Wandering around Wally World a couple of weeks ago, I ran across something called Lamb Breast. It was pretty cheap, so I grabbed a couple of packages. These were essentially the same as bone-in pork belly, but lamb. Lots of fat, see picture.
I couldn't find much of anything on the web about how to smoke or Q lamb breast (there's a couple of mentions here in the pit, but nothing definitive). Anyway, I found a site that said to rub with simple salt/pepper/cumin rub, smoke at 230ºF for a while then grill on a "hot grill" for a short time. So I tried something like this for the first piece, smoked at 230ºF for 4 hours to 180ºF IT. Looked pretty good at this point:
A lot of the fat rendered out as seen in the catch pan in the smoker. This is where things went south. I moved it to a hot gas grill and turned my back for a minute or two. Came back to a massive bonfire in the gasser. Its embarrassing, but here's what the final result looked like.
The meat itself tasted OK after dissecting it away from the still excessive un-rendered fat and char, but overall, I have to score this a fail.
Today, I decided to try a second piece of breast. This time I trimmed away as much of the fat as possible and rubbed with something akin to Mrs. O'Leary's Cow Crust (minus much of the pepper and plus cinnamon and cumin).
Smoked at 275ºF for 3½ hours and ditched the grill step.
This trial resulted in tasty "lamby" flavored meat with a nice bark and not too much fat.
Hopefully some of the pit members for Australia and/or New Zealand can weigh in with a critique or recommended method as I still have two more pieces of lamb breast. Meanwhile, I'll stick with grilling lamb steaks (cut from the leg) to rare-medium rare. Lamb steak is probably my favorite kind of "steak".
I couldn't find much of anything on the web about how to smoke or Q lamb breast (there's a couple of mentions here in the pit, but nothing definitive). Anyway, I found a site that said to rub with simple salt/pepper/cumin rub, smoke at 230ºF for a while then grill on a "hot grill" for a short time. So I tried something like this for the first piece, smoked at 230ºF for 4 hours to 180ºF IT. Looked pretty good at this point:
A lot of the fat rendered out as seen in the catch pan in the smoker. This is where things went south. I moved it to a hot gas grill and turned my back for a minute or two. Came back to a massive bonfire in the gasser. Its embarrassing, but here's what the final result looked like.
The meat itself tasted OK after dissecting it away from the still excessive un-rendered fat and char, but overall, I have to score this a fail.
Today, I decided to try a second piece of breast. This time I trimmed away as much of the fat as possible and rubbed with something akin to Mrs. O'Leary's Cow Crust (minus much of the pepper and plus cinnamon and cumin).
Smoked at 275ºF for 3½ hours and ditched the grill step.
This trial resulted in tasty "lamby" flavored meat with a nice bark and not too much fat.
Hopefully some of the pit members for Australia and/or New Zealand can weigh in with a critique or recommended method as I still have two more pieces of lamb breast. Meanwhile, I'll stick with grilling lamb steaks (cut from the leg) to rare-medium rare. Lamb steak is probably my favorite kind of "steak".
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