smoking Archives - Seattle Food Geek

How To Smoke Your Drinks

Care for a drink and a smoke? How about a smoked drink? After a friend inquired about a “smoked beer” she saw on a bar menu, I decided to grab my Smoking Gun* and take a shot at smoking a handful of beverages.

I smoked each of the beverages below by submerging the Smoking Gun’s rubber tube in the liquid. In the case of the wines, it served to both smoke and aerate the drinks (BTW, I never understood why it should be impolite to blow bubbles into your wine – if someone complains, tell them you’re “helping the wine open up.”) I ran the smoker for about 30 seconds for each beverage, then blew away any lingering surface smoke before tasting.

The results were surprising…

Post author By scott
Post date July 21, 2010
6 Comments on 5 Grilling Tools Every Food Geek Should Own

geek grilling tools
Summer has arrived, and that means it’s time to grill. But before you start charring steaks, you’ll need a little equipment. Here are my favorite nerdy accessories for the grillmaster within you.

1. Extra-Long BBQ Tongs. They don’t sound geeky, but this single piece of equipment can mean the difference between retaining your forearm hair or not. Look for locking tongs at least 16” long, with metal ends since plastic and even silicone can melt at grilling temperature.

2. TurboQue Turbo-Charged Smoker. This battery-operated fan attaches to the inside of your grill and turns it into a convection smoker. This means reduced cooking time and extra exposure to smoke from wood chips.

3. Infrared Thermometer. Sure, you could hold your hand above the grill grate and count “one Mississippi… two Mississippi,” but it’s far more geeky to be accurate to .1 degrees Fahrenheit. This non-contact thermometer instantly measures surface temperatures with the pull of a trigger, enticing you to be quick on the draw.

4. Instant Digital Probe Thermometer. While the infrared thermometer will tell you how hot the grill is, it won’t give you a read on the internal temperature of your porterhouse. Use a probe thermometer to quickly check the doneness of thick cuts without having to slice them open. Choose a digital instant read over an analog model, unless you enjoy waiting while your fingernails melt over the fire.

5. Onion Goggles. You may look a little… special… flipping burgers with these on, but if you’re cooking with smoke, or better yet, over a campfire, they are indispensable. The foam-lined glasses are highly effective at keeping the smoke out of your eyes, and keeping girls from ever talking to you. But hey, form follows function, right?

DIY Hickory Smoked Salt

If you haven’t noticed, flavored salts are becoming wildly popular. On a recent trip to Whole Foods, I spotted an aisle-end display with no fewer than a dozen varieties: some infused with spices, some mined or harvested from exotic locales, and some smoked. Smoked salts – salts that have taken on the flavor of a particular burnt wood – are an excellent way to add a deep, campfire flavor to dishes. I use them all the time in dry rubs, and as a substitute for the flavor you get from actually cooking over wood. In this video I’m using hickory chips, but another popular option is to flavor your salt with by smoking the wood from old wine barrels. Needless to say, you’ll save a ton of cash on specialty salts, which, of course, you’ll need to import all those ancient wine barrels from Bordeaux!