I tried an interesting experiment yesterday that resulted in good news & bad news. In my catering business I have often served brisket (done in a conventional oven) with carmelized onions, either on top of or on a bed of the onions. The film crews that I cater to LOVE it! So...yesterday I thought that I would get a little creative. I had already prepped a 10# packer trim using Ken Johnson's winning rub for 12 hrs. and put it in the smoker at 11:00 pm w/ 5-6 oz. of hickory @ 200 degrees. So far so good. At 7:00am the next morning I thought that I had a great idea.....why not slice an onion or two & carmelize them in butter IN THE SMOKER with the brisket? ...BAD IDEA! The result was the worst tasting onion that you could possibly imagine. The onion slices were so bitter, (like that stuff that they used to put on kid's thumbs to stop them from sucking), that they were inedible. My brisket turned out fine except it had very little smoke flavor, in spite of the fact that I had used a pretty good dose of hickory. Today I went out to replace the foil in the bottom of my smoker & the foil on top of the wood box and guess what? Almost no smoke odor, or odor of any kind inside the smoker! What did I learn from this experiment other than to forget about carmelizing onions in the smoker?...It's an easy way to "sanitize" the smoker.
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