hot smoking process is possible at temperatures from 80 to 100 degrees inside the smokehouse.
Then you need to hang or lay out the pieces of meat over the steaming wood chips. The brisket must be periodically turned over so that it is evenly smoked on all sides. Cooking takes about 40-60 minutes. 10 minutes before cooking is complete, you can increase the temperature in the smoker to 100 degrees Celsius so that the brisket has a crispy golden crust. You can check the readiness by piercing it with a knife. If clear juice flows from the meat, and not blood, then the dish is ready.
How to smoke brisket at home in a mini smokehouse
City dwellers do not always have the opportunity to go out of town to eat meat smoked in nature, so smart entrepreneurs have released home-made mini-smokehouses.
The principle of operation of a home mini-smokehouse does not differ from a stationary one, however, the source of heat is not an open fire, but a gas or electric stove. The smokehouse is placed on the switched on stove, chips are poured onto the bottom, and the brisket is laid out on the grate. The smokehouse box must be closed with a lid with a water seal, through which excess smoke that does not smell like a fire will come out.
DIY homemade mini-smokehouse
Smoking is so popular that some multicooker manufacturers include this mode in the functionality of their devices. The hostesses only need to prepare the meat, put the chips in a special dish and turn on the smoking function. At high temperatures, the chips will begin to char, smoke will appear, and the hot smoking process will start.
Smoking brisket in onion skins
Marinade for brisket on onion skins is very popular among smokers, because it does not require large cash costs for food. The recipe for hot smoked brisket at home in onion skins is quite simple.
Pour water into a saucepan and spread the onion peel. For 2 liters, you will need about 100 g. During the cooking process, add honey, salt, pepper and bay leaf to taste. As soon as the water boils, pork brisket is transferred to it. The meat is boiled for about 15-20 minutes. After the time has elapsed, turn off the stove and leave the product in the marinade for 4 hours. In the morning, the salted brisket can already be smoked.
Onion skins will give the meat an extraordinary taste, and the marinade will make it soft and juicy.
Professional advice
Professional chefs and ordinary smokers often share the secrets of cooking hot smoked pork with newbies. Here is some of them:
- To prevent the tender pork pulp from burning, the meat must be rinsed under running water before cooking.
- The reason for the appearance of a black and tasteless crust on pork instead of golden is the moist pulp. The process of drying the brisket takes from a couple of hours to several days. This stage should not be missed.
- For faster cooking, it is worth raising the temperature in the smokehouse to 100 degrees, but it is important to constantly monitor so that the pulp does not burn. The ideal temperature for pork is 80 degrees. If excessive smoke appears, it is worth lowering the temperature to 60 degrees until the end of cooking.
- Pour some water into the grease pan to burn the grease.
Smoking professionals believe that there is no one perfect recipe for pork. Depending on the taste preferences of the marinade, cooking times and temperatures can vary considerably. Only by trial and error can you find the very recipe.
The brisket is stored in the cellar for no more than 2 days
At what temperature should the brisket be smoked
Temperature also plays an important role in the proper smoking of pork. Hot processing involves exposing meat to temperatures between 80 and 100 degrees Celsius. The temperature will depend on the volume of the raw product and its fat content. At home, the processing of pork belly is usually carried out at 70 degrees.
How long to smoke hot smoked brisket
The process of hot smoking will be deservedly appreciated by those people who do not like to wait long. You can smoke the brisket in a hot smoked smokehouse quite quickly, the process will take 40-60 minutes. The cooking time for meat depends on several factors:
- meat quality (a piglet will cook much faster than an adult pig);
- the time spent in the marinade - the longer the meat has been marinated, the faster it will be ready;
- the desired level of doneness - lovers of a crispy crust will have to wait a little longer than 1 hour;
- temperature.
Storage rules
You can store smoked brisket in the refrigerator, freezer or cellar.
Hot smoked pork belly lasts up to 5 days in the refrigerator. The freezer keeps the product fresh for up to 10 months at a storage temperature of -10-18 degrees. In the cellar or in the attic, it is necessary to store meat in a suspended state. The shelf life of the product in such conditions does not exceed 2-3 days.
Salt is an excellent preservative. To prolong the life of hot smoked meat products, they can be wrapped in cheesecloth soaked in saline solution (1 tablespoon of salt is placed on ¼ l of water). Meat in gauze is transferred to parchment and stored in the refrigerator or cellar for up to 2 weeks.
Conclusion
Hot smoked pork belly is a favorite delicacy of many adherents of such processing. Under the influence of temperature, the meat becomes tender and juicy, with the aroma of wood chips and fire. Smoked brisket will be a great snack for a festive table as well as for every day.
