Smokers (BBQ - not grilling)

[nankoweap]

Right on, Fred! Congrats on the new smoker. Charbroil makes a quality product. Look forward to seeing some of your creations.

 

[Fred W]

C'mon by if your up in the NE neighborhood.

I'm never above sharin' anything I got on the grille (or anywhere else for that matter).

Some folks think that's a weakness.

Call me crazy. I just don't see it that way.

 

[ionbeam]

...It's a Charbroil American Gourmet offset firebox smoker...It will give me a new tool to learn and improve my grilling on, and I'm sure that with some clever farkling I can make that grille put out some good barbeque. Maybe in another year or two I'll step up to a more 'spensive and/or bigger capacity unit, but maybe not. You just never know with these hobby type things which ones will stick when they hit the wall.

Hoorah!

Well, if'n it's the the grill that I think it is you will be limited to 4-6 turkeys at a time or only 10 or more racks of ribs. And, if'n it is the one that I think it is, your Yankee Ingenuity will be needed to seal up the doors and get good circulation. Once done you will have a very good smoker/griller that will let you do both hot and cold smoking. It is also possible to set up for hot smoking and take the cold smoke bump-out and put a pan of water over the side burner and add moisture during the smoking process. Just be aware that the side burner/boiler can steam off the interior patina which can then drip on the guests of honor on the grill. Anyhoo, like your Leafinator trailer it will let you do some great imagineering to get it all to work. I've seen your still beer brewing setup so I know you are more than up to the challenge

And, whatzup with a Navy guy saying Hoorah! Your job was to haul the inadequate Marines to the job site, not bond with them

JK, all youse guys have my respect for your service to the country.

 

[gixxerjasen]

Nothing says you have to stick to one smoker ya know.

I recall a picture a guy had of his back porch with an offset smoker, a BGE and three UDS's all sitting there together. A nice collection.

By the way, I don't spend all day stoking my fire. The nice thing of having a nice mostly airtight smoker is that you can put a large amount of coal in there and so long as you keep the intake and exhaust under control, it'll essentially keep the fire stifled so it doesn't consume the coal at a very fast rate. Typically I'll fire up the smoker, put the meat on it, get the temp stabilized, and then sit in my living room either watching sports or playing video games all day. I have the smoker sitting outside where I can see the temp gauge and I just give it the occasional glance to make sure things haven't gotten out of control.

Being able to stay inside in the A/C on a hot Texas summer day is a huge bonus.

Funny story. One day shortly after I'd built it, I'd finished smoking, so I closed down the intake and covered the exhaust to smother the fire. This way I can use the unburnt charcoal the next time I smoke. I was watching the gauge and the temp had come down but wouldn't drop all the way. Finally I got frustrated and went to investigate. Opened up the smoker and there wasn't any fire and it wasn't much different inside than the ambient air temperature, and then it hit me. I'd been watching the temp gauge sit at about 110F which WAS the ambient air temperature!

 

[majicmaker]

Yep! That's Funny right there Gixxer. All is well if nothing bad happened to the guest of honor. )

 

[gixxerjasen]

One other funny. So I went and picked up the drum without the wife's knowledge. I measured in advance, but a 55 gallon drum will indeed fit in the back of a MINI Cooper with the back seats folded down.

I arrived, pulled the tarp off of it and set my prize in the middle of the driveway, beaming. My wife looks and says "And what exactly is...that?"

I proudly proclaim that it's for my new smoker. She squints, thinks and says..."Ok, but you better do up a fatty real soon!"

Tada! Approval!

By the way, for the uninitiated...and those who stumbled into the smoker thread thinking of different fatties, I present to you....the breakfast fatty.

Make some filler. In this case, potatoes, eggs, ham, bacon and cheese. Then wrap some Jimmy Dean breakfast sausage around it.



(Optional, but why wouldn't you?) - Make a bacon weave.



Wrap the weave around the fatty and refrigerate till you are ready to cook.



Smoke for several hours to heat everything up and to cook the sausage and bacon.





Slice and serve on biscuits. I prefer a little habanero jelly on it. Enjoy, then contact your cardiologist.

 

[majicmaker]

Ohhhh Baby!! Now we're talkin'!! I have a wonderful cardiologist that just happens to be a good friend of mine and a riding buddy. (Honda VTX 1800). He has his hands full trying to keep my in check. He tells me the true about Everything! I do the same. He tells me what's NOT a big deal. He also tells me what IS! He lets me eat what I want and spanks my ass when I go over the the line. My blood test every three months let him know what I've been up to. The numbers are always well within the low side of the scale.

Gotta tell Ya though.... That breakfast Fattie looks Good!!! Mmmmmmm.... Wrapped in Bacon!! )

P.S. This is like watching Food Porn! Me Lickey!

 

[HotRodZilla]

You guys are killing me.

Now I gotta go kill sumthin so we can have a matanza...Thanks!!

 

[Fred W]

Yikes! That fatty looks like it's just what the doctor ordered! It would be hard to top anything made with breakfast sausage that is also wrapped in bacon!! Everything is better with bacon, including bacon.

Funny bacon story from CFR this year. A few of us 'mericans were having lunch in Gravenhurst, ON and the menu kept mentioning this stuff called "peameal bacon." Peameal bacon? WTF is that? Nobody around the table had ever heard of it. so we asked the waitress when she came to take our orders.

She looked at us kind of funny and said, "You're from the states aren't you?"

"Yep, guilty as charged" we tell her, after which she goes through a big description of what this peameal bacon stuff is like. A couple of us say, what the heck, and give it a try.

Turns out that their "Peameal" is what we all call "Canadian" bacon down here, which as you probably already know is just a lot like a salty ham. I guess they could call the strip stuff American Bacon up there if they wanted to.

Back in an earlier post, warpdrv showed us some pictures of his Yoder competition grade smoker

and teased us with some pictures of it in action. The one that really peaked my curiosity was of what appears to be some bacon wrapped something or others.

Are those peppers? Got any shots of them when they are done? Or did you scarf them all down before the camera came out? Care to share the recipe with your FJR grillin' buds?

FJR Forum... the new pinterest for men. Who knew?

 

[ionbeam]

... I guess they could call the strip stuff American Bacon up there if they wanted to...The one that really peaked my curiosity was of what appears to be some bacon wrapped something or others. Are those peppers?...

American bacon = streaky bacon.

Bacon wrapped, stuffed jalapeno peppers. Stuffed jalapenos are common fare at the 'beam's house -- YUM.

 

[Fred W]

We do J'peno poppers all the time (real cheese though, I hate the ones with neufchatel). Just never made them with a bacon wrap before, if that is what those are. Must be good. Everything's better with bacon.

 

[TomInPA]

The Charbroil offset cooker with firebox does a decent job, but has hot spots. I found the use of a piece of sheet metal (flat cookie sheet?) to deflect direct heat from the firebox opening, and distribute heat more evenly, was important during longer cooks. The disadvantage to this unit is it flows a lot of air and is nearly impossible to seal. It is also vulnerable to changing ambient temperature. This unit will put out some good food using lump charcoal and smoking wood, and can even use small logs. It makes a great grill and will work as a smoker if you distribute the heat. Eventually you will probably opt for something with better control, but that is the unit I started on.

 

[Fred W]

Thanks Tom.

Yeah, I'm already researching required mods to improve the design, and I haven't even received it yet! I'll definitely be adding a diffuser plate/panel right of the bat. Considering running it the full length and relocating the chimney to the opposite end for reverse smoke flow. I'm also hoping that anything can be made nearly air tight with a little (or maybe a lot of) work and ingenuity. But I'll have to eyeball what I have to start with before I know more.

edit - So here's a link to the exact reverse flow mod I'm considering (not the propane firebox mod though, at least not right away anyway) on the exact same smoker unit I'll be getting. Seems easy enough.

It does look like a lot of exposed sheet metal, so I get the ambient air temp concern. Might have to figure out some sort of blanketing / insulation if I'm going to do much late season smoking. That's the thing... spend a hundred on the basic grille and then put another couple into the farkles!

 

[Warpdrv]

Back in an earlier post, warpdrv showed us some pictures of his Yoder competition grade smoker

and teased us with some pictures of it in action. The one that really peaked my curiosity was of what appears to be some bacon wrapped something or others.

Are those peppers? Got any shots of them when they are done? Or did you scarf them all down before the camera came out? Care to share the recipe with your FJR grillin' buds?

FJR Forum... the new pinterest for men. Who knew?

Hey Fred..... Those are Called "Atomic Buffalo Turds"....

Basically, Jalapenos cut in half, scrape out the vein and seeds, then drop in a cream cheese, shredded cheese, chives, seasoning mixture. Then top that off with (I have used) smoked chicken, pulled pork, shrimp. Then wrap in bacon - smoke til finished.... The smoker really takes pretty much all the bite out of the Japs and they are truly delicious.... a huge hit at parties.....

Here's a link to many flavors of said snack.... https://www.google.com/search?q=atomic+buffalo+turds&oq=atomic+buffa&aqs=chrome.0.0j69i57j5j0j69i61.3971j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Here's a another run of them, but I don't have any pics of a finished product of my own....

 

[gixxerjasen]

If you are going to attempt the fatty, here's a few things I recommend to make the job easier.

1. Fatty Piston - this is useful for the filler. Fill the piston, refrigerate, then push it out.

https://cowgirlscountry.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-fattie-fatty-piston.html

2. Zip lock bag method for the sausage. Makes the wrapping SO much easier. Take a 1 gallon zip lock bag and put the sausage in it. Get all the air out. Smooth it out so it's all flat and even. Then run a knife around the edge of the bag and remove the top. Use your piston to dispense the filler onto the sausage, then grab the plastic on the bottom of the sausage and use that to roll the sausage around the filler. Pinch it and seal it up tight and it's ready.

I used a similar procedure for the bacon. There's a bunch of videos on youtube on how to weave the bacon so I won't go into that, but I weaved it on plastic wrap. After wrapping the sausage, I used the lower piece of the bag to lift it and roll it onto the bacon weave. Then used the plastic wrap to lift the weave and wrap it around the fatty.

So much easier that way.

I learned of the fatty and a lot of my smoking stuff from this guy. He's Scott with the Two Wheeled Texans. He rides a 2002 BMW GS. For about three years we had one of our members open up his house and Scott and another member showed up and cooked for all who would show up. It was an amazing weekend of riding and eating for sure! Show up Friday for the fish fry, crash on Dave's floor somewhere, then wake up to breakfast fatties, and then an all out BBQ lunch!

He doesn't bacon wrap his fatties, but offers them up with a plethora of stuffings.



And since we are throwing food porn out there, here's some more from the event.







And you might know this ugly dude. He popped in right in the middle of his SS1K run for a sandwich and got back on the road.

 

[Fred W]

Mmmm....

 

[Blind Squirrel]

Yikes. A lot of you guys are spending some serious coin on your 'que!
I know, I know... it's all worth it when you sit down to eat.

Still not sure which way I'm going to go. I know I won't be flipping the coin for the Yoder or even a BGE / Komada cooker, not right now anyway.

I'm considering doing the UDS, or maybe the same thing downsized with a 30 gallon drum?

Or maybe just buy one of the vertical bullet type smokers like a Weber Smokey Mountain?

Or maybe go electric (or gas) with one of those refrigerator style jobs, like a Bradley?

Or... aw crap. Too many choices!

Be careful if you go gas. I had one, and depending on the day (wind, rain, sun, etc.) the temps can swing wildly in a single cooking session. I would put my electric smoked ribs, brisket or pulled pork up against a stick cooked version any day. I wager if the person eats them blind (i.e. not knowing which device the meat was cooked on), they will not be able to tell a difference.

If you want the easiest, lowish cost, "set it and forget it" route, go electric. With an electric you will need to feed the wood chips for the first few hours, because the chip bin is small.

Edit: Looks like you have already made a purchase, but this is still good info for future consideration.

 

[Fred W]

I hear ya. I had just about settled on an electric cabinet, but plans changed.

That might be smoker number two in a little while...

 

[nankoweap]

Jasen, That fatty's admirable, but it's the first time I've heard them referred to as a fatty. I almost took you for being an ST owner. I dig the technique too. Something else to add to the smoker list.

 

[gixxerjasen]

LOL, I didn't come up with it!