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What happens when a former vegetarian turns smokehouse owner and homesteader? Join us as we chat with Claire from Welshhomestead Smokery about her fascinating journey and the importance of animal welfare, all while nestled in...
What happens when a former vegetarian turns smokehouse owner and homesteader? Join us as we chat with Claire from Welshhomestead Smokery about her fascinating journey and the importance of animal welfare, all while nestled in the stunning Cambrian Mountains in West Wales. Discover her mouth-watering experiments with unique bacon flavors, like chocolate espresso and chili and paprika, and learn the secret behind her maple wood-smoking process.
We also dive into Claire's venture into smoked chili jams, revealing her passion for sourcing from local UK farms and her dedication to perfecting the heat levels. Transitioning from a home smoking setup to launching a commercial smokehouse, Claire shares the impact of weather on her process and the techniques she employs to ensure consistent, scrumptious results.
But that's not all – we also explore the world of outdoor cooking with Claire, as she guides us through her barbecue and fire cooking workshops, along with revealing methods for making delectable jams, chutneys, pickles, and ferments. Uncover valuable advice on using different types of charcoal, managing temperature, and creating vegetarian-friendly dishes. Don't miss this enlightening and flavorful conversation with Claire from Welshhomestead Smokery!
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Today's episode of the Meet and Greet BBQ podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens. They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Meet and Greet BBQ podcast. So we spoke to Claire today from the Welsh Homestead Smokery, who talked all about her setup and her products, but she'll go through all of that with us shortly, so, without much further ado, here's Claire. Hello, claire, thank you so much for joining us. So for anyone who doesn't know who you are, please do introduce yourself. Okay, hi everybody.
Speaker 2:I'm Claire from Welsh Homestead Smokery, so I've got an artisan smokehouse on the edge of the Cambrian Mountains in West Wales And we cold smoke here. So we smoke got bacon, we smoke lamb bacon, we smoke salt, we do some barbecue rubs and they smoke an awful lot of chili. So we do a lot of smoked chili jams, but it's all based here on my homestead. So we've got some clover. I think a little bit, probably chat a bit about it. I'm guessing about sort of that. We raise some animals. They're not the ones that I actually end up using for the bacon, but yeah, so we've got a little bit of a. We grow our own protein as well, which a lot of your guests, i don't think, grow their own protein.
Speaker 1:Do they? No, not at all. Homesteads absolutely fascinate me because my wife loves the idea of them until you actually go into what's actually needed to do it and the effort that goes in, because particularly on things like social media Instagram you see all the pretty pictures. we don't necessarily see the darker side to it. How have you found it? Was it a shock to the system at first?
Speaker 2:No, i think we thought about it pretty hard before we moved here, to be honest. So I think the thing because I'd had we moved from Sussex So I had had half pigs come and things like that, so I'd done sort of it to that level but you don't really know, do you? How are you going to feel about doing that yourself when you've reared that animal yourself. So until you actually go and kind of do it, it's quite hard to know how you're going to feel. But I think you've got to just be quite a matter of fact about it from the beginning. That's what we came up here to do was to you know part of it was going to be rearing our own animals And that's going to mean that you know part of that is going to be the bad end.
Speaker 3:So you know I was quite kind of a matter of fact about that from the beginning.
Speaker 2:So no, it's been, it's been, it's been a learning curve, for sure, for sure, But no, it's been quite as I'm glad that we've done it. And I kind of think I spent a lot of my, a lot of my years as a vegetarian, which is probably a strange thing, strange thing to say on this pop-up.
Speaker 1:And everybody always thinks of that.
Speaker 3:What's one of them?
Speaker 2:So everyone kind of thinks that that's weird, that I've kind of gone from that to the other side, whereas I kind of see for me it all kind of tallies in. If I'm going to eat meat I'd rather see the whole process than go to a supermarket and buy something in a packet basically. So that's kind of the ethos behind where the, where where this came from and then where the, where all the smokeery came from, basically.
Speaker 1:I completely understand that as well, because you know the welfare of the animal, you know how they've been looked after, you know what sort of life they've had, you know exactly what's gone in there, and you can also give it the respect that it deserves as well. So I completely understand that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, And like, and making sure that we use it all as well. that's really important to me, you know, um, you know, particularly with our homegrown animals, to make sure that, um yeah, that nothing gets wasted. You know that's, that's that's important. So, and I think that you lose a lot of that with, certainly with the supermarket, And I think even with the butchers. To an extent you can, you can kind of lose a lot of that, um, you know, even just just having the value of it, you think that that animal's given their life, so I've got to make the most of it, basically. So you know, i've done things like tanning the, the, the hides and the skins and stuff as well, and you know I've kept the horns and I've painted the skulls and I've, you know, really tried to sort of use as much as I can. You know, basically, um, which yeah, it's again stuff that you don't maybe get a chance well, you don't get a chance to do if you bite from, even if you bite from the butchers, you're not going to get a chance to do things like that, are you?
Speaker 3:No, no, no, not at all. So I'm really looking forward to to to get to talking to you today because you do a lot of my favorite things right. So love bacon, i love cold smoking myself. I love chilies, barbecue rubs, jams like it's it's. where do we even start? But actually I suppose it'd be good to talk about the bacon, as you've been talking about you know kind of rearing the pigs and did you do a lot? Did you mention that you've done some bits with pigs before? when you, before you, bought the homestead, had you done a lot of smoking and curing and making bacon? Was that kind of just part and parcel of you know the homestead?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've done. I've made some bacon before Dennis Sussex, for sure, I hadn't really smoked it, to be honest. I just, you know, I just tried was experimenting more with sort of the curing side of things down there I'm, but I've always grown a lot of a lot of fruit and veg. My dad was a horticultural consultant so I was always around a lot of plants, So the kind of the preserving and the jam making and things like that kind of came from always having blood in the summer, doesn't you know too many, you know too many strawberries at once or whatever, Whereas the meat side of things kind of came more from the fact when I decided to start eating meat Again, it was that idea of right, in that case, I've got to know what I'm going to be eating. So me being me kind of ordered half a pig and I had no clue, right, It came to me. It was clear it was from a friend's farm and it came. They got it butchered and it came to me backpacked and, like in my naivety, I thought it might have some stickers on it to tell me what bit was, which. It was just literally half a pig in like a box And I literally sat there with my iPads, with a diagram of a pig. I'm going to figure out, like which bit was which, because I had no idea And then I said so now this is the bit I can make the bacon with And, you know, this is the bit I can do some pulled pork with. And this you know so it kind of sort of went on from that point of view. But no, I didn't really start smoking that much until I came here. Just, I think we got a bit more space Down. We were only in a like a semi-detached bungalow, you know, very suburban, And our neighbour hated us whenever we had barbecues or anything. I'm imagining there's probably a lot of people like nodding their heads right now. It's a little old deer next door going that way. So I think if I had to start smoking, like all the bacon and stuff down there as well, I think should have had a literally a hissy fitter, I suppose. So then, but yeah, we started experimenting more with the smoking up here And you know, and didn't just do bacon, I smoked, you know, did some, you know, like everybody else, but smoked salmon as well. That's quite a good one to start with. I'm smoked some cheese And then I was like well, I can do different flavours of bacon, Because, you know, generally in the shops you're not going to get that many flavours of bacon, are you? So, started going for some different flavours of bacon And it sort of has basically grown from there really. So I think one one of who's been making the bacon, then somebody's been making bacon.
Speaker 1:I've been eating it, i've been eating it and I've been making it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, have you found like a good process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i had as well. I was quite excited to talk to you really just to try and basically see if I can pick up any tips. Yeah, i started off someone who bought me one of those kind of smoking kits, you know, with a cure and everything that comes in a bag and you just pop. So I quite enjoyed that process. And then recently I bought some just some curing salt, and then actually, my most recent, i bought, you know, the best part of pretty much like you, as much of the liners could, and just just tried to mess around with a couple of different. I did like a sweet one, quite a sweet style bacon, and then more of a savory peppery curry, so I had lots of golden edge. I actually the sweet one came away with more flavor than the paprika one, but yeah, i was really. I was really proud of myself because you know. So over a week's worth of work or whatever, it's what you know from start to finish, and then I called cold smoke them a day or so. So I really really love the process. I think I can definitely get better And hence, you know, i wanted to pick your brains really about. You know what tips you've kind of learned as you've, as you're now doing it commercially, i suppose.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think, i think basically I almost started where you, where you've started. You know that's that's. I suppose it's a place where I don't even start, isn't it? You know I didn't. You know, i've got no butcher training. I haven't come from the sort of the professional meat industry from in that respect, so I'm so pretty much. It was exactly like you're saying. It was start with something really basic and then start adding in the flavors and just the main. I suppose the main thing is make sure you write it down. Yeah, i'm free, that's like the classic, because then you got that one was really good. What did I put in that one? Oh, you know, you need to kind of you write down those quantities and just experiment with as many different kind of like spices and flavors and balancing the salt and sugar. I, my vacans, are quite sweet. I'm hopefully not overly sweet, but then more of a sort of American style bacon I'm, because I find some of the, some of the butcher bacon where they just use the salt, they can be really quite salty.
Speaker 3:You know.
Speaker 2:So I've tried to keep my salt as minimal as I can deal with a bit of sweet, but it's hot, like it's difficult to try and balance, it isn't it, you know, to not be too overpowering, and everyone's got obviously a slightly different taste. And then I just wanted to just do some slightly wacky flavors. That was my, my idea. So I'm yeah, it's just a case of experimenting with them, seeing what you like. So I do like a chocolate espresso flavor, so that uses um, yeah, so it uses obviously brown coffee and organic cocoa in it. And then I do a chili and paprika flavor. So it's still got the sweetness with the paprika, but then I use my smoked chilies in that as well. And I do, i do. The maple is probably my plainest flavor. I mean, people aren't sure which ones to go for us, so go for the maple. That's a maple syrup base, essentially. And then the final one I do, which I do a couple of versions of, is I do a rum and molasses flavor. So I haven't, i haven't yet. I kind of keep thinking you can do gin flavor. Haven't gone into gin yet, maybe a gin flavored one or something, but you can kind of you, know you can literally be, as you know, experimental, as you want to, really, but just make sure you write it down each time and get people to test it, so that's where you come in, then is it done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, i mean you did like a rosemary one before Owen that I really enjoyed and you weren't that happy with. This is like a first attempt, but I loved it. I really enjoyed it And it impressed me that you've got a proper cutter as well now in, because you just gave me the slab and I just hacked away with it to get the chunks off that I wanted.
Speaker 3:I think the term is all the gear, no idea, but actually just sort of talking about, you know run molasses and gin, one of the things. So my local butcher for a for a time had beer, bacon. I think it was a local, a local Suffolk beer, yeah yeah, so this, i was nervous to try actually doing more of a wet cure as opposed to more of a dry cure. Is there a big difference in terms of using something like rum or gin or beer about how you do that curing process? Is it different if it is more of a dry?
Speaker 2:So I tend then to to cure first with just the salt, and then I add my flavor in, so so that I know that I'm not diluting any of the salt. Basically, so we know we've got it cured once, and then you can kind of add in as many sort of flavors as that. So that's just how I, how I, worked it out. So my whole process takes around about three weeks by the time I've done, yeah, done, all of that. So it's quite a long, a long process. But then I, you know, i quite like the fact that it's a long process. Then you know it's it's taking on those flavors and it's doing it's, it's it's having time to do it. So I'm yeah, don't be afraid to lengthen that process out once you've got it cured. Essentially, you've kind of stabilized your, your. What was raw meat is now a stabilized meat And it, if you've used the right quantity and the right ratio of salts, that should be fairly sort of stable for you. You know, when I, when I first started commercially because obviously we now have to send it all off for micro testing, so all my stuff goes off to the lab quite frequently now And when we first started, we started out with a, i think we had an eight day shelf life on it. You know, just because you know, to start with and that's what we're now up to a 35 day shelf life. I've just tested for a 50 day shelf life. So I haven't had the test results back for 50 days. That's a bit of a no no, you get excited yet. But I haven't actually changed the recipe. So that's the same, the same recipe, it's just obviously I've just been kind of gradually, kind of okay, let's, let's see if we can do it for another week, and let's see if we can do it for another week And as I've gone as it's gone into more retailers and as we're going into a lot more sort of food service and stuff, they want the longer shelf life as well. But funnily enough, had I just at the beginning, just tested it for 35 days, it would have been fine. So you, once you've got it, it's quite stable. You've got time to play around with it, basically.
Speaker 1:I think I have actually had your products before. When you were talking about the flavors, something rang a bell in my head. Am I right in thinking that you supply tiny rebel? Yes, yes. So my dad lives probably about four miles from their hub And I've been to two yeah, exactly, and I've been to two of their burger nights I'm sure one of them was Maple Cured Bacon I was thinking, yeah, yeah yeah, there you go, it's good stuff. I was like let me have a look on Instagram while you're talking, because I'm sure. And then I saw one of your people. I was like yeah, yeah, so it's good stuff, owen, just in case you're wondering.
Speaker 2:And actually they're a really good customer, actually fair play, because they just they're just exclusively using their My Bacon across all three sites. And yeah, the brewery is cool, isn't it? I love it. I'm trying to convince.
Speaker 1:Owen to go down there because we live now the other side of the UK So like I'm in Ipswich, Owen's in Manningtree, but I go back there probably once every two, three months. I keep saying yeah, i keep saying to Owen right, we need to go down. I wouldn't see my parents when I was down there, but we'd have a wonderful time, particularly if we could time it around the Six Nations. We're probably late this year, but all this other rugby stuff.
Speaker 2:This year hasn't been a good year, has it? Oh, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:I've been so pleased because, weirdly, my dad's English and I'm Welsh, so he's. I mean, i was enjoying the France results because of what we, what I've had to go through with him talking to me in the last few weeks, as it were. But, like they do, six Nation days where, particularly when, if the games line up properly, you can be there for like 10 hours and it's just alcohol, food, rugby, sleep And it's so good All the pubs are, you know, even like.
Speaker 2:We've got a local restaurant here which is excellent, but they've been opening it early, so they've taken in those earlier matches and they're open all the way through. Yeah, like yeah. Wales just gets right behind the Six Nations, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:It does. But again, the quality of Tiny Rebel. They are so particular about what they stock that that's a hell of an achievement for them to pick you for their bacon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i know they've been. Really they have been really good and we've done a couple of sort of extra things with them in terms of events. So I'm hoping that we'll get maybe some more kind of collabs going with them in terms of that They use. They do use one of the chilli jams in some of their burgers as well. Yeah, if you go for one I can't remember what the name of that burger is, but they use one of the chilli jams in that too. So they're good. Actually, they've been a good customer. So, yeah, so you have tried it.
Speaker 1:I have, yeah, inadvertedly, and I've enjoyed it, so that's always a good sign.
Speaker 3:This is going to sound like a. I feel it's a silly question, but you were talking about, you know, starting at eight days and then going to 35, still using the same recipe, except for, hopefully, 50 days, does, naturally, if you, if you only cure it for eight days, the flavour it's not as rich of a flavour as it would be for 35 days. Is it a bit like a wine? The more it's aged, the deeper the flavour becomes. To you, would you say.
Speaker 2:Not necessarily, because at that point you sort of taken it out of the flake, you know, out of the intense flavour. I kind of put mine into, like, then an intense flavour and let it kind of soak it up and then take it out of that into the smoking. So I wouldn't say particularly, but there's probably a bit of an element of that. You know, I suppose some a little bit more of the flavour is going to go and then probably a little bit of the smoke is going to develop as well over that time. Even if it's black packed, you'd imagine that that smoke might develop a bit. Then I do leave it for it gets a while before being packaged anyway for the smoke flavours to really sort of develop in there as well. And yeah, so I wouldn't say hugely, but maybe, maybe there might be a little bit of that. You know, like you say, if you eat a 35 day old piece of bacon, is it going to taste a bit more smoking and a bit more maple-y Maybe, And talking, about the smoking side.
Speaker 3:so you're cold smoking. Yeah, What is there a particular wood type that you use for your smoking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i go for maple for the bacon, actually just because I find it just it's not too much Like. I want it smoky but I don't want it overpowering for people And again, i think it complements that slightly sweeter bacon that I do as well. So, yeah, so my word for that is maple. I've got some. They're not private customers so they're commercial customers but I smoke for them if that makes sense. But I don't then sell their bacon. They sell that So they can sometimes choose other woods. a lot of people they quite often like oak, but for me that's a bit too much on my bacon. It's a powerful wood for bacon. Yeah, that's what I find. So, yeah, but for my bacon it's maple. But yeah, they can have a choice of other woods. Sometimes they go for apple as well, i've found.
Speaker 3:I've used cherry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i'll cherry, yeah, yeah, so I just don't wanna overpower the actual flavors in the bacon, is my feeling with that one. Yeah, what did you go for? Did you say cherry?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've used cherry a couple of times. What else did I? I think the one with Dan, i think I might have done beach.
Speaker 1:I think. Are you sure it wasn't hickory? I'm sure you mentioned hickory.
Speaker 3:I can't remember Claire, actually the first one I can't remember.
Speaker 2:but And right at Danisey, did you, i did, i did.
Speaker 3:No, I didn't. I free-ball a lot of things, to be perfectly honest with you and just have them feel it. It's almost that flair. I just chuck it in, it'll be fine. We've obviously spoken a fair amount about bacon, which I could literally do all day, but some of the other things that you're doing. So you said you're smoking salts as well, but I'm interested to know a little bit more about your jams.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So the jams, so yeah. So my jams I do smoked chilli jams and then I do. I've just launched just before Christmas I did a couple. I've launched a couple of meat jams as well. So the chilli jams has been going for a while. So essentially that was me in a little mad moment, kind of going. Well, if you can smoke chilies and obviously most of us know about jalapeno changing into a chipotle that's the classic sort of smoke chilli, isn't it? So if you can smoke that with that, then why can't I get lots of other chilies and smoke them as well, basically? So I think a lot of people think that I'm like a real chilli head and I'm not at all. I'm a bit of a wuss actually. So I'm kind of about halfway through my range. You know, all the ones are a bit hot for me. But people don't realise that just because I work with super hot chilli, so I work with reapers and nagas and all this like the super hot they assume that I just eat them. I don't just eat them at all not at all. So yeah, so I started kind of smoking all these different chilies. I got into some of the chilli farms that we've got in, the chilli growers that we've got in the UK, and we've got some really good chilli growers here. I don't know if you guys have spoken to many of them, but we've got some.
Speaker 1:I know South Devon chilli farm is one that I know of.
Speaker 2:Yes, this one, yeah, and then we've got. I use one here actually in Pembrokeshire, so I use Pembrokeshire chilli farms. They grow excellent chilies. There's Oxford chilli farm as well. There's Edible ornamentals in Bedfordshire. You know some really good chilli growers growing some excellent chilies. So I got in touch with them, did a bit of basically ordered loads, figured out which ones I kind of liked she says in inverted commas for the hot ones. I sort of went. That's where I'm going to go and I'll have a go smoking them, so I'll smack them all and then that's what then became the base for each jam. So there's eight chilli jams and each one is made with its own variety of chilli, basically, and then some of them have got like a few extra herbs or spices thrown in. But the idea was kind of to have a range of chilli jams going from really mild to really quite hot, kind of showcasing each chilli within it rather than because I think a lot of people as well you kind of go down to the supermarket and you pick up that little bag, don't you? that's got like maybe three or four chilies in. It might have one green one and a few red ones, and you sort of go home and stick that in your curry and don't necessarily think about what chilies they actually are. So I wanted to sort of show the variety of chilies that we can get and that we can grow in this country. So all of my chilies are grown in the UK that I use. So the way it works is we get, i place my orders. So I've placed my orders already for this year. They're being grown for me already. So I give the growers rough amounts and kilos of what I want and they figure out how many plants that is, i assume, and I don't even know if you've ever grown them for me. Basically now and then as they start harvesting, then then they'll send them through to me. So that'll sort of start around about September time and go on to probably end of November, that sort of time there, so depending on the chilies. So GN, really speaking the milder ones right in first, so we'll kind of go through the milder ones and then we'll get into kind of October time it'll be the mids and then we'll go to the super hot kind of end of October into November, and then that will then be my chip, so I'll smoke. I'll basically be like mad because I probably like a bit of an idea. I like my chilli jam to not have any seeds in it. So that basically means de-seeding all the chilies. Yeah, i know, which is probably a really silly thing to have started doing, wasn't it?
Speaker 3:So I have to get in help.
Speaker 2:So I have to get in help and we all kind of clover up in gloves and everything and goggles and everything like that, and de-seed like hundreds of kilos of chilies basically, and smoke them all and then I keep those all frozen, basically, so they'll be then my. So I've ordered now for the chilies that I will be using next year in my jams. So if that gives you a kind of an idea, since quite a long, again quite a long process and hopefully I've ordered right, it's a bit of a gamble how many I'm gonna need of each, but yeah, it's quite interesting to see all the different chilies and stuff as well and to work with them. And then I do the meat jams as well. So we get quite a lot of trim left over from the bacon, and it was at the beginning of the pandemic when I started producing quite a lot more bacon, because it went a bit mental online basically, and I was like what am I gonna do with all this trim? It's not just a bit now, like the dogs will eat it, obviously, but we're getting quite a lot now to give to the dogs. So I just thought, well, i can start grinding up the bacon, so ground the bacon. So I do burgers and I put the ground bacon into it and I sell just the ground bacon on its own as well. But then I was like, well, i'm gonna make that into a bacon jam. And, funny enough, i've seen a lot of people doing bacon jam recently as well, isn't there? There's been a bit of a wait. Did one of you guys do bacon jam as well, or not?
Speaker 3:Was that something else at all? No, okay, yeah, we've done that okay.
Speaker 2:I've seen quite a few people in the last month or two have been doing some bacon jam. So yeah, so I'd now do a smoked bacon jam and then I do a smoked chorizo jam as well. The chorizo I don't make. I'll put my hands up and say that's my by the chorizo in so, and then I just smoke it basically. So yeah, that's my jam making.
Speaker 3:Honestly, i'm so hungry. It's ridiculous, but you go on Tom.
Speaker 1:What I'd love to know is you've gone through this whole journey and all of these fantastic products you're producing. How did you originally get into smoking? Well, where did it start?
Speaker 2:I think really it did come from the bacon in the beginning, just to try and add that extra bit of extra bit of flavour and then to experiment to see how much that helps in terms of preservation as well. I've got two hats on. I've got my little homesteaders hat, where what I really like is the whole preserving and no waste and using everything, and then I've got my commercial hat now with all the products, and all those products basically came from a homesteading side of things And me just trying to preserve as much of each thing as I could do basically, and it's then got slightly sidetracked into doing things like smoking chilies. I know that's got not really much to do with homesteading, but just was fun to do And it's worked really well. But yeah, so it really came from trying the bacon. I've got like a chargriller grill with an offset box on it, so it came from just. I started just with that with one of the you know the Pro-Q do the little cold smoking.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the little box, the wheels, or, yeah, smoke generator.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the dust in it. So I started off well, actually I started off just buying some chips and realised very soon that you can't keep those at light, so then not just on there. So then I was like, oh look, someone does something smaller, that's much going to make a lot more sense, so you know. so I've kind of gone through all of that that was, you know, years ago And then realised that like that gets really quite affected by the weather as well, doesn't it? I don't know if you've tried using those smoke generators outside, like even in a, even in a grill. It's quite windy up here. I live a thousand foot up a mountain, you know it can get. you know the wind coming through, even if you shut your air intake down, will affect that smoke quite a lot. So all of my smoking, my smoke room now I've got commercial food in it and then I've got a smoke room set inside that now with extractor fans and everything's all digital and it's all you know a lot more repeatable there. And it wasn't in the beginning, it was much more kind of sort of, i suppose, a little bit more organic and a bit more fun in the beginning trying to figure it out how long things are going to take to smoke as well. There's another thing, isn't it? how long? how long is it going to? you know how long do you want it to be smoking for? You can smoke it. you can smoke the bacon for days if you want to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's interesting. You're saying at the beginning about the kind of being affected by the weather and things like that. So I've got the Pro-Q smoking cabinet, you know, just an aluminium cabinet, and again using the smoke generator that you were mentioning. But I've found that it has been affected by the weather a few times And the worst one was I actually tried to do some smoking last summer and, being, i suppose, an aluminium, the sun was hitting that cabinet and it got so hot that it actually melted the cheese. Because the cabinet got hot from the sun, not the actual smoke, so I ended up with just the pool of melted cheese I was underneath. you would have had a great time.
Speaker 2:I mean, I thought it was really tasty smoked cheese. Right, It was tasty cheese, yeah.
Speaker 3:It's got some nachos and stuff.
Speaker 2:It wasn't quite how you wanted it, though, was it.
Speaker 3:No, unfortunately not.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's definitely taken some experimenting quite a few years of experimenting, i think to get it to where I'm happy now with my recipes, for reasons.
Speaker 3:And on the commercial you mentioned you got the smoke rub now and it's commercialised. in that respect, Do you still use the dust or how does it work on a larger scale?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it's still small. I suppose I've just got Bradleys in there, so I've got a little team of Bradleys Just because I like their biscuits, i like their smoke generator. With the digital side of things, it's quite sort of simple. You can get much bigger kilns. I don't know if you guys have seen the kilns that you can buy. There are a lot of the fish smokers when they're smoking bigger quantities, so you can buy them right up to the size of a room where you can literally wheel your tronies in stacked up with everything. But a lot of the time you're paying for the I think there could be wrong but I think you're paying for the temperature control in them, because a lot of the time people are hot smoking with them, whereas because I'm cold smoking, all I really do need is a way to generate the smoke and a box So as temperature controlled, as in it's not sitting out in the sun and also, hopefully, there's no wind whipping through it, so, yeah, so I just keep it quite simple at the moment and then I think what we're going to do is sort of keep adding to those, because they're quite a nice size and they keep the smoke in. Quite well, the Bradleys. Yeah, so it's nothing too grand. A lot of people have probably got Bradleys at home, i guess you know, but we've just probably got a few more. I've racked mine out slightly differently now so I can hang bellies in those as well rather than having to use the shelves, so that just makes it a bit easier for me.
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Speaker 3:Visit aoskitchenscouk, Just to move completely away from smoking and stuff for a minute. In terms of your products, I noticed on your website that you also offer workshops for smoking. Is that right? And with some barbecues chucked in, I believe that it mentioned Absolutely. And also, is it like a B&B as well? Is that right? You can stay as well.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. So we've got a little holiday cottage. that's a sort of converted barn basically. So, yeah, people can look it together if they want to, or you can just come and stay in the holiday cottage And then I do smoking and curing workshops. So that was the first one I started doing, and we started doing those before the pandemic. I mean they went really well and then obviously everything shut down, didn't it? So smoking and curing is where we started. So we do, we cover cold smoking in that and we cover hot smoking as well and the differences between them, and then obviously put a load of curing in there as well. So we do sort of just some fish, you know some things like some cured herring and things like that that isn't smoked as well, and a lot of people coming on that one. It's quite nice. I quite often find a lot of people don't even necessarily know the difference between hot and cold smoking. I know a lot of your, you know people listen to this, probably do, but there's an awful lot of people out there who don't. So that's quite nice to sort of be able to just literally kind of almost go back to basics and then we go right through to, you know making, making some bacon and that sort of things, and then I do a barbecue and fire cooking workshop as well. So that's more based around introducing people to the different barbecue skills as much as you can. It's hard, isn't it? Because you can't do those long slow cooks. You know you can tell people about them, but we try and do as much as we can do in those, in those ones, and then I'm, and then I do a preserving workshop as well. So that's all outside of a fire. So we do jam chutney, a pickle, generally a ferment as well, so different than we do. Do you guys know what American pressure canning is?
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:So I've got an American style canner. So American homesteaders can a lot of their food, so it basically means preserving it. They usually use glass jars with with a lid, and basically what this canner does is it basically anything. Anything you can buy in a tin, essentially I can can which, when they say can, is in a glass jar, and that basically makes it shelf stable. So I can, i can can meats, fish, you know soups, stocks, and I've got you can't see it on the camera at the moment, but I've got shelves all around my kitchen where I've just kind of, you know, like all like my turkey stock from Christmas and stuff. I've done loads of loads of cans of that and they're just up on the shelf, they don't have to take up freezer space. So we go through that in the preserving one And then, yeah, we do the jams and stuff all outside of fire as well, which is quite fun to do. So, yeah, For listeners.
Speaker 1:You talked about kind of the basics for barbecue. What sort of tips will people learn on that course?
Speaker 2:Um. so that's well, a lot of the time we are literally going right from the beginning. So you know, we'll start with the fuel, will look at the different kinds of charcoal that you can get. you know we'll look at the. I'm good, i know you guys talk about it on here a lot and we'll talk about it, don't we? but that good old thing of like temperature, you know, look at the different types of thermometer you can get. And then you know, obviously I'll have prepped a lot of stuff beforehand, but the whole idea is that we'll create a meal on the day and then we'll also sit down and eat it. So we'll do. you know, we'll do some wings, but I might. I said to you I was vegetarian and my daughter's vegetarian, so we'll do a lot of a lot of vegetable dishes alongside the meats as well. I'm because I want to show people how, how good they can be barbecued as well. And we've got the garden here. So quite often we'll go and pick whatever is in season in the garden or in the polytunnel, and then that's what we'll create the meal with. So I want it to be quite. my cooking is quite seasonal, so I want to kind of bring that into the workshops as well. And so I'm saying, with the like, with the preserving course, that will be whatever seasonal at the time as well. Yeah, so we'll go and kind of I don't know, you know some cabbage and you know, chop it up and char that maybe as a little bit of a starter and stuff as well. As well as doing, you know, of course you've got to reverse the mistake because a lot of people haven't done that, and of course you've got to plank up some fish having here as well, because a lot of people you know haven't done that and it's so simple, isn't it? So we'll do that. We'll kind of cover those two things As well. as you know, we'll bake a pudding generally as well. So I don't know, maybe something simple like a crumble or disney scones or you know, do some baking as well. Try and kind of show people all the different ways that you can kind of use the different bits of equipment as well. You know some people come not knowing what they want to buy. How do you, how do you decide what you want to buy? There's so many different things out there, isn't there. It's nice to come and have it for trying them.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes We have very much two different. Oh God, yeah, that's a good. That's a better question than what I was going to say.
Speaker 2:I've got. So I've got the child gorilla. That's probably first one that I started with. We've got that one. I've got a commando Joe. I've got a savage fire cage And I've got. My husband has built an enormous brick pizza oven, so wood fire oven, i should say. So I've got that as well. And then I've just got a fire pit as well. I do a fair amount of cooking just on the fire pit. So yeah, do you chain that?
Speaker 1:up. How do you cook on the fire pit?
Speaker 2:No, i tend to. I've got one that's got a shelf that comes over, so that's you know. I can just literally put you know, pots and pans on there as well. Like it's not a lot of my cooking it, i like to kind of just use the fire. That the just a different way to cook, rather than necessarily do big bits of meat all the time. Does that sort of you know, does that make sense Although I can do big bits of meat, obviously And then. But I like to show people that fire is just. It's kind of like the same as your oven, but your oven is just a bit more controllable And less fun.
Speaker 1:Yeah, less fun, less flavourful as well, you know.
Speaker 2:Exactly. So you know that you can kind of. I think a lot of people are a little bit, maybe just a little bit lucky and confident sometimes. You know, they're kind of stuck some sausages on there and that's about as much as they've sort of done. You know sausages and dunes and burgers, and it's nice to sort of show them all the different things that you can do, and then I think they then having things like the fire cage and then the brick oven and the Camino, that gives me a massive amount of different things that I can do all at the same time. Basically, i can have quite a lot of different things going on there And things you know. Well, you guys know, don't you? Things like the Camino are so forgiving, aren't they, Once you've got them set up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, once you understand how long it takes to light and the fact you need to soak the ceramic with heat, you can keep that going for hours and hours and hours on minimal fuel. It's just understanding how it works in the first place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's what you know. That time you need to show people, because I haven't ever seen one, let alone kind of used one. You know, but once you've got it going it's wonderful, versus something like a fire cage which won't keep going. Not at all, no, particularly not here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, not with the wind Do you have to have. Have you got the cage that has the? it was like the windbreakers. I've got what they call the panels.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and I don't even really take those off, even in summer. No, it's, yeah, i mean, that's why it's windy today. I'm glad the connection's okay, but yeah, so yeah, this morning we were running at about 50, 60 mile an hour. Winds this morning up here.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, It was, it was. it probably wasn't quite as windy as that for you guys, I'm guessing.
Speaker 3:No, oh, it's been fairly windy, but yeah, definitely not that, not that bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know if you're cooking in that it can be quite fun.
Speaker 3:I can imagine. Well, actually this could be a good opportunity then, if to talk about any barbecue fails, maybe wind related or not. As you know, we love to talk about things that haven't gone so well. So, whether that's curing, barbecuing, whatever you want to tell us what. What stories have you got for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, So I thought I've got a couple of a couple of stories. So probably my biggest stressful fail was doing a. So this is quite a few years ago now. I've got a hog roaster and and we obviously had some with we essentially would kill the pigs. I thought we'd have a bit of a celebration, bit of a party. I think it was husband's birthday as well, So it wasn't a whole pig, It was a. I think we did. I think we did a whole turkey, because I had too many turkeys and I was just like, let's just do one of those now. So we had a whole turkey and I think we did a really big pig's leg on there. And, like I said, this was quite a long time ago before I really understood about the thing called stalling. So, hmm, yes, you see where this is going on. So everything was basically going to plan. It was marvelous, The temperature is looking good, Everything's all cool and everybody's arriving and everything's great. And I'm thinking, oh, we're going to, you know, about an hour. It's going to be great, isn't it No?
Speaker 3:it's really not going to be great Yeah.
Speaker 2:So then I panic, so then you kind of like, oh my God, so you know, we've probably all done this, and we whack the temperature right up, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God what we're going to do. Like literally everybody said, yeah, everybody was basically waiting for about four hours until I was happy with the temperature I'm, but you know, i mean everyone was fine, there was drinks flowing and there was music and stuff, but yeah, that was probably. You know, yeah, that was probably one of the worst. You've got about 30, 40 people just sort of looking at you kind of thinking I'm hungry now. Yeah, exactly, exactly. Yeah, there was that one. And then, i think, the other thing that I think I was trying to remember whether it was either with the tomato or it was with the brick oven. I think it was with the brick oven because when the when that really gets going and the flames come to come around, and I think, i think it was that and I opened the door to that. I think, rather than the tomato, it's got to have been, because I basically singed off pretty much all my eyebrows and definitely all my eyelashes. Oh yeah, just where it just came out Like yeah, basically Yeah, so that was a pretty bad fail. So now I'm always quite cautious when I do it.
Speaker 1:Do it a bit first, bit first Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Because it's a girl, you know not going to have a few eyelashes.
Speaker 1:See, with a 40-year-old at home, you burp it first. That's the rule.
Speaker 2:So stalling and burp it first. There'd be my two little super things. We've got to learn these things, don't we? Generally, if I do them, Yeah, definitely.
Speaker 3:Oh, that could have been so much worse as well. Luckily, it was just your eyebrows and lashes. Imagine if your whole hair had gone.
Speaker 2:And you know you get that smell, don't you? from burnt hair just instantly And it kind of makes that a kiss, doesn't it? And you're just like oh no.
Speaker 3:And I kind of felt my eyebrows.
Speaker 2:I was like oh no.
Speaker 3:Permanent surprise look.
Speaker 2:Exactly. Exactly You go a bit kind of like curly, don't you Curly and white. One of good, one of good looks.
Speaker 1:I had a fellow on the weekend that I haven't told her in a bow. So I got a Dutch oven from Alton's Barbecue World. We went to the open evening there. I absolutely love it. It's a Petra Max, I think that's how you pronounce it German brand And I did a lamb shank in there. Absolutely amazing, Loved it. Loved how it came out. It looked gorgeous. Go check out the Instagram. But so took it out, put it on the side, left it for a while when I did like the mashed potatoes And then I thought that's been sat there for half an hour. So it should be fine if I just take the lid off my hand. Nope, Burn the hell out on my hand Because you know cast iron, it holds its heat a lot. I'm just lucky I didn't take anything out when I dropped the lid, So basically threw it across the room. It was heavy. But yeah, it's not until you've got it kind of four, five maybe inches away that you've realized how hot it is And you can't just put it back down when it's that hot.
Speaker 2:Petra Max, handles aren't that big are they Nope. You kind of got it, you kind of got to really have it, to lift it up. You know, you kind of you committed, aren't you at that point?
Speaker 1:Oh, i committed lots of things that day And that was very painful indeed. So where gloves, people did you not take it?
Speaker 3:Does the Petra Max ones come with a little like metal hook to take them off?
Speaker 1:They do, but I didn't purchase it, oh, and so maybe that's another purchase I need to make.
Speaker 3:The one I got. I can't remember what brand it was. It actually comes with it A little hook And I never touch it with my hands at all. Always use that hook.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sensible, sensible words.
Speaker 1:I just thought half an hour, half an hour, you know should be, should be fine, but no no, no, they are amazing things. Oh God, like I could leave. how easy it was to use, how well the lamb came out and the fact that I'd never used them before. I was amazed at how it seemed to absorb the heat from the barbecue when you've got the vents open quite a lot and you're sitting it in the colds directly and thinking you know, my condo is not showing more than like 80 degrees. Is this thing actually? is there any heat in there? And you open the lid and it's because it's just absorbed all of it. I love them. Great piece of care. Get some.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, they're really good. And then, yeah, and they're great on the fire cage as well And in the fire pit. You know, that's the kind of thing that I'll use those quite a lot and then and in the the the oven as well. So, quite generally, if I'm going to, if I'm going to do like pizzas or something like that, then then I'll I'll have already prepped like a curry or something and just stick it in there overnight And then I'll just use that residual heat and then it's ready for the morning. Yeah, awesome, little little pots They are. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I love the sound of curry for breakfast as well. That just sounds beautiful.
Speaker 2:With no effort, literally no effort.
Speaker 3:That sounds like a Sunday morning breakfast after.
Speaker 2:Did you have to like remember just definitely do put lots of liquid in. Definitely do put lots of liquid in, because otherwise it goes wrong. Yeah.
Speaker 3:It would be good to know what plans you've got for 2023. Are there, dare I say it, maybe some new products that we can get an exclusive on, or you've got some events coming up. What's the plans for you this year?
Speaker 2:The plans for me is to just try and keep it all going. There's lots of spinning of plates that I do. There's more workshops. this year We're going to be doing some more food fairs and stuff in the summer. There might be some more events coming up there as well in the summer. I haven't got any new exclusive products to tell you about at the moment, unfortunately. I keep coming up with them and I keep having to just stick with the ones you've got. I know I have to keep going. Just keep doing the ones you've got. There's nothing going to be hugely different from last year, but just trying to do more of it all. My kids are getting a little bit older and we can go out and do a few more events. I'd like to do some more of that stuff this summer. I think we're all still a bit desperate to go out, aren't we? I know we had last summer. My kids are getting a bit older. I've got one now that's old enough to stay here overnight. That's quite handy so you can look after the animals first. I've got to balance the animal side of things as well with the business side of things. That would be good to go out and do a few more things. There's lots of stuff happening in this area of Wales, but generally it's all a little bit smaller. So to go and do a few more things over in England or probably down in South Wales.
Speaker 3:Shall we move on to our? we've been talking lots about ingredients. Shall we go on to our BBQ Bingo challenge?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, let's have a look.
Speaker 3:BBQ Bingo is brought to you by Lumberjack Food Company. Your ticket to Flavortown.
Speaker 1:Owen's going to bring up this wheel for you to look at. Anyone on YouTube will probably know how much money we've put into this fantastic contraption. That does or does not work occasionally, but there's a whole list of ingredients here where, over the course of the last series, we've been asking our guests, once they get picked something, to leave an ingredient. So, before we spin this, have a think about what you might want to leave someone to experiment with. But we have some great options there. We also have something called My Signature Dish Where, if it lands on that, we'll ask you to cook something that you're known for. So what would be your signature dish?
Speaker 2:It's going to have to be something to do with bacon isn't it?
Speaker 3:It has to, be surely.
Speaker 2:It's got to be, surely, if I just leave it like that, something to do with bacon, and then I can, yeah, so I think that's it's got to be bacon in there.
Speaker 3:Sounds good, right, okay, oh, going down.
Speaker 1:Just checking. There's nothing on there you're allergic to, is there? No, no, no, i'm not allergic to anything. We're all good.
Speaker 2:Good, we've had it once and so we like to occasionally check, you're all good, love it, go for it Oh black pudding. Nice. Okay, are you a fan of black pudding? I am a fan of black pudding. Actually, i like to live. You know, i'm a big fan of, like black pudding and scallops. That's one of my favorites. Yeah, yeah, that's one of my favorites. But, funny enough, somebody mentioned the other day to add to my meat jam collection about maybe doing a black pudding.
Speaker 1:I was thinking that I was wondering if, like black pudding jam is a thing.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I would eat that for breakfast every day. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:So it might have to be a combination of the two, right, and I might have to do a sort of a black pudding jam with a black pudding and scallops or something like that, i think it's black pudding and scallops.
Speaker 3:Is that a Sussex?
Speaker 2:dish. Is that just me? Sure Sussex, I've heard of it.
Speaker 1:My mum's obsessed with it and she's very much Welsh, so maybe part of Sussex was in Wales that day. I don't know.
Speaker 2:But, um, okay, i'll have a bit more of a thing. You know, i like that pudding. We went up to, um, the uh, alta Hebrides, um, last no, not last year, the year before And um, they do not have enough pudding up on the Isle of Lewis And I found this black pudding that I really liked and I went in there and there's all these you know, it's kind of it's quite touristy, isn't it? There's all these people buying these little packs, you know, and there's like I don't know, four slices in each pack or something like that. And I was like, can I just buy two black puddings? They're like, yeah, they're over there. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, i want to buy two black puddings please. I want the whole black puddings. You know, none of that sort of sizes. I came away with these black puddings and then, obviously, i brought them back here and sliced them up and backpacked them and you know, yeah, i think I've got to. Basically I've got to go back to the Alta Hebrides just to go and buy some more of their black puddings, which I do totally legitimate It's what it sounds.
Speaker 3:yeah, expense, That's definitely a business expense.
Speaker 2:It's you know, for this, now for this, there we are.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly There we are. Well done us.
Speaker 2:Got to go and do it because they told me yeah.
Speaker 3:What ingredient would you like to leave?
Speaker 2:So I was thinking although you put a couple of fruit on here already, but I was thinking strawberries- Oh, that's a good shell.
Speaker 1:I don't think we've got strawberries.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and they're kind of coming up for summer, aren't we? Yeah, Now, so yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, by the time this episode comes out, probably going to be mid to end of May, So I'll be perfect This will be perfect.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 3:That's on the list.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome. Now I'm quite excited about doing some. that's a good excuse to cook up some black puddings. That's good. Quite happy with that one.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we look forward to it. Tag us in on Instagram once you've cooked that and then we can we can reshare that. So is there anything that we haven't spoken about yet, that you would like to kind of bring up? any questions? we haven't asked about the business or anything else for that matter, actually, that you wanted to talk about.
Speaker 2:The only thing I didn't get onto, i suppose, with my waffling earlier on was just to talk about the lamb bacon. I do.
Speaker 1:I wrote that down and I was worried that I'd misheard and it was lamb comma bacon. So I would say it looks stupid, but lamb bacon like I've never heard of anyone else doing anything like that before.
Speaker 2:I think there's a couple of people doing. I've seen there's a couple of people doing lamb bacon, but they do it with the breast, whereas mine's done with the loin. But I don't know anybody else doing a smoked lamb bacon. I could be wrong. Somebody might write in or tell you whatever that there is something else doing it. But yeah, so I was kind of just because I lamb butchery I'm fine with the, like the chickens and the turkeys I'm fine with. So I was chewing a lamb and as I was kind of butchering it, i was just like that's it And I thought so why can't I just make it into bacon, the same as I make my bacon, you know? so yeah, that's where the lamb bacon came from And yeah, that's quite popular in terms of one of our products.
Speaker 1:How does that taste and feel like? it must be different, like very different.
Speaker 2:No, it's not feel. The texture isn't that different to normal bacon.
Speaker 3:Obviously, it's like a little miniature rasher.
Speaker 2:I mean it's like a little mini, mini one. It does taste like a sort of, you know, lamby bacon. You get the two things there. So, yeah, it's definitely a bit, it's definitely different to a pork bacon. But then I get some people who say, oh, i don't like lamb, and then they try the lamb bacon and they do like that, you know. So it's got a bit of crossover there. So yeah, i just that's quite a popular product of ours and maybe something that's a little bit different, like you say, people haven't heard of before.
Speaker 3:I'm in that camp. I don't for all the love of meat and barbecue and all these things, I just can't get on with lamb. But I've tried lots of different types of lamb and things, but I'd still like to give it a go, even though I don't know lamb. The fact that it's in bacon form and you've cured it and smoked it, et cetera.
Speaker 2:It's definitely an interesting flavor.
Speaker 3:It's gotta be an interesting flavor for sure.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you still might not like it, but a lot of people that don't like that classic lamb flavor do like the lamb bacon, and then we flavor that with a bit of temperature honey. We're using that one, so again, it's got that sweetness to it as well. So, yeah, so just something a little bit different. I think we've pretty much covered. Yeah, i smoke a lot of salts as well, so I smoke salt and sugar, which goes into the barbecue rubs. So I've just got a range of four of those where I try to use a lot of bulk products as well in those rubs. And yeah, i think that's pretty much covered, most of the products anyway, haven't we?
Speaker 3:Yeah, So this is your time, now for a proper shameless plug. Tell people where they can find you, what's your website, socials, et cetera. Tell people.
Speaker 2:Mostly Instagram, so it's Welsh homesteads Smokery on Instagram. That's pretty much where you'll find me. I did have a bit of a mess up on Facebook very long story, but my last access to my old account. So if you go to the Welsh homesteads Smokery Facebook, i can't see anything that you put on there. So don't go to the one that says new Welsh homesteads Smokery and then I might have a chance to be able to see you. Yeah, just don't. Yeah, very long story, so I try and stay. I try not to confuse people when I go on Facebook, mostly Instagram. Welsh homesteads Smokery or the website is WelshSmokerycouk And yeah, that's generally the best ways to find me. I have started TikTok, which is just Welsh homestead on TikTok, but I'm really not very good at that. I think that's an art, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's our TikTok guy. I don't even want to go near it.
Speaker 2:I thought, I was a little bit confused by Reels, to be honest with you. So then, going out to TikTok, oh, it's all a bit. Yeah, i find it all a bit. I've got a bunch of shit. I agree, i've got a bunch of shit, yeah, i think. I don't know, i'm just a bit nostalgic for just nice pictures again rather than video. Or is that just me?
Speaker 3:No, we mainly post videos. No, sorry, i think, if you look back, we've mainly posted images, more so than videos, to be fair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what I tend to do is because we have our podcast page, i'll put most of my pictures on there, because I feel safer doing that, And then my personal one. I'll put more of the videos, because if it messes up it doesn't matter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for some people do it so well, don't they? You look at some of these guys and they are just like flushing out such awesome Reels and they must spend so long doing you know, and their content just looks amazing, yeah. And then I get like I try and do it and then like well, particularly with winter, then it gets dark, doesn't it? So you started doing it, haven't you? Now you've just got the pictures of you trying to shine a torch on something. So it doesn't work, does it? They basically must start cooking a lot earlier than I start cooking, i think.
Speaker 3:Just to make sure they get it all in daylight.
Speaker 2:It all starts well and then it all goes wrong, doesn't it?
Speaker 3:I quite often do that. I start and then I lose my way halfway through and I forgot to bring my phone out to where I was cooking, and then I'll finish and I just want to eat it, and yeah, it's a rushed job then.
Speaker 1:Or the classic like Owen and I promise each other, we do a load of videos to start this year And in the winter. unless you start recording and doing stuff at like, 8 or 9 am game over, because by the time you finish it's dark.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, literally, and like in summertime it's not you've got a bit more flexibility. but then, like my family, get annoyed that I plate up this stuff and then I take it away from them and wander off around the garden with it somewhere to go and get some kind of nice picture with it and they're just like come on, now we're hungry. You've been cooking it for like six hours. Can you put it back in front of me again, please? Well, i'm guessing probably most people's families complain about same things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Pretty much pretty much. Yeah, well, it's been absolutely fantastic having you on the podcast, claire. We really really enjoyed talking to you. As I said, i've taken some tips away. I'm really happy about that, so, thank you. Yeah, cool, and hopefully we get to see you in person. It's maybe some events this year and, yeah, appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2:Oh no, thank you very much for inviting me and hopefully that's yeah, thank you A little bit of a different sort of few things that we've gone over with with sort of the more home-ceiling things and stuff as well, so it's quite nice to talk about that. So, thank you very much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, it's a first for us. So yeah, it was a nice change of pace.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's cool. Thank you for the invite.
Speaker 3:Thank you so much. Thanks, Claire.
Speaker 2:Cool cheers.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Bye.
Speaker 3:That's it awesome? I'm not sure. If you want me to actually go, then You can do yeah.
Speaker 2:We just will record the intro and outro afterwards.
Speaker 1:So go enjoy the rest of your evening.
Speaker 2:Thank you, i've got my feet here so I'm going to go and sort puppies out now. So Oh nice They've behaved and they've been quite quiet haven't they, we've been all right. Yeah, i haven't heard them. I would not have known, would not have known.
Speaker 1:They're in the room behind me. I was, like you know, husbands go out and they're like behind me.
Speaker 2:I was like you know, husbands got strict instructions that if they started making loads of noise they'd take them another room further than that. I was like are they going to think I'm strangling something behind me? So you know sort out the little pups now.
Speaker 1:So how do I go to hand me all guys?
Speaker 3:Cheers.
Speaker 1:Thanks, bye-bye.
Speaker 3:That's it for another episode of the Meat and Greet BBQ podcast. Thanks so much to Claire. It was amazing to talk about bacon. Who doesn't love bacon And all things cold, smoking, curing, And who doesn't want to eat bacon Jam? Oh, anyways, we'd also love to hear from you. Please tell us what you want to talk about. Like that episode there, a bit of a change of pace to our usual heavily barbecued focus talk. Please get in contact with us for our socials at Meat and Greet BBQ podcast through the website Meat and Greet BBQPodcastcom, And until next time, keep on grilling. Today's episode is brought to you by AOS Kitchens, the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.
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