Now I am craving some smoked beef brisket

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Jay, that's all excellent stuff, thank you so much.

This burner is very simple: no outlet regulator, just a sliding control on the front door to let in more or less air. After a few years of practice I'm pretty good at controlling it though. I can get it all burning gently, stop it down for the night and still have it smouldering nicely ten hours later. We often run it non stop for days on end - but we don't have to, of course.

The bit that's daunted me so much I haven't even tried smoking food yet is that the recipes I have in books on the subject all talk about very specific temperatures and timings. Under 200 I can manage. 173 degrees for 92.5 minutes (or whatever) - it ain't gonna happen.

So when you say; "I would not get too hung up on exact temperatures", that's just exactly what I want to hear. Very helpful.

Say I can get a nice steady smoulder going with something comfortably under 200 degrees in the smoking chamber: then how long would I be leaving my fish, pheasant etc in there, would you say? Does it depend on the meat? Longer for game, less for fish? Or not?

...The frustrating bit is I just left the part of the country where that woodburner lives and won't be back for about ten days. I'm itching to give it a go now! I'll put together that brine recipe you mentioned and have my fish nicely ready soon as I get back - and if the results are remotely worth looking at you can be sure I'll proudly post pictures!

Hot damn - ain't this just too cool?!

Cheers - C

PS Charcoal? British men love doing the caveman bit around the BBQ just as much as anyone else. Charcoal availability is no problemo!

Make sure you have some of that Devon Dew for the wait Ceri.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

In the Garden State, hanging, strumming a few Springsteen Riffs, getting ready for his show this weekend.

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Lite Ash Tele, Partcaster Black Nashville Tele with Jason Lollars, Blues DeVille 410, Lunchbox 200 Watt Amp, Martin RTGE 00016 Acoustic

Turning in early just after 12:00 and I am taking a 2 to 2 1/2 hour road trip tomorrow to check something out.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

HERE in Wilburville im at work wishing the night was over. A cold one sounds good.

here at home in auckland, wife's away down south on work so i just cooked up a big pile of pasta with a couple of beers to go with it. spiderman 3 on the tube, not my fav i'd have to say. maybe kirsten dunst will come on soon though....

Well Jay, I'm just knocked out by all this, and champing at the bit to get back down to the country and try this out. You've given me just the nudge and encouragement I need to knuckle down and give it a go.

Thank you very much!

Unless it's a total disaster then in a couple of weeks I hope to tell you how I got on. And if it doesn't work - why then I'll try again.

And now I'm fantasising about the day someone will ask me, "hey, how did you learn to smoke food? Was it from your grandfather?"

"No," I'll say; "it was from some guys on the Fender website."

"Fender - guitars? Huh...?"

...Tres cool! I'll keep you posted.

- C

No, that handle is for access to sweep the chimney. That shiny steel tube is the bottom of a metal sheath that lines the chimney all the way to the top. Makes it very quick and easy for our Chimney Sweep to clean the thing - not very Mary Poppins, though...

(You remember what the Jesuits say: "Give me a child at seven - I'll give you a clean chimney at quarter past.")

I remember my grandparents started with an open fire in that position which never drew very well and filled the room with smoke. This was the second or even third woodburner they tried in this position. It is a very simple and basic traditional Norwegian design - but those folks know about stuff and it works perfectly fine, within it's parameters.

Along with the Scots the Norwegians are one of the great fish smoking nations, so I'm hoping to discover this burner works well for that too.

If not, there's all kinds of modern gizmos folks seem use nowadays. Appears to be a big resurgence of interest in smoking, hereabouts anyhow: I quite often see guys fishing on the beach with little portable smokers at their side. From sea to smoked kippers (or whatever) in no time...

What larks.

Cheers - C

if you add more fuel to your fire, do so gently so as not to coat your meat with ash.

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"I started out with nothing, and still have most of it"