Miss the smoke

[Brett-EDH]

@Brett-EDH pretty accurately lays it out.

I’m a charcoal fan, always will be, but anymore the charcoal is special occasion stuff or weekend cooks and not so much weeknight cooks. With 6 kids and work and activities, it’s far FAR easier to fire up the pellet than charcoal. And that’s why I love the Smokefire, it’s got more/better flavor than any pellet on the market (that I’ve had food off of…) and yes less than charcoal. But it’s SO good.

It’s fun to compare and contrast between these pellets and those pellets, and against briqs or lump. And that’s just something you can’t really do with gas (although I’m determined to step my gas game up this summer to where I can actually enjoy something off of it…).

My youngest is 9. She helps me grill and cook. So I bought her an 18” kettle and the smile on her face when we picked it up….was awesome. She knows how to fire up the Smokefire and is learning charcoal now.

THIS. spot on. and you've "lit" the fire with your daughter. awesome! same for my kids, 27, 23 and about to turn 19. the oldest has a gasser for outdoor cooking (apartment restrictions from coal/charcoal). the middle prefers the WSK but his GF only can use a pooper where she lives and they don't want to tend to a "fire."

as for improving on a gasser, that one is tough. they're super convenient but low on flavor compared to other options. a smoke tube will help and so will pellets or chips in a foil packet.

i'm back to one grill now. it'll be interesting to see how i do without a gasser at hand. i'm not overly concerned as i barely used my Summit S670 over the past two years. i would explore a pooper if one made sense to me. i'm content at the moment. although a Chud Box does seem interesting....

 

[Bob Bass]

I have a friend who runs a pellet pooper. He never leaves it's side when it's running. AND he puts out Excellent BBQ....
Competition grade Excellent ! No problem with under smoking. He very wisely and very carefully choses his pellet source....

There is also a 'slight' different in the pellet pooper he uses vs one talked about here. His is a Cookshack FEC-100.

 

[BFletcher]

It's been a couple years since I fired-up one of the WSM's after acquiring the SmokeFire . I should change that soon, if for no other reason than the enjoyment. But I do understand that folks have different tastes across various smoker options (and some smokers simply may not deliver favorable results).

 

[JKalchik]

so the market on coal is real charcoal versus briqs and the skill level required for either isn't that far apart. i'm pretty sure briqs outsell real charcoal by 90-10.

but IMO, real charcoal is where the flavor is at. even if you make your own charcoal by cooking down some wood splits.

but i don't think most people have the time or patience, nor skill to get to real live charcoal. life is too busy for many. it's just is what it is.

Real charcoal? Lump vs. briquette?

I went in whole hog a few years ago, and welded up my own gravity fed charcoal burner. I've had more than a couple of people tell me in not so many words that I've ruined smoked food for them. This is not for everybody, I have way more invested in just the steel than a lot of people have in entire smokers, but it does give me some pretty darned good results. I'm also comfortable firing it up and walking away from it for at least several hours. A commercial version equivalently sized to mine is nearly $10k.

In all honesty, and full disclosure.... my experience with pellet smokers is highly limited and only to a single example of a mid to high end smoker. Good stuff..... still prefer my own.

 

[Brett-EDH]

Real charcoal? Lump vs. briquette?

yes, using real wood to make coals. to me that's a top notch cooking results. next would be using factory lump, say a JD lump (it's the only lump i've used). i do use briqs as heat only for LAS cooks, briskets or ribs, and enhance/flavor the smoke with wood chunks for smoking the protein.

i do not cook proteins over direct briqs. i do not like the flavor profile. that's just me.

can you post some pics of your setup? i'm very curious of what you got there.

 

[JKalchik]

can you post some pics of your setup? i'm very curious of what you got there.

https://chixjeff.dnsalias.net/smoker4/ Not the best pics, but it's what I have easily available.

The cabinet has 5 cooking shelves, each 25"x28", and is fully insulated with 2" of rock wool insulation. The charcoal chute will hold 18-20 lbs of charcoal. Total weight is around 1,200 lbs, and the door will swing with a single finger. In effect, it's a home built Stumps clone. I do have a HeaterMeter (@Chris Allingham is gracious enough to host it's forum here,) with a fan & damper assembly. It'll hold pit temp to +/- 1 degree F or so, run for 12-15 hours easily on a single load of charcoal, as well as not even melt snow underneath at -6 F. Even without the controller, this design will hold temps fairly well I'm told with nothing more than a quarter turn ball valve on the inlet. It also very nicely with from a single pork tenderloin to every rack fully loaded (those would take some judicious rotation through cooking.

I've hauled the smoker to MI twice and the Keweenaw Peninula sticking up into Lake Superior, over 3,300 miles hard mounted on my flat bed trailer, and it hasn't skipped a beat.

Would I build it again? IN A HEARTBEAT. Yes, there are things that I would do differently, but in general, I'd do it all over again.