What’s on the grill/smoker today? 2021

[jfields]

But you burn that split wood down to charcoal before you use it so how does it make it different then using charcoal and relighting it? Once they are both ready the result is charcoal burning. Now if you mean you put the meat on while the wood is burning down I can see that making a difference. When I learned whole hog in North Carolina it was burn down the wood to coal. spread the coals in the pit, add more coals as needed not more wood on the coals. No side box. I've always thought of side box as space saving and not an improvement over full bed of coals. Mr. Fields is the expert here, I'm just a pretty good amateur.

One of those things where everyone has a different method I guess Ray. I've mostly always used lump charcoal and would always just add as needed. Before, that was widely available, I used briquettes, always being sure to get them all white in a separate container outside the cooker before adding to my cook so they wouldn't impart any off flavors. But, I have
always just added seasoned un-burned hickory, and apple wood chunks directly over the coals as needed to impart that smoke flavor. I like to remove the bark though. That seems to make it too strong sometimes in my opinion. I still do that with my BGE.

One of the last pigs I cooked was years ago and didn't turn out so well. Jeff @CigarStone and I got drunk as skunks the night before, and I/we got a way late start with a large crowd arriving that day. I tried to rush it, and was seriously hung over. My heart just wasn't in it. It was edible, but it wasn't anything to be proud of.

 

[CigarStone]

One of those things where everyone has a different method I guess Ray. I've mostly always used lump charcoal and would always just add as needed. Before, that was widely available, I used briquettes, always being sure to get them all white in a separate container outside the cooker before adding to my cook so they wouldn't impart any off flavors. But, I have
always just added seasoned un-burned hickory, and apple wood chunks directly over the coals as needed to impart that smoke flavor. I like to remove the bark though. That seems to make it too strong sometimes in my opinion. I still do that with my BGE.

One of the last pigs I cooked was years ago and didn't turn out so well. Jeff @CigarStone and I got drunk as skunks the night before, and I/we got a way late start with a large crowd arriving that day. I tried to rush it, and was seriously hung over. My heart just wasn't in it. It was edible, but it wasn't anything to be proud of.

All I can say is ... Y M C A

 

[okiesmoke]

Equating size with quality means we all should be driving Pierce Arrows. I haven't seen them at restaurants but I've seen plenty at competitions. I agree that compared to the completion it can be expensive but I found one in a pawn shop still new in the box for about 40% off list. So not that bad.

My google fu is usually pretty good but I'm finding nothing on "full wood burn" care to explain?

I often tell my wife that one should never equate size with quality ….wait…wrong thread.

 

[DomnioMaestro]

Four years ago my wife and kids got together and bought me a Pit Boss 1150xl for fathers day.

To condense this story.....The first couple cooks went exactly how you would expect from a novice at smoke cooking meats.

I didnt give up, but dove headfirst into the rabbit hole. No safety rope.

At this point now, *hundreds* of hours of videos and tutorials.

I've made three major modifications to my smoker. I bought an aftermarket shield to put on the left (in my smokers case) side of the heat shield to block the heat from coming up where the temp sensor is, and giving me a 60-80 degree temp difference on the other side of the grill. Now it is a 10-20 degree temp variance.
Second, I created an internal chimney pipe, to get the smoke lower and not just scare the tops of whatever I'm cooking. The original opening is almost at the top of the barrel. Now, its at the grate level inside.
Third, I put oven seal gasket on the barrel under the door. I have no numbers to say definitively that X % is staying in the barrel, but there is certainly a lot less smoke leakage around the opening now.

Not really a modification specifically, but I invested in a smoke tube to add more smoke to my cooks.

I certainly wont say that brand A is better than brand B. What I can say is that aside from poor design or parts (as mentioned by some in other posts), whatever you have, is what you make of it. I looked at many of the different models/brands that were physically available to me. There were some that were less expensive, and some that were more expensive. Some felt 'cheap', when I was checking them out. Some had a lot of 'bells and whistles'.

My choice of the Pit Boss was middle of the road, and the unit seems (and has maintained) solid and well constructed. I did read where there were some problems with earlier models with the electronics. Thus far, I've had no problems with mine.

That said, there is one thing that is irritating me. Pellet dust. Twice last year, and once so far this year, I've had an issue where the fire has gone out. If I didnt have my ambient probes set to sound an alarm if the temps drop below XX temp, or go above XX temp during cooking, I would have had one of those stories about how the bottom of the smoker was filled with pellets, because the system keeps feeding pellets to try to bring up the temp.
I want to find some (preferably metal) screening and make a sifter to sift out most of (if not all of) the dust before I add it to the hopper. I just havent had time yet to go looking for that screening.

I've briefly considered adding to my smoker family and getting an offset wood burner. I did mention "briefly". There are absolutely some big plus's to using one of those. However, the big negatives for me are acquiring (the right/correct) woods to burn, and the time to sit all day and babysit my cook, that I just do not have now or in my foreseeable future..

 

[AVB]

Fire going out is an airflow problem,

 

[Nick Burner]

I’m a lifelong stick burner but finally got tired of getting up at 3am to feed the firebox. I didn’t really have porch space at the house for a grill and a smoker and went with the Weber Searwood 600. You can smoke or grill on it and can crank it up as high as 600 for searing. All with Bluetooth and a couple probes with alerts, etc. I’ve been happy with it so far. Still have a stick burner (and gas grill) at the lake but at some point I might make the switch down there. I got three of these for pellet storage - handy spout for refilling mid-cook and they seem to keep the dust at the bottom, at least until the end when I usually pull the stragglers out by hand to avoid dumping the dust in the hopper.

Broil King 66900 Pellet Storage... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08V9G4BVL?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

 

[DomnioMaestro]

Fire going out is an airflow problem,

You are correct, and incorrect.

Let me explain.

You are correct that if there wouldnt be enough oxygen for the fire, it will snuff out. Incontrovertible.

In this case (and with many pellet smokers), the pellets themselves as they are being shipped and transported, all the bumping and grinding with each other (yeah, my thoughts when there to, ya weirdos) cause wood dust. So you open up your fresh bag of pellets from wherever you obtain them from, and you pour them in your hopper. No matter how careful you are, some of that dust gets in there too. Eventually the vibration of the auger turning causes that dust to sift down to the bottom, and it inevitably goes right down into the auger. It builds up until there is enough of it to get worked down the shaft and dumps into the firepot. Which flares and creates a couple seconds of heat flare inside the smoker. The electronics see this and stop feeding for a time. By the time this happens, most of that dust has already burnt off. By the time the electronics sense enough of a drop in the temp inside the smoker, the actual fire is already out. So it keeps feeding pellets not knowing that and the ignitor wont come on because the system is just not designed that way for safety.

So as I mentioned above you are correct, and incorrect.

After the first time this happened last year, I used an air compressor to blow out the auger shaft. That was a fun time. I couldnt believe the amount of dust that came out of the hopper. I started sifting the pellets with a colander over a trash bag. It worked but took a long time to fill the 40lb hopper. There might have been a time or two I added pellets without the sifting, which caused my second flameout.

I got a couple bags of treager pellets on sale, and while plenty smoky and great flavor....they are very brittle and dusty. I think thats what caused the flameout I just had a couple weeks ago.

Which is why I mentioned that I want to get some metal screening and make a larger sifter (than a spaghetti colander) and *hopefully* cut this down to next to nothing chance of happening more or again.

 

[George Scott]

You are correct, and incorrect.

Let me explain.

You are correct that if there wouldnt be enough oxygen for the fire, it will snuff out. Incontrovertible.

In this case (and with many pellet smokers), the pellets themselves as they are being shipped and transported, all the bumping and grinding with each other (yeah, my thoughts when there to, ya weirdos) cause wood dust. So you open up your fresh bag of pellets from wherever you obtain them from, and you pour them in your hopper. No matter how careful you are, some of that dust gets in there too. Eventually the vibration of the auger turning causes that dust to sift down to the bottom, and it inevitably goes right down into the auger. It builds up until there is enough of it to get worked down the shaft and dumps into the firepot. Which flares and creates a couple seconds of heat flare inside the smoker. The electronics see this and stop feeding for a time. By the time this happens, most of that dust has already burnt off. By the time the electronics sense enough of a drop in the temp inside the smoker, the actual fire is already out. So it keeps feeding pellets not knowing that and the ignitor wont come on because the system is just not designed that way for safety.

So as I mentioned above you are correct, and incorrect.

After the first time this happened last year, I used an air compressor to blow out the auger shaft. That was a fun time. I couldnt believe the amount of dust that came out of the hopper. I started sifting the pellets with a colander over a trash bag. It worked but took a long time to fill the 40lb hopper. There might have been a time or two I added pellets without the sifting, which caused my second flameout.

I got a couple bags of treager pellets on sale, and while plenty smoky and great flavor....they are very brittle and dusty. I think thats what caused the flameout I just had a couple weeks ago.

Which is why I mentioned that I want to get some metal screening and make a larger sifter (than a spaghetti colander) and *hopefully* cut this down to next to nothing chance of happening more or again.

Very interesting analysis. Makes a lot of sense. I've had my MAK Grill for almost 10 years now and I've only had it "go out" one time. I think it was because of my pellets humidity/moisture content issue. I keep them in a air tight seal container now. It was not a problem, the grill controller corrected the problem. The controller is smart enough to sense the problem and starts the igniter again to restart the firepot. It's an amazingly smart controller. I have never had to worry about dust particles, but I do try to keep them out of the hopper. I mostly run cheap Bear pellets.