Should meat be pre-cooked before smoking?

Smokers have become incredibly popular in recent years because food prepared with these kitchen gadgets is always full of flavor, but there is a downside to this. The best way to cook in a smoker is to simmer it, which means the process can be quite time-consuming. One way people try to get around this is to pre-cook the meat before smoking it. To find out if this is actually a good idea, we reached out to Robbie Shoults, celebrity chef, third-generation owner of Bear Creek Smokehouse, owner of Marshall Mercantile and High Horse, and founder of Bear Rubz Grillin’ Spices.

“I wouldn’t recommend precooking the meat before smoking it,” Shoults told Tasting Table. “Once you’ve fired up the smoker, let it do all the work for you, and I promise you’ll be happy with the end result, as long as you take your time and don’t rush it.”

If you’re new to smoking meat and are hoping to find some good tricks to up your game, you might be tempted to try this pre-cooking shortcut, but it’s not worth it. This is especially true if you plan to pre-cook it ahead of time. The USDA warns that if you only partially cook meat and then refrigerate it to cook later, you’re increasing your chances of food poisoning, even if you plan to fully cook it later. It’s much better to fully cook your meal from start to finish in your smoker.

Read more: 13 Underrated Cuts of Meat You Should Be Grilling

Pre-cooked meat is a semi-finished product.

Aside from the increased risk of stomach ache, smokers are designed to cook meat all the way through. If you decide that smokers take too long to cook and want to start using them as a quick flavoring tool, you’re missing out on a lot of what makes smoked meat so great. After all, you can get a little smoky flavor into anything with a little liquid smoke if that’s what you’re looking for.

Whether you’re smoking a delicious piece of brisket or preparing a rib eye, there’s nothing better than slow cooking. Your patience will inevitably be rewarded with more tender, flavorful meat. You can bet that if there was a way to get the same quality meat in half the time, people would jump at it—and so would we. But if you want to smoke meat properly, you have to put in the time. If you’re really in a hurry to get it done quickly, you might want to consider trying a different, faster cooking style and pulling out the smoker another day when you’re not so pressed for time.

Read the original article on Tasting Table.