Experience with other/bigger smokers


 
L

Lee Morris

TVWBB Fan
I'll start by saying that I'm a Weber man through and through. It's all I've ever know in the grilling and smoking world. I have a Performer, Platinum, and Gold kettle as well as two 18.5's and a 22.5 WSM.

But now I'm toying with the idea of getting a bigger smoker...a "stick burner" as some would say.

I've looked pretty closely at Klose smokers and a little bit at Tejas smokers as well. Was wondering if any on here had experience with these or recommendations for another similar brand.

Thanks.
 
We made a smoker out of a 250 gal propane tank & it would easily cook a 120 lb hog.
We used it a few times for parties at hunt camp ( where we built it , but it was too big. Even cooking for 8-10 people @ at hunt camp it just never got used. We ended up selling it & making a smaller cooker out of 24 in pipe.
 
We all want bigger and better, don't we, but the thing with big smokers is that they perform best when they have a good amount of meat in them, at least in regards to moisture. I'd heard this before, and I noticed recently that Chris Lilly (Big Bob Gibson's bbq) concurs with this as well in their new cookbook, going so far as to say that he's had folks complain after getting bigger smokers and stating the smoker size and how little meat cooked as their problem.

I'd love to have a good 20"x42" or so heavy gauge offset since I REALLY like the challenge of burning a clean all wood fire, but that big 22.5" WSM you have is a LOT more portable and practical, as well as cheaper. Now if you want to learn how to cook whole hog bbq and compete at Memphis in May, that's different. I still wouldn't get something that's really huge, though.
 
Lee I'm like many other and have looked at the big trailer smokers and drooled because of what can be done with something like that all at once but I mean unless you're doing it for catering, why have it? I mean how often are you really going to cook for that many people? The amount of food I have cooked on my 22 WSM is amazing. You have 2x18 and 1x22 WSMs. Plus, those smokers are extremely overpriced IMO. I think you’re better off just using the WSMs. Just my pennies.
 
I've heard great things about the reverse flow Langs.

http://langbbqsmokers.com/index.html

I agree with most here that I would rather have my Webers, but some have a need for large cookers.

I needed just a slightly larger cooker so I added a third rack to my 22. I fit 120# of butts on there now, which with my 18 gives 160# capacity. However, if I needed even more capacity then I would probably look at a reverse flow design for the evenness of the heat they provide.
 
I have a offset stick burner, a 48” x 20” Klose and it has its pro and cons. One of the cons is it takes a lot of time to prepare the wood. You can’t just throw a log from the firewood pile and expect it to maintain the temperature because it’ll overheat the chamber. You need to cut the wood to specific sizes and for mine the size required is about the thickness of one’s wrist and about 8 inches long, so chopping and splitting is require. You also need to feed the fire about every 45 minutes to an 1-1/2 hours depending on conditions, and it’s a lot more difficult to maintain the temperature. You’ll use a lot of wood and need to find a source of oak, hickory and cherry firewood because the small wood chunks you buy for the WSM are too small for the offset. The pros being I feel the offset gives a better smoke flavor to beef and pork and it’s much easier to access the meat for flipping and basting, especially when cooking with larger quantities. I also enjoy working with the fire in the firebox; it just seems like real barbequing when using all wood. Guests are much more interested in seeing the fire in the firebox as opposed to seeing glowing coals in the WSM. I still prefer cooking chicken in the WSM because the temp is more even and it seems the quality just comes out better in the WSM

What I currently do when barbequing butts or briskets is start the meat in the offset around 5:00PM and around midnight move the meat to the WSM to cook from midnight to when I get up in the morning. I have the BBQ Guru on the WSM, so it maintains the proper temp while I’m getting a good night’s sleep. Then in the morning I switch the meat back to the offset. There’s no way I’m going to stay up all night with an offset as you have to watch it constantly. A larger offset may not have this problem. I feel with this method I obtain the smoke flavor from the offset during the initial seven hours, then the convience of the WSM overnight, and then the access convience of the offset to finish the BBQ

If decide to buy an offset I wouldn’t get one any smaller that 48”. Reason being is as the heat comes out the firebox into the smoking chamber it’s fairly hot around the first foot or so, so you only have the remaining 3 feet to use. Anything less than 48” would be difficult to maintain even temperatures throughout the camber.
 
Thanks so much for your observations, Ken. I too have noticed that I much prefer the flavor an offset gives barbecue...from a clean burning all wood fire. Smoking first on the offset and transferring to the wsm is a great idea, (and now you got me wanting another stickburner real bad.
icon_frown.gif
)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

 

Back
Top