{"id":702,"date":"2012-02-01T14:30:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-01T14:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/02\/introducing-our-new-toy.html"},"modified":"2012-02-01T14:30:00","modified_gmt":"2012-02-01T14:30:00","slug":"introducing-our-new-toy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2012\/02\/introducing-our-new-toy.html","title":{"rendered":"Introducing….Our New Toy"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m baaaack….<\/p>\n

I’ve been VERY scarce lately since I was out of town for 17 days in January.<\/p>\n

So let’s play a little catch up, shall we?<\/p>\n

[OKAY VEGETARIAN READERS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP HERE]<\/p>\n

First I want to show off our new toy, a SMOKER, which we bought with some money my parents had sent for Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Here it is!  Thanks to our local Bass Pro Shops and my parents!<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Dave and I had been wanting a smoker for a VERY long time.  Experiencing some Thanksgiving turkey at Dave’s squadron that came out of a smoker cinched it.  The week before Christmas, we headed over to our local Bass Pro Shops (in Destin) where we chose a 30″ tall compact electric smoker<\/a>.  The model we chose is relatively lightweight, was easy to use for day-to-day cooking, yet is big enough to handle a holiday turkey!<\/p>\n

Which is why we bought it in time for Christmas!<\/p>\n

The first thing we did?  Of course, a brisket!<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tasty, but not quite tender enough.  We have a lot to learn.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Before the Christmas turkey, we gave the smoker a test run with a small flat-end brisket.  We even stuck in a probe thermometer and geeked out watching the temperature hold around 150F as the connective tissues take time to break down.  But we didn’t cook it for long enough.  Parts of the brisket were tender, but many parts weren’t.  Tender or not, the smoke flavor was outstanding and we muddled through quite a bit of it just the same, the boys too!<\/p>\n

Later in the week, after lots of internet research, we attempted our 13-lb. turkey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
We run the probe thermometer through the vent.  This is an inexpensive model from Wal Mart.  The probe line will get covered in smoke residue so I don’t recommend investing in a super-expensive one.  Just make sure it’s accurate.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It came out spectacular.  I’m awful at roasting turkeys in the oven.  Even with that pop-up thermometer, while the breast would be juicy and delicious, the thigh meat wouldn’t be cooked through.  Or if the thigh meat was cooked through, the breast meat would be dried out.  Ugh on both counts!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Our Thanksgiving turkey just before coming out of the smoker.  It was spectacular.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

We had the thermometer alarm us when the temperature reached 155F, turned off the smoker, and then let “carry over” take the thigh temperature up to 160F. <\/p>\n

For the first time, everything was cooked through properly.  We might have been able to take out the turkey a little sooner, the breast meat was borderline dry, but the dark meat was oh-so-perfect!<\/p>\n

This morning I just put some Kansas City-style rub on a rack of spare ribs and in a couple hours I’ll be popping it in the smoker for 6-7 hours.  We tried this about a month ago and it didn’t cook nearly long enough.  This time we’re just going to let it go until the meat falls off the bone!<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Let meat come to room temperature before putting it in the smoker.  Why?  Energy savings!  You can probably save about an hour of electricity that would otherwise be used to bring the meat from refrigerator temperature up to room temperature.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m baaaack…. I’ve been VERY scarce lately since I was out of town for 17 days in January. So let’s play a little catch up, shall we? [OKAY VEGETARIAN READERS, YOU MIGHT WANT TO STOP HERE] First I want to show off our new toy, a SMOKER, which we bought with some money my parents had sent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[],"tags":[8],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5ycQ0-bk","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":353,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2009\/05\/the-new-major-tom.html","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":0},"title":"The NEW Major Tom","date":"19 May 09","format":false,"excerpt":"Have you heard the cover of the Peter Schilling \"Major Tom\" song by Shiny Toy Guns? It's featured in the 2010 Lincoln MKZ commercial on TV. I really like it. \u00a0The You Tube below will play for you the whole thing.Interestingly, last year Lincoln used a cover of the David\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":249,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/10\/where-do-i-begin-with-this-one.html","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":1},"title":"Where Do I Begin With This One????","date":"09 October 08","format":false,"excerpt":"First of all, I realize that I'm part of a very small American population. I'm an (almost) stay-at-home Mom who likes airplanes. And the things I've had to learn about American airpower are pretty nit-noid. 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Yes, really.","date":"02 September 10","format":false,"excerpt":"How crazy are we? \u00a0My next scrapbook project is to use this lovely Thomas-the-Tank-Engine-themed scrapbook I got many years ago as a gift (I honestly don't remember where\/when I got it). \u00a0I opened it up recently after several years of it sitting with my other unused scrapbooks...and counted TWENTY available\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"crafts\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":519,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2011\/02\/happy-valentines-day.html","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":4},"title":"Happy Valentine’s Day!","date":"14 February 11","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Valentine's Day friends!We enjoyed a special Valentine's Day-themed Build and Grow project at Lowe's last Saturday!My boys awakened this morning and were greeted with these little gifts for Valentine's Day:They had asked for them for Christmas, but I'm glad we waited till now, I think that Valentine Puppy sure\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"crafts\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lh5.googleusercontent.com\/_yz59FVsseJY\/TVljKAUvARI\/AAAAAAABRFs\/g1pIDLRfZx4\/s640\/IMG_6139.JPG?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":152,"url":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/2008\/05\/a-new-blogosphere-friend.html","url_meta":{"origin":702,"position":5},"title":"A New Blogosphere Friend","date":"29 May 08","format":false,"excerpt":"Hi again!Eventually I'll get around to writing about what's REALLY going on in my life: keeping the boys happy, planning our trip to Nebraska, and keeping all of the contractors working on our house straight. Today should be a relatively relaxing day -- the termite treatment is done, the remnants\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/702\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thevollmerfamily.com\/MajorMom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}