Smoking Meat....Guam Style

I love to smoke meat. Once smoked you can reheat it on the grill or over the stove.

Guam has a particular style. Buy any kind meat you desire to smoke, in this case beef. Cut it up lengthwise and about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch thick. Brine this overnight and smoke it the next day. Of course, like anywhere, there are many styles/methods, but this is one of the basic ways.

Here is my brine...

Soy Brine:

1/2 cup Kosher salt;
2 cups brown sugar
3 tbsp Mortons Tenderquick Home Meat Cure
3 tbsp minced fresh Ginger
1/2 cup of soy sauce
4 quarts of water.
Freshly ground black pepper to taste.
Adjust salt as needed when adding the Kosher salt at the end

Then the next day I take it out and let it drain some before I hang it all on stainless hooks over a semi open pit to smoke.

This particular smoke took about 8 hours. The result was meat that was still juicy, very tender and had great color.

Here are a few photos....


Strips hanging from the hooks after about 8 hours.



The small chunks left over from trimming I hang on this stainless skewer.


The finished product.

I love smoking pork and fish like yellow fin tuna also.

hey i like that idea phantom meat looks good to

timbarber84 wrote:

hey i like that idea phantom meat looks good to

Thanks Timbarber84. And smoking in a semi enclosed pit allows for a light smokey flavor rather than a heavy smokey flavor. I have a lot of pits but this is my most versatile and favorite one...



The pit is basically a large 1" square tubing frame that is wide enough to hold two 55-gallon drums cut in half length-wise. Those are what hold the wood as you can see in the picture.

To smoke all I do is use indirect heat by burning the wood over on one side and place a sheet metal over the front. The side is still open and allows for most of the smoke to escape once it all reaches the top on the inside, right where the meat is at.

This style has been working great for years.

Give it a try. I am sure you will like the results.

Looks and sounds terrific! I've never thought about brining beef. Does it come out tender and juicy with this method?

Phantom, do the winds on Guam generally blow in the same direction? I like the simplicity of the semi-open smoker but it seems that if the wind was blowing into it it might not work very well.

Brad

Dyal_SC wrote:

Looks and sounds terrific! I've never thought about brining beef. Does it come out tender and juicy with this method?

Dyal, Brining does tenderize the meat somewhat, and adds a whole lot of flavor throughout the meat of meat. And it does stay very juicy.

As for overall tenderness and juiciness, the brining combined with the smoking time pretty much takes care of it all. The consistency of the meat after 8 hours of smoking is a cross between a grilled steak and jerky. However the meat an be flaked. And if you reheat the meat on the grill, stove, oven or in the microwave, it gets a little softer and juicier.

I like to snack on this meat, eat it with our finadenne (Guam hot dipping sauce), or flake it over a salad, sandwich. If you flake the meat and cook heat it up, you can also have a pulled beef sandwich.

It really is versatile. Can do a lot with it. The flavor though is crazy good!!

ScreamingChicken wrote:

Phantom, do the winds on Guam generally blow in the same direction? I like the simplicity of the semi-open smoker but it seems that if the wind was blowing into it it might not work very well.

Brad

Brad, good question. I have been using this pit for years. It is my fav. Works fantastic and you can do just about anything you want on it. Even turn a pig, which I have done a few of.

The wind is not a big factor. It usually come out of the Northeast. That would put it, as you look at my pit, coming in diagonally from the right hand corner, right to left. Everything is enclosed from that angle. The open side is the left side of the drum.

I get a nice fairly even heat the swirls from the left to the right and then back out to the left again, from the bottom to the top. Same action every time.

Now when I grill, because I have the top sheet hinged in the back, I just prop up the front with a stick and all the smoke goes up and out like a chimney. Stays out of your face.

Love to cook on this bugga!!

The beef looks delicious and that's a pretty cool setup you have there too! I tried SR's version of Guamanian chicken with finadenne sauce. I really liked the flavor, but was disappointed in the lack of heat. Would you mind sharing how you make your sauce?

QJuju wrote:

The beef looks delicious and that's a pretty cool setup you have there too! I tried SR's version of Guamanian chicken with finadenne sauce. I really liked the flavor, but was disappointed in the lack of heat. Would you mind sharing how you make your sauce?

QJuju, not a problem. Here is a link to my tutorial on how to make Lemon Finadenne'. This is a great one...

http://bbqguam.blogspot.com/2011/04/lem ... sauce.html

Now the soy sauce finadenne' is a little different. Instead of squeezing the lemon and adding the water and salt, eliminate those steps and add in 1/2 cup of Kikkoman Soy Sauce and 1/2 cup of Apple Cider or White Vinegar. Basically a 1 to 1 ratio. Now the heat is all up to you. How hot do you like it? Mash in more peppers plus a few extras, whole, so you can bite them as you eat.

I'm not sure what kind of hot peppers you have in your area, but over here we have the Sali Pepper or more commonly known as the "Boonie" peppers because the grown wild in the jungles (boonies).

But I do love the Tabasco hot pepper and grow a lot of that. It's hot enough and has great flavor. I really don't like a pepper that is so hot you can't enjoy your food. I go for flavor and then the heat. The "Thai Hot" hot pepper is another good one.

You can order these from Tomato Growers in Florida. Here is their web site:

http://www.tomatogrowers.com/

Just click on their "Peppers" button, then the "Hot Peppers" button and go to page 7 where you will find the description of both.

If you have any difficulties with getting the sauce right, just shoot me an email. rdo1043@yahoo.com.

Take care buddy...

QJuju, checked out your site and love it!! Like the way you organized it and the great content. It Rocks!!!