Anyone using corn cobs for smoking meats? [General]
2016 Aug 29
Nobody's used corn cobs for smoking?
I'm drying some sweet corn cobs that I cut the kernels off to freeze so I'll give them a try when they are dry enough and when I've got some pork to roast. I'd like to try it before the field corn that surrounds us comes off in a couple of months - I'd like to bag some dry, shelled cobs from the field if I like the flavour.
I'm drying some sweet corn cobs that I cut the kernels off to freeze so I'll give them a try when they are dry enough and when I've got some pork to roast. I'd like to try it before the field corn that surrounds us comes off in a couple of months - I'd like to bag some dry, shelled cobs from the field if I like the flavour.
2016 Sep 2
I smoked ribs on the BBQ yesterday and used some of the cobs I had dried after cutting the corn off. I also used some applewood chips. I made up 2 packets - one had about equal parts soaked wood chips and soaked cobs that had been chopped in ~1" pieces with a hatchet, the other had about half soaked wood chips and dried whole cobs (not soaked). I found that the all-soaked packet smoked more slowly while the dried cobs smoked more quickly and intensely, with lots of smoke. The smoke was a very aromatic smoke, quite appetizing, and the ribs were quite smokey and pink-ringed, with a bit too much smoke for my dw's tastes but I found them very much to my liking. Next time I may chop half the cobs and soak them as well as soaking some whole cobs to see if I need to bother chopping them. I was a little surprised to find that the dried cobs are quite tough. Maybe I'll try using just the cobs, no wood chips, sometime. I will be collecting some field corn cobs, probably in November when it is combined. I'm wondering if the cobs will be needing some drying time - I suspect they will. The first sweet corn cobs I saved, very fresh and moist, went mouldy pretty quick.
2016 Nov 5
While I was having breakfast this morning I heard the sounds of a combine and looked out the window to see it combining the corn that surrounds us. That is always good news for us as it means we get our view back - we are surrounded on 3 sides by corn every few years, with soybeans or wheat the other years and they are easy to see over top of. After the combine had passed I went out and picked up shelled, chopped cobs to dry by the fire and use for smoking for the next year. The combine spews these pieces out 5 m or more onto the grass so it is easy picking them up; I walked maybe 30 m on the grass without going into the cornfield to pick up what I did. It would be just as easy if you walked through the corn.
Now would be a good time to find some corn cobs ou there as it is harvest time. You want to look for a field where they have combined shelled corn and left the cobs behind, not a field where they don't she'll but take the whole cob with the kernels still attached. I think if you find a field right beside a road where the farmer has cut the grass right up to the corn you can collect cob pieces from the public roadside if you don't have a farmer to ask permission. And enjoy a nice ride in the countryside.
Now would be a good time to find some corn cobs ou there as it is harvest time. You want to look for a field where they have combined shelled corn and left the cobs behind, not a field where they don't she'll but take the whole cob with the kernels still attached. I think if you find a field right beside a road where the farmer has cut the grass right up to the corn you can collect cob pieces from the public roadside if you don't have a farmer to ask permission. And enjoy a nice ride in the countryside.
Andy