I have to admit that I have been lying to you all… I do smoke.
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Now that’s my kind of cooking…and cuisine! BBQ and chili are my faves.
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Now your getting to my kind of cooking. Any smoked meat is just better in my humble opinion. Here at our place my wife does all the indoors cooking but the grill and smoker are left up to me cause the wife won’t touch them.
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Yeah BBQ is my favorite cooking style… I do all kind of cooking but my passion is bbq.
The turkey breasts were awesome. Juicy(can’t go wrong with low and slow… And bacon) and perfect smoke flavor. I was a little afraid it might be to smokey as I used mesquite (all I had) but perfect.
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We have a lot of apple orchard’s around us so I normally get apple wood from them for free to use in the smoker.
So true love bacon on all meats
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dude i love smoked meat i could literally eat that and BBQ all day everyday, unfortunately after god knows how many seasons of Ramsey shouts f**k a lot or kitchen bitch or whatever his new program is called food that you don’t know whether to eat or frame and put on your mantel next to the photos of the kids is in high demand. so no 16oz charcoal cooked rib eye steaks at work for me, it’s all crab pana cotta and bloody pistachio souffle 
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I have got to be honest about this. I have been to some very high class joints in my days and no offense to any of you great chef’s out there but if I cant do it on the grill, smoker, or a simple frying pan on a camp fire I ain’t interested. What you all do is an art there is no doubt about that but a simple meat and potato’s guy like me just can’t find joy in most of it.
I remember years ago going to a very famous 5 star resort for a weekend curtesy of the company I worked at. Most everyone was in formal wear for dinner and when the servers put that prime rib in front of me that was red and still had the blood running out Well lets just say it was not a meal for me. I was the only one in the joint that asked for it to go back and actually get COOKED LOL
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damn that looks sooo effin good!!!
Looks better than my Thanksgiving
If anybody has and Baking (especially natural levain/sourdough breads,) Confections or Chocolates, I might be able to help. I am also fairly obsessed with Garde Manger, especially charcuterie, and cheese-making, and confitures.
@DarthVapor - you’re so right about Florida not being “the South” (well, except for the very northern parts, which are really more like the southern extension of Georgia and Alabama). I live in Key West, and that’s not only not the South, it’s hardly even America.
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@DarthVapor
Just found this thread and Wow! Hats off to you sir!
Great talent to have and one that obviously helps in your juice mixing!
Now being a professional what is your opinion on using a smoke gun to add flavouring to the base liquid( the possibilities for smoked flavour would be endless I suspect?)
The other thought I had was the sous vide bath method.
Do you think this would assist in steeping the liquid in a controlled environment for quicker steep times, thinking about custard bases?
As I said just thoughts!
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First off thank you, I appreciate that! You definitely have to love this business to be in it, that’s for sure!
I actually came across your comment about what you said using a smoker gun and I am not to sure about that to be honest. I am not sure what is behind the “science” of what you would be inhaling exactly but I would imagine it to be quit toxic. Taking a standard wood chip smoker as the smoking gun (pun intended) you are essentially adding the residue from burning the chips into your juices. I can’t imagine this to be all that safe to inhale, eating is different sure but it still isn’t “good” for you. Even a simple grill mark on a steak is loaded with carcinogens and burning anything really isn’t that much different.
So I guess it all comes down to how much you care haha. Will you be able to add that smoke flavor to a juice, absolutely. Is it a good thing to inhale, well in my personal opinion, I am going to have to say no. I can’t say for a fact that it’s a no because I am not an expert in that field, I just know that the burning and inhaling of anything isn’t good.
This really isn’t any different from placing you bottle in a crock pot, except for 2 things…it’s in a vacuum bag (which makes no difference since your bottles are sealed anyways) and you would be placing your juices in a much higher temperature of water, about 200-212 if you are boiling or simmering. Either way you would essentially be bringing the temperature of your liquid almost up to that which would be the water surrounding it, regardless if it is in the bottle or in a vacuum bag.
I would still stick with a water bath that is very low in temperature so you don’t degrade you liquid and just enough to loosen the VG or whatever. 115-150 range maybe? The only benefit I would see to doing the “sous vide” way, which again, is just in a vacuum bag, is that they are completely sealed. So you could do this in a crock pot and vacuum pack a dozen or so bottles and just throw them in there and not have to worry about standing them up or submerging them. Throwing them in boiling or simmering water just isn’t good for the juice or bottles, either way you go.
Hope that helps!
Your welcome!
Thanks for the reply!
Never thought about the health issues?
But the smoking upwards of 20 ciggies for over 30 years I was never the brightest! Lol
But I take your point, back to the drawing board!
The bath makes sense so again, back to the drawing board! Lol
Now to get more info on the stevia as this looks promising, especially regarding fruit flavours!
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I have thought about this myself - I have a Sous Vide Supreme water bath - and if you just set your temp to 45oC/113oF you should be able to dump your bottles in there for an hour or two with good results 
I have a heated ultrasonic cleaner which I use instead (USC action along with the heating 
)…
There are smoked flavors like Black Fire (FA) that you can use It’s basically just liquid smoke! Use sparingly - It’s strong stuff!
On most sous vide gear you can set much lower temperatures It’s basically just a heating element on a PID (that controls the temp down to 0.5 or maybe even 0.1oC) When I do steaks in my sous vide I set it around 129-136oF depending on who’s eating with me ;D
Haha I didn’t mean to burst your bubble and yes nothing is really worse than the ciggies we used to smoke 
Stevia huh? I never really got into sweeteners much. When I first started mixing I would use some here and there but as my collection grew (and grew) I found I could get all the sweetness I wanted with various flavors.
Moderation being key but for some quick ideas, I use these a lot to add sweetness, juiciness or to just boast a mix
FA Pear/MF pear @ .6-.8% (doesn’t add any pear flavor this low in a mix)
Fuji .6-.8% (same as pear)
FLV Cantaloupe .6-.8% (same as pear)
Marshmallow .8-1.5%
Meringue .5-1%
Oba Oba (more of a cream sweet) .5-1.5%
Brown sugar X (Adds a caramelized flavor though) .4-.8%
CAP Sweet SB .5-1.5%
and so on…
I don’t know what you’re looking for and I am just throwing ideas at ya
Oh I know, I was just saying essentially there isn’t a difference from placing your bottle in a water bath, from placing it in a bag is all 
The only benefit is, you wouldn’t have to worry about submerging it
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Lol no worries!
My bubble was burst many years ago! Lol
I have quite a sweet tooth but I find the sweeteners on offer leave a nasty aftertaste for me?
I try and use the natural sweetness in flavours to help but sometimes it just calls for that bit extra sweetness without adding further flavour to the mix or an aftertaste!
My quest, if you can call it that? Is searching to bring complex layers to a mix without being too complex in the making.
Currently most recipes call for all the flavours in a recipe to be added at once and steeped.
In a cooking environment that rarely happens as most components are pulled together at the last minute to give you the complimentary layered taste you get in the finished dish.
Hence why my trials are currently looking at breaking a recipe down into its separate components, ie custard with fruit.
That has led me to looking outside the box and trying to find kitchen techniques that could be utilised in the liquid mix we try and achieve.
Omg! this pics!! Everyone who did it - really talanted people!