Smoked Leg of lamb

Due to work commitments there has been very little BBQ action happening recently as weekends have been spent writing. This finally got done in early June, so the first weekend afterwards it was time to make up for last time and try out something new. Today were are going to try out a smoked leg of lamb. Back in the UK, lamb is much more common than it is in the US but in the UK you don’t get a chance to do BBQ very often (at least not in the dry).  So I was keen to try a smoked version of something I don’t get very often and kinda miss. Read on to see how it turned out.

Rubbed leg of lamb ready to go on the smoker

• Setup: Weber kettle with Smokenator. Setup for indirect 2-zone cooking with a Weber water pan on the bottom grate.
  

  Boneless leg of lamb in its original packaging before trimming. Now I haven’t done a lot of studying of sheep anatomy, but it was a lot less leg shaped that I expected…

• Meat: Boneless leg of lamb. I’d phoned into Shalhoob Meat Company on the Friday morning which is later than I (and they) normally like you to order things, especially if it’s a little more unusual like lamb. Fortunately I was in luck and they had just what I wanted; an approximately 4lb boneless (taking the bones out is not for the novice) leg of lamb. Score !
• Fuel: Kingsford Blue Bag briquettes. Since this wasn’t going to be a very long cook, I only filled the Smokenator about 2/3rds full of briquettes and some of these were part burnt leftovers from a previous cook.
• Wood: Pecan chunks. I wasn’t really sure what wood to try with this, the recommendations were quite varied. The main sort-of-consensus was that hickory was too strongly flavored but fruit wood to cut the “gamey” nature could be good. (I’ve never found lamb (or mutton) that “gamey” but then I like to eat venison and actual game so…)
• Cooking temperature: Low and slow at 225 F for a couple of hours until the internal temperature reaches 110 F. Then it’s onto the direct heat side to brown off on all four sides and to get the internal temperature into the medium rare 130-135 F (This process took about 25 minutes in my case).
• Prep:
  1. The day before after collecting the meat, I drained, washed and dried the meat from the liquid in its packaging. I removed the butchers twine net it came in and set it to one side for later re-use.
  2. Trimmed off all the fat cap and the silverskin (or as much off it as I could get off; that stuff is tricky…) from all sides. I ran a sharp blade over most of the exposed outer part of the meat in a diagonal pattern at two angles to make squares approx. 3/4 to 1 inch in size and then sprinkled kosher salt all over. The tricky part was then to get it back into its butcher twine net I had saved earlier to try and get it keep its shape on the cooker. Three (or more) hands are definitely helpful here… This then went into a foil tray and went (uncovered) into the fridge over night to dry brine.
     

     The trimmed leg of lamb after removal of the fat cap and silverskin. This has just been brined with kosher salt and is ready to go into the fridge overnight.

  3. (Next day) Made up the wet rub according to the recipe, got the chimney lit and then slathered the rub all over the meat, working it in as best I could given the netting.

Rub ingredients before combining with water to make the paste/wet rub to go over the meat.

The wet rub paste after mixing with water and combining into a paste.

Rubbed leg of lamb ready to go on the smoker

Cooking Diary

• (previous day) 3pm: Trimmed all the fat cap and as much of the silverskin off as I could. Made cross-hatch slashes in the meat and sprinkled kosher salt all over. Then into fridge overnight
• (cooking day) 3:30pm: Made up rub according to recipe and rubbed all over the leg of lamb
• 4pm: Lit barbecue using 12 briquettes in a chimney
• 4:15pm: Transferred the hot coals into the Weber. Bottom and top vents were both fully open to get it going and up to the target temperature of 225 F. Inserted the Maverick grate thermometer and connected it up. The top vent was closed about a quarter of the way after 10 minutes or so as we approached the target temperature.
• 4:30pm: Gave the top grate a final scrub with the wire brush once it had got up to temperature. Filled water pan, added 1 large chunk of pecan wood, put meat on the grill, put internal temperature probe in.
• 5:55pm: Reached 115 F internal temperature, so moved it over to the direct heat side and opened up the bottom and top vents to try and get it as hot as I could. (The Smokenator isn’t ideal for this, apparently the more modern Slow-n-sear is better for this). I used tongs to rotate it and try and get it evenly done on all 4 sides; not easy with a football (American)-shaped thing..
• 6:20pm: Done ! Probing with my Thermapen showed that it was over 130F in the deepest part of the meat and more than that in other parts (it’s a somewhat odd shape and so the temperature won’t be that even). Pulled it off and put onto the board with the board sauce of olive oil, sage, thyme, black pepper and a garlic clove and started slicing.

Completed leg of lamb as it came off the smoker after searing.

Verdict on Smoked Leg of lamb: B+

This was quite a tricky cook as the prep was somewhat involved (and wrestling it back into its twine jacket was not easy) and it got done about 30 minutes sooner than I expected. Trying to get it fully seared and up to the right temperature while not burning the “lumpy” (due to all the chopped garlic etc) nature of the wet rub was also quite tricky (Plus it kept rolling across the grill grate…).

The end result was well worth it though. The meat had a really great taste and had a good color. I think it could have done with an extra wood chunk putting on (I only used the 1 largeish one) as it didn’t have a lot of smoke taste. It would also have been good to use a more lamb-compatible board sauce with rosemary and or mint in as a contrast (I misread the instructions and used the original herb mix which was meant for steak). A chopping board with gutters around the edge would also have been useful as the oil in the board sauce, plus all the meat’s juices, makes for a bit of a mess on the countertop if you’re not careful.