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What’s on the grill/smoker today? 2020

Looks great! Is that thermo pro built in to the smoker or a separate deal.

I will say the general rule is the meat has to get from 40-140 in 4 hours time. There is some debate on that, but that’s what I hold to. Larger butts like 8 lbs can be a bit tricky with this but the smaller ones usually have no issue.
 
{tpc} said:
Looks great! Is that thermo pro built in to the smoker or a separate deal.

I will say the general rule is the meat has to get from 40-140 in 4 hours time. There is some debate on that, but that’s what I hold to. Larger butts like 8 lbs can be a bit tricky with this but the smaller ones usually have no issue.
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It’s a separate component. The built in probes seemed unreliable when compared to my instant read.
 
I'm noticing a theme...

IMG_20200322_123933.jpg
 
smellysell said:
Early reviews?
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So far it’s been great. The first time I used it I had a lot of temp swings but I played around with the smoke cycle settings and found a preset that worked a lot better in the second time around. If I could change anything, it would be the size of the hopper. Not that it’s a big deal, would just be nice to not have to worry about it. I had it bridge up at the midway point and the temp tanked, when I went to restart it, the flame couldn’t burn the pellets fast enough so I ended up emptying the crucible by hand and started over (only cost me about five minutes). If you buy this model, plan on buying some sort of adhesive gasket, it doesn’t have a severe leak anyway, but seems to let smoke escape around both doors. Not enough to fight with temp in my opinion, but the smoke doesnt so much good rolling out of the door lol.

edit spelling
 
Dumb question here, but why smoke something when you can grill it? Smoking is something of interest to me, but grilling is much quicker and practical.
 
Smoking vs grilling offers a different flavor. Both are good flavors but both are different. Plus on a large cut of meat like a pork butt, you could grill it, but you won’t get the meat to break down for pulling like you do when smoking it, and your flavor is mostly on the outside of the meat, not deep inside.

At least that’s my 2 cents lol.
 
{tpc} said:
Smoking vs grilling offers a different flavor. Both are good flavors but both are different. Plus on a large cut of meat like a pork butt, you could grill it, but you won’t get the meat to break down for pulling like you do when smoking it, and your flavor is mostly on the outside of the meat, not deep inside.

At least that’s my 2 cents lol.
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Yeah, smoke is part of it, but the low and slow cook moreso breaks down the convective tissue in otherwise tough cuts of meat. Also the smoke flavors is amazing.

ETA:

Finished product

IMG_20200322_200835.jpg
 
smellysell said:
Yeah, smoke is part of it, but the low and slow cook moreso breaks down the convective tissue in otherwise tough cuts of meat. Also the smoke flavors is amazing.

ETA:

Finished product

View attachment 30257
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Do you wrap yours or just let it go. Also what temp do you smoke at. I love the super dark bark you guys get, mine didn’t seem to get nearly that dark
 
cabaiguan juan said:
Dumb question here, but why smoke something when you can grill it? Smoking is something of interest to me, but grilling is much quicker and practical.
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Grilling - Maybe 1 cigar and a few beers.

Smoking - Depending on how long the smoke, you could get 6 cigars in and just as many, if not more beers across those hours.
 
Grilling versus smoking. Assuming the end result for both are delicious food, it's like 1 left hand turn versus 3 right hand turns. You can make a great argument for both and they'll both get you to the same destination. It's hard to get great smoke flavor and bark from grilling and some cuts of meat (ribs, pork shoulder, brisket) won't do well with high heat/quick cooking times of grilling where you need time and lower temps to break down all the fat and connective tissues.
 
I always wrap. But I also pretty much smoke all the way up until I wrap. Spritzing with Apple juice/water mix occasionally will also help with the bark. But for me I need to add chips every so often as well. I am unsure if the pellet smokes provide less bark or not. I don’t know why they wouldn’t though, smoke is smoke.
 
{tpc} said:
I always wrap. But I also pretty much smoke all the way up until I wrap. Spritzing with Apple juice/water mix occasionally will also help with the bark. But for me I need to add chips every so often as well. I am unsure if the pellet smokes provide less bark or not. I don’t know why they wouldn’t though, smoke is smoke.
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I wonder if I smoked near the 250-275 I would get a better bark. I’m new to smoking meats, especially with pellets, so I’m just kind of shooting from the hip
 
If you smoke hotter I don’t think you will produce darker bark. I think your meat will get “cooked” faster but be less broken down and less tender.

Try with the fat cap up, and don’t trim too much off of it. If you can get a solid 225, start there. Don’t rush it. Remember mine here took 9.5 hours and that was a small one! When I do a big one I often get up at 4-5 am to start it, and I hope it’s done and ready to eat by 8 pm lol. I prefer to rub the night before, wrap in Saran Wrap and leave it in the fridge, but I pull it out while warming the smoker so it’s not super cold when it goes on.
 
Also pellets produce a lot of smoke, so it might be easier to “think” your smoking for too long or putting on too much smoke. Maybe that is part of it? If so, then don’t bother sealing the door better because that’s just gonna keep more smoke in there.

my dads traeger copycat was leaking smoke as well. He sealed it and said it was better but I’m not convinced.
 
This one is weird and I don’t know if all pellet smokers are like this:

It suggests smoking for 20% of the total cook time. So if you are gonna do a 5 hour recipe, you would run the smoker cycle for one hour in addition to the 5 hour cool time. So the smoke cycle is a sold smoke, it was around 125-150 degrees. So it was basically all smoke and no heat.

Then once it finished. It automatically kicked up the heat, but the feed/pause ration stays the same. I haven’t quite decided if that step is necessary or not because your still smoking with the heat. The whole concept has me a little confused, but I liked the smoke flavor on this recipe more than I did on the loins I did. Granted I used cherry this time versus a competition blend. But the smoke seemed to go deeper into the meat.

I think next time I’ll drop down to the 220-225 mark and give that a whirl. I was a little disappointed with the texture of this shoulder I recently did. It’s not bad, but it certainly didn’t pull as easy as I had hoped and it seemed rather white and dry in the middle. Im sure it’s just trial and error. I doubt anyone masters it on their first few attempts.
 
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