Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Smoking Hot Valentine's

I already told how we celebrated the day before Valentine's Day. But even if weren't doing anything extra romantic on the actual date of Valentine's itself, we still had to eat something. So we decided to go with burgers, except we were bringing back last week's smoker.

Smoking hamburgers is not nearly as time intensive as smoking pulled pork. Which means the smoking was done over two hours, mid-afternoon, and most importantly I was able to document. Just in case you wanted a little more instruction on how to make a home made smoker.

To start with, we formed the patties, made a rub, and rubbed down the burgers.
Burger PattiesThe Rub
Burger Post-Run
The comes the actual set-up of the smoker. You start of putting the propane powered burner in the smoker.
Propane Burner
The propane tank had originally come with its own stand. But after 14 hours smoking pig last week it started to get a little melty. While the two hours for the burger wouldn't have been to bad, we figured it would be safer not to use it. Instead we found a few rocks to keep it all balanced.

On top of the burner goes a plate of wood.
Wood in the smoker
Last week we kept the plate uncovered. Except a good amount of fat dripped onto the wood, which reduced some of the smoke. So this time we covered most of the wood (hickory if you must know) to prevent that from happening.

Then the meat goes on top.
Burgers in the Smoker
You can already see the smoke starting here! Cover it all up, and after two hours at around 250 degrees, you have smoked hamburgers.
Smoked Burgers and Vanilla Coke
Which were officially perfected by the Vanilla Coke.

It definitely made an interesting tasting hamburger to say the least, and I'd love to make burgers this way again. Although the boy says next time using mesquite chips might make a little more sense. We used the hickory chips since they were leftover from last weekend. And while I did enjoy the taste, I'm not quite ready to give up making burgers the normal way just yet. But it did make for an unexpected Valentine's Day meal for the two of us.

Anyone else celebrate Valentine's Day, somewhat different from the norm most would expect?

~Shoshanah

8 comments:

  1. Yum! That looks delicious! I love things that are spicy/seasoned

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  2. Yum - those look delish!! I adore burgers so am sure I would love these!!

    My Vday was pretty uneventful. Worked on taxes & then logged in and worked from home for a bit, which was not the ideal way to spend the day, but oh well... I pretty much thought of Sat as Vday since that is the day I babysat for my nephews - which was so fun!

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  3. I don't think I've ever had a smoked burger. I bet it was amazingly good!

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  4. wow, that's dedication. I don't know if I would go through all that trouble to make a burger, haha. I just make 'em on my stove top grill pan :) then again, I've never smoked anything! but I'm sure they were good and that is one way to jazz up Valentine's Day!

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  5. I don't think I've ever had a smoked burger. They sound great.

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  6. Mmmm, that looks DELISH!! Xoxo-BLC

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  7. That hamburger looks SO good!

    I watched SATC reruns on my bed with my two friends, drinking POM cosmos and eating chocolate, and we had a blast :D

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  8. yummmm! looks awesome girl, love the smoker :)

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