Allô from Gattawa, Qc/ON

Howdy,

Got my 14.5" Bullet, a couple of days ago, as a birthday gift from my amazing partner (she knows me well), and as an upgrade from a Cheapo Offset Smoker. What a difference it makes!
I’m a French-speaking ethnographer from Montreal, now residing in Hull, Qc. Hull is part of Gatineau, which is part of the Ottawa, ON NCR (National Capital Region). The place sounds BBQ-friendly enough and neighbours have been quite intrigued by my first couple of cooks.
My approach to BBQ tends to be experimental and, dare I say, artistic. Not at all interested in competition and my BBQ geek cred probably won’t increase much. But I’ve been having fun smoking different things and tasting the results. Smoke sure goes well with anything.

Welcome to the site.
Don't forget we like pictures.

Welcome to the forum!

Right, pictures… Didn’t think about that, though I took a lot of them.
Just blogged some. Also posted them here.

Great to have another NCR BBQer in the group.

Welcome Alex. Good luck with that smoker.

Bob Sample said:

Great to have another NCR BBQer in the group.

Click to expand...

We can show people here that BBQ isn't just for Sparks Street “Ribfest”!
Lemme know if there's any place you'd recommend for supplies (charcoal, meat, spices…) or equipment.
Any insight would be welcome!

Got the WSM at Preston Hardware, and they carry quite a few Weber products (though they didn't have the instant read thermometer). Bought Royal Oak briquettes at Walmart. And got some meat at Green Fresh, in Vanier.

Welcome Alex!

Welcome Al, now let's see some cooks

Did my first WSM14 cook on July 3 (chicken thighs and drumsticks). Posted pics about that one.

Did beef short ribs on July 6. Took plenty of pics but didn’t post any here. Was a bit worried because I had overfilled the charcoal bowl, but it went quite well.

Doing my third WSM cook right now. Doing a bone-in, skin-on picnic shoulder that I had marinated with mirin-style “cooking wine”, soy sauce, Worcestershire, fresh ginger…

Might be having a thermometer problem.

For my inaugural cook, only used the lid thermo. Worked decently well, as the results were quite good and it enabled me to et a feel for the WSM’s temp control. Controlling a Cheapo Offset Smoker was much more challenging, as temp kept changing even with 2l of water under the meat. So that first time with the WSM convinced me that it was a large improvement, though I was surprised that it stayed around 220ºF the whole time with all vents open.

Added a second dial thermo to put in the grommet, for the second cook. Also used an instant read to check on meat temp. It was interesting to notice that the meat was already “well done” by the time I foiled it. Thought I was overcooking. Then found out that it was pretty much what we want to do. The grommet thermo helped a bit as it displayed 220ºF while the lid one was getting close to 275ºF, so I decided not to close the vents.Interestingly, the delta between the two thermometers tends to vary quite a bit, with the lid one getting lower than the middle one, on occasion. Today, it looks like the temp between the grates fluctuates more than the lid temp going from 200ºF to 220ºF in a matter of minutes, while the lid temp remains at 225ºF.

So, for this third cook, added a Polder probe for use in the meat (using the instant read to check on ambient and will use it to double check meat temp once it’s fully cooked). Two hours in, ambient is at 78ºF, meat is at 141ºF, lid at 225ºF, and middle at 230ºF. Smells pretty good.

But here’s the thing. Had one thermometer the first time, three the second time, and four this time around. f I continue like that, I’ll have dozens of thermometers by the end of the year?

Capital BBQ has a great assortment of smoke woods, rubs and accessaries . Costco usually grinds all there butts but if you talk to the meat guys they can probably hook you up with butts. Brisket can be hard to find since most of it ends up getting turned into Montreal smoked meat. Lavergne Western Beef on Navan Rd in Orleans usually has them. Stuart S. could probably give you better ideas about meat in the west end.

Thanks a lot for the recommendation, Bob! Looks like Byward Market butcher shops also have a few interesting things. Might get some pork belly from “Your Corner Butcher”.
What do you use for fuel?

Mostly royal oak lump. Me and my wallet stay away from the Market . Your Corner Butcher usually runs deals on Group On if your a member. Farm Boy has some good meat specials and their beef is all triple A but they don't have brisket. Still have maple for you if you want it.