HardcoreHunter Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Talk about grilling/smoking/BBQ Bought a new smoker and grill. I had been using an old Treager for years. I'm such a hipster fuck that I bought one for cheap before they ever became popular. It's at the point where things are going wrong with it, and the help line is worthless due to my grill being an outdated model. Pretty much parts needed would be both expensive and may not even work correctly in the older model. So out of spite I spent even more on some weber stuff; with the justification that I have gift cards and rewards to cover over half of the investment. I went with the 22'' Kettle Premium and the 22'' Smokey Mountain Cooker largest one in pic below. I was thinking about going with some sort of offset cooker; however all of the sub $600 ones were either garbage or out of stock everywhere. Also I figured that it will be better to have two things that are specifically made for each function than one thing that will half ass either. That being said you can technically grill in the SMC and Smoke in the Kettle, but it would be more work to pull off; ie I don't want to get on my knees to grill using the SMC and when I do smoke I do large amounts of meat which would be more than the Kettle could properly maintain. If I were going for a prebuilt offset though I would have probably gone for the Kingsford Stockade 49''. The Dynaglo offset is also good, but you'd need a lot more modding to seal it up. In the future I may build an offset out of brick. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 17, 2020 Share Posted July 17, 2020 Grilling and smoking are my specialty. Got a freezer full of meats just waiting right now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 On 7/17/2020 at 9:32 AM, resurrected said: Grilling and smoking are my specialty. Got a freezer full of meats just waiting right now. What type of meat? My copper weber and the parts to fix my treager came in today. So I did the first burn on the weber, and it'll be good to go tomorrow. Grabbed some drumsticks and some pork. Thinking I'll just do some rubbed drumsticks and baked potatoes tomorrow on it. Also those bastards didn't send my cover for the weber; so now I'll have to wait for them to get that out. The Treager I'm probably going to have to mod some before I start it up. The new control module I installed has a thermal sensor that is supposed to sit inside of the grill. This one however doesn't really have anywhere for it to sit because it's such an old model. It's been like 98 degrees every day and it's just too hot to try and fuck with it for long. The WSM should be here tomorrow. My great uncle cut down a chestnut tree last month, so I'm going to see if I can get some of that for the smoker. Also bought a rib rack for the WSM. Seen a video of someone smoking 23 full racks of ribs at once with it. I'm also thinking about buying some pork belly from costco and making my own bacon. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 3 hours ago, HardcoreHunter said: What type of meat? My copper weber and the parts to fix my treager came in today. So I did the first burn on the weber, and it'll be good to go tomorrow. Grabbed some drumsticks and some pork. Thinking I'll just do some rubbed drumsticks and baked potatoes tomorrow on it. Also those bastards didn't send my cover for the weber; so now I'll have to wait for them to get that out. The Treager I'm probably going to have to mod some before I start it up. The new control module I installed has a thermal sensor that is supposed to sit inside of the grill. This one however doesn't really have anywhere for it to sit because it's such an old model. It's been like 98 degrees every day and it's just too hot to try and fuck with it for long. The WSM should be here tomorrow. My great uncle cut down a chestnut tree last month, so I'm going to see if I can get some of that for the smoker. Also bought a rib rack for the WSM. Seen a video of someone smoking 23 full racks of ribs at once with it. I'm also thinking about buying some pork belly from costco and making my own bacon. Nice. I smoke brisket, roast for roast beef, Boston butts, hams, turkeys, jowl, etc. I bought a pork belly one time and smoked it. It was ok. What we do is smoke hog jowl and once it's done smoking, slice it thinly and fry it, and it makes the best bacon. Talking about wood for the smoker, I have found that I am very fond of peach wood. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 16 minutes ago, resurrected said: Nice. I smoke brisket, roast for roast beef, Boston butts, hams, turkeys, jowl, etc. I bought a pork belly one time and smoked it. It was ok. What we do is smoke hog jowl and once it's done smoking, slice it thinly and fry it, and it makes the best bacon. Talking about wood for the smoker, I have found that I am very fond of peach wood. I might be able to do like a 30-40lb suckling pig on the WSM; Though I think if I'd do a whole hog I'd make a brick pit. Most of the offset smokers I've seen that can even attempt a whole hog are like $4k and up. I even checked online for large used propane tanks to convert. Any of the ones local are way too expensive, and the ones in my price range would have involved a 16hr round trip and towing a flat bed, on top of the pain in the ass and days of time it would take for me to convert it into a grill. Yeah brick just seems like the better option for my area. Not to mention if you have property it makes more sense to build a brick pit; as it will also last longer. Maybe another time though when I get bored with what I have lol. One of my dads friends does whole hogs and has a huge trailer smoker/grill. Now that I think about it I should probably just give him a call since he owns a tree removal service. Most commonly found hardwoods around my area are black walnut, apple, oak, and chestnut. Black walnut you can't use for long smokes though unless you season it for like 2 years because it is way too strong. I've usually ended up using apple and oak. Sometimes apple and Hickory if I can find it. If the price of beef goes down I'm going to get a brisket. I at least want to cook up a couple by fall. Right now I'm mostly sticking with pork and chicken. Harder to blow your cash on meat after you spend hundreds on grills/smokers etc. I also have some deer meat in the chest still, but that will be more something to grill than smoke. I might try smoking a turkey or at least some turkey legs. I was going to do wings but the store wanted like $1.30 per fucking wing. It would literally be cheaper for me to get wings at a restaurant; and then I also wouldn't be paying to sauce and heat them either, so yeah they're insane. So I just grabbed some drums which may as well be free since it was like 9 large drums for $4.85. Also got some italian sausage in natural casings to throw on with them. Figure let that go for a couple of hrs around 250F and they'll finish about the same time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 8 hours ago, resurrected said: Nice. I smoke brisket, roast for roast beef, Boston butts, hams, turkeys, jowl, etc. I bought a pork belly one time and smoked it. It was ok. What we do is smoke hog jowl and once it's done smoking, slice it thinly and fry it, and it makes the best bacon. Talking about wood for the smoker, I have found that I am very fond of peach wood. Forgot to ask, do you use a pit or a big metal smoker, and did you buy pre-made or make it yourself? As for wood I think peach is more available down south. Western PA has peach trees, but I rarely ever see any cut down. Never used it but I assume it would have similar qualities to cherry wood. I swear those DIY project videos for pouring resin over junk wood that would only be good for smoking, has made it more difficult to find. It reminded me somewhat of finding old cast iron pans. In the 00s those things were practically free. Now everyone is selling them for $300 or more. Same shit with old tanks. I remember when people would fucking pay you to remove that shit from their property. Now it's like "oh this tank has been sitting in the yard rusting for the last 15 years, but you can make a grill out of it so I'll take $800". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 22 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said: Forgot to ask, do you use a pit or a big metal smoker, and did you buy pre-made or make it yourself? As for wood I think peach is more available down south. Western PA has peach trees, but I rarely ever see any cut down. Never used it but I assume it would have similar qualities to cherry wood. I swear those DIY project videos for pouring resin over junk wood that would only be good for smoking, has made it more difficult to find. It reminded me somewhat of finding old cast iron pans. In the 00s those things were practically free. Now everyone is selling them for $300 or more. Same shit with old tanks. I remember when people would fucking pay you to remove that shit from their property. Now it's like "oh this tank has been sitting in the yard rusting for the last 15 years, but you can make a grill out of it so I'll take $800". I found peach wood at Walmart. It smells just like a peach when you open the bag. I have a big metal smoker. Well, two of them, and a vertical smoker for smaller things. I was looking at a pull behind a while back. It was a little less than 4K, and I almost got it, but I figured disco would kill me if I came home with it. The only thing I don't have is a pellet smoker. I just bought a flat top. 4 burner. We have a gas grill and a charcoal grill. About a dozen fryers. We have a small outdoor arsenal. I lucked up a couple of months ago. I went to the butcher and asked if he had brisket. He had one and he had ordered choice brisket and paid for choice, but they sent him prime brisket. Which is a hell of a lot more expensive, since prime is top of the line. So, I got the whole brisket for $65, the price of choice. I jumped on that. And I bought a case of jowl which is about 80 pounds. It's enough to last a year. Spent around $100 on that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 2 minutes ago, resurrected said: I found peach wood at Walmart. It smells just like a peach when you open the bag. I have a big metal smoker. Well, two of them, and a vertical smoker for smaller things. I was looking at a pull behind a while back. It was a little less than 4K, and I almost got it, but I figured disco would kill me if I came home with it. The only thing I don't have is a pellet smoker. I just bought a flat top. 4 burner. We have a gas grill and a charcoal grill. About a dozen fryers. We have a small outdoor arsenal. I lucked up a couple of months ago. I went to the butcher and asked if he had brisket. He had one and he had ordered choice brisket and paid for choice, but they sent him prime brisket. Which is a hell of a lot more expensive, since prime is top of the line. So, I got the whole brisket for $65, the price of choice. I jumped on that. And I bought a case of jowl which is about 80 pounds. It's enough to last a year. Spent around $100 on that. If you have the cash I say go for it. Spousal abuse is temporary, the glory of a good smoke is eternal. As for pellet grills if you have a good setup I'd advise against them. Really though it depends on your weather. The pellet fuel just absorbs humidity. I even tarp my Treager and just from the thick humidity in the air it will turn the pellets to sawdust. Then you have to take the whole thing apart to clean out the hopper and auger. What I should have done yesterday was mod my treager to take tabs instead of screws, because they're a pain to fuck with. If you live in a dry area though this really isn't going to be a problem. As for cooking I'll have to let you know how it does with the new control module when I cook with it. This one has a lot more temp settings. The old controller only had smoke/med/high. This one has the actual temps written on it and a digital temp read. Though I bought my Treager new years back for like $200. I couldn't justify the $700 a similar sized model goes for now; and it's one of the small models. I was thinking about looking for an old wood stove to use as a fire box like pic related. Then building a brick pit and a wood vertical smoker. Just have a split pipe with a plate to control which one would be getting the draft. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 20, 2020 Share Posted July 20, 2020 3 minutes ago, HardcoreHunter said: If you have the cash I say go for it. Spousal abuse is temporary, the glory of a good smoke is eternal. As for pellet grills if you have a good setup I'd advise against them. Really though it depends on your weather. The pellet fuel just absorbs humidity. I even tarp my Treager and just from the thick humidity in the air it will turn the pellets to sawdust. Then you have to take the whole thing apart to clean out the hopper and auger. What I should have done yesterday was mod my treager to take tabs instead of screws, because they're a pain to fuck with. If you live in a dry area though this really isn't going to be a problem. As for cooking I'll have to let you know how it does with the new control module when I cook with it. This one has a lot more temp settings. The old controller only had smoke/med/high. This one has the actual temps written on it and a digital temp read. Though I bought my Treager new years back for like $200. I couldn't justify the $700 a similar sized model goes for now; and it's one of the small models. I was thinking about looking for an old wood stove to use as a fire box like pic related. Then building a brick pit and a wood vertical smoker. Just have a split pipe with a plate to control which one would be getting the draft. Far as humidity goes, I am fucked. I live in southeast Georgia. There's no such thing as dry air here. I forgot to mention I also have a brick pit. It needs a little work on it to get it back to the proper condition, but for the most part, it's ready to go. I'm not to happy about it's current location in the yard. Gonna have to borrow a friend's backhoe to move it. The wood stove is cool too. I might have one of those laying around somewhere. We have so much shit in the shops and outside of them, I forget what we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 5 minutes ago, resurrected said: Far as humidity goes, I am fucked. I live in southeast Georgia. There's no such thing as dry air here. I forgot to mention I also have a brick pit. It needs a little work on it to get it back to the proper condition, but for the most part, it's ready to go. I'm not to happy about it's current location in the yard. Gonna have to borrow a friend's backhoe to move it. The wood stove is cool too. I might have one of those laying around somewhere. We have so much shit in the shops and outside of them, I forget what we have. Yeah western PA on average beats Florida in humidity. I often tell people I know to shut their whore mouths when they go down to Florida then say it's so much less humid here. It's not I've looked at the weather; you're all fucking insane and have some sort of placebo thing going on. If anything it would be less humid since they were at a beach than in the dead of the everglades. Still 80+ humidity anywhere sucks. Pit placement is kinda what I've been having issues figuring out. Some spots can get rather marshy with all the humidity and rain, then other spaces I don't want to clutter up in case we need to get trucks in the yard for moving stuff around. I could set it out like an acre away from the house, but unless we're eating by the pit it's a chore to carry large plates of meat back and forth. If you have a wood stove I'd say go for it. Should work better than many other fire boxes at keeping heat, and they have easy to remove ash trays. I have a pot belly one in the yard but It's too small. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Okay have my WSM together now. Had to go to the home depot because they were missing half the washers. At least this one remembered my cover for it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 20, 2020 Author Share Posted July 20, 2020 Smoked these at 250 for 3hrs. Used charcoal as the main heat then had a few blocks of apple wood for the smoke. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 22, 2020 Author Share Posted July 22, 2020 Had my attachment come in for the WSM today. Seen some people smoking over 20 hanging racks of ribs at once with it. I like the pic on Amazon for it though was having it placed on a clearly used smoker. Usually you'll see products being put on something new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 22, 2020 Share Posted July 22, 2020 I have found I prefer lump hardwood charcoal over regular charcoal. It seems to last longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 22, 2020 Author Share Posted July 22, 2020 51 minutes ago, resurrected said: I have found I prefer lump hardwood charcoal over regular charcoal. It seems to last longer. Briquettes actually burn slower and cooler than lump. The difference mainly is that you need less lump than you would Briquette. Also lump does less ash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted July 25, 2020 Author Share Posted July 25, 2020 Country pork ribs, also I found an old wood stove down by where the barn was 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
resurrected Posted July 25, 2020 Share Posted July 25, 2020 Nice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 Have some brisket and short ribs sitting. Going to put them on the smoker in a couple of hours. Have the brisket injected. after a couple hrs I'll start basting every 45 mins or so. Probably at 4 ½ hrs if the color is right I'll wrap them. should be about the time they stall out on temp. Ribs might stall out sooner so I'll do a temp check on them an hour earlier. Not going to be able to do much smoking after today since I have to get that sun cancer taken care of Friday, and can't be in the sun much after. Hopefully this will turn out good. Probably won't have another crack at it till September. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HardcoreHunter Posted August 20, 2020 Author Share Posted August 20, 2020 After the smoke I put the ribs in a pan in the oven to braise. The braising pan was too big to just fit in the smoker, but I got the smoke on the spare ribs that I needed. Around 10am I wrapped the brisket when it hit 165. That was after about 4 1/2hrs of smoke so I was right on the money with that estimate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gordon Ramsay Posted August 24, 2020 Share Posted August 24, 2020 On 7/20/2020 at 6:51 PM, HardcoreHunter said: Smoked these at 250 for 3hrs. Used charcoal as the main heat then had a few blocks of apple wood for the smoke. This looks like a moosecock between hickory slut's legs. Disgusting. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Real_AirCooledGirl Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 Those meat pics are making my mouth water! It's a carnivore's dream! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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