Smoked Bologna

[thirdeye]

After seeing reinhard1's link bologna thread today... I thought I'd share my method for smoking a chub of bologna.  The first part is easy, start with 2# to 3# chub, and remove the plastic casing.  Do a cross score on the top and the sides.  Mix up a slather of yellow mustard and Wooster.  For my rub I'm using a homemade garlic pepper, but anything that is lower in salt (bologna has a fair amount of salt in it) is a good choice.

I lightly spray the entire chub with olive oil (spraying the bottom helps prevent sticking), add the rub, then paint the top and sides of the chub with a thin coating of the slather adding more rub as needed. The mustard keeps it moist, and is a complementary flavor.

Step 3 is to smoke it.  With a chub of this diameter and thickness, my smoking time was close to 3-1/2 hours using an indirect set-up and pit temps in the 225° to 250° range. I use a mix of cherry and hickory flavor chunks/pellets.  Remember, bologna is already cooked, so you are just heating it up to get a crusty bark and to develop some good color. You want the score marks to open up.  I did not spray this one while smoking, but I generally mix a 50:50 solution of Wooster and water and have it on hand just in case the bologna looks a little dry, just spray them once or twice if needed.

Step 4 - At this point you can slice it and make sandwiches, or little sliders.  It can be cubed and served on toothpicks.  Or it can be rested and then cooled to slice later for sandwiches (a quick pan fry with some butter will wake-up the smokey flavor).   For this cook however, I did kind of a burnt end finish.  After cubing it, I slightly re-seasoned it and returned it to the pit for 30 to 40 minutes (just keep your eye on it so it doesn't dry out), then I sauced it and glazed it for 15 minutes or so.  I used a sweeter sauce to offset the rub and natural saltiness of the bologna.