My Smoked Bolonga

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Shadowrider

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I did the same thing this weekend. Kinda disappointed because I used Rockwood lump charcoal and it's very mild and neutral tasting compared to most other lump charcoals. I didn't really believe all that chatter on the interwebs but it's pretty true. It's a fairly quick smoke so I only threw in a couple of golf ball sized chunks of pecan and a handful of Jack Daniels whiskey barrel oak chips right before I threw the chub on. It turned out good, just not very smokey. I'll use a stronger wood and more of it next time.
 

Parks 788

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CDS' did similar to how I prepped and smoked mine. But here goes.

Took the waxed wrapping off and sort of did a haphazzard spiral cuts in the chub. While i really liked and dissliked the depth of the spiral cuts on mine. YOu can see that they wre deep which made the smokey flavor really penetrate the chub but what i didn't like was when it was time to slice the chub for sandwiches the cuts were so deep (probably 1" plus deep) that sometimes the thinner sliced pieces would fall apart. Not a big deal but made it challenging to cut 1/4" slices so i could have 2-4 slices per sammich. Take you time to make the slices about 3/4" deep and make them uniform so the presentation is better than mine. I then used a fancier mustard/horseraddish blend as a binder and rubbed all over the chub. Makes the Seasoning rub stick better to it. I used a general purpose rub from Meat CHurch and a Garlic rub from Traeger. Both were great.

Here is where you get a lot of varied opinions/techniques to smoke it. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome on mine. I set my Traeger at 170* with a timer set for two hours but let it go about 2.25 hours. THis allows, at a lower temp, on my model of smoker, to get heavy smoke. The fourth pic is at the end of the 2.25 hours. Looks great but didn't have the crispy and darker outer surface i was looking for. At this point I used a Traeger Sweet & Spicey BBQ sauce mixed with a stick of butter and heated it so it would mix together well. I then mopped it all over the chub so it got in all the slice marks and and covered the whole thing. I then turned up the temp to 320* and set the timer at 1.25 hours but ended up keeping it on for about 1.30 hours at that higher temp. (the traeger app on my phone to control all this is awesome). This gave it the really nice dark crispy outer layer that is soooo fantastic. Pics 5, 6 and 7 are of the chub cooked after the mop and at the higher temps. I let it sit for about 15 minutes to do it's thing, if anything at all then sliced it and made a sammich. I used thick sliced white bread, with some Miracle whip, the same mustard/horseraddish blend with red onions, lettuce and tomotoes. It was AWESOME.

One thing to notice in the last picture is when i referenced my cuts into the chub were too deep and made for some of the chub to fall apart upon cutting for sandwiches you can see the little triangle pieces and bits that broke off on the cutting board. Big deal? Not really, but just a minor thing really. One other note i just noticed. In pic 5, the round part of the top of the chub looks burnt. It's not. It was the absolute best part of the whole chub my wife and I stood there and ate. Meaty, crispy, smoked bologna goodness!!!

If you like bologna I highly recommend you smoke it in a similar way. You can't go wrong. As my father in law stated when i sent him these pictures "Bologna is God's finest food." He may have a point.:spaghetti:
 

xseler

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The cuts in the photos by the OP and as mentioned by cdschoonie are the key to deep smoke flavor while balancing the crust/seasoning factor. A former work colleague judged all BBQ places we tried at lunch by their smoked bologna.

My Dad always said that you tell the difference between a great BBQ joint from a good BBQ joint by seeing bologna on the menu --- the great ones always seemed to have it!



.
 

hunter966

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I picked up some bologna and it’s on the grill now, cut and rubbed with mustard, but here’s a question for ya’ll.

I can’t eat black pepper due to Diverticulosis, and every rub I looked at had pepper in it. Does anyone know of a rub without pepper?

I may have to make my own if this comes out half as good as ya’ll make it sound.
 

rawhide

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I picked up some bologna and it’s on the grill now, cut and rubbed with mustard, but here’s a question for ya’ll.

I can’t eat black pepper due to Diverticulosis, and every rub I looked at had pepper in it. Does anyone know of a rub without pepper?

I may have to make my own if this comes out half as good as ya’ll make it sound.
Making your own rub is easy. Plenty of recipes available online.
 

skyhawk1

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I will NEVER eat bologna again! Too much of it when I was little. I did buy some to smoke for the wife when I did ribs Sunday and then forgot about it, still in fridge.
 

rawhide

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I'll have to try these techniques. I've had a lot of compliments on my smoked bologna over the years. One thing that I do is to slice the chub into 1/4 wedges.
 

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