offset cooker / advice

[Paul G.]

Over the 4th I'll be on a visit out of town and will be trying to cook ribs, chicken halves and a venison hind quarter on a NB Bandera. This is an off set cooker with a vertical cooking chamber. I wonder if anyone has had experience cooking on this type of unit. I've used offsets before, but not just like this one. I wonder if using the Standard Method would work like it does on the WSM ? The cook will be in the range of 5hrs for the ribs and chicken and less for the hind quarter which I'll cook to about medium rare. The unit does have a water/drip pan at the bottom of the cooking unit. There will be no trial run for this event, so I need to get it right the first time.

thanks for your help.

PRG

 

[Tom Chilton]

Hi, I've never used a Bandera, but used to have a NB Black Diamond - the way I did it was make a good fire with charcoal (lump or briquette) and then add really small logs (1/4 of a fireplace log) for smoke - pretty much the same idea as the WSM. Click here for a yahoo group dedicated to the Bandera cooker - they can probably give you lots of pointers. Good luck!

 

[Paul G.]

Tom

Thanks for the advise and info on the NB Bandera site. A quick reading of some of their messages and problems should be enough to convince anyone of the merits of the WSM. I hope Weber doesn't figure out just how much the WSM is really "worth" and charge accordingly. I had honestly though of ordering another WSM and having it shipped to where I'll be cooking, but that seemed a little extreme and I didn't know how I would get it back in my vehicle. I think the big problem with the NB is fuel efficiency and I'll just have to have plently of fuel and watch it pretty closely.

PRG

 

[Konrad Haskins]

Paul,
The best advice I hace is don't turn your back on the smoker, plan on baby sitting it for 5 hours. If it gets hot and shutting down does not work pull off charcoal and or add ice to the water pan. If you keep the temp in range and the smoke thin you'll do fine. Just don't even think about setting and forgetting it ain't no WSM /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif